#just wake up at like 8am and you might get lucky

[tobaccoy]

i just spent a good 15 minutes begging my mom to get me potato fries from wendys, but i begged as if i were a poor victorian child. she gave into my pleas after 4 minutes, purely out of annoyance.

[toomuchracket]

i'd rather jump in your bones (dad!matty x reader)

(hi! a lovely anon sent me an ask about sleeping with dilf-to-be matty on your babymoon before having baba 1, which a couple of other people have also asked for, so here it is, a really REALLY long fic! smut, with a little bit of fluff because i am a sappy bitch lol. anyway, hope you enjoy! <3)

(also if you're unfamiliar with my dad!matty/flatmate!matty tags, this might be a little jarring in places, so i'd recommend reading some of those posts first to get a handle on the lore)

it's 8am when you're woken up by the baby kicking, her (as of last week's 20-week scan it's confirmed that, yes, she is a she) tiny little limbs bouncing off different parts of your stomach like the old dvd logo that would appear if you left the player on pause for too long. you snort quietly to yourself at that comparison, making a mental note to tell it to matty when he wakes up. actually, you're surprised he hasn't woken up yet; his arm is currently draped softly over the bump as he snores lightly behind you, so he should also be able to feel his daughter kicking.

although, in fairness, if you didn't have a developing human in your stomach operating on a different sleep schedule to yours, the things you and your husband got up to last night would have definitely kept you asleep at this time too.

but you don't mind being awake in circumstances like these: carrying your healthy (and presumably happy) baby; feeling the nearly-naked and gloriously handsome love of your life cosied up beside you; noticing the morning sun and various faint italian conversations creeping into the room via the patio door, left ajar in the scorching heat of last night. it's an early summer morning on the shores of lake garda, and there's nowhere else you'd rather be right now.

baba, though, would apparently rather you were somewhere else - almost on cue, she settles herself in such a way that your awareness of your own bladder becomes unavoidable. with a whispered "you like being a little bit mean to mummy, don't you? you're lucky i love you so much, my girl", you extract yourself from matty's hold without waking him - a feat you mastered a few weeks into sharing a bed with him post-movie nights in the flat back in the day - and pull yourself out of bed. feeling slightly exposed in your panty-clad state, you shrug on matty's black tank top from yesterday, carelessly tossed on the end of the bed, before wandering to the bathroom.

matty appears in the doorway maybe five minutes later, once you've appeased your daughter (so to speak) and brushed your teeth; he copies the latter act himself, after placing a soft kiss on the top of your head, holding his toothbrush in one hand and you in the other. you take these two minutes of matty preoccupation to ogle him, trailing your eyes down his abs and v-line to the waistband of his boxers, admiring the way his arm muscles flex and contract as he brushes his teeth, and just generally marvelling at the way your husband manages to make the most basic of tasks look so ridiculously attractive.

after matty spits out the last of the toothpaste - the sight of which, whorishly, sends a burst of heat between your legs - he turns to you and pulls you into a sweet, overwhelmingly minty kiss. "morning, my love," he smiles, after breaking the kiss and taking your hands in his. "i take it our girl woke you up?"

the obvious joy in matty's voice when he refers to your daughter makes you smile too. "only a few minutes ago, but yeah, she did - all quiet now, but she was kicking quite enthusiastically."

"really?" matty asks, crouching down so he's eye level with your cotton-covered stomach and sliding a warm hand under the fabric to rest there. "you gonna be a footballer one day, baba? that'd be cool. especially if you played for newcastle like daddy did when he was a kid. but pro. definitely pro."

you scoff. "our daughter in a career where she could be far better at her job than a man but would never get the same recognition as him? i don't want her to be that much like me, babe."

"fair point, sweetheart," matty says as he stands, kissing you on the forehead. "but you should still be proud of your work anyway, even though they gave that stupid dick the case over you. i think you're an incredible lawyer, regardless of the fact you're also a little thief when it comes to my wardrobe."

he looks pointedly at the tank top you're wearing, before smirking at you. you put your hands on your hips and stare back at matty. "it's the bump, isn't it?"

your husband's brow furrows. "what?"

"you used to love me wearing your clothes," you sigh faux-dramatically, sidling past matty back into the bedroom and standing in front of the full-length mirror. "you encouraged it, actually. and now, here i am, pregnant with your baby, and you call me a thief for stealing a top. must be the bump."

matty comes up behind you, snaking his arms around your middle and pressing kisses into your neck. "you know all too fucking well that that's not the case, darlin'."

you're having too much fun with this. you do know matty's arguably never found you sexier than he does right now, but you don't want him to tell you that - you need him to prove it. so you sigh, tilt your head and look at your reflection. "hmmm, i don't know, babe. kinda seems like the bump might be a problem for you."

"right, that's it," matty scoops you up bridal-style and carries you the short walk to the bed, setting you down gently and bringing himself to hover over you. he kisses you deeply, passionately, but languidly, dragging your bottom lip between his teeth as he pulls away to murmur against your mouth. "want a repeat of last night, sweetheart, so i can prove to you how much i love your body? yeah? want me to kiss all over those gorgeous tits, that perfect little bump, all down the insides of those fucking thighs of yours, before i eat you out? whatever you want, i'll do it."

interesting. you keep your eyes on matty's adorably eager, turned-on face, watching his eyes roll back ever so slightly when you rake your hand through his hair and tug slightly. "whatever i want? really?"

"if it gets through to you just how fucking hot you look carrying my baby, yeah," matty replies, kissing you again. his face softens as he pulls away, calloused fingers coming up to gently stroke your cheek. "my perfect, perfect wife, mother of my child, love of my life."

"you're so sweet, angel, and i loved how gentle you were with me last night. but," you smile, leaning into matty's hand. "you know what i really want, something that hasn't happened in a little while that i'd love right now?"

"tell me, darlin'."

you lean in to whisper in matty's ear, tugging his hoop earring lightly between your teeth before you do. "want you to fuck me like i'm still your little slut. can you do that for me, matty? please?"

the effect your words have on your husband is instantaneous (and extremely inflating to your ego) - matty's breaths become shallow and shaky, his hips begin to grind into yours, and those beautiful eyes of his flutter shut, presumably as he imagines obliging your request. when they reopen, the pupils are almost totally dilated, out of nothing more than sheer lust for you; they lock onto your own eyes as matty speaks. "that depends... d'you think you've been good enough, sweetheart?"

fuck yes. you look up at matty through your eyelashes, batting your lids a couple of times for good measure, and nod. "m'always good for you."

"even when you're stealing my clothes?" comes the reply, accompanied by a smirk. you smile back just as evilly, and quickly pull the offending tank top off and throw it to the side. "s'not stolen anymore."

for the second time in about a minute, matty's eyes darken with desire for you. "christ, you're so beautiful," he moans, before crashing his lips onto yours and his tongue into your mouth. "alright, darlin', i'll fuck you like the good little slut i know you really are. my good little slut."

"mmm, always, always for you," you smile against matty's lips, before meeting them with your own for another makeout. "thank you."

"you're welcome, angel. now," your husband's face turns slightly more serious. "how do you want to go about this? need to make sure you feel good before i can make you feel even better, yeah?"

nodding, you reach across to matty's side of the bed, grabbing one of the big silk-covered pillows - anticipating what you're about to do, matty takes it from you, quickly sliding it under your lower back and tailbone as you lift your hips. caressing them lightly, matty scans your face for any sign of discomfort. "you good?"

"perfect."

"too fucking right you are, babe," matty grins, kissing you passionately yet again. he bites your lower lip - which pulls a moan from within your chest - before releasing it slowly, dragging the soft cells between his teeth. "and now it's time for the fun bit."

matty's mouth is on your neck before you can reply, the feeling of his lips against your sweet spot turning your words to whines; they're closely followed by teeth and tongue and back to lips, as your husband - apparently not content with just decorating your body with the baby bump - adorns your neck with a hickey. as he begins to trail these scarlet marks of affection down the column of your throat, matty's hands come up to your tits, squeezing the sensitive swollen flesh and rolling and pinching your nipples between calloused fingers.

by the time matty's mouth replaces his fingers, alternating between each tit, you're soaked through your silky underwear. you tell him as much through a series of breathy moans, in the hope that he'll cease his ministrations on your tits and settle himself between your soft thighs, but it's in vain. matty simply continues to mouth his way down your body, kissing down your sternum and all over your bump (which, admittedly, you do find very sweet even in your horny state); only once he's done this does he pay any mind to the dark green fabric covering the place you want him most.

"fuck, sweetheart," matty sighs, rubbing your soft thighs and teasing his fingertips along the waistband of your underwear. "can see how fucking wet you are already. is it all for me, angel? tell me."

you nod furiously. "all for you, always all for you."

"good girl," matty smiles, placing a kiss to your inner thigh before peeling your panties down, throwing them somewhere in the sunlight-dappled room. he reattaches his lips to your thigh, leaving another hickey and you moaning his name, while his index finger glides up your slit to collect some of your wetness - suddenly, matty's leaning over you, bringing the same finger to your lips. "taste yourself for me, darlin'."

fuck. without breaking eye contact with your husband, you take his finger into your mouth, moaning at the tang of your own arousal on your tongue, hollowing your cheeks around the digit and swirling your tongue across the tip, before releasing matty's finger with a pop. you smile radiantly up at the love of your life, watching you with lust-heavy eyes, and you speak. "yummy."

"jesus christ, you're such a slut. i fucking love it," matty laughs in disbelief, before kissing you again. as he does, the finger that was just in your mouth makes its way between your legs again, ghosting over your clit before teasing your entrance. "and i love fucking you. can i, now, with my fingers?"

"please, please."

"so polite, even when you're so fucking desperate for me. alright, sweetheart, i'll give you what you want."

with that, matty settles himself between your thighs, and - without warning - thrusts two fingers into you, moving them at a rapid pace. you whine at the sudden pleasure coursing through your body, clenching around matty's fingers and clawing at the bedsheets beneath you. "fuck, please don't stop, want you to make me cum."

matty lets out a huff of laughter, eyes fixated on the fingers he's repeatedly ramming and curling inside you. "oh, you wanna cum, do you? that all you want?"

whimpering out a series of "no"s, you shake your head - although, you're not sure if your husband will see the motion over the writhing of your hips and subsequent movement of the bump. "want your tongue on my clit, too."

"beg for it, then."

jesus christ.

you do as you're told, though, aching for matty to eat you out like you know he's aching to do. "god, fuck... please, baby, please - oh, holy fuck - please, need you to go down on me, need your mouth on my clit, need it to make me cum- oh, yes!"

just as impatient as you, matty starts to suck on your clit before you've even finished your wanton pleas, his fingers still pounding into you. he moans into you at the taste, the hum reverberating through your body and bringing you closer to your quickly approaching orgasm, then flicks your clit with the tip of his tongue - deft, rhythmic strokes you soon recognise as letters, your husband spelling out his name on the most intimate part of your body. whether it's because of your realisation or the motion itself, you don't know, but you immediately feel the white-hot pleasure in your lower body begin to grow rapidly and make your legs jerk involuntarily. "shit, matty, m'close, m'so fucking close. can i cum? please?"

matty pulls his mouth from you to speak; his left hand replaces it on your clit, while his right continues thrusting into you. he looks like sex itself, cheeks red and glistening with your wetness, dark eyes hungry. "do it."

you don't need much more encouragement - even without your husband's hands deftly working on your core, the sheer sight of him and the rasp of his command could tip you over the edge into bliss. with a cry of his name, your body goes rigid and then shakes uncontrollably as your orgasm hits, matty moaning in harmony with you as he feels you clench and then cum on his fingers. he pulls them out of you and into his mouth, eyes closing in ecstasy as he does; when they reopen, they flick to make contact with yours in a wink. then, just as the aftershocks of your climax are beginning to peter out, matty ducks his head back down to your centre and licks into your entrance, turning the epicurean geiger counter in your body back up to an eleven in one fell swoop.

you gasp at the sensitivity, reaching down as best you can to grab a handful of greying curls, but your efforts are futile; matty locks his arms around your thighs in a vice grip and continues to essentially make out with your cunt, nose bumping beautifully against your clit as he tongue-fucks you to another rapidly approaching orgasm. because you're still recovering from the first one, this climax builds so quickly within you that you don't even have time to warn matty - he knows you're about to cum, though, from the way your legs go from shaking to clamping around his head (something he's told you on more than one occasion that he absolutely loves) and your moans become stuttered, shallower, sexier. so he keeps his motions up, only stopping once he feels your wetness soak his face and hears you scream his name, your legs loosening and trembling slightly on the silky sheets.

after wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and stretching his slightly-sore jaw, matty pulls himself up from between your legs and rests on one arm beside you, leaning over to kiss you deeply. "my good girl. how are you feeling? are you still comfy? do you need a little break?"

panting, you beam up at your husband, matching his lovestruck gaze with your own. "i'm feeling like i want you to fuck me now."

matty laughs, kissing your nose. "you're insatiable, missus."

"and you love it."

"i really do," matty smiles, shifting to hover on his knees above you. "position still good for you?"

"yeah, darlin'," you say, making a little kissy face at matty - he makes one in return, pressing his lips to yours in a little peck - and bringing your hands to pull down the waistband of his boxers; matty quickly takes over, yanking them off and leaving you both naked. "now fuck me hard, please."

"mmm, alright," matty smirks, running the head of his hard cock up and down your folds and teasing it at your entrance. "but remember - you asked for it."

his cock is inside you as soon as he finishes talking, both of you groaning as matty bottoms out - yours quickly turns to a whine as he begins to thrust into you, deep, hard strokes that have your eyes rolling back into your head. the sight of you so fucked out - tits bouncing with every thrust, hands clinging to the metal bars of the headboard, mouth agape and jaw quivering - makes matty moan too. "fuck, look at you, taking my cock so perfectly like the good little slut you are. you were fucking made for me, weren't you?"

you can't even answer, too caught up in how good your husband fucking you feels to remember how to talk. matty, who never misses an opportunity to be ever so slightly sadistic, isn't letting you get away with staying wordless. "answer me, baby."

"mhmm," you manage to croak out, whimpering as a particular thrust hits a particularly good spot inside you. "yours."

"gonna prove it and cum for me again, angel?" matty pants, grabbing your ankles and holding your legs in the air for leverage so he can continue to hit that one perfect spot inside you. "gonna cum all over my cock, and make me cum too? make me fill you up again?"

whining again, you nod furiously. the two previous climaxes have loosened your body up so much that you can feel your third hurtling towards you already - you just need matty to keep up his thrusts for a tiny little bit longer. "don't stop, please, keep fucking me. m'almost there."

"yeah? me too, sweetheart," matty breathes, his thrusts continuing, but getting slightly shallower. "fuck, i'm close. you wanna cum together?"

"please."

"ok, darlin', whatever you want," your husband smiles dazedly. leaning forward slightly again, his right hand leaves its place on your ankle to take up its original residence on your clit, circling in time with the thrusts. "let go for me, whenever you're ready. c'mon, sweetheart, come on my cock."

you're not sure what triggers it - matty's words, his hand on your clit, his relentless fucking, the way he looks at you like you hung the moon, or a combination of everything - but, as if on cue, your third orgasm of the morning hits you. and it hits hard, sending your eyes and head back and your back arching off the bed in sheer pleasure; so hard, in fact, that it triggers matty's orgasm, signified by a guttural cry of your name and a feeling of pure warmth in your core as he finishes inside you.

again, your husband pulls out of you quickly and licks a flat stripe up your core. this time, though, he's back hovering over you within seconds, tapping your lips with two fingers. instinctively, you open your mouth, and matty spits the mixture of your respective releases onto your tongue; you swallow obligingly without comment nor question, earning you a radiant smile, an affectionate "slut", and a soft, lazy kiss.

you pull away reluctantly from matty's lips, bringing a hand to caress his slightly stubbly jaw. "thank you. i love you."

"i love you too, darlin'," matty nuzzles into your hand cutely, a total contrast to the way he was fucking you mere minutes ago. "what a way to start the morning, yeah? proper workout, that."

"well, i did need a way to work off all that extra pasta the little nonnas in the restaurants keep force-feeding me," you giggle. "'for the bambino' my arse. they're just trying to get us not to leave!"

"i think i could stay here, you know," matty ponders, absentmindedly smoothing your hair. "you, me, baba, in this town, in this bed, just snuggling our days away."

"that sounds dreamy."

"yeah," matty sighs, pecking your lips again. "we don't have plans until dinner tonight - wanna practice staying here and snuggling for a few hours?"

"nah."

"what? why?"

"because," you sigh, rubbing your stomach. "baba's woken up and she'd decided it's time for me to piss again."

matty snorts. "impeccable timing. i think she gets that from me. remember that time i-"

"matty, i love you, i really do, but i do need you to shut up and help me to the bathroom now, please."

"alright, alright. whatever you need, wifey."

[okwonyo]

i'm sorry i scared, but still what you tell is correct. i did not want to sound rude tho- i mean your themes look good and whenever i enter your blog to read something, i find a new theme and it's mesmerising ^^ i want to know how you manage your time during school days and holidays + how do you manage to write so much and post so much.

and also what is the best time to post tumblr, you get a pretty good notes :) i might look like a stalker asking you everything on how you do it, i just want to know your tips since we are same age 🥲

it’s okay ~ i’ll try to resume my routines for you !

during school days, i wake up at 5:40 am, to stretch and shower. then, i take my breakfast and during that time, since i am often eating on my own, i revise and reread the classes that i have on that day. on my ride to school, which used to take thirty minutes, i write a quick work — that is why is used to post on a daily basis. however, now i have a place in paris and closer to my school, i cannot do this anymore. now, since i come back quicker from school, i can take a two hours break and write a post. i revise around 6PM during approximately two hours or less if i revise during my breaks. during school, i can only do a seven minutes work out before studying and i take my languages lesson on my way back home and quickly after studying. i am also lucky to write a lot and have a lot of ideas .. i mainly just go with the flow. my classes ended at 1pm on wednesday and friday ; so i revised the guitar here, and at 4PM i had to give tutoring lessons.

— i also write for a hour during my two to four hours breaks ^^

during holidays, i wake up at 8AM (because i sleep at 10PM) and exercise (stretching and working out). then, i go take a shower and do my skincare routine. i eat breakfast while responding to some asks and messages. i take a huge care in reading for at least one and half hour, then i take my lunch while watching youtube or a tv show i really like. then, i rest and all (writing, taking a nap, talking / hanging out with my friends, taking a walk). now, my routine will not always look like this as i love to go out and try new things!

🐇⠀⠀⠀｡⠀ well, i cannot tell you what the best time you can post. you have to do some tests first, you know? my audience and yours will maybe not be the same. but, i post around 12AM or 2PM .. however, i sometimes go with the flow ><

i hope i phrased everything right and that it will help you at least a little bit ! ♥︎

[viviennevermillion]

Mornings with Leona

notes: I feel ashamed for the fact that Leona has been my fave for so long, yet I've written almost 0 about him even though he occupies my brain so much

contains: gn!reader x Leona

warnings: none

Good luck attempting to get this man out of bed in the morning. Getting out of bed yourself is already hard enough with his limbs entangled with yours and him firmly clinging to you in his sleep but Leona vehemently refuses to budge at first.

Doesn't matter if you fell asleep in his arms, you'll wake up holding him. Hiding his face in your neck is an effective way to ignore the fact that it's morning for a while.

You know him well enough to adapt and at some point started turning his alarm clock back for like 30 minutes because you know he needs his cuddles in the morning and takes his sweet time to get his ass out of bed so you'd be late to class otherwise.

"Leona, wake up", you gently nudge his shoulder and press a kiss to his forehead. He just lets lets out an annoyed groan and tightens his grip around you. You didn't expect this to work anyway but you can't help but chuckle at his reaction.

One of the options you have is just trailing kisses along his shoulders and neck. He might dislike the fact that you're trying to keep him awake, but he's not gonna say no to these. Eventually his lips find yours and he gives you a gentle good morning kiss. "You really can't leave me alone, can you, herbivore?" He sighs and nuzzles your cheek. He's at least awake enough to form coherent sentences now.

Your hands reach for the top of his head and you begin gently caressing one of his ears, Leona purring quietly in your arms. "I thought you wanted me to wake up, this is gonna make me go right back to sleep", he teases and gives you a few pecks to your neck.

You take his advice (you want him to get up after all) and poke a spot on his ear that makes it flick uncontrollably. "Stop that shit", he growls and grabs your wrist, making sure you can't reach for his ears again. You chuckle and press a kiss to his lips to calm your grumpy lion down. "You're having fun with this, aren't you?", he rolls his eyes internally. "I find this quite hilarious, yes", you respond with a teasing grin. "Great", he mumbles before lifting himself from the bed, "remind me why I let you sleep here again?" "Because you're clingy." "That's you, not me."

Leona getting up from the bed sounds like a success story but he usually only does one thing, like stumbling towards the wardrobe with his eyes barely open, taking out his clothes for the day and throwing them onto the bed next to you, before he plops himself down on your lap and wraps his legs and tail around your torso and his arms around your shoulders.

Doesn't matter if he's way too heavy and tall for you, he wants to sit there now and you better pay him back for waking him up by at least letting him enjoy some more minutes of your warmth and affection. He places a hand on your cheek and gives you a slow, passionate kiss. Or two. Or ten.

Leona rests his head on yours and closes his eyes. "Love you...", he mumbles, almost falling asleep again.

If nothing else helps you can always dunk your hands into ice cold water and gently place them on his sides. "What the fuck, y/n?", he looks at you with an annoyed expression, begrudgingly deciding against falling asleep on top of you again.

