#it’s also a fic for a game that isn’t even out yet
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“NEVER IS A PROMISE” | 12.4k
old man!logan x fem!reader
SUMMARY: You are everything Logan isn’t: sweet, trouble-free, much younger—and, to top it off, Charles' caregiver.
WARNINGS/TAGS: smut - mdni 18+ mentions of drinking, angst, some fluff, old man!logan x caregiver!reader, implied age gap (reader’s in her twenties), miscommunication, slow burn, pining, reader is shorter than logan and has long hair, charles in his cupid era, petnames, minor injuries, wound tending, mentions of blood, virgin!reader, dirty talk, cum shot, fingering, handjobs, oral sex (m receiving), loving sex, sex with a lot of feelings (is that a tag?), unprotected p in v
A/N: i just want to fall in love with him. that’s it. that’s the reason why i wrote this long ass fic 😭 while doing so, i had “never is a promise” by fiona apple and “cool about it” by boygenius on repeat. give them a try if you haven’t listened to them (your lives will be CHANGED) (also, thank you for reading <3)
No matter how often you play chess with Charles, you never manage to beat him.
“You’ve been staring at that knight for five minutes. It’s not going anywhere, I promise.”
Chuckling at his sarcasm, you fold your hands in your lap, lifting your eyebrows in mock surrender. “Okay, I get it. You’re the master of chess,” leaning back in the chair, you cross one leg over the other. “Can we play something else?”
“I’m quite entertained, thank you,” Charles says, sliding the board closer to you across the table. “Your turn.”
“How is it that you don’t get tired of this game?” you mutter under your breath, eyes fixed on the board as you weigh your options, hovering your hand indecisively over the chess pieces.
“Please do something before I’m forced to make a dash for the toilet,” he hangs his head, pinching the bridge of his nose—a telltale sign of one of his irritable days.
His words spur you into action, encouraging you to finally slide the knight into position. You glance up, meeting his gaze with a hint of challenge. “You go now.”
Charles doesn’t hesitate, and he moves a bishop. “Check.”
Fuck. You hadn’t seen that coming. “I’d prefer to walk away with my pride,” you joke, pushing your chair back and pretending to lose interest in the board.
That makes him smirk, a barely there grin dangling on the corners of his wrinkled lips. The truth is, you wouldn’t stop playing for anything in the world—not even if this old man kicks your ass every single time he suggests playing chess. “You’re not out of the game yet.”
Quietness settles over the tank while you allow yourself some time to come up with a new strategy. After a moment, you decide to go for a pawn, using it to block his bishop.
He doesn’t stop grinning, studying your move with an amused glint in his blue eyes. “Not bad, but you’ve left your king exposed.”
You gape at the board, your fragile confidence faltering for a split second. "I still have some pieces in play."
Charles nods, his brows drawing together in thoughtful consideration. "True. But sometimes, it’s not about how many pieces you have left—” he reaches out, carefully sliding his queen across the board. "It’s about where you place them,” he relaxes, hunching over, his eyes searching for yours. A smile that’s all teeth welcomes you. “Checkmate."
“Damn,” you blow out your cheeks, your gaze tracing the path of his queen. Somehow, he’s trapped your king with no easy way out.
He leans back with a satisfied grin. "That’s three games in a row. My suggestion is that you start rethinking your strategy."
"Or maybe you’re just a better player,” you admit, a mix of frustration and admiration palpable in your tone. “No more chess for today, though,” you stand up from your seat, gathering the board and chess pieces. As usual, they find their place under Charles’ bed, and you turn back to him, beaming with delight. “I think you owe me one after all this.”
“You’re a terrible loser, my dear,” he ponders, his eyes twinkling as they take you in. “Reminds me of someone I know.”
At that exact moment, you hear the familiar creak of the tank’s door opening, followed by a cough you immediately recognize. Without thinking, you straighten your back as Logan steps into the room. Charles notices, but says nothing in return.
It was an infatuation—or at least, that’s what you try to convince yourself of. Logan is a very good-looking man, probably the most handsome you’ve ever laid eyes on. The fact that you live with him doesn’t help at all. You think that if you only saw him occasionally, this—this anxiety that grips you whenever he’s around or when you hear his voice—wouldn’t happen in the first place.
Whether it’s good or bad luck, you’ve been sleeping under the same roof as him for over a year, and the crush you’ve had since the first time you exchanged words with him only seems to grow stronger with each passing day.
What you figure out over time is that men like Logan aren’t the dating type. He’s never brought anyone home, and for that, you’re secretly grateful. The last thing you need is to see him with another woman—thank you very much. Still, the thought gnaws at you: he could easily be meeting someone elsewhere. In fact, it’s more than likely that he’s hooking up with other people. It doesn’t have to be at—
Alright. You don’t need this either.
Logan’s heavy footsteps resonate even louder, his presence more imposing, and he seems especially pissed off. Then again, he always has that demeanor—angry, grumpy, locked in a constant battle with life. But today… today, you haven’t seen him this troubled in weeks.
“Look who’s joined us,” Charles mumbles, steering his motorized chair to meet him halfway. The chair bumps against Logan’s legs with a thud that sounds almost cartoonish, and Charles scrunches up his nose, his nostrils flaring in disgust. “You smell like shit.”
“Yeah, I missed you too, Pop,” Logan grunts, shoving his hand into the pocket of his suit, searching for something. That’s when you notice the bloodstains on his shirt, smeared across his chest, and the missing buttons at the top. Your breath catches in your throat, and you bite your tongue to keep from asking any foolish questions. “They gave me new ones,” he mutters, looking you in the eye as he tosses the pill bottle at you.
You leap forward to catch it mid-air, your heart skipping a beat. Logan holds your gaze for a moment longer, his expression unreadable, before giving a slight nod and turning on his heel to storm out of the tank.
When your attention goes back to Charles, you see how his eyes remain locked on the pills you’re holding, his head lowering in defeat. “He’s waiting for me to die.”
“Don’t say that,” you squat to be at his eye level, momentarily hiding the meds from his view. Still, you struggle to make him shift his gaze. “He’s taking care of you, which is something completely different,” you place your hand on top of his knee, giving it a reassuring squeeze. You’ve had this same conversation innumerable times, yet each time feels like the first. He offers you a melancholic but knowing look as you softly say: “You have to take them, Charles. I’m sorry.”
He raises a hand, his trembling fingers curling around your wrist, examining you, trying to find an answer in the lines. “Don’t be. At least you’re here.”
“I’m sure Logan’s tired; that’s why he doesn’t stay any longer. Haven’t you seen him?” you rise to your feet, moving behind him to guide his chair. The tank sort of has a chill in the air, metallic walls that seem to press in around you both. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to play chess with him. Rest assured I’ll always let you win,” you murmur next to his ear, succeeding in eliciting a chuckle from him.
After that, you help him with his daily routine. Charles isn’t heavy, and you manage to get him onto the bed, his frail body yielding to your gentle support. You slip the rest of his body beneath the blankets, tucking him in carefully before handing him two pills and a glass of water. “All the way down, okay? And I wanna see that tongue after you swallow them.”
If looks could kill, you’d be six feet under, covered in dust and dirt. Charles sticks his tongue out, putting the glass down on his nightstand. “Happy?”
“You’ve got no idea how much,” you say, adjusting the covers. The silence of the tank surrounds you both, and you can sense his gaze lingering on you. You flick your eyes up, furrowing your brows as you sit in the small space beside him on the mattress. “What is it?”
“You fancy him, don’t you?”
Freezing on the spot, your eyes narrow. “I—I don’t—” you trail off, pushing the words out with some effort. “Are you trying to read my mind?”
His whole chest rumbles with laughter under your touch. He finds your hand once again, intertwining your fingers with his. “Don’t be so naïve. I don’t need my abilities to see the way you get all flustered when he passes by. Why do you think they say older people are wiser?” he inquires, his lips forming a straight line. “We’ve lived too much not to notice the most common things, my dear—and let me tell you that you do a horrible job at pretending.”
“Of course I like him. Logan’s a good man, he keeps us safe,” you glance down at your hands—his, weak and delicate, in evident contrast to your own. “I’m not in love with him, Cupid.”
“Oh, you should’ve seen him years ago,” Charles says, his eyes glazing over as he drifts back into the past. His body remains here, within the confines of the room, but his mind is elsewhere, somewhere far away. You give his hand a gentle tug, trying to bring him back. “When we took him in, he was pursuing a career as a cage fighter. I had never seen anyone like him in all my years of educating mutants. He was so… different from the rest. Reserved, didn’t talk much at first. But I gave him a family, I—” his voice falters, overcome by his own emotions.
That’s when you realize he’s no longer with you, his gaze unfocused, looking around the tank as if seeing it for the first time. It pains you to see him like this, completely disoriented and disconnected from reality.
“Why are we here? What has happened to the rest? Has he told you anything?”
These are the questions he asks every day without fail—questions that you can’t, nor want, to answer. Since you’re not exactly sure the explanation would soothe his troubled mind, you feel forced to play dumb.
“I don’t know, Charles. We don’t really talk that much, Logan and I,” you stand from the bed, not without pressing a chaste kiss to his forehead before. You smile at him, hoping he doesn’t realize the gesture lacks authenticity. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll let you know if I hear anything worth sharing.”
Once you close the door behind you, you settle back into it, releasing a shaky breath. Being Charles’ caregiver was a challenging task, especially in moments like these, which required immense internal strength not to crumble in front of him. You squeeze your eyes shut as you adjust to the harsh sunlight, fighting to regain your composure. When you finally scan the area, the only thing that meets your eye is the deserted smelting plant you now call home.
You open the sliding door, the noise breaking the stillness and forcing Logan to look up from his plate. He’s eating like a starved man, casually drinking from a small bottle of whisky on the table, already half of it gone. After those long drives through the nights and the early hours, he always returns hungry. You pour yourself a cup of coffee, setting it on the stove to heat.
Neither of you says anything for a few minutes: he eats, and you sip your hot coffee in silence, not wishing to disturb the breakable peace that hangs by a thread. Thinking this is how the noon will continue, you begin to walk toward your room until he clears his throat, stopping you in your tracks. That simple gesture makes you whirl around, anticipating something.
“This is delicious,” he acknowledges, pointing to his plate with his fork, the rice with veggies and meat you cooked last night nearly gone. Dipping his chin, he adds in a low voice: “Thank you.”
You’re taken aback by his unexpected willingness to engage in conversation. Moments like these are as rare as seeing Halley’s Comet, so you proceed with caution, as if you’re approaching a skittish animal—one wrong move, and the opportunity is lost.
Setting your mug down on the table, you sit on the chair opposite him. Deep down, the hammering of your heart echoes in your ears, and you hope his sharp senses don’t pick up on it.
“I’m glad you liked it. Charles ate two bowls of it,” you explain, unable to suppress a smile. Logan hums, tilting his head to the side as he keeps devouring his meal. You take another sip of your coffee, blowing on it in a futile attempt to cool it down. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Huh?”
“Charles. He—he asks to see you a lot,” you begin, carefully choosing your words. “I know it’s none of my business, but I think it would make him feel better if you spent more time with him.”
The sound of a distant train rumbles through the walls, amplifying the silence between you. Logan doesn’t utter a word; instead, he puts down his fork, the clinking noise making you jump slightly, the intensity of his stare becoming overwhelming.
“You’re right about one thing—what I do or don’t do is none of your goddamn business.”
Just like that, the buildup dissolves in a matter of seconds. You bite down on the inside of your cheek, nodding absentmindedly. “I’m sorry,” you murmur, feeling a wave of shame wash over you. How stupid were you to think he might want to talk to you? “I just—I want to be of help.”
“Just take care of Charles. That’s all you gotta worry about, all I’ve ever asked you to do,” he barks, clenching his jaw, and you can tell he means each word.
When he talks to you in this tone, it makes you think more rationally—it reminds you that you don’t really know him, and yet you agreed to work for him in exchange for a roof over your head and food on your plate. He’s not your friend, and he’s excellent at making that crystal clear every time you cross the line.
Logan pushes you away like you’re nothing, like you’re just another of the many burdens he has to deal with.
It should be enough to send you running to your room, but despite the knot tightening in your belly, you somehow remain rooted in place, your eyes sharp like daggers. As another train echoes in the silence, you come to terms with the knowledge that one more question will drive him away.
And sometimes, you speak before you think, as you do now: “Whose blood is that on your shirt?” you ask, voice steady and cold. Perhaps it’s you who wants him to leave this time.
He shakes his head with offense, frustration crinkling his eyes. “I don’t need this shit,” he groans, his gruff voice loud enough for you to hear it. He gets up from the table, placing his plate in the sink without much delicacy. At last, he heads to his room, slamming the door with a deafening thud that reverberates through the entire place.
It’s not a crush, that voice deep inside you insists as you’re left alone in the kitchen. And it’s valid: a mere crush wouldn't cause this kind of pain, wouldn’t make your chest feel this heavy and your limbs numb.
Whenever he leaves, he takes a part of you with him, never to be returned. By now, you’re certain he’s stolen all those missing pieces from you, and you’ve got no idea how much longer you can endure before you shatter completely.
You seem to have won this battle, but what you end up losing is far greater than any fleeting gratification.
Loving Logan is maddening, to say the least.
To this day, you still recall every detail of the night that altered the course of your life—the night you met Logan.
The memories are rather vivid in your mind, and you revisit that moment on nights like these, when you can’t sleep and the past appears to be much more appealing than your present. Pressing your cheek against the cold pillow, you let your eyelids drop, reconstructing the full scene behind your sealed eyes.
It was your third week working at that restaurant, and you were still getting used to its daily rhythm. Waitressing was working wonders for you—you had a good memory, and people often gave you generous tips. Everything was going well: you were the only waitress on shift, and your boss had left for a brief errand, promising he would be back soon.
During this lull, a group of men entered the restaurant, already drunk or high—probably both. They sat at one of the empty tables, immediately calling for you.
One of them, a tall blonde, was the loudest. “Come here, baby,” he pointed his finger at you, gesturing for you to approach him. The nickname felt wrong rolling off his tongue, and as you obliged, he shoved a handful of bills into the front pocket of your apron. He clutched your waist, dragging you nearer. “I’m getting married tomorrow. Think you can do something special for me?”
His friends cheered him on, laughing and pounding their fists on the table. You managed to slip from his grasp and asked them what they wanted to order. While they took their time deciding, you noticed a limousine parked in the distance, probably the vehicle that had brought these morons here. The driver rolled down his window, hanging his arm from the armrest. Though you couldn’t see his features, the interaction alone was enough to make you look away.
An hour went by, and the men refused to take off. They’d eaten, drunk, and danced—and driven you crazy in the process. The rest of the customers had decided to leave once they realized the night was far from finishing for the noisy group of friends. You apologized, feeling incapable of doing anything to change the situation. Your sanity felt threatened as you turned off the TV, ending the sixth round of karaoke, their shouts and hoots ringing in your ears.
“We’re closing in ten minutes,” you informed them, starting to collect their dirty plates and glasses. Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted the blonde man standing right beside you, his piercing blue eyes burning holes through your skin. He attempted to graze your shoulder, but you quickly stepped back, keeping a safe distance between you. “How do you plan to pay? Cash or credit?”
“How about with a kiss, huh?” he inched forward, his face dangerously close to yours. Unaccustomed to being approached in this manner, you ducked your head, unsure of your next move. His breath reeked of beer and vodka, a horrendous combination that had you nearly gagging on the spot. As he backed you against the counter, one of his large hands cradled your face, urging you to make eye contact with him. “I swear I can be very, very nice. You haven’t given me the chance to show it yet.”
“Hey, pal. You said one hour.”
The first time you heard his voice—low and husky, the kind that could send shivers down your spine. Your eyes locked with Logan’s, your pleading gaze seemingly stirring something in him as he got a grip on the situation. His brows bumped together in a scowl, and you didn’t miss how he limped as he made his way into the restaurant.
There was something about him—how he moved, his stance—that felt strangely familiar.
“We’re busy in here, chauffeur,” the blue-eyed man protested, slightly losing his balance while still holding your cheek.
Your rescuer squared off against him, their noses practically brushing. He worked his jaw, his half-lidded, tired eyes taking in the sight of you. “I’m no fortune-teller, but I don’t think she’s into you, bub.”
“Come again?” the blonde guy released you, much more concerned with defending his bruised pride. “What’s the matter, Grandpa? Is it past your bedtime?”
“I want you to pay me for the ride, and for waiting a fucking hour and a half for you and your friends,” the older man spat, jerking his thumb toward the limousine. “I’m not taking you back to the hotel. You might want to start looking’ for another driver.”
The group of men closed in around him, their anger bubbling. “That’s not cool, dude. We had a deal,” another voice snapped, but Logan couldn’t seem to care less.
“Well, the deal’s off. And leave the girl alone, will you?” he retorted, his tone dripping with disdain. “So, where’s my money?”
He couldn’t have predicted it. One of the men behind him swung a plate, striking him in the nape and catching him off guard. Logan collapsed to the floor, clutching his head in pain. The others took the opportunity and began to pummel him, kicks and punches landing wherever they could.
You screamed at the top of your lungs, desperately trying to intervene. You grabbed at their clothes, digging your fingernails into every patch of exposed skin you could find, but they shoved you aside with brutal force. Your back slammed against the nearest wall, a jolt of sudden pain making you wince.
The blood in your veins turned to ice as you watched, paralyzed with fear that they might kill him. But then—
Three metallic claws emerged from his knuckles, and he used them to push himself upright. Despite the blood smeared across his nose and mouth, he managed to stand, his quickened breathing coming out in short puffs. The men backed away in shock, leaving him alone amidst the chaos.
You stared at him, your hands trembling as recognition dawned: it was the Wolverine. The familiarity, the sense of having seen him before, all made sense now. It all flooded back in a rush—the comics, the news, the rumors.
“Get the hell outta my sight,” he growled, pressing his claws against the fabric of the blue-eyed man’s jacket, making him flinch.
You couldn’t make out what you were feeling. It wasn’t fear, but intrigue. Even as the group of men fled the restaurant, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from him. At first, he avoided your gaze, focusing on his shoes as he retracted his claws.
Once the immediate danger had passed, he slumped forward, groaning. You gently draped one of his arms around your shoulders and helped him into a nearby chair. His weight felt like a thousand bricks, but you accomplished to get him seated.
He rubbed a shaky hand over his graying beard, his face twisting in pain as you pressed a makeshift towel of napkins against his lower lip, where blood continued to flow. Taking the towel from you, he continued tending to himself. You scanned his features, scrutinizing him.
“You are…” you began, the words feeling inadequate at the moment.
Logan nodded hesitantly, his silence confirming your suspicion. “Yeah, that’s me,” he tugged at his shirt collar, exposing some of his chest hair, fresh blood staining his work clothes. Your gaze fell there, and you quickly chided yourself. The poor guy was bleeding, and you were checking him out. Jeez.
Kneeling by his side, you introduced yourself. “Thank you for stepping up for me,” you said afterward, and he shook his head dismissively. “They were a pain in the ass. I don’t know how you even managed to drive them here.”
“Money’s money, darlin’. Doesn’t matter where it comes from, as long as—” he was interrupted by a coughing fit, and your concern deepened as you continued to spot more of his injuries. “I’ll heal,” he reassured you, his expression softening in an attempt to calm your anxiety.
Your eyes pierced his with an intensity that seemed to unsettle him. A flush of crimson crept into your cheeks as a question surfaced in your mind: “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You don’t owe me anything, kid,” he replied, a hint of gruffness in his voice.
“But I could help you,” you persisted, your voice betraying a touch of eagerness. Stifling a cough, you tried to mask your enthusiasm, and sighed. “Are you hungry? I could cook you something, or pour you a drink. We’ve got plenty of liquor—”
Logan interrupted you, placing the towel down on the table. “Have you ever taken care of an old person?”
Tilting your head, you considered his question. “How old?”
“Ninety-somethin’.”
You nodded, memories of the events from years ago surfacing. “I lived with my grandparents for most of my life. When they fell ill, I spent a lot of time with them. My mom had to work long hours, and I—well, the point is, I did take care of them,” you paused for an instant, his expression unreadable, though you perceived a slight relaxation in his posture, as if your answer had put him at ease. “I like being around old people. They have stories to tell,” you added, a genuine smile breaking through, “and I’m a good listener.”
“Then I suppose there is somethin’ you can help me with.”
And so began a new chapter in your life. The very next day, you were moving in with him and Charles. It took several weeks for the latter to warm up to you and get used to your presence. Initially, he was hopeful that you might also be a mutant, but his disappointment was palpable when he discovered you lacked any supernatural gifts. Leaving that aside, he valued your company.
“The shots mellow the seizures. The pills keep them from happening’,” Logan had once explained, detailing the medications Charles needed. You recalled the psychic attack from a year ago and its consequences, but that wasn’t a topic to be discussed with Logan, and you understood why.
“Where do you get these?” you asked, examining the bottle of pills with a curious glance. “Without a prescription, I mean.”
“Oh, you don’t wanna know.”
Soon, you got adapted to the whole package: his unpredictable temperament, his mood swings, and his nightmares. Logan Howlett was a puzzle box of surprises, one you could never quite unlock.
Fast forward to the present day, you realize it must be already late, because Logan’s heading to work. You stand on your tiptoes, peering out of your bedroom window. Your warm breath fogs the glass as his eyes find yours, and then he slips into the vehicle, blending into the shadows of the night. The distant rumble of his limousine signals his departure, your forehead pressed against the glass, as if somehow that could take you with him.
There goes another piece of you.
You find yourself shaving Charles the moment worry takes over your senses.
He’s retelling a familiar story: that one time Logan, Scott, Jean, and Storm saved Rogue from Magneto. On any other day, you wouldn’t mind listening to his stories, despite having heard them countless times. This one in particular is your favorite. But today, it’s hard to focus on it, even more when one of its main characters is missing in action.
Logan hasn’t come back home yet.
It’s been an entire day, and he’s usually back by morning to rest. Now, after having cooked dinner and helping Charles shower, you’ve run out of distractions. There’s nothing left to occupy your thoughts, nothing to ease the building anxiety gnawing at you.
You texted him multiple times—no answer. You even called—also nothing. Every time Charles asks if Logan’s at work or sleeping, the knot in your chest tightens. That’s when your mind starts to spiral, and you’re convinced you’ll burst any moment.
After putting him to bed, you pace the kitchen, picking at your nails and biting the raw skin around them. The sting of pain is there, but it’s faint, not enough to overshadow the real fear clawing at your insides. All these what-ifs that storm through your mind make you feel nauseous: what if he’s dead? What would you do with Charles? How would you provide for both of you without a salary?
Just as you’re about to dial his number again, Logan materializes out of thin air through the sliding door.
He’s got a dark bruise under his right eye, and his once-white shirt is littered with bloodstains. You stare at him—he’s limping harder than usual, each of his movements slower. Walking towards him, your hands cup his face. His skin feels rough beneath your fingers, and he lets out a grunt as you graze his split lip. “What happened?”
“They were following’ me. Had been doing’ so for a few days now,” he says, making no effort to pull away.
“Did you kill them?“ you wonder out loud, still inspecting his injuries. The pad of your thumb hovers inches away from his bruised mouth.
Covering your hands with his, Logan ducks his head, closing his eyes for a brief second and swallowing thickly. “Somebody had to do it, sweetheart.”
You limit yourself to a nod, because you know there’s nothing you can reproach him for. You were no stranger to the idea of him killing. It was an implicit truth between you.
“I thought—I was so scared, and I—“ your voice wavers, and you feel your eyes watering, the tears prickling at the corners. “I thought you—“
He doesn’t let you finish, already knowing how it would end. “Hey, look at me,” he’s the one touching you now, tilting your chin up. Your eyes keep flickering over the cuts and old scars you spot on his cheeks, his neck. Logan forces a pained smile, unable to hide his discomfort. “It’s fine, I’m alright. Just a bit fucked up, but nothin’ you haven’t seen before,” he jokes, trying to lighten the mood, and it works. You bite your lower lip, suppressing your grin. “I always come back, don’t I?”
“But you can barely stand,” you whisper, not sure why you’re speaking so softly. You make him turn his back to you, helping him shrug off his coat. As expected, remnants of dried blood decorate his shirt like highlights. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t—“
”There are cuts all over your back. And your chest—you’re not healing properly,” you say, turning him to face you again. The look on his face suggests only one thing: he’s about to throw in the towel. “You don’t have to do everything on your own.” You think you’ve never been this close before, his proximity both intoxicating and comforting at the same time. “Please.”
He ends up giving in to your persuasion, allowing you to guide him to the bathroom. Logan sits down on the toilet, watching you gather supplies to clean his wounds. When you come back, he’s still staring at you, his eyelashes fluttering together each time he blinks. Starting with his cheek, you press a damp towel to his skin, and he hisses. It takes everything in you not to flinch in sympathy.
“How’s Charles?” he asks, probably trying to distract himself as you continue to clean his wounds, the towel darkening with his blood over time.
“He’s doing great. Asked for you a lot, actually,” you take a look at his jaw, where one shallow cut is already starting to fade away thanks to his healing ability, something that never fails to amaze you.
Logan hums, tilting his head. ”I’ll check on him in the morning,” he murmurs, and you flash him a quick smile, finishing with his face. He’s now free of dirt and blood, his brows furrowing as he pauses to collect his thoughts. “The other day, when we talked—“
You cut him off, turning to the sink as you rinse the towel, watching the water get red. “Forget it.”
“No, it wasn’t okay—how I acted,” he stands up from the toilet, and you feel his presence behind you, the alarm inside your head going off as the space between you shrinks. “I know you just want what’s best for him. For us. I’m sorry I was a jerk,” his voice comes out even huskier at this time of the night, sounding afraid of waking someone, even though it’s just the two of you here.
“Apology accepted,” you swirl around to meet his gaze, only to find yourself nose-to-nose with him, and you lean back against the sink, your spine pressed into the cool surface. Logan places his hands on both sides of the vanity, caging you with his body. Like the most beautiful tree, he stands tall in front of you, and you take a deep breath, getting drunk on his distinctive scent. “Are you… okay?”
You watch as he lowers his head, pursing his lips before muttering: “Imma need you to do something more for me,” he says, almost pleading, and you can’t avoid the amount of thoughts that rush into your mind. Gone was your decency when you had to deal with him.
That’s when he looks up to find your eyes, his harsh expression evolving into a more vulnerable one. “Have you ever removed a bullet?”
If you thought listening to Logan’s nightmares was painful, nothing could have prepared you for the sounds he makes while you pull several bullets from his wounds.
He sits shirtless in front of you, grunting at each of your careful movements. As you remove one bullet lodged near his ribs, Logan practically yells, and you rest your cheek against his, desperate to ease his suffering. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m almost done,” you whisper into his ear, hoping your words might bring him some relief. He lets his head fall forward, resting it on your shoulder, trusting you enough to tend to his injuries, his thoughts drifting elsewhere.
It takes you half an hour to clean both his chest and back, but Logan doesn’t complain. When you’re finished, he goes straight to his room, flopping onto his bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. You see the way his chest rises and falls rapidly, his breathing still labored. You wish you could lie beside him, even just for a few minutes, but your last shred of self-control stops you from doing such a thing.
“Get some sleep,” you say leaning against the doorframe, your advice sounding more like a plea. He looks exhausted, dark circles sunken beneath his eyes.
Logan lets out a bitter laugh. “Do I look that bad?”
You roll your eyes at that, your fingers curling around the doorknob. Glancing back at him over your shoulder, you catch something in his look—a glimmer of something you can’t quite put into words, but you decide not to look further into it. “Good night, Logan.”
“Good night, darlin’—and thank you,” he murmurs, holding your gaze until the door shuts between you.
Then you sprint to your room, gently closing the door before biting back a smile, replaying the last hour in your mind. How close to you he had been, how comfortable he seemed around you.
You hadn’t just crossed lines—you’d broken them. You almost pinch yourself to make sure you weren’t dreaming. Somehow, your racing mind calms down, and you fall asleep, one hand tucked beneath the pillow, the other resting against your chest.
You’re a light sleeper. The sound of something shattering wakes you, leaving you startled and disoriented. Dawn is just breaking, the first rays of sunlight slipping through your window. You sit up, pricking up your ears as you scratch the back of your head, listening attentively.
Logan’s voice filters into your room—he lets out a string of profanities, and you stifle a giggle, throwing off your covers and putting on a sweatshirt that matches your pajamas.
Barefoot, you walk down the hall, stopping at the kitchen’s entrance. Logan is kneeling beside the table, gathering the shards of a broken mug. It seems like he’s just gotten out of the shower, tiny droplets of water trailing down his neck.
“That was my favorite one,” you say in a low voice, teasing him. His back muscles flex under the material of his shirt, and he turns to look at you, his expression a silent apology. “I take it you’re not using your glasses?”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” rising to his feet, he grunts, digging his fingers into his lower back with a grimace. “They’re called readers for a reason.”
You decide to let him have that one, grabbing a new mug from the shelf and handing it to him. He accepts it, thanking you, and fills it with freshly brewed coffee.
“Was it a nightmare?“ you ask, watching as he sinks into the couch, spreading his thighs apart with a sigh while you take a seat at the table instead.
Logan gives a nod, sipping some of his coffee. “At least I slept for a few hours.”
“Are you really going to stay up? It’s pretty early,” you stretch your arms over your head, a yawn escaping you before you can hold it back.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
You hesitate for a moment, but then comes your question: “Can I join you?” you prop your elbows on your knees, any trace of sleepiness now gone with the wind.
He squints his eyes, his unrelenting stare boring into you. “Feel free.”
So here you are, studying him as he drinks his coffee, his fingers wrapped tightly around the ceramic. There are so many things you want to ask him—about how he’s feeling, if his wounds have healed—but it seems you’ve entered a silent staring contest without even knowing it.
Not that you mind him looking at you—you just want to know the reason why.
You snort, and he arches a brow. “Do I have something on my face?” you decide to ask him, straightening your back.
“I guess I can’t help but wonder why you agreed to all of this,” he says, setting the mug down with a soft clink. By this, you understand he’s referring to being Charles’ caregiver and leaving your old job behind. “I mean—you could be doing better things with your life. Why would you choose to do this?”
“I told you before: I wanted to help you,” you shrug, trying to keep your tone light even as your stomach tightens with nerves. You watch as Logan folds his arms, the muscles of his biceps becoming more visible. “Plus, I love being around Charles.
“I don’t think people your age would be that interested in spending their days like this,” he says, and you toy with a lock of your hair, wrapping it around your finger.
“Well, good thing I’m not like most people my age then.”
His silence hangs heavy in the air until he speaks again. “What do you mean by that?”
“You know that feeling when life seems like a race? And you just have to keep up with certain things that everybody else is doing, or you’ll be left behind?” you pause, the words falling more naturally than you’d expected. Logan nods, making it seem like he understands what you’re trying to say. Whether he truly does it or not, you don’t know. “When my friends started going to parties, getting boyfriends… I couldn’t. My family wouldn’t let me. And even when I could, it felt like it wasn’t really what I wanted.”
Inhaling sharply, you stop yourself. The conversation suddenly feels far too personal.
“You never had a boyfriend?” he gets more comfortable on the couch, his voice gruff as he rubs his chin, waiting for a reply.
A familiar heat settles between your legs. “I went out with some guys, but it never led to anything serious,” you say, your cheeks getting warmer the more details you share with him. “I guess I wasn’t the kind of girl they were looking for,” you add, not missing the way his lips twitch momentarily.
“How could they not want you?”
“They didn’t think like you do.”
“That’s because they were boys, not men,” he mutters, his gaze dropping to your hands before returning to your face. “Did they treat you right, those boys?”
Swallowing hard, you can hardly register the uncertainty in your own voice. “I mean… yes, I think they did. They were nice to me.”
There it is—the faintest hint of a smirk dancing on his lips. “Nice doesn’t mean good, though.”
You dig your nails onto the table, your pulse quickening, trying to hide how affected you are by his words. “What is it that you want to know?”
“Come sit with me, doll.”
Doll. Doll. Doll. Inside your chest, your heart gallops, your legs trembling as you get off the table, moving closer to him. Feeling lighter with every step you take, you plop down beside him, and Logan sits straighter, his knees almost bumping into yours. You can’t bring yourself to look at him—this is happening, just like in your filthiest dreams.
His hand slides up to yours, not applying any sort of pressure. He scrutinizes your skin, bringing your hand to his lips, and he presses a kiss to the inside of your wrist. It tickles, it burns—it ignites a fire inside you, one you know you can’t ignore. A gasp attempts to escape you, but you suppress it.
“Did you let them touch you?” he whispers, attaching his mouth to your neck, brushing the sensitive spot where your jaw and ear meet.
This time, you moan, any possible rational thoughts turning into putty, melting with the way he’s touching you. “Logan,” you purr his name, begging for something, anything he’s willing to give you. Your thighs, once shoved together, spread of their own accord, and you hear him click his tongue.
“I asked you something,” his teeth graze your pulse point, forcing you to close your eyes.
“I didn’t. They wanted to, but I—I wouldn’t let them,” you answer, and as if he’s rewarding you, his fingers begin to tug on the hem of your sweatshirt, rolling it up your body and over your head. He tosses it to the floor, admiring you.
“Why?”
Goddamn.
“Because I was waiting for the right guy,” you manage to get out, grasping his hand and positioning it on top of your right breast, encouraging him to go on with what he had started. His pupils widen further, and he squeezes your tit roughly, eliciting a moan from you. “I think I’ve found him.”
Logan scans your face, searching for any sign of repentance in your expression. “I’m going to hell for this,” he murmurs under his breath, his hard-on noticeable through his tented sweatpants. “Lay down,” you obey his command, easing yourself onto the couch, and sinking into the cushions as he presses himself to your side. He peppers your neck with kisses, playing with the waistband of your shorts. “I’m not gonna kiss you, but I’ll make you feel good. Just this time, ‘kay? And we don’t talk about it.”
You accept his offer, knowing that you’ll probably regret it in a couple of hours. Right now, it doesn’t matter. You need his electrifying touch, his fingers, his—
With a swift motion, your shorts are yanked down your legs, and his calloused hands part your thighs even wider. A damp spot on your underwear sells you out, and his thumb rubs gentle circles over that area, causing you to lift your hips. “So this is what you look like when you touch yourself, huh?” he edges his fingers closer to your clit, his breath tickling your ear, and he dips his tongue into your collarbone. “I hear you all the fuckin’ time. You’re not as quiet as you think.”
It should embarrass you, the fact that he has listened to you pleasuring yourself. But in a moment like this, it only succeeds in fuelling your desire. “Please. You said you’d make me feel good.”
“And I will, but you’re greedy as hell,” he says, his movements more deliberate now. You feel hot all over as he pulls your panties to the side, exposing your glistening cunt. Logan’s on the verge of drooling over you, reaching for your folds and spreading your wetness. “Men aren’t strong creatures, honey. You’ve got no idea how hard it is to hold back.”
“D-don’t hold back,” you stutter, losing your composure when he returns to your clit, his fingers coated in your arousal while they flick your swollen bud. “Oh, Logan…”
“You make the prettiest sounds,” he rasps, mouthing at your jaw, though as you try to kiss him, he slows his pace. “What’s wrong? Am I not giving you enough?”
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” you whisper, fascinated by how big his fingers look in comparison to your pussy. “I’m just—”
“Needy, I know,” he finishes for you, and he picks up his merciless rhythm again. Heat pools in your lower abdomen, and you can’t help but arch your back every time he teases you, grazing your entrance with his middle finger. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
You dig your nails into his arm, relishing the way his body responds to your touch. He grinds his cock against your hip, his teeth nipping at the column of your neck. “I want to come. Please, make me come,” you sob, letting out a shaky breath. A thin sheen of sweat covers your forehead, and Logan locks eyes with you after what feels like an eternity. “Please, Lo.”
