#meant what i said! doing whatever i want because this is my blog!

[softausterity]

Don't Take Art Advice from Strangers on the Internet - Art advice from a stranger on the internet

(i'll be discussing drawing within this post because that's my oeuvre but i would like to think it applies to a lot of things. really it's more 'advice on how to take advice' but i couldn't resist.)

If you are anything like me, you have made a thing or two in your time, and 90% of your knowledge on making those things was gained by looking up "How to (blank)" on the internet. There are many excellent resources available for free online! but who's making these resources? Usually, people -- people who are biased and don't know you personally.

Let's say you find a tutorial online telling you how to improve a part of your art you've been struggling with. The person making this tutorial has great art, and they explain the points in an easy-to-follow manner. before you pull out your sketchbook or tablet, (because you should be immediately practicing advice as soon as you see it otherwise it will slide directly out of your brain) you need to think about if you should actually follow that tutorial.

How can you tell? It's not about how good the person's art is, or even if they're a good teacher. What you need to be thinking about is if the tutorial is right for you, specifically.

Almost all "art tutorials" are tutorials on how to draw more like the person making them. it's something beginner artists admit to pretty often with titles like "how to draw this thing in my style" where instead intermediate artists will throw around "the better way to draw this thing!" or "stop drawing this thing like this!"

I'm not saying that's a bad thing! it's how art is, right? Good artists copy, great artists steal, so it makes sense that an art tutorial would simply be a guide on how to steal from the person making it. but it's something you need to be aware of.

people tend to raise a stink about tutorials using language like "this is the wrong way to draw something - this is the correct one" and in a lot of cases i think it's a valid complaint, but what's happened is that it's just resulted in changing the phrasing to "this is a good way to draw something, but this is a better way." which is just a nicer way of saying exactly the same thing.

since this language is so common, if you're going to find art tutorials online, the onus is on you to figure out which tutorials are good or bad for you and your art.

When you're looking at someone who's a professional artist, they're usually going to be clearer about who their advice is for. Take Ethan Becker, for example. His videos are excellent and i'd recommend him to basically anyone asking for visual art advice. However, as you can pick up on pretty quickly, his advice is for people looking to get into the animation industry!

If you're, say, looking to get into illustration, maybe more painterly stuff, his advice is still helpful, but you need to pick and choose what you need. The point about not wasting time learning muscle groups is great advice if you're only focused on working as a storyboarder or concept artist for an animation studio, but if you're interested in pretty much anything else, learning human anatomy is one of the most helpful things you can do. this doesn't mean he's wrong, of course. he's teaching the thing he knows, which is working in the animation industry.

If someone is saying that their way is "the better way to draw this thing" you need to look at their art, and what they're explaining, and figure out what they actually mean. is it "the better way to draw this thing for webcomic artists" or "the better way to draw this thing if you want to be popular on instagram"? what are your personal goals with your art?

this does not transition into my point about learning the fundamentals as well as i wanted it to and this post is already too long. more posts sometime soon because i love listening to myself talk. watch ethan becker.

[viledevilcunt]

anon if that was meant to be scathing or a slam dunk insult i've heard worse from my parents and psychiatrists

[caruliaa]

getting soo bitter hearing abt tswift tour presale codes on the uk store bc ik i wont be able to go but i also know that its not impossible like if i somehoww move out before the tour than maybe but itll have to be late in the year for that and my only current plan is to maybe bye tickets and sell them online if i cant make it but it might be to expensive for that and also ik after moving im immediately going to like. iv neve had ANY genuine independance before you think i have enough of a hold on myself to go to a fucking concert idk idk but i WANNA GO I WANNA GO SO FUCKING BADLY YOU HAVE NO IDEA IV NEVER EVEN BEEN TO A CONCERT OR ANYTHING HALFWAY CLOSE BEFORE BC IV BEEN SO CONTROLLED MY WHOLE LIFE AND I JUST HAD TO BE STUPID ENOUGH TO HAVE MY FAVE MUSICIAN BE ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR EVER AND GETTING TICKETS FOR HER WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE AND IL LBE BEATEN OUT BY PEOPLE WHOVE SEEN HER LIKE 10 TIMES ALREADY AND THEN WONT EVEN BE ABLE TO GO BECAUSE ILL PROB STILL BE STUCK LIVING WITH MY PARENTS BY THEIR RULES FOREVER OR i;; BARLEY HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO EAT EACH WEEK LET ALONE GO OUT AND SEE A CONCERT OMFG !!!!!

[dilemmaontwolegs]

The Perfect Life || CL16 {6}

Summary: After a confusing first night together it is time for the first public appearance with Charles. Warnings: angst, little bit of fluff WC: 2k F1 Masterlist || One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven Taglist: RETIRED Head over to my dedicated library blog @dilemmaslibrary and opt to get notifications from there.

An awkward silence filled the large space when you cut the engine inside the old factory and let the roller door close behind you. Charles rather elegantly dismounted and let you lock the motorbike up without a word. You had tried not to look at him too much after leaving the club but it was impossible to avoid now that there was nowhere to escape. 

“I’m going to shower,” you muttered. Charles sat at the edge of the bed and watched you walk to the only internal door. The old plumbing creaked as you turned the hot water onto full blast because it never reached any decent temperature above warm. You couldn’t suppress the hiss of pain when the water hit your body, each droplet like shrapnel on your skin.

“Are you okay?” Charles asked through the door.

“Never been better, Charles.”

You stared at a spiderweb that had appeared since your last visit until the water all too soon ran cold. A fluffy towel swamped your body and you relished the softness on your bruises, grateful you had stolen it from your bathroom. When you stepped out of the bathroom you found Charles still sat on the bed but now there were two beers condensating on the wobbly side table.

“Help yourself then,” you murmured as you grabbed a fresh pair of clothes from your backpack. “Look and I will throttle you.”

Charles turned his back as you dropped the towel and pulled your panties up your legs. Bending over sent white hot pain flashing through your ribs and tears burned your eyes when you tried to reach behind your back for the bra strap. Without the adrenaline of the fight everything felt ten times worse.

You jumped when cold fingertips brushed your spine and swiped your hands aside. “Let me.”

“Rumour has it you only know how to take these off,” you said as he clipped your bra into place. 

Charles turned you to face him and his eyes drifted down your body, lingering on the bruise blossoming on your ribs. “Since when have you cared about rumours?”

“I don’t, but your reputation precedes you. And, just so you know, I don’t have any friends for you to move on with after this ruse is up.”

“I don’t believe that,” he chuckled. “I think Alicia is your friend.”

“Alicia is too nice for her own good but she’s still on the payroll. I don’t think it’s friendship when it’s paid for.” You frowned as your stomach dropped as you realised what he had said and took a step back. “Plus, she is happily married so you’re out of luck there.”

Charles took a step to follow and caught your hand. “That’s not what I meant.”

You scoffed. “No?”

“No. You’re not as alone as you think you are. You have people who look out for you, and that’s friendship whether you believe it or not.” You tried not to let the words penetrate the internal walls you had built but they crumbled a little when he carefully embraced you. “You also don’t need to keep fighting, you have control of your future now.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” you admitted as you looked up under your lashes to meet his eyes.

“Then let me show you.” His palm cradled your cheek and his thumb caressed your jaw as you waited to see what he would do. “You can say no whenever you want. The choice is yours.” His eyes traced the shape of your lips before returning higher and his lips parted as he started to dip his head. “You are in control.”

It could have been the sleep deprivation, the crash of hormones after the fight, or the fact that he was as good looking as any of the models you had seen. But, whatever the reason for your weak resolve, you didn’t say no.

You didn’t say no when his lips brushed softly over yours, tentatively. You didn’t say no when he grew bolder and deepened the kiss, his tongue exploring the curve of your lips. 

“Stop,” you gasped when his hands began to glide down your body. They immediately froze and he pulled back with a deep breath. “I can’t tell if you are fucking with my head, Charles. You make me question everything I know about you.”

“I can only say ‘I’m sorry’ so many ways.”

“So you thought you would try fuck your apology onto me?”

“No,” he laughed. “That was purely self indulgent. Even when I couldn’t stand it I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the room.”

“I’m not having sex with you.”

“I told you, you’re in control,” he said with a nod. 

You returned the nod and jutted your chin to the bed. “I’m a cuddler, don’t read too much into it when you wake up with me invading your personal space. Or, you can take the couch.”

He looked at the ratty couch and shook his head before a grin grew. “I like spooning.”

You pointedly looked at sweatpants and lifted a brow. “Little spoon, I bet.”

Charles smirked and dropped down on the bed, making himself comfortable on your pillow. “Nothing little about it, babe.”

You scrunched up your nose and reached under the pillow for the Prema shirt you slept in but before you could pull it on it was ripped out of your hands. “Hey!”

“You are not going to sleep next to me in my brother’s shirt.”

“There’s not exactly a wardrobe full of options here,” you said as you tried to grab it back.

Charles caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one smooth movement before tossing it on your shoulder. “There you go.”

“I like that one.”

Charles gripped the fabric and tore the shirt in half as your eyes narrowed. “If we are going to fake this, we are doing it right. My girlfriend won’t be sleeping in another man’s shirt.”

“Fuck you, Leclerc,” you swore. It was better to be swathed in his clothing than half naked in your own, that was the only reason you pulled it on and breathed through your mouth so you didn’t have to inhale the rich cologne that clung to the soft fabric. You couldn’t be blamed for your actions if your hormones liked the smell too much because one thing was certain: when he lay there shirtless you had no control over your filthy thoughts.

You turned out the light and threw yourself down onto the bed with a pained groan that had nothing to do with your ribs. It was difficult but you managed to turn away from the man whose eyes drank in the sight of his shirt on you. 

“Arthur said I wouldn’t recognise you in the ring,” he confessed in the darkness, “but I think that’s the first time I’ve really seen you.”

You didn’t know how to respond when your heart started to beat like a jack rabbit so you settled for a sedate, “Goodnight, Charles.”

The pallets groaned with his shifting as he rolled over and his arm curved low on your waist, missing your ribs. A soft kiss found a place on your heated cheek and he whispered his own, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“You’re distracting me,” you muttered as you saw the shadow moving again. “Stop fiddling.”

Charles walked into the reflective field of the mirror after showering and he struggled to get the cufflinks into his Valentino suit. He walked around the table you were fixing your makeup at and held his arm out. “Can you please help?”

You fixed the shiny white gold pins into place before completing the finishing touches that completely concealed the bruises on your cheeks. The arnica had done its best to bring down the swelling but if anyone questions your puffy eyes you would just claim a rough night's sleep. 

“Can you zip me up?” you asked as you stepped out of the robe and into the gown chosen for the event. Charles knuckles traced your spine as he dragged the zip carefully up while you held your hair out of the way and the delicate touch sent goosebumps chasing in its wake. 

The Cannes Film Festival would be the first official outing with Charles and would publicise the relationship just in time for his home race. After the photos were snapped on the red carpet there would be no more privacy and every interaction would be watched by his eager fans. You knew what to expect - hate and hypercritical analysis were nothing new - but now they would come from run of the mill 20 year old females instead of millionaire middle-aged men.

A knock at the door interrupted the staring contest you found yourself in with Charles in the mirror and you stepped away to slip your heels on.

“The car is waiting downstairs,” Veronica said as she waltzed into your room. 

“Then it can keep waiting,” you replied while you chose an understanded clutch that wouldn’t distract from the dress. “I need two front row tickets to the opera next Saturday.” 

“But you have a-”

You held a hand up to interrupt her. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, just get me the tickets.”

Charles watched silently from the door, his phone and wallet in hand, and stepped aside to dodge the surly assistant that breezed from the room as quickly as she entered.

“We are attending the Palace dinner with Prince Albert next Saturday,” he said after Veronica had disappeared down the stairs. 

It wouldn’t be a Monaco Grand Prix without a Palace dinner and you had agreed to be Charles’ plus one. “I know.”

“Then why-”

“I don’t have to explain my every move to you, okay?”

His lips pressed closed in a tight line and he nodded sullenly.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed, feeling like crap for snapping at him. “I’m not used to having someone to explain my actions to.”

“I get it,” he said, but you got the feeling he really didn’t. He could talk to his family about what was happening in his life and they would listen, you didn’t have that luxury.

“We should go.”

The plush carpet absorbed your heel with each step and you held Charles’ arm a little tighter. Your father had been kind enough to remind you not to make an embarrassment of yourself and you really wished you had been able to take a separate vehicle. After escaping the last event with Charles they had made sure to keep you closer and stop that from happening again.

“Family photo,” your father said with a tight smile. “You too, Charles.”

“Yes, sir.” Charles stepped back into the frame and curled his arm around your waist, his palm warming your hip through your dress.

“Who are you wearing this evening?” the journalist beside the photographer asked, recording device at the ready.

“These divine pieces are from Bouchra Jarrar’s private collection,” your mother answered with a soft pat to your father’s suit jacket.

“And what is this knockout piece?”

You had far less enthusiasm when the attention turned to you. “Alexandre Vauthier, haute couture.”

“If only he knew what a knockout you really were,” Charles whispered in your ear, earning a real smile from you that the camera quickly snapped at.

“And you, Charles?”

“I’m not sure, she dressed me,” Charles said with a wink to you, charming everyone in the crowd including the reporter.

“He’s wearing new season Valentino but he was distracted by the Hypercar race when we picked it out.”

Charles’ laugh teased your skin and he shrugged innocently. “Forza Ferrari, baby.”

You eventually made it to the end of the red carpet and into the cinema for the special screening of some new drama film up for an award. The lights dimmed and the crowd fell silent with the opening credits but your entire focus was on the hand that slipped into yours.

“It’s dark in here,” you whispered. “You don’t need to pretend.”

“Who said I am pretending?”

The armrest was suddenly much closer as you found yourself gravitating to him and your cheek came to rest on his shoulder before the title even appeared.

“Pretending would probably be easier.”

“Probably, but it’s too late for me.”

You didn’t tell him but you had the exact same thought.

Click here for the next part.

[astrologydayz]

ASTROLOGY FUCKING NOTES3

MARS CONJUNCT JUPITER IN SYNASTRY can show a great deal of sexual chemistry between 2 people! Sometimes a little2 great?? It can shift at times, love. Sex can be a daily thing here! Jupiter encourages Mars competitiveness, and Mars leans on Jupiter4support/wisdom or just their "happy, go lucky" attitude. They can really enjoy being out together, instead of just staying home. Can sometimes end up doing wild/stupid things 2gether, because they don’t know their limits - UNLESS some serious Saturn/Cap is involved ofc. Look at sign/s/&house/s 2 c how this conjunction exactly plays out!

MARS SQUARE JUPITER IN SYNASTRY can show sexual attraction yes, but it will cause a loooot of friction. Jupiter being very "U know I'm always right", & the Mars person coming with 40 reasons why the Jupiter person is not right. Endless battle of different beliefs, not coming2an agreement. Jupiter "knows best", &Mars won't “put up with it”. Jupiter can "belittle" Mars, with their "preaching" a lot. Can also show different sexual preferences later in the relationship. Look at signs+houses2c why Jupiter feels a need2 be better than Mars, &why Mars won't let Jupiter take a win.

MARS OPPOSITE JUPITER IN SYNASTRY can show chemistry - AT FIRST. The Jupiter person loves to provoke the Mars person - make them go loca/make them feel like there's something wrong with them over the smallest things&Mars acts out by getting mad or aggressive. Can also show that they have different needs, when it comes 2 sexual things after a little while - what they want, need, how they go about it etc. Look at signs+houses2c why Jupiter feels a need2test/play games with the Mars person &why Mars can't use their "higher mind" instead of acting out

Look at your Chiron persona chart 2 c what kind of hurt you've been through/will go through.  Let's say u have SUN CONJUNCT IC IN PISCES in this chart, then that shows us that your father has/father figure/s/ have hurt u VERY deeply, when u were/are at home with them. They would/will hurt u with their "drinking”/"drugs", or "unrealistic expectations" (Pisces). It can also be that your dad wasn't even around/gone a lot, & that's the "scar". It follows u throughout your life, even when it's in your persona chart.

🤍  SUN SQUARE/QUINCUNX MOON in this chart, causes a scar between the way u express your pain through your ego - Sun, and how u really want your pain 2 be seen with your Moon/how u emotionally seek to feel comfortable with showing your pain. They don't work together, before u finally learn how 2 live with whatever self expression you're meant to have. Internal fights with yourself because again, you show your pain one way (through your sun), but that's not the way your moon feels content/safe showing your pain, when it squares your Moon.

SUN TRINE MOON in this chart can have an easy time "healing" their Chiron with the way they express themselves (Sun), and with how they find a balance between pain and healing. They can even help other people, because of their ease, 2 find a way 2 stay sane, while going through pain - (Trine). But as I always say. I don't believe u ever "fully" heal your Chiron, so ofc it's not always good with this aspect either. Chiron is pain, and most people do not heal their Chiron. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

I’ve already said this on my old blog, but if you’re interested in seeing your husband/Wife - future husband/wife = LOOK AT YOUR GROOM ASTEROID - 5129 PERSONA CHART/BRIEDE ASTEROID - 19029 PERSONA CHART JUNO PERSONA CHART shows the people u truly commit 2 here in life - people who doesn't want 2 marry - their folks shows up here<33 - it also shows u how, & what u need 2 commit<33. Look at ADRASTEA asteroid - 239 PERSONA CHART 2c the traumas u couldn't escape/can’t escape. If you're a WOMAN, & a man has/or men have caused u trauma/sexual trauma, please look at your LILITH PERSONA CHART - 1181).

Look at ABUNDANTIA asteroid - 151) PERSONA CHART 2 c how, &where you receive abundance/where you’re “lucky”. Look at your ANGEL asteroid - 11911) PERSONA CHART 2 c where you're the most "protected"/where people can't fuck with u. It also shows u your "job” here - “contracts” you’ve made, before coming here. Look at your MONY asteroid - 7782) PERSONA CHART 2c where u can make a buck/Where u will, or won't have problems with making/getting money. Look at your JACK LONDON asteroid - 2625) PERSONA CHART 2 c where you'll get the biggest “wtf, is this really happening to me, moments”. Good or bad.

MARS CONJUNCT/SQUARE/QUINCUNX NEPTUNE can show a person doing drugs💊/getting high🍁/or drinking a lot🥃. Can love getting high/drunk, bc they love getting away from "reality"/loves "being in their own world". Hating being "present" here&now. "Reality sucks sometimes"💋. VENUS OPPOSITE ASC/CONJUNCT DSC typically gets very beautiful romantic partners throughout life, & experiences very loving relationships/marriages. They themselves can also be very loving towards their close partnerships - business relationships even/or just towards their very close ones - like lovers/close friends or family members. Relationships with models/artistic/entertaining/or creative people = something u see very often here2. They don't really like to fight/argue with the ones they hold close, but would rather just be in loving relations. Unless Venus is afflicted, ofc.

JUPITER CONJUNCT NEPTUNE usually has some top dollar insights into what the fuck we're doing here. They get "downloads", without them knowing exactly why they suddenly know something/they just know they're right in their belief/s. They can be really into spirituality, "mystical things", & "things people won't always believe in". Can be quite “protected” from somewhere2. People can also feel "small" next 2 this individual, cuz they're typically seen as this "larger than life" person. "Lucky2be around them".

THANKS4READING LOVE!!!

APPRECIATE U, ALWAYS🖤.

[shuenkio]

Birthday present | Psh. 🎁

Paring: Sunghoon x M!reader | Genre: Fluff

ᯤ Synopsis: He was unhappy with the gift that you gave him, SH was mad but what kind of present did he truly want?

ᯤ Cw: None maybe.

ᯤ Non proof read | Eng is not my first.

ᯤ This is a work of fanfiction, do not throw unnecessary tantrums on this nsfw/sfw blog. ©Shuenkio

ᯤ Crd to all the owner [dv/pics]

A✓N: probably disappear after this one for real[fr], the exam is under my nose and here I am, writing delusional thoughts. 🫂

To be friends with Sunghoon was so easy; you don't get why all those girls say it's so hard like this, it's so hard like that. When m/n just go and give Sunghoon a bottle of water one time after his practice for the match as a figure skater.

Ever since then, you and him get along pretty quickly, or maybe you're just his teammates? Privilege, of course. But little did you know that Sunghoon is not the type to express his heart or how he feels about something, nor is an exciting surprise out of his expression. He was indeed a cold person, to be honest.

Yet you can still hang out with Sunghoon; having enough patience to be there for him whenever he's spacing out, freezing, is like sometimes you wonder if you have a robot friend. Cloud began to set into a breathtaking sight of night, filled with the city lights lit up. It was time to go back home after a long, intense day of practicing. Sunghoon is not here because he had finished before you ever since this morning.

Checking your phone for a time, you saw a reminder pop up on your notification.

"Sunghoon's birthday today; let's post and wish for him."

Oh, it's actually his birthday; maybe time flies too fast to even think about anything; December 8 is here already. Furrow your brow, rubbing your chin with your slender fingers. Having deep thoughts, what should you give him for his special day? He's not the type who loves luxury things like men do, such as watches, belts, or whatever you just know he'd not too plead at it.

Pop, you suddenly get an idea by gifting him glasses because he likes them a lot. Wait, what if he doesn't like it? Perhaps winter is approaching; a scarf wouldn't be that bad, isn't it? It's keeping everyone warm; each one of us needs it. A scarf that it. Must stop by a fashion store before heading home to see him at his place.

7 p.m. comes by in a blink of an eye, and you find yourself knocking on his door. You didn't realize that he'd be throwing a party and celebrating with his family and friends; all you had in mind was to deliver him his gift. The door cracked open, revealing a taller figure. In front of you, Sunghoon, who had a birthday hat around his head. Funny, because he's not into childish stuff; it must be his mom.

"M/N, you're here! Uh, what are those?" Seeing a plastic bag in your hand makes him wonder what it could be. As you respond quickly by saying it was his gift, so then both of you get inside the house first. The party is still ongoing, yet some of his relatives are already full, which makes the house empty for some reasons.

Settled down all of your stuff in one place as you make your way to where Sunghoon are. He was in a kitchen, pouring soda into two empty cups. Tapping him on the shoulder while your hand is holding a bag behind your back, ready to surprise him even if he won't be surprised anyway.

"M/n? Here, soda, you must be tired from the training!" Said from a tipsy guy, handing you a cup. You didn't accept it yet till you finally handed him the gift you've been wanting to give him before taking the cup. Sunghoon didn't realize he was smiling from ear to ear the moment M/N gave him.