He does get up eventually and gets ready, all while complaining every now and then about why he has to go to class when he already knows all that stuff anyway and who decided it was a good idea to start school at 8am in the morning.

Leona is so done with everything within the first two hours after waking up, he barely keeps his eyes open and you can be lucky if he's fully conscious of what he's doing.

"Leona, that's not the toothpaste, that's the healing ointment"

"Fuck this shit."

As much as he hates mornings, he does like walking to class with you, entering the classroom with your hand firmly held in his. He doesn't usually say it out loud but he's actually so proud of being with you. He feels like he's the luckiest man in NRC, even if he'd be the only person interested in you. He still walks through the hallways by your side thinking to himself "You all wish you were me". He loves you a lot.

[writing-on-the-wahl]

Office Hours Part 2

Part 1 here

Thanks @shieldmaiden-of-gondor and @im-a-wonderling for making sure my fluff makes sense 😊

————————————

“Utterly hopeless. You are completely and utterly hopeless.”

Villain punctuated each word by banging his head on the table. When he finished his lament, he rested his head on the wood, dark hair falling haphazardly across his forehead.

Hero, sitting opposite him at the table in the private study room, also wanted to bang her head against the wood.

It was late. They’d been at this for hours. She wanted to scream in frustration.

Instead, she threw her pencil at Villain’s head.

His hand flew up, plucking the pencil from the air, and sending it back at her in one swift motion.

It nailed her in the shoulder, and she frowned at Villain as she rubbed the spot. He hadn’t even bothered to look up.

“You’re supposed to be helping me.”

He groaned. “Some things just can’t be helped.”

The metal pen on the table flew into the air with surprising speed, smacking into Villain’s shoulder before clattering to the floor.

He looked up then, raking his hair back off his forehead.

“You know, if you spent as much time studying as you did practicing your metallokinesis, you might actually pass this test.”

“I’m trying.” she snapped, eager to escape the dark-eyed scrutiny.

She frowned. Again. Trying to smother her embarrassment that Villain, of all people, knew how horribly inept she was.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t trying. It was just that Supervillain had been launching increasingly elaborate attacks each night. Then every time she studied, the concepts and numbers blurred together in her mind and she inevitably found herself waking up hours later with her face stuck to the pages of her textbook.

Villain was still looking at her, waiting for a response.

She swiped a hand across her bleary eyes and pink cheeks, wincing as her fingers brushed the large scrape on her left cheek.

A lucky blow from one of Supervillain’s droids had sent her careening into a brick wall last night, roughing up her face and arm in the process.

“What happened?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d caught him looking at her injuries through narrowed eyes.

Her stomach fluttered, despite the fact that the concern in his voice was obviously manufactured to get her to let her guard down.

“Where do you think, genius?” Squashing the wretched butterflies dancing around her insides, she shot him a glare and stood to retrieve her pencil and pen.

She had to go around the table to get her pen, and as she crouched to retrieve it, Villain chuckled.

“You could just use your powers, you know.”

Her face heated and she jolted back up, pen flying into her hand with a bit too much force. Her heart pounded in her chest, intensifying the color in her cheeks.

As she turned to return to her seat, a cool hand closed loosely around her wrist.

Villain gently tugged her towards where he sat, grip loose enough she could have pulled away if she wanted to.

She didn’t want to.

Considering the fact his boss wanted her dead, that was probably a bad thing.

Villain didn’t seem to notice her internal dilemma as he brought her closer.

When she was standing right in front of him, he let go, long slender fingers moving from her wrist to the angry red scrapes that marked her arm from wrist to shoulder. His touch was light, barely a flutter against her skin.

“I’ve been wondering all night what happened.”

His voice was quiet. Soft.

Hero raised her eyebrows. Then why hadn’t he asked earlier?

She shrugged. “Just a droid, you know. Like always.”

Her breath caught as his fingers wrapped around her upper arm, slowly turning it to get a better view of an angry red line that was deeper than the others.

“This isn’t from a droid.”

He was right. A droid would have ripped her arm off.

“Well, the droid may have had help from a brick wall.”

He winced in sympathy before looking up at her face, eyebrows scrunched together in concern as his fingers reached up towards her cheek.

He suddenly whirled to face the wall, hand falling away and his eyes narrowing as though he could see straight through it. Which, in a way, she guessed he could.

“Supervillain is coming. You should sit down.”

“He’s coming? Here? You told—”

Villain shook his head as he shooed her back to her seat. “I can sense him coming. He probably just has a question for me.”

Hero finally heeded Villain’s words and scrambled back around the table. Halfway there, she froze, pen slipping from her grasp.

Oh no.

Her heart leapt into her throat. “He’ll know it’s me! I have to go...” She reached to gather all the textbooks and papers spread across the table, but Villain appeared between her and the table.

“Calm down, Hero. He’s never seen your face without the mask.”

“It’s not about my face, Villain!” She gestured to the raw skin on her arm and cheek that had been too sensitive to bandage. “He saw me get thrown against the wall.”

Villain stiffened at her words, at the implication that these particular injuries labeled her as Hero just as effectively as her supersuit.

She tried to push past him.

“Wait. There’s no time.”

He grabbed the hem of his black hoodie and yanked it off in one swift motion.

Before she could comprehend his action, he was pulling the soft material down over her head.

“Arms in.”

She numbly obeyed, goosebumps springing up at his closeness, despite the warmth of the fleece.

“We can’t put the hood up, it would be too suspicious.” His words were muttered under his breath, and she wasn’t sure if she was meant to respond. She froze as his hands came around her, pulling the elastic from her hair.

He quickly ran his fingers through the blonde strands, pulling them forward to frame her face. She shivered as his knuckles brushed against her skin, and he pulled back.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

She hadn’t even realized it had been her injured cheek.

“It’s fine!” She said quickly, pulling at the strands herself. “Is this good?”

His lips were a tight line as he shook his head. “It’s still too obvious...”

His eyes shuttered closed for a moment, then flew open. “He’s almost here!”

Hero started, eyes leaping around the small room. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

Supervillain was known as the ‘friendly professor’ for a reason. He could chat the ear off an elephant. There was no way she could keep her head turned away the entire time he—

Villain was suddenly standing right there, and there was something wild in his eyes.

“I have an idea. You’re not going to like it.”

His head was tilted down towards hers, inches away.

His eyes were green.

She’d thought them black but...

Strong hands were suddenly at her waist, spinning her around and lifting her up onto the edge of the table, her back to the door.

She gasped, eyes going wide.

Villain raised an eyebrow in question.

She knew what he was asking; would be lying if she said she hadn’t imagined what it would feel like to...

Her eyes darted to his lips, which had quirked up into a smirk at the expression on her face as if to say, ‘I guess that answers that question.’

The doorknob jangled, and his hand slid around her back, pulling her against him as his lips crashed into hers.

Her hands slid up his chest and around his neck as he leaned forward, the fingers splayed across her back sending warm shivers across her skin.

Her leg wrapped around him and she heard his breath hitch as his warm lips moved against hers.

His other hand slid under her hair, coming to rest softly against her injured cheek, hiding it from view as the door swung open.

Hero’s arms fell away at the low chuckle behind her, but Villain simply pulled her more tightly against him. He pressed a final, slow kiss to her lips before straightening, slightly breathless.

His hands stayed though, subtly pushing her towards him as he smiled nonchalantly over her shoulder at the open door.

“Good evening, Professor.”

“Mr. Hammond.”

The voice sent fear snaking down Hero’s spine, and she buried her face in Villain’s green T-shirt, her trembling fingers grasping the fabric.

“I assume you are clocked in and getting paid for the work you do in office hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hero braced herself for a tirade from Supervillain, but instead she could hear the smile in his voice as he responded.

“Good.”

A long pause.

“Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

His voice was calm but Hero could feel the tension running through him.

“I had a question about our latest project, but seeing as you are... otherwise occupied... it can wait until morning.”

Her face, still buried in the dark green fabric, burned at the implication, but she felt Villain release a tiny sigh of relief.

“I’ll be at your office at 8am.”

“Good, good. I’ll just leave you to it then…”

Hero breathed a silent sigh of relief as she heard Supervillain’s hand grasp the doorknob. But she didn’t hear it close.

“Say, you look familiar, young lady…” Panic surged through her veins as his non-question hung in the air, and Hero’s hands clutched Villain’s shirt so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Villain chuckled softly. “She’s in your class, so you’ll have to forgive her for being embarrassed about the way you found out about our... relationship.”

How did he sound so calm??

Also—Relationship???

Villain’s fingers slid back to her cheek, encouraging her to lift her head while covering her injury.

“It’s alright, love,” Her heart skipped at the endearment, and she had to remind herself it was an act. “He doesn’t bite.”

No, but he would gladly murder her if he knew who she was.

She slowly lifted her head, turning her good cheek towards Supervillain and his knowing grin.

“And what’s your name, lucky one?”

“Addie.” Her voice came out a strangled whisper, but Supervillain seemed to find it funny rather than suspicious.

“Well, Miss Addie, I guess if you do poorly on this midterm, I’ll know who to blame.”

And with a small wink at Villain, he slipped out, closing the door firmly behind him.

[honeydarlings]

Can you please write a one shot about yandere!All Might in his hero form stalking the reader (knows their schedule, habits, etc.) and in his mind, he’s just protecting them? Then later on, he notices the reader isn’t back home at their usual time and finds them hurt after being mugged in an alley way. Perhaps he takes them back to his place to fix up their wounds and when they want to leave, he won’t let them since he’s overprotective.

First request !!! I hope you like it !!

I'm Doing this for You

TW || Stalking, kidnapping, manipulation, drugging, gore and violence.

7:30pm, you walked through the front door to your apartment. Right on time, as always. Whenever you got home after work you would tie your hair back just to get it out of your face as you started cooking dinner. All Might loved the way you looked with your hair back, he got to see more of you. He sat atop a building right across from your apartment window with a pair of binoculars. Everyday he watched you. He would watch you wake up, take the train to work, eat lunch, return home. Almost everywhere you went he was watching. “7:45, you always turn on the radio.” The hero mumbled to himself as you turned on the small radio sitting on your kitchen counter. He smiled, happy to know your every move. At first he was unsure about following you, worried he would be found out by you or another hero. But then he realized he was doing this for your sake, to protect you. It’s a dangerous world out there, especially for someone as delicate as you. As 8:15 rolled around so did your dinnertime, you sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. “True crime.”He muttered. True crime indeed, you turned on one of your favorite true crime shows as you began to eat. Suddenly All Might’s phone buzzed, startling him a bit. “All Might we have a situation downtown, we need you here” The text read. “Damn.” All Might huffed, couldn’t it wait until after you went to bed, so he knew you were safe?. Another text came through, “It’s urgent.” He scowled and got to his feet, leaping off, leaving you all alone.

8am. He barely made it, watching you wake up was one of All Might’s favorite things. Your messy hair and groggy face. You were so damn adorable, he couldn’t help but smile. Everything you did was absolute perfection to him and he wanted nothing more than to stay by your side and keep you safe. You departed for work, walking to the train station. All Might following close behind, leaping from building to building. He made sure that you safely boarded the train before going off to do hero work. After all, even though it tore him up, he couldn’t watch you all day, he was still a hero.

By the end of the day, All Might was exhausted but he still rushed to get to your window to watch you come home. 7:30, on the dot. He sat, staring at your front door. It didn’t open. He felt a pit form in his stomach. “Maybe they’re running a little late.” He reassured himself, trying to stay calm. He waited five more minutes, still no sign of you. The panic had now settled in, All Might quickly stood and raced to find you. He followed your exact route to the train station, you weren’t there. He scrambled to the small library where you worked and peered through each window, you were nowhere to be found. He quickly made his way to the train station, checking every shop. He had never felt like this before, he had never been this panicked fighting villains or saving others. He reached the alleyway you always cut through and was met with a sickening display.

You were sprawled onto the pavement, covered in bruises and blood. Soft whimpers escaping your lips. A tall lanky figure stared down at you with a led pipe in their hand, your bag in his other. “What the hell is going on here.” All Might boomed, trying to maintain his composure. The figure looked up at All Might with fear and then took off in a sprint, dropping the led pipe but still holding your bag. “Bastard.” All Might growled, chasing after him. It didn’t take long to catch up to the criminal, seeing as All Might was much faster and could cover more ground. He grabbed the thief’s shoulder and pulled him downwards onto the pavement. He landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him. All Might made sure that he was out of your sight, then picked the man up by his head, gripping it tightly. He started to squeeze. The man screamed, clutching All Might’s massive hand trying to pry it off. “You are lower than scum.” All Might snarled as his hold tightened. A crack rang out through the alley. Blood started pooling out of the man's eyes, nose and mouth as All Might continued to squeeze. Another loud crack followed by silence as the criminal's body went limp. Blood and teeth were splattered onto the ground as the man’s corpse hit the pavement. The blonde hero shook drops of blood off his hand then wiped the rest off on the corpse's jacket.

All Might returned to you, your bag in hand. “Are you alright?” He asked softly. You slowly shook your head, unable to get any words out. “Please, let me take you back to my home, I can patch you up and keep you safe.” He gently wiped your tears from your cheeks as you nodded. He smiled and picked you up bridal style. “You don’t have to tell me what happened yet, we can wait until you’re all fixed.” You nodded again, clutching his chest. Once the two of you reached his house was when you managed to speak up. “Thank you, All Might.” You said in an almost whisper. The hero’s stomach fluttered, you were so damn cute! “Of course, anything to keep you safe.”

He walked you through his massive mansion, up the stairs and into his bedroom. He set you down gently onto his large bed. The sheets against your bruised skin was like heaven, you’ve never laid on anything softer. “Wait here while I get my medical supplies and something to drink, I shouldn’t be long.” All Might said as he exited the room. You laid in silence, still trying to process everything that had happened. You were mugged, some creep attacked you with a led pipe and took your bag. Good thing All Might showed up when he did, if he was even second later you could have been killed. The thought made you shudder. You looked around his large bedroom which was surprisingly empty. Nothing except a bed, dresser and a TV mounted on the wall. You were still trying to process the fact that you were inside the number one hero’s home. Does he give treatment like this to all civilians he finds injured? Your thoughts were interrupted by All Might entering the room holding a tray with painkillers, bandages, tissues and a tall glass of water. He set the tray down and grabbed the tissues. He lightly brushed the soft paper against the semi dried blood that gushed out of your nose earlier. “Is it broken?” You asked. “No, but pretty close. You’re lucky I showed up.” He said. He sounded stern and a little bit angry. “Here, take these. I’m sure those bruises are hurting.” He said handing you three small pills and a cup of water. Without hesitation you swallowed the pills with a big sip of water. All Might continued to work in silence as he bandaged your hand, suspecting it to be sprained, and cleaning out the scrapes that covered your hands and knees. As he worked you started to feel dizzy. All Might noticed as your wrist went limp in his hand. “Feeling sleepy, y/n?” He asked. “H-how do you know my name.” Your speech was slurred as your body relaxed into his bed. He brought his hand up to your face and caressed your cheek. “Y/n, sweetheart. That’s not important right now. You should rest. I’ll finish patching you up.” Suddenly all the worry you just felt went away as you drifted off. “You’ll be safe here, y/n. Safe with me.” All Might whispered as he gently kissed your forehead. “I’ll be back in about an hour, my dear.” He stood and planted a kiss on your limp hand. He picked up your bag and fished out your keys. He sighed and shrunk down to his small form, leaving his house and catching a taxi.

The blonde hero stood outside your apartment fiddling with your keys, trying to find the one that fit into the keyhole. “Bingo.” He muttered with a smile as a silver key slid in perfectly, unlocking your door. He stepped into the darkened room and inhaled. He couldn’t believe it, he was in your house! It smelled just like you. He rushed to your bedroom excitedly. He stepped inside and grinned. The whole room just screamed “you”. Even your bedsheets reflected you. All Might grabbed a suitcase laying on the floor and began to pack things for you, inspecting every single one. He smelled every shirt and sweater. After a few minutes he closed the suitcase and was about to head to the bathroom to pack more but then he noticed something on the top shelf of your closet. It took no effort for him to grab it, seeing as he was still massive, even in his small form. A small All Might plushie, a soft shade of pink dusted his face as he held the stuffed toy. You were his fan. He toyed with it before gently placing it in the suitcase. He then made his way to the bathroom grabbing your toothbrush and toothpaste placing them in a plastic bag and then inside the suitcase. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. 9:01. “Shit! They’ll be waking up soon!” He rushed out of your front door, quickly locking it behind him. Once he reached the street he changed back into his muscle form to get to you quicker.

You slowly opened your eyes. You were still in All Might’s house. Why would he keep you here for so long? Footsteps quickly approached the bedroom. You groaned and sat up, still groggy. All Might burst through the door. “Ah you’re up! How did you sleep? Feel better?” He questioned as he rushed to get by your side. “I slept well, and I’m feeling a lot better, thank you.” You smiled. “I should probably start heading home soon though. It’s really late already and I have to work tomorrow.” You swung your legs off the side of the bed and tried to stand. All Might jumped in front, knocking you back onto the bed. “I can’t let you do that, y/n.” You stared up at him, wide-eyed. A pit formed in your stomach. “What the hell do you mean?” You shouted, instantly regretting when you did. “I can’t let you leave. It’s way too dangerous for you out there. I’m the only one who can keep you safe.” You tried to stand again only causing All Might to push you back down. “Please listen to me y/n. I’m doing this to protect you!” You were too scared to move anymore. “Wh-MPH!” All Might pressed his thumb over your lips, shutting you up. “The only place that you’ll be safe is here, with me.” Tears stung the corners of your eyes. He pulled his thumb away, letting you speak. “You’re scaring me.” You whispered. All Might’s face fell. He was scaring you? “Darling, I’m so sorry. I just want to keep you safe! Isn’t that what you want? To be safe? To be with me? I planned everything out! Here, I’ll show you!” He ran out of the bedroom only to return with your suitcase in hand. “I packed all your clothes and I even brought your All Might plush!” He held up the small toy, smiling wide. You started sobbing. “I want to go home. Please just take me home.” You choked. “Darling. I don’t think you’re in the right headspace right now. You’re still a bit woozy from the sleeping pills. You can’t possibly be thinking straight right now. How about you sleep on it again and then we’ll discuss this again in the morning?” He picked your legs up and placed them back on the bed, pulling the soft sheets over top. You were frozen with fear. He kidnapped you. He drugged you. “You’re a monster.” You whispered as he placed a kiss on your forehead. “It might seem that way right now darling but, in time, you’ll see that I’m doing all this for you. We’ll speak more about this tomorrow.” He smiled and left the bedroom, locking you inside. He had you now. And he would never let you go.

(This was so fun !!! Feel free to request as much as you like while they’re open !!)

[timmytimwriter]

Once Upon A Time...

A/N: Hi! I know I haven’t uploaded anything in a long while, BUT I’ve kept myself busy with writing. I know I had requests I haven’t uploaded yet, and that’s because I’m working on it. Recently, I started watching the Fantastic Beast film series and fell head over heels in love with Theseus Scamander. So, here’s a little mini-series.

As usual, all my Y/N’s are black. Period. If you want a white Y/N, refer to the other gazillion fanfics that fail to be inclusive to black women :) with that out the way, enjoy!

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: None, just heartbreak :(

Once upon a time, it was Y/N Y/L/N and Theseus Scamander against the world. Having spent nearly their entire life together, nearly everyone expected them to end up together. Hell, even they expected to end up together. And, they almost did. Y/N loved him more than she loved life itself. Theseus did not.

Once upon a time, Y/N was prepared to spend the rest of her life with Theseus. But their fairytale romance didn’t end in a happily ever after.

The small gang had run out of places to hide. Wherever they want, Grindelwald’s supporters seemed to find – and try to kill – them. They had exhausted every hiding spot in the entire continent of Europe, it seemed.

“We can’t just keep running.” Tina fumed after nearly escaping yet another attack. They trudged through the alleys of London. Try as they might, it was hard to stay inconspicuous with such a large group. If it were just Newt, Tina, and Jacob running it’d be easier – but, their ranks had been joined by Yusuf Kama, Nagini, and Theseus Scamander.

“We have to leave Europe. We can’t keep hiding out like animals.” Yusuf said.

“We could always go back to New York?” Jacob halfheartedly suggested. After losing Queenie, everything Jacob did was halfhearted. It was as if Queenie took his very essence with her when she left.

“No, New York would be too obvious. They know who we are, so they must know where we live.” Tina interjected, just as halfheartedly. She had lost her sister to an evil she couldn’t find. All she could do was run; run away from her sister.

Newt noticed her sadness and took her hand in his, offering her a small smile. Theseus watched his little brother and Tina hold hands, which only reminded him of what he had lost: Leta Lestrange.

Theseus’ bitter thoughts were interrupted by his brother. “New York may be too obvious but going to America isn’t such a bad idea…” Newt’s voice trailed off and he tentatively glanced at his older brother, who was lost in his own world.

“Theseus…” Newt softly said. He let go of Tina’s petite hand and walked over to his brother, putting a soft hand on his broad shoulders.

“What?” Theseus saw everyone now looking at him, and he wondered if he missed something important when he was lost in his own head. “Did I miss something?”

Newt took a deep breath. He knew this wasn’t going to end well. “I know a place we can hideout. In America. But you’re not going to like it…”

The day was September 18th, 1927.

The crisp autumn brisk bristled past Y/N as she swiftly walked through a nearly empty park. It was nearly 8AM and, though nearly everyone else in Washington DC was asleep, Y/N Y/L/N had made a point of waking up at 5 in the morning for the sole purpose of getting fresh baked goods from Maryland.