The nickname snaps something inside of him. His fingers circle your clit with a fervency you hadn’t experienced before, your pleasure seemingly being his primary focus. “The shit I’d do for you.”
You warn him, telling him you’re close—so so so close—until the fire in your belly flares, and blood rushes to your ears. You collapse against him, holding his hand firmly against your core, hips jerking as you ride your orgasm. The world narrows down to this—this moment, your most desired fantasy.
Logan holds you as you go limp in his arms, rubbing your clit ever so slightly, murmuring soft praises. “Y’did so good, sweetheart,” he whispers, planting a kiss on your temple, burying his nose in your hair. You’re still out of breath, the pulsing between your parted legs persisting long after your release. “Told you you weren’t quiet.”
A giggle bubbles up from your chest, his beard tickling you as he slides his hands up under your shirt, finding your nipples. “It was n-nice,” you tell him, your voice faltering the more he toys with your hardened peaks. Your skin heats up again, heart racing at the thought that he isn’t done with you yet.
“Just nice?” one of his hands makes its way back into your pussy, ghosting his fingers over your hole, and he smirks when he feels you squirm. “You surely know how to hurt a man’s pride.”
“I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to—” you can’t structure a proper sentence, not when he’s playing with you like this. Logan rubs your arousal between his fingers, as though he wants you to see how slick you still are, even after coming. “Are you going to touch me again?”
He hums, feigning uncertainty. “What do you think, baby? Should I make you come with my fingers now?”
It’s like a switch flips in your mind. He knows exactly how to make you beg and which buttons to push, using that power to his advantage. “Yes, please. I want it,” you plead, intending to buck your hips into his touch, impatient for more.
“Do you fuck yourself with your fingers?”
“Sometimes, but I can never finish—Oh my God,” he slips one finger inside you, causing you to curse, your voice barely above a whisper. You clench around the intrusion, your head falling back onto the cushions. “Fuck me.”
“In a minute,” he begins to thrust his finger in and out, gathering your juices every time he goes back to hammering that sweet spot in your interior. Soon, one finger becomes two, and he reduces you to a panting mess.
Tears threaten to well in your eyes, and you whine as he involves his other hand in the matter, furiously rubbing your clit. “Your fingers feel much better than m-mine, Lo.”
“I can tell,” he curls them just right, and you push back against his thrusts, tilting your pelvis to meet him halfway. “There you go. Take what you need, pretty girl. I’m right here, I’ve got you.”
Everything feels frenzied, fast, the way your inner walls spam and contract around his fingers as you chase your second climax. Once you come down from your high, your blurred vision catches him tugging the waistband of his sweatpants down. His cock springs free, and he fists himself, stroking his length angrily. You watch as some pre-cum dribbles from the head, and you lean forward, watching it closely.
“You look goddamn beautiful when you come, darlin’,” he murmurs through gritted teeth, his jaw clenched tight. Hovering over you, he rucks your shirt up until he can see your tits from above. He alternates between your breasts, squeezing them while he continues to stroke his girth. “Want to see these all dirty.”
Logan truly loses it when your hand reaches out to him, tracing a bulging vein near the head of his cock. You meet his lustful gaze, batting your lashes, and then you feel his come splashing against your bare chest, a choked moan escaping Logan’s throat, spurts of his hot seed landing on your skin.
“Fuckin’ hell… fuck,” he grunts, still tugging at his cock, enamored with the masterpiece he’s created. When it’s finally over, he lies beside you, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. You run your fingers through his hair, and he nuzzles further into your touch with a groan. “I’m too old for this.”
Minutes pass as both of you seem to grasp the gravity of what has just happened. Eventually, Logan rises to his feet, disappearing for a brief moment before coming back with a towel to wipe his come off your stomach and chest. He’s gentle with you, his gaze trained on his task until his eyes flick up to meet yours.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, pulling your shorts back up.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to see right through me,” he adjusts your shirt to cover your body again, but the towel remains in his hand, a reminder of the previous events.
I’m not gonna kiss you, but I’ll make you feel good. Just this time, ‘kay? And we don’t talk about it.
You don’t have to talk about it. You definitely don’t.
Two days later, he’s the one who comes looking for you.
You’re nearly asleep when he knocks on your door. “Come in,” you mumble, a bit of drool having dampened your pillow. You dry your mouth with the back of your hand, your back turned to the door.
He steps into your room cautiously, as if navigating a minefield. The mattress dips under his weight. “Were you sleeping?” he asks, caressing your leg over the covers.
You shift onto your back, your body responding before your mind. There’s no blood on his clothes—that makes you feel a bit better, and you shake your head.
“Good,” he looms closer, fumbling with his belt. His thumb applies little pressure to your lower lip, and your mouth parts to let him in, salivating.
This is just like Pavlov’s dog experiment—except that Logan isn’t an experimenter, and you aren’t a dog. Yet, when he approaches you like this, you can’t help but respond, settling into a routine where you both take take take from each other.
Logan doesn’t fuck you, even when you beg him to. He gets you off with his fingers, his thigh, his mouth—but his cock remains out of the equation.
“Just the tip,” you plead, voice laced with pure need, when he’s got his face nestled between your legs.
As he stops eating you out, his beard shiny with your arousal, he’s still got that angry look on his face. Your cries don’t get to him. “That lie’s older than me,” he slips his fingers back inside you, aiming to make you drop the subject. “Come on, baby. I gotta get ready for work, but you need to come first.”
Nor does he stay the night after telling you you’re the most gorgeous girl he’s ever seen in his life. Just when you think he’s fallen asleep, his legs intertwined with yours and one of his large hands under your head, you drift off.
By the time morning comes, he’s gone. You just know that when night falls, he’ll be back for more, drawn to you like a moth to a flame.
Despite all that, Logan won’t kiss you. He keeps his promise—you hate how determined he is.
“Not even once?” you ask him one night while going over the scars on his back. You’re in his bed this time, and he has his nose buried in his pillow, moments away from dozing off.
“No,” he answers, squirming slightly under your touch. “I’m tired. Stop doing that.”
“How did you get this one?” you trace one scar that’s close to his shoulder, resting your chin just inches from it.
He turns his face to see your eyes. “Well, I was doing Pilates, and I—Hey!” he laughs when you pinch the skin near his ribs, tickling him. “I don’t even remember. Must’ve got it a long time ago.”
“Did it hurt?” it’s a dumb question, but he doesn’t mention it.
His index finger grazes your cheek, and he chuckles at the way your eyelids flutter. “In the past, they all did. But not anymore,” he replies, though you wish you could believe him. You know he’s in pain most days. That when he goes down on you, and he’s on his knees for too long, he has trouble standing up without cursing. That no amount of alcohol, or his healing ability, helps him with it.
You kiss each of his scars before curling against his side, brushing your nose against his. “And now?” your eyes fall to his lips, silently hoping he’ll say Yes.
Instead, he sighs. “I think we should go to sleep.”
So despite the lack of kisses, the miscommunication, and the fact that he won’t fuck you even though you know—you feel—he wants to, things are good between you. Charles notices it, openly expressing his recent realization.
“He looks happier, doesn’t he?” the old man says after winning two games of chess in a row, startling you.
“Logan, you mean?”
“Yes, my dear.”
You glance down at the board, fidgeting with the pieces. “I guess so.”
“You guess so?” he parrots your previous words, raising an eyebrow in doubt. “Look at me,” he says, and as you do it, he points a shaky finger toward your neck. “I assume mosquitos have taken a liking to you.”
Heat rises to your cheeks, your hand flying up to cover the hickey you had completely forgotten about in the first place. “Charles, I’m—“
“Are you happy?” he interrupts you, and you nod, because you are.
A nagging thought lingers at the back of your mind. You don’t know if you’re asking for too much, but it still feels like something’s missing.
One morning, you accidentally overhear a conversation between them. The door of the tank is ajar, and right before you step inside, you recognize Logan’s voice in the distance.
“Charles, I’m fine, alright? I don’t need your advice.”
There’s a pause before Charles responds. “You know, Logan… this is what life looks like. You should take a moment and feel it. You still have time.”
Logan doesn’t say anything in response to that. And if he does, you don’t stick around long enough find out, because you’re already turning on your heel.
A poet once said: “Blowjobs are fucking amazing.”
Actually, you might be wrong. Those may not have been a poet’s words, but your best friend Keira’s from high school. You remember the sleepovers at her place—she had a boyfriend at the time, a boy she had met at a party you hadn’t been invited to.
“Welcome to blowjobs 101,” she had declared one night, holding a hairbrush like a microphone. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll tell you everything you need to know when the moment comes.”
Luckily, many years later, that moment arrived.
Just ten minutes ago, you were cooking dinner, sniffling back tears while chopping onions, so lost in thought that you didn’t realize Logan was already home. He tossed his keys onto the table, hugging you from behind seconds later. You leaned back against his chest, enjoying the scratch of his beard against your sensitive skin, his lips planting soft kisses wherever they could.
“How was work?” you dropped the knife, wiping your tears as you turned to face him, throwing your arms around his neck. Logan pulled you in tighter by the waist, giving your ass a firm squeeze.
“Hell, as usual,” he looked into your eyes, finding them all glossy. “You miss me so much you started crying?”
Of course, you didn’t talk about it—but words aren’t the only ones who can convey meaning.
You’re not sure how, but one thing led to another, and now you’re on your knees, Logan’s cock filling your mouth. Your lips, swollen and red, suck hard at his tip, pulling the foreskin back, and his hips jerk deeper into your throat. “That’s it, fuck. Doin’ so good.”
Your movements are far from graceful. As a matter of fact, it’s all too sloppy and desperate. Saliva drips down your chin, some of it coating his balls, and you fondle them at the same time you bob your head. Keira’s advice plays on repeat in your mind, and you pull out every trick you know to make Logan roll his eyes.
So far, you think you’re doing pretty great, judging by the way he’s gripping the back of your head.
“H-how is this your first time suckin’ cock?” he slurs, more to himself, his voice strangled as you make eye contact with him. He brushes your hair out of your face, bewitched by the sight of him disappearing into your wet mouth. “God, I fuckin’ love you.”
Taken aback by his sudden confession. you involuntarily gag around him. He pulls you off his cock, not even sparing you a glance, tucking himself back into his briefs. “Wait, Logan—”
“Not now,” he mutters abruptly, withdrawing into his bedroom and shutting the door behind him.
God, I fuckin’ love you.
God, I fuckin’ love you.
God, I fuckin’ love you.
But still, he doesn’t want to talk about it.
How bad is it to tell somebody you love them and then avoid them?
Yeah, it’s absolutely terrible, right? Tell that to the idiot himself—Logan Howlett.
It’s been over a week, and no matter how many times you press him for an explanation, he keeps dodging it.
Things go back to how they were before you two started fooling around, and Charles’ questions don’t take long to come: “I thought you two were getting somewhere.”
“Me too,” you admit, your voice quieter as you try to appear indifferent. You have no answer for him. Not that you don’t want to discuss your relationship problems—it’s just that you don’t know what went wrong.
When evading you isn’t enough, he works longer hours, which only adds to how little you see him. At least he lets you know if he’s going to be late, sparing you from waiting up. But apart from that, your interactions have dwindled to nothing, and it’s eating you alive.
You’re madly in love with him. You thought you knew that already, but now that he’s distant, the depth of your feelings has become clearer than ever. He’s everywhere you go, just not physically—he has conquered your mind.
And it should be funny, loving someone who used to be no more than a myth for you. Though Logan is real—maybe too real for your own good—and he hasn’t been the mutant you once read about for quite some time.
This morning, he’s having breakfast at the table when you walk into the kitchen. You hold your breath as your shoulders brush for a microsecond, his gaze following your steps. You’re no longer accustomed to sharing the same space with him, so it makes sense that you stay as far away as possible.
After an awkward silence, he stands up and mutters something about checking on Charles and giving him his meds, leaving you alone with your thoughts.
It’s infuriating, how collected he seems. Why isn’t he miserable like you? Doesn’t he miss you? Didn’t you two have something… special?
I’m not gonna kiss you, but I’ll make you feel good. Just this time, ‘kay? And we don’t talk about it.
The shit I’d for you.
God, I fuckin’ love you.
Not now.
The memory of his words lingers, seared into your unconscious, though the sound of his phone jolts you out of your thoughts. It’s ringing beside the coffee machine, and you try to ignore it, determined to be the bigger person.
But after five minutes of the relentless ringtone echoing in the empty kitchen, you’ve had enough.
Unknown caller—interesting. What could he possibly be hiding?
Charles, you better keep that asshole busy, you think to yourself, swiping right to answer the call.
Before you can say anything, a woman’s voice fills the line.
“James! Thank God. It’s Gillian. You didn’t reply to any of my texts, and I was starting to get worried,” she lets out a giggle, the sound grating against your nerves.
As your grip on the phone tightens, your knuckles start to go white.
“Look, I know you said you weren’t available, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that ride. I didn’t see any ring on your finger, so what do you say, huh? Will you let me take you out?”
Red. You’re seeing red.
“James? Hello? Cat got your tongue?”
At last, you clear your throat. “Hey,” you greet her, pacing around the kitchen. “I’m deeply sorry, but James can’t talk right now.”
“Excuse me?” she snaps, her high-pitched voice echoing through the speakers, and you pull the device away from your ear. “This is James’ number. Who the fuck are you?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you who the fuck I am, you intolerant piece of—” before you can finish, the phone is yanked out of your hand, the call hastily ending.
There is no use in playing dumb, not when Logan’s standing right in front of you, observing you like you’re a child who’s made a severe mistake. His deep, brown eyes pierce your soul, shattering any chance you had of coming up with an excuse.
“What where you doing with my phone?” it’s the first thing he asks you, his voice still steady, the calm before the storm. Perhaps you’re not as mature as you thought you were—your forehead furrows, unwilling to back down, and you fall silent. He takes a step forward, as if he can’t believe your attitude. “Think I asked you something. Why did you answer?”
“Gillian sounds like a lovely lady. Tell her I said ‘hi’ the next time you see her,” you croak, attempting to walk past him, but he doesn’t budge, his solid frame blocking your path. You collide with his chest, and it feels like trying to move a brick wall without success.
“We’re talking. You can’t just leave.”
The nerve of this man.
“You can’t be serious,” you retort, staring at him, wishing the emotion in your tone could capture even a fraction of what you’re truly feeling. “Weren’t you the one who walked away first? After telling me you loved me?” you search for any sign of the man who once held you close, but he feels miles away, hidden under all these layers that smell like cheap whiskey and gasoline. “You didn’t mean it.”
“I did. I meant every word,” he growls, his fists clenching at his sides, and you don’t miss the exhaustion in his eyes, the dark circles that expose the fragile façade of control he’s so desperate to maintain. “Goddamit! You’re doing that thing again!”
“What thing?” you exclaim, your mouth hanging open in frustration. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, you are! You’re trying to see through me, like you can read my mind.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a fucking mutant. I just have eyes, Logan,” you throw your arms up, exasperated. “People actually look at each other when they have a conversation, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“You’re testing my patience,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face.
“And you are testing mine,” you rest your back against the table, raising your chin. “So, who is she?”
Logan drops his shoulders, slamming his eyes shut. “I drove her once, last week. It was a long ride and she… wouldn’t stop talking. Didn’t shut up for a single second. She hit on me, but I told her I’m off the market.”
“Why? ‘Cause she talked too much?”
“No. Because I love you,” he says, pure awe transforming his expression, like he doesn’t believe he has said it out loud. “I don’t know when I started feeling like this, or if I’ve always felt it, but—I do. I love you.”
Oh.
You had heard those words slip through his lips before, but now they sound different. It might be that keeping him at arm's length has felt like death by a thousand cuts, or perhaps it’s the realization that this is the first time someone’s declaring their love for you.
Fuck. He loves you. As in, he’s in love with you?
“Then why do you keep running?” you edge closer to him, your eyes trained on his. “I’m done with the chase, Logan. It’s tiring—I am tired. I’ve been sleeping like shit, trying to figure out what—”
His arms surrounding your body, cutting you off and pulling you close. The hammering of his heart matches yours, and you return the hug, nuzzling your nose against his neck.
You fear that this might be all you’ve ever needed, feeling as if the pieces he took from you in the past are finally falling back into place. Logan holds you as if in a past life he lost you, but now, he’s decided to never let you go.
This profound sense of completeness, of being where you’re meant to be, makes you realize you’ve found home in the warmth of his embrace.
“I’m sorry. This… this scares me, alright?” he murmurs next to your ear, raking his fingers through your hair. “You make me feel things I didn’t think I could feel anymore. That’s what I’m running from—the part of me I thought was gone. But you… you brought it back.”
You feel a deep urge to curl up and cry, wondering why on earth he would ever think he was unworthy of being cared for. “Logan, I…”
“I sound pathetic, I know. It sounded way better in my head.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” you retreat a bit, looking him in the eye. He stares down at you with a tenderness you’ve never seen before. “It’s not pathetic to voice how you feel. I want to know it all, want to know everything about you.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, everything. But I need you to promise me that you won’t run away anymore. I know it’s difficult, but it’s not fair to any of us.”
His eyes peer directly into yours, and he gives a nod. “I promise to do my best,” he presses your foreheads together, and that’s when his mouth turns into a grin. “You’re not going to say it back?” he teases, gripping your waist. “Come on, I said it first. Twice, for the record.”
Lifting your shoulders in a half-shrug, you find it hard to conceal your smile. “I may need a bit more convincing.”
Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.
Before you know it, his lips are on yours, almost making you lose your balance. You whimper into his mouth, tightening your arms around his neck as his tongue wastes no time in finding yours, stroking it sensually. The wait had been definitely worth it—you’d do everything all over again if it meant having him kiss you like this at the end of the day.
He tilts your face so that he can deepen the kiss, and a whine gets caught in your throat when his fingers pull gently at the hair at your nape, nibbling at your bottom lip.
“I love you, too. Very much, to be honest,” you blurt out against his mouth, pleased with the way he laughs at your reaction, squeezing your hips. “But I still have some ideas in mind.”
“I’m all ears.”
Here goes nothing. “Fuck me like I’ve been asking you to,” you cup his cheeks, guiding his lips into yours one more time. “Please,” you mewl, standing on your tiptoes. “Want you to be my first.”
If it were up to you, you would’ve begged him to take you right there on the kitchen floor. But Logan, ever the gentleman, insists on moving things to his room. Each of his movements is slow, igniting your skin with a burning heat, leaving his name imprinted where his teeth sink into your soft flesh.
You’re left in nothing but your underwear by the time he murmurs: “Let me take my time with you,” trailing his lips down your chest, your stomach, until he’s planting several kisses along your ankle. “I don’t know how I got so lucky, baby. Look at you.”
Under his gaze, you feel shy, your eyes snapping to the ceiling instead. “Shut up,” you say, tugging at his shirt to undress him, your fingers tracing the lines of his abdomen before you pull him into a bruising kiss, sucking on his tongue.
He strips out of his black slacks and hovers over you, his clothed cock grinding against your throbbing core, eliciting a moan from both of you. “So goddamn beautiful. Can’t believe you’re mine,” his tip grazes your entrance through the fabric, making your toes curl in ectasy. “I’m gonna make you feel good, I swear.”
At first, he’s extremely careful, making sure to stretch you out with his fingers while you stroke him, pumping your fist to match his rhythm. “Keep that up and this’ll be over sooner than expected,” he warns, taking one of your nipples into his mouth.
It doesn’t happen like it does in the books or movies. No foreplay could’ve prepared you for the moment he enters you. You move clumsily beneath him, your nose bumping into his forehead as he eases the first inch of his length inside.
For a moment, you’re not certain which hurts most: the dull ache in your nose or the way he’s splitting you open.
Logan freezes, his eyes wide in concern. “Shit. I’m sorry, sweetheart. Are you okay?” His hand cradles your face as he props himself up on one forearm, pushing your hair back while you adjust to his size. You laugh despite the sting, and he wipes away your tears with his thumb. “You’re laughing?”
“I’m just happy,” you manage to get through the lump in your throat, raking your nails down his back, feeling the rough texture of the scars beneath your fingers. “I love you. Since that day at the bar, I—” you pause for a second, gasping at the sudden wave of pleasure when he twitches inside you. “I’ll always l-love you. Forever.”
As you wrap your legs around his waist and tell him you’re ready, something inside him shifts. He feels like a madman, his eyes fixed on your face the whole time, searching for any hint of discomfort, though he occasionally glances down at the place where your bodies meet and become one, entranced by the sight of you taking him in, slick coating his length.
Your heels dig into his lower back, pulling him back to the present—back to you, with your pretty tits bouncing each time he pistols his hips, the intensity of his thrusts increasing.
“All those times you took care of me, when you—Fuck,” he groans, nipping at your jaw to regain some of his composure, his humid breath dampening your skin. Your scent drives him wild, and he reaches for your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours. “You made me feel loved when no one else did. My girl, love you so f-fucking much.”
His pace is nothing more than a voiceless testament to everything he feels but can’t find words to express.
With each minute that passes, your dripping cunt grips him tighter and tighter, his thrusts losing finesse. He needs you to come first—why does he feel like a virgin?
When you tell him you’re close, the world around him turns into a musical. You cling to the sheets, the mattress creaking noisily as he clutches the headboard, determined to find that angle that will push you over the edge. “That’s it, sing for me,” Logan mutters from above, hypnotized by the crease forming between your brows. “Come on, let go.”
Time seems to slow down as your muscles tense and you clamp around him, your body sagging against him. His name spills from your lips in breathy whimpers, like an endless prayer, and your mouth engulfs his, tongues and teeth clashing in a fevered kiss.
Soon after that, he surrenders to the coiling tension deep within him, pulling out just in time to stroke himself once, twice, before emptying his hot load across your mound. You gently thumb the head of his cock, coaxing out every last drop of his hot seed. He’s panting as he comes down from his high, his brain foggy and blissfully blank for a while.
Logan loses track of how many times he tells you he loves you—he does it when he pulls you into his chest, when his lips press against your temple, and when you crack that smile, the one that resembles the very purpose of his existence.
“So this is what it feels like,” his voice sounds low like a murmur near your ear, and you stir, half-asleep.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing, baby. I was just thinking aloud.”
You don’t have to talk about it, at least not now. Deep down, he knows that whatever thoughts run through his mind will somehow find their way into yours.
This is what life looks like. You should take a moment and feel it. You still have time.
And God, is he feeling it.
dividers by: @cafekitsune thank you!!! :)
#logan howlett#wolverine#wolverine x reader#logan howlett x you#logan howlett x reader#wolverine x you#deadpool and wolverine#logan howlett fic#logan howlett fanfiction#logan x reader#logan howlett smut#james logan howlett#james howlett#logan howlett xmen#logan howlett x fem!reader#wolverine smut#the wolverine#wolverine x men#wolverine fic#wolverine fanfiction#logan wolverine#x men wolverine#smut#fanfiction#fluff#angst#old man logan#fic: never is a promise#x men movies#logan james howlett
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Little Things - Sylus x Isekai Fem Reader
Summary: When your consciousness somehow ended up in the LADS MC’s body right as Sylus’ character was released. You went through what the MC was supposed to do in the game and while waiting for the next update, you’ve gotten closer to Sylus that he treats you with everything you couldn’t have in your world
A/N: I can’t help but make a fic where you took over the MC’s body and became the MC. Though in this fic, Sylus already knows that you’re not exactly the MC yet he’s also not complaining about your company and even started to open up to you and even allow you to use his money but he’s confused as to why you’re not spending as much as he thought
I was inspired by a fic that I read on Tumblr by @atoltia
Sequel: Welcome to My World
Disclaimer: I do not own the images nor the characters or you (the MC). All images were taken from Pinterest.
Warning: will be using MC instead of (Y/N) as it’s easier for me, fluff, slight angst (no character death), overthinker MC, soft Sylus
“You go talk to him” Luke nudged his twin brother who stared back at him thinking that he was crazy
“Are you crazy? I’m not talking to him. Have you seen how he’s been the past few weeks? He’s been on his phone, checking something out almost every day unless he’s with MC” Kieran replied back as both he and Luke were eyeing Sylus who was in his study, wearing some comfortable clothing and glasses while scrolling through his phone
“Do you think that he’s planning to do something for MC? Like maybe propose to her? I mean. ever since their first meeting, he’s been different? More attentive towards MC. He even gave her the brooch which is the direct access to the N109 zone. He even let her drive his cars and do whatever she wanted with the place though I like her style. It feels more homey nowadays” Luke pointed out and Kieran agreed with his twin
The twins kept on talking in front of the study room until Sylus had it and called the twins inside. “I know you both are out there. Either come in and report what you want to report or leave before I stop letting either of you peek around”
Immediately, the twins walked into the study where they saw their boss still not looking up from his phone. The twins looked at each other before agreeing to speak at the same time.
“We cleaned up at the next like you said” Kieran mentioned
“Are you going to propose to MC?” Luke mentioned
The twins looked at each other, confused that their twin telepathy was not working when they needed it. Hearing a grunt, the twins immediately apologised and begged Sylus to not hurt them or worse; make them clean the entire penthouse.
“What Luke meant was how is MC?” Kieran quickly changed his twin’s wording
“Yea. That’s what I meant. I mean, you seem to be glued to your phone boss. We assume that it’s because of MC so we were wondering if anything happened to her or if you need us to watch her?” Luke added on
“Actually, perhaps you can watch her for me” Sylus mentioned and the twins sighed of relief until they heard the next words come out of Sylus’ mouth. “I’d like to know why isn’t she using my card like I expected her to”
The twins looked at each other, confused once more. “What do you mean she’s not using your card, sir?” Kieran asked
“Do you think she lost it? Or perhaps she gave it to someone and that’s why her spending is crazy” Luke added on and for the first time, the twins saw their boss put his phone down only to open up several holographic files; specifically transactions from his card
“No. It’s quite the opposite actually. She has my card. She uses it but not as much as I thought. She’s only spending on the daily necessities and occasionally a book or two. Never any jewellery, any new clothing. She only bought one hairdryer set and never any other hair tools except a brush and clips and even those are cheap. The most she spent was just a water dispenser and an air fryer. What, does she think that she’s being stingy if she were to spend a lot of my money? Or perhaps she wants to seem more independent? What if she thinks that I’m in debt?” Sylus kept going on until the twins stopped him
“Uh, boss. I don’t think it’s any of those reasons” Luke mentioned, catching Sylus’ attention. “What do you mean, Luke?”
“I mean. I’ve, we’ve, talked to her sometimes and she just mentioned that she doesn’t know what to use all the money for. I don’t think that she thinks you’re in debt or feel bad about using your money. It’s just that she’s not used to it. Not used to having a lot of money that she’s overwhelmed?” Luke explained while Sylus had a deep thought
“Overwhelmed? It’s the first I heard of this. You would think that when someone has this amount of money in the palm of their hands, they would go crazy almost immediately” Sylus replied
“Well, she’s not like most people, sir” Luke added on and that’s what got Sylus to get up from his study room and go to find MC
Sylus looked around for you in the penthouse from the kitchen, living room, the guest bedroom where you typically like to be when you’re alone, and finally, his bedroom which is practically your shared bedroom ever since an incident that happened early in your meeting together.
As he was walking towards the master bedroom, Sylus could hear some music playing. Slowly opening the door to the room, Sylus peeked in and saw your small figure on the bed, humming to the music that was playing from your phone at the same time doing something.
Smiling to himself, Sylus decided to lean by the door as he made himself noticed by you. “Sweetie, what are you doing in here all alone?”
Looking up from your hands, you looked at Sylus who put on that soft smile only for you. “Hi Sy. I’m just trying to stitch up a T-shirt of mine. I’m almost done. Do you need help to make dinner?” you asked, finishing up the T-shirt you were stitching as Sylus made his way towards you
“No. I’ve decided to order in for tonight. I got your favourites” Sylus mentioned as you hummed
“There we go. Finally done. So, dinner?” you mentioned, placing down the T-shirt you were sewing which made Sylus chuckled
“It’s on its way, sweetheart. Which means…” Sylus grabbed your hand and yanked you towards him, laying down on the bed together as he held you close. “We have a bit of time to ourselves before dinner comes”
Giggling at his clingy behaviour, you accepted defeat that you couldn’t fight him on this and just leaned your head to his chest, listening to his slightly abnormal fast heartbeat while feeling Sylus’ fingers going through your hair.
“Sweetie…” Sylus called you while you hummed, feeling a bit drowsy
“Why do you work so hard to sew your T-shirt when you could’ve bought a new one? You know that I can find someone to make the exact same one with the same materials and everything” Sylus mentioned
“I know” you answered, drawing circles on Sylus’ chest while continuing. “I know that you could most probably buy anything I want and more. But while all that sounds good, it’s the little things, the memories that come with what I have now that matter”
“Is that so?” Sylus asked, as if he was still unsure of your answer and the tone he used made you look up at him. “Is there something wrong with my answer? Was it not what you expected? Along with how I’ve been using your card?” you asked back which made Sylus chuckle
“You know me so well, don’t you kitten?” Sylus chuckled, caressing your cheek with his large hands now making you giggle
“I mean, I’ve been observing you longer than you observing me. But you should know, I’m more than grateful for you giving me your card. It’s an incredible privilege and it makes me know how much trust you have in me. Though, I don’t need all that when I can do all the little things with you. Even as simple as cleaning together or moments like right now is what I cherish the most” you mentioned and using his hand that was on your cheek, Sylus gently lifted your face as he gave your lips one of the softest kisses you ever had whilst caressing your cheek at the same time
Pulling away, you were met with Sylus’ soft gaze and smile once again and instantly felt the heat rush to your cheeks as you questioned him. “W-what’s with the sudden affection”
Smirking, Sylus pulled your smaller body with him as he sat on the bed, leaning at the headboard. “Why not? You said you cherish the little things and moments. If you won’t accept being spoiled by my wealth then I might as well spoil you with what you actually want, isn’t that right?”
Hearing those words out of his mouth made your head feel light. Throughout your life back home, you rarely get any affection from those close to you; resulting in indulging yourself with what used to be a “silly game” until you somehow ended up in the silly game yourself.
You closed your eyes, worried that water that was building in your eyes would spill because of the constant worry and thought that this was all just a dream. Noticing your quiet self, Sylus grew worried and cupped your face with both his hands and saw that a tear managed to slip out of your eye. “Sweetie? What’s wrong? Was I pressuring you?”
Shaking your head, you managed to reply to him. “No. You’re not. It’s just…I’m, I worry”
“Worry? About what sweetheart? Take your time. I got you” Sylus replied
“I…you know I don’t belong here and yet you still spoil me. What if one day, I somehow wake up and I’m back in my own world? What if one day when you wake up, it’s who you were supposed to meet that greets you? What if…” Sylus didn’t let you continue as he immediately kissed you once again, though this time was slightly rough with a sense of urgency
“I don’t want any what ifs, kitten. You’re here. In my arms. My lips are on yours. Your body might be someone else’s but your soul is what I care more about. Even if one day you go back. I’ll find a way. Against all odds, I’ll find a way back to you even if it’s against the universe” Sylus stated, his grip on your face getting a bit tighter as if he was afraid that you’d slip away
“Sylus…” you softly called him, holding his hand that was on your face when Sylus grabbed your hand, interlacing your fingers together
“You feel this? It’s real. Just like me. Just like right now. So stop saying these things or do you need me to show you how real this is?” Sylus mentioned, his tone was a bit harsh but soft at the same time
“You’re crazy you know that. Defying the universe to go to another” you pouted but it successfully made Sylus chuckle
“I am. I would do that you know” Sylus took your hand and kissed the knuckles. “I’d do whatever it takes to find you”
“But you don’t know what I actually look like” you argued
“I know your name, your age, how you act” Sylus replies, making you chuckle
“You really are a stubborn crow, aren’t you?” you teased and Sylus leaned down to kiss your forehead. “Only for you, sweetie”
“Come. Dinner should be arriving. We can put on that show you’ve been wanting to watch. Or we can do something else” Sylus mentioned, picking you up so suddenly that you immediately wrapped your arms around his neck
“Can we just chill on the sofa with some chill movie and cuddle?” you asked
Smiling, Sylus kissed you again. “Anything you want, sweetie. We’re making the most together and appreciating all the little things, remember?”
Sylus then brought the two of you to the living room where he let you turn on the TV and ate dinner together, wrapping a blanket around the two of you as you both enjoyed the rest of the night basking in each other’s embrace and enjoying these small intimate moments together.
A/N: OMG thank you so much to everyone who has been reading, liking, and reblogging my Sylus fics T^T I truly did not expect so many people enjoy my writing especially the fact that I'm new to the LADS space. If anyone wants to be mutuals on the game, do message me!! Otherwise, thank you for reading and hope this fic managed to brighten your day!! xoxo peanutwott
#lads#lads x reader#lads fanfic#lads imagine#lads sylus#l&ds#l&ds sylus#sylus#lnds sylus#sylus fanfic#sylus imagine#sylus x mc#sylus x reader#sylus x you#sylus x y/n#sylus love and deepspace#love and deepspace sylus#love and deepspace#love and deepspace fanfic#love and deepspace x reader
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Win Trading
fromis_9 Lee Nagyung & Male Reader
Categories/warnings: smut, sloppy handjob, fingerblasting, titsucking a little bit, makeout, mutual masturbation
Word count: 2.0k
a/n: for legal purposes yes this is the june fic :DDDD happy nakko day!
Even though you’re sitting on the living room sofa three and a half meters away from her room, eating your popcorn, and with the TV blaring nonsense, the telltale signs of Nagyung’s frustration still reach you. Agitated clicking and button-mashing noises travel past her door frame and across the hallway to you, letting you know her game isn’t going all that well. The certainty of it sets in when the sounds pause briefly, followed by the unmistakable sound of her mouse being smashed onto her desk.
Scooch over a little bit to the left, free up some space on the couch. Reach for the yet-closed pack of chips on the coffee table in anticipation of your soon-to-be movie buddy. You know it's bad; the challenge now is figuring out how bad it is.
Like clockwork, Nagyung stomps out of her room and towards her spot on the couch. She takes her seat next to you, evidently still recovering from her earlier fuming, with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. You've always known that she looked cute, but there's a certain allure to her when she's angry. The way her brow furrows when she’s mad sets off your cuteness aggression, but for your mutual wellbeing you keep yourself under control.
Make a show of opening her chips for her – crinkle the plastic pack and exaggerate your arm movements. Offer her her chips and hope it calms her down. Most importantly, avoid eye contact this early on and do not rock the boat.
Despite your best efforts, her tilt makes itself sorely known. She swats away the pack of chips in annoyance, which still thankfully lands on the coffee table with minimal spill. Nagyung, however, desperately looks for an outlet for her frustrations, and you really can't blame her. It must have been a really bad game.
She hops on top of you, straddles you, and forces her lips on yours. You meet her halfway and in no time at all your tongue is swirling around hers and sharing spit. A moan escapes her when you hold her waist and pull her close, followed by another when you rub her tummy. She wraps her arms around your neck and you can only imagine what goes through her head when in a position like this.
Keep palming her tummy under shirt, continuing to rub from her abs to her sides to her chest. Move slow, but don’t linger; take your fill of her body, but not so much as to sate her even if it also doesn't sate you. She eats it right up and leaves her wanting more, all at the same time. Grip and squeeze at her weak spots, all the while she grows more desperate with her prolonged connection to your lips.
You feel her need through her shorts, the warmth emanating from her core tempting you to wander farther down. You do just that, slowly again, pressing her buttons in just the right way to bring out your needy Nakko. You pull her shorts down steadily, and you find she's much more than ready. The gentle breezes of your air-conditioning meet the skin of her ass and thighs, and her exposure to the elements and to you spur her on even more.
In response, she pulls your pants off too. She's much less careful, much less calculated – strategy thrown out the window and instead caught up in a sinful rush of emotions. Swiftly you lose your pants and underwear, and Nagyung wraps her fingers reverently around your hardening shaft.