Whether he was surprised or not, a gift is a gift; it was meant to be a little curious. What could that be, isn't it? Fishing inside the brand plastic bag, he found a vintage scarf inside; it suits his skin tone well though, despite being as pale as snow. He then unwrapped and blanketed his neck with his new scarf. Did he like it? You bet he might not by the face he made right now, catching you off guard a little.

"Did you like it? Sunghoon, we've been friends for ages, but I can't deny what your favorite thing is you love the most. Sorry, Hyung, if that's not on your... expected list." Feeling a little hurt and guilty, a present is meant to be accepted in all kind the guest gives, while Sunghoon did otherwise.

"I don't like it, quite much m/n; you should know me better." With a smile that almost wiped his cheeks, Sunghoon frowned, unhappy. The scarf on his neck, the item you spend time thinking deep to find one—guess you're wrong this year. Sigh, you have to make it up to him this time; anything will do.

"Sorry, really, I'll find something more perfect for you; just say it." Picking on your finger's nails, you determined you'd do as Sunghoon told; one word will do; that's all Sunghoon needs to say. The taller's lit up slightly; this is the moment he has been waiting for for years. Anything? Sunghoon likes it.

"We have been friends for ages, right m/n?"

"Yeah?"

"Then, let's not be friends anymore; I'm tired of this friendship." Nani? Goosebumps were running and throwing your skin as your heart sank deeper than a Titanic ship. Did he really say that? What did you do wrong to be as guilty or bad for him to have the guts to no longer want to be friends with you?

"What do you mean, Sunghoon? I've never done anything wrong, am I? Right?" Tears are almost forming; a waterfall could break anytime soon. To prevent that, Sunghoon takes a rewind turn and gets into the point then. He was afraid you'd be a cry mess if he didn't spit any loner.

"Be my boyfriend instead; I hate that I can't be more than a friend! I wanna love you, m/n," placing your palm on your chest; if only only you had heart issues, a second won't spare. M/N almost nearly fainted with the sudden confession from a friend of his, who is the cold-hearted guy. This is something.

"Kill me now."

"I'll take that... As a yes, my boyfriend." 

[pendarling]

A Discussion

Villain watched mournfully as Hero packed their clothes back into their bags and collected their items along with it too. It wasn't like Villain could keep Hero imprisoned forever in their home, but a piece of them wished they were able to keep Hero convinced to stay one more night.

With their jacket wrapped around their shoulders, Hero lifted the luggage. "I'll be off then." They leaned down to kiss Villain, who had laid on the couch with their arms crossed.

"You could quit your job." They said although they knew it wouldn't work. After all, Hero was a very dedicated citizen and remained loyal to their day job aside from all the hero work. "Or you could quit!" They called out as Hero moved toward the door to put on their shoes; Villain sat up, waiting eagerly for a response—anything to keep Hero in their arms.

"I can't quit my job, how else am I supposed to make a living?" They chuckled briefly and continued tying their shoes.

"No, I meant to stop all the hero stuff. It doesn't necessarily pay you to be good."

"Or..." Hero turned, "You could quit, and we can both work a normal day job."

Villain sighed, reluctant and partially annoyed that, once again, they failed to convince Hero to be anything but what they were now. "What if I..." They trailed off, hesitant at their next idea, "What if I were to kidnap you, then you would have to stay with me."

"And what about my apartment?" Hero's head tilted. "Who will be paying the bills in my absence?"

"Who cares about some shitty apartment, Hero. Everything you need is right here!" They pointed to the kitchen counter. "Look, you won't even bother to pick up the bowl that you brought because you know that next weekend, you'll wanna stay here with me instead."

Hero dismissed it with a shrug, still standing idly by the door, a smirk playing on their lips as they watched Villain's desperate attempts at getting them to stay, "Who says I'll be here next week? If I keep coming and going, someone will become a little suspicious."

Villain threw up their arms, "Let them be suspicious! Let them speculate!"

"My peers will call me a traitor. I need my friends to know they can trust me." Hero bit their lip. They had to admit that having a large group of heroes so tightly familiar with them was turning out to be an obstacle, but they couldn't simply leave either.

"Those hero friends of yours again," Villain leaned back with a loud scoff; they knew if anything, Villain hated them more than the world. Always on Villain's tail, ruining another plan. "Why do you always need their permission to do stuff. It's your life."

"Dear--"

"You could have whatever you want," Their arms stretched out, then pointed to themselves, "I could get it for you."

"I know." Hero stepped closer, "It's just until this is all over."

"When?" They egged. Neither of them knew the timeframe when would come a time when it would be appropriate to be together, but throwing tghe question out there would give them something to think about. One way or another, they'd have to conclude.

The room fell into silence.

Hero rubbed their temple, "Okay, I'll text you later." They reached for the door; Villain jumped up and rushed to the door to wrap their arms around Hero one last time.

"I love you, honey."

"I love you too." They kissed shortly, "Don't stay up too late."

"You know I can't sleep without you next to me."