See, her favorite bakery was nearly an hour-long drive from her home and the goods always ran out fast. It had taken her weeks to devise a working and precise plan, but she had finally done it. Now, it was just this eerie park that separated where she parked her car and her apartment that delayed her breakfast.

“If the bread gets cold… after all my hard work… so help me Merlin…” she huffed, hastening her paste. Finally, she found herself in front of her apartment – a stout yet charming brown shoe-box shaped building that was snuggled between what seemed like a billion other buildings that fit the same description. Lucky for her, Y/N lived on the ground floor and only had to climb the front steps and insert her key.

“Home sweet home.” She thought to herself, setting the bag of baked goods on a nearby table. She shrugged off her light coat, lamenting if the food was worth not sleeping in. Lord knows when she may get another opportunity; with the rise of Grindelwald, her work at the ministry had nearly quadrupled.

But it kept her busy. It distracted her from everything ailing her life; how war was imminent, worrying for her family’s safety, worrying for her own safety, worrying for…him.

As much as it pained her, she kept close tabs on him. Whenever a European Auror turned up dead because of Grindelwald or one of his followers, she prayed it wasn’t him. Y/N had never been a religious person; she believed in magic, but that was it. To this day, it still puzzled her how the man who had completely crushed her heart made her believe in the unbelievable.

She shook her head. “Stop thinking about him.” She muttered to herself, taking a deep breath. “Lord knows he’s not thinking about you. Lord knows he was never thinking about you…” She tossed her coat onto the couch, making a mental note to put it away later.

For now, she needed the only thing that would drive him out of her mind: food. Through her heartbreak and depression, there was only one constant in her mind. The one thing that drove her out of bed nearly every day. The one thing that didn’t attempt to get her to “talk about it” or “put herself out there.” The one thing that she loved more than…

“Theseus!”

Lo and behold, standing right there in her petite kitchen was Theseus Scamander. The man who had obliviated her heart.

She nearly fell back in shock, never expecting to see his face again. After all these years… he still looked the same. His eyes were still dark with slight speckles on gold. His auburn hair still had those unruly curls that he hated and often unsuccessfully tried to gel back, but Y/N always loved. Most of her favorite memories with him included him cuddling up to her while she played with his hair.

She narrowed her eyes and peered closer at him, taking in everything that had changed. Yes, he had certainly aged, but he looked thoroughly exhausted. He had bags under his eyes, and small vanishing wounds riddled his body. He looked tired. Defeated. She had never seen that look in him.

He looked like she did when he left her. Heartbroken.

“So sorry to intrude like this, Y/N” his brother, Newt, interjected. Y/N only then realized that there were other people present.

“What the hell is going on?”

Newt provided a quick summarization of what the group had gone through the past couple of days: the fight during Grindelwald’s assembly, Queenie’s betrayal, Credence switching sides, and Leta’s death. At that last comment, Y/N’s eyes instinctively darted to Theseus, who kept his trained on the ground. As a matter of what, he was trying desperately hard to avoid eye contact.

“We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t desperate, Y/N.” Newt said. The Scamander’s and Y/N had a long and complicated history, and Newt hated having to impose this on his old friend. He didn’t like the idea of involving her in an already volatile situation.

Y/N, on the other hand, wouldn’t hear a word otherwise. “Of course, you’re all welcome to stay. I wish you’d come earlier and save yourselves the trouble of running around London seeking refuge.”

Newt gratefully nodded, taking Tina’s hand in his. “Don’t worry, I still remember my way around your flat.” At that, he and his... girlfriend(?) apparated away – probably to another room to get some privacy.

Now Y/N was left alone with a group of people she didn’t know. Well, she knew Theseus – once upon a time – but not as well as she thought she did, obviously.

“Alright, then. Are any of you hurt? Hungry? I’ve got baked goods from the best place in the country.” Y/N pushed further into the kitchen, clutching her bag of baked goods with her. Brushing past Theseus, she caught a sniff of the most comforting and familiar smell she knew. In fact, it was the exact same smell of her Amortentia potion. “I’ve got about a dozen bagels and some doughnuts. Oh, and cookies too. You might be wondering why I have so much food, after all, I’m just one person. And that’s a very funny question…” Y/N blabbered away. As if talking would fill the awkward space.

Because if she fell silent, she’d have to become more aware of her surroundings. That would mean looking at Theseus. Maybe even talking to him. And it would, ultimately, lead to her reliving every wonderfully painful memory she ever shared with him.

“Y/N…? Now, where have I heard that name before?” Jacob asked.

“Maybe from Newt? We went to Hogwarts together for about three years, after all.”

“Only three? Isn’t wizarding school for seven years, or something like that?”

“Yes, but I started school at Uagadou. It’s the wizarding school in Africa – I’m from Senegal, by the way, don’t let the English accent fool you- but then I transferred to Hogwarts in my fourth year…” Y/N trailed off, not fully wanting to finish the story as it didn’t paint her in the best light.

“…After she transfigured into a panther and attacked a kid for teasing her brothers.” Theseus finished. Y/N’s head snapped up, sending her Y/H/C locks flying in disarray, and stared at him. He was still tentatively looking at the ground, but his face held a knowing smile. “And then just a year after starting at Hogwarts, she did the exact same thing to another student.” He slowly raised his head. With his eyes partially hidden behind his disheveled auburn curls, it seemed as if he was staring into her naked soul.

“Magnolia Harper,” Y/N recalled, “She bloody deserved it too.”

“And what exactly did the poor girl do to warrant an animal attack?” Nagini whispered, her head cocked to the side in curiosity.

Y/N could feel the temperature in her cheeks rising by the second. At that times like this, she was glad her melanin complexion made it difficult for anyone tell she was blushing. The entire story was bloody embarrassing, especially given the situation everything was in right now. She chewed on the bottom of her lip, trying to piece together exactly how to phrase her answer.

Luckily, Theseus came to the rescue. “There was a rumor that she was planning on asking me to the Yule Ball and Y/N got insanely jealous. Pounced on her during Dumbledore’s practice dueling sessions and nearly clawed her entire face off.”

“Oh, so you two were an item. How sweet, young love.” Nagini mulled, smiling at the two. Yusuf stood beside her, solemnly nodding his head.

The pair looked down, the nostalgic smiles slipping from their faces. All the dissipating anger Y/N harbored suddenly came bubbling to the surface, remembering Theseus’ betrayal like a fresh wound. Theseus, on the other hand, felt the guilt and grief wash over him like a Tsunami.

“Not exactly. It turns out I was worried about the wrong girl…”

[woozisnoots]

modest jeon wonwoo

° pairing: wonwoo x reader ° genre: university!au, host club!au, fluff ° word count: ~1.7k ° warnings: none! ° a/n: this had no business being this long and idek if i like it lol but I want to specifically dedicate this piece to @wonwoosimp​​ bc she’s literally the sweetest, best bean in the world [insert uwu meme here] thank you for gifting me my very first photocard, I literally cried opening it! I love you so much, I hope you enjoy!

welcome to the svt host club!

masterlist!

you entered university with a certain goal, a purpose. eventually, you were going to be the pediatric surgeon that the 13 year old you ushered you to be.

…let's just hope the knowledge of your brain was enough to get you through the first four years of pre-med. with your 3.7 high school GPA, you were lucky to get into your first choice college, let alone your current major

from the start of the semester, you dedicated yourself to studying the anatomy and physiology of the body until you knew every nook and cranny there was to know. and the library was the perfect sanctuary to get your shit together

as much as you loved your roommates, their constant fights over closet space and boy toys gave you no peace of mind what-so-ever

bless the library for being opened 24/7. If your roommates found you sleeping on their only working desk, you would find yourself waking up to the sound of tripping freshmen trying to get to their first 8am class right in the middle of the hallway

but the lone table in the corner of the library just on the third floor did you good at staying focused. even provided some good naps in between every now and then

the day before your first anatomy test, you LOCKED yourself in the library. no one was going in OR OUT of the premise just to sit across from you on YOUR table until you fully memorized the different layers of epithelial tissue >:(

gosh, you even scattered all your notes across the table just so people got the memo that this seat was: [OFF LIMITS]

yes, off limits to everyone except a certain jeon wonwoo.

the way you met was abrupt to say the least

besides your table, you had a pretty good view of the entire campus — from the main health science building all the way to the student parking lot

and just below you, an astonishing sight of a mob of screaming girls chasing after a mouse guy in glasses. not to be inconsiderate and heartless, but unless you heard someone scream bloody murder, diving back into your flashcard you go

tissue after tissue, you start to get delusional because at this point, everything is starting to look the same

slumping down into your chair, you take a second to mentally recharge, drinking the water you’ve neglected for the past three hours

you time yourself for a five minute break, going through the notifications on your phone

before you could read your roommate’s ongoing ramble on the latest update of the “crazy good looking, god-like, elite host club that the university has to offer”

a ‘club’ that you didn’t even know anything about nor cared for

you hear a loud ‘thud’ coming from the bookcase in front of you

from the side the tall, lean guy with glasses that you saw earlier emerged with his hands gripping his tricep

you try not to draw too much attention to him. half the reason being you didn’t want to embarrass him by laughing at the fact he ran into a 10 feet tall bookcase

and you did not need this man distracting you. it’s your eight week streak being this productive, a new record for anything you’ve done in your entire life and your pride wouldn’t let you have it if you lost it just because you saw an attractive man on sight

you scribble down a decent guess to the tissue identification question that you’ve been stuck on for the past few minutes, not bothering to look up

“that’s actually dense connective tissue, not smooth”

jolting up from your seat, you look up realizing the guy 5 feet away is now right in front of your face looking down at all your papers

“you can tell because they’re striated”

you stare at him in disbelief wondering how he could have gotten so fast with just looking at it for a few seconds. eyeing him up and down, he definitely looked around the same age as you but he wasn’t someone you’ve seen around the science buildings. and you would know since you took the liberty of familiarizing almost everyone within the department

“do you mind if i sit here?” his hands already on the edge of the chair ready to pull it out from underneath him

“...yeah sure”

“oh i’m wonwoo by the way,” he says as you both exchange awkward stares and knowledgeable nods

okay well since he’s proven that he might be of help to you, you might as let him stay. from what you’ve gathered, he didn’t have any stuff on him aside from his phone that you watch him get out of his front pocket, getting ready to play pacman

forget how attractive he is, this guy has some brains.

for the rest of the day, as you guys sat across from each other, wonwoo would occasionally bounce back and forth between giving you study tips and playing whatever game he decides to play at that moment in time

he was surprisingly really good at this? he knew more things about the subject than your professors did, and that’s saying a lot. like you’ve been looking at cells for WEEKS and you were lucky to get at least half of them. which begs the question:

“how do you magically know all this?”

the blank expression on his face tells you he wasn’t expecting that question but he quickly shrugs it off. “i just know a few things from my parents that’s all”

you would have questioned him further but the time on your phone read “22:57” and you already broke your number rule about sleeping early before a big test

as you pack up all your stuff, wonwoo pushes his chair in, bidding you farewell

“good luck on your test tomorrow!”

you appreciate the gesture, mentally thanking him for his help and proceed to go back to your dorms, preparing yourself to tell your roommate all about the exciting? day you had

“YOU MORON. JEON WONWOO?”

laying flat on your back on your bed, you cover the bottom half of your face, quivering under your sheets as you stare at your roommate’s outrageous outburst

you explain what happened and who you met today at the library. when your roommate asked to describe him in more detail, all you said was that he was pretty smart for someone who wasn’t particularly in your major

your roommate lets out a loud scream into their pillow, gripping the bed sheets before giving you the earful of the century

“he’s just being modest. he’s a korean lit major but he’s one of the uni’s top students since both his parents are the head of the science department.

…AND he’s one of the most requested host club members. so you caught yourself one big fish today bud.”

top student? science department? HOST CLUB? none of that was processing in your brain. the one club that you wanted nothing to do with and you just happened to meet their top money maker

grand.

the thought didn’t keep you up at night only because you thought that today’s encounter was just coincidence and you probably would never have to see him again.

(sad though, your roommate was right. he is rather good looking.)

the time that it took for you to take your test the next day flew by so fast that you questioned if it even happened. the first step you took out the classroom, you start to second guess all your answers, regretting that you didn’t check a third or even fourth time before submitting

your train of thought halts when you see jeon wonwoo standing in the empty hallway

“i’m sure you aced it”

and just like in a netflix original romance movie, he reveals a bouquet of pink begonias from behind his back while shyly adjusting his glasses

“these are for you. to congratulate you”

weird way to phrase it but you were still gonna take the flowers. “host club tendencies?”

“so you found out?”

from a distance, you can hear the rushing footsteps from downstairs followed by a sense of purpose. “i think i was bound to” :/

you didn’t know how you felt about the current situation. you had no idea what host club was until you got here and you still don’t know what they even do. for all you knew, this could just be a gesture to get them more clients

but if his actions were genuine… you wouldn’t mind seeing him again

“i have to start learning muscles for our next exam. heard it was one of the hardest ones. i’m not sure if you have more studying tricks up your sleeve?”

“i might.” a cocking little grin now appearing on his face

“good. same place at the library tomorrow then. and this time? try not to bring your dedicated fans wherever you go”

so these study sessions continued. you guys occasionally had to change spots - from cafe to an empty bio lab - if the mob ever saw a single hair follicle that might be his

but each time, wonwoo brought something more just himself. one day it would be coffee, others days it would be food. things to keep you motivated.

for a korean lit major, he was taking a lot of time out of his day to help you, being attentive to all the strategies that help you study and such

possibly making your assumption from months back, true.

by the time finals rolled around, aside from the spursts of review here and there, study sessions became more casual. you didn’t feel the need to overwork our brain since you already knew all the information (something you actually learned from wonwoo himself)

possibly the last meeting you’d have with him was similar to your first: just you two together but him playing on his phone. and yet before the night ended

“i have a proposal.”

“i’m not giving you money for your dumb club.” bold of him to assume you would-

“no but i really appreciate the thought :)

why don’t we turn these study sessions into… study dates instead?”

:0

your assumption after 6 months later: finally confirmed

“but that’s only IF you ace your finals.”

well let’s just say at the very end, you had a successful first semester and are now one step closer towards being the surgeon of your dreams.

plus, you even landed yourself a pretty cool boyfriend in the process

let’s hope his parents put in a good word for you when you apply to med school!

[mrvltwimagines]

The Article

SAM WINCHESTER X READER

SUMMARY: Your past may be in the past, but Sam still wants to know everything about you.

WARNINGS: Parental Abuse, Mention of Knives + Cutting

WORD COUNT: 2.2k

PROMPT: Could you write a Sam Winchester x reader to the prompt "oh god....what did they do to you?" 

You stared at yourself in the mirror. The bruises and cuts that used to be all over your body were merely just scars now, but you still felt the pain in them. You could still feel every slice of his knife. Against your stomach, your arms, your chest and legs. You could still feel the slaps she landed on your face, and the punches and kicks she planted everywhere else that was within reach.

You’d been a hunter with Sam and Dean for awhile now, the bunker being the home that the three of you shared happily. You met them only a few years into becoming a hunter, so compared to them you were a baby, even if you were only a few years younger than Sam. They’ve taught you so much. They’ve helped you gain confidence in your work, and confidence in yourself, but then came days like today where you wake up in a cold sweat and the memories rushing back to you like they had just happened.

You couldn’t take your eyes off of the full body mirror as you stood in front of it in only your underwear. Neither of the brothers have seen your scars, you’ve made sure of it. They didn’t know what your parents did to you before you were even fully understand the extent of how bad the things they did to you were. Hell, for all the brothers knew, your parents were dead. At least that’s what you told them to avoid the inevitable questions asking why you don’t see or speak to them. You glared at yourself, finally gaining the energy to turn away and slip your shirt and pants on, getting ready for the day.

Today was going to be tough. While you were thankful that the world isn’t too crazy at the moment, you wished Sam and Dean weren’t on a hunt, and that you and Sam could cuddle up on the couch to watch a movie and distract your mind. You loved both of the brothers more than you’ve ever loved anyone, but there’s always been something more between you and Sam. You both never talked about it, but simply enjoyed the time you got to spend with each other knowing that there was nobody in either one of your lives that you cared for more.

Walking out of your room and towards the kitchen, you were startled to hear the clanking of pots filling the empty space. Did they come home early? Was there somehow an intruder? Without thinking much of it, you simply just walked into the kitchen and found Castiel filling a kettle with water before turning around towards you and setting it on one of the stove burners.

“Good morning, y/n - sorry if I woke you!” He exclaimed, not even a bit jumpy at you showing up out of nowhere while he was so clearly distracted.

“Morning Cas, don’t worry about it, I was already awake,” you retorted, grabbing the laptop off of the counter and settling yourself into one of the chairs around the table.

“Are you feeling alright? It’s only 8am and you usually sleep in until at least noon. Are you sick?” He asks. By the look on his face you could tell he was genuinely curious and concerned, no hint of mocking in his tone. It is true that you usually sleep in quite late, your nightmares just weren’t up for that today.

“M’fine, just couldn’t sleep well so I figured I might as well get up,” you sighed, shrugging your shoulders and opening the laptop. You froze once your eyes zoned in on the picture in front of you. There you were, a mere fifteen year old squished in-between your parents, all three of you showing your very realistic fake smiles. You could remember this day like it was yesterday; your mom always insisted on taking holiday photos to send out to the family around Christmas time. She loved acting like she was a perfect mother, but you just remember being slapped around after she got her picture because she thought you had too much attitude.

“Y/n? Did you just hear anything I said?” Cas spoke up, interrupting your thoughts and pulling your attention away from the computer.

“No, yeah, sorry cas, what were you saying?”

“I was saying that I think Sam and Dean will be home today. Apparently Garth and a new guy made it to the scene before them, so they let them handle the case.”

You nodded letting him know you heard him, but your mind was going crazy and your eyesight instantly went back to the article in front of you.

“Parents of fifteen year old girl sentenced to 25 years in prison” and the article went on to list everything you testified against them for. You were humiliated that one of the boys were reading this, or even just the fact that they now knew this happened to you. You didn’t know what to do or how to react, so you simply closed the computer and made your way back to your room, not even thinking to say anything to Cas. The second your door closed, the second your pacing began. Who read the article? It had to be Sam. Dean was never too intuitive and gladly took your answer that your parents died as a final answer. Why was he searching about me to begin with? Did I tip him off about something? Is he going to bring this up to me? Am I going to have to talk about this again?

You fell back first onto your bed, allowing yourself to try and take deep breaths while you stared up at the ceiling. You always thought that the answer “they’re dead” when anyone asked you about your parents would’ve been enough, but maybe it wasn’t? Maybe the way you said it made Sam question that answer? You wanted to be sucked up in a hole, the scars on your body seemingly burning at the thought of having to talk about how they were placed there. You knew other people went through what you’ve gone through. Of course your parents aren’t the only abusive parents in the world, but they left you for dead. The beat you and cut you. They hurt you in every way and then just.... left. They didn’t care what happened to you after that last session. You were lucky that your neighbor even stopped by that same day to see you passed out on the living room floor. If it hadn’t been for her, you weren’t too sure that you would be where you are right now - alive.

A knock on your door startled you out of your thoughts, a soothing voice floating through, “y/n, are you alright?” It was cas. You wouldn’t doubt that he knows what happened to you, considering he was a literal angel, but he never made it obvious if he does. What he does make obvious is that he can pick up on your moods and that he knows when somethings wrong.

“I’m fine cas, just need to lay down for a bit,” you called out. You could sense him hesitate before a distant thud was sounded throughout the bunker. You knew that sound to be the door leading from the garage, and your dread began to turn into panic sweats. The sound of Cas’ footsteps furthered themselves, and you quickly got up to ensure your door was locked.

Considering the laptop had been sitting where it was for a few days when Sam and Dean had left originally, you didn’t know whether Sam had been thinking about it the entire time he was gone. Maybe he had forgotten and wasn’t going to bring it up, but you didn’t want him barging in when you were feeling as self conscious as you were right now. No matter what, you felt exposed, like you weren’t even wearing any clothes to begin with.

“Y/n are you in there? We’re back from the hunt,” it was Sam at your door this time. Your hands instinctively went to unlock your door out of habit of hearing his voice. Even when you were trying to avoid him, you physically couldn’t. You opened the door up enough to see his face, and enough for him to see yours. He offered you a slight smile, but you knew he had a lot to say by the way his eyes danced across your face and even willingly looking down towards your body. Was he thinking about what happened to you right this second? Was he envisioning what your body probably looks like thanks to the detailed article that he had read beforehand.

“Welcome back, how was it?” You offered up, bringing his attention back to your face that was glowing pink as the heat rushed throughout your body.

“Didn’t do much, Garth had beaten us to it, and honestly I just wanted to come back home,” he shrugged.

“Oh yeah? Why?” You asked. The second you did, you felt stupid. You knew why he wanted to come home.

“Can I come in? I mean, I don’t mind talking to what looks like a floating head, but I’d rather be comfortable sitting on your bed while having a full blown conversation,” he joked, pushing his hands into his pockets. Your mind blanked for a second before you slowly nodded, backing up to open the door up enough to let him in, and then closing it right after. He made himself comfortable, taking his shoes off before placing himself on your bed with his back rested against the headboard.

“I know what you want to talk about,” you blurted out, avoiding eye contact and beginning to grab the miscellaneous things around your room to begin to clean up. It was always a habit when you felt any type of discomfort, “you want to talk about my parents. I saw the article up on the laptop.”

A deep sigh escaped his lips as he sat up a bit, cross-crossing his legs and leaning forward more.

“I know I shouldn’t have searched you. I genuinely apologize for that. I could just... tell that you were hiding something. I could tell by how quickly you always turned the subject away when your parents were brought up. I guess I just got too curious for my own good.”