The slow grazes you deliver over her clit are reciprocated with steady strokes on your cock. Each swipe over her sensitive nub elicits another groan of her pleasure, again and again and again, until she finally breaks the kiss and lets a streak of saliva connect your lips. She collects everything she can on her palm before returning to your delicious handjob.
Your shirt is the next to go, practically torn off in Nagyung's frenzy. She nearly rips the neckline, and you almost admonish her for it, but the only harm being done is how she's left your cock without her hand's immoral pleasure. Her shirt follows, and with her help you're able to do it with only one hand. Even now, you deny her respite from rubbing her clit, and the momentary obstruction of her vision as her shirt is pulled over her head elicits another groan of approval from her.
And there she sat on your lap, the goddess Lee Nagyung, fully bare for you to ogle and grope as you please. Her perky tits bounce as she jerks your cock with both hands, her gaze intense on your tip as if making you cum would give her the victory she deserved. Her pink nipples are taut, and the moment your free hand makes contact with her chest she throws her head back and gasps in arousal. Your thumb circles her nipple, leading her to bite her lip, just as your other thumb continues to play with her clit unceasingly and in growing need.
Each time she feels her handjob drying out, she lubricates her palms with more of her spit. She mercilessly continues pumping your cock, her head undoubtedly filling with thoughts of pride that she gets you all to herself. Each time she shoots a cursory look to you, establishing shaky eye contact, her eyes shut again just as you deliver deliciously harsh pinches on her nipples. Soon after, her fingers momentarily part her pussy lips to smear her palm with her slick, before ultimately taking your manhood in between her hands to jerk off again. All the while, she struggles back tears of impatience that she isn't impaling herself on your cock just yet.
And of course she doesn't; she's a level-headed player in it for the late game. She knows if she holds out that she gets first place in your heart, and the prize that comes with it makes it all the more worth holding out for: riding you raw and getting her tight little fuckhole filled up with your thick and warm seed.
For now though, she has to settle with rubbing your thick cock with her hands just as you watch her boobs bounce in front of your face. Pull her close, suck and nibble on her stiff nipples, only rub and tease her pussy lips to heighten her need.
It’s here you find yourself in the ultimate war of attrition: straddling your lap is the sexiest woman in the world naked for you and you alone, pumping your cock with everything she's got and relishing in how shamelessly you feast on her perfect, flawless body. You can't take your eyes off her perfect breasts, how they jiggle and bounce in your face, how every little lick on her sensitive nubs only makes her leak more of her pussy juices for you to fingerfuck her even better.
The glances you steal of her eyes in the rare times you make eye contact spell disaster for the both of you, as Nagyung eyes your body with a similar lustful desire. The way you look into her soul sends a signal to her mind, and you unconsciously tell her to lick her lips, moan another sultry moan, jerk you off harder. Tears start to well in her eyes as she struggles to keep them open, slowly being overcome with the pleasure you inflict on her sex. It's one thing that she's getting off to you're watching her naked form commit such sinful acts, it’s another to try and get you off to her body, and another still that she's drawing such obscene joy from having your cock in her hands with no other objective in the world than to look pretty for you and make you cum.
Eventually she stops trying to keep her eyes open anymore, and naturally her tears follow. They run down her cheeks as a pained yet pleasured expression takes over her goddess-like features, signaling her defenses starting to falter. Her head hangs to the side and her hand job grows harsher; you know as early as now that by the end of tonight you're going to be sore for a week. Still, the way she diligently pumps your hard cock with nothing but love and need makes everything worth it, and with how you flex your fingers inside of her and rub the walls of her tight, needy cavern, you’re determined to make it worthwhile for her too.
And true to heart, it works. Your fingers hit every single one of her good spots, even the ones she didn’t know she had, and she practically melts in your hands. Her entire being follows your will, and you manipulate her like she’s just a puppet under your control.
All good things come to an end, however, and yours is just about up. Nagyung fulfills her mission and, technically, wins the game, and you’re more than happy to let her have this victory (like you had a choice). Her gaze is filled with a sinister lust, and it’s aimed at nothing else in the world but you. Your cock is coated with the perfect amount of her slick, your tip leaking copious amounts of fluids to lubricate even more, and Nagyung has you on the ropes fighting a battle long lost.
A blinding white flashes in your eyes, your defenses fail, and it all comes crashing down. Your head is thrown back in pleasure, a defeated groan escapes your mouth, and spurts of cum shoot out of you, painting her perfect belly with your thick and warm seed. She doesn't stop rubbing along your entire length in deep and fast strokes, and you could swear she knew everything about you to keep you shooting your baby batter all over her tummy, giving you constant pleasure and squeezing every single drop of your delicious cum for her toned and sexy abs. As the final nail in the coffin, Nagyung abruptly stops pumping your cock, and it shows off how she was in control the entire time. The sudden lack of pleasure forces you to start humping her hands, and she goes crazy at the mere sight of you, eyes shut and fucking the closest thing to her pussy that you have right now.
Her good time inevitably draws to a close as well. In the midst of her relishing in her victory and your warm cum smeared across her midriff, a single well-timed push of her button is what sends her careening over the edge right after you. Just as your finger makes contact with her weak spot, her eyes go from shut impossibly tight to wide open in a matter of milliseconds. Her body seizes, her pussy clenches, and all hell breaks loose. A cry of world-ending release rips through her throat, and her girlcum sprays out of her in streaks, the sheer amount of it coming and coming like it’s the first time she’s ever been touched in ages. Tears fall generously from the corners of her hypnotizing eyes, and her hips jerk and hump against your merciless fingers again and again like it’s the only thing she knows.
Once it's all over and you’re both unmistakably spent, Nagyung crashes onto your chest, her own chest heaving in life-or-death attempts at getting air back into her lungs. Her arms fall on your shoulders on either side of your head, and she wraps your neck in a hug. At the same time, you withdraw from her abused pussy and pull her in for a hug of your own by her waist. You spend an unknowable amount of time like this, just breathing, just recovering, just you and her.
Breaking the ice, Nagyung puts all her remaining strength into lifting her head and placing her lips on yours. Of course you reciprocate, but in contrast to the earlier needy and horny making out, your kiss now is tender and loving, as if exchanging thank-yous and greetings of a game well played.
~~~
a/n: short one this time lmao but i had fun writing it and it was a great experiment to do! thanks as well to @leafostuff for beta and stay tuned for july :>
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I See You, Darling (2)
[Astarion x reader] Due to surprisingly overwhelming demand, the previous fic, along with this one and many more to follow, will now be part of a series!! It was honestly very difficult trying to come up with what happens next, but here we are. The idea came to me during a fever!! |Word count: 2.5k.| Based off of this post I made.
Part 1 here!!
Next part here!!
The reader believes they are in a dream. It wouldn’t be the first time their fantasies conjured up such an obscure, yet somehow realistic scene. And so they’ve elected to treat the experience with as much realism as one would observe in a dream; little to none.
Alternatively;An ex-art-student-now-traveler accustoms themselves to the party.
————━─━────༺༻────━─━————
“Shadowheart. Shadow…heart. Hm.” His gaze bounced between you and her.
“I’m sure her parents meant well, but the name is rather ominous, isn’t it?” He leaned over to your side, not bothering to hide his blatant distrust. Lowering his voice dramatically, if anything.
“Unless she chose it herself. Which is even more worrying, honestly.” He chuckled out.
It had been no more than two bells after mornbright when you met Astarion. Since then, you’ve come to realize how…different your presence has changed the course of the story. Though more subtle than you expected.
It would seem as if you had met the elven vampire before the party was formed, which was strange as your last save point was far later than that and the forest had been quite a long way from the beach.
When you finally stumbled upon Shadowheart, he was quick to share his inner thoughts that you haven’t heard from the game before.
As they continued with their quest to find a cure for the Illithid problem, expanding their party as they did so, you had tried to make yourself useful by doing the dirty work for them. Looting and opening crates filled with camp supplies, armor, and potentially useful weapons and artifacts could always come in handy for trade or for “artifact consumption,” as per Gale’s need. Sorting them for your group’s convenience.
And while you did not have more direct and immediate practical use for your course of study in the modern world, the research you’ve created and reviewed for character creation and world building was doing wonders for your survival.
Or as much as it can for a magicless, not so athletic human.
The “runes” of the medieval ages that have been carved into stone, along with the basic history and background of the common races and deities of the fantastical world that tabletop RPG has offered puts you at quite an advantage.
Not to mention your experience with the areas of the game giving you the same effect.
But this library of information had also aroused something akin to suspicion and concern. It would be understandable if you were a simple traveler just like them, or perhaps even an artisan from the guild, but you were not as astute as either background.
So how could you have access to this much knowledge yet be unaware of more practical matters? It’s as if you had simply read about it from somewhere.
Astarion had been quick to give an explanation before you could form one of your own that could poorly convince your companions. Although, perhaps his suggestion was more outlandish than anything you could have come up with.
“They came with me. Property and all the formality that comes with it. A family pet, if you will.” A perfect excuse to justify your constant proximity to him, and a likely explanation to being well read, but not well experienced.
You thought nothing of the title, your apathy to the non-hazardous labels of this world apparent.
The same couldn’t have been said about your associates who had a few comments about this disclosure.
“I am unfamiliar with the–well, I shall not say ‘culture.’ ‘Customs’, perhaps. I did not think your kind to house such breed of cattle. Perhaps they could be useful.” Was Lae’zel’s.
“I assure you, they typically don’t. Humans aren’t naturally subservient to Elves, at least in this manner. This setup sounds more akin to slavery. Blink twice if you need help.” Was Gale’s response.
“It seems like Astarion's from the upper city, given the embroidery on his armor. I wouldn’t put it past them to have servants that follow them around.” Shadowheart’s nose crinkled at the thought.
The party already had such an interesting rapport. Not entirely comfortable with one another to divulge everything, but loose enough to have semi-pleasant conversation with.
You thought this as you sorted out the fruits of your collective labor into neat pouches and bags, keeping items similar to one another factioned into their respective holding space. The chest being closer to Withers more than you’d like, but it was nice to hear the ramblings of an…undead person? Hearing someone continuously talking allows you to be more productive.
You’ll admit, handling enchanted armor and crystals does make you a tad nervous but you’re comforted by the thought that it will not be you who wields it in battle.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Gale approaching your direction. Possibly to ask for his share of the camp supplies just a little earlier to sate himself as you had an abundance of it for now. You regard him with your back turned and he stops for a bit.
“I will say that I don’t have the lightest of feet, but I figured myself better at sneaking around.” It’s not his fault that he got caught, but the bright purple robe and the smell of the oils you’ve been crafting for them are particularly noticeable.
“You are, but I’ll assume you're not exactly in the best shape after dealing with a few goblins.” You hold up a bottle of a healing potion, swinging it a bit with your fingers to indicate that the smell had warned you of his arrival.
“You’ve got a keen nose on you. Must be from all of Astarion’s training but, speaking of which,” He nears himself to your crouched form, going in to lean against a very old and empty crate.
“Gale, wait–” Right as your warning leaves you, they seem to evade him as falls right through the wood. A comical layer of dust and lichen pluming out from the force. He tries to quickly recover from both the physical and emotional damage as he brushes himself off to make himself presentable once more.
“Ahem, as I was saying,” He again makes his way over to you, settling for just standing close as his attempts to look unbothered temporarily cost him his ego.
“I was serious about what I said before. While I don’t know what to make of our pallid friend just yet, as enigmatic as he is, what he said before is quite confusing. Best make haste away from here if you want your freedom while we’re distracted with this worm problem.” His tone suggests a genuine concern which confuses you.
You’d be lying to yourself if the label of the set up didn’t sound odd, but you’ve never expressed discomfort as there was nothing all too worrying about it on your end. It was mostly for show, and you had as much independence as Tav would have in your game.
You endeavor to quickly dispel his worries.
“You don’t have to worry, I’m very satisfied with my servitude under Astarion. He’s very lenient and reliable, and I’m better off with him than on my own." You return to your task of sifting through your materials but pause and look back up at him to continue.
"I do thank you for turning my way though. Your concern is much appreciated but unnecessary.” You lowered your head a bit to show your thanks.
“Well if someone as generous as yourself says to trust you on this, then I have no choice but to concede! I’ll keep a watchful eye and offer guidance, should you need it. Also, do we happen to have something for—” As he asks you for some sort of salve, just a few ways off, your eccentric “handler,” of sorts, watches the two of you interact.
Don’t get him wrong, such matters don’t really catch his attention, but being an elf does curse him with the ability to have extensive hearing. Something that he thinks Gale knew, and something you forgot. That would explain the lack of distance between you two.
He thinks it’s amusing how the wizard is trying to make conversation with you as if you were some foreign creature. His usual eloquence nowhere to be seen, and you seemed as unbothered as ever. Like how he usually saw you when you conversed with someone through a crystal.
It was a phone, not that he knew that though.
“They’re a real nice one, aren’t they?” Karlach says from her side of the camp which was nearer towards his tent and yours.
“Hm, yes. While that may be an admirable trait, it’s hardly going to get them anywhere if they keep this up.” Astarion huffed out, not very keen on your altruistic playstyle so far.
He doesn’t know much about what you do and don’t know, all he knows is that you do know of the events to unfold and could be the key to defeating his master.
All he needs is to keep you at his side. So he’ll allow you this much freedom.
“Oh come on, you. You can’t seriously think that after everything. Our camp’s pretty well maintained because of ‘em, not to mention the connections we’ve been able to get!” She fortifies her statement by knocking on her chest, the engine humming within feels lighter and newer since you’ve informed her of the tiefling blacksmith at the grove.
He hums in response, returning to reading his book as he thinks about his growing hunger. He’ll have to hunt soon enough. While your positive reputation occasionally reflects on him by proxy, it can also reflect negatively due to the alleged nature of your relationship. If he wants the journey to a way of understanding the tadpoles to be a more comfortable one, he has to at least prevent their trust in him from diminishing.
~
Night falls later than he’d have liked, having waited for everyone to be asleep so that he may prowl the forest for sustenance.
The rest were sound asleep in their bedroll as the skirmish from earlier on in the day had proven to be sufficiently tiring. The crackling fire surely brings a lulling warmth that he supposes he’ll have to miss out on for a while.
As he begins to slink off into the darkness, he looks back to gauge his surroundings and catches your form from across the settlement. It seems you were tallying away the items in the shared chest and double-checking to see that everything is checked and balanced with your records.
Your shoulders jump at his suddenly standing form, but try to understand his intentions. You mouth, “where?” with a very confused face, to which he responds with a simple shushing motion and waits for your acknowledgement.
You nod slowly, and he holds your gaze before sneaking off once again.
‘He’s coming back, right?’ You wondered. The progression of your experience now in comparison to the game was vastly different, and you didn’t know if all scenes, or only some, would present themselves in this world. You assume he planned to hunt, and while you trust his abilities, you want to make sure he’s attended to properly should he be harmed in any way.
So after retrieving a few potions, a journal, and a pencil, you stashed them in a satchel and positioned yourself at the base of the tree in the direction he left in. You weren’t particularly sleepy tonight, and planned to pass the time in wait of your companion.
There wasn’t much to do in this century to keep yourself entertained. The only things you’ve found so far were a few instruments and all manners of journals and inks.
The inkpot that you picked up appeared to be red this time. The game of, “which ink dye will I get this time?” will have to be the most of your entertainment for now. Not all too different from home, you suppose. And while writing keeps your mind at bay, illustrating all manners of wildlife have proven to be quite the fun exercise.
You’ve made a few notes on creatures that you and your company have encountered. The visual elements of a drawing allowed you and the others to keep track of materials that could be salvaged from them, and their resistances to certain attacks.
Though as much as you liked depicting such lifeforms in paper, you’ve come to be very interested in portraying your vampire friend.
Evidence of your interest present in the pages filled with his likeness as you search for an unmarked page. You’ve made a few of the others, yes, but anyone who would gain access to your journal would surely see which member of the group you favor more.
You continued to draw, and occasionally write, on the parchment as you waited for Astarion to come back. All sense of time evading you as you focus on the task at hand.
A perfect opportunity for a tired rogue to surprise an unsuspecting human.
“And what are you still doing up, little one?” He appears from behind the very tree you rested against, causing you to spill a bit of ink on your thumb.
You clicked your tongue, not at all annoyed by the character but by your absentmindedness and now stained appendage.
“Sorry, I was just waiting for you.” You sealed the inkpot, and gathered your materials. Effectively, but unknowingly, hiding your work from peering eyes that were the same deep red as your finger.
“I’m very flattered, darling. But couldn’t you wait until morning? I'm sure this couldn’t have been all too important, yes?” He gestures to your satchel, referring to your journal, but you misinterpreted it as him asking for your medical supplies.
“Oh, that depends. Are you hurt, by any chance? I stayed awake in case you might've needed help tending to yourself.” You opened the pouch to reveal its contents to him, your stained thumb in full view.
The sight makes him sigh out, but is thankful for your offered service.
“I’m alright, nothing of interest happened while I was away.” He considers telling you about the nature of his little…'escapade.' He's unaware if you are of his condition, and he doesn’t wish to out himself if not necessary to avoid possible conflict. So he settles for advising you to rest.
“We need you well rested, my dear. You sleep. I’ll keep watch.” The dialogue is familiar, and you can’t stop yourself from letting a small laugh out as you responded with an equally familiar line
“Thank you. I’ll sleep better for that.” You lower your head as you usually do in gratitude.
“The pleasure is all mine.” He mirrors your gesture, albeit in a way that is most appropriate for someone of his character. “Sweet dreams.”
You walked back to the chest. Returning the potions and ink you’ve plucked from the supply, but keeping the rest of the pouch’s materials with you as you turn in for the night. Awaiting the promise of further study that a new day typically makes.
As Astarion is left with his own thoughts, a sour taste still in his mouth from his earlier meal, he thinks about the man in the journal you kept. He did not see much, only a vague outline of the figure. He thinks about who, or what, it could have been but dismisses the thought rather quickly.
He has no time for a mysterious person with hair less perfect than his own, touching his untainted locks as he does.
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Thank you everyone for your interest in the series!! As per the request of some, I'll now be adding a taglist!
Thank you to @rey26, @shyminnie07, @lynnloveshobi, @iggee-rose, @automnepoet, and @tiannamortis for asking to be tagged!!
#astarion ancunin#astarion x reader#astarion x you#astarion ancunin x reader#astarion x mc#baldur's gate 3 x reader#bg3 x reader isekai(?)#aware!astarion#though I guess not so aware--#lol
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cat and mouse
ever since your first day at the agency you’ve made an effort to avoid dazai and his silly little games, even when he so desperately craves your attention.
pairing; dazai osamu x fem!reader
word count; 3.3k
content warning; nsfw (minors do not interact), unedited, cursing, dazai fingers reader, reader is gifted but their gift is not described/specified, the usual dazai shenanigans, mentions of blood/injury, mentions of murder, probably a lot more
authors note; sigh not only is this a day late but i’m not proud of it so sorry guys :( been so busy lately this was not what i had in mind for this fic, i still hope it’s enjoyable!
when you first joined the agency it was a desperate attempt to find a job that could utilize your gift, after many failed “normal” jobs you just had to accept that your situation wasn’t normal and you needed a job that could handle that. you caught wind of a detective agency full of gifted individuals and knew it was the perfect opportunity.
that’s how you got to where you were now, 6 months into your career as a gifted detective. it has been going perfect, being the longest job you’ve ever had.
there was just one issue, a big one that took its place in the form of a tall, bandaged man who could never leave you alone. dazai osamu, the issue called itself, would be the death of you.
it all started on your very first day at the agency, he wasted little time introducing himself and instead put all of his energy towards wooing you with those doe eyes. you also recall him telling you could rely on him anytime, followed by a wink and a knowing smirk. you were warned by yosano to keep your distance from him, advice that you still regret not taking to this day.
he tried to get your attention for weeks, throwing paper balls on your desk and mouthing at you to open them. inside was always a love note, multiple tiny hearts littering the crumpled paper. he never seemed to take it personally when you would throw those papers in your trash can, forgetting about them to continue on with work.
just when you begin to think he’s finally let go of his obsession with you, one fateful morning you end up alone with him in the office.
“ah, beautiful morning isn’t?” he attempted small talk, you only offered a nod and continued filing out your paperwork.
so engrossed in your work you didn’t realize how close he had gotten until you felt his warm breath fanning your shoulder, you naturally flinched. you cocked your head to glance at him, those tired eyes focused on your computer screen.
“what has you working your sweet little head off?” his curiosity would seem genuine to anyone who wasn’t familiar with dazai and his antics.
you cleared your throat, “just recalling the specifics of my previous mission.” he hummed, his slim hand brushing over yours so he could use the scroll wheel on your mouse. you watched as his eyes scanned the document, analyzing your every word.
being so physically close you were forced to take in all the features of him you chose to ignore, for your own good. you knew dazai was an attractive man, and he knew it too. you didn’t dare to look in his eyes anymore so you focused on his hair, unkempt yet still framed his face perfectly and looked fluffy, you wondered if it felt fluffy too.
“it’s hard to focus with you staring me down like a piece of meat, bella.” he whispered, you gasped at such an accusation.
“whatever, in your dreams.” you bit back, feeling flustered.
he turned to look at you, his eyes danced around your entire face, drinking in every detail of you like a book. many silent moments later, his eyes stopped when they landed on your lips, causing even more turmoil in your chest. it was all too much, being under the heavy gaze of someone like him.
“anyways..” you start, trying to find any excuse to break this close proximity. “the others should be here soon, we should start getting stuff done around here.”
he hummed in agreement, backing away at last. now that you felt like you could breathe again you tried your hardest to continue on with whatever paperwork you had. you ignored the tremble in your fingertips, typing away on the keyboard.
once the others started filing into the office the tension eased substantially, you were thankful for that. kunikida was the first to arrive, surprised to see you both already there. you ignored his curious stare, greeting him properly and then returning to your computer. dazai pestered the poor man for a bit before quieting down himself.
you thought that was it, the weird encounter in the office would be the last of his teasing. couldn’t he see you weren’t in the mood for his games, or was this all too amusing for him to care?
fate would put you in a battle against dazai once again just a mere week later. you both sat in front of your boss, a kind man by the name of fukuzawa. in your months here at the agency your respect for him has only grown, his admiration for his employees and the work they do warmed your heart. you truly felt grateful to be under the command of someone as strong-willed and humble as he was.
“there’s a murder scene i’d like the two of you to look into, please go gather evidence.” he says, hands folded in his lap while he speaks to you.
you’re both silent as he goes over the details of the case. a body found in the museum with suspicion of a gifted individual being involved, it felt as normal as these missions usually are. once you’re dismissed you and dazai make your way outside to the cab waiting for you.
he rushes to open the car door for you, motioning you inside with an eager smile. you sigh, complying with whatever he was up to.
you shuffle around a bit until you’re comfortable, dazai takes his seat beside you and the car begins moving. while dazai stared out of the window on his side, you occupy yourself with responding to all the messages people have sent you that you pushed aside to finish work. some may call you a workaholic (dazai), others (kunikida) call you a devoted employee, you much preferred the title of a devoted employee. your desire to be of use was finally fulfilled now that you were at the agency, for that you were eternally thankful.
“my dear y/n, i just realized something!” the loud voice of dazai makes you cringe, clutching your poor phone into a death grip.
he doesn’t let you respond, “this is our first time handling a case together alone, just the two of us!” the excitement in his tone makes you irritated.
“and what about it?” your monotonous response makes the brunette clutch his chest, a look of hurt in his eyes.
“we finally get the alone time we’ve been dying to have since our little moment in the office.” if the phone that was still being strangled in your palm wasn’t already broken, it sure was now.
“you totally misread the situation in the office, i wasn’t even looking at you like that!” the anger in your tone came across as an embarrassed yelp, it made his grin grow wider.
there was no point in arguing with a man who has made up his mind, he totally thought you were checking him out and now he’ll never back down. an exasperated sigh left your lips, deeply regretting not taking yosano’s warning seriously.
thankfully, all you had to endure for the rest of the car ride was dazai’s humming to a tune you were unfortunately accustomed to by now. it was hard to forget said song when it was always filling the office air, either by dazai’s singing or the sound blaring from his headphones that were definitely not noise-canceling.
hell, you even caught yourself humming the tune from time to time, not that you’d ever let someone else find out.
“we’re here.” you thanked the driver, hastily leaving the vehicle before dazai could open the door for you.
the museum in front of you was old, ready to crumble at any given moment, many of the stone bricks were cracked beyond repair and the shrubs that surrounded the entrance were all dead or dying. you never got the details on whether or not the place was even running anymore.
“this museum shut down years ago and no one has bought it since, perfect place to commit murder.” dazai appeared beside you, seemingly answering the question to your thoughts.
you nodded in agreement, stepping inside without a second thought.
inside all you could see was chaos, shattered glass from broken display cases and graffiti littering the walls. it almost pained you, seeing how this once beautiful sanctuary of history was now torn to shreds for no good reason.
you found what you were looking for quick, the bright yellow caution tape gave it away. you’re sure the police had already come to take the body, so it didn’t surprise you when you didn’t see anything there.
fukuzawa strictly said you were only here to gather evidence, so that’s what you’ll do. while you got to work, dazai lazed around the building, kicking random trash around to entertain himself. he would giggle when you scolded him for tampering with possible clues.
you knew you were only here to gather evidence but something about the whole situation felt so strange to you, leaving you no choice but to investigate further. normally, you pride yourself in how well you are at gathering information needed for an investigation, but this time around you were completely stumped.
it had your brain so wracked you even contemplated calling ranpo, however you fought against it since you knew he was already working on a case today and you didn’t want to bother him just because you couldn’t find clues that may not exist.
after a few more minutes of coming back empty handed the realization hit you like a truck, a soft breath leaving your lips at your newfound discovery.
“dazai..” you mumble, still a bit unsure of your conclusion, he only hummed in response.
“i don’t think a murder ever occurred here.” nothing but silence on his part, until you hear the shuffling of his footsteps and his breath hot against your ear.
“well done, flower! to be honest, i didn’t think you would figure it out this quickly.” his hushed voice felt loud with him being so close to you.
you were left confused once again, if dazai knew from the start why didn’t he just say so? or was he the one who orchestrated this whole thing? so many questions reeling through your brain, and dazai was thoroughly enjoying watching you piece together the mystery he created for you.
but alas, he had to cut it short, you two had limited time here after all. fukuzawa would eventually figure out dazai’s antics and there would be hell to pay, that was a problem for later though.
“i made the whole thing up!” he admitted, lips still dangerously close to your ear. “you were always so busy, i needed to get you alone for once.”
you pushed him off you in an instant, anger bubbling inside you. never once did you expect dazai to do something like this, no matter how crazy he was at times. hell, this was beyond crazy.
“you couldn’t have gone about it like a normal fucking person? jesus christ, dazai!” you were now pacing, thinking of all the time you lost entertaining this game of his when it could have been spent at the office or on a real case.
“oh bella please, let me finish.” he begged, stepping close to you again.
you protested for a second time, taking a step back so he couldn’t reach you. it would prove to be the wrong move, your ankle catching on a stray piece of rubble from all the broken displays in this damned building. you’re sent tumbling backwards, a cry leaving your lips as you reached out to grasp dazai’s open arms.
your landing is hard, your ankle throbbing with pain from whatever it was caught on. dazai is at your side in an instant, a look of concern adorning his features as he practically cradled you.
“are you okay?” his voice was serious this time around, so much so that it caught you off guard.
“no, my ankle is bleeding.” you state, clear annoyance in your voice whilst you examine your injury.
you’re caught off guard once again by him effortlessly picking you up from the floor and setting you down on a flat, clean surface. now perched on a white table, you let your other leg dangle off the edge while you tend to your hurt ankle.
dazai claims he’ll be back, that he’s going to search for a medkit around here. you nod, happy to be away from his suffocating presence. you’re not anywhere near free from your thoughts though, the lanky man is still clean in your mind.
you didn’t even know he possessed the strength to lift you like that, he always looked so frail and ready to break at any given. you shake your head from any further thoughts of dazai, that stupid man.
“found one.” he was back again, a small medkit in his rather large hands.
despite your many protests he still insisted on caring for you, acknowledging that this was his fault and the responsibility should fall on his shoulders. you kept your mouth shut while he wrapped your foot in the bandages the first aid kit provided. his soft touches to your swollen skin were light, almost soothing.
you hated this, hated how perfect he was. how were you supposed to ignore such a man when his presence was everywhere. most of all though, you were still thoroughly pissed! he not only wasted your time, but the agency’s time, and that was unforgivable in your eyes.
“why?” you question him, “and don’t give me that bullshit ass excuse from before, or so help me.”
he chuckled at your threatening words, eyes remained trained on your foot. there was a momentary pause before his eyes met yours, his held mischievous undertones.
“i was getting tired of this back and forth, you know.” there he goes again like a broken record, you huffed.
“i don’t know what you’re-“ he cuts you off with a finger to your lips, hushing you in the sweetest way he could muster.
“the other day, when you threw away one of my well thought out love letters i went to retrieve it after you left to the bathroom, can you imagine my surprise to find it wasn’t there anymore?” your eyes widen, like a deer caught in the bright headlights of a hunters truck.
“and then i go to check your locker and i see every single one of them in a nice neat stack.” his finger was taken off your lips, his eyebrow raised as if expecting an answer to his discovery.
“why were you in my locker?” you deflect, feeling embarrassed that he knew about your little secret.
instead of answering he finished wrapping your foot, giving the gauze one final tug before leaving it be. he smiled at you, a smile you couldn’t read. with your legs spread out like they were, it gave him the perfect opportunity to weave in between them and trap your body close to his. he did just that, growing dangerously close to you.
“dazai..” you start, unsure.
he doesn’t say anything, instead focusing on treading his fingers against your waist, eyes never once leaving yours.
“we shouldn’t..” you speak again, your breathing growing more sporadic when he hooks one of his fingers underneath your belt buckle, the way he plays with it is teasing.
“why shouldn’t we, bella? i arranged all of this for us anyways.” his way of showing interest in you, doing something so unsound with little care for the consequences.
but oh god, was it attractive. his touch grew more and more needy by the second and you couldn’t find the desire to push him away, because deep down you wanted this too. you knew you wanted the bandaged detective the second you walked through those doors and saw him sitting there, fiddling with little trinkets he had on his desk looking pretty as ever.
“i think we should put an end to this cat and mouse game, hm?” his voice fills your ears again and this time around you listen, nodding whilst wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him even tighter against you.
he’s first to put his lips on yours in a desperate, longing kiss. he tastes sweet, probably from whatever chapstick he uses. the kiss is deeply rooted in lust yet affection as well, he squeezes your waist in the lightest way possible.
“dazai!” you moan out, surprised when he bites your bottom lip teasingly.
“osamu.” he says through the kiss. “call me osamu.” and then he’s back to attacking you, hips rutting into yours.
you think you’ll pass out with how long he’s been kissing you but he eventually pulls away, leaving you gasping for air. he wastes little time, discarding his pants and helping you with yours, the desperation evident in his eyes as he stands before you in just his boxers and dress shirt. he looks like a crazed man who had been holding back for far too long.
once you’re free from the confines of clothing it allows him to truly feel you, his palm cupping your heat. he runs two fingers across your slit before prodding them at your entrance.
“so beautiful, everything about you is so beautiful.” he whispers, stopping his hand entirely.
“dazai.” you say again, sounding more desperate than before, it was even possible.
“osamu.” he corrects, his voice still soft but held hints of firmness.
you repeat his first name back to him and he finally slips two fingers into your cunt. his long fingers are able to reach parts inside of you that your own fingers can’t, the new length has you bucking your hips into his hand.
he lets out a muffled giggle but says nothing, his eyes watching the way you suck his fingers in with every thrust. he looks entranced by the sight, it leaves you feeling shy. you have no time to dwell on your embarrassment as he picks up his pace, along with adding a third digit to your already full pussy.
the stretch of the third finger and the change in pace has you throwing your head back, nails clawing at the table you were perched up against just to give yourself some sort of stability.
you feel your climax approaching quicker than you anticipated, shaking your head from the overstimulation. just before you were about to reach your high, it was ruined by a muffled ringing in dazai’s discarded pants. he pulls his fingers out of you in a swift motion, ignoring your whines of protest as he reaches to grab the phone from his pants pocket.
“hey boss.” he starts, his voice as quirky as ever.
you could hear fukuzawa’s irritated tone through the phone even if you couldn’t pick up his exact words. dazai simply hummed and nodded in agreement, even letting out an apology for the time wasted on a fake case. within just a few minutes the call was over, and dazai’s smile had grown even larger.
he ended the call with a sigh, a pout on his lips that told you he was definitely in trouble when you two got back to the agency. you wondered what excuse he’d give the boss, and what punishment he would receive for lying.
“i’m truly saddened to have to cut this short.” you knew he meant it, you gave him a smile.
“it’s okay, we’ll continue it tonight after we see what kind of hell fukuzawa is gonna put you through for this.” the promise of this continuing excited him, and for once he couldn’t wait to get back to the office to finish up his job.
he helped you put your pants back on before putting on his own, making sure your injury was still well taken care of. this time you don’t fight him even once, allowing him to assist you to the car that was waiting outside for the two of you.
#dazai osamu x reader#dazai osamu#dazai odamu smut#bsd x reader#bungo stray dogs x reader#bungou stray dogs#dazai osamu x reader smut#dazai x reader#osamu x reader#bsd smut#bungo stray dogs smut#bungo stray dogs#bsd x reader smut
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Where the Storm Looms
Copyright Ⓒ 2023 by Moonjxsung
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner. Doing so will result in a legal takedown per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is subject to legal action.
*This fic is part 2 to “When the Rain Stops.” You can read part 1 here.
Pairing: Lee Minho x fem reader
W/c: 13k
Warnings: smoking, drinking, mention of cheating, mention of masturbation, mention of casual sex, brief mention of calories, nipple play, unprotected sex, bulge kink, creampie, squirting
Synopsis: Now living in the city he despises, Minho is determined to find you again- despite the sacrifices he’ll have to make.
18+. mdni!
•
They say if you love something, you have to set it free. And if it comes back to you, it’s yours.
So what implication can be drawn if you go searching for it- for three months and 13 days straight?
Minho isn’t sure.
The city is just as grimy as he remembered it- teeming with the sounds of pushy street vendors, bumper-to-bumper traffic and conversations of plummeting stocks at every corner. The coffee is overpriced, and the people dress in gray slacks even on laundry day. The girls are pretty- they’re decent in bed, they work good jobs and they can carry a conversation well as long as it involves their respective companies or an ex-boyfriend.
But none of them are you.
Minho feels stupid for thinking about it this extensively. A random hookup in his bar as a result of bad weather conditions- one you never even bothered saying goodbye to him after, and yet he’s still hung up on you.
That stupid game. He should've never let you fix that arcade game. Maybe then you wouldn’t have stayed so long, wouldn’t have kissed him back even though he’s the one who initiated it. Wouldn’t have let him fuck you on the pool table, moaning his name over and over again like a prayer permanently etched into his memory. But he didn’t stop any part of it- in fact, he didn’t want to. Minho knows he wouldn’t have been able to deny you anything you asked for that night, not with the way you looked at him through wide sparkling eyes, scared you’d angered him, when all he really wanted was to keep you safe. Safe from the storm, safe from people with ill intent. He’d pour you a hundred cups of Diet Coke on the rocks if you asked, or be a chance card in another game of pool you’d inevitably lose at. He’d make love to you repeatedly on any surface inside the dive bar, kissing you every chance he got like it would be his last. Because you changed something in him that night- and he’s determined to find you again.
*
“Still waiting on that garlic bread. And we have another order for fettuccine.”
Minho nods once, drizzling a pan with olive oil and prepping the ingredients that sit in disarray on the counter in front of him.
Tales from the hotel kitchen.