"Look at the stars, my love. I'll be underneath them too."

~~~

MASTERLIST

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[7ndipity]

Accidental Announcement

Taehyung x Idol Reader

Summary: You and Tae’s relationship is revealed to his members in an unplanned, slightly awkward way.

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: suggestive, like one swear, Tae refers to reader as his girlfriend,

A/N: Thanks to the lovely anons who sent both of these requests! I decided to combine them into the same piece, I hope that’s okay. Idk why, but it’s funny to me that I went from not really knowing much about Idol AUs, to having several ongoing series’ of them on this blog!

Masterlist

Requests are open

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The backstage area of the music show was always so crowded and noisy that it made it easy for Tae to slip up beside you without anyone really paying attention, catching your hand in his before leaning in closer than nessary to mumble lowly in your ear.

“I’ve got a room to myself tonight, do you want to come over?”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” You asked, casting a sidelong glance at him, a smirk playing at the corners of your mouth.

“Whatever you want.” He replied, slipping a keycard into your hand smoothly before going back to find his members.

You were a bit surprised by his brazeness of the action, the past few weeks apart while traveling with your respective groups having apparently made him a little more needy than usual, though you couldn’t say you minded.

It wasn’t uncommon for you and Tae to slip off to each others rooms when you found out you were staying at the same hotel, but it was usually brief since there was the constant risk of one of the members walking in on you, due to having to share rooms all the time. But having a solo room meant there was no such threat for once.

You slipped down to his room after he texted that the coast was clear, spending a relatively quiet evening together before getting ready for bed, borrowing one of his t-shirts to sleep in, having conveniently ‘forgotten’ to bring your own pj’s with you.

As you wandered back out of the bathroom, you noticed Tae very engrosed in whatever it was that he was watching on his phone.

Out of curiosity, you snuck up behind him and peeked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse at his phone, surprised to see yourself, winking at the camera as you danced earlier that night during the music show.

“Are you watching fan edits of me?!” You squealed, making him jump and drop his phone, which you were quick to snatch up to get a better look.

“Ya! That was just in my recomendations! Give it back!” He jumped to his feet, chasing you round the bed, but you were too quick, darting across the mattress to save yourself from a full body tackle. You tried to make a dash for the bathroom, but were to slow, as he managed to grab hold of your arm and spin you so you were pinned between him and the front door.

“Give me that!” He giggled breathlessly as he wrangled his phone out of your grip.

“I can’t believe it, you’re such a fanboy!” You laughed, equally out breath, choosing to wrap your arms around his neck both for support and to pull him down to your eye level.

“Only because you’re so cute.” He cooed, catching your lips in a teasing kiss, trailing his hands up your sides slowly and making you squirm against him, momentarily lost in the feel of each other that you didn’t hear the sound of his door knob turning.

“Taehyung, do you know where- Yi-ash!” Before either of you could react, the door had opened, resulting in you and Tae falling out into the hallway, landing squarely at Jin’s feet in pile of limbs.

For a moment, you all froze, staring wide-eyed at each other in shock.

“Hyung, I-” Tae started.

“What was tha- whoa.” The door to the room next to Tae’s opened, revealing Jungkook and Jimin now peering out, equally shocked. “Y/n?”

“Hi, guys.” You said awkwardly, hyper aware of how compromising your current position looked. “Uh, Tae, can I get up?” You whispered, snapping you boyfriend out of his daze.

“Yeah, sorry!”

“What’s going on?” Jin asked as Tae scrambled to his feet and helped you up.

“Nothing! We were just-”

“Does Namjoon know about this?” Jungkook asked.

“Know about what?”

“Oh, for shit’s sake!” Tae whipped around to face the leader and Hobi, who had just exited the elevator, trying to hide you behind his back, as if that was going to help anything at this point.

“What is with all the noise?” Yoongi opened his door, blinking tiredly at the sight of everyone standing in the hall for several long seconds before wordlessly closing the door again, deciding against involving himself in whatever scene was unfolding right now.

“What’s going on?” Joon asked, glancing around at his members, eyes widening slightly as he spotted you, wearing one of Tae’s t-shirts and wishing to dissolve into the wallpaper. “Y/n?-”

“Y/n’s my girlfriend.” Tae blurted out loudly, causing everyone’s attention to whip to him, including yours. ”We’re dating, but I haven’t told the company yet.”

There was another pause as that information sank in, before Junkook spoke again, breaking the silence.

“Way to go, hyung.” He grinned at you and Tae.

“Yeah, good for you guys.” Jimin agreed, shooting you both a thumbs up.

“You’re not mad?” Tae asked, glancing at everyone nervously.

“Why would we be mad? So long as you’re careful, It’s your life.” Hobi said encourangingly.

“Yeah, I mean, I would’ve rather not have found out by catching you two doing that-” Jin said.

“We weren’t doing anything!” Tae exclaimed.

“Tell that to the hickey on you neck.” Jimin chirpped, dissolving into giggles as Tae clapped a hand to his neck in alarm.

“Okay, um, we can talk about this later, can everyone just please go back to your rooms before one of the staff shows up?” Joon said quickly, herding the two younger members back into their room.

“Be safe, you two!” Jungkook called, closing the door before Tae could snap back at him.

“Thank you, hyung.” Tae said to Namjoon.

“Don’t worry about it, man, we’ll talk later.” Joon replied, patting Tae on the shoulder before nodding to you. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” You said, catching Tae’s hand before making your way back to his room.

“Oh, hyung?” Tae leaned back out into the hall to address Jin. “What was it you came to ask me?”

The eldest member blinked for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t even remember.”

Tae nodded. “Alright then, goodnight.” He closed the door firmly, making sure both locks were engaged before slumping against it with a groan.

“Well, that’s not how I planned for that to go.” He said, rubbing his face tiredly.

“What? Telling you bandmates about us, or asking me to be your girlfriend?” You asked, leaning against the dresser as you studied him.

“Both.” He admitted, looking at you apologetically. “I am so, so sorry.”

You shrugged. “At least it was just them and not your manager.”

He nodded before slowly straightening and coming to stand in front of you. “Will you let me fix one of my missteps from tonight?”

“Depends which one it is.” You said, smirking up at him.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” He asked you, staring down at you solomly.

“Hmm.” You pretended to mull it over. “I guess.”

“You guess?!” He balked, making you laugh.

“Yes, you goof, I will.” You relented, wraping your arms around his neck to pull him into a kiss.

“Good, I don’t think my heart could take any more surprises tonight.” He mumbled against your mouth.

“Plus, the guys would be upset.”

“The guys?” He raised a brow at you before hoisting you up and dropping you on the bed. “I don’t want to hear about ‘the guys’ again for the rest of the night.” He grumbled, climbing to hover over you.

“Are you possesive now?” You asked, grinning up at him.

“You’re gonna find out.”

[pupyuj]

→ “temporary fix.” || yoon seeun x reader fic.

— being friends with yoon seeun means doing whatever it takes to help her forget that the fact that her ex has become significantly happier without her, so you give her exactly what she needs...

word count: 3.5k.

dynamic: dom!bottom!yoon seeun x sub!top!virgin!reader.

content warnings: smut, fingering, nipple play, a bit of hair pulling, this is surprisingly very tame despite the image i had for it initially oh—

requested? : nope.

a/n: my first stayc fic <3 i enjoyed making this, and i hope you guys like it! sorry if there are major errors!! i was really hoping i finished this way earlier but alas... life 🥲 anyway this is just one of my many gifts for you for getting this blog to reach 1k!! you're all amazing n i love you and i'll see you guys in the next fics and the [REDACTED] hehehe 👀

“she has to be doing this on purpose at this point.”

you say, as your best friend seeun stares bitterly at her ex-girlfriend from far away. chaeyoung sat on the poolside with her ankles in the water and she was laughing loudly at whatever the hell her other friends were doing in the pool. there was some kind of longing in seeun’s eyes and you knew what it meant, it was easy to figure out after all. seeun missed chaeyoung, and deeply regrets leaving her for a reason she has yet to disclose with you still. even after two years of the break-up in question.

“i mean, come on! this is the fourth party where she was ‘coincidentally’ invited to along with her ex—you.” 

you do try to desperately cheer seeun up. you have never once liked seeing her in despair. but something about seeing chaeyoung smiling that widely, shining that brightly, and laughing that loudly does something to seeun’s brain. and it was always nothing good. either this night will end with seeun crying in your arms about how heartbroken she is for hurting chaeyoung the way she did, or neither of you will speak about the event and just sit solemnly on her bed eating pizza and drinking homemade smoothies while a movie plays in the background.

you hope that it will be something different tonight. maybe seeun will be smiling for once! you wanted her and chaeyoung to completely end things on good terms. you knew seeun wasn’t in love with chaeyoung because she had said so many times before, but before they were girlfriends, they were friends. and you knew that it was that them not being able to rekindle their friendship after their break-up was the real reason why seeun always gets so upset whenever she sees chaeyoung.

jayoon, one of chaeyoung’s friends, looks across the pool and meets gazes with seeun, who visibly freezes up. jayoon grins and waves at seeun excitedly, making the other girls as well as chaeyoung turn their heads in curiosity. sumin and yeeun wave at seeun as well, while sieun was rather surprised to see seeun being in the same place as chaeyoung. speaking of which, chaeyoung herself stared at seeun. the latter was convinced that her ex was going to look away, or look at her in disgust or something along those emotions but… chaeyoung smiled softly at her.

kind as ever. and fuck, seeun wanted to cry.

“(y/n)... can we leave?”

you looked at chaeyoung and your best friend back and forth, unsure of what to do.

“are you sure…? what if yujinnie looks for you—”

“i need to go, (y/n),” seeun pries her gaze away from chaeyoung. her eyes were brimming with tears and she grabbed your wrist tightly. “please. i can’t be in here.” seeun puts her head on your shoulder as her tears fall and conveniently, a crowd forms in front of the two of you, effectively hiding her from chaeyoung’s view.

“okay… let’s go.”

seeun wipes her tears away with the back of her hand and smiles at some passing stranger briefly before pulling you towards the front door. she bids goodbye to everybody like normal, expressing faux regrets and even using you ‘not feeling well enough to stay’ as an excuse. you play along of course, you would gladly drop anything for your best friend. yujin was pretty sad that her favorite people had to leave, but she was pretty pre-occupied with stopping a drunken jiwon and gaeul from doing keg stands to really care so she merely waved goodbye before the two of you disappeared behind the front door.

seeun wordlessly climbs into your passenger seat, strapping on the seatbelt and leaning back. you couldn’t read her expression, and it was scary. you decided not to ask about it, however, and pulled out of yujin’s driveway before driving away. seeun had your denim jacket covering her thighs from the chill, and she was looking out the window—no doubt there were a million thoughts going through her head at the moment. thoughts you hoped she would find to share with you so you could take care of her.

like the good best friend that you were, and always have been.

“where are we going, (y/n)?” seeun asks eventually, now looking a bit annoyed as she scans the houses outside.

“huh? i’m taking you to your house.”

seeun looks at you like you’ve lost your mind, “what? no. i want to go to your place tonight.”

“oh… okay.”

you drove past seeun’s house and at the same time, seeun decided to pull out her phone. most likely to text one of her parents that she wasn’t going to come home. it was a normal occurrence, anyway. seeun’s parents originally didn’t like sending their kid off to sleep at another person’s place—a stranger at that!—but you gained their trust eventually… and soon enough, a young yoon seeun found herself staying over your place twice every week.

nowadays, seeun doesn’t even have to tell her parents anything. they know she is always under your care.

“did you want to eat anything?” you asked as the two of you entered your house. it was dark and quiet, but not the kind that scared you. seeun shook her head as she slipped out of her sneakers, then she stood properly, staring as you placed your car and house keys on the key hooks by the door.

“what?” you said. seeun looked at you with wonder in her eyes, then she merely smiles at you before making her way towards your room. the final glance she sends you before she completely disppeared behind a corner made your heart skip a beat, as much as you didn’t want it to.

you followed seeun to your bedroom, where was already digging through her own drawer for some fresh set of clothes. you decided to collapse on your bean bag chair, sighing blissfully at the feeling of being in the comfort of your own bedroom. seeun goes to your bathroom with some clothes in hand, barely closing the door behind her. sure, seeun said she didn’t want anything to eat when you asked her earlier, but you knew she would be grumbling about being hungry after about thirty minutes of laying silently on the bed with you, so you decided to go on your phone to browse some good food to order.

“are we watching a movie tonight, seeun?” you asked as you scrolled through your phone.

“up to you.” seeun replied.

you sighed, looking at your black tv screen. “i do not want to…” you muttered, now finding it too much of a hassle to look for food to eat and a movie to watch. you decided to melt further in your bean bag chair, blinking away your fatigue until seeun came back out of the bathroom, ruffling her soft hair as she held her neatly folded party clothes in her arms.

“freshen up, sleepyhead.” seeun took your hand and pulled you up with much difficulty. seeun didn’t really think about how close the two of you would be, physically of course, before she pulled you up to your feet. right now, she could feel your breath on her face and your warmth on her skin—it all gave her goosebumps. seeun raises a hand and brushes a few stray hairs away from your face and… is she blushing?

“g-give me a minute.” you slipped past your best friend, grabbed a random combination of your usual sleepwear and disappeared insde the bathroom. your cheeks felt so hot, and your heart was beating erratically. what the fuck. you were afraid this would happen tonight. again.

truth to be told, lately you have been feeling a few things towards your very own best friend. you tsrtaed to find her prettier than normal, and sometimes you can’t even look or speak to her without your brain screaming at you like crazy. but you didn’t want to acknowledge it. you managed to convince yourself that you were just so terribly lonely that your heart has decided to ‘settle’ for your best friend. first of all, that was unacceptable considering seeun was hurting because of her ex-girlfriend! second, you knew seeun wouldn’t see you in that way, so why would you even bother?

and third, perhaps most importantly, one does not try to get into a romantic relationship with their best friend unless they want their heart to suffer the most gut-wrenching heartbreak ever. you cherished your heart too much to let yourself be hurt like that, so seeun? absolutely off limits!!

“i thought you said you didn’t wanna watch anything?” you teased as you walked out of the bathroom in some shorts and one of your big shirts. seeun was sitting on your bed, eyes glued to your tv screen as ‘clueless’ played.

“i had to find something to entertain me while you were taking your sweet time in there.” seeun pats the big empty space on your bed, beckoning you over. you settled beside her, relishing in the mingling feeling of your cold bed and your best friend’s warmth. seeun was closer to you than usual, or maybe you were overexaggerating… but then seeun hugs your arm, putting her chin on your shoulder… and with her lips so close to your skin, you couldn’t help but shiver.

“sorry i ruined your night. i know you wanted to be in that party,” seeun fidgeted with the hem of your shirt. “because of wonyoung, right? you guys have something, don’t you?” your best friend asked. she didn’t have to, though. she watched you develop this big stupid crush on the campus princess over the past few months, and she knew that she was the reason you were holding yourself back from fully committing all of your attention to the other girl.

seeun needed you, her best friend, especially at this time of her life.

“no, don’t worry about it. i’d rather be here, honestly. my head was starting to hurt.” you smiled at your best friend, surprising yourself by the close proximity. the tip of seeun’s nose nearly touched yours, making your breath hitch. it didn’t go unnoticed by seeun, of course, and her eyes flicker down to your lips.

your heart was hammering in your chest—this was really going to happen, isn’t it?

“thank you for being so willing to get me out of there. away from chaeyoung,” seeun whispered. a cold hand slips underneath your shirt, resting on your waist, and your best friend presses herseld up against you even more. an overly-sweet side hug, you were convinced.

that was until seeun climbed onto your lap, wrapping her arms around your neck and pulling you even closer as if that was possible.

“you’ll help me heal from her, right, (y/n)? even just for one night?” seeun asked. of course you weren’t stupid, you knew what she was implying.

a part of you wanted to resist. seeun was your best friend. surely everything will change if the two of you were to go through with this, right? and you didn’t want anything like that to happen between the two of you. but how could you resist? especially when seeun brushes your hair back, cradles your face in her hands, and runs her thumb across your lips so gently? and how could you even think of pushing her away when she leans down and kisses you?

how could you stop yourself from melting? warmth bloomed across your chest the longer seeun’s lips were on yours. kissing her was like biting into a cotton candy—it was sweet, so sweet, and you could never get enough. and so you ask for more, and more you do get.

eventually, seeun was laying down on the bed with you on top of her. she was touching and groping as her lips moved expertly in sync with yours. you didn’t know what to do. as much as you liked what you were doing with seeun, you had no idea how to move further from this. so, you pulled back, but not too far as seeun stopped you from doing so by clutching your shirt, trying desperately to pull you back in. “s-seeun… wait, how do i… what do i do?” you were embarrassed to be asking that kind of question in the middle of the act, and even more embarrassed seeing your best friend laugh at you. 

seeun was sweet about it, however. “i’ll help you, don’t worry.”

seeun kisses you again—one hand cupping your cheek and the other softly holding your wrist, guiding your hand all the way down her thighs, sneaking them in between and making you feel her cunt through her shorts. “touch me, (y/n). go on.” seeun whispers against your lips. and so you do—unzipping her jean shorts and slowly slipping your hand inside. you couldn’t believe you were touching your very own best friend’s pussy, and you couldn’t believe she was letting you! christ, she wasn’t just letting you, she was telling you to!

feeling her folds through the fabric of her panties, witnessing the slightest changes on seeun’s features as you did so. “come on… you can do better than that.” seeun said as she slightly bucked her hips into your hands. she was so desperate for your touch that she didn’t care that she looked ridiculous. she could never look like that to you though.

“a-are you sure…?” you just had to ask. seeun smiles softly at you, appreciating your intent but goddamn, she was so impatient that she didn't even reply. merely lifting her hips up and removing her shorts on her own, seeing that you weren’t going to do that anytime soon. you stared at your best friend incredulously as she threw her shorts to the side, all while smirking at your expression.

“still doubting what i want, (y/n)?” this time, seeun pulls off her shirt. she doesn’t let you ogle at her perfect body for too long before she takes your face in her hands and kisses you again. thankfully this time, you knew what to do with yourself, albeit barely. reaching behind seeun’s back and pulling off her bra, letting it fall off to the side on top of her discarded shorts. she tugs on the collar of your shirt, and immediately you took it off, also desperate to feel your best friend’s skin against yours.

“i always thought you were pretty, (y/n).” seeun says, her hands gliding along your back.

“i could say the same thing to you.” you said. you leaned back down, smiling briefly at your best friend before putting your lips on her neck, earning a soft moan. “is this okay?” you whispered against her skin. you only felt seeun nod before she leaned closer, clearly wanting you to continue, and so you do. you nipped and ran your tongue all over her neck until little red spots were blooming. perhaps you went overboard, but hearing seeun moan and softly call out your name as you did it just flipped a switch to your brain.

you couldn’t wait to touch her. to help her. to kiss her. tonight, she was yours. not to the little parts of chaeyoung that remained in her heart, but yours.

and you were going to make every single second of this worth it. for the both of you.

your lips trailed further down seeun’s body, quickly reaching her chest. you looked up at your best friend, searching for any sign of discomfort or uncertainty. there was none, so you proceeded with taking one of seeun’s boobs into your hand, gently squeezing it before wrapping your lips around the hard bud. while swirling your tongue around her nipple, your other hand slowly trailed down her stomach until you reached her panties, pulling it off without a problem and immediately cupping her dripping cunt.

“good job, (y/n)—ah…!” seeun buries her hands in your hair as you move on to her other nipple, giving it the same kind of care and attention as the other one. simultaneously, you pressed your fingers against seeun’s clit, circling it as well as teasing her entrance. “y-you’re not actually completely clueless, are you, baby?” seeun asks, her fingers threading your hair as you continue to pleasure her nipple. you opened your eyes, immediately meeting seeun’s very own soft ones. while you flicked her nipple with your tongue, you slowly inserted two fingers inside her, watching as she threw her head back in pleasure.

“g-good… good..!” seeun’s hold on your hair tightens, and it hurt a bit but you didn’t mind. you feel wrap one leg around your thighs, afraid that if she doesn’t lock you in, you would leave. but there was no way that was going to happen now—especially after you’ve felt just how warm she was inside. you pushed your fingers deeper inside her, rubbing her clit with your thumb in an attempt to soothe her but you didn’t know that it only sent her mind reeling.

you tilted her head, worry settling on your stomach when seeun clutches onto your shoulder a bit too tightly. “seeun?” you stopped your movements, pulling your fingers out and putting your hand on her abdomen to soothe her.

seeun glares at you, “don’t stop, (y/n).”

“i-i just thought—”

“fuck me. don’t think of anything else.”

seeun yanks on your hair and pulls your face up to hers, kissing you roughly. you kissed her back, your hand once again making its way down to her pussy. this time, you didn’t allow yourself to listen to the small voices in your mind that told you that something about all of this was so wrong. your best friend, seeun, was in a vulnerable place and even though she let you, you were taking advantage of it to satisfy your personal interests.

something was telling you to stop. to get yourself in the right state of mind. to tell your best friend that all the things she was doing to forget about chaeyoung, especially this, was wrong. but instead, you plunged your two fingers deep inside seeun, thrusting into her in a pace that made her swear, and moan so loud, and sob into your shoulder.

“ff-fuck…! fuck, (y/n)—more…” seeun wrapped her arms around your neck, completely burying her head hidden from view. you kissed her cheek before doing what she asked, increasing your speed even further and doing your hardest to hit all the right spots. every thrust, every lingering sensations on her clit, and every kiss filled seeun’s mind with only you. as much as it started to hurt now, seeun could only take what you were giving her—just so every remaining image of her ex-girlfriend completely disappears from her mind.

and perhaps that’s exactly what happened when you finally curled your fingers inside her and made her come all over your hand. you were pretty sure that you had multiple bleeding wounds on your back from the way seeun scratched you as she came undone, moaning your name and all.

you stared at seeun—she looked so fucking pretty all fucked out and sweaty. her chest heaved up and down, and she blinked the fatigue away because she knew that from the way you licked your fingers hungrily that you weren’t done with her. but that was all she wanted right now.

“all night, seeun,” you promised her. “if that’s what it’ll take you.”

and indeed, you fucked your best friend all night. seeun never once begged for you to stop. after every orgasm she had, she only asked for more until you knew she couldn’t come anymore. you were pretty sure that the sun had started rising up by the time seeun finally allowed herself to get some rest. you laid yourself down beside her, fixing up her hair as she slowly succumbed into sleep.

you talked yourself through your own worries since seeun wasn’t there to do so. consoling your own heart because you were so fucking terrified that everything wouldn’t be the same after all of this—after everything the two of you did this night.

you were prepared to face the worst when you woke up alone hours later. you expected to be cold, to feel empty inside but it was the exact opposite. when you opened your eyes, you felt warm and your heart was full.

maybe it was because of the fact that your blanket was placed carefully and perfectly so that it would cover your entire body from the cold. maybe it was because your room was illuminated by the beautiful sunlight streaming through your curtains.

or maybe because the first thing you saw after opening your eyes was seeun drying her hair with a towel after exiting your bathroom, looking at you and smiling and saying, “hey, sleepyhead.” ensuring you of the fact that absolutely nothing has changed, and will ever change between the two of you. 

you have never been more happy to willingly ‘make a mistake’.

[jgracie]

APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS

masterlist | rules

❝ Hiii how are you?I love your blog,can i please request Leo x fem!reader where she is a daughter of Demeter(no one writes for my mother😭)and she gives him flowers?Like it’s the first time that someone gives him flowers and he so in love with reader?Thank you so much and have a great day🌸🌸🌸 ❞ — anon

in which honeysuckles, orange blossoms and white carnations barely scratch the surface of your love for leo

pairing leo valdez x demeter!reader

warnings none:)

an the demeter cabin has their own personal garden in this. they have one in any of my fics mentioning actually just because i said so LOL also i lowkey hate this idk why sorry in advance

Ever since you were young, you’ve loved the transition between April and May. Days spent indoors as you yearned for a moment in your mother’s domain, the heavy rain reflecting your mood and dampening your spirits, turned into ones where you’d devote your time to harvesting crops and admiring the beautiful flowers, carefully snipping them as different combinations for bouquets flooded your mind

You should be happy right now, since it’s the first week of May. Flowers have begun to bloom and blossom all around you, and your siblings organised a spring festival in celebration. You love everything about spring. However, there was someone you loved more

You and Leo only started dating a few months ago, after about a year of pining, and at first your relationship couldn’t be better. Leo’s so, very sweet and incredibly doting, always checking on you and making gadgets to help with your gardening before you even thought about needing them. However, recently, you couldn’t help but notice how you saw him less and less

In the beginning, he just wouldn’t show up for breakfast, or show up late on the days he did grace you with his presence, and you didn’t think much of it, knowing how busy he tended to get with his machinery. As time progressed, he started skipping dinner too, and capture the flag, and then you stopped seeing him altogether

You thought leaving him alone would fix it - not wanting to come off as overbearing - but now you began to wonder about what this meant for your relationship. Was he doing it on purpose so he could see you less? Had you done something wrong to make him feel this way? Sure, you teased him from time to time, but that was very minimal, and you always made sure he was aware you didn’t mean any harm

Whatever you did, you wanted to set things right. So, in the first week of May, instead of preparing for the spring festival with your brothers and sisters, you made Leo a gift. You weren’t going to force him to forgive you, of course, but the idea of hurting him was really weighing on your heart so you decided to show him you loved him in the best way you knew: flowers. You walked around the gardens outside your cabin, delicately picking out the flowers you were going to put in your bouquet for Leo. Once you’d done that, you picked some fresh fruits for him, hoping he was sustaining himself well