You nodded. You understood. For the most part, you were an open book, especially with Sam. He knew all you quirks and triggers. He knew you better than anyone else, you just thought you did a better job at hiding this one thing. Taking a chance, you looked up and made eye contact with him. He didn’t show pity like you expected and experienced from anyone who ever knew you after the incident happened. Instead you just saw comfort.

“They were assholes. Big, huge, assholes who in my opinion should rot in prison, but instead they are out in a measly fifteen years.”

“I can agree with you there,” he chuckled a bit, patting the bed next to him, indicating that he wanted you to sit next to him. You shook your head no, feeling your eyes start to well up with tears.

“I hate them, Sam. They left me so broken. They left me looking so troubled, so unloveable,” you whispered, breaking eye contact with him and opting to continue straightening things up around your room. You kept thinking internally, your sadness diminishing and your anger rising a bit. You turned back to Sam who was just watching your every move. You usually would’ve shied away from that, but this time was different.

Without any thought or hesitation, you pulled your shirt over your head, leaving you in a pair of leggings and your bra.

“Oh god,” he whispered, seeing your bare body for the first time. In fact, he was one of the first people to truly see your body other than the multiple nurses and doctors that treated you after the incident, “what did they do to you?”

It was that moment that you felt a weight lift off of your shoulders. The way his eyes were gentle as they looked over your entire frame, not an ounce of judgement seeping into you skin, just carefulness and genuine sorrow.

“They did a lot, but I’m still alive. I’m here, I’m healthy, I’m loved, and I’m alive. That’s all that matters.” I murmured, throwing my shirt back on before taking up his earlier offer of sitting next to him, “I know I could’ve told you the truth earlier, I just prefer to not talk about it anymore. It’s painful.”

“That’s understandable, y/n. And again, I’m sorry for snooping into it, but I don’t regret knowing. You’re so strong, and I’m so glad you’re here - alive and healthy,” you nodded, allowing him to grab you into a hug, pulling you into his lap. You chuckled a bit at the strength he formed around you, before pulling away a bit and looking at him, “I love you, and I’m so glad you came into my life. Even though your parents are going to be out of jail one day, that doesn’t ensure that a tragic accident may not happen to them,” he smiled at his own words, sending a louder laugh out of your mouth.

“I love you, too, moose. Thank you.”

[sage-nebula]

Because where I work is considered essential (and because IT in particular is considered essential, and I work in IT), I’ve already received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. I thought I would share my experiences with the vaccine here in case anyone wants to hear about it from a regular person on a personal blog rather than a big media outlet or other professional source.

TL;DR: Get the vaccine, please get the vaccine, it is worth it. 

Longer version:

As you may or may not know, I am a hermit, so I’m basically in my house any time when I’m not forced to be out of my house, meaning quarantine didn’t really disrupt my normal life at all. In fact, it let me work from home which I considered to be an improvement. I bring this up because it means that at no point did I ever get Covid. What this means is that when it came to the first round of the vaccine, here’s what happened:

1st Round Side-Effects: None! Aside from the standard sore arm at injection point.

My body had never seen Covid before, so it didn’t know what to expect and had no reaction at first except for, well, something along the lines of this:

Vaccine: [arrives with Covid protein] Immune System: “Oh, I don’t like that. I don’t like that you brought that in here. I’m going to make preparations so you can’t do that again.”

So then a couple weeks passed and I got the second vaccine. When I got the second vaccine, the nurse who gave me the shot pointed to a free sheet I could take that listed all the side-effects to expect, as well as a sticker (similar to an “I Voted” sticker, but this time it’s an “I Got the Covid-19 Vaccine” sticker). I took the sticker but left the informational sheet, because I didn’t have side-effects the first time and figured that I wouldn’t have any the second time.

This was a mistake.

Because you see, this time my body recognized the Covid protein, and so the response was basically:

Vaccine: [arrives with Covid protein] Immune System: “I think the fuck NOT you trick-ass bitch!! Get the FUCK out of my house this goddamn INSTANT, I am firing up the BAZOOKAS, you are NOT WELCOME HERE!!”

And as a result, I have experienced the following side-effects:

— Body Aches: General muscle pain, which I have all the time anyway, but also random stabbing pains all over my body. These were sharp enough to wake me up from sleep yesterday morning.

— Headache: Honestly I have nearly daily headaches anyway due to a car accident I had like a decade ago (apparently this kind of trauma stays with you), but it’s been more pronounced as through my entire head than normal, plus with the addition of the aforementioned spiky pains up there. 

— Nausea: The nausea also woke up at like 6am yesterday, and I took some Pepto Bismol to try to get rid of it, but it didn’t work. The nausea persisted along with the pain.

— Vomiting: I threw up once at 8am yesterday as a result of the aforementioned nausea. Thankfully I have not experienced either nausea or vomiting since. However, that may be because . . .

— Loss of Appetite: I haven’t wanted to eat anything since yesterday! I’ve tried, oh how I’ve tried. Yesterday I had half a cup of chicken noodle soup and two pieces of sourdough bread with butter on them. Today so far I’ve had half a cup of broccoli cheddar soup with two pieces of sourdough bread dipped in. I’m also now having a milkshake to try to get some calories in me. It’s been a struggle.

— Allodynia: This might be more of a “me” thing than a side-effect thing because I don’t see this listed with normal Covid-19 vaccine side-effects, BUT it happens when I get sick. Essentially, since yesterday morning my skin has been very painful to the touch. On my scalp especially, but also down my arms, legs, chest, back — you name it, it hurts when I touch it, like having a bad sunburn or millions of papercuts all over my body. Sucks, man.

— Fever + Chills: I’ve had a fever, and as a result I’ve had chills! Ever wonder what it’s like waking up under a fleece weighted blanket, drenched in sweat but also still cold? It’s not fun. Don’t recommend it. (But my solution was still to put on heavier clothes and get under the blanket to sleep some more . . . I mean I wasn’t cold the next time I woke up but I don’t know if this was the smart solution.)

— Extreme Fatigue: Speaks for itself.

Yesterday was definitely worse than today. (For reference, I got the vaccine on Thursday, yesterday was Friday, today is Saturday. So this is Day 2.) Yesterday I was operating at 10% capacity at my best. Most of the day it was like 3% - 5%. Today it’s more like 40% - 50%. Definitely much better, but I still feel sick. I don’t count it as a real illness because I don’t actually have the Covid-19 virus in my body. It’s more that there’s a protein or something specific to Covid-19 that’s in the vaccine, and my immune system recognized it and decided to launch into ass-kicking mode. Unfortunately, the way the human body’s immune system works is that it doesn’t just 1v1 the virus. Instead it’s like, you know how people joke that they’re going to burn the house down to get rid of the spider when they find a spider in the living room? That’s what the immune system does. The immune system doesn’t grab a newspaper to smash the virus, the immune system sets fire to the body to kill the virus, and that’s what a fever is. And it sucks for all involved, but ultimately it’s worth it as long as you don’t die first. (Which is always a risk, but the immune system doesn’t care about that. The immune system just wants the spider / virus gone.) 

Anyway, I write all of this out so that you can a.) know what to be prepared for and stock up accordingly, and b.) know that it’s still NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD as actually getting Covid-19. My best friend got Covid-19, and she was hospitalized and on oxygen for a week. She had cognitive issues, like memory problems, for longer. She is still sneezing up blood clots from what the oxygen did to her, among other things. And she’s one of the lucky ones. The side-effects remind me of when I got the flu back in 2018, except still not as bad because I’m getting over them much, much more quickly than I did the flu. However much these side effects suck, I’ve been managing them with the following:

— Gatorade: I’m one of those people that doesn’t like drinking water because it’s bland, so I had a Postmate bring me three big bottles of Glacier Freeze Gatorade and I’ve been chugging them. Gatorade is basically flavored sugar water so it replenishes your electrolytes and gets you hydrated. Is it as healthy as water? Due to the high sugar content, probably not. Does that matter when you’re at risk of dehydration because you’ve puked and are sweating out a fever? Nope! I’ve drank Gatorade whenever I get sick / dehydrated ever since childhood because my pediatrician recommended it to me back then. If you don’t like water, stock up on this in preparation.

— Advil: I always have Advil on hand because as I mentioned before, I get near daily headaches regardless. But Advil has helped not only with the muscle pains, but also with the fever reduction and the allodynia. These things have all come back when the Advil wears off, but it helps in the meantime. Other medicines, like Tylenol, can probably help too. 

— Sleep: I had to work yesterday (from home), but any time I wasn’t answering an email or on the phone I was dozing off. When I ended my shift at 5:30pm I slept until 2am. I woke up long enough to drink some more Gatorade, take some more Advil, and let my dog out, and then I went back to sleep until 12:30pm. I think this is why I feel so much better tbh. Sleep is very healing. If you’re an adult who works, plan to take time off after your second vaccination if you can. You will thank yourself for it.

I did these same things when I had the flu, but it still took me two weeks to get to where I am now in two days. The second vaccine hits hard because your immune system takes things from 0 to 100, but it’s still not as bad as an actual virus, and definitely not as bad as being in the hospital on oxygen or, god help you, a ventilator. (Because my next-door neighbor, who was a nurse, told me that by the time you’re on a ventilator you only have a 30% chance of surviving. So you really do not want to get to that point.)

All in all, please get the vaccine. Yes, the side-effects suck. Trust me, I know! I couldn’t even really read an email yesterday because my brain kept fuzzing out over it. I went back to sleep at 2am because my eyes hurt too much looking at anything, so lying in the dark felt better. But I’m sure that in another day or two I’ll be back up at 100%. And in two weeks I’ll be fully protected. And that is so, so much better than being in the hospital on a ventilator.

So please, please, please get the vaccine when you can. For yourself, and for those who are immunocompromised who can’t. Stock up on Gatorade and painkillers / fever reducers and get the vaccine. It’s worth it. 

[tangledstarlight]

julie’s ready for a year away from home, studying and trying to refind the magic in music. luke’s about to start on a summer tour around europe opening for a band. they meet one night, sparks fly and emotions run hight. now they’ve just got to try and see if they can maintain a long distance friendship.

days go by and seasons change (lets try again next winter)

trigger warnings!! alcohol and swearing and mentions of blood via food

also on ao3 –– [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | extras 1 & 2 ]

spring

“I still can’t believe you didn’t kiss him,” Flynn’s voice echoes through her phone where it’s propped against a book of Shakespeare’s poems and being stopped from sliding down her desk by her half eaten sandwich. Which hadn't been her best plan, because she was starving and now her sandwich was employed elsewhere.

“I’m not just going to kiss a random guy a met once,” she can see Flynn opening her mouth with a retort so jumps in to add, “I like him, yes, but I’d rather have him as a friend then an awkward one night stand situation that’s made even more awkward when I eventually run into him again because one of his bandmates is Carrie’s cousin.”

It all seems perfectly logical to her. Luke was cute, yes. And sure, she’d wanted to kiss him, but if it came down to one kiss or a new friendship? She was going to choose friendship. They’d connected more in one night then she’d connected with anyone in years. They got each other.

(What Julie hadn’t told Flynn or Carrie or anyone, was about the deal they had made. About how if by December, when she was wrapping up her year in England and they were finishing with their album and they were still talking, still felt the same, they’d try.

Julie didn’t mention it to anyone, barely even liked to think about it herself because she didn’t want to jinx it, didn’t want to spend time wondering what might happen when they tried. What trying even meant.)

“So you’re going to be friends?”

It’s pretty impressive, Julie thinks, how Flynn can convey her utter disbelief and amusement via a single eyebrow raise on a slightly blurry and pixelated facetime call. Maybe it’s the years of friendship that means Julie knows what she’s not saying or maybe it’s just Flynn’s power. Either way it has her pushing her laptop away with a sigh and picking up her phone. Scooping her sandwich up with her other hand. 

“Yes, we’re going to be friends. We can be friends. Do you not think we can be friends?” Julie furrows her brows, both in concern and how many times she’s said the word ‘friends’ in one breath.

“Of course I think you can be friends! He’d be lucky to be your friend, you’re amazing,” Flynn is quick with her reassurance, but Julie can tell there’s a ‘but’ coming and braces herself for impact. “But. The two of you spent practically the whole night together and have spent pretty much every day since talking. Plus, you’d have to be pretty blind to miss the way he was looking at you in the least friend way possible.”

Julie really hoped that the wifi connection was bad enough to hide the blush she could feel heating her cheeks at the reminder of the way Luke had looked at her. She had never really understood what books meant by ‘intensity of their stare’ before, but she was pretty sure it was whatever Luke was doing with his face and his eyes, somehow he could even do it through a facetime call. Personally, she thinks it should be illegal. His whole face. Banned. Fined every time he looked like he looked.

“Yeah, well,” Julie swallowed, tucking hair behind her ear for something to do while she tried to gather her thoughts and control her face. “We’re still going to be friends. And anyway, we’ll probably slowly stop talking before we ever meet again and he’ll find some extremely pretty girl on tour and fall madly in love and forget all about me.”

As long as she was telling herself that it meant she couldn’t be too disappointed when it came true. No point getting her hopes up.

“If you say so,” Flynn didn’t sound convinced and Julie rolled her eyes at her friend, sticking her tongue out childishly, to be rewarded with Flynn laughing.

“Now come on, enough about me and my awful love life. Tell me about this thing you're working on!”

// 

//

“Ow, crap.”

It’s not really the first thing you want to hear when you accept a phone call at 8am. Julie blinks at her phone as she pulls it away from her ear to double check the caller id and that she hadn’t imagined it ringing. But there’s Luke’s name and his slightly blurry photo staring back at her.

“Luke?” She asks, hears the sounds of a scuffle on the other end like someone juggling too many objects at once.

“Julie! Hey! Sorry, just spilt one of my coffees. Is black pudding made with blood?” Luke’s question catches her off guard. Her mind is still trying to process the mention of multiple coffees that it takes her a moment to register what he’s asking her. And it just causes more confusion to her half asleep mind.

“Are you really calling me at 8am to ask about black pudding? Why are you even awake?” She groans, collapsing back against her pillows and pulling the covers back up to her chin. It was Friday, she didn’t have class until 1pm, she was supposed to get to sleep late and he’d woken her up.

To talk about black pudding. Idly, she wondered if it was too early in their friendship to just hang up without it seeming too rude.

“Last night Reg said it was like haggis, but that doesn’t make sense, does it? Because I swear haggis is like, sheep. And you’d think blood pudding would be, y’know, blood. Given its name.” He kept talking away, apparently not at all discouraged by her lack of response.

Julie let her eyes fall shut as she listened to him talk, to his voice and not really what he was saying. He had a very nice voice, it was kind of soothing, letting his excitement and enthusiasm wash over her. How could someone be so enthused about a random food at 8am? Julie struggles to follow his train of thought and why she was his chosen person to call about the matter. But she doesn't think he really wants her input anyway. Just an excuse to call her.

She’d been guilty of a similar thing. Calling him for no real reason other than the fact she’d wanted to talk to him. At least when she’d called it had been at a reasonable hour and about something more interesting than a weird food dish.

“How long have you been up?” Julie cuts through his rant on weird British dishes, stifling a yawn against her covers.

“Er…” there’s a pause, phone line crackling as he seems to think, “Like an hour? I went out to get the boys coffee, because I’m super nice like that, but they were still asleep when I got back and I tried to wake ‘em up but Alex threatened to throw my guitar out the window so I wandered around the hotel for a while, drank my coffee, then I drank Alex’s as revenge, and then I got bored of walking around so now I’m sat in a park and talking to you. And drinking Reggie’s coffee. It’s the worst one. I hate oat milk.”

Julie can almost picture him, sitting on a random bench in a random park somewhere in Edinburgh, notebook and tangled headphones and three empty coffee cups next to him, all jittery caffeinated energy. It makes her smile and huff out a small laugh.

“You’re going to be so insufferable after all that coffee. They might kick you out of the band, abandon you somewhere in the highlands,” she teases.

“I’d just keep showing back up. Every time they tried to lose me I’d just show up again at the next venue with no explanation,” there’s a smile in his voice and Julie takes a moment to appreciate that she can tell. That they’ve talked enough now that she knows what he sounds like when he’s smiling, when he’s joking.

“Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“Go eat something with your fourth coffee please. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Shit, did I wake you up again? I thought you had a 9am on Thursdays.” He sounds so genuinely confused and concerned that Julie tries really hard not to laugh.

“I do. But it’s actually Friday, not Thursday.”

There’s a silence on the other end of the line and for a moment Julie thinks that maybe he’s hung up on her, but then he’s letting out a breathy laugh and she relaxes back against her mattress.

“Well fuck. That explains why they guys are still asleep and got pissed when I tried to wake ‘em up then.”

“Tour life is really messing with your days of the week, huh?”

“You’ve no idea,” There’s another pause and she hears rustling and footsteps and then, “I’ll let you go back to sleep. Talk later?”

There’s a note of hesitation in his voice and it makes Julie want to smile, so she does. “Yeah, talk later. Bye Luke.”

//

Julie spins around and around underneath a streetlight, her eyes locked above her as she watches the streams of light turn with her and make stars dance across her vision. A slight breeze blows her hair around her face and Julie lets out a laugh, light and airy like how she pictures all the bubbles in the drinks she's had tonight. 

She closes her eyes against a wave of dizziness and tries to imagine the stars.

There’s too many clouds in the sky for her to see the actual stars when she opens her eyes and it makes her pout, just a little. She likes to see the stars, to try and find constellations, and when she couldn’t do that, to make up her own.

Her phone makes a chiming sound in her hands and she whips her head down to look at it, Luke’s face filling her screen with a small frown, his eyebrows drawn together and a hair sticking up. A wide smile breaks out across her face and Julie raises her phone so it’s level with her face, even as she still spins around.

“Luke! Why are you on my phone?” Distantly, Julie knows she must be almost shouting, but she’s too happy and too drunk to really care.

“Er, you called me?” Luke sounds confused, but as Julie blows hair out of her face a small understanding smile tugs at Luke’s lips and Julie’s momentarily distracted by watching as the smile spreads across his face, reaching his eyes, one of his hands appearing in frame to push his hair out of his face. She stumbles to a stop, feeling a little dizzy from all her spinning and pounding heart.

“I did?” She doesn’t remember doing that, for a moment Julie frowns, lips pulling to the side as her eyes look at the ground before she blows out a breath and shrugs, looking back at Luke’s face on her phone. “Well, hi! We went out for drinks!"

Julie watches as Luke sits up in his bed, a light flicking on next to him and lighting up the room.

(In the morning, when she remembers this, she’ll probably feel bad about waking him, knowing his sleep schedule is already a mess. But right now, standing in the street halfway back to her dorm, two of her friends chatting a short distance away and a cute guy looking at her from her phone, she can’t really find it in her to feel bad. Just a giddy type of happiness.)

“You having a good night?” His voice is a little rough with sleep she notices, adds a gravely note to it that’s not normally there. Julie really wishes she could hear him talk like this all the time, first thing in the morning, in the middle of the night when one of them wakes up, after a nap in the middle of the day.

“The best! It would be more fun if you were here, though,” the words stumble past her lips without her even realising what she’s said. And she doesn’t notice the way Luke’s breath seems to catch through the speaker or the way his eyes widen a fraction or the way his smile turns more into a smirk. Whatever he’s about to respond with is cut off by Julie’s mind returning to her original disappointment of the night.

“You can’t see the stars here.”

Luke frowns a little and Julie tilts her phone so the camera is facing up and only the top of her head and her curls are in frame.

“See? No stars, only streetlights.” She pouts, tilting the phone back towards her with an exaggerated pout on her face that makes Luke laugh and Julie pout more. “Why are you laughing!? That’s mean! I miss the stars and you’re laughing!”

“Jules, it’s not like you can really see the stars all that much back home either,” he says it gently, but there’s still that teasing tone in his voice and hearing him call her ‘Jules’ makes butterflies form in her stomach.

“I still miss them.” She mutters, blowing out a breath and conceding the point. She’s honestly too drunk to even fight it and for a moment she sways slightly in place, her eyes staring just above her phone as she gets lost in her thoughts.

About stars and cute boys with calloused fingers and her friends who made her laugh and her mom who had taught her about constellations and how tired she suddenly feels.

“When we’re both back in LA I’ll take you somewhere you can see all the stars,” Luke says softly, so softly she almost misses it, but her eyes flicker down to the screen and lets a soft smile pull at her lips.

“I’d like that.”

[theeightbts]

The Eight, Chapter 73

   After a couple of rounds of shower sex the rest of the Warriors made sure they couldn’t continue with any more of that kind of fun, and soon enough they were dry, dressed and ready to eat.

   That evening she got to indulge in the BBQ behind the scenes. It was delicious, and watching her Warriors exchange gifts was hilarious and heartwarming.

Hobi hadn’t told her his plan beforehand, so she was just as surprised and touched by his gift to Jiminnie.

And Jimin’s gift to Tae? The Muse melted at her husband’s thoughtfulness with the little bears to help celebrate a song Tae had been working on so hard for so long.

  Yes, it had been another work day for her Warriors. But, she felt that it had been a good one, at least.

  The rest of that week had been spent preparing for the Muster shows in Seoul. The Warriors worked from morning until night, and were exhausted at the end of every day. The Muse didn’t even think about shopping or getting herself anything during that week. She was fully focused on her Warriors. She worked hard staying out of the way when she needed to, and trying to care for them when she could. Rubbing their necks and shoulders. Bringing them water. Whatever she could do to make it a little easier on them.