So maybe getting his job back as a private chef was a harder feat than he’d originally anticipated it to be. But Minho’s sudden assimilation back into city life meant he had to make adjustments- sacrifices. And although he’s still technically the owner of the little dive bar 6 hours out of the city, he recently signed co-ownership off to Jeongin, who’s been practically running the place while Minho does some soul-searching in the city.
Of course, the soul he’s searching for is nowhere to be found.
Coffee shops, bookstores, convenience shops, dive bars... Minho recently read there are nearly 2 million people in this godforsaken city at any given moment of the day. That’s a 0.0000005% chance he’ll run into you again. Coupled with the fact he’s already run into you once before, and slept with you, the odds are considerably lower. But nonetheless, the objective remains.
Sometime after the initial run-in, Minho also realized he knows nearly nothing about you. You never spoke of an occupation, or a significant other, or even your favorite color. He does know you live in the city, you’re vulnerable against married men and you can use a screwdriver like a cellphone. The rest is left to his wandering imagination.
“Minho, your bread is burning,” a voice interrupts, and he snaps out of the daze he’s in to lower the heat on the oven. Minho’s sous chef Seungmin sighs in irritation, practically pushing Minho aside to retrieve the loaf from the oven himself.
“Do you want me to take over for the evening? You seem really distracted and we’re super busy out there.”
“No, I’m fine,” Minho says, his eyes darting briefly to the window across from him.
Dark rain clouds loom over the afternoon sky, but it doesn’t rain- in fact, it hasn’t rained once since that night. At first, he sees it as some sort of blessing, attributing the mostly-clear skies to your presence somewhere in the city. Perhaps where you go, the sun follows.
But he quickly realizes that it’s more of a curse, this constant storm looming over him, taunting him with promises of darkened clouds and rainfall, only for the nighttime to bring clear skies once again.
It never rains anymore. Sometimes Minho thinks he imagined you, that night in his bar.
Maybe he imagined the rain, too.
*
The ceiling of this apartment is in desperate need of some TLC, Minho thinks, as he lays in bed that night with hands folded over his chest. It’s riddled with cracks and imperfections, running along the drywall like a design choice. But it’s not a design choice- it’s a result of the shitty architectural integrity of this crowded city. Everyone’s so desperate to live out here they’d put up with leaky roofs and cockroaches before they’d live in the suburbs. Minho thinks back to his apartment in the suburbs, where his three cats are currently being taken care of by a friend, and the biggest pain point is patching up thumbtack holes when he moves things around. It’s spacious, a lot bigger than this dump, and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.
There’s no set time Minho has dedicated to being out here. “When the time is right, I’ll leave,” he told his friend, averting his gaze to avoid raising suspicions about his intentions out here. But to most, it’s clear Minho is going through something. His hair is visibly longer, the silky ends of it now resting just above his shoulders. He can’t be bothered to care about what he wears, knowing very well that he doesn’t blend in with the other city-dwellers when he’s in jeans and a baggy t-shirt. But without the bar to dress up for like he used to, he doesn’t find reason in trying.
Minho’s also well aware that he looks like a complete lunatic, coming out to the city like this to search for a hookup. If your paths do cross, there’s a likelihood you’ll call the police and have him arrested for stalking. You could also have zero recollection of who he is, or that you ever hooked up with him. You could have a boyfriend, be married by now, or just not interested in Minho. Maybe you regret that night. Maybe you lied about being from the city. You could be on the other side of the world by now, and he’d have no clue.
But he feels it- he feels you, in this city, at every corner he turns. He sees traces of you in the people who smile at him when he passes them by. He sees you in the people who hold doors open for him, the baristas who make foam hearts in his lattes every morning, even the businessmen when they catch themselves admiring the beauty of the buildings on a smoke break. He sees you in all things good, when he’s reminded momentarily that the world has more to offer than boxing him in the confines of a dark bar out in the suburbs. And while he’s not completely in love with life all over again, it’s a start.
The hotel patrons give their compliments to his cooking, and he’s reminded of his days as a private chef again, chasing the sweet high of people fawning over his entrees and desserts. When he calls Jeongin to check up on the bar, he remembers the view out the window by the kitchen- nothing but a parking lot, empty most days, or plagued by truck drivers and prostitutes.
Sure, his apartment window in the city faces a brick wall, but he can escape at any given moment of the day to be part of the towering skyscrapers and city lights that stay on all night. It’s then that he feels bad for Jeongin, who doesn’t have the same luxury all the way out there.
Of course, Minho also remembers the sex from that night. It plays in his head on a loop, often echoing in his brain at the worst of times. The way you’d called out his name was all but intoxicating, chanting it in the empty space of the spare room like you’d done it a hundred times before. Your fingers looped through his hair, massaging his locks in praise while your moans did the rest. Your lips on his, smiling when he teased you about the game of pool- teasing him back, like the complex woman he knew you were.
He remembers the way your hardened nipples felt between his fingers, memorizing their feel with his nimble hands while he pressed his third erection of the night against you, a confession that this is what you do to me.
The way you took him with complete ease, undoubtedly craving him, too, gushing with arousal as he fit so perfectly inside you.
“You’re so big,” you’d said to him, and Minho isn’t sure he ever felt confident in his girth until it was inside of you, thrusting in and out like he was trying to make his semen catch, painting your walls white while you squirted on his still-hard cock.
He can’t get off with girls from the city unless he’s thinking of you and him, in the bar, bent over the pool table. He also avoids the spare room of the bar now, getting hard almost instantly at the sight of it.
It’s embarrassing, and he knows it, tucking his now-softened cock back into his boxers and reaching for tissues on his makeshift cardboard box nightstand. The shame washes over him as he folds his hands over his chest again, eyes locked with the shitty drywall ceiling. Have the cracks gotten bigger? He’s not sure of the large one to the left, caving in toward the window in the shape of a backwards L. If it rains, the roof will surely leak. How do you fix a leaky roof? Is it ever going to rain again? Where are you?
*
On a random Tuesday in the middle of the month, Minho runs into Jisung again.
He’s out by one of the tall buildings in the financial district, one hand shoved in the pocket of his suit while the other brings a turquoise-colored vape up to his lips.
Of course he vapes, Minho thinks. He’s just as predictable as he’s always been.
“Is that the Lee Minho?” Jisung says, blowing a cloud of strawberry-scented smoke into the air. Minho shrugs, saying nothing as he approaches Jisung.
“What are you doing all the way out here? Lost ownership of the bar or what?”
“No,” Minho replies, a stoic expression on his face. “I’m living here.”
“You’re living here? You? Avid hater of city life and all things that inhabit it?”
“Yeah,” Minho says, counting black spots on the concrete below him. “Not permanently. Just looking for something.”
“What are you looking for?”
Minho swallows momentarily. He knows he could bring up your name, and Jisung would probably know where to find you. After all, the two of you bonded over your love of the city before you almost went home with him that night. But he refrains, suddenly feeling a little jealous and overprotective. It’s the reminder that Minho was technically a second choice- maybe you’d just slept with him to get some relief for the sexual tension you felt with Jisung. You did lecture him when he cockblocked you, after all.
“Seeing if the apartments are better out here,” he settles on saying. “They’re not.”
Jisung chuckles. “Yeah, well, I could’ve easily told you that.”
He slides his vape back into the pocket of his suit, adjusting the buttons as he begins to speak again.
“When was the last time I saw you, anyway?”
Minho blinks nervously. His mind races with options of what to reply, but Jisung is faster.
“That storm!” He finally exclaims, clapping enthusiastically. “When we were stuck there while it rained fucking cats and dogs out there. You, me and Miss ‘hard to get’.”
“Right,” Minho says, his pulse quickening a little at the mention of you.
“Can you believe she backed out like that? I went back to that hotel with blue balls like you wouldn’t believe. I bet she’s a good fuck, too, the way she’s persuaded so easily.”
Minho grows irate, doing his best to refrain from lashing out at Jisung to defend you. The way he speaks about you like you’re disposable, like you weren’t only swayed by him because he puts on this act, one where he’s single and nice. Both polar opposite of the sleazy man standing in front of Minho right now.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jisung says. “I ran into her like a week after that, anyway.”
Minho feels his heart stop. He finally makes eye contact with Jisung, voice hitching in the back of his throat as he searches for words to say. What were you doing? What were you wearing? Were you with anyone? Did Jisung try to pursue you again? Was there any trace that you were as changed by Minho as he is by you?
“You did?” Minho queries.
“Yeah. She remembered me, for sure. Said she googled me and found out I was married. That’s the problem with women these days- they fucking google you. Who does that?”
Minho observes the way Jisung snorts with laughter, shaking his head like he’s not a serial cheater himself.
“Where was she?” Minho asks, quickly aware of the way the question comes off as a little too bold.
“Uh… I can’t remember. Think we were in the parking garage off 7th. She was all dressed up like she was going to work or something. Must be a private investigator with the way she stalks her potential hookups.”
Minho laughs internally at the irony.
“Why do you ask?” Jisung chimes in again, sounding a little skeptical of Minho’s behavior now.
“Nothing,” Minho says quickly. “Just curious.”
Jisung nods slowly, not taking his gaze off of Minho. He’s visibly tense, thoughts circling his mind as he tries to recall the buildings on 7th.
“I should get going,” Jisung says, pulling his vape back out to take another hit, much like the nicotine-addicted cheater Minho sees him for.
“Good catching up,” Jisung finishes, exhaling a cloud of smoke into his face. “Catch you later.”
And as Minho leaves, he turns back around to Jisung, pausing momentarily before speaking again.
“Oh, Jisung?”
“Yeah?”
Minho cocks his head slightly.
“Your wife really deserves better.”
*
The parking garage on 7th is a shithole. It’s a narrow, almost cylindrical building, filled back to back with rows of fancy cars. Minho remains parked on the third floor, sat in his car like he’s staking out the place, eyes darting over every passerby in hopes you’ll be one of them.
But they’re all middle-aged folks, blabbering into their cellphones with briefcases in hand, no sense of purpose for the life they’re living aside from money, and maybe their fancy cars.
He sighs, reaching for a cigarette and cupping his hand over the lighter to set it ablaze. Smoking is a recent development. Minho doesn’t think he’s chain-smoked like this since his culinary school days, when he’d spend late nights preparing for exams and practicing his plating techniques. It’s not that the cigarettes relieve him, nor does he even care for the flavor. But he does it as a form of sacrifice. The city keeps you from him, and consequently, he’s pulled back largely from things he actually enjoys, choosing to mirror the actions of the city-dwellers. Smoking, casual sex, drinking, dressing down, hardly ever eating full meals. He’s become reduced to a product of the disdain he feels for himself, spiraling further with every cruel reminder that you’re not his.
When his car stakeout passes the three hour mark, Minho is all out of cigarettes. He’s also starving, and dying for a beer. So he pulls out of the lot, most of the spaces vacant now, anyway, and starts the painful trip back to his apartment. The streets smell like sewage with his windows rolled down, but his own car reeks like a cheap casino. With one hand hanging loosely over the door of his car, Minho speeds down the crowded streets, groaning when he’s promptly halted by a red light. Cars press their horns impatiently as nobody seems to move. Minho glances to the right of him, scanning the streets that begin to darken as night falls. And then he sees it- a dive bar. It’s a city dive bar, of course, tainted by its rustic gentrifying decor and teeming with hipsters. But he’s sure you’re in there, knowing you probably regularly finish work and hit up the nearest bar to down Diet Cokes and chicken wings. In a frantic motion, Minho puts the car in reverse, using one hand to steer as he makes an illegal u-turn. The cars around him honk angrily, shouting profanities and pulling up to fill his spot. But he crosses several lanes to reach the bar, a sense of anticipation bubbling inside him already.
*
The place is much fancier than Minho’s, albeit much smaller. An open bar makes up most of the dive bar itself, a sleek laminate wood finish surrounding the series of draft beer dispensers. The wall above the bar is plastered in license plates from all different regions, and the patrons around all appear to be tourists judging by the way they take photos of it. There are several bartenders working tonight, the nearest one to Minho being a heavily tattooed gentleman with bleach blonde hair.
“What can I get you?” He asks enthusiastically, holding a pen and pad in his hand. Minho’s not sure he’s ever seen a bartender write down an order for a single beer.
When the bartender makes his way to the tap, Minho sits on one of the circular red stools. They’re a little too tall for his liking, swiveling around erratically while he catches his balance and glances around at the patrons. He’s the only one alone here, standing out even more in his loose jeans and an old jersey.
“That’s $12,” the bartender says when he returns.
“Can I just run a tab?” Minho asks, scoffing internally at the steep price.
“First drink’s upfront payment,” the bartender replies, flipping a tablet around to Minho for his payment details. Minho swipes his card and confidently smashes the ‘no tip’ button, earning a little eye roll from the bartender. These bars are nothing like his back home.
When the bartender moves away to attend to another patron, Minho swivels around on his stool, scanning the bar for a sign of you. There’s not a single cup of coke on any of the tables here. Everyone’s happily sipping away at whiskeys and vermouths, their drinks clutched closely in hand as they chat about their boring lives. Minho tunes in briefly to a conversation about someone’s broken toe and sighs, wishing so badly he had you to converse with. You’d probably laugh at all of Minho’s jokes about the people here, agreeing with his presumptions of them. See him? He’s definitely compensating. That guy there needs to cool off the vodka seltzers. She’s definitely not interested in him.
As he takes a sip from his mug of beer, it suddenly catches his eye. The arcade game, tucked away in the back of the bar like a little secret. It’s neglected, probably no one around old enough to know how to operate the thing. Minho rises from his seat, making his way to the game and smiling at the sight.
It reminds him of you, the giant black display of Galaga, decorated with whimsical drawings of aliens and Galaxian Flagships. He pulls out a quarter, slotting it in the machine, because of course you have to pay at this one, and slots it in, waiting for the thing to start up.
Only it doesn’t, the game not even emitting so much as a hum from the monitor. He smacks it a few times, partly in efforts to start it up, and partly to reclaim his last quarter. But it’s a moot effort- the game is completely dead.
Minho makes his way back to the bar, frustrated at the deja vu of broken arcade games and the memories they bring back to him.
“Your game’s broken,” Minho says to the bleach blonde bartender.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. That thing’s been dead for months now.”
“I put a quarter in. Swallowed it and won’t spit it out.”
“Yeah, it does that. Sorry, man.”
“Sorry? You should be. That thing shouldn’t be down here if it isn’t working.”
The bartender narrows his eyes as he mixes another drink for a patron.
“Yeah, well, people don’t usually try it. Again, sorry man. Not really anything I can do about it.”
Minho is angry now, his ears flushed a crimson shade as he speaks, not in any mood to reason with the bartender.
“Look man, just give me my quarter. Can’t you key the machine or something?”
“We don’t have access to it. It’s from some local vendor. You’re welcome to go find a few pennies on the ground if the 25 cents means so much to you.”
“What the fuck kind of behavior is that for a bartender?”
The other patrons and bartenders have noticed now, quieting down as they watch Minho down a few more sips of his beer angrily.
“Look man, you’re gonna have to leave. I can’t have you in here acting like this.”
“I want my quarter.”
“I can’t get your quarter, dude. It’s gone. Get out before I call the police.”
“Why don’t you hire someone to fix the machine, then? There are people in the city who do that, you know. I know someone who’d get it fixed in seconds. She’d be able to get the fucking quarter out, too.”
“Call the police,” the bartender says to another, and Minho raises his hands up in surrender.
“Relax, I’m leaving.” He chugs the rest of his beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as the other patrons look on in shock. Nearby, a different bartender has a phone clutched in his hand, ready to dial the cops like they’d requested.
“Tell me one thing,” Minho says before turning around.
The man says nothing, eyes narrowed in fear as he waits for Minho to finish.
“You guys sell Diet Coke here?”
The bartenders look around at each other nervously, confused at the question.
“We only have Pepsi,” one chimes in.
And Minho nods, understanding.
“Take care,” Minho says, waving them off as he finally exits the bar.
*
“I need you to come back for a little bit,” Jeongin says into the receiver one morning. He sounds panicked, like he might break down at any moment. Minho knows he wouldn’t request this of him if it wasn't something serious.
“Okay,” Minho replies. “What happened?”
“The place was robbed last night. By a group of guys. Nobody’s hurt, but they did have a knife on them. Cleared out one of the registers.”
Minho sighs, suddenly feeling awful about being out here. What is he doing out here when the business he owns is being threatened? Even worse, putting Jeongin and the other staff at risk while he embarks on the futile task of searching for what’s already gone? There’s no good explanation for it. It’s selfish- sure, he’s finally chasing after what he wants, but it’s a selfish task nonetheless.
“I can be there this evening,” Minho says, already mentally preparing himself for the six hour drive out there. “Just close up for the day. Make sure everyone gets home safe and knows they’ll be paid for the day anyway.”
Jeongin understands, hanging up on his end of the line and closing up the bar.
As Minho tosses his cell phone aside, he looks around the apartment, sighing heavily when he observes the state of things. His stuff is still stored away in cardboard boxes, the apartment looking more like a showroom than a space lived-in by him. The walls remain bare of any form of decorations, the tiny excuse for a kitchen is void of dishes and cutlery, even his toiletries are in travel bags, like he’s ready to go home at any given moment. And he just might be, after this week’s events.
*
The drive home is as excruciating as he remembers it. Exiting the city means sitting in miles of traffic, alongside impatient city-dwellers who somehow voluntarily make the commute everyday for their jobs. Minho briefly wonders if you’re in the traffic, too. You’re a little impatient, he remembers, thinking about how you demanded a phone charger from him that night in the bar. Only your impatience is something he’d gladly put up with in traffic like this, probably taking the opportunity to play his favorite songs for you and listen to you talk his ear off. He sighs to himself, wishing so badly you could fill the empty leather seat next to him, currently inhabited by empty cigarette boxes and discarded takeout boxes.
Six agonizing hours later, the sun’s beginning to set as Minho pulls into the familiar parking lot of the bar. Waning beams of sunlight reflect off the old bar sign, almost luring Minho inside as the nighttime chases closely after. When he unlocks the door and makes his way inside, it’s like he never left. The red booths are vacant, the peeling vinyl of their seats still scattered across the floor like he remembers. Bottles of alcohol neatly line the shelves behind the counter, which don’t reside far from the shiny mugs and glasses inside the cabinets. Minho runs a finger over the counter, well impressed with the state of the bar since Jeongin’s taken over. It’s impeccable, almost better than it was when Minho first left.
“Minho?” A voice calls, and a figure peeks from around the corner.
It’s Jeongin, who looks different in casual wear for the day, sporting a pair of sweatpants and a simple black t-shirt. He’s wearing his signature pair of thick framed glasses, running a hand through his hair as he takes a seat on one of the barstools.
“It was this register,” he says, gesturing to the one closest to Minho. “I think it was roughly $300 in there. They all had dark jackets and I couldn’t see their faces.”
Minho nods, opening the register to investigate, and then slumps back in the stool behind the counter.
“I’ll take the remaining cash to the safe. Let’s stay closed for a few days while I file a police report. They’ll probably want to poke around in here, and I don’t want any of the patrons to panic.”
It’s Jeongin’s turn to nod, making a mental note of Minho’s instructions. After a brief pause, he speaks again.
“How’s the city?”
“The city is…the city.”
Jeongin chuckles lightly, shaking his head.
“Are you working?”
Minho nods. “Not my private chef gig. But it’s a restaurant. I have a sous chef, which helps. It’s nothing special, though.”
There’s a moment of silence as Jeongin traces the table pattern with his fingers. He wants to ask more from him- he wants to know why Minho’s out there in the first place, why he even agreed to sign co-ownership off to Jeongin when this was his bar he was so proud of for all those years. But there’s seemingly no courteous way to go about it- any which way, he feels like he’s overstepping. Minho is usually on the quieter side, only confiding in his colleagues when it’s something that affects the business.
“Minho, are you…” he begins, his voice wavering in fear that he’ll unintentionally offend.
“Have you found what you’re looking for?”
Minho is silent, and for a second, it’s hard for Jeongin to gauge his reaction. His eyes remain locked on Jeongin’s pupils, trembling in discomfort as he thinks back to you. He thinks of the city, of the bar fight, of the hours spent in a dingy parking garage and the cracks in his apartment ceiling.
Jeongin begins to take back his question, disappointed in himself he’s even chosen to utter the inquiry. But Minho finally does give an answer, albeit a vague one.
“Not yet,” he replies, swallowing nervously before continuing. “You’ll be the first to know.”
When Jeongin leaves, he takes the cozy atmosphere of the bar with him, and the place now feels colder, more unfamiliar. Minho looks out the window at the darkness that envelopes the parking lot, feeling a sense of unease in knowing he’s going to leave it all behind again. This bar needs him, it needs stability. It needs someone to look out for the people who are vulnerable to sleazy married men or robbers. As he pockets the cash to transfer to the safe, he glances at the yellow Pac-Man game, sitting proudly where it has for the past three months since its repair. Little ghosts dance along the display screen, prompting users with ‘press A to start’.
Minho simply walks past it, knowing very well there’s little joy in a game that only brings back painful reminders. He makes his way to the back office, where the red leather couch and desk still remain. The cash is deposited in the safe, and the keys in the file cabinet- third drawer from the top.
Minho feels a gravitational pull to the spare room upstairs- he knows he shouldn’t, very well aware that he’s only hurting himself by picturing you up there. But still he does. Hands shoved in his pockets, he makes his way up the creaking stairs and through the little hallway.
The room is just as suffocating as he remembers it. The same old pool table sits in the middle of the room, and at the back where the arcade game previously lived, there’s a rectangle on the carpeted floor where it once sat, contrasting a bright untouched green to the older, worn down carpet. Minho doesn’t leave the doorway; he just stands, observing the room in all its mundane appearance. His eyes remain on the spot you’d previously hoisted yourself up to sit on the pool table, and he can almost see himself looming over you, too. From this angle, it doesn’t feel like it ever happened. It plays more like a cheap movie where a famous scene was shot. Like a figment of his imagination.
Have you found what you’re looking for?
He hasn’t, not yet. But seeing the potential of this old room, in the bar he owns, Minho knows it’s finally time to stop searching.
*
Back in the city, Minho’s days are numbered by the countdown. Two days until he’ll leave all this behind, for good this time.
The kitchen is busier than normal on this gloomy Thursday, more staff than usual working floor while others make trips up to hotel rooms for delivery.
Minho drizzles pans with olive oil in between plating a shrimp scampi, tonight’s special. The air is thick and fragrant with seafood and Parmesan cheese.
“I need a lava cake for room 302!” Seungmin exclaims to Minho in a rushed tone.
“On the cart by the door. Second row.”
Cooks work diligently in their respective areas, and Minho wipes his brow with the back of his sleeve. It’s a stressful role, no doubt, but he still feels a sense of sadness knowing he won’t be back to cooking like this once he’s back in town. He tries to mentally prepare himself for days of mixers and signature cocktails again.
“Minho, get out of here and go take a lunch,” Seungmin says as he reappears from behind the door. “That way the schedule doesn’t rearrange.”
Seungmin is a blunt sous chef, but he’s dedicated to his work. Minho knows he’ll have no problem working his way up to a head chef role one day. He appreciates his attention to detail and ability to work with difficult patrons, and he’d certainly entertain the idea of bringing him to work at the bar back home if he liked.
“On it,” Minho says, already pulling off his apron.
“Oh, and can you bring a Diet Coke to table 6 out there? I brought regular on accident.”
“Yup,” he says plainly, grabbing a clear glass from the clean stack and filling it at the fountain.
Minho thinks back to his apartment- this might be his last day at work, but he still has a generous amount of packing to do when he gets home. He’s relieved he kept most of his stuff in boxes, or else he’d easily be stuck here another week.
Minho counts boxes in his head, balancing the glass in one hand and his apron in another as he exits the kitchen to the seating area. He’s seldom out here, only really passing through when he gets in for the day. But he’s not in charge of serving guests, and the whole thing suddenly feels a little uncomfortable to him. Quiet jazz music plays overhead as tables fill the room with noise of their conversations, everyone dressed up with legs crossed neatly under white tablecloths.
Minho looks around frantically as beads of condensation on the glass wet his hand- where the hell is table 6?
A family sits at the back, every member paired with their drink of choice. An older couple sits closer to Minho, two cups of coffee steaming in front of them.
And by the window, two women deep in conversation- one of them passionately sharing tales of work or perhaps a lover.
And the other one, you.
Minho thinks he’s hallucinating for a moment, when he first observes you sitting there. You’re nodding as the other woman talks, a smile pulling on your face as she exaggeratedly makes a hand motion during her story. You’re not dressed like the other city-dwellers here, looking starkly more beautiful in a sweater and a pair of jeans. You’re the only one in here wearing jeans, aside from Minho. He smiles when he takes notice.
Another server passes Minho in a rush, shoving by him with a tray of food in hand.
“Oh sorry,” he says, eyeing him a little confused. “Did you want me to take that? I know you’re on lunch.”
Minho grips the coke firmly in his hand, shaking his head almost immediately. He’s never refused something so fast in his life before.
“No, I got it,” he says, finally taking the first step toward your table.
Minho glances down at his appearance briefly, fixing the collar of his shirt as he approaches you. He’s a little more dressed up for his last day here, a pastel blue button-up tucked into his jeans, his now long hair parted down the middle. He wishes he could tuck back into the bathroom and see himself more clearly, but he knows he’ll lose you if he doesn’t make his move now.
Minho’s thought of this moment so many times, replayed the conversation in his head like a speech he’s been waiting to give. He wants to proclaim his adoration for you, giving you a romantic explanation of how he’s searched for you all these months and never stopped thinking of you. And in an ideal scenario, you’d say the same, kissing him in front of all the restaurant-goers here and leaving back to town with him to live happily ever after.
But he’s never considered the idea of a friend being present. Or being crunched for time on a 30-minute lunch break. It’s all happening so fast, and his head spins with anxiety as he approaches you.
You’re still in conversation when he sets your Diet Coke down at the table a little too hard, hoping to get your attention. You don’t so much as look his way as he does, and he lingers by your table for a moment as he thinks.
“Do you need a straw?” Minho asks, eyes darting over your face briefly. Your hair is a little longer, too, but you look the same. He’s sure you’re not a hallucination.
“No thank you,” you say, finally glancing over at him to give a small nod.
And just like he’s lost for more words, you seem to be too, lips parting slightly as you keep your gaze fixed on his.
*
“Thank you for lunch,” you say to your colleague at the end of the meal, who’s been passionately talking about her recent project at work for the last hour.
You tuned her out after the first 15 minutes, being completely awestruck when the server delivered your requested Diet Coke to your table.
Either the brain fog from work is finally starting to catch up with you, or you’re simply too tired. But the server looks exactly like Lee Minho, the bartender you slept with a few months ago. Normally, you’d tuck away and hide at the sight of running into a hookup again. But Minho wasn’t just a hookup to you.
He’s lingered amongst your thoughts for the better part of those three months, the polite action of protecting you from sleeping with a married man and letting you seek shelter in the storm remaining some of the nicest things someone’s ever done for you.
He wasn’t just a hookup, not with the way he spoke of his hopes and dreams and asked about all of yours. And then he fucked you like a husband, the feeling you got from him bending you over the pool table like that still sending chills down your spine.
Your colleague pulls her scarf and coat on, nodding as she gestures to the door. The lunch rush has died down by now, and most of the tables are vacant as the streets bustle with people returning to work.
“I’m gonna grab a meal to-go,” you tell her. “I’ll meet you back at the office. Thank you again for lunch!”
Fortunately for you, she doesn’t question it, leaving you to order as she heads back to the office.
Minho is nowhere to be seen, only one server present on the floor as it’s more empty now.
“Can I help you?” A voice asks, and you’re met with the warm smile of the singular server.
“I… I wanted to give my compliments to the chef,” you say, sounding a little unsure of yourself.
“I’ll be sure to do that, thank you very much,” he replies, bowing when he finishes.
“I meant my personal thanks,” you clarify, and he furrows his brows in response.
“Uh… sure, I can ask him. Do you know if it was the head chef?”
“His name’s Lee Minho,” you say with a smile. “He’s probably the head chef.”
*
Minho’s sous chef runs his kitchen like the navy, you quickly learn, as he ushers for you to leave soon after Minho exits the kitchen due to the impending dinner rush.
There’s no time to catch up with him, only being able to utter a short “thanks for the meal,” as he waits for you to speak.
But he recognizes you, his gaze staying on yours a little too long as he nervously bows.
“Y/n,” he says in response, the action saying nothing and yet so much at the same time.
And you smile back at him, relieved he still remembers.
As Seungmin calls for him a second time, you pull a pen from the pocket of his apron, scribbling your address on a napkin from one of the tables.
He nods back at you, napkin clutched in hand, as he makes his way back to the kitchen.
And for a brief moment, neither of you can make out the implications of the action. An invitation for sex? A date to catch up? The details are blurry to both of you. But you hope he shows, and Minho already knows he wouldn’t miss it for the world.
*
As you fix your hair in front of the mirror that evening, memories of Minho play in your mind like they did after the night you spent together. You know you had to leave- it wasn’t something you decided lightly, but you and him are fated for different things. And who are you to intervene where the stars align? Minho deserves someone who will be available for him, someone uncomplicated and willing to inhabit the place he loves so dearly.
You, on the other hand, have a historical bad run with men, and so pursuing Minho would be uncharacteristic. But also unfair to him. It’s clear from that night that your worst traits will always remain the most significant parts of you- impatience, judgment and naivety. And while Minho comes off as curt, he’s anything but. He’s too good for you. You’re just a byproduct of this city- everything he despises. It would be over before it even started.
Minho shows at exactly a quarter to nine, knocking twice at the door as he waits out in the hallway for you.
When you unlatch the door, he perks up from nervously staring at the carpeted floor, adjusting his collar and clearing his throat. He looks more casual than you’ve probably ever seen him before, in a striped gray and black top, layered with a black collared shirt and dark ripped jeans. He also looks particularly handsome tonight, but also different, noticeably thinner in his face where his cheekbones protrude generously, his hair a little longer now.
“Hi,” Minho says plainly, his gaze fixated on yours in an almost trance-like state.
“Hi,” you reply, unsure of where to start. “Come in, please.”
You step aside, ushering him into your apartment and shutting the door behind you both. Minho looks around, impressed with the state of your apartment in comparison with his. There are cherry wood bookshelves lining the walls, filled top to bottom with stacks of old novels and textbooks. Colorful modern paintings decorate the walls, which are admittedly much taller than his own, and cozy lighting fills every room in the space.
Minho bows a little, handing you a bottle, and you smile in amusement as you scan the contents. A single liter of Diet Coke.
“You remembered,” you say, endeared by the simple action.
“So you don’t waste your calories,” he replies with a small smile, echoing the statement you told him so many months ago.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” you tell him. Minho takes note of the shakiness in your voice, a little relieved that you seem to be as nervous as he is. It’s certainly not a matter of picking up where you left off when you both have your walls up like this, but he prefers the silence to your absence any day.
You disappear into the kitchen, pouring both of you glasses of Diet Coke as Minho settles on the edge of the couch. He folds his hands in his lap and blinks nervously, trying so hard to remember everything he’s wanted to confess to you since returning here. But in this proximity to you, in your own home, everything suddenly seems like a bad idea. He feels dramatic, overbearing, trying to make sense of this. Maybe he shouldn’t have come.
When you return, Minho takes a deep breath, quietly thanking you for the beverage when you place it on the coffee table in front of him. And then as he feared, a silence washes over both of you.
You take a sip of your coke, waiting for him to speak, and similarly, he waits for you. You’d forgotten, briefly. That Minho is inherently a quiet guy. It’d been you who brought his walls down, challenged him to a game of pool and even instigated the argument when he told Jisung to leave the bar. As he blinks at you a few times, you realize it may be his way of asking you to do it again, to help him feel comfortable again.
“Your Italian food is on par with your chicken wings,” you say to him, finally breaking the silence. “Think you need to add shrimp scampi to your bar menu.”
Minho smiles, and the whole room seems to brighten up when he does. His eyes turn to little crescents, his grin flashing you the skewed front teeth you were so endeared by when you first met him. His presence feels like the bar did- safe, familiar.
“It’s not my best work,” he replies. “It’s just a temporary job. But I do have a sous chef here, which is a plus.”
“The one with the nice smile? I know, he almost kicked me out for asking to see you. He’s very deceiving.”
You and Minho share laughter, recalling how Seungmin yelled at you several times at the restaurant today. When your laughter dies down, he swallows nervously, unsure of how to proceed.
“Thanks for… giving your compliments today,” he says. He really wants to say ‘thank you for seeing me again’.
“I knew I recognized you,” you say back to him. “I was surprised to see you here in the city. I guess I just wanted some confirmation it was really you.”
“It’s me,” Minho says sheepishly. You smile at him, feeling a little sorry at the way his tone sounds so unsure.
“What are you doing in the city, anyway?” You ask.
Minho isn’t sure what to say. In an alternate timeline, he’d like to tell you he came for you. But he knows he’ll come off as a creep, and the last thing he wants is to lose you again.
“Just wanted a break from the suburbs,” he settles on saying.
“Do you like it?”
He toys with a frayed hem on the throw pillow beside him, shaking his head a little hesitantly.
“If I say no, you’ll think less of me.”
He regrets the words as soon as they leave his lips, not wanting you to think he came here for you to pity him. In fact, the reality is quite the opposite.
“I would never think less of you,” you assure him with a gentle smile. “You’re allowed to have your opinions.”
Minho nods, not entertaining the subject anymore.
“How’s the bar?”
“It’s okay,” Minho says, sighing a little as he thinks back to recent events. “It was robbed just the other night.”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” you say to him with widened eyes. “Is everyone… okay?”
“Everyone’s okay,” he affirms. “Just lost some money. I’m working with the police on it, so hopefully we’ll have someone arrested if we’re lucky.”
You nod at his words, feeling disheartened at the mention of the robbery. Although you’re not particularly fond of the suburbs, the bar is a sacred space for you, and knowing he and the staff were put in that situation makes you uneasy.
“How’s work?” Minho asks, and you chuckle at the question.
“Nothing special. I did get a promotion last month, but I’m only making a few dollars more than I was last time we met. Nothing to write home about.”
“We’ll congratulations anyway,” Minho says, raising his glass of Diet Coke. “Well deserved.”
“Thank you,” you say, clinking your glass against his and letting the cool carbonated beverage soothe the nerves still present in your demeanor.
“Oh, you’ll never believe it! I ran into Jisung out here,” you say to Minho with a scoff. “He tried to pursue me again, the bastard. I’m pretty sure he was even wearing a wedding ring this time. I had to tell him I found out he was married on-”
“On Google,” Minho finishes your sentence. “He told me.”
“You saw him too?”
“Yeah, just the other day. He’s just as obnoxious as he was three months ago.”
You smile at Minho, briefly reminded of the way you were able to bond with him as a result of Jisung’s antics.
“I never got to say thank you,” you say a little quietly, averting his gaze. “For that night. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you there to help me.”
He looks down, pondering your words for a moment.
“You left without saying goodbye.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. Trust me. But I figured…” your voice trails off, trying desperately to decipher how to word your sentiment politely.
“Figured what?” He says, looking back up at you. His eyes tremble a little in anticipation for your reply.
“I figured we’re just different people.”
Minho nods, pursing his lips together as he replays your words.
“And by that you mean that you’re a successful member of the city, and I’m just a bartender.”
Your face drops at his words, suddenly panicked that he’s come here because he’s angry at you. You would never think less of him for being a bartender- hell, you wouldn’t even think less of him if he was unemployed. You’re not sure you could think less of him if you tried.
“That’s not what I mean. And you know that.”
Minho narrows his eyes a little, challenging you.
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean,” you begin, sighing before continuing to speak. “That I’m everything you despise. I let people down. I’m not inherently a good person, the way you are. You know how I stormed in there demanding a phone charger? Fighting you at the bar because you wouldn’t let me sleep with a married man? That’s the kind of person I am. I’m impatient, and naive and I’m nothing like the girls you’re used to.”