You waded through the forest with a basket of fruits in one hand and a bouquet wrapped with the best tulle and ribbons your cabin could offer in the other. Your heart was just about ready to beat out of your chest, partially due to excitement, partially due to worry

Once you got to Leo’s humble abode (because we all know this boy probs sleeps there more than he sleeps in his cabin don’t play w me rn), you took a deep breath, then knocked on the door

“Come in!” Leo yelled. Carefully, you opened the door and made your way inside, your nose scrunching at the smell of gasoline and Gods know what else. Leo’s back was facing you, but just seeing the mop of curls on his head made your heart flutter. You really missed your boyfriend

“Hey Leo,” you greeted him, absentmindedly playing with the vines that were beginning to grow out of your head - a sign of your nervousness. At the sound of your voice, Leo smiled and decided to finally take a break from all the tinkering he was doing. The vines that tangled with your hair slowly began to disappear as you took in his expression

He patted his lap, and you went to sit there without any hesitation, your body desperately craving his touch. Leo nuzzled into the crook of your neck, taking in the smell of fresh flowers that clung to you, “missed you, amor,” he mumbled, suddenly feeling awfully sleepy. You ran your fingers through his curls, detangling them as you wallowed in the silence that hung between you

“I missed you too,” you said after a little bit, unable to stay quiet anymore, “I’m glad you’re not mad at me.”

At the last bit, Leo looked up, his brows knitted together in clear confusion, “why would I be mad at you? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

The vines started growing again, “well… I rarely ever see you anymore, you’re always here. I thought maybe you did that on purpose because you didn’t wanna see me,” instantly, Leo knew he messed up. He was so busy spending time with his machines that he forgot about you - his lovely, sweet forest fairy

Tenderly rubbing your arm, Leo said, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, baby. I could never be mad at you, really! You could blow up this whole place and I still wouldn’t be mad,” he got quiet around the end, distractedly fiddling with your fingers

You pulled your hands away from his and cradled his face, taking his appearance in. He was still your Leo, but you could tell he was exhausted. Bags hung under his sleepy eyes, making you want nothing more than to take him to bed, to tell him that it’s okay to take a break and that no one was going to get upset at him if he took a second to think about himself

At that moment, with your palms on his face and your soul in his heart, you remembered the gift you’d prepared for him, which you’d left on a nearby table earlier. Hopping off of Leo’s lap (and startling him in the process), you picked up the bouquet and basket and presented them to him

“I got you these! Fresh from our gardens,” maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t seen you in a while, or the fact that your shy smile seemed to be blinding him, or the fact that no one had ever thought of getting him a bouquet of flowers before, but as Leo took your presents in, he felt tears prick his eyes 

You, being the observant, kind-hearted girl you are, noticed this, “hey, what’s wrong?” You asked, making your way over to him and handing him his gift, which he gratefully accepted and took a second to admire as he blinked his tears away. Leo has always been in love with you, but at that moment, his heart was about to burst with it all. He couldn’t believe he willingly cooped himself up in bunker nine, knowing full well who awaited him outside of it - his daylight

“Nothing’s wrong, amor, I just really really missed you, and I don’t think anyone’s ever even thought of getting me a pretty bouquet of flowers, let alone gone through with it,” at this, you felt your heart break. You knew of the struggles Leo went through, having been a shoulder for him to lean on when he thought he was stuck being an extra wheel forever: always the best man, never the groom, but hearing him voice these thoughts made it even worse

“Well… you deserve them. You're the best boyfriend a girl could ever ask for, Leo, don’t doubt that for a single second,” you said, an unwavering confidence in your voice

After that day, Leo always kept a flower in bunker nine, right in front of where he worked, so you’d always be with him. He also invested in a clock so he’d actually be able to tell when one day ended and the other began, never wanting to leave you by your lonesome again

[pink-sparkly-witch]

Everything

Summary: Dumped by her boyfriend, Y/N goes home with her tail between her legs, praying that her roommate, Dean Winchester, isn’t there to witness yet another failed relationship. But fate doesn’t work that way, and what seems like the universe conspiring against her might actually be what she’s needed all along.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader

Warnings: angst, break-up, language, douchebag ex, Dean’s a bit of a dick at first, insecurities, heart to heart, frenemies to lovers

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: I’m so sorry. This summary is awful. I hope you enjoy whatever this is 😅 Please consider reblogging to spread this far and wide around this Hellsite, or leave a little comment. It really does fuel our muse. If you’re too shy or too cool for people to know you read fanfic and you don’t want it showing on your blog, you can submit an anonymous ask or drop me a DM 💖

My Masterlist     AO3     Ko-Fi

The rain pours down, and thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance. You laugh bitterly at how the weather reflects your mood. Rain soaks your hair and clothing, your feet sodden and squelching; the stilettos you’re wearing offer zero protection from the torrents of water falling from the sky and running down the sidewalks.

You’re grateful for it, truth be told. At least this way, no one knows the mascara that runs in black streams down your cheeks is from the tears you’ve been crying over that asshole. The asshole you’ve been dating for two months who just dumped you at your local bar while sitting next to his date for the night.

Fuck, how did this become your life? How did you become this gullible, desperate woman who keeps falling for these kinds of men? Men who date you and sweet talk you, saying all the right things until they get what they want from between your legs and then leave you for someone prettier. Someone younger.

Maybe the asshole’s right. Maybe you are the type of girl to have a fun time with, not the kind to take home to meet someone’s mother. But fuck, that hurts to admit and fuck, you lose more of yourself with every asshole that spews those kind of lines to you. If you’ve said it once, you’ve said it a million times. You’re done with men. And this time, you mean it.

You turn the corner onto your street and stop in your tracks. Dread settles in your stomach as you see your roommate’s car parked on the side of the road. He just had to choose tonight of all nights to stay home, didn’t he? That’s all you fucking need right now. You consider turning around and walking away. Hell, he wouldn’t miss you. You were meant to be staying at the asshole’s place anyway.

But, this is your home. Well, the place you live, at least, and you need to go there eventually. Might as well get it over with. Your lip trembles, knowing you need to face the one person you really don’t want to right now, especially in this state. He already thinks you’re pathetic enough as it is.

You walk up the stairs, dread settling heavily in the pit of your stomach the closer you get to the door. You cast up a silent prayer that the only reason Dean is home is because he’s got female company over. At least then, you can get in, grab some whiskey and get to your room quietly and unnoticed.

“Hey, what are you doing home so early? Thought you were staying at Chuck’s tonight?” Dean says from the couch, not even turning to look at you.

“Yeah, well, plans change. Why are you here? Thought you’d be chasing some skinny ass, barely legal bitch at the bar.” Your tone conveys pure disgust, and you curse yourself for it when he turns to look at you. And, of course, he laughs.

“What the hell happened to you?” he buckles, scanning your absolutely hilarious appearance. “You look like someone threw you in the river and left you to claw your way back out again!” Dean laughs, and you huff, desperately trying to stop the fresh batch of tears threatening to stream down your face.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Dean, there’s a torrential downpour out there.”

“Yeah, that explains the puddle at your feet, but not the rest of you, bitch,” he laughs, and that does it. You know he’s not being serious; you constantly hurl insults at one another, and it doesn’t usually get to either of you, but this time, it hits differently.

“The only reason I kept you around so long is because you’re like a bitch in heat. Always needing to be fucked. But that’s all you’re good for, and it grows old pretty quickly.”

Your eyes water, and your lip trembles. A sob escapes unchecked, and you wish the floor would open you up and swallow you whole. “I’m going to bed,” you mutter and turn to walk away.

“Y/N, wait,” Dean says, his face softening into concern.

“What, Dean? What? You wanna laugh at me more? Call me a bitch again, huh? Look, I know you don’t like me, but you know what? A little compassion can go a long way. Some humanity might make me actually believe you have a heart.”

Your mind replays every conversation you’ve overheard Dean having about you with his brother, his friends, and his conquests, and your heart sinks to the floor at how true your words are.

“Who? Her? She’s just my roommate. Baby, you don’t have to worry about her. We’re not even friends, and she’s not my type. She’s basically my live-in maid. She cooks and cleans for me and pays me for the privilege.”

“Y/N, sweetheart, what happened?” Dean asks, stepping towards you, frowning when you step back.

“Doesn’t matter,” you sniffle.

“Come on, you’re upset. Talk to me, tell me what’s going on.”

“Why? So you can make fun of me like you always do? We're not even friends, Dean. Stop pretending you give a damn about me.” The hurt furrowing his brow surprises you, and you scoff. “Don’t look so hurt, Dean. I’m only repeating your words back to you. I’m the live-in maid, remember?” you turn and walk quickly to your room, slamming the door.

Whiskey will have to wait until Dean’s gone to bed.

It’s been quiet in the main section of the apartment for over an hour now. It’s probably safe to assume Dean has gone to bed, and you can get the whiskey you’re so desperate to drown yourself in.

Leaving the sanctuary of your bedroom, you pad down the hall in your bare feet, trying to be as quiet as possible. Dean is a light sleeper, and he’d complained before about you waking him whenever you get up in the middle of the night suffering from a bout of insomnia.

“I was wondering when you’d come out,” Dean’s voice makes you jump as it rings from the small dining table by the kitchen window. He’s sitting in the dark, with just the moon’s light shining enough to see his silhouette. “I was getting worried,” he states, sipping from a tumbler.

“Oh, so you do have a heart?” you respond. It’s a bitchy comment, and you know it, but you’re in defence mode after Chuck. “Might want to show it once in a while.”

“Nah. Makes me look weak,” he chuckles. His joke caught you off guard, and you let out a little huff of laughter. “See? I knew I could make you smile!”

“Barely,” you quip back and sit across from him, grabbing the whiskey bottle and filling the empty glass Dean must’ve put on the table for you.

“What happened, sweetheart? You left here tonight looking stunning and happy, and when you came home—”

“I was crying, and you called me bitch,” you state, watching Dean’s head drop.

“Not my finest moment, I admit,” Dean says as he reaches for the bottle and refills both glasses. “I didn’t know how upset you were, and I was only teasing you. If I’d known that it wasn’t just the rain that made your mascara run, I’d never have said it, and I hope you know that.”

“I really wanna believe that, but you’re always saying hurtful things,” you say, draining your glass.

“The things you said earlier,” Dean nods. “I didn’t mean… look, Y/N, you’re a beautiful woman, and some of the girls I bring home get jealous, you know? I say those things to keep them sweet.”

You nod, thinking it’s a fair excuse. Dean does have a lot of women over, and you’ve pulled out the sting from more than a few of them.

“As for what I say to Sam and my friends, well, they tease me about living with a pretty girl and don’t believe me when I say we’re just roommates,” Dean continues. You have to admit that was also sound reasoning. It didn’t excuse it; he was still a dick, but you understood it a little better.

“It’d just be nice if you stopped for a second and thought of me as a person with feelings before you say those kinds of things in front of me,” you say, filling your glass again.

“Alright, sweetheart, I promise I’ll work on that,” Dean agrees, and you notice he’s watching you intently.

“What?” you ask, feeling uncomfortably exposed under his gaze.

“What happened with Chuck,” Dean asks again.

“I don’t want to tell you,” you sigh.

“Why?”

“Because it’s embarrassing,” you whine and hit your head on the table.

“Come on,” Dean says, topping up their glasses again. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise whatever it is, it won’t be as bad as you think.”

“I got to the bar, and Chuck was there with another woman. He told me we were over and that Anna was his date for the night. Then, to rub salt in my wounds, as I was walking away, he told me that all I was good for was a great time in bed. Always up for anything, like a bitch in heat.”

“And then you came home, and I called you a bitch. Y/N, I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Dean takes your hand in his, and you can see that it’s a genuine apology, and he really does feel awful about it. “You know he’s wrong, right? You’re worth so much more than that?”

“I don’t think I am. He’s not the only guy to tell me that,” you shrug. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m done with men and dating.”

“You don’t mean that. You think I don’t know about all the romcoms you watch on Netflix? All those girly books you read.”

“Yeah, well, a fat lot of good they did me. I’m starting to see why people are boycotting Disney Princess movies because they’re filled with romantic disillusionment and give a false idea to women that their Prince Charming exists somewhere out there.”

“This is more serious than I thought if you’re losing faith in the Disney Princesses!” Dean chuckles, and it makes you smile slightly. “Seriously, though, I think this is more about the men you date than you, sweetheart. They are way out of your league.”

“I am not out of anyone’s league, Dean. If anything, it’s probably the other way around,” you huff a bitter laugh.

“I’m out of your league,” Dean says quietly.

“You have that backwards. I’m the one out of your league. You’re gorgeous and charming, and I have seen the girls you bring home, and they are the most stunning women I’ve ever seen. I can’t compete with that.” The words spill out of you before you can stop them, and you think Dean might be blushing, but it’s hard to tell when the only sliver of light comes from the moon shining through the kitchen window.

Dean laughs, and it takes you aback slightly. “I have called you beautiful or some other variation of it several times tonight, and not once have you picked up on it. Those women are hot, sure, but you… You are on a whole other level of hot. You are stunning and so much classier than they will ever be.”

You scoff at his words, not believing them but not wanting him to know they affect you. You know Dean’s type, and it is definitely not you. “You don’t have to try and make me feel better, Dean.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. There’s a reason Sam and Cas and Benny are on my case so much about you, and it’s because I really, really, like you—”

“So, all the insults and barely tolerating my presence was what,” you smirk over at him, “you pulling my pigtails and pushing me over in the playground?”

“When you put it like that…” Dean cringes. “I guess it was. Look, you’re hurt and sad, and we’ve had a lot to drink, so I’m not going to push you to tell me if this is one-sided, but I will talk to you tomorrow when we’re both sober.”

The warmth of the sun wakes you, and you stretch in its gentle heat. You’re not nearly as hungover as you should be, and for that, you’re grateful. Dean had some interesting things to say last night, and you’d rather your brain was running at full capacity.

Quietly, you make your way to the kitchen, mindful that Dean’s door is closed, so it’s likely he’s still sleeping, and start the coffee machine. 

You busy yourself with clearing up from the night before. You rinse dishes, put them in the dishwasher and put the almost empty whiskey bottle back in the cupboard. You grab your and Dean’s favourite mugs and place them next to the coffee machine.

Taking the cleaning spray, you spritz all the surfaces and wipe them down while patiently waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

“How did I manage to find the only person in this city who likes cleaning?” Dean’s groggy voice sounds from the doorway, and you smile.

“Morning, Dean,” you say as you pick up the coffee pot and fill his mug. You place it on the breakfast bar and fill your own before hopping onto one of the stools and making yourself comfortable.

“Morning, sweetheart. Thanks,” Dean says as he picks up his mug and takes a sip. “So, about last night…”

“Wow,” you chuckle. “Straight to the point, huh?”

“I’ve wasted enough time, and now that my feelings are out there, I can’t sit on this any longer,” Dean pauses to take another mouthful of coffee. “I meant what I said. I like you, Y/N. I’m sorry if anything I did when I was in denial of my feelings hurt you. And I’m sorry for pushing you away and making you think I hated you so you wouldn’t find out how I really feel.”

“Dean, I don’t know what to say,” you say. “I used to like you in that way, but with how you were with me, I turned it off because, for the past year, I’ve been thinking you don’t like me, and I don’t know if anything is still there for you.”

Dean nods, looking a little deflated by your words, but it’s clear he accepts them. “Can I at least try and make you get it back?”

“I don’t know—“ you begin, but Dean cuts you off.

“Please, Y/N. One date is all I’m asking for,” Dean begs, and you feel your resolve waning. You know you still have feelings for him.

“I’ve seen the girls you bring home, Dean. And I’m nothing compared to them,” you try. It’s your last bit of fight, the last time you’ll be able to give him an out from this.

“You’re everything, Y/N. And I mean that. You are smart, funny, kind, beautiful… you’re everything they weren’t. Please,” Dean begs again. “Just one date. Let me prove it.”

“Okay,” you nod with a small smile.

“Yeah?” Dean says, breaking out into a boyish grin.

“Yeah. I’ll go on a date with you, Dean.”

“Awesome!” he grins, looking like he just answered the million-dollar question. “I promise you won’t regret it!”

Tags: @acitygrownwillow @akshi8278 @ashbatz @candy-coated-misery0731 @chriszgirl92 @deans-baby-momma @deans-spinster-witch @deansbbyx @deanwanddamons @duncanhillscoffeecups @foxyjwls007 @giggles1026 @globetrotter28 @hobby27 @hoboal87 @impala67rollingthroughtown @iprobablyshipit91 @jackles010378 @jamerlynn @jc-winchester @k-slla @kazsrm67 @kmc1989 @lacilou @ladysparkles78 @leigh70 @lyarr24 @maliburenee @michecolegate @mrsjenniferwinchester @nancymcl @negans-lucille-tblr @nelachu2423 @octoberclidan @perpetualabsurdity @roseblue373 @sandlee44 @sexyvixen7 @snackles87 @spnbaby-67 @spnwoman @stixnstripesworld @stoneyggirl2 @suckitands33 @synmorite @tristanrosspada-ackles @twinkleinadiamondsky @waters-2567 @winchestergirl1720

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not changing my OC's sexuality?

i really like making OCs. sometimes i write a story with them or draw some comics about them, but most of them don't get anything more than my initial character introduction art. a while ago one of my mutuals asked if she could use one of my OCs as a D&D character. i'll call my mutual "liz" and my OC "stella". i agreed. over the next two months or so liz would occasionally commission a $5-10 sketch of something that happened during one of the D&D sessions featuring stella. drawing these was fun, and i enjoyed how liz was fleshing her out and developing her personality, and i began to appreciate stella more.

recently i drew an F/F pairing of stella with another one of my OCs in the middle of a passionate kiss. liz messaged me, saying that she plays stella as AroAce and romance repulsed like she is, and would never kiss someone like that. i thought liz was asking in a round-about way if she had to change D&D stella's sexuality, so i said she could do whatever she wanted with stella in her campaigns. well. i guess that's NOT what liz meant, because she sent me a wall of text saying that since i had abandoned stella and liz "adopted" her i should respect what she decided about the character since stella was equally her creation, so could i please either delete the post from my blog or add an update where it's revealed that stella was "just experimenting" and realized she was romance repulsed. honestly, i thought liz was just joking (because who the fuck says that) so i said "i'll see you in court for the custody battle". but liz doubled down and DEMANDED i make stella AroAce.

i was really annoyed at first but now i'm conflicted. on the one hand, stella clearly means a lot to liz (more than me tbh) and she's right about how much of her personality she created, though "equally her creation" is pretty generous. on the other, it's my fucking OC!! i should be able to draw art of my characters kissing if i want!! am i just being petty by refusing to canonize stella as AroAce? am i the asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[buckys-little-belle]

Hiiiii I really love your whole Tumblr it's really comforting I really loved the one you wrote I think it was called just feelin little with bucky and steve and it was really comforting because I don't fully regress other thank cuddling up at night with my blanky and a theeter shaped like an oreo

If your comfortable writing something like that with Eddie Munson like maybe a little that doesn't even understand what that is and one day at he notice that the reader is having a hard time and kinda swoops in and helps. Thanks for listening even if you don't write have a good day (or night :)

Chomp Chomp

Eddie Munson x Little!Reader (They/Them/No pronouns used)

Warnings - Eddie helps the reader regress, use of teethers, use of a comfort blankie, talks about being stressed, talks about de-stressing, reader goes into a state of "disassociation" basically they are very stressed and just stop replying to Eddie's questions, very very vague mentions of that though, a bit of angst, but mainly self-indulgent fluff! (Also I made the teether one of the frozen ones but I'm now realizing that's probably not the kind you meant! So I apologize!)

Notes - I wrote this in a different perspective than I usually do. I just need a break from the more "formal" writing style I usually do and I hope that you like it!

SFW - Please keep all interactions with this post, and this blog, SFW!

. ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ .

. ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ .

Eddie knew that you age regressed before you really understood it yourself. He'd taken note of how you sleep with whatever soft blanket you could find at night time, how you often found yourself chewing on ice before bed, and and you'd act like, what you called "snuggly", and what he called "small".

He didn't want to scare you with the big title of "age regression" all at once. So he slowly began incorporating more "classic" age regression tactics to your nightly routine without you realizing it at first.

Instead of a glass full of big ice cubes you'd bite in half, he gave you a plastic cup full of small bat shaped ice cubes. They were easier to chew on, and he liked knowing the cup wouldn't shatter if you dropped it.

Then he bought you a small soft grey blanket at the thrift store. He washed it and made sure it smelled like him before he gave it to you, giving you the impression that it was just laying around somewhere instead of bought for a specific reason.

It became your "Nightie blankie", you nicknamed it and Eddie was once again sure of your regression, or at least partial regression. You slept with it every night, snuggled to your chest, the soft material tickling your chin as you slept.

After a few months of just those two new things he added in a fun nightlight so he could finally turn the bathroom light off. You thought it was cute, it projected a small smattering of stars on the ceiling and it often lulled you to sleep.

Next though, the next step was a little harder to get you acclimated with. "A teething ring?" You asked, holding the small thing in your hand. "It's cold?"

"I put it in the freezer, there's gel inside that gets cold." Eddie reasoned. "This way you don't have to eat so much ice before bed, you can just chomp on this." He gave your forehead a kiss before making the bed. Hoping that if he acted chill about it you would be fine with the new addition.

"But it's for babies?" You grumbled.

Eddie stood up with a huff, his hands on his hips. "Do you like it?" He asked, eyebrows raised.

You took a quick chomp, liking the way the frozen thing felt like ice but wouldn't make you full of water or your hands wet. "I don't know."

"Just try it for tonight, if you hate it I'll give you your ice back." He said it so plainly, like he hadn't given you a kids toy to chomp on.

You ended up enjoying your teether, chomping on it was much easier than eating ice, and you liked the little charms that were attached. It was calming, and Eddie didn't think it was weird, and you trusted him on it.

A year later, with all of your new regression tools in place bedtime seemed easier. Eddie had brought up the idea of age regression a few times, but always in a passive way.

He'd put cartoons on and say things like "Doesn't this make you feel like a kid again?" and "I wish I had some toys to play with." when things got boring at the trailer.

You didn't really understand that he wasn't really feeling like a kid while watching the tv shows, or wishing for toys, he was seeing how you reacted, seeing if you were maybe an age regressor outside of just bedtime.

He didn't push it but he got you a few stuffies, and kept cartoons on often. He didn't want to force you to regress if you didn't need it, or seem to be interested, and you didn't really seem to regress all that young. You seemed to drift to an unknown age that liked teethers, blankies, and night lights, but also liked to humm Metallica songs before bed. You were different, and he enjoyed it.

One day though you seemed on edge. Stressed about something that he couldn't fix, something you couldn't seem to get over. You began worrying him when you sat on the floor and just sort of stared off into space. You weren't panicking anymore, you weren't coping.

So he thought that maybe some regression would help you work through the big emotions in a safer way. So he grabbed your blanket and placed it in your hands, you immediately began to fiddle with it, but still didn't respond when he tried to talk to you about why you were stressed.

So he then turned the lights off, grabbing the small nighlight and brining it to the living room. Now instead of staring off into space your eyes drifted along the ceiling as the stars moved around.

Last but not least he grabbed your teether, placing it in your hand. Like you did at bedtime you began to chomp on it, and Eddie smiled.

"What's going on, baby?" He asked, taking a seat next to you.

"Jus' chomp, chomping." You replied with a soft smile.

"Yeah, and why do you need to chomp chomp?" He said in an animated voice.

Slowly you began to tell him what was bothering you, and slowly he helped you solve the problem, letting you use your regression and comfort items to help keep you calm and collected instead of distant and despondent.

You didn't regress often outside of bedtime, and you didn't really seem to regress to a certain age, but Eddie understood what you needed, and he helped you in his own subtle ways.

[recklessmark]

naughty girl’s lesson

Summary: you made a stupid purchase on Mark’s credit card and he clearly was not happy about it.

Pairing: hard dom!Mark x fem!reader

Genre: smut

Words count: ~7k

Smut warnings: it’s me again, you know what’s coming... this is pure filth-smut-porn, whatever, you name it. if you’re not familiar with my blog/content, please be mentally prepared before you dip this. (sex tape, food play, spanking, unprotected sex, a lot of name calling, public humiliation...)

A/N: this is fictional and within the context of an ongoing relationship based on respect, trust, and consent. enjoy your kink responsibly.

Knowing Mark’d had a long and exhausting week at work, you carefully planned a Friday night dinner to cook for him. When he got home, you had food on the stove filling the house with delicious scents of the meal to come. Dressed in a low-cut top and a tight miniskirt, you greeted him with a fresh tumbler of whiskey - two rocks, just the way he liked it.

Kissing you, he squeezed your ass and nuzzled your neck.

“Everything smells amazing,” Mark murmured. “Especially you.”

Leading him to the couch, you sat him down and handed over his drink. “I want you to sit right here and relax while I finish dinner,” you said.

“Mmm, yes, ma'am,” he readily agreed.

Handing him the TV remote and a small stack of mail, you returned to your work in the adjoining kitchen. After a few uneventful minutes, Mark addressed you from across the room.

“Baby? What’s this on the credit card bill?” He asked.

You froze, wracking your brain for what kind of trouble you’d gotten yourself into. Drifting toward him, you dried your hands on a dish towel and shrugged.

“I can’t think of anything-”

“Naughty Secretary Nights… Did you buy porn with our credit card?”

Your eyes went wide. “I, um…”

He laughed. “Oh my god, you did, didn’t you? You are unbelievable.”

“It was on that business trip… I was so lonely, and I wasn’t getting service on my phone… and I just… charged it to the room… I forgot, I’m so sorry. I meant to pay it off right away...” the more you tried to defend yourself, the more ridiculous you sounded. Who puts porn on a credit card? You knew better, obviously. But after a week without him and the better part of a bottle of Chardonnay… your ability to make sound decisions had clearly been impaired.