  The actual Muster shows were both amazing! The energy of ARMY and the love that was all around was so special, and left all seven of her Warriors feeling loved and that all of their hard work was worth it.

   Sunday morning Sejin showed up bright and early. He’d come to the dorm personally to wake them all up, which was strange. It was just after 8am on the day after a concert. Usually, they were left to sleep until at least noon unless they had a plane to catch. And he had no reservations coming into Yoongi’s room to wake them that morning. Also odd. He was usually careful when entering a room she might be in. He had learned early on that, if she was with a husband, they were more than likely naked.

  But that day Sejin was brusk when he opened the door and almost barked,

“Get up. Meeting in 5 minutes.”

Dressed in Yoongi’s hoodie and sweatpants, The Muse followed behind him as he held her hand, eventually settling on his lap in the corner of the couch. One by one, they all filed into the living room in varying states of that ‘just woke up’ look. Hair sticking up, no contacts, puffy faces… no one was ready to face the day this early.

Sejin handed out bottles of water before sitting in his own chair. He looked exhausted. His own hair was standing on end, and the bags under his eyes could have had their own zip codes.

“We have a problem.” he stated matter of factly. He had his laptop set up on the coffee table and leaned down to fiddle with it while he spoke, “It seems your phones have been hacked. We don’t know too many details as of yet, but our IT department is all over it and we have had your phones disconnected from service to be safe.”

Everyone was wide awake now, hanging onto every word.

“It seems the hackers were after very specific information, according to what’s been leaked.”

He turned the laptop around so everyone could see, “All of the leaked photographs and videos were of you and The Queen.”

They were looking at a photo of Yoongi and her. They were kissing, and the photo truly wouldn’t be lewd if it weren’t for the blatant tongue action that could be seen.

His hold on her tightened as he looked at the screen, anger pulsing through him at someone stealing his information and sharing this intimate moment with the world.

   Sejin flipped to the next photograph, this one taken by Jimin when they were in the bathtub. It was a fairly innocent picture, with The Muse leaning back against Jimin’s chest, eyes closed and head turned so that the bridge of her nose was resting against the curve of his chin. Both of them were smiling and looked happy and serene. But, they were obviously naked in it. Thankfully with the angle he took the photo, you couldn’t see any details of their private areas.

   The next photograph, though, was not as lucky.  She was riding Tae. Her arms were down, thankfully, so you couldn’t see more than the side of her breast. But they were obviously having sex. He was sitting up straight, and her hands were on his neck. Their lips glued together. Her entire naked side was exposed, from the top of her head down to the tip of her toe. She remembered him messing with something at the time, but couldn’t be bothered to care about anything more than him and what they were doing together.

Her tears were starting to blur her vision as she fought them.

Sejin took a deep breath as he changed to the next scene. This one made her cry out, a sob she couldn’t stop burst from her lips as a short video of her with Jungkook played. He was on top, thrusting into her with all of his might just as she yelled “Ugh, FUCK” with her head thrown back. You could see her knee where his arm was holding it near her chest, again blocking most of the view of her naked breast, although it did bounce in and out of sight. The phone was dropped and the audio continued as they both came down from their high.

All of them were horrified and angry at this intrusion into their lives.

“Where were these leaked?” asked Namjoon, trying to keep himself calm enough to ask questions.

“It started on Twitter. And now, they have been shared all over. We are doing our best to have them taken down, but we can’t do much about the downloads. It seems there are a lot of ARMY out there with your best interest in mind, and are rallying against sharing the information. But, of course, there are the others that are sharing all over the place. The lawyers have also been contacted, and are keeping an eye on the situation so they can build their case.”

Jungkook was pacing, trying not to punch things.

That was his favorite video. He watched it all the time when she wasn’t with him. How dare someone do this to them! How dare someone share this intimate information with the world!

It was things like this that made him not want to be an Idol.

“Bang and the PR team are working on a press release. Obviously the knowledge of who the husbands are is out there now. We can’t hide it any longer.” Sejin paused and ran his hands through his hair before coming down on them, “What were you thinking? Taking photographs and videos like that? You know very well that there are people out there that are always trying to hack your information! This was careless and irresponsible of you all!”

The Muse felt Yoongi grow restless, and that he needed space, so she slipped off of his lap and paced to the other side of the room and back. Wiping the tears from her face she said, “How could they do this? How could they take beautiful moments between men and their wife and use them like this?”

As soon as she got close enough with her pacing, Jimin pulled her to sit in between himself and Taehyung, where both men could hold and comfort her, and each other.

Next

[sopewriters]

Mιɳԃ Gαɱҽʂ | 01

Summary: With a murderer prowling the streets, and a charming villain on the loose, all bets are off.

Pairing: Jaehhyun X Reader; Hero x Villain AU

Word Count: 4.9K

Warning(s): None yet.

“Run the tape again.”

The screen flickers dimly, lighting up your gaunt features. Every part of you screams of exhaustion, as it should – you’ve hardly gotten any sleep all night. Your fingers tap against the desk in front of you, restless, and it takes everything in you not to bounce your leg.

The man beside you – your partner – looks at your tense jaw, pursed lips, and frowns. “You can take a break for tonight, you know. I doubt they’ll come back so soon.”

“But you don’t know that.” You correct harshly, making him recoil. Guilt stabs at you, and you sigh. “Sorry, I… I’m sorry Mark, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

Mark smiles at you, and you only now notice the pallor of his cheeks, the shadows under his eyes. Your partner hasn’t gotten anymore sleep than you have. With a large, cracking yawn that could probably split a lesser man’s face open, you shake your head.

The protest – or lack, thereof – building on Mark’s lips immediately dies, and he exhales heavily.

“This guy is unreal.” He comments, dropping back into his seat beside you. “How does he avoid the cameras so well? They were even set up so no one would be able to dodge them – is this his Gift, do you think?”

You cast a wry glance at him, then. “No, Mark, we both know for a fact that his Gift isn’t invisibility. Remember the one time he made some sort of illusion to throw the cops off his trail?”

“Ah, right.” Something like awe passes quickly over his face, though he’s careful to school his expression at your chiding glance. “I forgot.”

“Funny, you were gushing about how wicked Joker was for weeks.” You nudge him lightly, a tiny grin on your lips – probably for the first time tonight. “It was cute.”

His cheeks immediately flush – adorable – and you wish there were better lighting so you could see them better.

Unfortunately, being a superpowered vigilante can really cast a wrench in your budget. Not everyone can be a millionaire-cum-superhero, no matter how much they’d love to be. And balancing the criminal nightlife with your actual life… well. University has always been particularly unforgiving.

“______…” He grouses, burying his face in his palms as you laugh. “Why’re you always so mean to me?”

“You just make it really easy.”

“ ______!”

“What? Am I wrong?”

Mark huffs out a breath, pushing away from the desk and standing up to flick on the light. “I’m not even gonna bother. I know you aren’t going to drop it!”

“You’re – oh my fucking god, turn the lights back off!” The measly light you do have is still blinding, making your head almost ache from how bright they are. “Mark!”

“Oh, how the tables have turned.” He laughs, dodging one of your well-timed swipes. “Alright, I’m going to jet before you actually manage to hit me again. Please try and get some rest? We’ll go over this again tomorrow.”

He looks at you imploringly.

You laugh fakely. “Oh, yeah, of course!”

Mark sighs, resigned, and gives you a waning smile as he moves to leave. He pauses, briefly. “We should really find a new HQ.”

You look around at your converted closet, thinking he’s not wrong. But, again, life isn’t quite like the movies and you don’t really have the money to spare on much beyond your daily necessities. Frozen food isn’t quite as cheap as it used to be around these parts. If anything, you’re lucky you have a walk-in closet large enough to accommodate a small desk, especially in your dorm.

Going to an expensive college in a rich part of town does have some benefits even if, tuition aside, you’re financially on your own.

“We’ll see,” you mumble tiredly, head thumping softly against said desk. “You know how tight our budget is.”

“Yeah, I do.” Mark looks apologetic, giving you a quick wave before he’s stepping out, likely heading back to his own room.

Now that he’s gone, though, your place is entirely too quiet, and it really puts you on edge. At least Mark turned the light on, earlier – you might as well credit him for that – so it’s not as creepy as it could be. But still.

You turn back to the monitor, mouth pursing into a frown as you watch the slight flicker of shadows – the criminal’s only trail. Something about this guy doesn’t seem all that right, and it’s seriously making you paranoid. You’ve never interacted with him, though – that, as it seems, only really happens to the licensed superheroes in your sector – but there’s just something about him…

You turn off the monitor with a sigh, wondering why on earth you’ve stupidly chosen to deal with this guy, of all people. You ignore the little niggling in the back of your mind that tells you that you’re really just trying to put off real-life responsibilities by taking unnecessary tasks upon yourself; that’s totally not true, no. What – why would anyone think that?!

You duck your head out of your closet, tentatively stepping out into your actual room. There isn’t much in there; just your bed, a cabinet for your papers and files, and a dresser in which your clothes actually go. Most of the place is just free space, honestly, and you could have your whole hero setup here, but… secrecy is important. And your closet is a lot more private than your room itself, for obvious reasons.

“ ______ !!” The door slams open, and your enraged best friend storms inside.

Case in point.

“Hey, F/N…” You say awkwardly, leaning against your bed so you can look at her fuming face. “Um. Fancy seeing you here?”

“Why aren’t you in bed?” She pinches the bridge of her nose, a frustrated sigh escaping her lips. “It’s almost midnight!”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” You counter, eyes catching onto her mussed hair, puffy eyes. “I was so quiet; how could I possibly have—?”

“Mark.” She says simply, to which you inwardly groan. Of course. Mark “Clumsy” Lee lives up to his name, yet again. “Are you sure you two aren’t dating? He’s been over for whole nights before.”

“What, are girls and guys not allowed to spend the night without dating or screwing around?” You snap defensively. Too defensively, judging by the smirk forming on her face. “No. No, no, no. Whatever bullshit you’re going to spew at me right now, save it, because I sure as hell won’t like it.”

“I’m just saying, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt,” she sings, ducking to narrowly avoid a pillow projectile. “It’s not a big deal! Mark’s super cute.”

“And you can have him.” You mutter in response, shuddering at the thought of dating him. Being in close quarters has really educated you to some of his more… quirky habits, and you couldn’t ever deal with that on a permanent basis. Plus, he’s not really your type.

F/N just rolls her eyes at you. “Whatever, pretend all you want. I know the truth though.”

“Is there something you actually need?” You level her with a flat stare. “Or are you just trying to snoop in on me?”

She smiles guiltily, like the guilty person she is. It might as well be branded on her forehead, G-U-I-L-T-Y, and you really hope she trips over one of her stupid pencils and stumbles down to hell.

What? You can be petty if you want to be, and it’s all in your head anyway. No one will ever know.

“No, there’s nothing important.” She assures you, though you really don’t need her assurance. “I just… worry about you sometimes, you know?”

“Well gee, thanks for making my night a whole lot better with that vote of confidence.” You mutter, sarcastic as ever, though your subsequent words die on your tongue at her sharp look.

“Relax, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I just wanted to know if you were going to go to bed, or if you couldn’t sleep or something.” She shrugs. “I’m being rebellious and staying up past my bedtime.”

Well.

You grin sharply at that. Maybe she can stay in the land of the living for a little longer. You take back everything you thought just a few moments ago. “Oh, have I been waiting for this day.”

So. Staying up last night was possibly the worst decision you’ve ever made. Your eyes feel like they might just pop out of their sockets any moment now and the only thing that could possibly make this better is a good cup of coffee. Or, even better, two.

But life, as always, is cruel.

“I hate you.” You mutter at your coffee pot, squinting angrily at it through stinging eyes. “You had one fucking job.”

Yep. The coffee pot, as fate would have it, has completely broken down – just to deprive you of your life, of course, no big deal. Who even needs to be awake for their 8AM discussion anyway, right?

“Stupid, useless hunk of garbage, I should just melt you down already.” Your fevered death chant follows you all the way to the front door as you sling your backpack over your shoulder. It stops there, though, because you’re too tired to keep it up.

F/N’s lucky she doesn’t have to wake up early today, and you angrily curse her in your head because goodwill? It’s all gone now. Maybe she’ll get a really bad case of the Hiccups. Maybe it’ll be terminal Hiccups.

You cringe at your own deviousness.

You manage to bike all the way to class without perishing which, in your books, deserves a gold star. You don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve somehow managed to not get hit by a car, or a bus, or a truck, or another bike, or a pedestrian (though you wouldn’t really mind that last option. People really need to stop looking at their phones while they walk, holy shit). It’s a miracle, truly.

Maybe it’s because you’ve got to attend a Classics discussion; shockingly, it’s one of your more bearable classes. Scratch that, it’s possibly one of your favorites. You might be a STEM major, but the way they discuss mythology in this class really gets to you.

And, of course, there’s your TA too. He’s probably one of the kindest, sweetest people you know – and that’s saying something, given that you know Mark and are even acquainted with Wong Yukhei, the Student Council VP. No, you don’t know how that happened and, frankly, don’t care to find out either.

“Hey there, ______.” You look up at the sound of your name, seeing your TA cock his head at you a little quizzically. “You okay? You seem a little out of breath.”

Yeah, it’s no big, I practically just pulled an all-nighter and biked all the way here using the mothballs that are my eyes, with the level of coffee running through my bloodstream hitting a critical low. It’s fine, it’s totally fine! And if you weren’t the unobservant piece of crap, sweetheart you are, I’d feel a hell of a lot better—

“I’m fine.” You make an effort not to let your gasps for air grow too obvious, giving him a strained smile. “I just, um – just biked here.”

“Ah, I see. You can come inside, you know, sit down.” He holds the door wide open for you, letting you slip inside. “Do you have water? Would you like me to get you some?”

He gives you an appraising look. “Though, something tells me you need something stronger? Coffee, maybe?”

He holds up a thermos, shaking it gently with a questioning look on his face; and, on cue, your mouth begins to water. You need it. You must have it.

“What gave it away?” You chuckle weakly, before shaking your head. “No thanks, Jungwoo, but I appreciate it.”

You last remaining braincells cry, extremely sorry for your loss.

Jungwoo sighs, “I don’t mind sharing, ______, trust me. I promise I didn’t poison it or anything, and I won’t give you much – just a tiny cup.”

He pours some out into the cap of his flask, offering it to you. You stare at the beautifully crafted drink of perfection, steam gently curling off it, and wonder if Kim Jungwoo is a god. He must be, with this sort of impeccable timing.

Still, you’d feel a little awkward taking a drink from a TA that you actually don’t know all that well. That… might not be a good idea.

“I’m really fine.” You smile tightly at him. “I promise. Thank you, though.”

But why?! your brain cells demand, and you don’t have a satisfactory answer for them.

“If you’re sure.” He shrugs it off easily, smile never dimming. He’s pretty cute when he smiles – basically, all the time – but he isn’t really your type.

You think back to the crush you used to harbor on Yukhei. Your cheeks burn when you remember that you still find your gaze fixed to his long, slender fingers on more than one occasion – but you can’t help that. He’s just… too much. It’s unfair, really. But yeah, that’s your type. Tall and handsome, and unfair.

Great, and now you’re thinking about Jung Jaehyun.

You settle back into your desk and will your blush away as you begin pulling out a notebook and a pencil. You don’t usually take notes during section – not unless you’ve got some big essay coming up that he’d review in class – but it gives you something to do instead of just sitting idle.

You quickly sneak a peek at Jungwoo and, seeing that he’s preoccupied leafing through some of his notes, play a game of Catch the Pen. You locate the nearest shadow and guide your pencil through it, propelling it with enough of a velocity for it to hurtle out of another shadow to nestle comfortably between your fingers. It’s basically like playing catch with yourself.

And yeah, it got boring after the third or fourth time, but your only other option is using your phone, which – hey, not a bad idea. A quick scroll through your social media has you holding back your coos when you see videos of cute puppies attempting to do even cuter things. God, do you love dogs.

It’s only when Jungwoo raps his fist against his desk – a cue for all of you to start paying attention – that you notice that the empty desks from before have all been filled up. You quickly stash your phone in your back pocket, before leaning forward on your desk, settling your cheek in the palm of your hand as you force yourself to pay attention.

Ah, damn it. Your eyes still sting.

“Good morning guys!” Jungwoo beams at you, entirely too cheery for your tastes, given that it’s eight in the fucking morning. “How were your weekends?”

Your mind flashes back to your weekend, and you suppress a wince. Yeah. That was… not a good time, especially for the vigilante Caligo – for you. After getting your ass pummeled by a random guy in a mask – a random guy who you think just might be Joker, thief extraordinaire, and the person who you were watching through the footage last night – you weren’t really having a great time.

Not to mention your purpled cheek, courtesy of a deck to the face. You bruise like a peach and you’re really fucking lucky that F/N has a healing ability and a penchant to not ask difficult questions. She probably thinks you’re getting caught up in some shady business – drugs, maybe? – and honestly, that wouldn’t be too far from the truth, if a little exaggerated.

Jungwoo, luckily, takes the grumbled mutterings from the rest of your class that perfectly encapsulate your weekend experience in stride, beaming excitedly and holding up a faded copy of the translation of Ovid’s The Fall of Icarus. “Well, nothing better than this to turn that around, yeah?”

You hold back a sigh as you flip to the page he’ll inevitably bring up. You’d rather read about Icarus, who the book’s title deceptively alludes to, than the rest of these short stories. But, well. As life would have it—

“Let’s talk about what happened with Theseus and the Minotaur, shall we?”

A part of you is grateful that you’ve managed to survive most of your day, and it’s really only the thought of going to your chem lab that makes you perk up.

Now, don’t be misled; you still hate having to go to lab. The actual practice, in itself, isn’t all that hard, but the fact that you have to do it at all is just so ugh. Frankly, you’re only going because it’s required for your major, because fuck chemistry, and doubly fuck organic chemistry. It’s all just way too stressful.

But, well, back to the main point: lab is only really fun because you get a whole two and a half hours to fully appreciate some A+ eye-candy. Not that you would ever actually want to objectify him that way, but your TA is just so gorgeous that it’s unfair, really. Just a smile from him could have you tripping over your feet and potentially spilling dangerous chemicals all over yourself.

As it is, you’ve managed to survive so far, if only to irritate F/N with your very accurate description of how sharp his jawline is, how his dimple is to die for, how he just looks so dependable and warm and—

“Hey Jaehyun.” You greet him as you wait outside the lab. No one’s really allowed in until your TA – Jaehyun, basically – lets you.

Jung Jaehyun, AKA “God who has literally descended from the Heavens to bless your undeserving soul”, smiles at you and – aw, yeah, there it is. That fucking dimple. Paired with his soft, unassuming smile, and the reassuring warmth of his eyes as they look at you through the soft fringe of his hair—

Deadly. That’s what he is.

“Hey ______, how’s it going?” He greets cheerily, not unlike Jungwoo earlier. The only difference is that it’s actually a humane hour of the day right now; a little past noon as opposed to oh, you know, the crack of dawn. You still hate any and all sunlight, no doubt about it – especially with the night lending itself to your element – but at least you’re somewhat awake now.

Jaehyun fiddles with the keyhole before pushing the door open. Is a lab coat supposed to look this good on a person? You aren’t sure.

“It’s pretty meh.” You offer him a shrug and what you hope is not a dorky smile. “Just stressed, you know.”

“Oh, I figured.” He nods, raising an eyebrow. “Apparently Professor Kim’s being super hard on you guys for this first midterm and, I won’t lie, with her past record…” Jaehyun winces. “Yeah, things might be a little stressful. But you’re capable, and I know you can do it with the right amount of hard work and effort.”

Then, like he hasn’t just sprung an unwarranted pep talk on what’s left of your dreary soul, he disappears behind the door. You stare at it like it’ll give you the answers racing through your mind; what the fuck, how the hell does he know exactly what to say, how the fuck is he always so gorgeous…? etcetera, etcetera.

Immediately, you pull out your phone and text F/N.

 You:

Oh my fucking god, I think Jaehyun and I just had a moment

Not like a Moment but he literally just gave me the best pep talk in my life, 5 stars on yelp

Jaehyun’s my TA btw

 Checking the time, you impatiently rock forward on the balls of your feet, biting at your lips. You figure that, maybe, instead of constantly thinking about how gorgeous Jaehyun is, you should probably also start thinking about the experiment for today. It’s just some simple identification tests, thank goodness, but those could take a long time – especially if you have to share your resources with the rest of the class.

Sharing is caring, they say and they’re wrong. Sharing, in most cases, is essentially just shooting yourself in the foot, and you’ll stand by that until the end of time. You used to share everything – even your heart – after all, and where did that get you?

You shove all of that away, filing it into the mental Untouchable cabinet and locking it up. You’re a busy person now, and you can’t waste time delving into the past. For all your bravado and bluster, though, you just… sometimes feel like you always make the worst decisions for yourself and you’re just tired of having to put yourself through the same things again and again. Like – like clockwork.

The door cracks open, and Jaehyun pokes his head outside. “Huh, that’s weird. No one else is here yet?”

A quick glance around you shows you that no, there really isn’t anyone else here yet. What the fuck? You check your phone, though, and see you still have ten minutes before lab actually begins. Ah, yeah, that makes a lot more sense now.

“You can come in anyway.” Jaehyun grins at you charmingly, and you dimly wonder if he knows the effect he has on people, with how easily he throws that smile around. “Maybe get set up? You can’t start before the rest of your class is here, obviously, but you can still be prepared.”

“Of course!” You beam at him, a little shocked at how easy it is to smile at him. With how things have been going, with both your personal life and – ehem – line of work, this is actually nothing short of a miracle.