“How do you know what I’m used to?”
“Come on, Minho,” you say, and the conversation finally begins to sound a little more natural between the two of you. “You said it yourself- I’ve never lived without the notion of wanting to migrate as soon as possible. Who’s to say that doesn’t apply to people, too?”
“You’re nothing like you say you are,” Minho interrupts, and you can feel yourself getting frustrated at his words.
“How would you know that? Because you slept with me in a bar? I’m not this dream girl you think I am, Minho. I was looking out for you. You deserve better.”
Minho says nothing for a moment, swirling Coke around in his cup and watching the bubbles fizzle away as they hit the rim of the glass. He shakes his head a little to himself, and then he begins to speak again.
“You want to know why I came out here again?”
You remain silent, already knowing what he’s going to say. But to your surprise, his answer is a little more complex.
“I came out here because I wanted to. I wanted to work as a chef again. I wanted new colleagues, I wanted a different view and I was tired of being stuck in that little bar.”
You don’t reply to his statement, waiting for him to continue.
“And do you know why finding you was something I held onto so dearly?”
“Why?” You ask, the question coming out in a shaky tone. He takes a deep breath before he answers.
“I wanted to thank you. I wanted to tell you all about it. To tell you that you were right- sometimes, simple isn’t better. Sometimes you have to go back and make amends before you can move forward again. I wouldn’t have done any of this if someone really cool didn’t walk into my bar and make it clear to me. I guess part of me just hoped you were changed by it, too.”
Your expression softens at his words, feeling awful for the way this conversation has gone so far. It’s not your intention to hurt him- in fact, you feel particularly protective of Minho.
“I came looking for you, too,” you say after a moment of silence, and Minho perks up at your words.
“You did?”
“Mhm,” you nod. “I visited your bar. Twice since that night. I asked for you both times. The guy said you weren’t there anymore. I think after the second time, I took it as a sign to stop trying.”
“Jeongin?” Minho says, furrowing his brows together in visible confusion.
“He was blonde, a little small. Freckles.”
“Felix,” Minho says, chuckling lightly. “He’s a new hire. Jeongin would’ve told you differently. I have co-ownership with him now.”
You nod, folding your hands in your lap.
“I was changed by it,” you say, finally letting your gaze meet his. “I never stopped thinking about you. But it scares me. In so many ways, you’re everything I tried to run from when I left the suburbs. I don’t think I was ever good enough for any of it- all I cared about was money, and my work and finding an apartment with a nice enough view of the city. I didn’t care about the memories I made there, or that there’s genuinely good people. I didn’t even visit my parents very often. You reminded me that there’s more to it than just that. There’s more to the past than its negative aspects. So thank you, too.”
Minho is quiet for a moment, his mind racing with thoughts of what to do- how to keep you around. But in this moment, it’s clear to him- he has to let you go. He said what he had to say. He’s done the search, all three months of it, and he found you. He validated his own emotions and made sense of yours- you were just as changed by it as he was. But maybe that’s enough- perhaps the rest is just wishful thinking.
“Looks like we felt the same about it, then,” he says with a small smile, sitting up from the sofa and making his way to peer out the large glass window in your living room.
“And by the way, you definitely succeeded with the view out here. Mine’s just a brick wall.”
You chuckle, making your way over to the window and standing next to him to take in the view, too.
“It’s nice, right? All of the east side is visible from up here.”
“See that down there?” Minho points. “Visited that dive bar the other day. It sucks if you’re wondering.”
“CJ’s? Yeah, it’s kind of a shithole. They don’t even serve Diet Coke.”
Minho chuckles lightly, a little sadness evident in his tone.
“You know, maybe if you swung by and fixed their little arcade game, they’d supply you some. Probably something to do with all the ABC’s.”
“The what?” You query, furrowing your brows together and chuckling as he speaks.
“The little gidgets inside. You know, with the pins.”
You pause to think for a moment, mentally mapping out the circuit inside.
“The EPROMs,” you say finally.
Minho feels his breath hitch in his throat as you utter the acronym. It sounds so unfamiliar, and yet so familiar to him at the same time. He suddenly remembers that night, in the spare room, hearing you say it for the first time.
“The what?” He replies gently, not removing his gaze from the window.
“The EPROMs,” you clarify, a little louder this time.
“Say it again,” Minho breathes, a small smile painted on his face now.
“EPROMs?” You question, turning to face him, visibly confused.
“Yeah, those. What’s it stand for, anyway?” Minho finally asks, turning to face you. You face him, too, endeared by the curiosity he’s displayed for that game repair since the first night you met.
“Erasable programmable read-only memory,” you explain, aware of how close he is in proximity to you now. His eyes flicker down to your lips and then back up again, his plump lips pulling into a knowing smile as you speak. He knows he’s wandering into dangerous territory now, but he can’t help it- not when it’s you who makes him feel like this.
“God, it sounds so sexy when you say it,” Minho says sheepishly.
And he knows he shouldn’t entertain it- he’s well aware that his intention is to walk out of here and get on with his life, comfortable with the knowledge that you’d sought him out, too. But he can’t help himself when you’re this close to him, talking circuit repair so intelligently and erotically.
So without another question to stutter, or a fight to be had, he closes the gap between you two, pressing his lips onto yours and kissing you one last time.
You don’t protest the action, instantly tangling your hands in his tresses and reciprocating with the same hungry, passionate kisses he delivers. Maybe it’s the long hair, or the ripped jeans, but part of you also wonders if he’s been dying to kiss you tonight as badly as you’ve been craving him. The flavor is reminiscent of the bar to you, on that pool table like the first time you kissed him. He tastes like mint, enveloping your tongue with hints of Diet Coke while he nibbles on your bottom lip between kisses.
Without any sort of end goal in mind, your hands snake down to his collared shirt, which you tug on hungrily, and then begin to push off his torso. Minho smiles into the kiss, reaffirmed that you want him just the same, and he pulls away momentarily to complete the task of pulling off his button down.
Underneath, his striped t-shirt is cut off generously at the shoulders, completely exposing his arms to you. You almost gasp at the sight of his toned arms jutting out, veins running along his forearms and flexing with each movement. Minho chuckles softly when he takes notice, amused at your reaction.
When his button down shirt is fully off, he kisses you again, hands finding their way to your waist as he pushes himself against you, desperate to feel you against him. You walk backwards, cupping his face between your hands and leading him toward your bedroom.
For a fleeting moment, you’re nervous to take it any further than this, the last person you slept with being Minho himself. You can’t remember which undergarments you wore, or what your bedroom decor looks like to anyone except yourself. But Minho’s kisses shut you up, his lips moving against yours with desire and passion, and you don’t want to do anything except this, right here.
When you’ve made it to the bed, you pull away, crossing your arms over your torso and pulling your sweater off over your head. You’re in a lacy black bra, you realize, because of course you thought to dress for him. Minho blinks a few times, crossing his own arms over his torso and finally pulling his shirt over his head.
It’s then that you realize you’ve never seen Minho without his shirt before- he wore that white button down in the bar, only allowing you to see a generous amount of his collarbones. But standing in front of you like this, he’s breathtaking, his toned torso and his sharp collar bones complementing his sculpted thighs and arms so perfectly.
When he takes notice of you staring at him, one hand flies down to his mid-torso, where he spreads a palm out over the skin, seemingly in an attempt to cover something. You take one step forward, gently placing a hand over his and moving it so that his torso is exposed again. And across his tanned skin, a pale pink scar catches your eye, not very noticeable from your previous distance, but definitely perceptible when you observe his body long enough.
“Minho,” you coo, running your hand along the scar and tracing it with your fingertips. “You’re beautiful,” you say to him after a moment, smiling up at him sincerely.
Minho’s heart almost stops in its place, overwhelmed with his emotions for you, to be here with you, the desire to make love to you eating away at his mind like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do.
And if it is, he’d die a happy man.
His lips crash against yours again, hands snaking down to your jeans, where he unbuttons them, your hands meeting his to help pull them down. While you take over, he unbuckles his belt, snaking the leather out from around his waist and undoing his buttons. It’s then that he pushes you gently against the bed, hoisting your legs up so that you’re at a comfortable angle, finally propping himself above you and working kisses down your neck. He nibbles your flesh between his teeth the way he did before, beginning to work purple bruises around your throat. And you let him, without protest, because you’re desperate for a reminder that he’s here, that he’s yours. Minho smiles against your neck when he feels you moan softly at the sensation, satisfied with the way you melt at his touch.
“Minho,” you call, and he brings his lips to press a chaste kiss to yours again.
“What is it, baby?” He coos gently, pressing a series of kisses to your lips before you speak again.
“I never should have left,” you reply, toying with a strand of his hair around your fingers in a pleading manner. Your chest is heavy with guilt, tears almost pricking at your eyes as he looms over you like this.
He chuckles softly, kissing you for a moment before grazing his lips over yours again, speaking just above a whisper.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right where you left me.”
And it’s your turn to kiss him, crashing your lips against his again as tears fall from the corners of your eyes. Minho takes notice when the salty taste of them dance along his tongue, kissing them back up your face and holding you a little closer to him. His hands wrap around the small of your back to find the clasp of your bra, skillfully undoing it with one hand and pulling away from you to discard it on the floor. It’s Minho’s turn to stare, running one hand down your clavicles until he’s grazing your nipples with his fingers.
You feel your breath hitch in your throat with anticipation, before he finally dips his middle finger down over one of your hardened nipples, earning a stifled gasp from you. He works little circles over your nipple with one finger, the gentle stimulation making you gasp into his mouth as he kisses you again.
And then he moves back to your neck, kissing over the bruises he sucked into your flesh, trailing lower and lower until he’s just above your breasts. You look down at him with bated breath, almost clenching at the way his lips exhale little breaths against your nipples, making them even harder. With his eyes on yours, he finally lowers himself, latching both lips around your breast and sucking.
Your back arches up into him instinctively, the feeling of his teeth grazing your skin sending divine shivers up your spine. In a sudden motion, his tongue swirls around your bud, the cold sensation causing you to moan fervently. He smiles with your flesh between his teeth, while your hands tangle themselves in his hair and massage him encouragingly.
It feels so primal, so natural to have his mouth all over you, your legs pressing together to calm the ache between your legs. He takes his time on one breast, only coming up to press a kiss in the valley of your breasts and then moving to give attention to the other one. You could stay here for hours, like this, if it wasn’t for the pulsing reminder in your groin that you want to feel him inside of you.
“Please,” you say gently, pressing your legs together and squeezing in efforts to relieve yourself.
Minho chuckles softly, letting go from your nipple with a gentle sucking sound, a string of spit hanging from his lips as he looks up at you with hooded eyes.
“I want to feel you inside me again,” you admit shyly, tenderly running your nails along the back of his neck. Minho’s lips meet yours again, and his hands quickly find their way to the hem of your underwear, sliding them down and pulling away to discard them on the floor.
He’s promptly reminded of how needy and vocal you are, smiling down at you as you pull his face back to yours and swirl your tongue around his. But truth be told, he’s just as needy as you are, equally reminded of how much he’s touched himself to the thought of this and secretly prayed he’d be able to make love to you again. And now here, his lips on yours, it’s finally happening, his rock-hard erection proof that it’s always been you.
As you arch up into him, one leg wrapping around his to push him even closer against you, your hand snakes down to his erection, palming him through his boxers. Minho groans at the contact, his lips parting a little as he winces in pleasure.
“You’re so hard,” you say with a smile, pleased at his evidently equal desperation for you.
“All for you,” Minho replies, running one hand down your stomach to rub little circles on your clit, causing you to moan in pleasure.
“Ah- fuck,” you breathe out, contorting against him, desperate for him to fill you up. “Please, Minho, want to feel you inside me,” you pant against him, pleading for the second time now.
He remains like that for a moment, working little circles onto your clit as he observes the way your eyebrows arch up in pleasure.
“Want me to fill you up?” He asks, cocking his head with yours as you grasp his forearm.
“Yes, please,” you reply, trying your best to stave off your orgasm until he’s inside of you.
And without teasing you any further, Minho pulls away from you to slide off his boxers, his cock springing up against his abdomen in anticipation for you. You prop yourself up on your elbows, in awe at the sight as he tosses his boxers aside and leans down to kiss you again.
“Lay down,” Minho orders sweetly, and you do as you’re told, exhaling once to calm your steadily beating pulse.
“Is this still okay?” Minho asks, caressing your shoulder with concern as you wait for his next move.
“Yes,” you say, giving a half smile to him when he rubs his thumb along your cheek lovingly. He smiles back at you, giving one small peck to your lips before hoisting himself up and wrapping one hand around his cock.
You watch as Minho wraps his slender fingers around the base of his cock, pumping a few times before leaning down to kiss you tenderly. The sensation causes him to breathe a few gasps into your mouth, Minho also trying his best to stave his release until he’s inside of you.
“Gonna put it in now, okay?” He asks, breaking away to part your thighs. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
But you don’t- not when you’re this wet for him, this desperate to finally feel him fill you up again, like you’ve fantasized for so long.
A strand of his hair falls into his face as he finally guides his cock inside of you, rubbing your clit as he thrusts in fully and bottoms out. You gasp at his size, almost having forgotten just how thick he is, the stretch making your head spin with pleasure. When he gauges your reaction, he begins to move with you slowly, giving gentle thrusts while you wrap your arms around his back.
The bed creaks as he moves in and out of your sopping pussy, emitting lewd sloshing sounds as he leans down to kiss you, your tongues and mouths doing much of the same. You can hardly kiss him back, your lips already dribbling strings of drool in fucked-out satisfaction from him filling you up like this.
“Fuck… baby… you’re so tight,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut in pleasure.
“Feels so good,” you breathe back, gripping his shoulder a little bit when he picks up his pace. “No one fucks me the way you do,” you say to him, and his cock twitches inside of you at the admission.
“Fuck,” Minho says again. “I dreamt of you for so long,”
“Me too,” you say, reaching up to move a stray piece of hair out from in front of his eyes between your heavy breathing. “I wish I came looking for you again. God, I wasted so much time.”
Minho kisses you, burying his lips in the crook of your neck to caress the bruises he’s already left.
“I never stopped searching for you,” he breathes out against your skin. “It’s you, it’s always been you.”
His words make your heart flutter as he continues to thrust in and out of you, the tip of his cock kissing your cervix with every thrust now. Your moans get louder as he picks up the pace, digging his nails into your waist as he holds you in place. Between kisses, he caresses your thigh with his hand, positioning it up and bending your leg at the knee beside him. You moan instantly at the new angle, his length caressing every inch of your pussy, his girth stretching you out with every thrust inside of you and tickling your pulsing clit as he moves against your hips.
“Good girl,” Minho says, smiling against you as he kisses you. “Take me so well.”
Your nails dig into his back as he thrusts a little faster now, the rhythmic motion sending shivers up your spine.
“I’m close,” you breathe out, and judging by the way Minho’s cock twitches inside of you, he is too.
“Will you do that thing again?” You ask in a shaky voice between moans, and Minho lets out a breathy chuckle.
“What thing, baby?”
But he knows very well what you’re referring to, having replayed it in his head every time he got off without you. You don’t respond to him, instead intertwining his hand in yours and bringing it down to your abdomen, where you sprawl his palm across your navel and give it a little push. Minho groans at the feeling of your warm abdomen under his palm, remembering the way you reacted last time. And he’s eager to please you, to do it exactly how you liked it before.
Without teasing you any further, Minho presses down on your stomach, observing the way you moan when he does, and then thrusts a little faster. He can feel his length sliding in and out of you under his touch, locking his gaze on the bulge in your abdomen that appears with every thrust.
“Min, I’m so close,” you say, gasping desperately and digging your nails into his back.
He presses down a little harder, burying his face in the crook of your neck and moving even faster, moaning every time he can feel himself move against your abdomen.
And as he brings his lips up to meet yours, you finally let go around him, making a mess of your sheets as you cum around his cock, your clit pulsing in syncopation with your entrance as he fucks you through your orgasm. Minho finishes just seconds after, emptying his milky white release inside of you, both your juices spilling into each other and coating the bed in your arousal. He doesn’t pull out immediately, slowing his thrusts for a few minutes as he kisses you much gentler this time, your lips still glistening with the exchange of saliva.
When he feels you shiver against him, Minho finally slides out, turning over to lay on his back and catch his breath. The two of you remain like that for a few minutes, catching your breath and wiping beads of sweat off your forehead as you do. After a moment of silence, he turns to you again, a worried expression on his face.
“I promise I didn’t come here to have sex with you,” Minho says. “I wasn’t lying about wanting to tell you all about it. I guess I just happened to-”
“Min, I know,” you say with a small smile. “I didn’t think that’s why you came here.”
He lets out a silent chuckle, and you mirror the action, smiling back at him before laughing silently. The two of you remain sore and wearied, your languid bodies a comfortable distance away from each other on the soiled duvet.
Still, Minho extends a hand out from beside you, palm facing up and shifting his gaze onto yours out of his peripheral vision.
Your hand meets his, intertwining your fingers together, the delicate embrace a reminder that he’s here, right where you left him.
*
“Can’t you just stay another week?” you say to Minho, leaning down to press another kiss to his already swollen lips.
You lie on top of him as he lays back on your couch, his hands tucking strands of hair behind your ear as he smiles up at you.
“It’s just for a little bit, I promise. I just have some unfinished business out there.”
“I don’t want to lose you again,” you say in a whisper, tracing the bridge of his nose with your fingertip.
“You won’t lose me,” Minho replies, his tone turning serious at your words. “You’ll never lose me.”
“What am I going to do without you?” You ask him, feeling yourself grow increasingly more panicked at the thought of being away from him again. You’ve spent the better part of three months searching for each other, desperate for some closure to this fleeting thing- and now he’s leaving, and you can’t help but feel like you’re doing something wrong by letting him leave like this.
“You’re going to be the woman you always have been,” Minho says with a smile, stroking your hair gently. “You’re going to work your job, and fix things and be absolutely remarkable wherever you go. And I’m going to finalize a few things out there and then meet you right back here in the city. And we’ll lie on this couch, and we’ll pick up right where we left off.”
You smile at him through pricking tears, feeling them begin to fall as he reaches a thumb up to wipe them off your cheek.
“Hey,” Minho says to you reassuringly. “You know- I was thinking a lot about the bar.”
You nod at him, trying to hold back the rest of your tears as he speaks.
“We have contract negotiations coming up next month. And I was thinking of… maybe…handing it off to Jeongin.”
You sit up a little, eyes widening at his words.
“Complete ownership? But you love that bar, Min.”
He shrugs a little, blinking a few times as he pauses.
“I want to cook. And I think being out here made me realize I need a change of pace again.”
“You mean like… moving out here? To the city?”
He lets out a breathy chuckle, throwing his head back a little before meeting your gaze again.
“Maybe. Just something I’ve been thinking about.”
You chuckle too now, cupping his face in your hands as you sit up to look at him.
“You know,” you begin, thinking for a second before continuing to speak. “This really cool bartender told me once that sometimes you have to go back and make amends before you can move forward again.”
His lips flicker down to your smile and back up to your eyes as you speak, a visible sparkle in your pupils as you look down at him. “Whatever you decide to do back there, I’m here with you when you go forward again. As a bartender, or a chef, or whatever you decide. I’ll be right where you left me.”
And he doesn’t have to ask you twice, knowing in his heart, you’re already here with him- every step of the way.
*
Minho leaves bright and early that morning, grasping your hand firmly in his as you make your way down the concrete steps of your apartment building to where his car is parked.
He looks more angelic than you’ve ever seen him, his smile illuminating the space around you as he holds you in his gentle embrace on the sidewalk. The two of you say nothing, only speaking through the tender touches of your arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, face tucked in the crook of his neck as he holds you. He presses kisses to the top of your head, reminding you through hushed whispers that he’ll be back as soon as possible. And you know he will, feeling completely enveloped in his loving trust as he holds you, as he promises not to lose you again.
When he pulls away to look into your eyes, tears prick at the corners of your eyes for the third time this morning, and Minho chuckles lightly, reaching up to wipe them away with his thumb.
Before he can say anything, he feels it, finally.
The gentle caress of droplets on his face- not your tears, not his, but the sky above, showering you with little raindrops for the first time in three months and some days.
At first, Minho thinks he might be hallucinating it, when he looks up to squint his eyes back at the cloudy sky. You do the same, feeling the familiar kiss of raindrops on your skin. And then, as if the sky’s taking notice, it begins to pour, warm rain showering you both in the hazy atmosphere of the city sidewalk.
Minho laughs up at the sky, shaking his now damp hair as he looks down at you again. All this time he’s waited for the rain, thinking maybe he’d imagined it that night in the bar- the same night he ran into you. But as the raindrops graze his skin and glisten under the light of the city, he realizes it was very much real, as are you, standing right here in his arms. And like everything falls into place, so does the rain over the city, washing away the doubts he held onto for so long.
“It’s finally raining!” Minho exclaims, holding you closer to him as he tilts his face up to the sky again.
You watch him in admiration, laughing at the way he embraces the sudden downpour, also remembering the first night you met him because of the storm like this.
The city-dwellers around you begin to seek shelter under the cement roofs of the high rises, but you remain there on the sidewalk, warm in each other's embraces, content with the sudden turn of the weather. When he looks back down at you, his hair is now completely soaked, stringy pieces falling into his face as he continues to laugh.
“Minho,” you say through gentle laughter of your own. The rain comes down violently now, drenching the two of you as he holds you closer to him.
“Where have you been all my life?”
And he smiles down at you, the familiar beam of his giggle instilling the same safety and comfort as the first night you met in his bar.
“Right here,” Minho replies, leaning in to kiss you again.
“I’ve always been here.”
This time, you make no effort to escape the rain, comfortable in the way it looms over the city, much like how Minho looms over you- fortuitous, and with promises of new beginnings.
#skz smut#Lee know#Lee know smut#Lee know fic#stray kids hard hours#skz#stray kids#skz scenarios#stray kids x you#Lee minho#lee know scenarios#Lee know x reader#fanfic#smut#stray kids hard thoughts#stray kids x reader#stray kids x y/n#Spotify
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Cipher's Personal Portable Portal
'How they meet' won the poll!
So just to make things fully contextualized, as far as they're gonna be - here's the full first chunk of this stupidly long fic I'm writing.
I hope you enjoy!
Standing in the wreckage of the burnt-out building, Dipper wishes he didn’t know who did it.
Anyone else would have left some trace sign. A scrape of blood, a hint of burnt hair. A friggin’ decent eyewitness report, even.
But here, like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that - there's absolutely zero traces. No video footage, nobody around at the time of the crime. Not even footprints.
Dipper kicks one of the remaining supports, sending a puff of charcoal up from the impact.
If he knew the bastard’s name, he’d curse it all to hell.
With a sigh of exhaustion, Dipper sits on a chunk of scorched foundation. He pulls his shoe off to tip the ashes out of it; there’s enough that the resulting cloud leaves him coughing.
Around him, the scoured west wing of the museum is silent, still, and empty. A grey-black skeleton of its former self, filled with dust and charcoal.
This arson is yet another one in a very, very long line of crimes. They’re not just ‘unrelated incidents’, or ‘bizarre coincidences’. Dipper’s not ‘being paranoid’ or ‘coming up with some pretty weird conspiracy theories’.
There’s only one person who could manage this. The same guy who turned a bank upside down - literally - and the same one who impaled a mob boss on an oversized silly straw and gave tails to half of a household last week.
It’s all connected.
Each crime is marked with the same style, mostly by how remarkably weird they are. Along with a thread of magic, distinct in its composition. One so distinctive that it's almost a flavor. Though admittedly, without certain magical analysis, it’s pretty hard to detect.
And if other freelance magicians would take the time and look at Dipper’s notes, maybe one of them would help find this asshole.
Dipper stalks through the burned building, fists balled in his pockets. He stumbles over a fallen support column, and nearly trips before he makes a hopping retreat back.
Though the culprit has been at his game - whatever ‘game’ that is - for a good half a year now, this is the most destructive ‘incident’ so far. Nobody was hurt, since it happened in the middle of the night. The one relief from a terrible crime, that only objects were obliterated in the process -
But the ashes speak for themselves.
Here, there’s nothing left.
He breathes in slowly. Then regrets the attempt at calming himself as he coughs again.
Whatever the culprit’s initial motive was, it hasn’t lasted. He’s grown not only in ambition, but also in his abilities. Things are escalating at a rate Dipper doesn’t like to think about.
Someone has to get to the bottom of this. Before it’s too late. Dipper’s got his number, metaphorically speaking, so. Well, might as well be him.
And when he proves that all of this chaos was created by the same person -
Well. A little boost to his meager reputation couldn’t hurt. Maybe a few medals and accolades. There isn’t a trophy for best monster hunter, but he can imagine standing on a podium and -
Dipper waves that thought off, swearing under his breath. Stupid. He has better things to focus on.
He’s the only freelancer on the case. Definitely the only one taking this seriously, the only one who thinks it’s the same person to begin with - and even he’s starting to have some doubts about ever finding the bastard.
Six months of tracking this guy down, and what does he have to show for it? A ramshackle compilation of incidents, a vague feeling of magic, and a description that could fit any bottle-blond actor with bad fashion sense. Scraps. He might as well pin them up and connect them with red string for all the good it does him.
Another kick sends Dipper hopping back, clutching his foot with a swear. He winces at the hole in the tip, he nearly punctured his foot on a nail.
Just his luck. Wrong place, wrong time, always just barely avoiding disaster. Dipper shows up whenever there’s an event, he’s got the means to follow the guy - but he’s always just a little too late.
Even worse, lately the guy’s been picking places… not at random, exactly. More like he causes trouble wherever it’d be the most annoying to follow.
The culprit must know someone is on his trail. But he’s not making it impossible to keep up, or even majorly difficult for a determined pursuer. Just really, really irritating, like making moves at three in the morning, or pausing just long enough for someone to catch up, then heading right back where he came from. At one point Dipper had to trudge through a literal swamp, only to find that bastard had sauntered in by baking himself a neat little trail right through the damn thing. There wasn’t even footprints to follow.
It’s a repeated point in Dipper’s notes. Whoever this is, they’re a total, absolute dick.
With a sigh, Dipper runs his fingers through the ash on the museum’s floor. Not a single thing is left beyond the shattered glass of some display cases, and the charred remains of the building. Even the enchanted metal tools have been melted into slag.
The day before yesterday, he could tell something was up. Building energy, something that felt like it was made by the culprit. Something with the twinge of a powerful curse, coiled and being wound up like a spring.
Dipper spent that evening convincing - okay, maybe also bribing, thank you Stan for the idea - the museum to let him borrow materials. The day after that, he spent all night, morning, and most of the afternoon running around slapping up anti-curse emblems. The entire south of the city warded, in a fine careful net of spellcraft. The work was exhausting. Both in running around, and in the amount of magic he’d needed to use.
But it was worth it. That evening, in the quiet and very uncursed city, all the emblems activated. Dipper would have sworn he sensed someone in the distance, cursing his own name. That night he went to bed with a smug sense of satisfaction, floating on a cloud of triumph.
Which is probably why the bastard burned down the museum next.
With another sigh, Dipper tucks his notebook back into his knapsack. He’s gleaned all he’s going to for today; in the fading evening light, searching more is pointless.
So much for all the magical artifacts. Most of those had come in really useful in messing with the guy.
…How the hell did the culprit know where they came from, though? He’d need a near encyclopedic knowledge of artifacts to know which ones Dipper used, then track them back to their origin.
Or maybe he just searched on the internet. It’s hard to tell.
Dipper just wishes there were more clues. But just like every other incident, the guy up and freakin’ vanished.
No human can disappear like that without some very irresponsible use of power. That hope is one Dipper’s hanging his hat on. After six months? He has to be reaching his limits. He’ll burn himself out before he can manage too many more incidents. Maybe Dipper will find him by stumbling on his withered, dissolving corpse.
Whoever this is is pretty strong, but no power is infinite. He can’t hide forever.
It can’t be too much longer. Won’t be. Dipper has a plan, he’s gotten really close, and - He’s good at his job, damn it. He knows he is.
Taking a deep, slow breath, Dipper lets it out. Patience is the name of the game here. He’s just gotta keep moving.
One day, he’s going to catch up with that bastard. He’ll see the guy in the flesh. Then he’ll grab that stupid dick before he can escape, again, and wipe that presumably smug look off his probably ugly face.
Turning around one last time, Dipper surveys the destruction, stuffs his hands in his pockets - and pauses.
A speck of light glints in the pile of ash. The last bit of evening sun, shining off a metallic surface.
Alert with surprise, Dipper scrambles over to the pile. Kneeling down, he brushes the dust carefully aside, careful not to disturb anything fragile that might shatter if handled wrong.
One thing did survive. Thank fuck, it’s not an absolute total loss. Just, uh… Ninety-nine percent of it.
He scuffles through the still-warm ashes, cupping his palms underneath the lump and lifting it from its bed. The motion sends white puff rising up as ash slips away from the artifact.
A small black, squarish thing rests on the pile, a bit larger than both his palms put together. The material is faintly warm from residual heat, insulated by the ash it laid in - and there’s not a mark on it. Not even a scratch.
Dipper turns the artifact over in his hands with a frown. The shining black surface reveals no obvious buttons or secrets. Just a kind of phone-ish shape, though more square and squat. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say a guest dropped it on the rush to escape.
The fact that it’s still intact though. Nearly glowing with magic, a tremulous feeling under his palms - this is not dropped by some clumsy tourist. Not even Ford could put this together.
Wiping at the object with his sleeve, Dipper manages to clean off most of the smooth surface. On one of the sides, dust clings to the thinnest of engravings. The very faint outline of an equilateral triangle. No runes or other magical scribing, just… a shape.
Dipper thinks back but - no, he doesn’t remember seeing this in the collection. A quick check online reveals…
Basically nothing. There are - were - a bunch of stone and metal slabs in the archives, all described so poorly as to be useless. Some are even bunched up in groups. ‘Magical slab 1-24’ and ‘Metal artifact 1-78’, no description involved.
Not surprising. Probably dug up in some mass excavation site, transported here, then never really looked at again. The bulk nature of the shipment means it was overlooked, its magical properties never discovered.
After today, he’s just glad that even one item escaped this onslaught.
The other artifacts must not have had much to them. But some magical property in this artifact’s making must have saved it from the blaze. Fireproofing, perhaps? Against weird fire? That’s unusual. Maybe even unique.
As the only survivor, it really needs investigating.
Dipper glances over his shoulder, then around. With everyone evacuated, it’s quiet in the rubble. Nobody here would notice if, say… a clue wandered off.
The artifact slips easily into his pocket. The shape conveniently looks just like a phone, even if the shape’s a bit off. Not something that would attract any attention.
Whistling nonchalantly, ducking out of the way of local law enforcement and any onlookers - Dipper makes his escape.
Another day of pursuit. Another scene of disaster, the culprit there and gone in the blink of an eye.
He’ll be up to something new, next. Never the same thing twice, never in the same place.
Dipper will follow in his evil tracks, of course. But for tonight - his fate is another crappy hotel room.
He ditches his backpack by the door, slumping against the wall and its chipped paint. He could start going through his notes, and the pictures of the arson. Put in more work, find further connections -
But it’s been a long day, and he’s tired. He might be magical, but he’s only got so much to work with. A reasonable night’s sleep, if he can manage, will make the task loom less horribly over his tired brain.
With a sigh, he drops back on the mattress. There’s some bounce to it, springs squeaking like they’re full of mice. Hell, maybe they are. The type of room he can afford isn’t exactly decadent.
That, though, should be temporary. Dipper’s career is only just starting; freelancers in the ‘solving magical problems’ scene don’t get great rates. Especially as a beginner. Definitely without a partner; it makes him look super young. Like he’s just starting out, fresh-faced and not having any inroads.
Because this field is really stupid, and doesn’t pay attention to results. Dipper’s been fine on his own for years, and he’s done really cool things without that ‘networking’ crap.
All by himself. Totally cool with that, because Dipper’s a cool guy, sometimes. If Mabel hypes him up enough on one of their phone calls, he almost believes it too.
Though it would be nice to have some backup, it’s hard to find someone who really gets the job. Or does it in the way that Dipper goes about it. The number of people who are willing to take long treks in hyper-magical territory to search for an obscure clue, or set up really complicated traps for dangerous monsters, or talk over high-level magical theory while sitting in the rain all night just to get one body-snatcher are…
Well, besides Ford, who recently retired, there aren’t any. Only Dipper himself.
One day, things are going to change for him. All his effort will pay off. If he keeps solving mysteries, and fighting monsters, he’ll forge a reputation as someone who always gets the job done. No matter how hard it is, he can handle it. The work is picking up, too. The last six months have shown the biggest series of magical incidents in decades.
And he’s gonna be the one to get to the bottom of it.
Dipper Pines, the guy who proved it’s all connected. He’ll have it laid out in facts and math, all the evidence. They’re all gonna see that he was totally right.
Once he finally gets this guy, everything’s going to start looking up.
The sheets rustle as Dipper settles back, holding the artifact up over himself. He stares into the black surface, and a slightly distorted reflection narrows its eyes back at him.
A good mystery always intrigues him. This one should take his mind off the other, irritating one for a while.
The only remaining object from the fire is clean and smooth. A mysterious creation, of unknown purpose. Clearly riddled with magic, too; Dipper feels it running just under the surface like a rapid current. It gives the artifact a weight that has nothing to do with mass.
Power.
Did the criminal see this artifact, still intact after all the other magical objects were gone? Did he try to destroy it too, and fail? Or simply not notice he’d missed one out of thousands?
Whatever it is, it’s got a lot more going on than meets the eye.
Dipper casts a quick identifier, which comes back with nothing. He’s not surprised. That’s the first thing anyone would try. If it was that simple, he’d already have the full description off the site.
With a shrug, he traces another set of runes, his own version, adding a little more oomph behind it -
And the magic leaps back instantly, with the bizarre sensation of a bouncy ball hitting concrete.
“Huh,” Dipper says, thoughtfully. He sits up, hunching over the slab in his hands. “Now that’s new.”
A more subtle approach, then. Tracing the lines of energy with the barest brush of magic upon magic reveals something deeply complex. Thin layers twist together deep under the surface, building an entire circulatory system. Dipper has to put it down for a moment, suddenly worried that it is organic.
When a cautious prod doesn’t get a response, he relaxes. Not fleshy, just complicated. Which also proves he was right earlier - the artifact’s just as powerful as he’d thought. The spellcraft is unlike anything he’s ever seen.
Dipper rubs his hands together, starting to smile.
Even if he doesn’t find the guy he’s after, figuring this out could be a heck of a win.
Several attempts later, he’s beginning to get why this bastard brick got tossed in with all the other junk.
Nothing here is working. It simply deflects. Standard spells poing off of it like rubber, while giving his magical senses an odd, back-of-the brain afterimage of a circle with a slash through it; a firm ‘nah’.
Dipper nearly chucks the thing across the room in frustration, before shutting his eyes and taking several, calming breaths.
Okay, weird thing, weird enchantment. The ordinary stuff won’t work. The magical logic is… twisted in a way that leaves it incompatible with most everything. He’ll have to find a different approach.
“What are you?” Dipper says, low and frustrated. He gives the artifact a shake, as if he can knock the secrets out like a rock from a shoe. “What secrets are you hiding in there?”
No response, not that he expected one. With a wry smile, he taps the sleek surface with a finger, twice. “C’mon, man. Talk to me.”
Huge yellow letters flash onto the black surface.
HEY
Dipper throws the artifact, a bit awkwardly since he’s lying on his back. It sails in the air in a high thin arc, landing with a thump between his legs. He scoots rapidly backward, sheets pulling up behind him.
The artifact lies where it landed, an unmoving brick. There’s magic in the air now, but no sense of any spell building, ready to unleash power to blow his face off. The latent spellcraft of the artifact has just been activated.
More text displays on the surface, bare except for the glowing letters.