“Come here,” he instructed. As soon as you obeyed, he told you to turn around. “Lift up your skirt.”

You did as you were told, exposing your tiny, black thong and bare ass cheeks to him.

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

His spankings made you gasp and lurch forward. You did your best to right yourself and stand still, taking your punishment.

Smack. Smack.

“Such a naughty, dirty girl,” Mark chastised.

Smack. Smack.

“I-I know… I’m sorry,” you whimpered.

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

“Sorry for what?” He asked.

“...For being a n-naughty, d-dirty girl…” You stammered. Saying it out loud made you blush, but you knew it was true.

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

“That’s enough for now,” he declared, and you started to lower your skirt. “Ah, ah…” he admonished. “Did I tell you to cover yourself?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“That’s right. Because who owns this ass?” He teased, squeezing your exposed flesh.

“You…” you lowered your lashes, feeling the undeniable wetness between your legs. Whenever Mark manhandled you, you inevitably found yourself willing and eager to do anything and everything he wanted.

“Mmmhmm… and I own these, too.” Taking hold of your hips, he turned you to face him and yanked down the top of your t-shirt, revealing a black lace push-up bra. Sliding his fingers under the cups, he pinched and twisted your nipples, making you moan and squirm. “Isn’t that right?”

“Ooohhh… y-yes, that’s right…” you wanted to straddle him, to let him strip you naked and have his way with you… but you had other plans.

“And since you’re such a fan of dirty girl porn, I say you can stay just like this while you finish dinner.” And with that he took his hands away from you, settling back against the couch and turning on the TV.

Your breathing still ragged, you turned and headed back to the kitchen, with your clothes askew, leaving your bra and panties on display. In the kitchen, you realized the bay window curtain was wide open… Your house had a relatively high wall around it, but certain neighbors would still have a view inside from the right angle.

“Um… should I…?” You trailed off, looking to Mark and gesturing toward the window. He smirked, looking you up and down.

“Leave it open. I feel like showing you off. Let’s let the neighbors see what a naughty, indecent girl you are, shall we?”

“Y-yes, Sir.” You chewed your lip and got back to work. In your exposed state, in front of an open window, making dinner suddenly invoked a host of new sensations.

Every time you bent over, you wondered if one of your neighbors was getting an eyeful… When you stirred or chopped, making your breasts bounce and jiggle, you glanced nervously out the window. In the dark of night, you couldn’t tell whether or not there was anyone out there, enjoying the show.

When dinner was ready, you set the table and opened a bottle of wine. Standing before Mark in the living room, you clasped your hands behind your back and let him know it was time to eat.

Following you to the dining room, he sat down and let you pour his wine, lightly caressing your cleavage while you served him. As you stood up, he looked you over, considering your disheveled state.

“Strip down to your lingerie,” he instructed.

With a small whimper, you obliged him, peeling off your skirt and top. Standing before him in your thong and push-up bra, you awaited further direction.

“You may finish serving me just like that, then I want you to go and fetch your robe.”

“Yes, Sir.”

You did as you were told, carefully scooping servings of each dish onto his plate. When you bent over, your breasts threatened to spill out of your bra. At one point he stopped you, ordering you to hold still. Taking out his phone, he snapped a picture of your tits hovering over his dinner plate.

“I should post this online, since you love porn so much,” he mused, showing you the photo. “We can make a naughty, salacious gallery of you and charge people to ogle your naked body. Would you like that, dirty girl? Whoring yourself out for money?”

A flush of embarrassment and desire crept up your neck to your cheeks. “I, um… Only if you wanted me to… You’re the boss,” you answered.

He smiled and held up his phone.

“Say that again,” he commanded.

“I… would only… w-whore myself out for money… if you wanted me to. You’re the boss,” you stumbled over your words as you realized he was filming you.

“I am the boss,” Mark repeated. Reaching up, he pulled down the cups of your bra until your naked breasts were fully exposed. Then he squeezed and fondled them, making you writhe and whimper under his touch. “I am the boss of this lewd, vulgar girl. You love flaunting your tits for me, don’t you, slut?”

The wetness between your legs was reaching a fever pitch. He very rarely used words like ‘slut’ and ‘tits’, so you knew you were in for a night of real torment.

“Y-yes, Sir… I love f-flaunting myself… just for you…” you confessed.

“Mmm… I know you do,” he replied, and put down his phone.

Leaving your naked tits on display, he sent you off to fetch your robe. You returned to the table with it still in hand, since he had not, after all, instructed you to put it on.

“You may wear your robe while we eat, but leave it open. I want you to stay warm, and I want to enjoy this pornographic picture,” he gestured to your mostly naked body with a smirk.

“Yes, Sir,” you agreed, and did as he instructed, putting your robe on and leaving it open when you sat down.

“Sit on the edge of your chair, and keep your knees apart,” Mark demanded. You obeyed at once, and the posture of your position thrust your tits forward. He reached over, pinching and twisting your nipples, one by one.

“You know why you’re being treated like this, don’t you?” He asked.

You nodded, squirming in your seat as he tormented you. “Yes… yes, Sir…”

“And why is that?”

“B-because I was v-very naughty… buying porn… with our credit card…” You whimpered and moaned, loving every second that he tortured your perky little nipples.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “And when you act like a naughty, dirty girl, I’m going to treat you like a naughty, dirty girl.”

“Ooohhhh… thank you… I-I know I d-deserve it…” You arched your back toward him, wanting more groping, more pinching, more fondling. Which is, of course, precisely when he stopped.

“Mmm… You may learn your lesson after all,” he speculated. “Now be a good girl and eat. For the rest of your punishment, you’ll need to keep your energy up.”

Catching your breath, you did as he said. He made light, fun conversation during the meal, but it was hard for you to focus. You kept wondering what he had in store for ‘the rest of your punishment…’

You didn’t have to wait long to find out. After dinner, Mark instructed you to fetch the gelato and whipped cream for dessert. At first, you didn’t think much of it; you just enjoyed some small bowls of the chocolate frozen treat topped with whipped cream. But then he told you to put the gelato away and leave the whipped cream.

“And I’ll take one more small tumbler of bourbon,” he stated.

You quickly delivered his drink, and before you could sit down again he told you to lean against the wall opposite him. Then he set up his phone so the screen faced you and started to record, giving you a clear view of everything he was filming.

“Take off your robe,” he ordered, and you obediently complied. “Now your thong,” he added, and you slid the flimsy fabric down to your ankles.

“Actually, you can leave them there,” he decided. “As a reminder that you’re learning your lesson - what happens to naughty, dirty girls like you.”

“Yes, Sir,” you replied, abjectly lowering your lashes. You stood, waiting for his next directive, with your thong around your ankles and your bare tits propped up by your bra.

To your surprise, he approached you with the can of whipped cream. Squirting a hefty dollop onto each of your nipples, he finished with a third spray on top of your freshly waxed pussy.

“Grab your elbows behind your back,” he said, “and stay like that until I’m done with my bourbon.

“Yes, S-Sir…” you replied, carefully adjusting your arms so as not to disturb the portions of whipped cream.

While he sipped his drink and watched you, you stole glances at the phone screen, filming you in your vulnerable state. You tried not to squirm too much, biting your lip to remind yourself to hold still.

“More porn for us to sell,” Mark explained, and you honestly couldn’t tell if he was serious, or if this was just another means of taunting you. “Every time you misbehave, we’ll make a new tutorial detailing your punishment and what you learned. Would you like that, slut?”

“If it’s what you want, Sir, then… yes, I would.” The more you settled into your dominant/submissive dynamic, the clearer it became that there was very little you would not do for him.

His drink finished, he came over to you and cupped one of your breasts with his hand. You obediently stood with your arms behind your back, since he hadn’t told you to change positions. As hard as it was to not cling to him, you gripped your elbows and held on tight as he began his delicious assault on your whipped-cream-dipped nipples.

Licking and nibbling and sucking, he used his hand to shimmy your breast back and forth under his mouth. It was your absolute favorite sensation, and you moaned with abandon as he savored one breast and then the other. In between breasts, he paused and stood back, leaving a clear view of your stripped, wanton body for the camera.

Mark leaned against the wall next to you, casually leering at your tawdry nakedness. “Are you learning your lesson, dirty girl?”

“Yes… yes, Sir…” you panted.

“And what is that?” He prompted.

“To, um… not buy porn? …With a credit card?” You offered.

He chuckled. “Yes, that’s step one.”

Then he dropped to his knees and held your hips steady. Slowly, with agonizing delicacy, he licked the whipped cream from between your legs. You instantly started to squirm, but he paused just long enough to instruct you to hold still. You did your best to follow orders while he worked you over into a veritable frenzy…

Carefully, he caressed the sides of your pussy with his tongue. Some of the cream slid down the inside of your thigh, and he followed it, using his mouth to scoop it up… Returning to the center between your legs, he spread your lips with his hand and meticulously cleaned every inch of you… When he came close to your clit, he stopped, making you cry out in anguish.

Smirking, he looked up at you. “Say please,” he commanded.

“Please… please…” you begged.

He sighed. “Be more specific.”

“Please… don’t stop…” You replied. “Please l-lick… lick my clit, please…”

“Interesting. And here I thought you would beg me to let you come. Very well, have it your way.”

And with that, he flicked his tongue over your clit ever so lightly, maybe half a dozen times… then he gave it one long, luxurious stroke with his tongue. You whimpered, cursing yourself inwardly for not having the presence of mind to beg for an orgasm. Clearly it was too late now.  

With his work complete, Mark stood up and examined his effect on you. You stood panting and aching for him, eager to show him that you could learn how to behave.

“Spread your legs wider for me,” he ordered, and you complied at once.

Smack. Smack. Smack. This time between your legs.

“What’s the second part of your lesson, my insatiable, horny girl?”

Smack. Smack.

“Oohh… oww… umm… That if I act-” Smack. Smack. “Mm, oww… if I act like a naughty, dirty girl-” Smack. Smack. Smack. “...oww ow… then I’ll get treated l-like a naughty, dirty girl…”

“That’s right,” he affirmed. “Now turn around and stick your ass out for me. Let’s get some proper dirty girl spankings on video.”

You did as you were told, keeping your elbows grasped behind your back, and leaning your bare chest against the wall so you could thrust your bottom out the way he liked.

“Mmhmm…” he rubbed his hand over your ass cheeks, jiggling them back and forth. “Just like the sordid, vulgar girl you are…”

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

As you took your punishment, your mind swirled with thoughts of what he might have in store for you next.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Tidying up and doing dishes while naked?

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Maybe cleaning the windows naked, in full view of any curious neighbors?

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

“Next time you get horny and greedy, you’ll think twice about buying porn, won’t you?”

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

“Y-yes… ohh… oww… yes, Sir… I promise, I w-won’t do it ag-again…”

Your ass wriggled under his final, merciless blows.

Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

“Damn right you won’t.”

Walking over to the phone, he picked it up and brought it closer to you, running it up the length of your disheveled body until he reached your flushed, chastened face.

“What do you say when you get the punishment you deserve?” He challenged.

“Thank you, Sir… thank you for teaching me h-how to behave…” You replied, doing your best to look as contrite and remorseful as you felt.

“Good girl,” he praised, and your stomach flipped. “Now come with me.”

And with that, Mark turned off the recording and led you out of the dining room.

In the kitchen he stopped you and told you to take off your bra and step out of the panties that were still around your ankles. After complying with his instructions, you handed over your lingerie and followed him, stripped completely naked, into the bedroom.

“You’ll need a shower, since you’re a dirty, sticky mess,” he said. “When you’re done, you can put on the outfit I lay out for you.”

“Yes, Sir,” you agreed, heading into the shower like a contrite, obedient girl.

After soaping yourself up and washing thoroughly, you dried off, lotioned up, and came back into the bedroom to get dressed.

Laid out on the bed, you found the tiniest g-string you owned, a matching French sling, and a short, tight, dove gray dress. Based on his dress choice, you inferred you would be continuing to serve him at home, since he’d always deemed it “too slutty for public consumption.”

Slipping into the barely-there g-string, you adjusted it as best you could and then put on your bra. A French sling is designed to prop your tits up like they’re on a shelf, with your nipples left peeking out over the top. It’s about as naughty, slutty, and on display as a bra with any coverage can be.

Squeezing yourself into the dress, his reasoning behind the French sling was immediately evident. Your tormented nipples were hard and perky, making them plainly visible through the thin, stretchy fabric. Looking down, you noticed a pair of strappy black heels, which you dutifully put on and fastened around your ankles.

After touching up your hair and makeup, you finally emerged from the bedroom. Mark put down the magazine he was reading and appraised your appearance.

“Perfect,” he declared. Standing up, he draped a long cardigan over your shoulders. Your dress was so short, the hem of the sweater went right past it. “So you don’t get cold while we’re out.”

You stood rooted to the spot. “You want me to go out? Dressed like this?”

“Is that a problem?” He challenged you.

“N-no, Sir… I just, you’ve always said… this dress…”

“I know what I’ve said.”

“I… look like a…” you trailed off, realizing that was precisely the point.

“A prostitute? …A porn star?” He teased.

“Yes, Sir,” you agreed, lowering your gaze.

“Come on, my little sextoy.” Placing his hand on the small of your back, he ushered you out the door. “Time to let everyone see what a naughty piece of ass you are.”

The chill night air was just cold enough to ensure that your nipples would stay nice and hard, leaving them very much on display. The dress left so much of you visible, it felt a little like he was parading you around naked for everyone to ogle. It barely covered your ass, and your propped up tits were all but spilling over the low neckline…

The car ride over was relatively uneventful. He was clearly - and rightly - counting on the effect of sheer anticipation, leaving you to imagine what it would feel like to be in bar full of people dressed like a slutty hooker.

When you got there and walked in, you quickly assessed the small crowd. There were enough people there to make blending in possible, yet you couldn’t help but notice that pretty much everyone closest to you had some reaction to your attire.

A woman sitting next to her friend stifled a laugh, then pointed you out and the two started whispering and giggling. Next to them, a man tried not to look at you, while his wife made no effort to hide her disgust and judgement.

“It’s warm in here, don’t you think?” Mark asked you.

You nodded with a small shrug. “Pretty warm.”

“You probably don’t need the cardigan inside,” he replied, eliciting a small whimper from you as he slid the fabric off your shoulders.

Standing next to him, without the thin layer of coverage provided by your sweater, you were keenly aware of how short your dress was… how visible your nipples were… and how every person around you would be treated to a vivid picture of how you looked naked.

As he led you toward the bar, you now had a very clear idea of how it felt to be in a bar full of people dressed like a slutty hooker… It was absolutely mortifying. And you’d never been so turned on in all your life.

You found two bar stools, and as you sat at his side, you quickly crossed your legs. It was the only way to avoid flashing everyone in your immediate vicinity.

The bartender came over, and when she noticed your nipples she blatantly stared. Smirking, she looked up at you.

“Nice dress,” she said.

You bit your lip, blushing, and Mark gave you a slight nudge.

“She gave you a compliment,” he prompted.

“Thank you,” you offered, feeling more exposed than ever.

You vaguely heard him ordering a whiskey for himself and wine for you, but you were distracted by all the other people sitting around the bar. You tried to not pay attention, but you had to make sure you weren’t imagining things. It seemed like everyone was looking at you.

“Sit up straight,” you heard him say, and you did as you were told. “Shoulders back,” he teased, and you obeyed, pushing your tits out even further.

He tucked your hair behind your ears, murmuring low. “That’s a good girl… How does it feel, all these people staring and leering at you?”

“Um… It feels… embarrassing, and… um…” You were ashamed to admit the second part.

“And what else?” He prompted.

“...And, um… I’m also… really, really turned on…” you confessed, flushing as you spoke.

“Mmm… mhmm. That makes sense. A wanton, lustful girl like you. I bet you’re dripping wet, aren’t you?” He taunted you, knowing very well that it was true.

“Yes… yes, Sir,” you admitted. Glancing around, you got the irrational feeling that all of the people ogling you could suddenly tell just how wet and horny you was.

“There’s a pool table,” Mark pointed out, as if reading your mind. “Maybe I should make you play pool with me, so you’ll have to bend over and show everyone that soaked pussy of yours, too. Would you like that?”

“I, um… if it would please you, Sir.”

He rubbed his thumb along your bottom lip.

“I love it when you’re nothing but eager to please,” he praised. Leaning forward, he kissed you lightly, grazing your cleavage with his fingertips and peppering your exposed skin with goosebumps.

The bartender delivered your drinks, and for two rounds you talked of other things. While you talked, Mark casually caressed your bare legs, sometimes slipping dangerously close to the super short hem of your dress. You squirmed in your seat, fighting the urge to spread your legs for him right then and there.

After two glasses of wine, you needed to go to the ladies room. It wasn’t that far away, but you would have to walk past several tables and clusters of people to get there. You took the risk of asking Mark if you might be allowed to put your cardigan back on for the occasion.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “What do you think?”

“Um… No?”

“Correct. And why not?”

“Because… I need to be reminded what happens… to naughty, dirty girls, like me. I need to learn my lesson.”

“That’s right. Now let me see you show off that slutty little body of yours for everyone in here,” he chided.

“Y-yes, Sir…”

In the bathroom, the only humiliation was when two drunk girls stepped up next to you at the sinks. You were moving slowly, not wanting any part of your body to escape from your dress.

“Wow,” one of them said, gaping at you. “Slut much?”

She and her friend burst out laughing. You tried to ignore them, but as they made their way to the door, the other girl chimed in.

“We should get a picture of her! Mike and Chris will never believe we saw a real-live hooker!”

They laughed again while she pulled out her phone and the other one called back to you.

“Smile, you’re on candid slut camera!”

There was nowhere to hide, and they were blocking the door. You’d started with your back to them and had to turn to dry your hands, so they probably got pictures of you at every angle. As they disappeared, laughing and calling you names, you realized they could do whatever they wanted with the pictures. Send them to their boyfriends, put them on the internet…

After enduring more leers and taunts on your way back to Mark, you told him what happened.

He sighed and shrugged. “If they were naked pictures of you, I wouldn’t allow it,” he promised. “But since you’re just mostly naked… I guess that’s what you deserve, isn’t it?”

You swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

“Our tab is paid, and I’ve been sitting here wondering…” he mused, “should I make you flash someone? Or maybe hike up your skirt while we’re on our way out?”

You squeezed your legs together and wriggled on your stool, awaiting his verdict.

“But I decided I want the rest of you all for myself,” he declared, and you felt a subtle wave of relief. You would’ve done it for him of course… But full-on public exposure was unchartered territory, and you weren’t absolutely certain how you felt about it. You were happy to wait and find out another day.

All the same, Mark still led you out of the bar nice and slowly, with no cardigan to hide behind, giving the small crowd their last looks at your barely covered body.

In the car, you got your sweater back for the ride home. It provided more warmth than coverage, and he certainly took advantage of how laid bare you were willing to be for him.

Reaching over, he tugged down the neckline of your dress, exposing your propped-up tits and rock hard nipples. He worked his magic, pinching and tweaking them while you moaned and writhed in your seat.

“Turn towards me, dirty girl, I’m done sharing you. I don’t want anyone getting a glimpse of your naughty little nipples.”

You obliged, turning to face him, hiding your naked breasts from outside view. At the next stoplight, he made you hike up your skirt for you. When you did, slowly sliding the fabric the mere inches it took to expose yourself, he took hold of the front of your g-string.

“Did you enjoy our outing, naughty girl? Walking around barely dressed, showing off your slutty little body?”

He tugged your g-string upwards, pulling the fabric back and forth between your legs. You quivered with the exquisite ache of it. “Y-yes… oh, god… yes, Sir… I… I loved it…” You conceded.

“Of course you did… look at yourself.”

You took stock of the state you were in… tits on display, skirt hiked up exposing your ass and all your dripping wetness… squirming in the passenger seat of his car while he toyed with you.

“I-I know… I can’t help it…”

“I know you can’t.” Mark’s voice was laced with a teasing kind of pity that sent a thrill through you.

The light turned green, and he released his hold on you. Without instruction to do otherwise, you stayed in your naughty, exposed position. He once again treated you to the torments he’d been considering, and the thought of living out  his suggestions made you practically want to hump the seat…

“So, I figured there were a few options for finishing your lesson… I thought about taking you to the grocery store in that outfit, where there would be more people and brighter lights…” you let out a small whimper, but he just smirked and went on. “Then I thought about setting up my phone again, to record you getting yourself off right here in the car… like making your own little porno.” He offered brightly.

You bit your lip over a small, shameful smile.

“Yes,” he went on, “I thought you might enjoy that one a little too much. Wouldn’t you?”

You’d stopped at another red light, and he reached over to give your bare ass a few sharp smacks.

“Yes… oh… yes, Sir…” you plead.

“Obviously you’re desperate to come at this point, since you��re a dirty, naughty girl who not so secretly loves her punishments,” he admonished.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” you apologized. “What can I do… to prove to you that I’m learning my lesson?”

“Hmm…” he considered. “I do have one possible idea, but I’m still thinking about it. For now, I think you should watch this. I remembered you already made your own porno today.”

Procuring his phone, he pulled up a video and handed it to you. It was the recording he’d made of you earlier in the evening, when he had you stripped almost naked and up against the wall.

You spent the rest of the car ride obediently watching as Mark covered parts of you in whipped cream and then took his time licking it off, savoring every moment. You were a little ashamed to see how often you stole glances at the camera, since he’d left it facing you. Especially while he was all too briefly going down on you. You kept looking at the screen, watching yourself struggle to hold still, while all you wanted to do was writhe under the agonizing pleasure of his touch…

“What do you think?” He asked.

“I… I keep looking at myself, on camera,” you answered.

“Of course you do. Your entire punishment came about today because you love porn so much, you decided to order some alone in your hotel room, and pay for it with a credit card. That makes you one horny, desperate girl, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir…” you agreed, knowing just how true it was. Your libido always got you into so much trouble. You could never get enough.

Mark pulled into your driveway, but after shutting off the car, he made no move to get out. The video of you starring in your own porn had ended, and he took his phone back from you.

Turning to face you more fully, the streetlight illuminated his irresistibly sexy profile. “Tell me what you did to yourself, in the hotel room. I want details,” he said.

“I, um… was laying on the bed… watching, um…”

“Naughty Secretary Nights?” He prompted.

“Yes…”

“And what exactly were you watching?”

“Um… a secretary mixed up some important files… and she um, her boss made her strip, and, um… bend over the desk… so she could be punished.”

“Of course… and how was she punished?”

“With, um… lots of spankings. And then, um, she had to beg, to be fucked…”

He smirked, reaching a casual hand across the space between you to gently graze your nipples.

“I bet you loved that, didn’t you?”

‘Y-yes… yes, Sir,” you admitted.

“And what were you doing, while the naughty secretary begged to be fucked?”

“I um, oh… um, I was on the bed, in my lingerie… then I pulled down my panties…”

“Were you on your back or on your stomach?”

“Um… on my stomach, so I could see the TV better…” you flushed with the shame of it, and he twisted each of your nipples.

“That sounds about right. So you pulled down your panties, and then what?”

“I… ohh… um, oh… I rubbed m-my clit… until I came… ohh, god…”

“And did you play with your nipples, too?”

“Ohh… y-yes, Sir,” you almost screamed, “but it j-just made me m-miss… y-you… oh god…”

“Uh-huh… I bet it did.” He pinched harder, making you moan and arch your back toward him. “And I bet you really want to be fucked right now, don’t you?”

‘Yes, oh god… yes…”

Chuckling, Mark used both hands to torment your aching nipples at the same time, rubbing and flicking and pinching just the way you liked it… loved it, craved it…

“Oh, come now. You know you’re going to have to beg,” he teased.

“Please…. Please, Sir… oh, god, please fuck me… please…”

“Mmm, I love the sound of that. Do it some more.”

“Please fuck me, please…. Oh, fuck, ohhh god… please… I’ll do… anything… ohhh…”

Releasing his hold on you, he sat back and watched you catch your breath, your tits still heaving from his exquisite torture.

“Good. Because I want you to walk from here to the porch, just like that.”

You whimpered, squirming in your seat. “W-with my cardigan on or off?”

“That’s a good question.” He pondered for a moment before answering. “I think you can leave it on, but when you get out of the car, don’t adjust it. If it falls on its own and covers your ass, that’s fine. But if it doesn’t, you leave that slutty little ass of yours on display for whoever happens to be looking, understood?”

You nodded, feeling ravenous from all of his excruciating and delicious provocations.

“Y-yes, Sir… Understood.”

“Good girl. And of course, you are under no circumstances allowed to wrap that sweater around you. No matter what, I want you to give our neighbors a good, long look at those indecent, bouncy, punished tits of yours.”

You lowered your lashes and nodded through your blushing. “Yes, Sir. Whatever you say.”

“That’s right. And maybe - if you can show me how good you are at following instructions - maybe once we’re inside I’ll fuck you.”

A small whimper escaped your lips as he climbed out of the car. You turned and followed suit, being extra careful not to adjust your clothing at all.

It was hardest when you stood completely upright, and your cardigan stayed propped up by your ass cheeks. It went against every instinct you had not to cover yourself, but with Mark standing on the porch watching your every move, you knew you had to do as he’d instructed.

Walking to the porch, you were more aware than ever before of which neighbors still had lights on. You did your best to keep your eyes on him, so you wouldn’t notice someone peeking out their window and lose your nerve.

As you reached the porch, your sweater finally slid down to cover your ass, but your relief was short lived.

“You can face the street while I unlock the door,” Mark said with a wicked glint in his eye.

Doing as you were told, you turned your body toward the street, putting yourself on full display under your porch light. Not only were your tits still spilling over the top of your French sling, but with your dress still hiked up around your waist, you realized you hadn’t been allowed to adjust your g-string, either. It was still tugged up between your pussy lips where Mark’d left it, so you were now showing off your most vulnerable parts of yourself for all to see.