Jaehyun really is a great guy and you think to yourself, a little sadly, that whoever gets to date him is a really lucky person. It’s not like you expect for life to work out like a fairytale with you as the persevering royal protagonist who gets the prince she’s only ever dreamed of.

Oh, you wish though. Sometimes, you even wish you had the power to make wishes come true instead of the shadow manipulation that comes so easily to you. When you think about it, you immediately discard the thought; you’re happy with your Gift, though it does get a little tricky navigating its faults.

Faults that Joker took advantage of over the weekend, obviously. You seriously screwed that one up though, to be fair, you kind of had to get home pronto to finish up your biology lab report. Still, a screw up is, ultimately, a screw up. It’s not going to change just because you slapped some excuses onto it.

Your fingers spasm, clenching tightly around your lab notebook and digging into its spiral binding as you remember, all too vividly, what happened over the weekend; the way Joker just slid out of your bindings and smirked at you, lips brushing against your ear as he revealed it was all a lie—

The spiking pain in your hand forces you to let go of your book, allowing it to drop onto the table with a muffled thump. It was all your fault, really, for not realizing that, since Joker had a Gift that allowed him to make illusions, he would obviously take advantage of it to distract you.

You were such a fucking idiot.

“Hey.” Your lab partner slides into the seat beside yours, effectively distracting you from thinking about your Weekend Failure some more. “Please tell me that I’m not the only one who thinks that the data for this lab report was ridiculous.”

“You’re not.” A light smile pulls at your lips and you try to forget about everything else. “It was pretty crazy.”

It’s not until you step out of lab a few hours later, blinking the sun out of your eyes, that you see that F/N’s finally responded to your texts.

 Wifey!! <3:

i’m glad he was so kind to you!

and yeah babe, i think you’d realize i know who Jaehyun is by now

you’ve only mentioned him a billion times

you’re such a puppy

You:

He was really nice man, he made me feel like I could actually do this

I mean idk how long it’ll last but it’s nice of him to even try ;-;

And I think you’d realize I know I’m a puppy by now

You’ve only told me, like, a billion times

 Let it be said that you’re never one to let the opportunity to be petty go to waste.

A week later, you’re sprinting up the street between your favorite Thai place and the café F/N likes to frequent, short puffs of breath escaping your lungs into the cold night air. Your worn sneakers slap against the concrete as you try to find a secluded location for you to change covertly into more appropriate ‘crime-fighting’ clothing, when your frantic gaze lands on a relatively abandoned alleyway.

Key word: ‘relatively’, because there’s really only a cat in there, of course.

“Fuck yeah!” You whisper triumphantly under your breath, stepping into the shadows cast by the nightlights, letting their familiar chill wash over you, twist its way around your waist and seep under your skin, a comfortable, cool pressure—

And you’re out again, a couple of blocks ahead of where you started, and sprint up the street, jumping shadows to the second floor of a building, from where you see figure flying overhead.

You smirk. Right on time.

“Hey! Mind giving me a lift?!” You holler up, and with a flick of his wrist, you’re being lifted off your feet, propelled to the very top of the building. A grin pulls at the corner of your mouth, and you give in as you zip along after the figure ahead, who’s dressed in dark blue. “Thanks G!”

Gravitas – Mark – spares a look at you through his mask as he runs ahead, leaping gracefully over to the next building. “Hey Caligo!”

A grin pulls at the corner of your lips through your own mask, fully visible since it only extends to the bridge of your nose. He wants to play it like that, does he?

“Impressive, but you’ve got nothing on me!” You arch in a graceful backflip over the gap between the buildings, landing steadily on your feet.

Mark chuckles lightly at you, shaking his head when you skip ahead of him through the shadows. Like you aren’t going to wring out every advantage your Gift could possibly give you; there’s no way you’re letting him have the satisfaction of possibly being better than you.

“See anyone we need to beat up?” You slow your pace enough for him to run beside you, not needing to shout to be heard.

Mark’s mask covers his entire face, but you’re pretty sure you know the look he’s got on his face right now; that little dip between his eyebrows and the lightest pout on his lips. He’s really too predictable.

“We aren’t looking for people to beat up.” He corrects you. “We’re looking for people to save.”

You come to a stop so you can face him properly, hands settling on your hips. The seriousness of the situation doesn’t stop you from keeping the playfulness from your voice, though, forced as it might sound.

“Now that’s the mind of a future hero-in-the-making.” You shrug, mouth pursing into a tense smile. “The rest of us don’t really care so much about that, you know.”

Mark falters, nearly tripping over himself even though he’s slowed to a walk. “That isn’t what I was trying to imply, you know that.”

“I know.” You provide him with another half-shrug. “I’m just saying that I’m here to beat people up; you can call it saving people or whatever else satisfies your hero-complex but, at the end of the day, someone’s still getting beat.”

No matter how close the two of you are, this is an age old argument that neither of you have been able to shake off; the constant debate of vigilantism versus heroism. At the end of the day, you’re getting the same things done, so why Mark needs to get so prickly about it is beyond you.

He is training to be a hero – which you’ve grudgingly accepted, despite your misgivings – so that might be it. Unlike you, he’s always interested in those caped fantasies, in saving the day and happy endings. Even he has to admit it; Mark is the definition of a happy fool.

And you? Well, that’d make you the tortured genius – though there’s nothing particularly genius about you. Just tortured.

“At the end of the day, we’re still saving people too.” Mark’s voice is low, brittle. “We’ve talked about this before.”

“And we’ve always ended it the same way.” You force yourself to keep your calm, though you itch to blow up at him. “So what makes this time so different?”

Mark starts forward, about to answer, only to be interrupted by a familiar voice. A very unwelcome voice.

“Hope I’m not interrupting!”

There’s a muffled thump, like someone’s landing on their feet, as you slowly turn around, eyes growing wide behind your mask.

Decked out in a tight-fitting leather bodysuit and a black choker, which delicately circles his neck, he looks at you with dancing, mischievous eyes. The black eye mask that sculpts itself to his face prevents you from being able figure out who the man behind the mask is, but that isn’t your priority right now, because you know who this is, standing in front of you with that cheeky grin.

“Joker.”

Written By: Midnight

The amazing moodboard was done by Sangria! Blessed that I am to have such a perfect wife <3

Next: 02

[catboymingi]

your majesty, the simp - veninder chap. 5

navi/masterlist

story masterlist

pairing: mingi x reader

genre: a little crack, fluff; eventual best friends to lovers

word count: 6.4k

warnings: no specific ones! some moments of anxiety but that is simply how it be with this fic

a/n: there is one (1) single link in this in the same manner as in bittersweet, taking to the song the lyric was taken from with the translation on hover! also shoutout to that one very specific german friend in the language discord that is always right there to answer to my (INSERT WORD) IN ENGLISH BUT I NEED THESE VERY SPECIFIC VIBES, you’re the real mvp and without you none of my chapters would ever be finished

de ved hvad vi lavede / gid at de var ligeglade / for de vil blande sig i alting - they know what we did / let’s hope they don’t care / because they want to meddle in everything

of course your alarm rang at five again, because even though you probably should have you hadn’t turned it off last night, too tired to even remember you had it set in the first place. or rather, that mingi didn’t have an alarm set for five. and now that it was ringing you couldn’t turn it off, seeing how the giant was still entirely wrapped around you, effectively caging you between him and the wall. it seemed like he hadn’t yet realised that the unpleasant sound was your alarm, because he made no effort to move, just groaning a little and holding you even tighter rather than letting you slip free.

“mingi”, you whined out, poking his side in an attempt to get him to let go so you could turn off that annoying beeping alarm that was most definitely going to give you a headache if it kept ringing. but no reaction other than him shuffling slightly.

you tried again, dragging the last i of his name in hopes that he’d maybe react if his name lasted upwards of ten seconds, though you found yourself disappointed once again.

“why is it so impossible to wake you up”, you complained, and because you really wanted the alarm to stop because you could feel the headache approaching already you shifted slightly, and then you pushed against the wall with your legs as hard as you could, hoping to be able to move the giant next to you this way.

you hadn’t expected it to work as well as it did, maybe having pushed a little too hard, because next thing you knew you were on the floor, on top of mingi, whom you had just successfully caused to fall out of bed. it wasn’t a high fall, he most definitely wasn’t actually hurt, but you still felt bad, apologising profusely, though you couldn’t keep yourself from laughing.

“don’t laugh at me”, you heard a huff from underneath you.

“just let me turn off the alarm.” he could clearly hear the pout in your voice, and first then did he realise that he was still somewhat wrapped around you and that there was an incredibly annoying background noise making this situation even less pleasant.

“you’re lucky you’re so cute”, you continued as you made your way to where your phone was and turned off the sound that had you inclined to just throw the phone against the wall to let out your frustration.

“how is getting kicked out of bed at five in the night lucky?” he’d sat up and was now looking at you with an incredulous expression on his face.

“you’re lucky because i let you go back to bed now”, and even though he didn’t exactly consider himself lucky for being allowed to sleep until the same time any normal person would he wasn’t about to complain and risk having to stay up. instead he just launched himself back into bed, looking at you expectantly.

you joined him with a sigh and laughed when his arm was wrapped around you just a few seconds after you’d laid down.

“you’re so cuddly when you’re sleepy.” you weren’t one to talk, because that was most definitely a characteristic you had as well, but right now he was the only one still incredibly tired since unlike him you were used to getting up at this time, so you could tease him without the risk of being teased back.

“like a baby.” but you weren’t complaining; it was cute, to be honest, so you gladly let him pull you into his chest. he just hummed at your teasing, seemingly too tired to even care, and you checked on your phone to make 100% sure the alarms at least until eight were turned off and you wouldn’t wake him up in less than half an hour again.

it was then that you saw the messages in ‘hyung hate club’ - apparently mingi had neglected to inform the boys that he wasn’t coming home, and they were worried, naturally, considering what kind of weather it had been the day before. so you decided to shoot them a message letting them know that he was fine, and that was a good decision in itself, but what was much less good was the fact that when you exited that chat you were faced with the reality of the girls’ group chat again. you immediately left the app and locked your phone, once more inclined to throw it against the wall.

despite how sleepy he was, the tall redhead noticed that you were tensing up, and he held you even closer ever so slightly, stroking up and down your arm with calm, rhythmic movements. it helped, but you knew you’d have to leave the chat sooner or later, and you wanted it to be sooner rather than later. wanted it to be now.

“mingi?”

“hm?” he sounded somewhat awake now and you started feeling guilty about that, because it was illegally early and you knew he wanted to sleep, but here you were, keeping him up.

“can you leave for me?”

if you hadn’t been holding on to your phone like that he might have been confused by what exactly you meant in his half-awake state, but he quickly understood what you meant. “of course. now?”

you unlocked the device in reply, opening the app before you handed it to him. he’d turned around now, laying on his stomach to be able to more comfortably hold the phone, and it was your turn to move as close to him as possible.

a few silent seconds later mingi faced you, still holding your phone.

“should i delete the chat from your list or do you want to keep it?”

you might just have to marry him. you hadn’t even thought of deleting the chat, but now that he suggested it you wanted nothing more than for it to be gone right away, and you were so glad that he was willing to get rid of it for you.

“delete.” so he did, tapping on the screen a few more times before turning back to his side and giving your phone back to you. you looked at the list of chats for a moment, relieved to see the group chat gone, but handed your phone back to the boy next to you, having selected several private chats (all the chats with your now ex-friends), and it didn’t take long for him to realise what you wanted him to do.

“block or just delete?”

“both.”

he nodded, doing as asked, and once the chats were gone he pulled you back against his chest. you didn’t even need to ask him to - he could tell this was hard on you, and while he couldn’t do much he could be there. you appreciated it a lot, because you’d always been one to feel more comforted by physical contact rather than just words, especially since you often didn’t even want to talk about what was wrong in the moment it affected you most. and even though mingi barely even knew you he instinctively managed to comfort you the way you needed to be comforted.

“try to sleep some more”, mingi told you with his deep, calm voice, and because you didn’t want to have to deal with your anxiety yet you did, the tall boy wrapped around you and making you feel safe.

you were surprised that you’d actually managed to sleep some more when your 8am alarm rang; you’d expected yourself to just lay there anxiously and trying to reduce your nervous heartbeat until it beat at the same rate as the redhead’s, but it seemed like your body had been desperate for any small break it could get.

you were greeted with a low “good morning” once your alarm was turned off, and “morning” you said back. his arms were still around you and you were weirdly happy about that, enjoying the warmth he provided. but you knew you’d have to get up, and soon at that, since it wasn’t weekend yet and you’d have to go to university at some point.

“do you want fruit loops again?” you could feel him nod against your head, so you let yourself slide off the bed and onto the ground before getting up and fetching your breakfast.

“with milk or do you have taste now?”

“i’ve always had taste”, you heard mingi huff from the bed behind you, resulting in a grin spreading across your face, “it just got better since yesterday.”

“so no milk.” and even though you weren’t facing him yet he could hear the smile in your voice, and he felt a weird mix of pride and happiness because he was the one that’d made you smile.

his expression showed these emotions as well, though you weren’t able to interpret the grin on his face when you sat back down next to him.

“please don’t tell me there’s drool on my face”, you groaned as you handed him the bowl, and first then did his expression change from whatever it had been before to a surprised one.

“why would you?” his wide, curious eyes and messy bed hair were way more adorable than they should be considering he was also sporting abs and no shirt.

“because you’re staring at me all weird!”

it seemed like he hadn’t even realised that he was doing that, though, because as soon as you called him out he averted his gaze, staring at the fruit loops instead as if he’d never seen anything more fascinating in his entire life. you didn’t fully understand his reaction, but you were still somewhat dazed from having woken up not too long ago, so you didn’t ask about it. instead you followed his example and gave the fruit loops in your own bowl your undivided attention as you started eating.

the first few minutes were spent in silence, just crunching at each other as if it was a valid method of communication - you were morse-crunching, except neither of you knew morse code, so you were probably just keysmashing in morse -, until your fake conversation was interrupted by a real question.

“what language was the movie in yesterday? like, the voices.”

“finnish. i watched it like that as a child, too, so that might be why i fell asleep so fast.” you let out a short, embarrassed laugh because you’d just straight up fallen asleep on him while he was watching the movie that you had chosen. but he didn’t think it was embarrassing at all; quite the opposite, he thought it was cute.

“it sounded nice. though i felt like they said twice the amount of words than the subtitles showed.” the last statement was a little bit of a whine, because mingi was scared he’d missed something just because he’d been dependent on the subtitles rather than being able to understand what was being said.

“i checked the subtitles a little in the beginning to make sure they were good, don’t worry”, you reassured him, your voice laughter-adjacent, “finnish words are just extraordinarily long.”

and again he seemed actually curious about the language you’d grown up with, asking you to tell him the longest word you could think of.

“it’s probably by far not the longest”, you warned him, “but i think käyttämättömällämmeköhän is long? don’t quote me on that though.”

“what does it mean?” his eyes trained to your face as he waited for the translation.

“unused even by us? it’s hard to translate, there’s a lot of grammar in there.”

“that’s one word?” he couldn’t believe it, refused to believe it because that was so many different things going on at once and you just claimed half a sentence was a single word in finnish.

“yeah. we stan linguistics”, you joked, trying to hold in your laugh as his completely dumbfounded expression.

“but… how?” it seemed like he was unable to wrap his head around the fact that so much could be said with a single word, so you tried to break it up into its components, and a delighted ‘aah!’ left his mouth when he finally understood it after the third attempt.

“you’re learning so much already”, your voice half teasing, half impressed.

“because you know so many things to teach me, i need to keep up with you somehow!”

“don’t act like you don’t know a bunch of things that i don’t know! aren’t you like, a maths major?”

and though it hadn’t been your intention to get this result, you just couldn’t decline when mingi offered you to teach you some maths in return because he seemed equally as excited about his subject as you knew you were about yours.

“only if you keep geometry away from me. that’s a hard no”, you let him know, and he nodded right away.

“no geometry! got it.” then he continued crunching, incredibly satisfied with himself, and you were convinced that this was the first time that you’d ever heard someone chew on their fruit loops in an audibly self-satisfied way.

//

the rest of the morning was spent comfortable like that, as well - you finished up breakfast, then got changed and went to the boys’ place (though you took a little detour because the weather was much nicer than it had been the night before and the air smelled fresh), where you hung out until you had to go to university. the giant insisted on giving you a hug before you each left for your own class, and a hug as soon as he saw you at lunch, and then he all but kicked wooyoung off the bench so there’d be space for you next to him, and then he kept sitting shoulder to shoulder while you ate. you were painfully oblivious to the knowing glances the two of you got from your friends while mingi was once more about to use the cutlery to commit a crime. instead he focused on aggressively eating, claiming he was just hungry when you shot him a slightly worried look.

“oh!”, you exclaimed in response, and then, “take some of mine! i’m not that hungry!” and before he could protest you were holding a spoonful of rice to his face and telling him to say ‘aah’. he shook his head because he knew if he’d let you feed him the boys would never let him live this down, but when you looked at him with big pleading eyes and a small pout on your face before slowly lowering the spoon, thinking he didn’t want your food, he grabbed your hand and guided it to his now wide open mouth.

while the boys were trying their best not to laugh at mingi’s completely whipped expression, you were focused on feeding him the rest of your food, because you really weren’t hungry anymore and your brain had apparently decided that he needed to be babied.

feeding people was a weird situation for you, as was the majority of affection that koreans seemed to not think twice about displaying towards their friends. there was a weird level of dissociation between what you were willing to display towards others and what you were willing to accept from others, and the standard varied from act to act, as well - with holding hands, you’d accept if someone else grabbed yours, but you wouldn’t grab someone else’s, while with feeding it was the other way round, which confused the redhead as he tried to feed you a piece of his dessert and you refused to accept it.

when he’d finally given up on his attempts to give you some food you looked at him apologetically and said: “that’s a boyfriend thing.”

“but you fed me?” he sounded so confused, and you could really understand it, because these double standards didn’t exactly make a lot of sense.

“that’s not a boyfriend thing”, and at the complete lack of understanding apparent not only on his but also the other boys’ faces, “i know it’s fine to feed friends, like, technically. but it feels like when others feed me, that’s way too intimate to just do it? because my parents would never just randomly feed even each other, the standard is so different. it’s weird.” and you laughed to mask your embarrassment, because this really didn’t make any sense at all if you didn’t grow up with this experience.

“it is”, hongjoong confirmed, but he was grinning, obviously somewhat amused. “but it’s also kind of funny.”

“why’s it funny?” now it was you who didn’t understand, but the boy was quick to elaborate.

“you’ve been feeding mingi half your meal but as soon as he tried feeding you you got all flustered, it’s cute.”

him calling you out like this didn’t exactly help to make you less flustered though, hiding your face in the boy in question’s shoulder and whining out. the chorus of ‘cute’s  you got as a reaction only made it worse, and now you were trying to hide your entire upper body behind mingi.

“it’s not my fault! finns just don’t show affection like that. i don’t think my parents have ever actually hugged in public, so of course i think it’s weird that you just run around acting all cutesy all the time!”

now your shelter from the others’ teasing glares got worried, though, because he had very much been acting all cutesy with you and there was no guarantee that you hadn’t secretly been weirded out about that, and he moved so he could look at your face.

“you think i’m weird?” and maybe he shouldn’t be admitting to having acted cutesy with you when the boys were all sitting there (they’d barely witnessed anything, so he just outed himself, basically), but his worry about having made you uncomfortable was stronger than his embarrassment.

“no!”, you were quick to disagree. “you’re not weird. you’re cute.”

it was near impossible to not tease the two of you, but somehow the boys managed to hold it in, maybe partly because they were scared that it would become weird for you if they commented on it too much. while teasing was always fun, none of them ever wanted to genuinely make someone feel bad - so they formed a silent agreement that this would be off limits. that didn’t mean they wouldn’t tease mingi about it, though, and yeosang was the first to do so.

while his victim was busy giving you heart eyes he got out his phone, tapping around a little before sending a screenshot to their group chat. the others quickly did the same, knowing they might regret this the moment the only boy that hadn’t joined in saw that all seven of them had changed his contact name to ‘simp’. but he was very much whipped for you, obvious to everyone but the two of you.

“how was class?”, the redhead now asked you, body turned towards you completely to show you that you had his undivided attention.

“it was okay. though i’m still anxious whenever i see them, but that’s just how it is.” and then, because you didn’t want to talk about it further: “how was yours?”, a question directed at all eight of the boys.

the rest of lunch was spent happily chatting away about whatever came to mind, until mingi reminded you of the pyjama party you, in all honesty, had already forgotten about.

“friday to saturday for the pyjama party or saturday to sunday? which one’s better?”

your attempt at protesting was shut down immediately with a “but you promised!”, and because he seemed so excited and because you might have been whipped for him too, just a little bit, you sighed but agreed.

"saturday would be better for me", you informed him then, "how about you all?"

since no one had any objections you decided that you'd come over saturday around noon and that then the fun would start, as wooyoung claimed, which left everyone but him worried that fun was the last thing you'd call whatever would happen. but you were somewhat excited, admittedly, because you’d not been to a pyjama party that wasn’t held with the intention of getting into someone’s pants since you were like twelve, and though it maybe was childish you just wanted to have a pillow fight or something.

lunch was over soon after, and to your surprise your afternoon class that day was cancelled, so that you were able to go home already. though you weren’t sure if mingi had intended to study with you again that day you texted him, saying that class got cancelled and that he could come over as soon as his was over to study if he wanted to.

you made use of your extra freetime and finally got the groceries you’d neglected to get this entire week, and then just relaxed a little, reading one of your moomin books (that you had to search for because your bookshelf was both incredibly full and incredibly messy because it was so stuffed) with a long neglected playlist of finnish music running.

by the point mingi came over the book was long neglected, your room instead having become a single person-disco as you sang along. you felt more relaxed than you had all week, and though you tried to not embarrass yourself when you opened the door for him your attempt at that quickly failed when you registered that the chorus of your current song was playing in the background, joining in as you dragged the surprised redhead into your flat before resuming your silly dancing while still holding on to him, your energy forcing him to at least somewhat move along to the beat.