To the jerk that’s swiped my private stuff: You got some nerve! I expect this back by interdimensional mail in a week, or trust me - there will be consequences.
Dipper waits a full minute before he lets go of the headboard. Tentatively, he kneels near the…
Is this a phone?
Clearly it’s a communication device of some sort, with the freaking text messages. A phone is the obvious equivalent, only - he thought it looked far older than that, something way before mobile phones. Possible ancient. Is that a coincidence, maybe, or is it secretly modern?
Dipper taps the ‘screen’, just below the glowing words. To his surprise, there’s actually a keyboard, what the hell. This thing keeps getting weirder.
Since it hasn’t already thrown a horrible curse at him, or burst into flames - it’s reasonably safe to assume that it’s simply ‘on’. Not ‘explosive’.
With hands that are definitely not shaking, he picks it up, and types,
Who is this?
His own text pops up in blue. A strange contrast to the yellow, but he’s guessing it’s for convenience - there’s no bubbles to tell who’s said what otherwise.
A few seconds of nervous waiting later, there’s a response.
Oh hey, you answered! Well, human - You’re talking to the one and only Bill Cipher, Dream Demon, all-powerful master of the Mindscape! I’d say it’s nice to meet ya but you’re not supposed to have a direct line to me!
Dipper raises an eyebrow.
Now that’s one hell of an introduction. It might even have been interesting, if it didn’t smell of complete bullshit.
Complicated spellwork, sure. Incomprehensible architecture? Maybe. Dipper can admit it; he’s never seen anything with a web of spells on it this complex, in such small of a package.
But the idea that Dipper just stumbled onto a demonic artifact of all things. One that wasn’t instantly detected, recorded, then ritually destroyed is…
Someone’s fucking with him.
Dipper rolls his eyes as he types back,
Really? Demon? You can’t expect me to believe that.
What, you calling me a liar? ‘Cause I am, but not about this! I got better things to mislead mortals about. This is my property, not something for your grubby mortal mitts.
Dipper snorts. Guess this person’s sticking with the bit. Obviously whoever created this would want it back - but too bad. Whether they’re delusional, stupid, or just a flat-out liar, they’re really good at enchanting. It’d be a waste not to study their work.
He lies back on the bed as he replies.
Sure, have fun roleplaying, or whatever, it doesn’t make a difference. Finders keepers, losers weepers.
ARE YOU CALLING ME A LOSER. MORTAL.
Hmm, I’m detecting a certain amount of ‘crying about it’, so. Yeah. Suck it, loser.
Smirking, Dipper settles back - then his half-smile drops, as he holds the ‘phone’ a little further away from himself.
Though the blue fire building up in the screen looks like a bad sticker effect, the artifact’s also getting a alarmingly warm. It vibrates in his hands - then suddenly stops, cooling down.
Ha! Alright, alright, I admit - you got some balls.
Maybe you’ll change your tune once you REALLY know what you’re dealing with! Might wanna check the connection, if you’re even capable of it! Mortal magic doesn’t reach across dimensions!
With a grimace, Dipper taps his fingers on the phone. It’s slightly cooler now, but still worryingly reactive to… whatever happened on the other end.
Damn. Whoever this is, they’re not only really really good at enchanting, they’re also pretty confident that tracking them down won’t spoil their game. The confidence exuding from this ‘Bill’s’ words feels genuine.
Honestly, though, the suggestion is a good one. Dipper should have tried to trace the call the second he knew someone else was on the line.
Maybe ‘Bill’ thinks he won’t manage to find him. Joke’s on him, though; Dipper’s amazing at finding stuff. He’s the best tracker of magical anything in years. Maybe decades. With a solid, stable connection right in front of him? Hell, he could do this one in his sleep.
Time to call the bluff.
He casts the tracing spell, though it takes longer than usual. A few gestures and muttered ritual aren’t gonna cut it; he has to improvise around the strange construction of the enchantment. Even trailing along the magic seems harder than usual, like it resists mixing with his own, and it takes him a few attempts to match the signal.
Once he finds the right way to tune it… the lead snaps along the already-existing connection, and zips away to find its source.
The line extends out from the shabby hotel room, a plucked string in Dipper’s senses. It twists around the phone, rising slowly. Invisibly passing through the walls and the -
Ceiling? Dipper looks up on instinct, even though nothing is visible.
From there it swirls around in the air like a silly straw on steroids, and then - out, very far, in a way that isn’t up or down or left or right, just
Away.
Dipper has to cut off the tracing spell before vertigo has him reeling. The swirling sense of standing on top of a skyscraper is followed by a flip in his stomach. That he’s using a device he barely understands that reaches out into something even more incomprehensible.
He drops the phone-artifact, trying to clear his head by shaking it rapidly.
That’s not nearby. Not on this planet. Possibly, genuinely, not even in this dimension.
Shit. Bill wasn’t bluffing.
Dipper wipes sweating palms on the sheets. To pick up the phone again takes an effort, willing himself to grasp it in unsteady hands.
A demon.
All the monsters he’s fought, curses he’s broken, years of work tucked into his belt, and he’s never seen one of those.
Demons are dangerous, evil, and very, very powerful. Consorting with them is by all accounts a terrible idea. He should never have picked this up. He should hang up, and throw the damn artifact out the window, hoping that nobody else makes as dumb a mistake as he just did.
On the screen, there’s a long long scroll of yellow letters, filling the entire surface. ‘HA HA HA HA’ over and over and over again.
Before he can think better of it, Dipper starts a response. He’s halfway through a sentence - what the fuck, that’s not funny- before he pauses.
Terrible evil monster. Stupid powerful. Probably Bill sensed the tracing of the connection, like he did with Dipper’s other testing. Bill wanted the result startle him. Because he thinks it’s funny.
Dipper grits his teeth, and glares at the screen.
Actually, screw this guy. Dipper’s keeping the stupid phone. If for no other reason than spite. This ‘Bill’ guy seems pretty full of himself, like he’s totally above some human. He’s in for a bad time, then, because Dipper’s not going to let one little surprise scare him off.
Besides. The average guy would get into horrible, even deadly trouble, whereas Dipper… sort of knows what he’s doing. No, he is good at his job. Finding secrets, solving mysteries, thwarting evil jerks who think they’re oh-so-hilarious, the whole shebang. He does it all.
Taking another breath, hissing through clenched teeth - Dipper lets it out. Losing his temper isn’t going to help deal with an extradimensional being. He has to be careful.
He thinks for a long moment before he responds.
Okay. Let’s say I believe you. Maybe. Then you should know I didn’t steal your… whatever this is. I found it lying around, and I just. Got kind of curious.
HA HA HA! Of course you were! Careful with that impulse, kid, it kills more than just cats!
A jerk who definitely thinks he’s hilarious. Dipper rolls his eyes, then, rather pettily, decides to ignore that statement.
More pressing questions take the lead. Like what the fuck he’s holding right now, and if there are any other nasty tricks in store. A little bit of him, bubbling under the surface, wonders what being a demon is like. What they get up to, common habits. Ways they could be tracked down and, y’know, defeated, maybe.
Theoretically, he’s got a line to a bunch of innocent, totally not-thwarting-related information that could be super useful to someone trying to, maybe, be a super cool monster-fighter.
Dipper backspaces a bunch over some poorly thought out questions. First things first. Like what the hell he’s holding right now.
So. What is this?
Good question! The gadget you’re poking at with your sweaty meat-paws is paired to the one I have here at my place. A little one-on-one communication assistant, if you will. Once you started groping around with your magic, it wasn’t hard to tell someone had picked it up!
Dipper raises an eyebrow. Though he already has an idea… a little confirmation never hurts.
Like, you got a notification? Or literally felt?
The latter! Kinda like smell, but by touching things with your eyeballs. And with all your prodding around you might as well have been stinking up the place! Your spells aren’t real subtle!
Hey, they’re subtle! Having weird extra senses is just cheating.
Sucks to be human, then! In that you suck at everything! What’s a LOSER like you gonna do about it?
Dipper nearly throws the stupid artifact again - but he holds back, gripping it tight. Instead he sits up, leaning down and hauling his backpack up from the side of the bed.
Maybe Bill thinks he can’t do anything. That he’s some ignorant nobody, who doesn’t have any real skills or talent or doesn’t have any friends - but he’s got that wrong. Dipper’s not a loser. Bill’s not getting away with that bullshit.
One quick unzip and a bit of rifling around later, he finds what he was looking for. Carefully, Dipper bounces the heft of a flashlight battery in his hand. Shutting his eyes, he focuses on crafting a quick working.
Magic is all about energy, and its direction. Focusing power, conveying it from one place to another. Pushing anything across dimensions would take impossible amounts of energy, stuff Dipper doesn’t have. If it weren’t for a very convenient connection, already in his hand.
Dipper has nothing on hand to actually exorcise the guy - he’s not sure that’s even possible when Bill’s where he should be - but retribution is in order.
More text lines appear on the artifact. He ignores them. Changing this up to work with the demon device is a challenge, but after figuring out how to alter the tracking spell changing this one up isn’t hard. He adjusts the flow of magic this way, into the tangle of not-veins in the device that way, finishes the chant-
Then touches his tongue to the battery.
The jolt passes through him painlessly, following the spell. It zips along his nerves, down into his hand and from there - into the artifact itself.
Where it should, theoretically end up right at that bastard.
Dipper tosses the battery back into his backpack. Picking up the ‘phone’, hunching over to stare at the screen.
That worked. He felt the energy move… unless he got the math wrong. Or a detail of his spell. Or maybe demons are immune to electricity, and he just did something totally pointless.
God. It might even prove Bill right, and wouldn’t that be the worst -
The next line of text comes in.
What the hell? A joy buzzer? That’s some real petty prank stuff! You seriously pulled that bullshit? And across dimensions?
A tense pause. Dipper taps the phone, checking for it heating up again - but another line pops up after a few seconds.
Y’know what, kid? I think I might actually like you! You’re FEISTY.
Dipper nearly does a double-take.
But no, that - what? Aren’t demons supposed to be vengeful? He was half-sure he’d have to chuck the phone out the window before it exploded in his hands.
In fact, you’re in luck! ‘Cause I’m pretty bored, and I can totally show you how to improve that jinx of yours! If you can keep up with a little theory, that is.
Because that’s not suspicious or anything. Conversation with a demon can only lead to ruin and disaster. He should absolutely, definitely stop this right in its tracks.
Still, Dipper shrugs, and types,
Try me.
#billdip#I should probably make a tag for this 'series'#Let's say the tag will be#Portal AU#I say series but my plan is to complete it then post it in One Big Post on AO3 eventually#I just wanted you all to know I really am working on stuff and I hope you enjoy these two idiots#This is ~5k of the now 21k document I have going#Truly I am caught in a trap of my own making#Suffering is writing and writing is suffering#I also realized while putting this on Tumblr that I can totally change text colors!#I might apply that formatting trick later if I can find a shade of yellow that isn't totally obnoxious to actually read#Little nervous about this since it's not Familiar AU but they needed not to know each other for the Premise to work#I'm excited to get to later stuff because I can make SO many dumb jokes
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୭ 🗝️ ✧ ˚. 🪩 you’re my painkiller . . . (j.s.)
— your boyfriend apparently has zero regard for his own wellbeing. you, on the other hand, seem to have enough concern for you both (1.6k words)
+ aka the classic ‘patching up your injured s/o’ trope. brief mentions of injury and blood but nothing serious
+ also my first time writing any sort of nhl work so pls don’t be too too harsh ! a special shoutout to my lovely @wintfleur for all of the support and for listening to my various ramblings n complaints about this fic😭
juraj regrets nothing.
even now, sitting in the penalty box with a bust lip, he couldn’t care less. not about the player that he was swinging at two seconds ago, nor about how well the small cut on his face is going to heal. shit happens, after all.
though, no.
maybe there’s one small thought gnawing away at him, sitting persistent at the front of his brain and demanding his attention. it’s the knowledge that you’re sitting at home and have definitely just watched the whole ordeal unfold.
fuck, he thinks, taking a drink and pushing his hair back. cold water brushes against his split lip and he winces slightly, breathing still laboured from the exertion of both his play and his onslaught of hits onto the opposing team. you’re a worrier by nature, and juraj’s sure that whatever close up of his face that they’ve displayed on the broadcast has done nothing to quell your concern.
scraps happen all the time in hockey. it’s a fact that you were well aware of long before you’d even started dating juraj, and it would be ridiculous to expect him to never get caught up in a bit of a scuffle. if anything, it should be assumed. but this doesn’t mean you have to like the thought of it, either.
no one likes to see their partner roughed up and bleeding, no matter how good they may or may not have looked whilst getting into said fight. especially not when you have to wait another two hours or so to see them again.
two minds intertwined, both you and juraj desperately wish you could have attended the game tonight so the distance between you could be a little smaller. he would find a way, some method of conveying to you that he was completely okay, and worrying was the last thing you needed to do. the dickhead deserved it, after all.
sadly, things can’t always work out the way that juraj wishes, and now he has to deal with the consequences. it’s a painful rest of the game, and his drive home is even more laborious. how he will find a way to quell your worry, to assure you he was fine, and that if anything, this method of getting out a little extra aggression was pretty healthy depending on who you asked, is beyond him. luck and charm is all he has on his side.
turns out, all of his planning and preparation isn’t needed.
he doesn’t even have the chance to get a word out before you’re rushing over to him, a surprise yet fond oof escaping his bitten lips as you bury your face into his sturdy chest. large calloused hands find their way to sit at your waist, the fabric of your hoodie hiking up slightly to grant juraj’s fingertips access to your skin.
he’s granted a tight hug before you’re pulling back far too soon for his liking, your warmth lingering against his chest and tunnelling through his skin to reach his heart. juraj’s thumbs stroke at the exposed strip of your waist as he awaits your next move.
in an effort to reach his face, you push up onto your toes and juraj automatically stabilises you by tightening his grip on your waist. cautious to not hurt him, you cup his jaw with a gentle hand, the dusting of faint hair familiar against your skin. your thumb barely ghosts over the dried crack of blood sitting on his bottom lip, a place you’d pressed countless kisses in the past now marred by a mark of frustration.
with your furrowed brows and pouty lips, you look downright adorable to juraj as you survey his scrapes, which are arguably nothing in his eyes. he’d be lying if he were to say he wasn’t enjoying the way you were fussing over him, and he was a little amused at just how concerned you were over a few little cuts.
finally, your observation comes to an end.
“you’re an idiot,” you surmise, clicking your tongue softly as you fail to hold back a smile.
the blunt nature of your words takes him aback, and he barks out a laugh.
“it’s not bad.”
his voice is thick, accent heavy, and it takes a lot of effort for you not to swoon.
“there’s blood.”
he holds his hand up, pinching his pointer finger and thumb close together. “little bit.”
“still blood.”
his eyes are locked onto yours, and though you want to do nothing more than kiss him silly, the thought of causing him any more pain or discomfort is out of the question. all you can do is stare at one another, hoping your expression can convey far more than touch or words.
eventually, your hand leaves his jaw, and juraj finds himself having to stop his face tilting, wanting to follow the caress of your palm, to chase the warmth it gives him. the longing doesn’t last long as your hand finds his own, squeezing it in a show of love.
he doesn’t think twice as you lead him into the bathroom. your hands are on your hips as you huff out a breath, squinting slightly in a laboured effort to remember where exactly you stored the haphazard medical kit that was invented for moments exactly like this.
luck is on your side, as your guess of rooting through the cabinet underneath the sink proves to be successful. your fingers swipe through various medical products, and you pluck out some plasters and antiseptic, hoping that they would do the job.
juraj stands behind you like a lost puppy, half amused and half concerned at the speed at which you’re moving. he truly doesn’t think his injuries are anything to dwell on, but the way that you’re acting prompts him to think twice.
oblivious to his hovering, you plant your palms firmly onto the cold marble of the bathroom counter before you push yourself up, your new height bonus granting you easier access to the scrapes on juraj’s face. you pat your thighs and give him a smile.
“come here then, let’s get you patched up.”
juraj doesn’t need to be told twice. in two long strides he’s standing between your split legs, hands finding purchase on your thighs as you take a minute to properly assess the damage done to your boy’s face. truly, it could be far worse - you’ve seen players lose teeth in the past, after all - but you think you’ve earned the right to be a little dramatic.
“this might sting,” you warn, beginning to pour some of the antiseptic liquid onto a cotton ball. the strong scent causes your nose to scrunch and juraj can’t help but to press a kiss to the wrinkled skin, a silent communication of consent.
it hurts like a bitch. you murmur apologies throughout, cursing and wincing with him as you dab at the area around the wounds in an attempt to clean up as much of the blood as possible. it’s impressive, how efficiently you work, considering you’re not exactly well versed in cleaning up wounds.
“what even happened?” you ask. “whole thing happened out of nowhere, from what i saw.”
juraj drums his fingers against your thighs, jaw clenched slightly as he distracts himself from the harsh sting of the antiseptic liquid. your question gives him something to think about, to focus on.
“eh, nothing really. was frustrated, he chirped me. next thing i know, we are fighting.”
you can’t help but laugh at his nonchalance, and your smile reflects onto his own face, the sun lending light to the moon. the motion stretches the gash on his bottom lip and he hisses a little, letting out an indignant sound as you swat at his curious hand.
the plasters you purchased are far too big for the small cuts along his lip and cheek, so you’re forced to slim them down slightly with a pair of rapidly acquired nail scissors, tongue poking from the corner of your lips. you delicately press the bandages to his injuries, smoothing over the fabric with a level of caution reserved for fine china or glass.
evaluating your half-assed medical job, you move to cup juraj’s face once more and relish in the way that he steps closer to you. a hand swipes at his cheekbone, and you tsk slightly as your knuckles graze the mottled skin in an act of sympathy. “that’s definitely gonna bruise love.”
“eh, it will make me look tough,” he jokes, puffing out his already large frame even further. it’s impressive, you have to admit.
“don’t want you looking tough,” you huff. “want you looking okay. no matter how good you look when y’roughing someone up.”
though you’re joking, juraj senses the underlying worry in your tone, your mind wandering to the threat of him stumbling through your doorway in a far worse condition.
“i’ll be more careful.” a promise.
“what am i gonna do with you, hm?” you tease.
your hands come to rest around his broad shoulders, and juraj slides you off of the counter, hands coming to support your thighs as you wrap your legs around his waist. he carries you towards your bed like it’s nothing, laying you down gently before crawling next to you. he wastes no time in pulling you into his chest, your ear against his chest as the steady thrum of his heartbeat lulls you into a calmer state.
“for now? cuddle me. all i need.”
“i’d love nothing more.”
#.° ༘🗝️⋆₊ becca’s drabbles#nhl x reader#nhl x you#nhl imagine#juraj slafkovsky x reader#juraj slafkovsky x you#juraj slafkovsky blurb#hockey x reader
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been obsessed with ur fics relating to Taylor’s songs 🥺 can u do one with ‘sl/t’? Just a good ole fluffy fic.
My Cuddly Eldritch Boyfriend!
Eldritch Horror!RE2R!Leon x F!Reader
“Ah yes, my human female companion, I believe I am required to inform you of my whereabouts for today. Since we have run out of the minuscule jar of the chocolate-hazelnut spread you quite enjoy consuming with sliced bread, I had to leave our shared den and purchase some for you. It appears that I have underestimated the price of such delicacy for the bills I have pocketed fell short of a few more dollars,” your boyfriend Leon happily recounted as he showed you the large tub of sandwich spread that he bought earlier today. “Boyfriend”, rather, if he can be considered that.
Leon waltzed into your life quite interestingly, a little more differently than most boyfriends do in the lives of others who have them. You were trapped in an unhappy relationship, the kind where you had to beg to be shown affection and got scolded for buying yourself little goodies like a funny little pond jewelry dish. He was always on his gaming computer or out with his buddies for beer and snacks, yelling at you over the phone whenever you refused to lend him more money. You went home one evening, after a draining workday, to see your “boyfriend” quietly cleaning around the house and stopping to greet you good evening and ask you about your day. It’s quite the contrast to go from an “annoying clingy hoe” to “human female companion” but the latter is leagues better than the other words hurled at you. Leon isn’t even the name of your former boyfriend, wherever he is now; this replacement simply decided to name himself. You know you should be looking for your former partner, wherever he is, but you don’t want to. You’re more than happy with Leon and you wouldn’t want another undeserving girl to fall into the suffocating clutches of your ex.
“A lady has also offered me a small slice of processed meat– a sausage, it is called. Seasoned pork meat rolled into logs, a cut skewered into an infinitesimally slim stake referred to as ‘toothpick’. It is quite delectable, I must admit, but I haven’t any payment in my pockets so I had to politely decline her offer,” he continues recalling. You take out your phone and google a word: “infinitesimally”. This is another of the changes you noticed with your boyfriend: his lexicomane speech; you would never hear words the likes of ‘infinitesimally’ and ‘minuscule’ from him, intelligent phraseology is not in his vocabulary. A few days after the swap of boyfriends, you found yourself having to install a dictionary app on your phone in order to keep up with his sesquipedalian use of words and engage in conversation. You smile, finally spotting the definition of the word: extremely small.
“That’s great, Leon. We still have some sausage in the freezer, though, so I think it’s only right that you didn’t get some coz we might’ve ended up with far too much,” you respond as you set your phone down on the counter. “What brand was it though? I might pick that up for you next time around when I go for groceries.”
“Hm,” he hums in thought.
His human appearance appears to slightly glitch as he delves deeper into his recollections of the day earlier; he appears to have a chromatic aberration, multiple shadows of his head moving about and twitching around in smoky wisps, as several muffled voices of ancient chanting begin to grow a little bit more noticeable in volume. You grow worried yet you stay seated on your chair, carefully observing Leon before anything too out of control and mind-shattering occurs. Thankfully, he finally manages to remember before the voices get too overwhelming for your human mind.
“I believe it was called ‘MorningStar’,” he finally says. He falls silent, head tilting as his face grows expressionless. “Are you alright, girlfriend?”
He steps closer and sits in front of you, back straight and hands in his lap as he continues to observe you thoughtfully, the gears in his head turning to determine how to approach you.
“Oh, yes, Leon. Don’t worry, just zoned out a little. That’s all,” you respond with a forced smile that doesn’t convince him entirely.
“Have you finally observed that I have left the bathroom light bulb switched on during the entirety that I was out purchasing goods to consume?” he quietly asks, voice laced with guilt and shame as he looks at you with something akin to puppy-dog eyes; you didn’t know that eldritch horrors are capable of giving puppy-dog eyes. “I apologize with utmost remorse, my human female mate. In my haste to please you, I have overlooked a step in securing your household utilities.”
You wonder what is the connection between his previous concern for you and the most recent sentence he just uttered then it occurred to you that he wanted to delay admitting to you that he forgot to switch off the lights; Leon must’ve also forgotten that humans don’t have the level of perception as whatever his kind has, or maybe he assumed that you and you alone possessed that ability. You never would have known if he didn’t bring it up to you. It is funny to see this eldritch being that was clearly trying to pass off as human, as if you had the power of the universe in your palm and could so easily kick him out into the streets, a look on his face now reminiscent of a kicked puppy. It appeared as if he shrank into his olive green sweater, hiding into the warm and dark depths that the piece of clothing offered. Now his ashamed aura was seeping into you, making you feel a slight tinge of what he’s feeling.
“Leon, it’s fine, okay? We’re still in one piece and nothing too bad happened. Besides, I have enough money to comfortably pay off utility expenses so there’s nothing much to worry about,” you reassure him with a gentle hand to his firm shoulder, feeling the spot unwind from the tension beneath your warm palm. “That happens to me too and I get frustrated sometimes but now I just laugh at it.”
He lights up again and that aura of despair fizzles away lickety-split. He beams again, a little too widely for what could be considered normal. He continues rambling on about sausages before asking you about your workday and leaning in to listen intently; you talk and talk, he sits and devotes all his attention to you and answers too, from time to time. He’s a lot more engaging and present when it comes to talking about yourself than your former boyfriend; all he’d talk about is himself and how you’re lucky he loves you, the occasional comparison to other girls. When you’re finally finished talking about your day, it’s Leon's turn to talk about his.
You don’t want to tell him that he’s not perfect on trying to pass off as another ordinary human being– he still tends to unhinge his jaw when he gets excited, his form glitches when he’s deep in thought, he refers to you as ‘human female mate’ or ‘human female companion’ or simply ‘girlfriend’ though in a manner free of offensive intentions, he likes to change the shades of his blue irises, and his verbose vocabulary. Other than the multiloquent manner that he converses in, no one seems to pick up on the irregularity of his physical form, not even when there’s faint shadows of his head fluctuating when he thinks; surely he’s travelling to universes beyond human comprehension just to figure out an answer to “what’d you think of the new Deadpool and Wolverine movie?”. You guess that he’s conjuring some form of illusion that mask slip-ups in his form but why this doesn’t apply to you, you’re not exactly sure but you don’t plan on telling him his lapses; you’re perfectly content with him cooling up your drink with his hand alone in a matter of seconds when you’re out together. He’s far from perfecting the image of a totally human boyfriend but you’re slightly positive that he’s the most perfect lover.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
“I would like to relish in the amusement of motion pictures with sound alongside you on our couch,” Leon expresses in mild emotion though he seems quite eager to watch movies, just phrased in a more archaic fashion.
“Me too” you respond with a small giggle at his unintentionally goofy personality. “Got a movie in mind?”
“Movie? Ah, yes. The moving images,” he recalls. “I have overheard this title from a young couple I happened to share a bus with, Kate and Leopold, they said. Appertaining to this hearsay statement, it must be a picture that thoroughly imprints itself on the heart and mind.”
“Kate and Leopold?” you say out loud and he nods. “Sure, why not. C’mon let’s head to the living room.”
“Of course,” he responds with an enthusiastic smile as he gets up from his dining room chair and quietly pushes it back before trailing behind you like the lovecraftian horror puppy that he is.
You put on the movie, both settling into a comfortable silence, attention centered on the film on your TV. In the middle of the film, you realize how you are quite near to him yet he does not make advances to touch you as he appears content with your shoulders touching. You sit up, inching closer to his side yet you don’t make this all simultaneous as you don’t want to shock him into discomfort. Much to your pleasant amazement, he not-so-subtly extends his arm behind your neck and rests it there. You look at his head and his face is still trained on Leopold chasing the snatcher, though the tips of his ears are dusted with a faint bloom of pink; who knew that cosmic beings could blush. Now slightly more confident, he slowly tries to urge you closer to the warmth of his side though he’s now hesitant with his actions. You snuggle closer to his side and now his hand is comfortably resting on the side of your arm where his silvery touch sends a flurry of tingles. Leopold and Kate are now sharing a kiss on a rooftop after a waltz to which your heart nearly goes into overdrive; Leon is not faring any better, visibly red-faced and overcome with butterflies that press up against his lungs (if he has any), making breathing feel a little funny. You wonder if he’s mentally replacing the characters with you and him and the image makes him feel madly excited.
“Leon, are you cold?” you ask towards the movie’s nearing end.
“No, but are you?” he counters, turning to face you now.
“Kinda.”
“Would you like me to fetch some for you?”
“No, no, it’s fine. I can get it myself–”
Something heavy and weighted and fuzzy envelopes you from the chest down, placed down by the man beside you.
“What’s this?” you ask in a slightly raised voice.
“A blanket,” he responds in a nonchalant manner.
“Why is it so heavy? I know weighted blankets exist but this one’s a little heavier than what I’m used to…”
“It’s bear fur.”
You fall silent, staring down at the brown fur mass laid above your body before staring back up at him, silently asking if this is his form of a prank. Unfortunately, he is serious about this.
“Um… Leon, I appreciate the blanket but I generally prefer faux fur to actual animal-sourced fur. It’s, you know, more wildlife friendly… yeah, um…”
You need not to say more when the blanket is still brown but is now clearly made of faux fur, having changed it right away without arguments or insults hurled at you. He seems satisfied with his service, adjusting the blanket to cover you up properly without obstructing your view of the movie. You offer to share the blanket but he objects, tomato-faced as he stutters his apology.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
The movie is finished and he smiles, remarking on how the couple was correct about their opinions and recounting some of the lines that stuck to him. He seemed to especially adore the portion where Kate is enchanted by the sight of Leopold on horseback, most excitedly analyzing the scene and going into detail about the look of love and the twinkle of Kate’s eyes before sighing dreamily.
“I wish to one day flawlessly emulate the depth of emotion she captured with only both her eyes, though I am well-aware that this is all expert acting. It would be my pleasure to one day look at you with such adoration as you tell me tales for there is nothing more that I desire than to enlighten you about the boundless worship that I present to you,” he wistfully conveys as he watches you walk around the bedroom before settling down to lay beside him.
You softly giggle, biting your lip as his voice bounces off in the walls of your mind and plays over and over again.
“Thank you. You’re doing a great job at that already honey,” you sincerely respond to him as you slip under the sheets and get snug.
“Your welcome,” he softly murmurs as a dopey smile points the corners of his lips skyward.
You ask if you can switch the bedside lamp off and he nods, the darkness of the room taking over as your eyes adjust to the lack of light. You lay still and silent before quietly wishing him a good night and restful sleep, to which he returns before he shifts and faces his back to you. Sometime in the middle of the night Leon awakens to the warmth and weight of your head and arms on his chest, the sight of you causing a human warmth to bloom where a human heart would be. You are peaceful and delicate, basking in the warmth that his form offered; the fact that you sought him out in your sleep made him feel loved, a feeling he didn’t know he’d grow to constantly crave. He pulls you closer and delicately wraps his arms around you in a protective embrace, a soft purr humming from his chest– an actual purr, like a cat’s. He strokes your hair with a silvery touch, daintily patting strands as he thinks about the fragility of his human and how he’d need to be very careful with them. His silky hands cause you to drift between the world of sleep and waking consciousness, growing more aware of his purr. You’re not new to his purring; he purrs when you two hold hands while running errands together, he purrs when you refer to him as your boyfriend to other people, he purrs when he finds out that you bought him a snack he likes. He has yet to discover that humans do not and cannot purr, that’s why you aren’t returning his physical display of contentedness but he’s satisfied that you’re letting him hold you like this. You don’t mind his purring at all and you’re firm on the decision that you love him and that he loves you back.
NOTE - First off, thank you to the anon who requested this!! I hope this one reached your expectations, even if I did put a little twist to it :)) guys... I think we're back!!! coz I decided to start on this last night at around 11:30 PM and I rlly had my creative juices flowing, like it just occured to me so clearly so now ig I'm going to start quite late into the evening if I'm going to start something new :D this fic is inspired by the eldritch horror boyfriend prompts that I came across on TikTok and also bc I felt like writing Leon rlly poetic and soft tonightt teehee :3 That's it and and I hope you really enjoyed this fic :)) Thank you for reading my works!!!!!!!!!! I <3333 UUUUUU!!!!!!!!!
The dainty chain dividers are made by @cafekitsune , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).
#resident evil#leon kennedy#leon kennedy x reader#leon kennedy fluff#leon s kennedy fluff#resident evil 2 remake#leon kennedy x y/n#fluff#leon scott kennedy#leon s kennedy#re2#resident evil 2#re2r#re2 remake#biohazard#leon kennedy x fem reader#leon kennedy x you
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first light
Summary: Could this be how every day begins?
After a long and restless night with no sleep, you go looking for something to while away the hours. As it turns out, Astarion is just as much of an insomniac as you are, and the two of you spend the early morning together.
Pairing: Astarion x Gender Neutral! Reader
Word Count: 4,334
Tags: Fluff and Light Angst, Pining, Feelings Realization (Kinda?), Second Person POV, Soft Astarion, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Insomnia, Watching the Sunrise
Author's Note:
not me returning to fic-writing over 3 years later with an astarion fic of all things. i can't even guarantee i'll write another one considering i'm about to start college again, but i would sure like to!
i was heavily inspired to write this because of the release of hozier's album. it perfectly aligned with me becoming obsessed with baldur's gate 3, and astarion is just so hozier-coded, how could i not? as the title suggests, i was inspired by the song "first light" which is the last song on the album, based on dante's ascent out of hell and his first taste of light and freedom. i imagine it's how astarion must have felt when he was no longer forced to do cazador's bidding and when he could finally experience sunlight again.
obligatory disclaimers: i haven't actually played the game yet, so this fic is informed by clips i've seen online, gif sets, the baldur's gate wiki, and other fics. if any details in this aren't chronologically sound or if anything seems a little non-compliant with the canon of the game... now you know why lol.
still, i hope you enjoy it! this is also posted to ao3! read here!
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You stare up at the ceiling of your tent, frustration rolling in your chest as you struggle to rest. Your eyes are beginning to sting with the lack of sleep, but simply closing them does nothing to help. You’ve gone through all of your belongings twice already, looking for something to ease you into slumber, but no amount of reading or alcohol seems to do the trick. It certainly doesn’t help that the weather has been oppressively humid all night, leaving you coated in a thin, sticky layer of sweat that doesn’t seem to leave you no matter how many layers you shed.
You can’t bear to lay around in the thick air of your tent, so you decide to sit out by the extinguished campfire in the hopes that it will do more to relax you.
You quietly open your tent flap and emerge into the mild morning air. It’s much cooler outside, and a light breeze tickles your arm, already doing wonders to dry your sweat. It’s still too early for daylight, so the camp is only dimly illuminated by the moonlight. With the lack of light, you listen out for the sounds of the forest around you: the chirps of insects beneath you, hooting owls in the distance, and a trickling stream not too far away. Focusing on these scarce sounds, you already feel much calmer.
After a moment of peace, you hear a rustle to your right. You whip your head toward the sound, hands ready at your weapon, when you see a familiar face emerge from the trees. You let your hands drop to your side again. It’s just Astarion. He appears to be returning to his tent, noticeably empty-handed. You wonder what he’s up to this early in the morning, and he seems to be wondering the same thing, eyeing you with an inquisitive raise of the eyebrow.
“Restless sleeper, are we?” He remarks.
“Something like that,” you reply. “Just needed some fresh air.”
You notice that Astarion is still in his sleepwear, the sleeves of his white undershirt pushed up above his elbows. “And what are you doing out?”
“Oh, you know. Searching for a midnight snack, so to speak.” He gestures to the woods behind him. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a very fine selection tonight.”
You grimace at the thought of Astarion catching an innocent woodland creature between his teeth. It’s a less-than-flattering image, one that’s informed by the memory of the boar he drained a while back, and one that you’re eager to dismiss.
“Is that all you’ve been up to?” You ask.
“Why? Were you getting lonely without me?” He teases. You can only roll your eyes in response. When he doesn’t receive a retort, Astarion sighs and continues. “Right, if you want an honest answer, I was going for a stroll to pass the time.”
You tilt your head to the side. “Wandering about on your own while everyone’s asleep isn’t a very good idea. If something happens out there, none of us will be able to save you”
“Trust me, darling, I can hold my own just fine. But I appreciate you worrying about my safety. It’s almost touching.” He smirks. “I would appreciate it even more if you would refrain from telling the others about my… routine here. I don’t exactly want the company.”
“Routine? How long have you been taking these walks?”
“Since the day I joined you all, I would say.” Astarion’s eyes move to the entrance of his own tent. “I haven’t been able to get much sleep myself, and I figure there isn’t much use laying on my bedroll if I’m not resting or satisfying… other needs. So, I walk. And occasionally feed.”
You search Astarion’s face for any sign of deception, but he’s being surprisingly truthful, if a little bashful. You resonate with his sleeplessness, being something of an insomniac yourself. Despite the immense toll your travels have taken on your body, you can’t seem to rest very easily at all, especially when you need it the most. Whether it’s the vivid memories of past battles replaying in your dreams, the smothering climate of whatever campsite you’ve picked out that night, or the relentless wriggling of the tadpole in your head, there’s always something keeping you up.
“I’m surprised I haven’t caught you earlier, then,” you say. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you,” says Astarion. He smiles, and it seems he means it too. “Well, seeing as neither one of us will be getting to bed anytime soon, would you care to join me?”