And he certainly were taking his time with the door lock.

“Wouldn’t you know it… damn thing is sticking again,” he claimed, full of faux innocence.

You stood dutifully by his side, and just before he opened the door to let you in, you was mortified to spot a couple of figures in one of the lit windows across the street. You couldn’t tell who they were, but you sure knew what they saw…

Before you had time to process your embarrassment, Mark had you in the front hall with the door closed behind you. Shoving me you against the wall, he tore off your cardigan and grabbed your tits from behind.

“Is this what you want?” He taunted, playing with the wetness between your legs. “I want to hear you beg, slave. Tell me what a selfish, horny little slut you are.”

Whimpering, you craned your neck to loop at him. “P-please, Sir… Please, Master… Please let me come… I’ll do anything you want… Please… I-I’m a horny, desperate, selfish little s-slut… And I can’t get enough… Please…”

Satisfied, he led you to the couch. “Desperate, I like that ad-lib. It’s so true, you are a desperate little slut. 

“You see this big, comfortable couch?” He added. “Straddle the arm of it.”

Graciously, he took of your thong, then tied your wrist with it. Then he leaned down to you and said, “Let’s see how well you follow instructions. I want you to make yourself come, by humping this couch.” He smirked. “You know I just really love making naughty little sluts fuck my couch.”

You realized you’d been frozen. Not wanting to be further berated, you quickly set to work, humping the arm of the couch as you’d been instructed. As soon as you started thrusting your hips back and forth over the fabric, you couldn’t help but moan, it feels so good.

Mark stepped back and appraises your movements. “Yeah… This shouldn’t take long.” Squeezing one of your tits, he pinched your nipple. “Make sure to tell me when you come, slut.”

You’re mortified to see him go into the kitchen. You’re left there, humping the furniture, moaning and writhing all by myself. God… you really were a horny, desperate little slut…

As Mark assessed, it didn’t take you long to come. Obliging as ever, you followed instructions and cried out, arching your back. “I’m coming… Oh god… Yes… Fuck… I’m coming…”

It’s such a release. When you open your eyes, you’re startled to find him standing next to you, watching with amusement dancing in his eyes. Then he settled on the couch, adjusting you so you’re sitting with your back to him and your ass nestled against his groin.

Your mind wasn’t left to wander for long, as you’d taken Mark’s cue to start fondling and pinching your tits, making you squirm on his lap. You felt his hard cock under you, and it just made you squirm more… until he spanks you between your legs. “Hold still, slut.”

As far as words went, not much turned you on like that simple command. You did your best to still your body instantly, though you kept panting under his torment.

He then played with your wetness and it’s so hard not to move. Your panting got worse and turned into whimpers. He started spanking your cunt again, over and over. All you could do was to hold still and take it. Your tits were turning red from his molestation, and the wet smacking sounds of your spanked pussy were so loud you could all hear them over your cries of painful pleasure.

You felt his breath on your ear as he murmured, “You’re about to come, aren’t you, slut?”

“Y-yesss… Fuck… Yes, Sir…”

“Beg for it.”

“P-please, Sir… Please, may I c-come?”

Mark started spanking your pussy harder and faster, and when he did, your body was consumed by the orgasm that courses through you. You couldn’t help it, you arched your back and moan, thanking him for getting you off. “Good girl,” he says reassuringly and stops touching you once he could tell you’re coming down. He wiped his wet hand across your face, making sure to smear cum across your forehead, cheeks, lips, and neck.

“You’d want to hold on now because you’re about to get fucked like a nasty slut you are.” He breathed into your ear while undoing his fly.

You gripped the far side of the couch with both of your hands and as soon as you did, he thrust into you so hard you shouted. "Oh!"

His hands gripped onto your hips and his cock started pounding you. It was hard and hot, almost felt like your insides were burning. But you liked it. You’d always liked how Mark felt, and how merciless he fucked.

"Mark, oh...fuck," you moaned so quietly you could barely hear it. Still, the sound of his own name coming out of your mouth while he pumped his cock deep into your cunt made his breath quicken.

He gave each of your ass cheek a rough slap, teeth nibbing on your earlobe. “You love being fucked like this, yeah? Like a filthy whore that deserves to get all of her holes filled with come.” The third and fourth smack landed and he breathed out a ‘fuck’ when your skin reddened even more.

You started to clench inside, and orgasm building. "Can I come...please?"

Mark looked down at you. The skirt bunched over your waist, bare assed, tits crushed against his chest, your hair was a wild mess. He grinned, almost condescending. “Yeah, you’re gonna come again? Fuck, go on, slut. Cream my cock.”

Heat crashed you right then and there. Your entire body giving up from the orgasms you’d had. Mark was close, his hip pistoned into you with a maddening speed. And he saw you, mouth open, eyes rolling back, panting, utterly undone, ropes of hot come splashed on your walls. He grunted, biting down on your shoulder while chasing his high. 

You felt it, felt him tightened, his balls contracting even more. His cock thickened, swelled, stretched you even more, and you started to fall into overstimulation - bucking, gasping, pushing hard back against him.

He finished with several more strokes, and laid over you, breathing hard. “I really hope you’ve learnt your lesson, baby.” He smiled slightly, brushing hair away from your face and placed a kiss on your swollen lips.

©️  RECKLESSMARK. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Five

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen*

*I say it's an OC, it's just a name and third person POV. I use minor character descriptions because I don’t get on with writing vague reader inserts/YN for long-form, story heavy fics, but I will generally try to avoid including race and body type or really any physical descriptors. I’m always open to feedback on my writing, or how to be more inclusive.

WC: 17k (holy moly)

Chapter Warnings: I tried to sprinkle some fluffy flashbacks and smutty references later in here just to lighten the mood but this is angsty!! probably cursing I honestly can't remember, and serious warnings rn mentions of hacking/gossip blogs/blackmail/cyber bullying/nudes being leaked, talia is her own warning tbh. I tried not to make a cliched ex comes in between them plot and idk how it comes across but yeah I was trying to toe the line between it being interesting/different and then going too far and not being able to write around it which is why the plot kind of fixes itself quick and is a leeeetle bit bad but there's some unresolved bitterness in that relationship for sure lmao she has a LOT 2 say!! did I mention there's angst in here? insecurity/self-doubt and miscommunication!!! in abundance!!! but!! luke is a cutey patootie in this I wrote his part with a lil smile on my face 💖 also a ridiculous conversation about huffing glue lmao

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Four)

A/N: ok so in the grand scheme of things this is both a filler chapter and also like a pivotal point in the story to set something later up, but when I was planning this entire fic out, the only directive I gave myself for this specific chapter was insert angst. you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've written and rewritten and gone back and forth on what's in here. it's the kind of instruction only a complete melon would give themselves and I clearly just hate myself in ways that are spooky and strange to submit myself to this kind of torture.

and I hear your cries of hasn’t this fic just been angst so far??? yes!! you may be correct!! but you don’t get a rainbow without a bit of rain hun!!! grab an umbrella!!! I promise good will come of this lmao

I'm sorry this one took so long, it's the only chapter I didn't have any kind of plan or direction for obviously and I tried to come up with so many different options for the talia plot before I landed on whatever this is, but the next one I do have some scenes written out in my plan so shouldn't be as long in between. my goal has always been a chapter a week but like I said the other day work has been a lot for me the past couple of weeks so I am genuinely sorry for making you wait!!

you guys were very fun and very kind to me after the last chapter so please please please lets keep the good vibes going come chat to me about your thoughts about the fic about the weather about anything!! 💓

Nico

When Nico and Talia had first started dating, there had been an element of excitement to the dynamic. Nico hadn’t properly dated anyone in a while - had casual flings here and there, and for the most part spent his time swallowing down his burgeoning feelings for his best friend - and there was a novelty to starting something with someone new.

He had all the intentions of building something serious with her. She was fun, got on with his friends, had ties close to home that meant he wouldn’t be putting a wedge between the two of them should he want to travel back in his breaks, and sinking his teeth into the challenges of a relationship was something that actually intrigued him.

He liked planning dates, liked buying gifts to see that buzz of joy and gratitude it would elicit, and he liked the companionship - liked having someone there when he came back from a long roadie or a tough string of games. 

He liked it so much he never really opened his eyes to the fact that Talia didn’t. 

She didn’t like the dates he planned - didn’t like the restaurants he chose, the movies he wanted to share with her, the bars him and the guys frequented. She didn’t like America, didn’t like their coffee shops, thought their pastries were packed with too much sugar, their portion sizes were too large for her ever to enjoy going for lunch, always complaining about feeling bloated and sluggish after every meal. She hated Jersey - wanted to spend all her time across the Hudson, looking down on everyone she met and everywhere they went together. She didn’t make much use of the gifts he bought her - let every bouquet of flowers die a quick, careless death, said the watch he bought her didn’t go with enough of her other jewellery and turned her nose up at every effort he made to make his apartment feel more like her home. 

She wasn’t all that comforting when it came to companionship, either. Rolled her eyes when he came home aching and exhausted, went out without him on the days he was coming back from a roadie and returned home when he had long retired to his bed. She would always want to meet up with her girlfriends instead of hanging around the team, and only ever wanted to come to games if she could bring her own entourage - mostly to show off her connections and hardly ever to actually support him.

And so, despite the initial attraction, despite the excitement that first came with their blossoming relationship, Nico can only look at Talia with disinterest and frigidity now.

He barely greets her as he opens the door to his apartment, moving aside to let her in and waiting for her to trudge her small case in behind her before he closes it, leaning against the surface and watching her discard her bag and keys on the counter with familiarity.

When she turns to face him, running a hand through her hair and huffing out a big sigh, he takes in her dishevelled appearance.

Even when travelling, Talia usually takes great pride in her pristine exterior - hair blow-dried, outfit co-ordinated and steam-pressed to perfection, not a crease or stain in sight, and usually a light layer of makeup to cover the slight imperfections like the darkened under eyes and redness around her nose. This isn’t like her.

She looks like she’s been messing with her hair the whole 8 hour flight out and beyond, her eyes are rimmed-red with smudges of brown at the corners, her lips are chapped and swollen like she’s been crying, and her sweatpants don’t match her hoodie. It’s almost like she’d thrown on whatever she could find and caught the first flight out, fresh out of bed.

“What’s going on?” He cuts straight to the chase, losing all formality and courtesy. He should feel bad for his callous greeting, but she had broken up with him over text not even a month ago - she doesn’t exactly deserve outstretched arms and a warm embrace, he thinks.

“Hi Talia, how have you been, Talia? It’s nice to see you Talia.” She mocks, a frown overtaking her features immediately. “I’m absolutely amazing, thanks for caring, Nico!” Sarcasm spews from her tongue like pure venom, and his eyes practically roll into the back of his head.

Nico pushes himself off of the door, heavy footsteps leading him into his kitchen where he can make himself a coffee to get through this. His watch reads 6:05 - far too early for her antics - and rising to her nagging is only going to make things worse.

“Do you want a drink?” He asks, as he busies himself with his coffee press, unable to look at her too long without the pricks of guilt irritating him.  He doesn’t even know what he has to feel guilty about.

“I’ll get it myself,” she scoffs, venturing over to the fridge and pouring out some orange juice - her movements around his space eerily natural. She slams back most of the drink as he works out how to brew his coffee - but she sees right through him. He’s hardly ever used the press before, and he’s just doing so now to avoid her in whatever capacity he can. “I need money.”

Nico’s almost positive he hasn’t heard her right - that there’s some kind of mix up between her standard German and his Swiss - and he slowly turns to properly face her, brows slanting into a deep frown as he assesses her expression.

She has a hand on her hip, her jaw set and her eyes darkened and serious. 

“You have money.”

Talia comes from money - her father is some kind of film producer and her mother an artist, if Nico remembers correctly - and she makes good money, herself. She’s been a print model since she was scouted in some market in Munich since she was 15, has had her face plastered in ads in magazines and catalogues around the world. She’s hardly strapped for cash. She gets things gifted to her by whatever company she can get a hold of. What could she possibly need him to give her money for?

“Not enough.” Her tone is cold, her demeanour the same, and if Nico can still gauge her emotions correctly, there’s an element of blame that she is starting to shift towards him, and his whole body starts to feel tense.

“Not enough for what?”

He can’t quite tell what feeling washes over him - worry, at the thought she’s gotten herself into some kind of trouble, stress, at the thought this could be a recurring thing, and potentially pity, at the way she’s so clearly carrying the weight of something heavy - something she’s lugged all the way across the Atlantic on a long haul flight with her.

“Not enough to pay the guy who’s blackmailing me not to leak the videos that I sent to you.”

“What vide-“ he bites back, and the immediate arch of her brow tells him all he needs to know. “Oh.”

Shit.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” She sneers, fury in her gaze and dismay in her tone. “You’ve ruined my life, and all I get is an oh?”

“Whoa, slow down, I’ve ruined your life?”

Nico has never been one to shame any girl for sending explicit pictures - he’d been more than willing to receive them at the time - but he hadn’t ever forced her hand. He hadn’t even asked her for them, in the first place. 

She’d taken it upon herself to spice things up, as she had put it at the time, when the team had gone on the road in early December. It was just after he’d returned from his injury - a time in which he’d spent mentally distanced from her as he’d focused so much on getting back to the game, their relationship consisting mainly of not-so-passionate sex to avoid aggravating his injury and hardly of any kind of meaningful conversation - and she had thought that keeping him on his toes on a roadie would mean he’d come back more interested than ever.

If he’d been looking out for red flags at the time, he might have caught that blaring one; needing to try new things only a few months into a relationship to keep it fun and light.

He’d been in his hotel room in Seattle, freshly showered and ready to throw himself straight into bed when his phone had started to ping. It was suggestive texts at first, are you alone? And I’m thinking about you. Then it had been pictures, hands over lingerie and fingers between glossy, pouted lips.

And then videos, one after the other before he had any chance to respond - her phone set up far enough away that her whole body was in frame, touching herself while laying on his bed and calling out for him.

He had called her instead of sending anything back, and as he realises the severity of the situation, a selfish part of him is glad he did so.

“Talia, I didn’t even save those videos, and I definitely didn’t show them to anyone else.”

Nico could never. Not only for the fact that he was raised to be a decent human being, but he has a sister - if anyone ever did that to Nina, he’d tear them apart, limb from limb. 

“You’re the only person I’ve ever sent anything to.” She seems to have made her mind up, and Nico feels as if his heart plummets through his torso at the realisation. She’s travelled all this way because she genuinely believes he’s the cause of this - that he’s shared intimate videos of her without her consent, to someone who would extort her for them. “And he sent me some pictures as proof, had information about me like the address of this apartment.”

“Talia, I swear on my mother’s life, I wouldn’t do that to you - to anyone, not ever.”

Tears well in her crystalline eyes, and Nico waits with bated breath as she assesses the situation in her head. 

He isn’t a liar - he has never given her a reason to think he is one. In their time together, he had always been honest, always been loyal, and he hopes at the very least - despite her obvious distain for him now, and how little she ended up caring about their relationship in the end to cut it off in the way she did - she thought of him as kind. 

He can do nothing but be patient, let her come to whatever conclusion on her own, and it’s only when he spots the quiver in her bottom lip that he takes an apprehensive step forward, ready to console her if needed.

She practically throws herself into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist and bawling into his chest, and all he can do is hold her and wait. He tries to rub a soothing hand up and down her back, holding the other against her head as her body wracks with sobs. All he can feel is the pounding of his own heartbeat, pulsing throughout his entire body until it’s all he can hear, too.

Nico does his best to comfort her, shushing and cooing and whispering how it’s going to be alright, but it does little to help. She’s beyond relief.

“There’s a guy who said he can track whoever is doing this to me,” she sniffles as she pulls herself away. “He’s in Jersey City Heights, he’s some sort of ethical hacker, whatever that means, I’m going to meet him and he’s gonna go through my phone.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nico doesn’t even hesitate to ask - if not to protect her, and make sure she isn’t unknowingly getting herself into an even more dangerous situation, then to protect himself too. If someone has Talia’s pictures, and she only sent them to him, there’s a possibility his phone had been hacked, and if this guy is as ethical as he says, maybe he can check Nico’s stuff, too, just to be safe.

She gives him an appreciative smile, eyes still glassy and cheeks flushed. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“I’m gonna shower, then we can go. You can grab whatever to eat while you’re waiting.” He backs away from her completely, only just able to acknowledge the ache in his muscles once the intensity of the situation has settled a little, and he just needs to stand under the steaming spray and clear his mind before he properly immerses himself in her company. 

He has a lot more than this whole mess that he needs to think about, and maybe a shower can bring him a little clarity on how exactly he’s going to explain himself to the beautiful girl whose bed he had abruptly left not even an hour ago. 

“Why are you dressed?”

Nico stops in his tracks.

When he had got back to his apartment, he’d made a little effort for it to seem like he’d been there all night. He’d gone through to his bedroom, mussed up his sheets to make it seem like he had been sleeping in them - and not with the anticipation that Talia was going to be entering his bedroom, but with her, he never knows - trying to retrace the steps of his usual routine before he goes to bed, he had closed all the blinds, had moved his gym bag by the door.

But he hadn’t changed.

Still adorned in his sweatshirt and jeans from the night before, the clothing feels all that much heavier on his body as she brings attention to it, and he quickly racks his brain to come up with a valid excuse that doesn’t rouse further suspicion.

“I fell asleep in these clothes.” As easy as the lie comes out, he doesn’t feel great saying it. Doesn’t feel like erasing the night he had shared with Poppy is for the greater good, even if it is just to Talia, but avoiding another difficult conversation is a must right now - especially when he’d already lied to her on the phone. “Was out late with the guys last night, Timo threw a party for my birthday.”

“Right,” she drags out, and when he turns back around, she casts a scrutinising glance over him, top to bottom. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“No worries,” he shrugs, genuinely not offended. She has no reason to remember his birthday. Not anymore. “Like I said, help yourself to whatever, I’ll try not to be long.” 

When he undresses for his shower, he’s thankful he hadn’t had the foresight to change in anticipation of Talia’s arrival. He probably would have donned a t-shirt and some shorts, oblivious to the visible indents on his thighs where Poppy had dug her nails in as she took him in her mouth.

His chest and torso are littered with scratches, some faint, some a little deeper, and he can’t get the right angle to see his back but he imagines they’re the same - the memory of her clutching at him as both of their climaxes approached is vivid enough for him to picture the marks she left behind.

He groans as the thought of her brings back that swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he notices the blooming arousal pool there, and feels himself harden as he steps under the spray of his shower.

If his phone had been on do not disturb through the night, he could be in the shower with Poppy, instead.

He could have woken up to her in his arms, could have pecked at her sleep-swollen lips until it brought her out of her slumber, and spent his morning making up for lost time just like he had promised her last night. He could have made light work of the pleasure he had given her the night before - could have had her underneath him in her bed, tangled up in the mess of sheets and falling apart before they shared a morning shower, where he’d have held her up against the tiles and would’ve moved into her until they couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. He’d have made her breakfast, something sweet, so that as she sat and watched him atop the kitchen counter he had tasted her on for the first time not even 12 hours before, he’d press his tongue into her mouth after she had eaten and savour the flavour of strawberries that had settled between her lips.

Instead, he’s here, turning the temperature of his water down until any and all excitement in his body is dampened, and all he can focus on is the effect the cold has on all his other aching muscles.

Once he has showered and gotten dressed - and has come to the conclusion that any further thoughts about Poppy need to wait until the Talia problem is resolved and out of his hands, he finds his ex girlfriend sprawled across his couch, music playing from the speaker in the corner, and taking helping herself to a whole new level. 

Her case is opened where she had left it by the door, and she’s set herself a little vanity up on his coffee table, fixing her appearance before they leave.

She’s changed out of her mismatched sweats, has dressed herself in jeans and a sweater, and has found an extension cable long enough for her to plug in whatever hot tool she’s currently running through her hair.

“You take the longest showers in the history of man,” she rolls her eyes, not even casting a glance his way as she focuses on her own reflection in the little mirror she must have brought with her. “I do not want to know what it is you get up to in there.”

“I was barely 30 minutes, are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, almost,” she runs the tool through her bangs until they flick out at the edges on either side of her face, and it reminds him of all the times he had watched her while waiting for her to finish getting ready. It makes him feel uneasy how familiar it all is, how she’s so quickly made herself at home again in his space.

He wants to tell her she needs to pack her stuff back up, that she won’t be staying here and needs to give his keys back, but the weight of the situation at hand dawns on him before he can open his mouth.

He’ll wait until they get back later, his decision depending on the outcome of their visit to her hacker friend.

As much as he doesn’t want her around, he isn’t going to kick her out with no place to go if her life is still shrouded in unsafe circumstances. 

Talia unplugs her stuff, wraps the cord around the handle of the brush she was using, and places it on a mat she must have brought with her so it doesn’t burn through the surface of the table. “Kay, let’s go.”

She marches ahead of him, picking up her bag and keys on the way out and leaving him to lock up while she calls for the elevator. They wait together in silence, his heart thudding an anxious rhythm in his chest as he anticipates the arrival of the elevator - and thankfully, it arrives empty.

He tries to distance himself from her as they enter, him standing in one corner, and hoping she takes the other, but she doesn’t quite get the memo, standing obliviously in the centre as she types away to someone on her phone and he presses the button to go to the basement.

Nico watches the numbers go down with bated breath. His floor, the next, the next one after that, and he uses any good will he has left with the universe to hope and pray it skips the floor coming up - but, as is just his luck, the elevator comes to a stop with a soft thud, and the doors open to reveal the very situation he’s been hoping to avoid. 

Jack walks straight in, eyes cast down to the phone in his hands, distractedly typing away and not even noticing the button for the parking level has been pressed before he pushes it, himself.

Luke notices straight away, halting in his movements to enter the space as his gaze flickers between the two people already occupying it. 

He diverts his eyes when they meet Nico’s head dropping as he steps in and stands beside his brother, uttering a quick greeting of, “Hey, Cap.”

Jack’s attention is captured immediately, spinning at an almost dizzying speed to face his captain, phone disregarded into his back pocket. “Schao! I thought you’d be at-,”

He’s thankfully able to tune into his perception before he carries on with his train of thought, a subtle movement in his peripheral diverting his gaze to the figure stood to the side of Nico. 

“Talia. Hi.”

“Hi, Jack.” Nico cringes inwardly at how disinterested she sounds. “Luke.” Talia had never really cared for Nico’s teammates - especially not the younger guys like Jack and Luke. She was quick to pass judgement, making comments on their maturity, or apparent lack-thereof, and wasn’t the biggest fan of how close Nico was with the pair. Didn’t like the time or attention he gave them considering the close quarters they lived in, and had always been resentful. She always claimed her English wasn’t good enough to hold a proper conversation with them, but he’d seen her enough around her American friends to know it wasn’t true.

“We’re just meeting up with some of the guys for breakfast.” Jack says, cautiously, in an attempt to fill the silence. The invitation remains unspoken, but Nico can tell in the way the younger boy cocks his head and meets his eye that he’s gauging his current situation for the morning.

“We have plans.” Talia must be able to tell what he was getting at, too and Nico can see Luke’s eyes narrow as soon as the word resonates in his head. Plans. Pre-meditated. Made before she had sprung all of this on him within the last hour or two. Panic stirs within him, and his throat itches to speak the truth, but it’s just not the right time to do so with Talia stood beside him. If he starts getting defensive, she’ll start asking questions, and the boys will have to bear witness to him skirting around the matter of Poppy. 

It’s not a good look no matter which way he swings it. He’s stuck in a thick, dark, tarry mess of not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings but making all the wrong decisions. A minefield of not knowing how to explain himself without raising a million questions on either side, and hoping one of the brothers might toe the line of the boundaries of their relationship and just straight up ask why Talia is here.

He knows he has fucked up without the way neither of them are looking him in the eye.

He knew it the second Poppy’s door had locked behind him this morning - he doesn’t need Luke refusing to meet his gaze, doesn’t need Jack’s shifting side eye to tell him he’s made a mistake. 

“I’ll text you later.” Nico says, mainly to Jack but still trying to meet his brother’s eyes with no luck. It’s an attempt to say something, without saying anything. A silent beg not to jump to conclusions about what they’ve seen - and, although he knows they wouldn’t, not to tell anyone else. Not whichever of the guys they are meeting up with, not anyone else on the team, and definitely not Poppy.

“Yeah, sure,” Jack mutters in a poor attempt to hide his discomfort, and an even worse attempt at masking his relief when the doors ping open on the parking level.

“Have fun with your plans,” Luke huffs out, his tone like a tight fist clutching at Nico’s chest despite his courteous choice of words.

“We will,” Talia forces a smile. Nico gets the feeling she isn’t as oblivious to the tension as he hopes she is.