“tanssi mun kanssa!”, you laughed at him while attempting to get him to actually dance, and though he had no idea what on earth was going on he did - but unlike you it seemed like he actually knew how to dance, taking the lead as he swirled you around in the little space you had.

“so what exactly were we studying just now?”, mingi asked once you’d dropped to the floor out of breath, laughing.

“cultural differences in dance culture? no idea”, you replied, laughing just as much.

“what’s the difference?”

“if you’re representative for koreans and i’m representative for finns we can conclude that koreans are much better at it”, you informed him, “but finns are more likely to start an embarrassing dance party.”

“a sec.” and without explaining anything more he got out his phone, typing for a moment before locking it again and smiling at you.

“hm?” you cocked your head in curiosity, but all he told you was that it was a surprise and that it was time to start studying now. you weren’t pleased, but you nodded, soon forgetting about it as you became fully immersed in the topic.

he stayed rather late (for a study session, at least), leaving around ten after several hours of trying to understand the topic which you only interrupted in order to eat.

“you’re doing great!”, you praised him as you said goodbye, “it seems like you’re getting a hang of it really quickly.”

“that’s just because you got like a dozen different examples for everything, so at one point it clicks even for me.” the giant was getting shy at your praise, though he couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy it. it made him feel accomplished, in a way - he wanted to impress you, and it seemed like he might if he continued like this.

“i think you’re just smart”, you waved him off before hugging him. “get home safe?”

and because he was an embarrassing idiot taken aback by your hug, he replied: “you too”, even though you were literally standing in front of your building.

“i’ll try not to break my neck on the way back in.” but the smile you gave him was genuine, not teasing, and he nodded. then he took off, walking backwards and waving at you, almost running into a street lamp when he turned around to actually see where he was going. that made you laugh, waving at him one last time before you went back inside.

//

the next two days were spent similarly, studying with mingi after university, though you opted for a café near university on friday since both of you only had a morning class and thus wouldn’t be getting lunch there together.

“what do you want?”, with his head tilted to the side in curiosity, and even though you’d spent quite some time with him this past week you still couldn’t understand how someone his height could be so cute sometimes.

“you’re not going to pay for me.” he still insisted on paying for your train tickets whenever you took the train together, and you plain refused to let him pay for this, too.

“but maybe i’ll accidentally order two drinks even though i only wanted one and beg you to please drink the other one so i didn’t waste my money on it” was how he let you know that he would pay for your drink, whether you liked it or not.

“why are you like this”, you whined out in reply, but told him your order nonetheless.

“find us a seat? i’ll come once the drinks are done.”

you did as asked, though you wouldn’t have if you’d known that he planned on getting more than just your drinks. when he returned with a small tray you smiled at him, moving the notes you’d looked through while waiting out of the way, but that smile became a fake-annoyed expression when you saw the piece of cake he’d gotten. you knew he wouldn’t sit there and just eat by himself, so at least part of the money spent on the cake was spent for you.

“you’re the worst”, you informed him while rolling your eyes, even though you knew he wouldn’t care about that. 

and he didn’t, just grinning at you as he said: “i hope you like chocolate.”

“you’re impossible.”

“i’m impeccable.”

“let’s see if you still think so when i get out the big guns”, you teased, the big guns being contextual prestige related to different lects.

as expected, he did no longer think so when he had to understand not only the different lects (which you’d tried to teach him these past few days) but also that the prestige varied from situation to situation and that some people, depending on context, would choose to speak a usually less prestigious lect because of other factors.

“i’m going to die”, he groaned out, getting some cake because he really needed emotional support sweets right now.

“you’re doing fine”, you tried to reassure, patting his arm and smiling comfortingly. you were impressed he even managed to learn this much in such a short amount of time at all, so struggling with one topic that combined a lot of different ones wasn’t something that undermined the fact that you were dealing with a genius.

“do you want to take a break?”

you knew he wouldn’t ask for one (you had noticed that during your past study sessions, that he wouldn’t even tell you that he needed to use the bathroom but would dart off as soon as you told him to rest a little), but he was obviously grateful for this one. he enjoyed the silence that settled as both of you sipped on your drinks, eating a little cake every now and then, but something had been on his mind ever since he first saw the messages you’d been sent from the people that claimed to be your friends. and though he didn’t want to upset you he knew he’d end up asking sooner or later anyway, so he might as well do it now.

“why do your friends hate you so much?”, mingi asked, voice silent and calm to avoid upsetting you any more than this question probably already would. but you surprised him when you seemed rather unbothered.

“they kinda called dibs on you at that party where we met”, you explained, shrugging.

“dibs?”

“yeah. yeah. they’ve been arguing over who gets to have you the entire night, that’s why i was outside in the rain. and now they’re annoyed you’re spending time with me because i didn’t even call dibs in the first place.”

“so they hate you because you’re talking to someone they decided they had some kind of claim on?”

“mhm.”

“so if i stopped talking to you, in theory, they’d leave you alone?” the tall boy hated this thought, but he hated the thought of him being the reason for all these issues you had even more. you were quick to shut him down, though, not wanting him to even consider what he was obviously hinting at.

“don’t even think about it. that’s not going to help at all, and i don’t want you to stop, so drop that thought right now.” and while you pretended to be calm the thought of him just dropping you again when you’d just started to genuinely really enjoy his presence had you panic slightly.

“how wouldn’t it help? they’re mad because we talk, so if we don’t they have no reason to be mad anymore. or am i wrong?”

“you are. it’s not just about me talking to you still, it’s mainly about… control? they told me they don’t want me to talk to any of you and i did it anyway, and now they want to make sure i never do that again. they don’t like it when people aren’t all submissive for them.”

to you this was normal behaviour from them, an attitude you’d witnessed countless times and that had left you doing your best to kiss their asses, but he wasn’t used to people acting like that, and it, quite frankly, was quite appalling. he knew it wasn’t something he could change, though, and he admittedly also wondered why you hadn’t called dibs back then when the others all obviously had. while it shouldn’t be his concern at all he did worry a little - what if you thought he was ugly?

“who were your dibs on, though?” he couldn’t help his curiosity.

“no one. i think it’s stupid to call dibs on someone as if they didn’t have any say in the matter.”

“it is, yeah.” he refused to think about why this answer relieved him - it was just because you were a decent person respecting people’s emotions and definitely not because your lack of dibs wasn’t because you thought he was ugly, definitely. or maybe the guys were justified in changing his contact name to ‘simp’. just maybe.

after that little serious conversation you continued studying until it was getting dark, at which point you decided to call it a day. he was the first to buy his train ticket, but when he turned to you with a grin he was unsuccessfully trying to suppress on his face you knew he’d gotten you your ticket instead.

“i accidentally clicked on your station because that’s where we went all week”, he told you, but it was obvious that it had not at all been an accident.

“you’re the worst”, you sighed out, but you were secretly glad that he’d done this because you’d just have walked otherwise, something you hadn’t exactly been looking forward to doing in the dark. you watched as mingi got his own ticket - the right one this time -, then you hugged goodbye before each getting in the train to go home.

it had become a habit that he’d text you as soon as he was home, because if he hadn’t messaged you an hour after leaving you’d text him, worried, asking if he was okay and if he got home safe. then you’d text some more, about anything that was on your minds, before sending a final goodnight text. the same happened today, as well, with mingi being the first to go to bed since you had some coursework to do still.

[mingi]: ill be there tmrw at 10. 11?

[mingi]: goodnight

and before you could protest he’d gone offline, a sign that he wasn’t going to see any possible protests before the next morning, at which point it’d be too late to save him the pain of getting up early anyway.

[y/n]: both are fine, sleep well

//

he was there at 11, naturally, but you were glad about the extra hour because that meant you were able to finish an essay due monday at noon and still had enough time to prepare a bag with things you’d need for the pyjama party.

“come in”, you greeted the redhead as soon as you’d opened the door for him, “i still need to choose a pyjama.”

“choose? why not just… bring the pyjama you wear?”

“because i don’t want to embarrass myself!” for some reason you felt like your choice of pyjama was incredibly important, like you’d embarrass yourself if you didn’t wear the perfect one.

“don’t be silly. it’s just a pyjama”, he laughed at your dilemma, and you scoffed at him.

“unlike you i can’t just run around shirtless and call it a day”, and because you were still on the quest for the perfect pyjama you missed the embarrassed expression on his face.

“it’s not like i had a lot of options!”, he defended himself, “your shirts definitely wouldn’t have done. unless you’re into the crop top kind of look, i guess.”

“that would definitely be interesting”, you laughed, then pulled out some clothes as you finally seemed to have decided on what to wear.

“we can go now. should we get snacks on the way?”

“pretty sure seonghwa and hongjoong have already organised an entire buffet”, he let you know, and you nodded while grabbing your bag, making your way to the door with mingi following suit.

and he’d been right - the table was covered in all kinds of food when you arrived at their place, though a quick look told you that you most likely wouldn’t touch about half of them.

“i probably should’ve mentioned i’m a vegetarian”, you said slightly embarrassed when yunho, who’d been the first to greet you and the other giant, told you that you absolutely had to try seonghwa’s kimchi.

“oh! i’m sorry.” the man with the infamous kimchi was now in the living room as well, obviously feeling somewhat bad about the fact that so much of the prepared food included meat.

“it’s fine! i know it’s not like, common, so i know how to work around it”, you tried to reassure, and the other seemed to accept that as an answer, telling you that if you needed any more food they’d gladly get it for you.

“why are all of you so nice?”,  your reply a whine, but the boys just laughed. maybe you would’ve been a little embarrassed about how kind everyone was being, but wooyoung interrupted by entering the living room with a loud “is it fun time?”, to which jongho quickly yelled back: “no!”

that was not an answer the boy would accept, though, and it very soon became fun time as you played all kinds of games that they were much better at than you since you’d never or barely ever played them before.

“it’s time for a challenge!”, yeosang declared, and though you tried protesting (because you knew you’d lose) you were outvoted on the grounds of democracy, so you just had to accept your fate.

“what happens to the loser?” you really wanted to know what would inevitably await you, but the only information you got was that the male had a surprise penalty in his room that he’d organised when the others were busy, so they didn’t know either. that only made it fun, he claimed, but you were certain that he was the only one who was going to have fun with this.

the challenge was a game you’d played before, and for a moment you hoped, begged the heavens that you might actually win, but of course life wasn’t that kind. everyone cheered when you were the first to lose, and when yeosang went to get the penalty you were inclined to stop him with all the power you held in you. before you could make a move he was already back, though, a terrifyingly familiar bag in his hands.

“please tell me that’s not what i think it is.”

the grin on his face destroyed all your hope, however, and you knew you would regret ever agreeing to this pyjama party after latest two seconds of having it in your mouth. you were impossibly bad at eating spicy food, and of course the penalty was one of the spiciest things you’d ever tried in an act of youthful recklessness at age sixteen. ever since then, you’d plain refused to touch anything that brand produced, but it seemed like now your fate was in the hands of whatever higher power controlled your tastebuds.

“you’re going to kill me”, you let him know before reluctantly taking the bag he held out for you. you pretended you weren’t able to open it, hoping to that way get out of having to eat it, but jongho volunteered to assist in opening it way too eagerly. there was no escaping, and you took one of the snacks, smelling it, examining it, turning it to look at it from every angle, trying to buy yourself more time and maybe get the boys to have mercy with you. and just as you were about to put the horror machine in your mouth mingi grabbed your hand, guiding it to his own instead and eating the snack you’d so dreaded to eat. it was apparent by his reaction that he didn’t necessarily enjoy this, either, but he’d done it anyways, and once the source of his suffering was swallowed he informed your friends that he’d taken your penalty and that you’d not have to eat it anymore. they had to accept it since they hadn’t previously agreed that others taking the loser’s penalty wasn’t allowed, and the redhead gave you a slightly pained but still somewhat proud smile.

and now there was no denying it anymore, song min gi was a simp for you and you only.

[dalamjisung]

say it ✽ bang chan

word count: 4486

genre: fluff

pairing: reader x bang chan

description: all you needed to confess was a noisy neighbor; who knew?

It’s six in the morning, and, once again, you’re up. The law clearly states that constructions are only allowed to start after 8am, however, your neighbor seems to be in a hurry to move in– and in the process, trying to make everyone else move out. You try to muffle the shattering should of the stone breaker and the loud chattering of the poor workers that have to work early hours with your pillow, but it didn’t help. Nothing would, at this point. You got home from work late– around 11PM– and still had to finish a couple of things for the end of the week’s presentation, and you only fell asleep around three hours ago, only to be brutally awaken, yet again.

The worst is that you know there is nothing you can do. Talking to the workers would amount to nothing, because they are simply following orders, and talking to the new tenant didn’t work. You tried everything; sleeping pills, ear plugs, white noise machine, and you even checked how much it would cost to have a soundproof window, but it was way above your pay check. You just have to wait, and wait you do; you toss and turn until seven, and it stopped sometimes– but then it started right again. 

At this point, you were overworked, stressed, and sleepless, and you couldn’t help but cry. You sobbed on your pillow, just wanting absolute silence and warmth. You want to turn your phone off and disappear for a day, but it’s now almost eight in the morning and you need to get ready for work. Everyone notices as soon as you walk into the office– your dark aura emanating the warning you so much wanted to shout out loud, stay away. Not even your boss bothers you today, and you consider yourself lucky.

Time passes as if it was supposed to be this slow; you finish the presentation and starts your next project. You have lunch and you get your fifth coffee of the day. You go back to work but nothing feels productive anymore– you just feel spent. 

“Y/N,” Your boss calls from his office and when you look at him, he motions you to go inside. 

Taking a deep breath, you make your way to your superior. The last thing you need is to blow up on your boss and get fired, so you force yourself to calm down. 

“Yes, Mr. Min?” You ask, sitting down on the chair facing his. 

He waves his hand. “None of that formality now,” He chuckles. “I called you here to ask if you’re okay?”

“What… what do you mean?” You look at him, puzzled.

“Well,” He clears his throat. “Is just that you are one of my best workers but I’ve noticed you’re a little… off today. I’m your boss, Y/N, but now I’m asking as a friend. Are you alright? Do you need to leave early?’

And although Mr. Min is being incredibly kind, going home would just make things worse. You think that if you hear one more bang from that stone breaker, you will flip. 

“I’m fine, Mr. Min,” You smile, or at least you try to. “Thank you, though.”

“That is a lie,” He laughs. “I know because you look exactly like I used to when I was in your position. Please, take the rest of the day off. Even tomorrow– take tomorrow off, too. I know you’ve worked enough extra hours this week to meet your hourly quota for the month. Relax a little.”

“Ah,” You have no choice, then. “Thank you so much, Mr. Min. Really, I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” He smiles. “Now, do you have anyone to take you home? You are too pale for me to be comfortable with letting you go home by yourself.”

“I have someone, yes,” You bow to him, thanking him again, before leaving to retrieve your things. It is only now that your boss pointed out that you feel it– the exhaustion, the dizziness, the nausea. You need to go home and sleep, but you can’t. The noise won’t have stopped, and it goes until late at night. With a defeated sigh, you call your older brother. Usually, you’d never call Woojin if not to chat mindlessly as you cook dinner– he works too much, and too hard, to have to spend time and energy worrying about you, no matter how many times he begged you to put him down as your energy contact. However, you had no one else to call; your friend’s are all working and you know that Woojin has today off.

“Hello?” You hear his voice from the other side of the line and you swear you’d cry if you weren’t in front of other people. No one offered you comfort like your brother did… well, no one besides him, but you are trying to not think about that right now.  

“Hey bear,” You chuckle, walking out of the office and waiting for the elevator. “Busy?”

“Not for you,” You can hear the smile on his voice and it kills you that you are bothering him on his day off. “What’s up?”

“Uh, I’m not feeling well and my boss let me go early,” You mumble, looking at your feet in hidden shame. “Would it be possible for you to come pick me up?”

“On my way.”

And the line goes silent. Sighing, you sit down on the side of the street, breathing deeply as a way to try and maintain your head right. The pain was dulling all your senses and it is wild how much people take sleep for granted. You know what will happen next: Woojin will offer to take you home, you’ll try to convince him not to, he won’t give up, and you’ll be stuck with the noise you’ve been trying to avoid for weeks.

The car honks and you know it’s your brother, taking your time to get up and stabilize yourself so you don’t worry him more than you’re about to. When your vision comes back to normal, after getting up too fast and feeling light-headed, you notice that, yes, that is your brother… and Bang Chan. Your eyes go wide in recognition and you blush– why is he here?

“Y/N!” Chan smiles, opening the door for you. “Are you alright?”

“Ah,” You mumble, chuckling uncomfortably. “Yeah, I’m just–“

“Sleep deprived,” Both Chan and Woojin say at the same time. 

“How’d you know?!”

“Look at us,” Woojin laughs. “We recognize one of our own. The difference is that we know how to handle it; you don’t.”

“It’s not my fault,” You whine like a kid. “The neighbor’s constructors are starting their work everyday at 6am! I tried everything– complaining, earplugs, sleeping pills–“

“Pills?!” Chan shouts, turning to look at you with a frown in his face. “Y/N, no!”

“Hey,” You deadpan. “Don’t knock it ‘till you try it. They helped for a couple of hours, but then I woke up again and couldn’t sleep.”

“Y/N,” Woojin speaks softly, and you think that if he keeps doing that you’ll finally fall asleep. “Why don’t you come over to the dorms? Felix is back in Australia for the week, I’m sure you can sleep in his bed.”

“I don’t know, guys,” You sound reluctant, even if you want to agree. “I’m not sure how Jeongin and Minho would feel about this…”

Chan rolls his eyes, and mumbles a I’m sure they’d love it.

“I’m sure they’d be fine with it,” Woojin smiles, swatting Chan in the arm. “It’s just for a week. Now let’s go to yours grab some clothes.”

They only really understand you once they walk in; Woojin shouts something but you shrug, clearly not being able to hear him. You think your neighbor is in the final stretch of re-doing the apartment, but the breaking down the walls and drilling, and chattering, and hammering has been killing you. Your eyes tear up at the loud sound, stress getting to you as you pack your overnight bag. 

“Let’s go,” You say, pointing to the door. 

“What the fuck?” Chan whispers once you’re all outside. “That’s so loud… how long has it been like that?”

“A few weeks…” You mumble weakly. 

“Weeks?” Woojin repeats, mouth hanging open. “Y/N, why didn’t you call me sooner?”

“Because,” It’s all you say.

In the car, you doze off. You wake up slightly as you feel yourself getting picked up, and the flash of camera sounding off into space– but it’s not enough to make you open your eyes. You grumble something and go back to dreamland. You do wake up, though, once you are deposited in a soft bed.

“I’m a little to old for that,” You chuckle, letting Chan remove your shoes as Woojin pulled the covers so you could be tucked in.

“Nah,” Chan laughs, and you remember that. You remember his laugh and it’s nice. “No one is to old for this.”

His hand brushes a wild strand of hair and he smiles when he notices your eyes closing again. You looked really peaceful, and that’s his favorite look on you. He saw it once before, and after that night, he never really forgot, but it’s nice to see it again.

The music is loud and the booze is strong. Your body sways fluidly and it’s been a while since you’ve enjoyed dancing like this. Sora and Jennie disappear somewhere, as they tend to do, and you are by yourself, just how you like– the freedom of loneliness is something you don’t experience often, but you bask in. To be free, and feel free, enough to dance and act like no one is watching… ah, what a blissful moment for you. 

But all good things come to an end.

This time, is a simple touch. A hand, you assume, on your lower back, and a chuckle coming from behind you. You smile to yourself, thinking that if the approach is soft, then the rejection should be as soft. And you are not sure if it’s the fact that you are lonely and free or if you are horny and drunk that makes you grind back into this mysterious person. A hiss and a groan settle it; the man brings you closer to him, back to chest, and mumbles in your ear.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” He says, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “But you look very beautiful tonight.”

A polite one, it seems. As a ‘thank you’ you grind on his once again, and no words are needed after that. You two dance for what feels like hours, and it might as well have been, because you are pretty sure it’s already day when you turn around and–

“Goor morning,” You hear someone whisper while shaking you lightly. Your eyes open slightly to see your brother smiling at you. “It’s 6:30am. Do you have work today?”

You shake your head no, and go back to sleep after he kisses you in the forehead. It doesn’t last long, and you wake up again in a couple of hours. You stretch almost as if you were a cat– limbs long and wide,– and you go to the bathroom, knocking to make sure there was no one in there.

“Just a sec!”

In your hazy state of mind, you barely register Chan’s shirtless form emerge from the foggy bathroom, missing his shy wave and ‘good morning’ all together, focusing only in changing from your uncomfortable work clothes to the comfy sweats in your hands.

You make it through your shirt, as it falls on the floor, and you are working on your pants button when it dawns on you, and you shout– it’s short and brief, more surprised than anything, but enough to make the troop of boys outside worry. 

“You alright?” By the voice, you assume this is Changbin.

“Yes!” You shout back, covering your face with your hands, trying to calm yourself down. You try to recollect the image, but you can’t– it was too fast. “Oh my god. Oh my fucking god–“

“Language!” Minho. “We have kids in the house.”