You cross your arms. “I thought you would have preferred to be alone.”
“Misery loves company and all. I think I can make an exception for a fellow night owl,” he drawls.
You agree to walk with him then and quietly head in the opposite direction of both tents. You’re sure to bring your weapon with you in the off chance that something—or someone—attacks the two of you. A very small part of you still garners some suspicion for Astarion himself, especially considering that night in which he tried to feed from you while you slept. Perhaps that’s another factor in your insomnia; although you let Astarion drink his fill that night, you can’t be entirely sure he won’t try it again. That he won’t succeed in creeping up on you and draining you completely.
You shiver at the thought, but pass it off as a cold chill from the wind. As the two of you slowly move from the campsite, your surroundings become even quieter. The chirping insects from before are silent now, and the nearby stream is barely a whisper. You can hardly hear either of your footsteps. It’s at once peaceful and unsettling.
After a few short minutes, you’re the first to break the silence. “What do you usually do when you’re out here?”
Astarion thinks for a moment, and hums. “Hmm. Aside from hunting, I suppose I just sit with my thoughts. There isn’t much else to do, is there?”
You nod, but somehow you don’t think being left with one’s own thoughts is particularly relaxing for anyone in your party. You can’t imagine it’s any good for Astarion, especially.
“And what do you think about?”
“So much,” he says. “Plans, mostly. Where our next destination is, where I’ll find my next meal, what I’ll do when we reach Baldur’s Gate, how to get rid of this wretched parasite…”
“Do you ever think about your past?”
Astarion’s gaze is a bit distant until you ask that. He slows his pace and turns to you, looking unusually serious. “I prefer not to.”
He leaves it at that, so you decide not to push further. You only know a little about Astarion’s life before the tadpole entered his mind. You know he’s the spawn of an even more powerful vampire, a master to whom he was a slave for nearly 200 years, and you know he’s lived in the shadows up until now. It isn’t lost on you that this entire adventure is his first taste of freedom in centuries. You understand why he would rather focus on the future. Still, your nagging curiosity makes you desperate for more information about him.
“What about you, my dear?” He returns to his more amused attitude. “What do you do in that tent of yours to pass the time until the morning comes? Don’t tell me if it’s anything naughty… Actually, do.”
You shake your head and suppress a smile as he actually almost earns a laugh from you. “Nothing like that. I normally just try to distract myself until I can hopefully fall back asleep. Read something, sort my wares, hum a tune. Anything to relax.”
“I take it that hasn’t been working for you?”
“No. Not one bit. I’m actually kind of worried it might start affecting my performance from now on. Unlike some of the elves in this team, I actually need quite a lot of rest.”
“A true shame,” he tuts. “Although it is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I don’t need to sleep for very long. On the other, I can’t sleep for very long. Sometimes I do wish I could simply let the whole day pass while I doze off. That would be much easier than just waiting it out.”
You hadn’t considered this. While the rest of your traveling companions are able to sleep through the night, Astarion has no choice but to wait for everyone to wake up around sunrise. All he can do is hope to get a few hours of rest before sitting through the unnerving silence of the night, the only unique sounds being the faint snores and mumbles that float from the other tents. You and he are alike in this struggle, but you at least are lucky enough to have a few nights when your exhaustion is bad enough to force you to bed.
“Well, taking a stroll like this is a good idea,” you finally say. “Thank you for inviting me along.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of Astarion’s lips. “Thank you for joining me. I will admit, it’s easier to pass the time with a… friend… by my side.”
Your heart swells at that word: “friend.” It’s a welcome upgrade from whatever you two might have been considered before.
A few minutes pass with the both of you chatting politely. As you walk, you make note of your surroundings to ensure that you don’t stray too far from camp or encounter any traps. This occupies your mind for a while, but Astarion seems to be running out of topics to discuss. Not wanting him to abandon your little trip just yet, you try to think of something to entertain him. Looking out at the forest and the sky in front of you, you notice that the moon has begun its descent into the trees, meaning morning is almost upon you two. This gives you an idea.
You stop and pivot to face Astarion. He stops too, surprised at your sudden pause.
“What is it?” He asks.
"Would you like to watch the sunrise with me?”
He’s taken aback only momentarily before he adopts his familiar flirtatious demeanor. “Trying to turn this into a romantic tryst, are you? If you want something more, you’ll have to be a little more direct than that.”
You shake your head. “No, I don’t mean anything by it. I want to know if you’ll sit and watch the sun come up with me. That’s all. It should be rising soon enough. It’s almost morning.”
He seems puzzled, his brows tightening and eyes scanning your face for any indication that you may be holding something back. When he doesn’t find anything, he settles back into an easy expression. “I seem to have misjudged. My apologies… Yes, I wouldn’t mind sitting with you.”
“Great.” You smile and begin to walk again. “I heard some water earlier, so I think there may be a stream near here. Maybe it’ll make for a nice spot.”
Astarion follows as you lead him closer to the sound of running water, and the two of you shortly come upon the stream. It’s a small, shallow brook that separates the woods from which you emerge and another expanse of trees on the other side. Right along the edge of the water is a line of smooth rocks big enough to sit on. It’s the perfect place to set up, you think.
The two of you find purchase on the edge of the rocks, feet just barely dangling off the side, hovering above the calmly flowing water. The rocks aren’t terribly big, so the two of you sit side-by-side, your knees close enough to touch. Across the brook, the trees begin to thin out, leaving a clear view of the horizon. You estimate that the sun will start its ascent in the next few minutes, but for now, the scene in front of you remains thinly bathed in moonlight.
In the quiet of the dawn, the moon casts its silvery glow on the world beneath it. Every blade of grass, every dewy flower, every mossy stone radiates with a hazy blue hue. The stream beneath you reflects this onto both of your faces, and you give a sideways glance to your companion next to you. You watch as the light dances across his cheeks, admiring how it shines in his curls, how it glistens in his deep red eyes, and how it collects in the space just above his lips. You inhale and the earthy scent of the forest mixes with the smell of Astarion’s perfume in your nose. As you do so, you realize now just how close in proximity you are to him. You’re close enough to trace his silhouette from the slope of his nose to his slender neck with your fingers if you so choose. You glimpse at the puncture marks just below his jaw and remember once more the night you let him drink from you. You remember the moment you awoke in terror before you realized who was crouched above you. You remember the uncertainty you felt as you gave him permission to continue, not sure whether it was a wise decision or not. You remember the sharp sting of his teeth entering your skin and the almost exhilarating dizziness that followed as he coaxed your blood out with his tongue. The rest of that moment is a blur to you, but you can still distinctly recall how he cradled your head with one hand, the other gently ghosting down your spine. For almost a full day after that night, the smell of bergamot and rosemary lingered on your neck.
“You do know staring is rude, don’t you, darling?” Astarion says. “Not that I particularly mind.” He leans back on his arms and turns to face you. “Not when it’s you.”
Your cheeks flush in spite of the cool temperature. You wonder when it was you became so vulnerable to Astarion’s flirting. Even though you have, you try not to entertain it. After all, you suspect his charming behavior is at least partly a ruse.
“Sorry,” you mutter and look back at the horizon. “It’s very pretty out. It’ll be even prettier in just a few more minutes, too. We’re in the perfect spot to watch the sun come up.”
“Is that so?” Astarion tilts his head as he continues to behold you. “You know, I’ve never watched the sunrise like this.”
You twist to look at him again, utterly shocked. “Seriously? Not once?”
He shakes his head.
“How come?”
He sighs. “I’m sure I must have before… everything. But I can’t seem to remember anything from back then. I lost most of my memories when I was brought back, save for a few of the important details. I suppose sunrises weren’t important enough to stick.” He frowns and stares out at a canopy of trees in the distance. “Then, as you know, it would have been incredibly stupid for me to be out in the light with this condition of mine. So, I never tried. I didn’t have very many opportunities to do so, in any case.”
Your brow furrows, but you don’t say anything. Instead, you let Astarion continue at his own pace.
“...I spent decades in my master’s lair, a- a dungeon, really. I was trapped in the darkness. The only time I was allowed out was when he needed fresh, new bodies, and even then it was always under the cover of night. For the longest time, that was all that I knew. In a way, it’s what I’m still used to…”
Suddenly his sleeplessness makes all the more sense to you.
“I know I’m free from that now, what with the tadpole and all, but…” He trails off. You understand.
After several beats of silence, you clear your throat.
“Once, when I was a child, I went playing in the woods with some of the other children in the village. There were maybe six of us in total? I don’t exactly remember. But we marched all the way from the market to the forest pretending we were a band of heroes. I was at the back of the line, right behind this boy that I really liked. I put myself there on purpose so that I could smile and blush as much as I wanted without him seeing me.”
“How cute,” Astarion comments with a quirked eyebrow.
“Yeah. I mean, I thought I was being clever, but it was pretty silly, wasn’t it? Anyways, when we entered the woods, we decided to split off into teams to see who could find the most ‘treasure.’ We just plucked up sticks, flowers, beetles, pinecones, that kind of stuff. I was paired with the boy I liked, and I was so giddy about it. I wanted to show him just how cool I was, so I climbed up every tree and jumped off every rock. Just hearing him laugh and clap for me was enough for me to keep going. So, I did. Before we knew it, we realized we had strayed too far from the rest of the group. We tried to call out to them but heard nothing in return. We were lost.”
You pause your story to get a brief look at Astarion. You half-expect him to be bored by this point, but you’re surprised to see that he’s giving you his full attention. He waves his hand, signaling for you to continue.
“We started playing late into the evening, so by the time we realized that we had no clue where we were, the sun had already begun to set. I remember cursing myself for wishing I could have some alone time with this boy because that wasn’t at all what I had had in mind. But, alas, that was the situation I was stuck in. When it reached midnight and we still hadn’t made our way back to the village, I started panicking. You should know that I used to be deathly afraid of the forest at night. I was terrified of what kind of creatures could be hiding, waiting to snatch me up and eat me alive.”
“Hmm, like vampires?” Astarion teases.
You smirk. “Precisely. You’ll remember, though, that I was stuck with the boy I liked. So, there was no way I could show that I was scared. I couldn’t display any sign of weakness or else he might not think I was as cool as I let off. Knowing this, I put on a brave face and silently begged the gods for some protection before I assembled a makeshift camp for the two of us. It was, admittedly, very shitty, but it did its job of giving us some shelter for the night. I told him he could sleep and that I would keep watch, and so I did. I didn’t sleep very much back then, either, now that I think about it. I guess not a lot has changed about me… But I digress. I stayed up the whole night, sitting outside our little fort, listening to him snore and talk in his sleep. I don’t think I could have left his side if I wanted to, considering how petrified I was. But I powered through the fear, for his sake. I was so young, but I cared about this boy so much that I felt I owed it to him to make sure he was safe.”
“You were quite the hero, even back then,” Astarion says gently. “Is this little story your way of telling me to be more selfless?”
“Not at all. I’m getting to the point, I promise. I sat there for hours as I waited for it to become day again. Eventually, I was able to focus on the more beautiful parts of the night: the moon, the stars, the lightning bugs, the sweet whisper of the wind through the leaves. The more I searched for the good in my situation, the less scared I became, until I was no longer scared at all. By the time dawn rolled around, I was at peace, actually. I was so proud of myself for making it through the night, I immediately woke the boy up to share the moment with him. Then, we sat together, kind of like this,” You gesture to your and Astarion’s seating position, “and just watched the sunrise in perfect silence. I had never watched the sunrise before. It was so nice, getting to quietly enjoy such a wonderful view with someone I loved.”
As you finish your story, you face Astarion once more. His gaze is soft as he listens to you speak, and the tender curl of his lips betrays a sincere gratitude for having shared this with him.
“Did anything ever happen between you and that boy?” He asks.
“Sadly, no. He eventually fell for some other girl in town. Last I heard, they had three kids together.”
“Hmm.” Astarion angles his chin away from you. “Well, that’s his loss.”
You look away, too, and smile to yourself.
Suddenly, the sky begins to transform before your eyes. The first gleams of sunlight begin to caress the horizon as the moon takes its final bow behind you. The forest, still coated with all the glimmering remnants of morning dew, stirs from its slumber under the streams of the emerging sun. As the sun slowly rises, its warm embrace spreads like honey between the trees, flooding the forest floor with rays of pink and amber. Shafts of light pierce through the lush foliage, creating scintillating patterns on the surface of the water that seem to dance at the promise of a new day. Finally, when the sun peers at you from above the treetops, it’s as if the sky erupts. A burst of brilliance envelopes the world below it in its welcoming embrace, casting everything in a blazing golden light.
You begin to say something to Astarion but stop when you see his face. He looks positively radiant. His face glows in the daylight, appearing even more magnificent than he did in the moon’s silver beams. His face and his hair are colored by the sun, making him look more alive than he ever has before. Every detail from the strands in his eyebrows to the smallest of moles is illuminated before you. You watch as his eyes glisten before softly fluttering closed. He breathes deeply, his chest slowly rising and falling, and he basks in the sunlight. He relaxes completely, letting the sun’s rays melt away any and all tension he may have been holding on to.
You want nothing more than to cup his face in your hands, then, and feel the newly imbued warmth of his skin as you press your lips to his. Instead, however, you carefully place your hand on top of his. His eyes blink open and he turns to look at you once more. You hesitate for a moment, ready to move away, but he doesn’t reject you. His eyes crinkle with appreciation and he laces your fingers together before gently stroking his thumb against the side of your hand. His skin is still a bit cold, but thanks to you, it quickly warms up.
The two of you sit there in tranquility, taking in all of the sights, sounds, and feelings of the early morning. Time seems to slow, then, as if the universe itself also wishes to savor this serene moment for just a little while longer.
Soon, you hear the distant sound of casual conversation as the others awaken for yet another day of arduous traveling. You sigh, knowing that the two of you will have to return to camp shortly and leave all of this behind. You don’t want to let go just yet.
“We should probably get back,” Astarion says first. “I wouldn’t want the others to think that I killed you and scurried off or something like that.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t be very good for morale,” you joke. After a moment, you reluctantly untwine your fingers and push yourself up off the rocks. You extend a hand to Astarion to help him up, which he graciously accepts.
Neither of you moves at first until Astarion takes a step toward you. Standing so close to you, you wonder if he’s about to kiss you when he gingerly takes hold of your hands. He gives you that sincere smile again.
“Thank you again for this. It was… nice.” You almost can’t believe how vulnerable he seems right now, eyes staring into yours with no hint of false pretenses. “I’d like to do this again with you, if you’ll join me.”
“I would love to.”
“Wonderful,” he says. He lets go of you. “Shall we then?”
The two of you take your time walking back to the campsite, talking idly about what the next few days have in store. When you arrive, Karlach is the first to notice you.
“There you two are! We were beginning to worry.” She looks between you both and crosses her arms, narrowing her eyes mischievously. “Anything we should know about your disappearance?”
You chuckle. “Nothing that would excite you, Karlach.”
You walk past her and approach your tent. The rest of your team is already getting to work cleaning their weapons, armor, and other equipment, preparing to hunt, or strategizing together. Before you duck inside to retrieve your clothes for washing, you turn back and lock eyes with Astarion. He’s entered a conversation between Shadowheart and Gale, but he isn’t all that engaged. He shoots you a knowing look and another small smile which you return in kind.
As you wash your clothes in the river just south of the camp, you think fondly of the promise you’ve now made with Astarion and the many sunrises to come. Suddenly, insomnia doesn’t seem so bad.
#astarion#astarion bg3#astarion baldur's gate#baldur's gate#baldur's gate 3#bg3#bg3 fic#astarion fic#astarion x reader#astarion x tav#astarion x you#i want to give astarion so much love pls
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furthest from truth
Lando Norris fic - requested
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a/n: I'm baaack! It's been a while, I have to admit. But after having 3 new requests today, I got motivated again and I decided to write the ones that were yet to be posted on my page. I hope you like it! I've added some spice to the end of the chapter 👀 Don't forget to follow me so you won't miss my other stories! 🫶🏼
Sun. Beach. Sand. Friends.
It might look cliché, but it’s what filled your hearts with joy.
‘’Norris! Give me a hand, will ya?’’ Your lips pulled away from those of your boyfriend the moment he got up to help one of your friends with preparing the jet skis.
‘’Finally,’’ your best friend, Ava, laughed as she took a seat next to you. ‘’Now that your lips are no longer glued to his, what do you think of grabbing a drink, I’m in a desperate need for a Frozen Daiquiri.’’
She pulled you up on your feet after you agreed on getting drinks. It was your holiday, after all, and even though it was just your first day of the 3-week holiday here in Dubai, you were planning on making it the best holiday yet.
You and Lando had been together for a little over 5 months now, the two of you bumping into each other at last year’s Christmas Market in London. You spilled your bottle of water over your shirt, and he was determined to win you a teddy bear so he could make it up to you.
After that Christmas Market, you went on a ton of dates. In London, but also in Monaco, as that was where he lived. You attended 3 races before he finally asked you to be his last summer, and obviously you said yes, otherwise this story is kind of weird, isn’t it?
Anyways, you knew who he was when you met him, having watched a few races here and there, along with your friends.
The moment you told your friends Lando had asked you out on a date, they couldn’t contain their excitement and practically forced you to go out with him. So, you did. And here we are, almost a year later.
‘’Two Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri, please.’’ Ava ordered the drinks for the two of you and once you felt the cold glass in your hand, you immediately took a sip.
‘’Urgh,’’ you groaned, your eyes closed. ‘’Best drink ever.’’ You giggled.
‘’Lando! Oh my god watch out!’’ Your grip on his life jacket was tight as he was riding the jet ski with you on the back. ‘’You idiot!’’ You laughed, hands gripping his shoulders firmly when you felt him go even faster – if that was even possible.
‘’You’re riding a jet ski with an F1 driver, love. Did you really think I was gonna go slow?’’ You groaned at his reply, and you simply held onto him like you could fall off any moment, which was probably the case.
Everything sport related was a game to him, and he was very, very competitive. He hated losing, which is why he tried his hardest to make you his, with success.
‘’Okay, okay, enough speed for me, let’s go back to the shore and have dinner, I’m starving.’’ You breathe, Lando’s hand moving over your leg slowly. He lifted his hand till it rested on your outer thigh, whilst still steering the jet ski with one hand. Slower, though, thankfully.
‘’We will, love, we will.’’ He said, but you could hear the amusement in his voice, his tone, teasingly with a smirk.
‘’Lan-…’’ You couldn’t even finish your sentence before your boyfriend pulled the right handle towards him, the two of you flying over the water. He made sure to keep an eye on you, but he knew you enjoyed this, and he wasn’t wrong.
You might tell him to stop going fast, heck, even in the bedroom you’d tell him to stop, but it was always with that flirty and teasing tone. He knew that tone, and he knew it meant you did not want him to, in fact, stop. So, he kept going.
‘’I should have thought better before signing that contract about us.’’
You were fully drenched, Lando obviously pushing the strings too hard which caused you to fall off the jet ski. Nothing harsh, it was all playful, and the two of you were laughing when it happened.
‘’You’re an idiot.’’ You smirked, rolling your eyes playfully as you squeezed the salty water out of your hair.
‘’I know, but you like it.’’ He teased, slapping your ass lightly as his hand moved its way towards your hip, his lips pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. ‘’I love you.’’
Dinner, which was absolutely insane – mostly because you were starving, but definitely because it was one of the best restaurants here in Dubai.
‘’Ehm..’’ Ava shoved you her phone, and you immediately let your eyes wander over the tweets, the Instagram posts, and the articles.
Lando saw the worried look on your face, so he cut off the conversation with his friends and pointed his attention to you, causing his friends to do the same.
‘’What’s wrong, love?’’ He asked, his thumb drawing small circles on your knee as his gaze went from you to the phone, back to you.
You showed him the articles, and a heavy sigh escaped his lips. You could see his jaw clench, the apple in his throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly. ‘’They really need to make rumours about everything, don’t they?’’ He sighed and pressed a kiss to your temple.
‘’Don’t worry, Y/N, I’ll fix it, we’ll post a statement on Insta, alright?’’ He said, his arms wrapping around you which caused you to relax.
You felt guilty, because you were aware of the eyes that were on him now that his contract with McLaren was coming to an end. You knew his contract was getting renewed, but the world didn’t, and you didn’t want to cause issues.
People blaming McLaren for not renewing his contract, and how this. People blaming McLaren for forcing Lando to be in a relationship with you, a PR relationship, which was the furthest from the truth. You loved each other so much, and McLaren had absolutely nothing to do with the two of you.
‘’Come here.’’ Lando’s arms made his way around your shoulders, his strong arms pulling you even closer to his chest. The bed was comfy, soft, but the tension in your face was apparent, especially to Lando.
‘’I just, I feel so stupid for saying that.’’ You sighed but Lando reassured you immediately.
‘’Babe, it’s not the first time we say this, it’s our joke, and people don’t get it, apparently. You know how the media is, they exaggerate everything to get those views and clicks, so they probably overheard you saying that, but did not see the look on your face, or your beautiful smile when you said that.’’ His voice was soft and calm, like he was not stressed at all about this.
‘’But the image McLa-..’’
‘’No, baby, no. That’s not your fault, okay? They should have probably announced the contract extension sooner, yeah, but that has absolutely nothing to do with whatever you said at the beach, okay?’’ He said, stern, but gentle. And you believed him. Of course you did, you believed everything he would tell you because you knew he was right.
‘’Now let’s make that post so people will stop complaining about things that are the furthest from the truth. That, and so I can take you tonight because I really, really want to.’’ He whispered the last thing with a voice so deep, you felt chills all over your body.
landonorris added to his story
landonorris & yourusername
liked by user1, user2, user3 and 1,273,710 others
I love you more than anyone imagine. Nothing can stop us, I promise you. Best decision I've ever made 🧡
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user1 I feel ashamed
user5 as you should
user3 we all should. how could we think it was just a PR. they are in love in love.
user2 You are so so so cute together!
‘’Lando, fuck, stop!’’ You breathe, hands pushing against his chest as he looked into your eyes, his bright ones a few shades darker than usually. He smirked, wetted his lips before thrusting even harder… Just how you asked.
#f1#formula 1#formula one#lando norris#f1 imagines#f1 fic#f1 imagine#f1 x reader#f1 fan#f1 fanfic#formula 1 fanfiction#formula 1 fanfic#mclaren formula 1#formula one fanfic#formula one fanfiction#lando x you#lando norris mclaren#lando imagine#lando x reader#lando norris x reader#lando norris imagine#lando norris imagines#lando norris smut#lando norris fanfic#lando norris x you#lando norris x y/n
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PATIENCE, PATIENCE.
p — SIM JAEYUN x gn! reader. g — humor, fluff. w — swearing, making out, secondhand embarrassment aka the hannie-dul-set fic triumvirate + a good amount of public indecency. 1.5k words.
requested by — anon: cocky jock (who loses that cockiness around you) x reserved student librarian (who loses that cool because of him).
note — loosely inspired by a moment from the manhwa "unstoppable hayoung" ifykyk. in a prev fic i alluded beomgyu to a mosquito, in this one jake to a pest. i think i'm seeing a pattern here.
a pest has been following you for quite some time now.
“sim jaeyun.”
his name falls icy off your tongue, prefacing it with a sharp inhale yet the man in question is unfazed. he’s trespassing the barrier that’s preventing you from socking him in the face: the front desk of the library where he’s decided to prop his arms over, leaning into the surface, smiling oh-so-handsomely at you as if you aren’t politely telling him to fuck off with your eyes alone.
then again. you don’t really expect him to understand social cues.
“for the dozenth time, please leave me alone.”
so you verbalize your intent instead.
“i can’t do that, baby,” he replies. “not until you agree to go out with me.”
you suck in a deep huff of air, close your eyes, and dig your fingers into your thighs to ward away the distress.
“just one date. please?” he prods, nudging himself closer over the desk as if the scrawls of paper you’re trying to organize aren’t as important as his incessant badgering. “are you really going to keep saying no to this face?” the face in mention looks particularly punch-able right now. you’ve always taken pride in yourself for being a very patient, patient individual. jake sim from philosophy 102 is testing that patience.
“the library is for reading,” you say through gritted teeth. patience, patience, patience. you’re a daffodil on a breezy field, a piece of driftwood on a steady river. you will not fight a man in your workplace. you will keep your job and maintain inner peace.
“i am reading,” he argues. “i’m trying to read your mind because i don’t get why you don’t want to go out with me.”
holy crap. he’s insufferable.
“i’ve already told you dozens of times, jake.” now, you don’t know a thing or two about the ball sport he does, but that pink varsity jacket is starting to look abhorrent. it’s being shoved into your face the more he tries to throw himself over your desk. a bright jarring color, unsafe for the eyes. “i don’t want to go out with you. also, i’d appreciate if you stop ruining my work.”
one of the documents got wrinkled under his elbow. his mouth opens, “oh, sorry!” and he quickly backs off, ironing the sheet with his palms. “but at least tell me why you don’t want to go out with me. you keep rejecting me with a blank face but i don’t know why.”
your upper lip twitches.
because this is all because of a dare, that’s fucking why.
no, even that aside, the way he keeps arrogantly trying to hit on you, expecting you to just accept it and go is grinding your gears. you’re calm. you’re usually calm. but something about this guy just pushes all your buttons in one go, makes you spew out bullshit you’d never dare yourself to say to anyone else.
“hey,” your rouse. “can you kiss me right now?”
two can play at that game, bitch.
it works. it works really well because jake is suddenly as pink as his jacket. well, you don’t blame him. the library isn’t safe from gross, hormonal activities, but those are usually done in between the shelves— not at the front desk near the entrance.
you’re mimicking his stance, leaned forward, arms crossed over the desk and all. “like— like a peck on the cheek?” he stutters.
“no. like tongue in mouth kissing me like a starved man and it’s your last meal on death row,” you clarify. it’s funny how you can see his brain circuits crashing in real time. serves him right. you let out a breath and stand up, seeing the clock tick closer to your break. you quickly gather your things and circle out from behind the desk, now in cross-armed disappointment next to your persistent pest. “this is why i don’t want to go out with you, jake. you don’t even have feelings for me. you’re doing this because your friends told you to, and i don’t—”
suddenly, you feel something soft on your lips.
suddenly, your knees are weak, your mind is fuzzy, and you’re exchanging spit with jake sim in the library lobby.
wait, you gasp into his mouth and he responds with a grunt. wait, your eyelids flutter, air knocked out of your chest that’s somehow now pressed against his because wait— this wasn’t supposed to go this way.
how dare he actually do what you told him to? how dare he give you the best damn kiss you’ll ever have in your life?
“what the fuck?” you breathe out in intermittent huffs, hands on his chest as you pull yourself back. jake’s hazy eyes are looking at you in a way that makes your brain jump in circles, coupled by the arm that he has looped around your lower back. he’s crazy. he’s fucking crazy. “why— why would you do that?!”
“you told me to kiss you!”
“and you did?!”
your eyes widen at the volume of your own voice, quickly slapping a hand over your swollen lips, but making noise is at the bottom of your library sins today. you see your supervisor’s attention on you from the corner of your eye, and your face flushes. “why would you go this far for a dare?” you say in a quieter voice, still manic, still frantic, and jake flinches hard when you jab a finger to his chest. “you’re nuts, you’re actually nuts, oh my god—”
“wait, what do you mean dare?” your finger seems to be hurting him because he grabs your wrist and brings your hand down. “a dare? a dare to do what?”
you seethe. “don’t play dumb with me, jake. overheard you and your little soccer friends last time—”
“it’s football—”
“i don’t care.” your voice is getting louder again. jake flinches once more. “the problem here is you keep asking me out to date you because your soccer friends are betting on who can bed the quiet library assistant first and— and i’m not going to play dumb just because you’re a good kisser. i’m angry and disgusted and—”
“do you mind continuing your argument outside?”
your mouth is hanging open, paused mid-speech. when you peer to your left, you see that your supervisor has teleported right next to you. oh, god. there goes your job. jake apologizes for the both of you and skews your frozen figure out the door. you’re screwed. your patience could handle six months at starbucks and three months babysitting three toddlers, but i cannot handle one sim jaeyun.
“so,” the perpetrator’s voice snaps you back to reality. you’re both now outside the library, and he’s looking at you with a smugness that begs a kick to the balls. “you think i kiss good.”
your face bitters. “is that your only takeaway from all that?”
“no,” he shakes his head. “i also got that you’re rightfully mad at me for something i have to clear up.”
here we go. you’re curious to see what excuses he’ll make, how many sorry’s he’ll impart, and if he’ll get down on his knees. jake. but his starting words aren’t what you’re hoping for. “there isn’t a bet,” he starts. “my teammates were just trying to tease me because i didn’t have the balls to ask you out. dumb, i know, but they were dumber because they were all like, ‘if you don’t make a move soon, we will, blah, blah, blah’ to provoke me so—”
jake is matching his varsity jacket again.
“long story short, i made them run fifteen laps and decided to get it over with by asking you out on a date.”
you’re brought back to the first instance jake had asked you out— it was in the lecture hall, right after class, and he was wearing the same pink jacket that at this point seems like his second skin. the color isn’t as jarring as you initially thought.
“but rejection didn’t feel nice. so i thought i’d try again.”
you narrow your eyes. “again, as in like, eight times?”
“you counted?” he muses. you are unamused. he clears his throat and continues. “you’re always so calm and collected, but your eyebrows would furrow and your face would scrunch up whenever i threw you the question. it’s cute. i got addicted. you can’t pin all the blame on me.”
you let his words simmer, and with each passing second of silence jake grows more nervous, fidgeting in wait. you decide to spare him the agony, letting out a deep and heavy sigh. “okay. you’re forgiven.”
it’s instantaneous how his face lights up. now, you’re the one flinching.
“nice! does that mean we’re dating now? can i kiss you again?”
“now hold on,” you stop him, mildly appalled, mostly flustered. “i said i forgive you. i never said we can start making out in a public area again.”
he bats his eyes at you. “in private then?”
you want to hit him. you want to hit him so bad. sim jaeyun is the pest that has been following you for quite some time now. you fear that at this point, there’s no getting rid of him now.
PATIENCE, PATIENCE.
© hannie-dul-set, 2023.
#enhypen x reader#enha x reader#enhypen jake x reader#sim jaeyun x reader#jake sim x reader#enhypen scenarios#enha scenarios#sim jaeyun scenarios#jake sim scenarios#enhypen imagines#enhypen x you#sim jaeyun x you#jake sim x you
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Be Around Me
Part 1 of the "Love is Embarrassing" series
Pairing: Gyuvin x Reader, Ricky x Reader (one-sided), Haobin crumbs, Jiwoong x Reader teeny tiny crumbs
Summary: Gyuvin is the type of guy to get flustered over everything, but little does he know that you secretly think it makes him even cuter.
Tropes: basketball star!gyuvin, journalist!reader, college AU, basketball!zb1, frat!zb1, secret admirer, fluff, slow burn, crack, unrequited love, mutual pining, gyuvin is a LOSER
Word Count: 4.4k
Warnings: Ricky is annoying lol, mentions of masturbation and sex (mdni!!!)
A/N: y’all will have pry zb1 college basketball au from my cold dead hands!!!!!!!! also for once in my life, y/n is not super insecure we cheered!!
FIC INSPIRED SPOTIFY PLAYLIST <3
“It's obvious she's so out of reach
And I'm finding it hard 'cause
She makes me feel, makes me feel
Like I try, like I try, like I'm trying too hard”
—Try Hard, 5 Seconds of Summer
On the court, Kim Gyuvin is the star player of the Wakefield Roses. With his long limbs, he handles the ball with ease, capturing the hearts of everybody in the crowd every time he grins after scoring a basket.
Off the court, he’s an awkward mess. Combine that with the fact that you, the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, are usually the one covering games for the school news, and he’s a goner.
As if it isn’t hard enough for him to make eye contact with the camera, he also has to make sure he doesn’t stare too hard at your shiny hair or glossy lips. His teammates would never let him live it down if he was caught being an absolute creep on video.
What started out as a little crush has grown into a deep admiration. He reads every article that you put out into the school newspaper, sometimes even cutting out the ones you’ve written about him and his team. Everybody makes fun of him for being too scared to just ask you out.
He’s never been one to flirt with girls, but the way you make conversations so easy during interviews, even when he’s stumbling over his words, makes him feel at ease around you. Still, he wonders how much of it is just your journalist persona versus you actually liking him.
Sharing a double with Ricky means he gets exiled a lot in the name of his roommate getting laid. Sometimes, you come back from getting your morning coffee and catch him sleeping on one of the lounge’s couches.
One morning, when your arms are full of pastries that you intend to hoard in your dorm for the upcoming week, you spot him curled up yet again on your way back to your room.
Without much thought, you stop to leave a muffin and a little note next to it on the table in front of him, conveniently forgetting to sign your name.
It began with cutesy but vague things, like “breakfast for a champion,” but quickly escalated as soon as Gyuvin started leaving notes back for you.
After a couple exchanges, he even wrote that you didn’t need to be leaving him food at all and that he just wanted to know who you were. Truthfully, you had a really big crush on Gyuvin, but didn’t everybody?
Despite being a bit camera shy, he was always so sweet before and after your interviews, doing his best to make small talk and smiling his smile that could make anybody swoon.
Plus, you’ve seen how much more comfortable he is with other people, even the cheerleaders, who are all super pretty. He must just be really nice.
So, you continue to leave the notes unsigned, despite each one growing in flirtation. You like the thrill of being mysterious, but you’re mostly just scared of getting rejected since he’s never given you a reason to think he likes you back.
It isn’t until Ricky catches you one morning, a sly grin on his face when he sees you leaving a whole stack of notes on the table.
When you lock eyes with Gyuvin’s roommate, you know the jig is up. Surely, he’ll tell him it’s been you all along.
“Y/N,” Ricky nods when you approach him, his arms crossed. “I have to say, I had my suspicions.”
“Listen, Ricky, I would prefer if we could keep this between us.”
“Gyuvin’s been going on and on about some secret admirer for weeks now. It’s cruel that you won’t tell him who you are.”
“He’s welcome to stop writing back if he doesn’t want to,” you shrug, although it would probably devastate you if that actually happened.
“Oh, trust me, he wants to. Especially if he found out it was you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that every time he finishes an interview with you, he might always run home and lock himself in our bathroom because you get him so riled up. If you know what I mean.”
Your eyes go wide at the revelation. Ricky is surely just messing with you. “That’s—that’s not funny, Ricky. You shouldn’t joke about those kinds of things.”
“I’m not joking,” he chuckles. “Listen, Zeta Beta Omega is throwing a party tonight and the whole team will be there. You should come.”
“I don’t do parties,” you scoff. “Why would you even want me there?”
“Because maybe after a few drinks, you and Gyuvin won’t be so scared to tell each other how you feel. Then you guys can knock off this silly game and he can stop whining about not knowing who his mystery girl is.”
“And go back to whining about how all his roommate does is kick him out every night so he can fuck whoever he lays his eyes on?”
“Exactly. See, Y/N, you get me,” he practically purrs. “So, you show up looking all pretty and talk to my poor, lovesick roomie, and I won’t spill your little secret. Deal?”
“Ugh, fine, I guess. I can’t believe you’re blackmailing me. Deal.”
“Trust me, it’s for your own good, sweetheart.”
You cringe at the pet name. “Is this how you talk to everybody?”
“Yes. Why? Is it working? Are you going to start leaving me notes too?”
“Enjoy the rest of your morning, Ricky. I’ll see you later,” you say, walking past him. Even if he’s annoying, it’s genuinely impressive how he managed to brush off every insult you threw his way.
“See you, Y/N.” You don’t even have to look back at him to know that he winked as he said that.
—————-
Gyuvin knows that staying up all night waiting around for his mystery girl would be an invasion of privacy. At least he thinks the person who keeps leaving him baked goods and notes is a girl. Or maybe he’s just being hopeful that it’s you.