The four of them separate into their pairs with mumbled goodbyes, Jack and Luke heading off to Luke’s car on one side of the garage, and Nico and Talia heading to his on the other, and Nico can’t even let out a sigh of pseudo-relief before Talia jumps on him.

“That was weird.”

“We broke up, they weren’t expecting to see us together.” He quickly excuses as he starts the car up, turning on the heat and hoping the soft buzz of the air will fill the silence enough that she doesn’t feel the need to talk. 

“It’s been like 3 weeks, most couples get back together after their first breakup.”

Has it only been 3 weeks? He thinks, shuddering at how little time had actually passed between her sending that text and him restoring balance to his life.

“We’re not most couples,” he shrugs, shutting that train of thought immediately as he starts to make his way out of the parking garage, ascending the ramp where the doors open up to reveal the dull beam of the winter morning sun. “You dumped me over text a week before Christmas, we’re not getting back together.”

“Oh yeah, I bet you were real cut up about it,” she jibes, sarcastically. “Probably landed straight in the bed of some desperate puck bunny more than happy to take your mind off of how awful I was to you.”

His mind immediately goes to Poppy, to last night, to her bed - and despite the complete bullshit Talia has fabricated in her head, despite how much he wants to tell her she has it all wrong, he can’t bear to twist himself even further into knots to skirt around mentioning the girl who did make him better.

“We’re not having this conversation right now.” He decides, tapping at the screen in the console of his car until he brings up the navigation. “Put in the address you need, we’re not too far from The Heights.”

The location she enters into the system is for an unassuming condo in a quiet, suburban area. The neighbourhood itself is picturesque, the buildings colourful, the paths lined with trees that seemed to flourish even in the midst of winter, and when Nico pulls up across the street, he notices the amount of families around - parents walking their kids to school and couples with dogs getting their morning steps in. It’s the last place he imagines some hacker to be shacked up, but maybe that’s the point.

He still doesn’t entirely understand the ethical part.

“It’s the one with the red brick and the balcony,” Talia points to the other side of the road as she unbuckles her seatbelt, and Nico looks over at the building as if he’s going to be able to see all the secrets stored within it.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, number 414.” She shows him the messages she has exchanged with the guy, and sure enough, the address matches up. “C’mon, the sooner we get in there, the sooner we can figure this out.”

He follows her across the street, adjusting the cap he wears atop his head and making sure it conceals his identity from anyone with eyesight good enough to catch it, trying to shrug off the discomfort of the whole situation as he waits for someone to pick up the buzzer Talia relentlessly presses.

He hears a different kind of buzz, lighter, like the manual zoom of a camera, and cranes his neck to assess their surroundings as they wait, before he catches sight of the device in the top corner of the porch, facing directly onto them.

He hears the click of a lock as soon as his eyes make contact with the thing, and cautiously tries the handle on the door until it pushes all the way down, letting them into the building. 

The door to the ground floor condo is open, and stood in the entrance is a guy no older than 20, dressed in all black with dark, beady eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses. If Nico could find it in him to see the humour in the situation, he’d laugh at how he looks like Luke - a mop of curly brown hair, tall with a slim build and ever so slightly poor posture.

He straightens up as the two of them approach, Nico keeping Talia behind him as he assesses the safety of the situation. If they’re being lured into some kind of trap, he could definitely take this guy - he can’t even maintain direct eye contact, never mind manage to subdue a man of Nico’s stature.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone, Talia.”

He’s soft-spoken, his voice ever so nasally, and despite the fact that he’s talking to the girl behind him, his gaze has settled on Nico’s chest.

“My name’s Nico.” He introduces himself, holding out a hand to shake. He thinks he can write him off as a threat, for now, and if making him feel comfortable encourages him to help them, he wants to put him at ease. “

“I know who you are.” He doesn’t shake Nico’s hand. “I’m Myles. Come in.”

Myles doesn’t wait for the two of them, marching back into his place and leaving the door open for Talia and Nico to enter and close behind them. 

Nico isn’t surprised by the space - from his brief encounter with the resident so far, it fits him to a tee; neat, impersonal, furniture that looks fresh out of a catalogue. He follows him over to the corner of his living room, a PC set up with several monitors that he can’t tell are on until they’re standing straight in front of them.

Myles throws himself down into the large swivel chair, spinning until he’s facing the two of them and crossing his arms over his torso with disinterest. “So, nudes?”

Straight to the point. Nico can’t exactly be mad at it.

Talia steps out from behind him, handing her unlocked phone to Myles. “The messages started last week, just after New Years. Straight to my number, not in DMs or anything, but the number doesn’t even come up for me to call it from another phone or anything, just says unknown.”

Myles takes her phone and plugs it into his setup without even looking at whatever she has opened on it, and Nico watches as the screens come alive with mirrors of the device and some other apps that launch as soon as it connects. 

“That’s more helpful than you think, they have to use an app to be able to anonymously text you, makes it easier to identify them.”

The way Myles talks is monotonous and detached, but the way he works is anything but. His fingers move quicker than Nico’s eyes can track on his keyboard, typing away at whatever as different things flash up and leave his screen. It like something straight out of a spy movie.

“So we can find out who it is just from that?” He asks, arms folding over his chest as he watches in almost-awe.

“Not exactly. If it is a hacker, I could identify their signature. Doesn’t mean I could identify them, but we can work around it potentially.”

Talia throws herself down on the couch behind them exasperatedly, sighing loudly and making her displeasure known. “You told me you could track them down, that’s what I’m paying you to do.”

“I told you I could help you, I didn’t say I could specifically track anyone, that’s not how this works.”

“How does it work then?” Nico asks.

Myles wheels his chair to the side to make room for Nico to get closer, and starts walking him through the process, pointing through the different apps he uses and explaining how he uses them. One deciphers which app the person used to message Talia. Once that’s been deduced, he uses another to enter a backdoor into that app’s servers, perusing through them until he finds the account that sent the text, making sure the date, time and then content line up. Once he’s found the account, he can see the other texts sent from it, and a gallery spreads across two screens, with maybe hundreds of pictures, videos, messages and transactions all to or from that same account.

“You’re telling me you have the power to do all this and you don’t use it to like rob banks or something?”

“Ethical hacker, clue’s in the name.” Myles shrugs. Nico looks back to Talia, her jaw set as she picks at her nails out of boredom. It’s probably taken about fifteen minutes for this guy to work an absolute miracle, and she looks like she couldn’t care less. “We use all this information, and the access I have on the server, to shut this dude down and cut his con before he can do it to anyone else.”

“Whoa whoa,” Talia shoots up, “Won’t that make him mad? Make him just post all the photos?”

“I doubt it,” the hacker comments, bringing up a couple of the photos on the screens, some of Talia, some of another girl, making Nico divert his eyes. “They’re not even real.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Excuse me?”

Talia and Nico both question at the same time, leaning in to get a proper look to confirm what is being told to them. The other pictures Myles had brought up, the ones of other girls, are actually kind of the same. The same poses, the same backgrounds, the same outfits, or lack thereof, just different faces and different hair.

“They’re called deep fakes. Photoshop, essentially.” He has that aloof tone to his words again, and Nico can’t quite believe how simple it seems for him to say. “They put a bunch of your pictures into an AI generator and give it instruction, like put this face on a body posed like this or wearing that. I’d assume the video they have is the same.”

“How is that even possible?” Talia gasps, pushing herself forward and snatching the mouse from Myles’ grasp. She clicks into what she assumes is the video, and it starts playing before she can think better of it, thankfully without any sound. 

It’s Talia - that much is obvious from the initial close up of her face - but Nico doesn’t recognise anything else about it. He doesn’t recognise the room she’s in, the bed she’s on, the things she’s doing. He’s never seen this before. It’s definitely not one of the videos she had sent him, and when he looks closer, he realises the little moles on her ribs aren’t even there.

None of it is real.

“You said he sent you the photos? You didn’t realise they weren’t the ones you took?” He can’t conceal the bite in his tone, his brows furrowing as he looks at her in disbelief. She’s flown out here, disrupted his peace, blamed him for blackmailing her, and she can’t even recognise what is or isn’t her own body. 

“They looked real, I-,” Her shock disappears as quickly as it had come about, her mood shifting and a glare all of a sudden being directed at her ex boyfriend. “I wouldn’t have accused you if they didn’t look real, Nico.” She snaps, frowning at him like this is his fault. “You have no idea what it’s like to be threatened like that, I won’t have you blame me for panicking.”

Slivers of guilt seep into his subconscious, and he takes a deep breath, diverting his gaze uneasily and letting out a big sigh.

He knows he should be a little more compassionate, but there’s panicking, and then there’s this.

She had accused him of ruining her life.

“What about the rest of it?” Nico asks, “Like how did he get her number or have my address? You said he had other information?”

“He did,” Talia nods, looking over to Myles.

“The address he probably got when he got your number, and he could have got that from anywhere. Could be something as small as you ordering something online and the store having a data breach, or clicking a link that shared your IP address, and getting your phone information from that.” Myles starts his typing again, keeping a tight grip on his mouse so that it can’t be snatched again. “I could probably find out actually, they’re pretty easy to spot, do you clear your history often?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to do that,”

“Perfect,” Again, his fingertips work at lightening speed, and Nico watches as instagram opens on one of the screens. “Yeah, a DM sent to you from… Devils_tea. You opened a link to a shared drive to upload some pictures, the drive probably had malware and the pictures have location metadata.”

Nico rolls his eyes, that small ebb of pity washing almost completely away, and before Talia can stop him, Myles carries on. “Some of the pictures you sent them are the ones they used for the AI photos, look your face in this one is the exact same as this photo they threatened to leak.”

Nico recognises these photos. The ones that had been plastered all over social media when their relationship had leaked. Pictures of them back in Switzerland, on a weekend trip to Ibiza, selfies of them in his apartment, and even a picture of the two of them with his parents back at his family home in Valais.

He has been far too oblivious to Talia’s games for far too long, he realises. 

Of course she had been the one to leak everything - who else would have had those photos - but he hadn’t even considered it would be her; she had faced the harshest aftermath for it, why would she subject herself to all the subsequent grief that came with people knowing about their relationship?

Thank God for this guy’s lack of social cues, Nico thinks, or he would never have known that for as long as they had been together, she had been violating his revered privacy and trust.

“Nico, that wasn’t-,” Talia’s panic is evident, wide eyes, trembling hands raised in defence, “I must have been hacked,”

“Actually, there’s no-,” Myles begins to interject, fingers working again to fact check, but Nico doesn’t need him to validate what he already knows.

“Shut up,” Talia snarls, with a finger pointed at him, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re done here.” She reaches forward to snatch her phone back, yanking out the wire that connects it to his monitors and throwing it onto the desk. “We’re leaving, and if you think I’m paying you anything, you’re deluded.” 

Talia marches past them and straight out of the condo, slamming every door she possibly can behind her. Nico can only cringe as the sounds of her stomping footsteps echo until they fade out - until she’s probably outside and waiting for him back at his car.

“Doesn’t she want me to shut this thing down?”

“I’ll pay you.” Nico sighs, reaching into his pocket for his phone and trying to push down the feeling that arises when he’s met with a blank lock screen.

Poppy hasn’t messaged him. 

Not that he deserves for her to make it easy, to let him off the hook and pretend he hasn’t royally fucked things up with her.

“If you stop him, does he still have all the photos? He could still release them?”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty easy to validate as fakes, especially when you have the source material. I don’t think this guy is sophisticated enough for a full blown hack into her phone for the real thing. I couldn’t find evidence of any breach of her cloud or her device.”

Nico nods, but the information does little to quell the anxiety that squeezes his chest in a vice-like grip. 

This whole morning has been nothing but a giant waste of his time. From the second his eyes opened, to this moment right now, he’s made nothing but mistakes.

Not putting his phone on sleep mode before he and Poppy went to bed had been a mistake. Taking Talia’s call had been a mistake. Not waking Poppy up had been a mistake. Leaving without a note, without a text, leaving at all - it had all been one error after another, and all he has left to do is face up to the fact.

He can’t do anything to dwindle the panic rousing in every fibre of his being, the scarring marks left by torturous lashings of regret that whip at his skin.

He’s never felt so ashamed of himself, in such disbelief at his own decisions.

Why didn’t he just wake her?

She’s the most level-headed, acceptable person he knows. She would have understood. He hadn’t had a reasonable explanation at the time, and he doesn’t really have one now - but she would have accepted it, whatever he could have told her, she would have listened, waited until he could give her more.

He needs to see her, to explain, before it’s too late.

If he thinks about the feeling settling in his stomach, if he can compare it to anything, it’s like running from a blazing inferno of doubt and insecurity, licks of fire racing to catch up to him, the soles of his feet pressing into the sizzling ground - and Poppy is the cool embrace of safety.

She is light cracking through a window he just needs to break through to make it out.

If he can get to her quick enough, if he runs, and runs, maybe he’ll make it before he’s jiggling at a red hot handle that won’t move, won’t give, won’t budge.

If he can just talk to her, maybe the morning from hell will be outweighed by the days of resilience, weeks of efforts, years of loving her in whatever capacity, and the promise of something better.

He just needs to get rid of Talia.

The car journey back to his apartment is carried out in a deafening silence. She had tried to talk to him when he’d made his way out of Myles’ condo, when he had found her waiting by his Mercedes with crossed arms and a sour look on her face, but he’d told her he didn’t want to hear it, that they’d deal with it in private.

He hardly wanted a showdown with her in the middle of the street.

And so, she sat in his passenger seat, jaw set, glaring out the window and letting out the occasional huff or puff for attention that he wasn’t entertaining.

The elevator ride up to his place had been the same. Silent, filled with the type of tension you could cut with a knife, and all he could do was ignore her continued petulance and take deep breaths to calm himself down. In through his nose, out through his mouth, overlooking the way she tapped her foot in his peripheral vision, and almost audibly rolled her eyes every few seconds. 

“Would it have killed you to defend me in there?” She scoffs as soon as the door closes behind them in his apartment, “You just let him accuse me of all that stuff and completely invade my privacy!”

Nico screws his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He can’t blow up, can’t stoop to her level. He won’t feel good after the fact. He knows how Talia operates, should have known she’d immediately play the victim card, and he isn’t falling into the trap of arguing to the point of being in the wrong.

He’ll say something he regrets and she’ll use it to her advantage, somehow.

“You asked him to go through your phone, Talia.” He sighs, making his way over to the kitchen and getting himself some water. Chugging at it does little to soothe the burning feeling prickling at the back of his mouth, or the itch of his tongue to spit out a scathing retort. “He’s shut down the guy behind it, he can’t message you or anyone else with any more threats, you should be happy.”

“I should be happy?” She follows him wherever he tries to get away, crowding his space and jabbing a pointed finger into his arm. “You have no idea what I’ve been going through this past week. I thought my career was over! How was I supposed to know it was fake?”

“You didn’t even look at the pictures-,”

“Because I was panicking! I was upset, you can’t expect me to be able to recognise what’s been photoshopped when I’m scared like that!”

“But you can fly straight over here and pin the blame on me for ruining your life? You weren’t too upset to point the finger, Talia,”

“Don’t be an asshole, Nico, it doesn’t suit you.” 

“I’m being the asshole? You don’t even care about the trail of destruction you leave behind you, do you? You send private pictures of us, of me, of my family to random people online who you don’t even know, for what, Talia? For money?”

“I don’t need their money-,”

“So it was just for the attention? You get to parade our relationship around like it means nothing more to you than a title, and once you get your fifteen minutes and a few more instagram followers, you just jet back home and dump me over a text?”

“Oh my God,” she cries, flailing her arms dramatically, following him yet again as he makes his way into his living room, picking her stuff up after her that she had discarded here before they left and throwing it into her travel bag. “Stop playing the victim, for Christ’s sake, you’re hardly heartbroken over it. I know for a fact you’ve been hooking up with someone, one of the girls messaged me that they saw you leave a party with her on New Years!”

“So that’s what this is?” Nico snaps, pointing to her, to her stuff, “You think I’m moving on so you fly back out here and spring this bullshit on me, try to make me feel bad?”

“You have some nerve, Nico,” Talia scoffs, folding her arms across her chest and levelling him with a darkened glare.

“I have nerve? You’re the one who broke up with me out of nowhere and think that you can just march back here and make demands, Talia, blaming me for something that was entirely your own doing.” He’s getting sick of walking on egg shells around the topic. If she hadn’t have been messaging people she wasn’t supposed to, this would never have happened - it’s no one’s fault but her own, and as harsh as it may be, he wants to wash his hands of the whole thing. “Calling me in the middle of the night, telling me I ruined your life, saying I need to give you money?”

“Out of nowhere?” Of course she would only pick up on that, he thinks. “My God, you are so self-absorbed.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think that dating you is easy?” She questions with a measured step toward him. “Do you think I want to spend my life waiting around for my boyfriend, only for him to only ever come home grumpy,” another step, “Or whiny,” and another, “Or too tired and achey to do anything? And that’s when you do come home at all and aren’t half way across the country with the communication skills of a candle. It’s a constant uphill battle trying to get even a second of your attention, Nico, so God forbid I tried to gain some kind of advantage from being with you.”

Her words are starting to cut, but he tries not to react, tries not to bite back. He can count several ways in which she gained an advantage being with him, just off the top of the head - a girl like Talia is never shy of attention. Her courting gossip blogs and sending them private information is probably just scraping the barrel of the ploys she made for exposure while she was with him.

“I didn’t break up with you out of nowhere, I put up with you and the whole circus that comes with you for months, but God, is it exhausting being with you.”

“You knew what you were getting into, Talia. You knew my job, knew my life.” They had met initially through mutual friends - hockey friends of his back home, even - and she has other friends who happen to be wives or girlfriends of athletes. She can’t say she came into the relationship completely oblivious to the downsides of dating a professional player.

“Not really,” she shrugs, “All the other guys can find some sort of balance, but not you. All the other girls get a proper boyfriend, someone who spends time doing what they want to do, who sticks up for them when their psycho fans start to turn on them, who doesn’t keep them hidden away like some dirty secret.”

“That isn’t fair, I can’t control that stuff, Talia, it’s not my fault.” He wants to point out that she was the one engaging in their gossip and riling them up, but he can’t keep harping on about something she refuses to acknowledge. He doesn’t have the time, patience or energy for it anymore.

The initial ‘leaking’ of their relationship had caused their first major fight. Fans online had somehow - although Nico can now hazard a guess as to how - found out about the two of them, had dug into Talia, her background, her family, her job, and had found some pretty toxic posts on her social media. They had been old posts, and she had told Nico that wasn’t the kind of person she was anymore - and he had no reason not to believe her, had never seen or heard her act in the ways she had online in what she called her misguided youth - but someone in the PR department at the Devils had cottoned onto the topic, and had warned Nico of speaking out in her defence when the pitchforks started to raise.

He’d told her he supported her, but he couldn’t do so publicly - not without upsetting people within the organisation he had worked so hard to gain the respect of - and she had told him she understood. They hadn’t been together that long, it would have been a little unreasonable for him to put her above his work in the ways she was expecting, but she clearly doesn’t see it that way, now.

“Maybe not, but if I’d have known that being with you meant having my life invaded, my career ruined, I never would have followed you back here, Nico.” She sounds more solemn now - regretful, even - and as deep as her words cut, she says it like a piece of advice, “I just hope whatever poor girl you’ve got tangled up in your mess this time knows what she’s getting herself into.”

“And what’s that?” His throat feels tight as he speaks all of a sudden, his resolve in defending himself fading, and he tries to gulp down whatever lump is forming there but the feeling doesn’t budge.

This is what she’s good at.

Turning the tables. Reducing him to uncertainty of himself, of his actions, of his memory of their time together.

“A one-sided relationship with a guy who will never be able to put her first.”

There’s a point in every game he has ever had the misfortune of losing, as the seconds count down in the final third, where he has to come to terms with the fact that there’s no possible way for him to win. It’s sort of comparable to the way his insides churn when he’s on a plane and it drops into descent, like his body is falling at a different speed to his surroundings, or the feeling he gets in his gut when he’s hiking, and he dares to take a peek over the edge of whatever mountainside he’s trekking up, where his body can predict the fall, and his mind has set on there being nothing he can do about it.

This feels like all those feelings.

“Whoever she is, and I know she exists, she doesn’t deserve that. It’s not fair.”

Nico’s heart pounds in his chest, echoing and thrumming in his ears until all he can hear is the beat reverberating, ricocheting around his skull.

He can put Poppy first.

So many parts of their lives are intertwined, it would be so easy to make it work. They work together, they live close, he speaks to her more than he speaks to anyone else in his circle. They’ve spent more time together as friends than he has with any other girlfriend he’s had.

He’s wanted her for years, of course he can do it.

Except, deep down, he knows he can’t. Being in a committed relationship with someone is an entirely different ball game to a friendship, no matter how close he and Poppy have been over the years.

He knows there’ll come a point soon into the season where he has to knuckle down and focus, can’t let anything or anyone distract him, and he’ll close himself off. It’s what he has always done. He gets in his head, starts to carry too much weight that he can’t shift until that final buzzer blows - and he can only hope that it happens with his team in the playoffs. Winning, thriving, succeeding. And for that to happen, he can’t prioritise anything other than the game he’s already dedicated his life to, his training, and most importantly, his team.

It isn’t about what he wants.

What have you done? He thinks, his chest aching.

Talia is right.

Poppy doesn’t deserve that.

She doesn’t deserve him only being there in the physical sense, if she even gets that at all. Doesn’t deserve him getting snappy and stressed, doesn’t deserve him not being able to give her time, or give her attention or affection like he wants to, or like she’s worthy of.

“I need to go.” He manages to choke out with a shake of his head, shouldering past her to pick up his jacket - needing to be out of this conversation and away from Talia. “Leave the keys, I don’t want you here when I get back.”

He needs to see Poppy.

He never should have left her - he wishes with everything in him that he had soaked up the time he had with her before everything came tumbling down around him. And somewhere deep within him, there is a fragile, wilting piece of hope that clings to the belief he can make things right. He just needs her to hone in on it. If anyone can reach into the deepest cracks of his insecurities, can show him he’s overthinking things and everything is not as hopeless as he has made it out to be, it will be Poppy.

Poppy

The first time Poppy had ever fallen asleep beside Nico was at a movie night in Jack’s old apartment he shared with Ty Smith. Jack had invited more people round than could reasonably fit in their living room, and so everyone was smushed in - each chair and every inch of floor space used to its full capacity. 

Nico had attempted to save Poppy a space, to give him credit. He had scowled at each of his teammates who tried to throw themselves down in the tiny slot beside him - prime space, corner of the comfiest couch, facing the tv directly, a small table to the side where one could keep their drinks and snacks - only, by the time Poppy got there, he had barely gotten away with man-spreading to make room, so the small section of the couch between Nico and the arm rest had become her designated spot.

It was cosy, to put it nicely. He had to swing his arm over the back so that she wasn’t being assaulted by the hard dig of his shoulder with every laugh, and her closest leg was pretty much on top of his for most of the film.

She’d known the guys for almost a year - had been working in media, attending every game, home and away, and had integrated herself into the group pretty closely - and she felt pretty comfortable around everyone.

It wasn’t the kind of dynamic she had anticipated falling into when she first got the job with the Devils. She was supposed to start getting serious about her life - cracking down on mingling with co-workers and throwing herself into new social circles, and focusing on building a career for herself, climbing through the ranks and attaining the kind of success and happiness she could shove in her family’s disapproving faces - but the guys had charmed her.

Jack had been somewhat relentless in his pursuit of Poppy’s friendship. He rarely took no for an answer when it came to inviting her out. He was new to New Jersey - a much younger player in a slightly older team - and his rookie season had been rough, so it came naturally to Poppy to want to provide comfort. She introduced him to some of her friends, showed him her favourite spots close to his apartment, found him a decent barber, picked up extra fruit whenever she went to the farmers market near her parent’s house and took it over to his and Ty’s place when she came back home so she could mother him into having his 5-a-day as if he didn’t have access to the best nutrition coaches in the country. Despite her best efforts, Jack had weaselled his way under her skin in the way only a brother could.

Nico’s charm was entirely different.

Nico’s charm came in the form of convenience at first - in the oh I live that way, I can drive you and I have some time, I can do some media stuff for you type of way. Convenience blended into companionship - I haven’t eaten either, we should go for lunch together and I’ve been wanting to watch that movie, do you want to watch it with me?

It turned into grabbing food together, even on days neither of them were working - breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, even coffee or sometimes drinks if they could meet up with the rest of the team. It turned into him spending time at her place, whether it was helping her paint her apartment, putting up her new wardrobes, or just binging whatever crazy long series Poppy had decided to start over from the beginning - she provided him with a sense of familiarity and calm he couldn’t really find in anyone else he had met in his time in the states. She became his person, his home away from home, away from home.