You thought you were whispering, but you were wrong. 

“Noona,” Your sweet angel speaks. “Are you coming out anytime soon? I need to brush my teeth.”

“Just a second, Jeongin-ah!” You shout back, changing as fast as possible, completely forgetting about your hair and just letting it be. “Sorry I took too long.”

“No problem, Y/N noona,” Jeongin smiles and goes in, while you make your way into the living room, where everyone is sitting down while eating breakfast. 

“Here,” Woojin scoots so you can sit in between him and Seungmin. He shares his plate with you, and you two feel as if you are seven again, eating breakfast together while watching TV in the living room.

“Ya, what was that scream earlier?” Chan asks, frowning. You choke on a piece of toast and blush, noticing how your eyes instantly went to his chest, now covered and protected by a thick hoodie.

“Uh, my hair.” 

“What?” Changbin laughs.

“My hair looked terrible,” You shrug, trying to sell the lie. “It shocked me.”

“Do you scream everyday, then?” Woojin asks, teasing you as he messes your hair even more. You whine and everyone is laughing. Thanks to your brother you got to know the boys pretty well, so proud of them for everything they do and achieve, and Woojin couldn’t be happier about your friendship with them– but would he be happy if he knew?

You close your eyes, ignoring the shouts and laughter in the background, recalling the dream from memory. You want it again.

You turn around and you see nothing, but feel everything. The kiss is hungry and soft at the same time, and you can’t help but compare this kiss to the others you’ve had before. His lips are certain and careful, making sure that there is no controlling from either side, but rather a mutual effort. He pulls and you push, and vice versa. His hands are on your waist and your back and you can feel how respectful this boy is. You open your mouth to him and you’re a goner. 

“You’re so beautiful,” He mumbles over your mouth, lips touching each other as you two breath harshly. “What’s your name?”

And you smile, ready to hear your name falling from such perfect lips. 

“Y/N.”

“Y/N,” He repeats and you savor it. He does too, closing his eyes again. 

You don’t remember the rest, but you do remember the moment he speaks again.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Y/N,” He smiles, pecking your lips. “My name is Bang Chan.”

“You alright there?” Minho asks, waking you up from your daydream. You blink, a little lost, and then smile at him– it’s uncomfortable and forced, and everyone knows. 

“Yeah,” You mumble, resting your head on Woojin’s shoulder. “Just tired, still.”

“How long has it been since you slept, noona?” Jeongin asks worried. 

“A few weeks,” You chuckle. “Would you guys mind if I took a nap?”

“Go for it,” Chan smiles warmly at you. “You can use my room, since Changbin and I will be out all day.”

“Oh,” You aren’t going to oppose to that. You’d be lying if you say that Chan’s smell didn’t bring a certain comfort to you. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” His voice is soft, almost as if saying you shouldn’t even ask. “It’s all yours, Y/N.”

Even you?, you want to ask, but you know better. 

As you lay down in Chan’s bed, surrounded by his everything, you can’t help but think what would happened if you told Woojin– if you gathered the courage to say hey, I kissed your best friend, but it’s okay, because it was before I knew he was your best friend. But now that I know, and now that I know him, I just wanted to say that I am madly in love with him and everything he does. 

You try to remember when was it, exactly, that you knew you fell in love. You know it, now; but when did it start? Was it when Woojin finally properly introduced you two, and you two awkwardly shook hands, blushing from memories past? Or was it when you two go to know each other better and you noticed that his dimples show when he smiles and that he messes with his hair when he’s nervous? Maybe it was when you saw him working, concentrating on the beat and the bass and his eyes closed, like that night, as if he was soaking it all up. You are not sure of any of it; when it started, or how it started, but you are sure of it. You are in love with Bang Chan, and you have to tell Woojin somehow. 

The thought of hurting your brother overwhelms you, and you only realize are crying when it’s too late. Chan apparently needed something in the room, and when he approaches his bedside table to grab what looks like earphones, he hears it– a soft sniffle. 

“Y/N?” He whispers, and moves to take a look at you. “Hey, what happened?! Why are you crying?”

“I can’t do this, Chan,” You sob, hiding your face on his pillow. “I can’t do this to Woojin.”

“Do what?” Chan moves to sit on the bed, bringing your head to lay on his lap, softly running his fingers through your hair, and it only makes it worse. You see him typing something on his phone and you are sure that any time now, your brother would come in. “What can’t you do?”

“This.”

You think he knows what you are talking about; his hands cease their caress and his legs tense up. Woojin slowly creeps in, and you close your eyes just in time to pretend you are asleep. You hear him murmuring something, in conversation with Chan, and the door closes as you feel your head falling back onto the pillow. Sighing, you open your eyes.

“I knew you weren’t sleeping. We need to talk.”

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

“You like him.”

Of course Woojin knows. He’s always been really perceptive, and being the eldest of you two, he’s always been in tune with you, knowing when you were hurt, or happy, or tired. 

“I do,” You sigh. “But I won’t do anything about it.”

“Why?!” He whines, eyes wide and hands wild. What?

“Wh– Woojin, he’s your best friend!” You screech, thankful that the apartment is empty with the exception of you two.

“That’s why I know he’s a good guy!” 

“What the actual fuck is happening right now?!” You groan, pulling on your hair. Woojin holds your hands, just like he always does, and chuckles.

“Y/N,” He starts. “I’ve known for months. I see the way you act around him, and it’s actually pretty funny.”

“It’s not funny!” You defend yourself. “I just get… nervous.”

“Yes, and that’s adorable,” Woojin teases, pinching your cheeks. “But I’d never be angry at you for that, monkey. Seeing you happy is all that matters for me, and if you are happy with Chan, and he is happy with you, I’m happy, too. Chan is a great guy; I know that because I live with him. And because he told me everything.”

You look at him with wide eyes.

“You knew?!” 

“Of course,” He shrugs. “Y/N, you are a grown woman. You are strong and independent, and although I’ll always to protect you, I’m not angry you and Chan kissed in the club that night. You didn’t know each other, and Chan doesn’t just do that– he doesn’t usually go to girls in clubs to just make out and leave.”

“He doesn’t?” You mumble, and Woojin melts. You look like a kid, and he wonders how much you like his friend, if you feel this insecure.

“No,” He smiles softly, climbing on the bed to hug you. “Chan cares about you, monkey. And so do I. And I want to see you two happy. So go for it.”

“Sure, because it’s that easy,” You say sarcastically. “I don’t even know if he likes me.”

“Sure,” And you two really are related, because he sounds exactly like you when he’s sarcastic. “And the sky is green.”

You just look at him. 

“Wait, are you serious?!” Woojin squints at you. “I know your slow, but wow, I didn’t know you were dumb, Y/N.”

“Thanks, brother,” You roll your eyes.

“Chan is in love with you.”

Woojin says as if it is nothing new, but it makes your heart stop. You never thought you hear that, specially coming out of your brother’s mouth. 

“Okay, ew, don’t look like that,” Woojin complains, pushing you away.

“Like what?” You try to cover up, but it’s too late. He knows you too well.

“Like you are ready to run after him and jump his bones,” Woojin fakes vomit and you think you might just do it for real.

“Ew,” You say rather loudly. “Let’s not ever think of that again.”

“Agreed,” You two shake hands. “I’m serious, though. He is in love with you, but at the same time he is worried. He thinks you don’t feel the same, no matter how many times I told him you did, and he is worried that he might scare you away. So do something, yeah? Anything. I don’t think I can hear him talk about you anymore… it’s so awkward.”

You hug your brother. “Thank you, Woojin. Really, this means the world.”

“Your happiness means the world, Y/N,” He whispers. “Now take a nap. Chan will be back later and I’ll take the boys our for dinner tonight; give you two some privacy.”

“What did I do to deserve a bother as awesome as you?” You joke as he gets up.

“You are right,” He winks. “I am awesome. Love you, kid.”

“Love you too, bear,” You send him a kiss and lay down again. Now, with Woojin’s blessing, you feel like you can finally do it. You fall asleep again, and this time, when you wake up again, you fell fully rested.

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

The boys get home late, but Chan’s not with them. Everyone notices your nervous glances to the door and your bitten nails, but they say nothing. They shower and then leave again, your brother leading them out with promises of barbecue and karaoke; you tell them you are too tired to go and that’s the end of it– you are alone once again. 

You make some ramen, but you are too anxious to eat. You are not sure what time is it, but you fall asleep, and wake up once again with the sound of someone punching the passcode in. Chan gasps slightly upon seeing you laying down in their couch and, dropping his backpack in the floor, he walks to you. 

“Ah, you silly girl,” He whispers, and you do your best to pretend you are still asleep. “What are you doing here? I told you to sleep in my room…”

His hands go around you– one under your legs and the other on your back,– and just as he moves to pick you up, you pull on him, making him fall on you. 

“Waiting for you,” You grumble, still a bit sleepy. You rub your eyes as he moves, trying to avoid depositing all of his weight on you. “I was waiting for you, Chan.”

“Why?” He asks once the shock passes; he is sitting next to you, one arm resting on your bent knees, almost as if he is hugging your legs to him. “Something happened?”

“A lot happened,” You smile, pulling your self up and getting closer to him. “And a lot more is about to happen.”

He smiles. You squint your eyes and you notice how relaxed he looks, how at ease. 

“You know,” You say, voice coming out a little bit accusatory. “Woojin told you!”

“Not everything,” Chan laughs, hiding his face on your knees. “Just the important parts.”

“It’s all important!” You exclaim, laughing with him. “No fair– I wanted to say it!”

“Then say it.”

The atmosphere is quick to change; the playfulness from before disappearing in a swift moment. His eyes are one yours, and his chin is still resting on your legs, trying as he might to not just grab you then and there. Touching you like this would suffice, for now, at least. 

“Come on,” Chan coaches you softly, hands caressing your thighs. “I want to hear. I need to hear it, Y/N.”

The desperation on his voice– for certainty and confirmation,– is what makes you smile. You take his face on your hands, and brings him closer, allowing him to kneel in between your legs, arms circling your waist as he grunts with the effort to keep him stable. You shudder at the sound, and kisses his right cheek. Then the left cheek. And then offers him your mouth, and he is the one that kisses you now. A small peck, it’s what it is, but you don’t care. 

“I love you,” You whisper into his mouth, feeding him, touching him. “I love you, Bang Chan.”

His turn is a while later, after he satisfies his immediate need; he kisses you for as long as he can, bringing you closer each time, even though you think there isn’t any space in between you two. His mouth is open and smiling and soft and you go back to that night. You remember it; his hands, his taste, his voice. Everything is Bang Chan and you adore it. You love it.

“Love you,” He whispers frowning, eyes closed just like he does when he is concentrating. You soothe his forehead with your thumb, and kisses his nose. “Love you so much, Y/N.”

“Good,” You pull back, and lay down, pulling him with you. “Or else this would be a little awkward.”

He laughs. “Let’s go to my room, my bed is more comfortable than the couch.”

You let him carry you to his bed, where you lay down with your head on his lap as he works some more. You let him kiss your forehead, from time to time, and you let him shush the boys as they all scream in excitement to see you two cuddled up in bed. 

You smile, feeling him put his computer on the floor, and turn around to cuddle you. You kiss him, just one more time for the night, before falling asleep again. 

You wake up the next morning thinking it was all a dream, until Chan comes in the room, with a steaming cup of coffee, and he says it again.

“Love you.”

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

it’s been a while since I wrote for skz, but I quite like how this came out :P what do you think? let me know! your support means the world ❤️

[himbowelsh]

What would early mornings / late nights with the guys of BoB consist of? 💫

Richard Winters: He doesn’t make a habit out of staying up late, and doesn’t do it for fun...  but it happens more than he’s proud of. Sometimes, he’s got so much work to do that he just sets down to do it, and gets lost in the monotony. Next thing he knows, it’s past midnight, and he has to wander to bed in an overworked daze, already regretting how he’ll feel the next morning. Dick’s ideal bedtime is around 10pm, and he likes to be up by 7am. He’s very good at waking up early  ---  he doesn’t even need an alarm, he just wakes up early on his own. Dick is the sort of morning person who’s dressed, had breakfast, and already started his daily routine before the rest of the house is even awake.

Lewis Nixon: His late nights are early mornings. Nix is such a night owl that it’s frankly obscene; his bedtime is somewhere around 2am if he’s lucky. It’s not like he wants to be up that late, but it’s extra hours in the day; he’s at his most productive from 6pm - midnight, and anything after that’s just bonus time. No, liquor doesn’t need to be involved, though some of his parties have been known to stretch until dawn. He’s just...  awake. As for mornings, well  ---  most people know better than to need anything from him before noon. His usual wake-up time is around 10am o’clock, which suits him just fine, but apparently the rest of the world likes to start before that. Nix isn’t a fan. Early morning hours are offensive, and he strongly believes people shouldn’t exist before 8am. Good luck getting him out of bed. 

Carwood Lipton: He really enjoys waking up early. Something about the tranquility of early mornings, when the world is just waking up, appeals to him. Lip will always try to be out of bed around dawn, or a little while afterwards. He likes to have his cup of coffee while sitting by the window, watching nature slowly stir awake. (He also kind of enjoys being up before anyone else in the house; as a teen, he and his mother both used to be early risers, and this was a Quiet Time ritual they shared.) As a result, he tends not to stay up late. Lip can rarely be found awake past...  hmm, eleven, and if he is it’s usually because his friends coaxed him out and now he has to keep them out of trouble. He’d much rather be in bed.

Ron Speirs: Ron’s a bit of an insomniac, and an early riser by habit. He’s got some...  weird primal survival instinct that doesn’t let him sleep for long. It wakes him up between each sleep cycle, every hour or two. While he’s careful not to disturb anyone else, sometimes he can’t get back to sleep. He might start his day at 4am, not by choice, but because his brain is just too active. He has the same problem getting to sleep  ---   sometimes he lies awake for hours, just trying to pass out but not able to. Some nights, he goes without sleep altogether, and is able to function fine the next day with the help of some strict caffeine...  but when he finally allows himself to crash, away from prying eyes, he’ll feel worn out and exhausted. Those long stretches without sleep are the only times he’s able to get a full 9-10 hours, uninterrupted, because he’s just so worn out.

Harry Welsh: He... has a sleep schedule. Like a functioning human being. When he’s not out with the boys, Harry goes to bed at a perfectly reasonable time  ---  sure, he prefers to stay up a little, but he’s out like a light by 11pm. When he’s got a reason to stay up, though  ---  dear god, he’s the energizer bunny. Harry can stay awake for frighteningly long periods of time, fueled by nothing but booze and his own stubbornness. His record is 38 hours, after which he passed out for a full day. He’s wild on a night out. Late nights with Harry tend to end in minor injuries and/or felonies. Getting up in the morning is another story. He is not a “rise with the sun” sort of person  ---  the sun can bug off, he isn’t getting out of bed. Requires at least three alarms and two cups of coffee before he's fit for polite company in the mornings. 

Buck Compton: He doesn’t do late nights   ---  even when out with the boys, Buck is one of the first to head home, after a healthy few hours of partying. The latest he’ll stay up to is midnight, and he’ll go on a whole rant about why staying up later is unhealthy...   but it also can’t be healthy to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn, but guess who’s always out there? 5am, and he’s got the blender on, a health-smoothie in his goofy athletic thermos, and he’s going for a run. It’s Saturday, Buck; it’s raining, Buck; you’ve got a broken arm, Buck; nope, he’s gotta go.  (This is both his way of staying healthy and an excuse to wake up in the morning without coffee, because Buck and caffeine have a torrid, obsessive relationship.)

Eugene Roe: There’s really no way to tell how much sleep Gene actually gets. No one knows. His coworkers don’t know, friends don’t know, roommates don’t know...  the only real clue are the dark circles under his eyes, but honestly he might just have those naturally. Gene’s not likely to stay out late partying with the boys, but he will stay up ‘til all hours pouring through medical textbooks; when he finally passes out, facedown on the book, he’s in for six hours of uninterrupted rest. He needs at least six hours, though he can function fine on four; on three, he might maul someone, and on two, he’s a danger to himself and others. This has all been learned through experience. Early Morning Gene is not pleased to be awake, not sure exactly why he’s awake, but is going through the motions anyways. He’s performed tourniquets half-asleep before. He’s driven places with no memory of how he got there. Bottom line, he needs more sleep than he gets.

Bill Guarnere: Bill’s the sort of person who can be up at 6am without a complaint, dragging himself through his morning routine in the fifteen-or-so minutes it takes for him to wake up. He showers, he has his coffee, he grabs something to eat on the way out the door  ---  he’s fine. Little does anyone know, he was out partying until 2am last night, and passed out as soon as he got home. Bill’s got the constitution of a terminator. Yeah, he enjoys sleep, but does he really need it? When not with his buddies, he’ll go to bed at a very reasonable hour, and wake up early by choice; but Bill Guarnere never likes to do anything the boring way.

Babe Heffron: Babe has the bad habit of staying up late, just...  wasting his time. He’s not even out partying or anything, but he gets caught up reading something super interesting, playing video games, or falling down wikipedia rabbit holes. Next thing he knows, it’s 3am, he’s got to be at work at 9, and he’s regretting....  hmm, just about every life choice up to this point. He’s not actually bad at waking up early, just very stubborn about it. He doesn’t want to leave bed. He’ll roll out and just stumble around like a zombie for a few minutes, hair a mess of bedhead, mindlessly going through his morning routine. (He’s walked into walls before; he tumbled down the stairs once, and just lay there at the bottom because he didn’t have the energy to get up. Bill genuinely thought he was dead.) Until someone puts a cup of coffee or three in front of him, he can’t seriously be called “awake”.

Joe Toye: He’s awake, but he ain’t happy about it.  Joe is neither a morning person nor a night person. He exists in some weird grey area where he can function reasonably well at either time, but midday is really his peak of productivity. It’s all downhill once you pass 10pm. Unless he’s got energetic buddies to keep him awake  (Luz has a talent for never letting him get any sleep), all Joe really wants to do it go to bed. Sometimes he’ll stay up late on his own, just drinking and thinking  ---  those are not fun late nights  ---  but most of the time, big boy needs his beauty sleep. He’s very strict about his own wake-up time, because he personally hates sleeping in. He’s an early riser by choice. Give him a cup of coffee, let him get his morning workout in, and he’s fine.

George Luz: One of those people who gets weird anytime after 2am. Like, fun, but weird  ---  he gets really wired and giddy, like he’s tapped into some emergency store of energy and is now just buzzing with it. Luz will do anything in the middle of the night. Let’s go to the McDonalds drive thru! Let’s wander around the 24-hour grocery store! Let’s see if we can find bigfoot in the woods! He never stays up late unless he’s with other guys, and other guys fuel him. If George is up too late, trouble is guaranteed to follow. By contrast, he’s very much not a morning person  ---  he’ll be dragged out of bed bitching and groaning, shaking himself awake every few minutes while reminding himself why the hell he’s up at this hour anyways. Again, he’s better at waking up when there’s another person around. Left to his own devices, he might just pass out at the kitchen table, cup of coffee cooling in front of him.

Joseph Liebgott: Honestly, he doesn’t need that much sleep. Lieb can operate on a solid four hours a night without faltering  ---   he tends to stay up late and wake up early, which really isn’t healthy, but works for him.  On late nights, sometimes his mind is too active, and he just has to get out. He used to have a habit of nighttime walks; when that nearly got him mugged one time too many, he started driving around instead. If he’s not home at 2am, chances are he’s out driving with no particular destination in mind. Early mornings, he usually needs to be at work, because he’s a busy man  ---   but he always finds time to prepare a quick breakfast and brew some really good coffee before leaving.

David Webster: Sleep schedule is shot to hell and back. Does he have one? Who even knows? He’s not a morning person, that’s for sure  ---  when the sun filtering through his window wakes him up, he’ll curse like it can hear him, and stay in bed as long as his conscience allows. If he wants to be on his boat, however, Web will be out of the house before dawn...  or, if he’s got something he’s really itching to write, he can occasionally be found at 6am, wired on four cups of coffee, typing away. Hopefully he woke up that early. There have been nights where he hasn’t slept at all, off on midnight writing benders that stretch until dawn. When Web’s writing, he loses track of time. He can often be found at 4am, slumped over his desk, face smushed against his arm and drool running onto his papers, an exhausted mess who needs to be pulled away from work and led to bed.

Donald Malarkey: He’s all about the late nights. Don has no problem staying out with his friends ‘til all hours; he’s convinced he’s a better gambler after midnight  (no, he’s not)  and everything just seems so much more fun in the early morning hours! He tends to get really giddy and trigger-happy past 2am, and will do any dumb stunt anybody suggests to him. Once he woke up on his neighbor’s roof, just because a friend bet he couldn’t climb up there; he could, but passed out before he could figure out a way down. As for early mornings...  he doesn’t trust them. He dislikes them strongly. Whether he was up late the night before or not, his body does not want to wake up before 9am. He’ll hug his pillow and burrow in the covers like a groundhog, giving anybody who tries to wake him a hell of a time.

Skip Muck: He tries to stay up late, but honestly, Skip’s just not made for it. Anything after 1am, and he’s crashing hard. He’ll fall asleep sitting up, cheek smushed against his hand; when someone pokes him, he’ll startle back awake and get a second wind, but leave him alone for a minute and he’s crashing again. The only thing that keeps him up is moving. When Skip finally gets to bed on a late night, he’ll crash. 100% guaranteed to sleep in the next morning, straight through any alarms. He’s a lot better at early mornings, only because all his extracurriculars in high school trained him to get up early. If he can help it, he’d rather not, but if he has to...  it’s the same tactic. Just keep moving, and he won’t fall asleep.