He’s never seen your handwriting before, but he’s been close enough to smell your perfume and he swears he can catch hints of it wafting off the sticky notes.
In fact, he’s started looking forward to Ricky kicking him out of their shared bedroom just because he knows he’ll be waking up to the sweetest surprise when he sleeps in the lounge.
Tonight’s party should be a good distraction from all of the wondering. Maybe, if he’s drunk enough, Ricky will be more embarrassing than alluring and Gyuvin will get to sleep in his own bed. Still, he can’t get this morning’s notes off his mind.
You’ve left him clues, little doodles of your favorite things. Your coffee order, favorite color, favorite animal, and so on. He’s hoping you’ll be at tonight’s party so he can see if you mention any of the stuff drawn out, but you never show up to these kinds of things.
That was before Ricky got involved. You stood outside the ZBO frat house wearing your worst sneakers and a baby pink minidress, as suggested by one of your suitemates.
If only you didn’t show up by yourself. There were a few familiar faces from class, and of course, the entire basketball team, but nobody you were really friends with. All you could focus on was how sticky the floor was and how much you needed a drink.
“Hi,” you say, finally making your way over to the bartender. It’s the team’s captain, Hanbin. “Just give me whatever tastes the best.”
“One rum punch it is,” he smiles, his whisker dimples making your heart flutter. Why was everybody on the team good looking? “Y/N, right?”
“Yep,” you say, taking the plastic cup from him. “You’re Hanbin. You know, I’ve been meaning to interview you, but you always seem so busy with other things at games.”
“Don’t worry about it. It wouldn’t be nearly as cute as when you interview Gyuvin,” he laughs, eyeing the line of guests waiting for their drinks. “I’ve got a job to do, but I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Thanks for the drink,” you say, holding it up in a sort of cheer before walking away. You take a sip and savor its sweetness, the liquor’s flavor blending in perfectly to the juice. Hanbin’s words stick with you. Were you and Gyuvin cute together?
Sure, he’s so tall that he practically towers over you, but he refuses to ever make eye contact and always keeps his replies so short and polite. Then again, he sure seems to write a lot in the notes that he doesn’t know are going to you.
For a second, you start to consider that you might actually have a chance with him, until you spot him with a beautiful girl touching his arm and whispering something in his ear. Before you can mope for too long, someone is tapping you on the shoulder.
“There you are,” a familiar voice calls over the music. You turn to see Ricky grinning at you, his hair looking almost white under the lights. “You look good.”
“Thanks, I guess,” you huff, crossing your arms over your chest to prevent him from checking you out any further. He glances past you at his roommate.
“Don’t worry about her,” he assures you. You don’t know whether or not to believe him. “Gyuvin has never taken a girl home from these parties, let alone kissed one.”
That’s a relief. “Don’t you have a hook-up to hunt down?” you ask Ricky. He cocks an eyebrow at you, sipping his drink.
“Oh, Y/N. I keep my girls on speed dial,” he chuckles. You cringe at his playboy persona and for once in his life, Ricky is embarrassed. He shuts his mouth, hoping you can’t see him blush.
“Wow,” you say, tilting your head at him. “Don’t tell me young and rich, tall and handsome Shen Ricky can actually feel shame. I really wish I had a cameraman with me right now.”
“Like I said, it works on most people,” he attempts to reason. “You’re just immune to my charms, I guess.”
“Guess so,” you smirk, downing the rest of your drink. You glance behind your shoulder to see Gyuvin still talking to that girl, then back at Ricky, who’s deep in thought.
“Do you want to meet the rest of the team?” he asks, surprising you. You give a slight nod, and that’s all he needs to see before grabbing your wrist and pulling you through the crowd.
At first, Ricky lingers as you make small talk with Matthew, Taerae, and Gunwook, and explains to you that Yujin is actually at home because he’s still in high school. You feel like a horrible journalist—have you been so preoccupied with Gyuvin that you didn’t notice there was a literal child on the team?
By now, Ricky’s abandoned you to go find something, or someone, more entertaining. He’s dropped you off with Jiwoong, the oldest player, who is as aloof as he is annoyingly handsome. The way he eyes you makes your stomach do cartwheels, and you’ve had enough to drink that you can’t see the harm in flirting with a cute boy.
He’s spewing some bullshit about meditating when you cut him off. “I like your hair,” you blurt out, catching him off guard. He turns and smiles at you for the first time since you started talking.
“You do?” he asks, running a hand through it. “I think it’s a little long. I might get a haircut soon.”
“Keep it like that,” you say, not taking your eyes off of him. “It looks good.”
Jiwoong is grinning now, but he remembers that you’re Gyuvin’s crush, and it would be totally wrong to kiss you no matter how badly he wants to. He eyes the crowd, searching for someone to save him from the tension.
“Hao!” he says, grabbing a boy passing by and pulling him into the conversation. He looks familiar, but he’s certainly no basketball player. “Y/N, this is Zhang Hao. He’s our equipment manager. I’m gonna run to the bathroom.”
“Hi, Y/N,” Hao says, clearly caught off guard. “You’re the one who does the interviews, right?”
“That’s me,” you confirm. Jiwoong’s departure right when you thought he was going to kiss you was beyond bizarre. “I didn’t realize how many people knew me.”
“You’re basically a celebrity to the team,” Hao laughs. “They all think you’re pretty.”
“Makes sense,” you smile, sipping on your third drink of the night. “I am, in fact, very pretty.”
“Agreed. So, which one do you have your eye on?” he asks, leaning in to hear you better. “Or should I guess?”
“Go ahead and guess,” you say, eager to know what he thinks.
Hao takes a second to gather his thoughts. “Well, it’s clear that you’re into Gyuvin based on the way you giggle at his seriously unfunny jokes, but you were also just eye fucking Jiwoong. Then again, wasn’t Ricky dragging you around earlier by the hand?”
“By the wrist,” you correct him. “And yes, I do like Gyuvin. But he’s been talking to some other girl the whole night.”
“He only has eyes for you,” Hao says immediately. This is the second time you’ve heard this tonight, but the first where it’s coming from a trustworthy source.
“And you?” you ask in return, shifting the conversation onto him. “Which one do you have a crush on?”
Hao’s eyes widen. “I–I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not—I don’t—”
“Hao,” you cut him off. “You’ve glanced at Hanbin at least six times since this conversation started.”
He swallows, knowing he’s been caught. “It’s that obvious, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Why don’t you go talk to him?”
“We talk all the time,” Hao mutters, looking down at his shoes. “I’m basically his personal assistant.”
“Do you talk about anything other than basketball?”
“No.”
“Do you even like basketball?”
“...No.”
“Hao,” you say, gripping him by the shoulders and turning him towards the drink station. “Go over there and get your man.”
—————-
As if it weren’t enough of a shock to Gyuvin that you actually showed up to a ZBO party, he’s had to spend all night watching you chat up the entire team except for him.
They’ve no doubt let it slip to you that he has the biggest crush on you on campus, maybe even the entire world. But he’s way too nice to tell one of his classmates, who attends every game just to hold up a sign with his name on it, that he isn’t interested.
That’s how he ended up nursing his drink with a tight lipped smile, listening to what’s-her-name ramble on about things that would be more interesting to probably anybody else, all while keeping an eye on you as you bounce around the party.
Your interaction with Jiwoong made him jealous beyond belief, and he makes a mental note that while he’s made his crush on you very clear to his teammates, you’re technically not his and free to flirt with whoever you want.
He watches as you grasp Hao and shake him, muttering some words of encouragement before sending him over to the bar. Finally, you’re alone again. It’s now or never.
“I have to go walk my dog,” Gyuvin lies, not even bothering to let the poor girl react before making his way over to you. You’re wearing pink, his secret admirer’s favorite color. Surely, it’s not just a coincidence.
“Y/N,” he says a little too loud, startling you. You jump, accidentally knocking yourself into him. Both of your drinks go flying and suddenly, you’re covered in sticky red liquid.
At this point, Gyuvin might as well just die alone. How did he manage to only spill his drink on you and not himself? He peers down at you, guilt written all over his face, as you take in what’s just happened.
“Here,” he says, reaching into his hoodie’s pocket and pulling out wadded tissues. “They’re clean, I promise. I have, uh, I’ve got allergies, so I carry around a ton.”
He unfolds one and gently pats the liquid off of you without so much of a second thought. Your silence makes him panic even more, and he’s so focused on drying you off that he doesn’t even notice he’s basically rubbing the tissue on your cleavage.
Gyuvin freezes once he finally notices where his hand is, immediately pulling away and putting a good distance between the two of you. “I am so sorry. Holy shit, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not a pervert! Please don’t think I’m a pervert.”
“Gyuvin,” you finally say, your voice just as sweet as always. He’s pacing as much as he can with everybody packed in so tightly, his long legs taking tiny steps. “It’s okay. I don’t think you’re a pervert.”
He stops and looks down at you. “Really? You’re not just saying that?”
“Really,” you reassure him. “Although I might think you’re a klutz. Who knew Wakefield’s star basketball player was so clumsy off the court?”
“Technically, you bumped into me,” he asserts, his smile returning. “But you’re also the one who got soaked, so let’s just call things even.”
“Deal,” you agree. Sure, it’s fun when boys are obviously flirting with you, but the way Gyuvin has no clue what he’s doing is just so charming. It feels natural when you’re with him, a nice departure from the overused pickup lines and generic compliments that are usually thrown your way.
Gyuvin takes in your stained dress, the red punch seeping into the pink fabric like blood. You look straight out of a horror movie.
“Here,” he says, shrugging off his varsity jacket and wrapping it around your shoulders before taking in the sight of you. “Wow. You look so…”
“Silly?” you answer, the expanse of material wrapped around you like a tent.
“Cute. You look so cute.” Gyuvin meets your eyes for a split second before looking away again, his ears now feeling even hotter than when he saw you with Jiwoong. “I can get you a new shirt, if you want. My room isn’t far from here.”
“You want me to go with you to your room?” you giggle, enjoying how flustered you make him. Hearing his teammates talk about how much he likes you has taken a weight off your shoulders, and you don’t know how you ever thought he wasn’t into you before.
“No! Well, yes, but only if you want to. And I’m not using this as an excuse to bring you back to my room. I just know you like pink and I have this one pink shirt that shrunk in the wash and I think you’d look really good in it. Plus, I can start a load of laundry and get your dress all clean.”
This is the most you’ve ever heard him talk, his voice a few pitches higher than usual when he’s rambling. Plus, if he knows how much you like pink, he must be following your clues. “Let’s go to your room, then.”
—————-
While Gyuvin’s side of the room is much neater than you expected, Ricky’s side looks weirdly perfect. Not a single thing is out of place, with every item labeled or color coordinated. You’re shocked that two basketball players can manage to keep such a small room so tidy.
“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” Gyuvin apologizes, moving to make his bed. “You can sit here.”
“If this is what you think is messy, you don’t want to see my room,” you say, taking in all of the decorations. Usually, when you’re in a guy’s room, it’s all navy blue and manly movie posters, but Gyuvin’s walls are so colorful and covered in photos of his family and friends.
One piece of paper catches your eye—the very first article you wrote about the basketball team. You scan his wall, catching more and more newspaper clippings, all penned by you. Gyuvin’s too busy putting things away and rustling through his drawers to notice you staring at them in awe.
“Here we go,” he calls out, turning and holding up a shrunken pink t-shirt and a pair of sweats. His grin fades as soon as he catches you reading one of your own articles, which have been on his wall for so long that he’s forgotten they’re even there. “Oh. Uh, please don’t think I’m a creep.”
“It’s not creepy. It’s sweet. They’re all about you, anyway,” you say, turning to take the shirt from him. It has a picture of a silly looking greyhound on the front of it.
“Right,” Gyuvin says, shrugging off the interaction. He pulls himself onto the bed next to you, sitting cross legged and making sure to leave a gap between you and him. “That’s my dog, Eumppappa.”
“Eumppappa is an amazing name,” you muse, turning to smile at him. Your faces end up being so close that Gyuvin thinks his heart has stopped beating. In his attempt to scoot back, he ends up tumbling off of his bed.
“Fuck,” he says as he lands on the ground. You peer down from the lofted bed at his long limbs sprawled across the rug. If you didn’t think he was a complete loser before, you probably do now.
“Are you okay?” you call out, watching as he sits up and rubs his head.
“I’m good,” Gyuvin assures you, taking a breather before getting to his feet and heading towards the door. “I’m going to step out and let you change. Let me know when you’re decent.”
“Will do,” you smile, giving him a thumbs up. You strip your clothes off, throwing on the t-shirt and sweats and pulling the drawstring until you know they won’t fall off of you. “You can come back in, Gyuvin!”
He stumbles in, practically waiting with his body pressed against the door for the moment he could see you again. God, could you really not tell how much he liked you before tonight?
Gyuvin eyes you drowning in his clothes and he knows that he’d move earth and heaven if it meant that you’re who he got to wake up to for the rest of his life.
“I’ll go throw this in the washer and then we can head back to the party,” he stammers, snapping out of his daydream and grabbing your dress. Your smile is so pretty right now, even after all of his awkwardness, that it takes everything in him not to get hard just looking at you.
By the time he gets back from the laundry room, you’ve decided you don’t want to go back to the party, especially not dressed like this.
“Oh,” Gyuvin says, disappointed that his time with you has been cut short by his clumsiness. “Do you want me to walk you back to your place?”
“I live down the hall,” you remind him. You hope he doesn’t realize you could’ve just as easily grabbed your own change of clothes.
“Right,” he grimaces. He knows that. He’s always trying to time leaving his room perfectly so that he runs into you on the way to class.
Just like whenever you interview Gyuvin, there’s an awkward silence, except this time it can’t be edited out. He’s back to looking everywhere in the room except at you.
“It’s not even midnight,” you say, glancing at your phone’s lockscreen. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
“Like, together?” Gyuvin asks in disbelief. You nod, an amused smirk on your face. “Duh, of course you meant together. Yeah, sure, let’s watch a movie.”
Moments later, you’re sitting in the dark with Gyuvin, your legs pulled close to your chest as you watch Amélie projected onto the wall above Ricky’s bed.
Every once in a while, Gyuvin lets himself relax, his arm or his leg brushing against you by accident. After spending half of the film pulling away out of fear that he’s bothering you, he finally settles for having his fingers barely touching yours.
“You know,” he starts, his eyes still locked on the movie. “I kind of have my own mystery going on right now.”
“Really?” you say, feigning shock. “About what?”
“Someone keeps leaving me notes when I sleep in the lounge. Sometimes treats, but mostly notes. They don’t sign their name, but today they left me some little doodles as clues and I’ve been trying to figure them out.”
The way you’re reacting makes his stomach turn. How could it be you when you have a look on your face that says you have no clue what he’s talking about?
“Well, I’ve been meaning to work on my investigative journalism. What if I helped you track your secret admirer down?”
If you aren’t going to fall for him, he’ll at least settle for being friends. “That’d be awesome, Y/N.”
Suddenly, Ricky comes crashing into the dorm room, his lips attached to some girl’s face. He pulls away from her for a second, barely registering that you’re even there, before pulling out his wallet and throwing a couple hundred dollar bills at Gyuvin. “Get out. Now.”
Before you can protest, Ricky’s already unbuttoning his shirt, and you’ll gladly evacuate if it means you don’t have to watch whatever freaky shit is about to go down.
“I didn’t know he pays you to sleep in the lounge,” you laugh, your arms full of Gyuvin’s comforter as you walk down the hall. “With that kind of money, he could just buy an apartment.”
“He could,” Gyuvin starts, holding his pillow in one hand and the stack of notes—your notes—in the other. “But then he wouldn’t get the true college experience. Plus, he only throws money at me when it’s a last minute thing.”
“How much was that, anyway? Like $300?” you ask. He stops and takes out his wallet.
“$400. Pretty standard,” he shrugs, counting the bills. Your eyes widen at the total.
“Are you going to share?” you pout. “I got kicked out too.”
“You can have it,” he says, handing you the money, his brain short circuiting at the way you bat your eyelashes at him. You marvel at the crisp bills. “This is just another Friday night for me.”
“Okay, young and rich, tall and handsome Kim Gyuvin. Thanks for buying my dinner for the rest of the semester!” You don’t know this, but if you asked him to, Gyuvin would buy you whatever you wanted.
Before you can get down to helping him figure out the doodles, or throwing him off your trail, the two of you are fast asleep. Instead of the lounge’s couch, Gyuvin curls up on the oversized bean bag on your bedroom floor. It’s much too small for his frame to actually be comfortable, but he somehow feels more content just being around you.
—————-
Taglist: @orangesodafoam @theresawtf @nerezza123 @gyvnexe @xiurmy-everything @wollycobbl3-blr @cloudgyubi @yunnie-11 @wheatrice
#zb1#zerobaseone#zerobaseone imagines#zerobaseone reactions#zerobaseone drabbles#zerobaseone scenarios#zb1 imagines#zb1 reactions#zb1 drabbles#zb1 scenarios#kim gyuvin#gyuvin imagines#zerobaseone x reader#zb1 x reader#gyuvin x reader#gyuvin fluff#gyuvin angst#gyuvin smut#zb1 gyuvin#zerobaseone gyuvin#zb1 crack#gyuvin crack#ricky x reader#haobin#ricky angst
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𝐈𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭
𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: Media girl, y/n, who worked for the devils. meeting Jack Hughes, was not on the bucket list.
so what happens when they start hooking up, and it’s forbidden to have any further relationship?
𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: another angsty fic, (sorry!) swearing, mentions to smut - none is written!! That is all!
Another fic for you lovely’s💕 You guys gave my other one so much love so I wrote this quick fic I had in mind, let me know if you want part two. Xoxo
“We can’t keep doing this Jack, I can’t risk my job for a relationship-“
You found yourself in Jack Hughes bed more often than your own. The two of you bonded quickly, easily, which led to one thing or another, and for the past 2 and a half months, you’ve been hooking up with Jack or seeing Jack almost every other day. It was hard not too, since you worked for the devils media team, and he played for them. You didn’t think about how hard it would be to end something like this, having to see him everyday after, you were too caught up in the bliss of it all.
It was almost like the perfect relationship - except it wasn’t. Yes, you were able to spend almost everyday with Jack, you were on roadies with the team for media, you were at every game, every practice… except neither of you were anything exclusive, yet. It was the perfect situationship in Jacks eyes. But I’m yours, it was something that could potentially ruin everything for you. You had to sign a contract when coming too this job, one of the rules was that you were to have no explicit relationship with a co-worker or one of the team players. That rule was quickly broken when you met Jack Hughes, he was charming, handsome, sweet, a bit cocky, and really good in bed.
Now, you laid, cuddled up in a hotel bed somewhere in California, with no other than Jack Hughes. Both naked and clinging onto each other, trying to catch your breath from the recent activities that took place in the hotel room just less than 10 minutes ago. The devils had a roadie throughout the west coast this week, you were lucky enough to get to stay in a hotel for a couple of days before a game, and so were the devils players themselves.
It was late evening, not too late, but also not early. Giving you enough time to sneak back to your hotel room before it could get to a suspicious time at night to be up and walking around.
“But we’re not in a ‘relationship’,” Jack spoke, with a unsure tone, as if he was trying to convince himself of it.
“I know. But before we take anything further I think we both need to realize that it’s just gonna hurt more if we do end up going further, it’s best just to stop sooner than later-“
You looked at his face as you both laid on your sides, your bodies intertwined and both of your heads rested on soft pillows facing each other.
You watched as Jack shut his eyes, refusing to say anything to you, you took your hand up to his forehead, brushing the damp curls from his forehead. Stopping your hand in his hair.
“Jack.”
“I like what we have,” he said softly, running his hand up and down your hip, “and I like you. Is that so wrong?”
“No! Yes-“ you spoke quick, shaking your head, “I just can’t lose this job, Jack. Sneaking around wouldn’t be easy.”
“But we do just fine at sneaking around…” his eyes were big- sad, and glossy, looking at you like you were breaking his heart. Probably because you were.
“That’s different Jack!” You snap, his body tense and his grip of you losens, “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I-I’m just so- I don’t want to have to hide my relationship. I want fo be able to do things- This isn’t what I want,”
Jack sat up, letting go of you completely, you weren’t sure why, but you were sure that in that moment, that you could feel your heart breaking too. Because you do want Jack, but you can’t have him.
“Go.” Jack slid a hand down over his face, his eyes glossy and his voice almost breaking.
“What?”
“J-just get out-“ Jack couldn’t even look at you when he said it, looking down at his lap while tears threatened to spill out of his eyes. The thing with you and jack was that things were always easy, like a walk in the park. Only a few times you found yourself having to speak to him like this, almost never. It was an easy type of love, yet so difficult. You wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in his arms, his heartbroken form broke your heart.
He was never good at communicating, especially his feelings.
“Jack your being ridiculous-“
“For fucks sake- Just leave, this isn’t what you want? Fine. Just don’t come crawling back to me when you realize that a stupid job isn't worth getting in the way of the person you're in love with.”
Oh. Ouch.
It took you a minute to register what he said, when you did, you were quick to get out of the bed, the bed not even 20 minutes ago that you were making love to the boy who now most likely hated your guts.
You quickly found your clothes, gathering them in your arms, and throwing on your robe that you bring with you. You stopped by the door, tears rolling down your cheeks, turning towards jack, who sat in the same position, staring at the opposite side of the hotel room.
“I’m sorry Jack. I really wish you the best,” you wiped your cheeks, opening the door and stepping out. When you closed it, it felt like a part of your life - an era of your life ended. Right there and then.
Before you could continue to walk back to your hotel room, you turned, leaning up against his door and taking deep breaths, doing your best to hold back the sobs that had been waiting to come out.
“Y/n?”
Oh Shit.
Let me know if a part two is something you guys would want to see!!!
#jack hughes#j. hughes#j.hughes#jack hughes fic#jack hughes blurb#jack hughes imagine#jack hughes x y/n#jack hughes x reader#jack Hughes fanfic#jh86#jhughes86#nhl imagine#nhl players
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Day nineteen of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.
. . . huh, Tim thinks as he watches Kon rub his thumb over the goat's soft and fluffy fur, suddenly reminded of the cashmere. Okay, maybe his hypothesis about Kon's possible appreciation for nice textures is actually a thing, then. Noted and taken into evidence.
“It's . . . cute,” Kon says, ducking his head a little and still slowly rubbing his thumb back and forth across the goat's fur as he looks down at it again, his face still all red. Tim makes a mental note about maximizing the amount of nice textures in Kon's life. He is gonna buy him sheets with a very high thread count, just to start. “Um–thanks, man.”
“You're welcome,” Tim says as he has the incredibly weird thought that Kon has probably never actually owned an actual toy before. Like, maybe video games and things like that? He’s pretty sure he's heard Kon mention a few video games he likes before, now that he's thinking about it, but in retrospect he doesn't know if he even owns a console of his own or just played them with someone else at some point or . . . who knows, really?
Like, Tim didn't decide to buy him a toy because of that, obviously, he really was just thinking of the idea as a cute little hopefully-the-right-kind-of-flirty reminder of how they “met”, but . . .
It's a weird thought, is all.
. . . also, additional mental note, he should make sure to buy Kon a console if he doesn't already have one. And maybe a handheld system too, and obviously whatever games he wants for both. Maybe a couple spare controllers in case he wants to have anyone over, Tim has no idea, but better safe than sorry.
“Let’s pay,” he says, redistributing the shopping bags between both hands again and then nodding towards the register. “Do you like video games?”
“Sure,” Kon says, glancing sidelong at him again as they head for the counter. He’s doing that a lot, it feels like, though Tim isn’t sure why yet. Just intel to absorb, for right now. “Who doesn’t like video games?”
“Do you have any?” Tim asks, and Kon looks–embarrassed, almost? Weirdly?
“I can’t exactly have you over to play, man. No offense, it’s like a security clearance thing with the lab,” he says, which is not where Tim was going with that at all and is sort of . . . flustering, actually. Like, to hear, he means. He’s trying to buy things for Kon, not invite himself over to, like . . . pester him for attention or whatever.
“Yeah, you'd be kind of hard to explain to my dad,” he agrees, putting on a wry expression. Kon's mouth tightens for a second, for some reason, and then he smiles awkwardly in his direction, not quite meeting his eyes. Tim represses a frown, wondering what that’s about.
“Usually am, yeah,” Kon says.
“Well, once we get you a place of your own, that’ll solve that problem,” Tim says reasonably as they wait in line together, though obviously he doesn’t really expect Kon to have him over or–
“You’d actually wanna come over if I had my own place?” Kon asks hesitantly. “Like–to hang out or whatever?”
. . . Tim wonders who exactly ground all of Kon’s usually-boundless confidence into the dirt, because he’d just like to have a word with them. Or shove a doomsday weapon up their ass; whichever’s more convenient at the time. Considering how Kon usually acts, Tim doesn’t even want to think about how shitty someone had to be to get a reaction like that out of him.
“I would,” he says. “We could order in and play something, maybe.”
“I don’t actually have a console or anything. Shit, I don’t even have a TV,” Kon admits. “Which is not a request, for the record, just a statement.”
“Okay,” Tim says, which as a response is something he’s just gonna let Kon interpret however he likes. He could just have a TV and console delivered to Cadmus for him, probably. Although he doesn’t actually know how big Kon’s room is, so in retrospect maybe that’ll be something to buy once they get to the stage where Kon’s picking out furniture for his new apartment/house/cul-de-sac. Easier to size and scale correctly that way, Tim figures.
God, how big is Kon’s room? Is it just a room? Like a dorm or something? Is it at least actual normal bedroom-sized?
. . . he really, really hopes it’s not a barracks situation.
“I mean it,” Kon says as Tim pays for the goat and they leave the store. “Like, this was really cool of you, but you’ve definitely done enough. I didn’t do anything that special, you know?”
“I feel like I’m the one who gets to value your effort in saving my life,” Tim says. “Like, monetarily and all. As a whole fiscal thing.”
“It really wasn’t a big deal, though,” Kon insists. “Like, I didn’t risk my neck or anything. It wasn't even hard.”
“You put in the time to learn how to do that with your TTK to begin with, even from halfway across the gallery floor,” Tim says. “Just because it was easy to do then doesn’t mean it was easy to learn to begin with. I think it’s really impressive that you even figured out you could do that to begin with.”
“I mean–well, yeah, I guess,” Kon says, ducking his head as his face flushes again. “I just . . . like, it took a while to figure out how to do it right, definitely. So I wouldn’t say impressive.”
“If you’re trying to be modest, maybe don’t lead with ‘I worked really hard on improving myself and it worked really well’,” Tim says, flashing him a wry little smile. Kon turns even redder, then grins sheepishly at him.
“Look, TTK is badass, but it’s way less impressive than punching a giant asteroid into gravel,” he says. “Or superspeeding through all the bad guys in a microsecond.”
“Why?” Tim asks, tilting his head. “Lots of people can punch an asteroid in half. You could break it down into its component parts and also make sure none of said parts escaped into the atmosphere or crashed any satellites. And you don’t need superspeed when you can keep the bad guys from even moving to begin with, right?”
“Huh?” Kon says, looking–startled, a little. Tim’s been doing his research, but also just thinking–plus he's pretty sure that talking up TTK as a power is just about the best possible way to get Kon to be into Tim Drake for as long as possible, so . . .
“I’m just saying, you seem really versatile. Like, you’re obviously not just a bruiser,” he says reasonably, though the more time he's spent trying to think about TTK lately, the more aware he's become that Kon tries very hard to be one whenever possible. Like–much more often than he actually should, in fact. “Your powers are really flexible, from what I’ve noticed. You can be a scalpel and a hammer. Possibly simultaneously, depending on your multitasking skills, I don’t really know how that works.”
“Oh,” Kon says, the startled expression turning flustered even as he grins a little helplessly and ducks his head, twisting the handles of the shopping bag the clerk put the goat in around his fingers. “Uh, I mean, it depends, but . . . kinda, I guess.”
Okay, well–he looks a little less boisterous and smug than Tim would've expected him to get over direct compliments to his TTK, honestly, but he does still seem flattered. Tim had just been prepared for annoying bragging and overblown pride as a reaction, not that helpless little grin Kon's currently trying to hide. So that's . . . weird, yeah. Huh.
“Well, I think it's impressive,” he informs him with an easy shrug, and watches maybe a little bit too curiously as Kon's grin widens and he ducks his head lower. He looks so–not proud or arrogant, still, but pleased.
It's definitely weird.
Tim can't pretend there isn't an equally weird part of him that thinks it's cute, though. It's a little strange being the one hyping up the exact same superpower Kon's usually incapable of shutting up about while he tries to downplay it, but he guesses it's not that different from being the one carrying most of the bags right now. Just a little bit of a temporary role reversal while Kon's wearing a soft cashmere sweater instead of his usual heavy leather jacket and Tim's not wearing a mask.
Well–at least not a domino, anyway. It gets a little more complicated going with the metaphorical definition, obviously.
“I'm still buying you lunch whatever you say,” he says. “And a bigger wardrobe. You can't always show up in your superhero gear, somebody's gonna notice you eventually.”
“Geez, man, how many times are you planning to see me in civvies?” Kon says, and if his accompanying laugh didn't sound a little forced, Tim would assume Kon was saying he was going to be bored of him before that was a concern. That laugh makes it sound more like Kon thinks it’s likelier that Tim is going to get bored of him, though.
No, Tim is pretty sure that's wishful thinking on his part. It's too tempting to attribute evidence like that to mean something he'd like it to mean, is all.
“I don't know,” he says, giving Kon a smile. “How many times are you planning to let me?”
Kon stares at him for a moment, turns red, and then laughs self-consciously and looks away.
His flirting standards are still extremely low, yeah. Thank god, because Tim absolutely sucks at this.
#timkon#tim drake#kon el#conner kent#dc robin#superboy#young just us#young justice#rinfic#wip: obligatory sugar baby kon#long post
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Hi there!! Can I req a Matthias x reader where the reader is very nice yet shy, and Matthias fell for their kindness but is afraid to confess cause he might lose them(who's the first and only person to show him genuine care)?
(But he's also bad at hiding his feelings)
Or maybe a scenario where he has a difficult time sleeping and finds himself impulsively knocking on your door— regretful of his actions but he can't back out now that you're standing in front of the open door, curious from the unexpected visit.
He's a new char so I hardly find any fics about him and I'm desperate💔 you can change the scenario!! I'm really just desperate uehdhsishd(╥﹏╥)
hi anon i LOVED these ideas! i tried to combine both of them into one, i hope it satisfies what you wanted!! ♡
falling slowly 🪡
Matthias isn’t one to act on impulse.
He’ll let his thoughts fester aimlessly inside him, hoping the darker among them someday fizzle out. He’ll watch precious chances fly past him, fearing the consequences of a risk taken too rashly. A missed opportunity is better than another tragedy. A guarded mind is better than a broken heart. But some restless nights drive him to desperation, and tonight that leads him to you.
He stands outside your bedroom door, arms stiff against his sides. He’s passed by this room countless times before, as the two of you occasionally walk each other back to your rooms. But never has he come here on his own, never without explicit permission.
He gingerly raises his hand, letting it hover above your doorframe. All of a sudden, he loses his words. What would he say? I can’t sleep, I need you to check for monsters under my bed? I need you to stay with me until I fall asleep? I need you to tuck me in? What a baby. He can already picture the look you’d send him: a smile that’s trying too hard to be polite, a shabby effort at concealing the judgment within. You wouldn’t turn him down directly, even though he knows you’d want to. Kindhearted people love to dance in circles before saying anything that might offend. He’s all too familiar with this game. Normally, your kindness is something he loves about you, but all he can do now is curse it under his breath. If only you were crueler to him, like most people are, then he wouldn’t have let his hopes inflate his head. He would’ve known never to even consider stopping by your room. He would’ve known to avoid this situation altogether.
His fingers close into a fist, and it’s then he realizes he’s quivering slightly. Louis wouldn’t have a problem in this scenario. That thought piques Matthias most. His “factory defect” has locked him in place yet again, and all he can do is swallow down the reminder of his incompetence. It’s just a door, for God’s sake.
He flexes his fingers one last time, glancing around as if worried someone might catch him. Then he strikes his fist. It’s a clumsy motion, rattling your door on its hinges, and his heart leaps to his throat. A courteous knock would have three raps or so, not the jarring thud! he made — nobody in their right mind would imagine that’s a welcome visitor, right? Especially not at this snake’s pit of a manor. He prays desperately for you to ignore that ever happened. In your position, he’d pretend to be asleep, maybe double-check that the door is properly locked. Surely you’d do the same.
Surely...?
“It’s open!” greets your voice from inside, entirely unconcerned.
Matthias holds his breath. Why are you leaving your door unlocked at this hour? But he tucks that thought away while he stares down at the doorknob. This is it — he’s trapped. If he turns around now, you’ll be left with unresolved fears of someone lurking around your room at night. Nothing could entice him to do that to you. And if you ever found out it was him? It’d be too late for apologies, and definitely not forgiveness. Right, so he has to answer.
Slowly, he cracks it open a fraction, afraid of peering anywhere but the ground.
“You can come in,” you urge. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to. Footsteps shuffle around inside, then the door fully swings open. “Oh, hi Matthias! What’s up?”
He only meets your face briefly, at your bright and curious eyes, before his gaze flicks back downward.
“Uh… sorry to bother you, I just…” He awkwardly grasps at his elbows, struggling to string together his intentions. “…I need you.”
. . . . .
There it is. His secret is out. He didn’t mean to let it slip, but that single phrase had been bouncing endlessly around his mind, as if they were the only words he knew. It’s the one thing he can confidently admit: he needs you. He doesn’t expect you to reciprocate. In fact, he’s certain you don’t. Nobody in their right mind would. That’s why he never ventured to say these words before. So when you respond to him with patient silence, as if waiting for him to continue, the entirety of his body freezes over. Maybe only a few seconds pass in reality, but that’s more than enough time for Matthias to fill the gaps. It’s a no — he knows it’s a no.
Your head tips slightly. “Sure, what do you need?”
The whirlwind in his mind slows to a halt. He remembers how he used to cough up excuses on the spot when trying to avoid you—sometimes you’d invite him for a meal or game of cards together, and he had convinced himself those were pity invites so he tended to reject them upfront. It stings less to avoid someone altogether than to endure feeling ‘tolerated’ instead of ‘wanted.’ But now he’s wracking his brain for an excuse to stay.
“I—I just wanted to see you.” It’s not a lie, but for some reason it feels like one.
“Me?” A look of surprise flashes on your face, warmth blooming across your chest. That might be the most forward thing you’ve ever heard from him. Stepping closer, you reach for his forearm, peering up into his face to better examine his strained features. Your free hand reaches up to brush aside the limp strands of hair shrouding his face. “Did something happen? It’s almost midnight—I mean, I don’t mind, it’s just so unexpected…”
The strength falls from Matthias’ shoulders. Out of relief, maybe. Or maybe it’s to brace himself for one last leap of faith.
“Can I stay with you…?” His voice is barely audible. You search his lone eye, staring back at you in its perfect hollowness. At some point, that blank stare has become a comforting sight for you. Your hand trails from his arm to spread across his shoulder. He remains motionless.
“Okay,” you say, softly. “Always.”
As you move to wrap both arms around his neck, you notice his body tense, and his brows furrow, subtly, in a clear attempt not to let you notice. The strain on his face catches you off-guard.
“Wh-What? What’s wrong?” Immediately, you pull back to search his expression.
“N-No, nothing—keep going.”
This time, it’s Matthias who draws you close. His arms weave their way around your waist, pulling you tightly against him. His face burrows into your shoulder, and it’s then you understand the weight of his visit, of his need for you. All you can do is lift a tender hand to ruffle his hair, feeling his pounding heart ease in your arms.
#matthias' self sabotage saga continues#i adore this guy#identity v#idv x reader#matthias czernin#matthias czernin x reader#idv imagines#identity v x reader#idv puppeteer#puppeteer x reader
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