And he became hers. 

There wasn’t as much she had to escape; her job not as strenuous, the expectations of her not as high, but when things built up for her - when her mother became overbearing, or her latest endeavour into a relationship crashed and burned - Nico was there. He’d make sure she had a distraction, made sure she was looking after herself, and, in turn, would look after her as well. He made sure she got home safe on nights out, or when they returned from a roadie and landed late - he would always make sure to see her off into the comfort of her own home before he went back to his own. 

And that first time she’d fallen asleep beside him, he’d done the same.

He’d wrapped an arm around her to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as he could, and when the movie had finished - when her face was burrowed into the side of his chest, soft snores falling from between her lips - he gently drew her back to consciousness with his hand stroking at her cheek.

She’d been a little startled, hand shooting up to wipe at her chin and thankful she hadn’t been drooling on him - although with the easy smile he was giving her, she had thought he of all people wouldn’t have minded. 

“Movie’s done, do you need a ride home?” His voice had been low and soft as not to worsen her apparent disorientation, and his hand was still lingering by the side of her face.

She had nodded, blinking away her sleepiness, and working her way up from the couch and onto her feet, stretching out her muscles as Nico did the same.

The two of them bid their goodbyes to the rest of the guys, made their way together to Nico’s car, and he had driven her back to her apartment, chatting on the drive about work and training. 

Poppy had been cramming to prepare for her interview for the Foundation at the time - had been getting herself seriously worked up, staying up late, getting up early, barely allowing herself any time for anything fun - and Nico had seen right through her. 

He’d stopped her before she got out of the car, had held her hand, rubbing at her knuckles with his thumb, and had told her that she should get some proper rest, and that she was going to absolutely rock their world in her interview in a few days time. And, knowing she was going to ignore any instruction he gave to make herself some decent dinner and go to bed early, had ordered her favourite Japanese takeout to be delivered a good half an hour after she got inside, with a text that followed telling her to sleep straight after she had finished.

She’d never expected to drift asleep with him on Jack’s couch - had never expected to open her eyes to the sight of his looking so warmly back at her.

And she hadn’t expected the same thing this morning, because, as her eyes drifted open to the intrusive light peaking through the cracks in her curtains, it wasn’t the first time she had woken up.

The first time had been to subdued movements, a slight groan of her bed frame, and the soft pattering of footsteps leading away. It had been to a hushed voice, the creak of her bathroom door, the flush of a toilet and the uttering of a name she had hoped she would never have to worry about again.

Talia.

The rest of his words had been uttered in his own language, but that she could understand.

She had acted purely on fight or flight instinct, laying back and pretending she was asleep - although as soon as she did, she regretted it, her mind racing at the million and one other possibilities she could have gone with. Sitting up, waiting for him to come out and asking him what was going on being the most rational.

But when had she ever gone with the most rational thought?

She tried not to react as she felt his presence, felt the soft press of his lips to her skin, or the placement of her bunny in her arms. Tried not to follow him as soon as he departed her bedroom, beg him to come back and whatever was going on could wait until the proper turn of the morning. Tried not to get up and go after him when the click of the lock to her main door echoed throughout the empty apartment.

And she tried not to cry as she laid in bed, overthinking herself back to sleep, thoughts racing to the point of exhaustion, and hoping when she woke up again it had just been a god-awful dream.

But it hadn’t.

The spot beside her in bed is empty, not even a crease in the pillow to prove he was ever there - only the t-shirt of his she still adorned, the one that when she takes a deep inhale, still smells like him, and the distinct aching between her thighs.

She finds more evidence of their night together in the bathroom, where she undresses herself with sore muscles and glances in the mirror to see the spattering of purple marks forming on her chest and neck. Her fingers trace over them lightly, her fleeting touch bringing vivid images forth of his lips pressing to her skin, practically able to feel the pressure of her flesh being nipped and bitten again.

He had been so attentive to her - so in tune with what she needed and wanted, and so ready to give her whatever that may be. He’d been gentle at some points, and purposeful at others, and every little thing he did, he did it with sweet disposition.

The kind of man who treats a girl like that doesn’t just leave her in the dead of night with no good reason, right?

Her mind races despite her body going into auto-pilot throughout her morning routine. Her shower is over in the flash of an eye, she strips her bed, starts her laundry, makes herself some tea and gets herself dressed - all the while weighing out all the possibilities of what could have taken him away from her, and what she would be able to understand. 

That quickly turns to her imagining the worst, and a tight, constricting feeling starts to consume her chest. 

There isn’t a single part of her apartment she can get away from the thoughts buzzing around her brain - her kitchen marred with the memory of what had happened on the counter, her couch, her bedroom, her bathroom - all carrying distinct memories of Nico that she needs to bench until she knows the truth.

She mistakenly thinks her escape might lie in her phone. There might be a text there waiting, explaining everything and relieving all the anxiety that has welled up in her very core.

Nia’s warnings from the night before don’t ring quick enough in her mind as the screen comes to life, the immediate barrage of notifications flooding in.

2 missed calls from Mom

Mom: Just calling to remind you of proper table etiquette in case it has slipped your mind, I won’t have you embarrass me in front of a Lyon.

Mom: Cutlery going from the outside in, hold your wine glass by the stem and dab with your napkin, don’t swipe!

Mom: Also let the man tuck your chair in and pay the bill, this 21st century woman nonsense is very unbecoming!

Mom: And I don’t want to have to bring this up but for the love of God, Poppy, have some class. I don’t want to hear mutterings of your promiscuity at the next luncheon.

Whoever taught her mom to text deserves a prison sentence, she thinks.

Tucker Lyon standing a girl up and ghosting her attempts to contact him is what’s unbecoming, not her trying to pay her half of the meal.

She can picture her mother as she reads the texts, sipping on her Manhattan on the couch in the great room, her dad already having retreated to bed at that time, and her having nothing better to do than sit and stew on her daughter’s sex life.

If she knew what was really going down last night, her mom would probably have a conniption.

Knowing she’ll no doubt be getting a call later that evening, Poppy swipes away at her text thread with her mom, immediately checking the notifications she hasn’t long received from her best friend.

Nia: hey if you happen to release yourself from Nico’s wandering hands at all today me and Kelsey are grabbing breakfast by my work!!

Nia: if you need refuelling we’ll be at Marco’s at 9 😘 

Perfect. Therein lies her escape. Breakfast with her best friends, where they can hopefully talk her down from the ledge she’s precariously placed herself on.

A catch up with her girls, and then she can distract herself with work.

Poppy: I’ll be there!!

“Hasn’t he text you or anything?” Nia asks, covering her mouth as she chews on her breakfast bagel, the three girls sat around a table inside their favourite cafe close to Nia’s office.

When Poppy and Nia had first moved in together, they rented an apartment in Hoboken, not too far, and their tradition of grabbing breakfast at Marco’s carried on despite Poppy living further down the river and working even further away in Newark. 

Kelsey had lived in Manhattan at that time, but she stayed over so often with the other girls that she practically spent majority of her week there, and so Poppy and Nia’s routine became hers.

Poppy had given the two of them a brief rundown of her night with Nico, a safe-for-work version of events, all leading up to the mysterious early morning phone call and swift departure.

“Nope,” she sighs, swiping to refresh her messages as if she hasn’t put her phone on loud just to be alerted when he does reach out.

“Have you text him?”

“Nope,” she repeats, putting the phone down and leaning back in her chair, running a hand through her already messed up hair. She’s going to have to throw it up if she wants to look any sort of presentable when she gets to work later.

“Is he usually this pathetic at communicating?” Kelsey asks, manicured nails swiping at a bunch of Sweet’n Lows like she’s trying to play Tetris with the packets. 

Kelsey hasn’t met Nico before, not that Poppy can remember.

Despite considering her one of her closest friends, their personal lives have never quite intertwined like that - not like hers and Nia’s.

In college, things were different. They were coming into their own together, figuring out just what they wanted their personal lives to be, and so Kelsey, Poppy and Nia would all share pretty much everything, just to have someone there to validate their feelings.

But that changed once they graduated.

Kelsey moved in with her boyfriend, Liam - who just so happens to be Poppy’s idea of hell-spawn.

The kind of guy her mother would probably love.

Liam worked on Wall Street, couldn’t go five minutes of conversation without talking about stocks or investment funds. His native language was risky money moves and belittling remarks, and he treated Kelsey like an accessory to parade around in public and discard in private.

Poppy had tried a few times to open Kelsey’s eyes to the way that it was, but it soon became apparent that she had to let her friend make her own mistakes, and some parts of their lives didn’t have to cross over.

They broke up around Thanksgiving, and Poppy had tried with all her might not to show her relief, but it has made her somewhat resentful when it comes to other relationships - like no one can be happy if she isn’t.

She knows it isn’t malicious, but she restrains from letting Kelsey all the way in, all the same.

“Not really,” Poppy lies, not wanting to clue her in on the Big Freezewhere he didn’t speak to her for months on end. It doesn’t entirely help her case. “I just don’t get why he’d sneak out to see her of all people, he told me they weren’t ever that solid, that he wasn’t happy with her.”

“Ooh, what if she’s pregnant?” Kelsey is entirely oblivious to the horrific realm of possibility she has just opened Poppy up to, evidenced by the casual chuckle and subsequent sip of her coffee. “Maybe she’s back to baby-trap him.”

Poppy thinks she would have to flee the state.

Nico is a family guy - if Talia is pregnant, he’d force himself to love her again, if he ever even stopped, for the sake of their gorgeous brown eyed, floppy haired baby, and push Poppy to the side just like he had before. And she’ll have to watch him from the sidelines, yearning for what she had just managed to touch the tips of her fingers to before it was violently yanked from her grasp. 

Maybe she’d have to flee the country even - move somewhere remote where she doesn’t even have the chance of being reminded of hockey, let alone of him.

Somewhere with no coffee shops that she’d enter, and the smell of fresh pastries would remind her of all the breakfasts they had together. No railways, where she’d be reminded of his love for model trains every time she came across the tracks. No weird club music that he loves so much, or dorky wizard franchises he chastises her for never having seen.

Maybe Antarctica. They only have penguins there. No real civilisation that she knows of. No brown haired, dark eyed Swiss Gods with deep, honeyed voices that make her knees weak and dimpled smiles that do even worse.

She wouldn’t be able to cope with losing him like that, living her life in an endless mental cycle of what ifs and maybes.

“Kelsey, I beg of you to read the room,” Nia chastises, swatting the girl on her arm before taking Poppy’s hand in her own. “Don’t listen to her, she just wants us all to be single at the same time.”

“Sue me for wanting to have fun! It would be just like college, you and me full-body plunging into the dating pool. Imagine the chaos, Pop, you don’t wanna be tied down to a guy hung up on his ex right now.”

“Dating pool?” Nia scoffs, turning to glare at her, “You’re hardly dry from your last relationship.”

“I’d rather be a grape than a raisin, Ni.” Kelsey chides back, and Poppy can’t help the twitch of her lips at the horrific comparison. 

“You’re really gonna listen to a girl who says that?” Nia asks, unable to mask the glint of humour in her eyes, and Kelsey bites back a smile, too.

Despite the ache in her chest at the thought of any of it - of Nico leaving her this morning, filling her up with empty words and false promises, potentially knocking up an ex girlfriend he is still secretly hung up on even though he told her otherwise - she manages to crack a full smile.

“You are terrible at analogies, Kels,” Poppy tries to hide the grin behind her cup, sipping at her tea and letting the warmth of it soothe the pain in her throat. 

“I’m trying to encourage you to be a strong, independent woman here!”

“She is a strong, independent woman,” Nia defends, “She also happens to be a chronic over-thinker with a deep seated fear of confrontation.”

“I don’t fear confrontation.”

“Then why are we here chit-chatting about hypothetical scenarios when you could just text him and ask what’s up?”

“Maybe ‘cause that’s scary?” Poppy scoffs, only half joking. “What am I supposed to say, hey I just so happened to eavesdrop on your private conversation before you fled my apartment this morning, and despite me not understanding most of it, I definitely heard you mention someone, so could you just let me know if your gorgeous model ex girlfriend is pregnant with your perfect specimen baby?”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t even need us.”

Poppy rolls her eyes.  

She could text him. Could be casual about it, a good morning or even an are you okay? Those don’t warrant the alarm bells she’s afraid of raising - the ones that blare out with the siren sound of run, this girl is unhealthily attached to you already!

But she doesn’t want to be the pathetic girl chasing after the guy sending her clear messages that he doesn’t want her.

It’s easier said than done not to overthink the whole thing - not to second guess everything he had said, or everything she had done last night.

She feels like she had rushed things. It was so impulsive, so charged, and after spending the majority of her week away from him, she just hadn’t been able to help herself. And that makes her feel like a hypocrite. She had told him that night he had first kissed her that things between them had gotten intense. It had been the whole reason for spending a few days outside of each other’s company, and in the first possible instance, she had thrown herself at him.

It was desperate.

And maybe that scared him.

It sure as hell scares her.

“I don’t know what to do,” She groans, throwing her head into her hands and scrunching her eyes shut to try and drown out the endless doubt. 

She feels two hands rub at either sides of her back, “Listen, Pop,” Nia is the first to attempt to console her, as always, and Poppy holds her breath for the harsh reality check she’s about to throw her way. “You know I am the one person who would usually be trying to convince you to cut your losses and run when it comes to guys who are no good, but this is Nico. I’ve watched the two of you ignore your feelings for far too long to let you get in your own way, now.

“And you’re forgetting I saw him last night, before you got there, there isn’t a chance in Hell he would have left you like that without a good reason. I don’t for a second think he’s still hung up on her.” Nia casts a side eye to Kelsey.

The only problem is that Poppy isn’t sure there’s a reason good enough. Not when it comes to Talia. Not when the memory of those months of radio silence is still so fresh for her.

“I have to go to work in a building where his face is plastered everywhere, Ni, I can hardly forget his entire existence until he deems me worthy of an explanation. Who leaves after a night like that without even a note or a text?”

“An idiot,” Kelsey mutters around her drink, rolling her eyes when Nia sends her another death-glare.

“I’m not asking you to forget, I’m telling you to wait.” Nia frowns, but her tone remains consoling and warm. “You need to stop letting what this thinks,” she flicks at Poppy’s forehead, “Get in the way of what this knows.” She points to her chest on the left side. “You know him. You know how much he likes you.”

She does.

She knows Nico, she trusts him.

She can only judge him based on his actions so far - the ones that tell her that he cares. He leads with his heart, it’s his most attractive attribute. He’s gentle and loving and she needs to focus on those things over anything else.

“Ugh, corny,” Kelsey drags, and despite her repeated efforts to discourage her, Poppy knows she isn’t being entirely serious. “If he has any non-stupid hot athlete friends though, I’m first in line when the two of you kiss and make up for double dates.”

Guilt pricks slightly at Poppy’s chest - for making her recently single friend sit here and listen to her complain about something so monumentally small compared to the breakdown of the long-term relationship Kelsey had just endured. Even if it was perceivably toxic.

“You’d make such a good WAG, Kels.”

It’s a poor attempt to make up for it, but it seems to console her friend all the same, a giant grin breaking out and flashing her perfect pearly whites.

“I know.”

Poppy tries to distract herself with work. Tries to make her way through her inbox of seemingly never ending emails and her list of ever-growing tasks. She types up lengthy responses, puts together a presentation, makes a bunch of phone calls she’s been putting off for God knows how long, sorts all her invoices out - she even sends a fax. In the year 2024. It’s her most productive work day she thinks she’s ever had.

She zeroes in on the ground every time she moves through the building. Ignores the pictures that line the walls of the Rock, pushes down the memories of all the times she’s walked these very halls by Nico’s side, and she thinks she’s done just about enough to clear her mind for the time being.

She hasn’t thought up some heart wrenching scenario in at least an hour by the time she’s wrapping up for the day.

She’s making her way back to her office after dropping some files off for Elaine when she catches sight of a mop of curls over the top of the chair by her desk.

Luke is sat in her chair when she enters, swivelling around and staring at the ceiling.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick doing that, you know.”

“You’re such a mom,” he scoffs, standing up and clearly trying not to sway, “You ever tried having fun? I think I saw a glue stick on a table out there,” he points through the door into the wider office space, where there are a few, less private cubicles and a common area. “We should go sniff them, let loose a little.”

“Is that why you’re here on your day off? To huff glue?”

“Yeah, I don’t get to let loose enough. Being a rookie in the NHL is hard, Poppy,”

“Bummer for you.” She pouts, mockingly, swerving past him as he rounds her desk and sits on the other side, flicking at the bobblehead version of his older brother that stands by her computer. “If you’re chasing a high can you do it with one of the other departments, it’s not a good look for the Youth Foundation.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

When Luke had first joined the Devils, she hadn’t expected that she would warm to him the way she has - but, surprisingly enough, considering the fact they’re brothers, their relationship recently has started to mirror her and Jack’s.

Luke is funny. He’s sarcastic and a little silly, and it can be nice to have him around when work gets a little stressful. He doesn’t let the pressures of his own career outweigh those of hers, and, despite the gap in age, she actually enjoys his company.

But he never seeks her out like this.

Their interactions have always started through other people. Group conversations that dwindle to just the two of them, or he usually accompanies Jack to bug her and carries on when Jack’s ever-so-busy schedule takes him elsewhere.

She can’t think of another time he’s just shown up in her office alone.

Especially on his incredibly rare day off.

“Why are you actually here?” She asks, casting a suspicious but half-playful glare his way as she starts to pack up her things. 

“Came to see if you wanted to join us for dinner.”

“Aw Lukey,” she reaches over her desk to pinch his cheek, “I’m flattered and all but I’m a little too old for you.”

“Ha ha,” he swats her hand away, “Us. Me and Jack. Maybe a couple of the others if they’re free but you can pick where we go if you make a decision quickly, we were thinking a steakhouse.”

She narrows her eyes at him, expecting him to crack a joke about her being old, but he just looks back at her awaiting a response. “Why?” She drags out the question, her movements stopping completely.

“Maybe ‘cause humans need sustenance to live? What do you mean, why?”

“Why would you want me to tag along on your bro date?”

“Don’t call it a bro date,” Luke cringes, “Just remembered you were working today and we were in the area, don’t know why you’re being weird about it.”

“You’re being weird. You guys never let me choose where we eat. Don’t you remember that time we grabbed dinner when you guys drove me home and Jack told me to stop being a pussy about my seafood allergy ‘cause he wanted sushi.”

“Don’t blame me for the crimes of my brother, Poppy, he was obviously joking.”

“I had to eat tofu, Luke, I don’t find that very funny.”

“Are you coming or not?”

“That depends, how do you have your steak?”

“Well done.”

“Oh! Then absolutely not.”

“Remind me never to try to be nice to you again.” He scowls as they make their way out of her office, and she locks up behind the two of them.

“Gladly, it’s creeping me out.” She grabs at his elbow before he can carry on, stopping him in the otherwise empty common area where she knows no one is around to listen in. “Is something going on, seriously?”

Luke rolls his eyes, but she knows him well enough that it’s only done in an attempt to avert from her gaze. 

Bingo. He’s hiding something.

“I just thought you might want some company.” He shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets and twisting his lips to keep from saying much more.

“Why?”

If Poppy wanted to spend her life getting a straight answer out of people for a living, she’d have become an interrogator. What is it with these guys and their inability to answer a simple question?

“Jack said you left the party last night with Nico.”

Poppy’s eyebrows scrunch so close together that she can feel a deep crease form between them. What on earth does that have to do with asking her to dinner? Or being overly nice to her?

Unless-

“You’ve seen him?”

“This morning.”

“Oh.”

All of her efforts from throughout the day seem to have been for nothing - an immediate rush of insecurities flooding her mind.

Where did he see him? What did he say? Was he okay? Was Talia there?

She feels like she can gauge an answer from the way Luke looks. Sheepish, almost, like he doesn’t want to say something he knows will hurt her feelings.

She had to have been with him. He wouldn’t just show up to her office like this if it wasn’t something that would seriously hurt.

She wishes she wasn’t the kind of person who did this - who filled in the gaps of conversations and always came out with the worst possible outcomes - but she can’t help it. She’s been doing it all her life, and there’s rarely ever an instance where her instincts have led her astray.

She knows it’s some weird part of her mind protecting her, but she needs to do something here. Nia’s words from earlier ring like a warning. Don’t let what her brain thinks get in the way of what her heart knows.

Her heart knows Nico wanted her. Knows Nico liked her. Knows Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

She needs to figure things out for herself and stop running, stop letting her mind fill in the gaps of a situation it can’t even comprehend to begin with.

She reaches her arms around Luke’s shoulders, stretching up on her tip toes to pull him into a hug before rubbing her knuckles into his curls, affectionately.

Luke Hughes is sarcastic and silly, and he cares enough about her to not want her to be alone if she’s going through something.

“Thank you for the offer, Luke, but I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods, a tender smile tugging at the corners of her stubborn lips. It takes over her face, eyes glinting fondly and cheeks warming. 

“Yeah, you can walk me to my car if you’re that worried about me though.” She loops her arm through his elbow as they make their way to the parking lot, and when they get there, he makes sure she’s in her car and has set off before him and Jack leave.

As if her day can’t get any worse, the elevator in her building is cordoned off with tape and a sign when she gets home, and she has never regretted moving up a floor as much as she does when she’s trudging up 6 flights of stairs.

She’s exhausted. Emotionally and physically, and she just wants to throw herself into bed and pretend the last 24 hours were a terrible dream.

Only, as she rounds the final corner to get to her door, any hopes of that go straight down the pan when her eyes land on Nico, standing in front of her door with his hands buried in his jacket pocket.

He looks tired too - hair messed where he’s no doubt been taking his cap on and off for however long he’s been stood here, running a hand through the tresses until they’re all askew. 

His shoulders are slumped, and he doesn’t even greet her with that pretty smile he usually gives her.

His lips do curve up a touch - limp and half-hearted, not even enough for a dimple to form - but it doesn’t provide the comfort she had thought it would.

She feels anxious. A culmination of the day’s emotions washing over in one go. Sad, regretful, nervous, disappointed - all things she shouldn’t be used to feeling when it comes to Nico, but are all too familiar when she takes the last few months into account.

“Hi.” She gives a weak smile of her own.

“Can we talk?”

She wishes he’d have just said hi, back. That might have relieved the tightness in her chest just a little.

Nothing good ever comes of can we talk?

He steps aside as she approaches, maintaining a safe distance as she opens the door and enters her apartment.

The Nico from yesterday might have brushed past her, the graze of an arm or a lingering hand, but this Nico doesn’t. He barely even meets her eye.

He closes the door behind himself, watching as she discards her bag and keys to the console table on the side, and while she’s turned away from him, she tries to let whatever emotions need to come out cross her features where he can’t see them.

She needs to be cool about this, she thinks.

If she doesn’t get her back up, doesn’t get agitated, she won’t scare him off.

“Are you okay?” She asks once she’s turned to face him, not liking how he stands unmoving by the door. He hasn’t made any effort to settle in - his jacket still on and his hands still hidden in the pockets.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”

She realises now that she can get a good look at him that the expression he wears is one of shame. Guilt. Apprehension. She needs to be careful and toe the line before he gets consumed by it, she realises.

She steps toward him a little, and he doesn’t back up - not immediately, not obviously - but he hardly welcomes her approach, either.

She doesn’t like feeling this way when it comes to talking to him - feeling uneasy and unsure, but there’s a part of her that’s tired of having to prompt him for answers.

He had been the one to leave this morning. Why can’t he just come out and tell her why?

“I’m alright,” she shrugs, not wanting to scare him off with the truth. “Super tired, though, can we sit?”

She wonders if he thinks about the same things she does as they make their way to the couch. Wonders if he can feel the scratch of her nails on his torso, or the brush of her lips against his, as they sit in the spot where not even 24 hours ago, their bodies had been intertwined.

He doesn’t sit right beside her as he normally would, and she finds herself missing the way his thigh usually brushes against her own.

She doesn’t know where to start or what to ask, and so she basks in the silence for a little - finding comfort in the fact that, despite the mess they’re currently in, they aren’t quite at the end yet.

But a part of her feels it coming.

She’d known it this morning if she lets herself listen to the rational voice in her head. As soon as she’d heard him say her name, as soon as he’d left, a part of her knew that was it, and maybe if she’d let herself believe it at the time - hadn’t talked herself down and convinced herself she was being irrational - she could have protected herself from all the ways this is going to hurt.

“I’m sorry.” He says, and when she looks up, he’s looking down where his large hands are now clasped together in his lap.

“For what?” She manages to choke out.

“Last night, I,” she digs her nails into the palms of her own hands to stop herself filling in the gaps as he figures out what he wants to say, but it’s no use.

He’s sorry for last night.

Last night, he made a mistake.

Last night, he was drunk, he was confused, he was just looking for something or someone to keep him occupied.

“I care about you so much, Poppy.”

That sentence shouldn’t be the one that fills her with dread, but it is.

“You’re my best friend, and I love you,” he does look up as he says this, eye meeting hers in an attempt to convey his honesty, but she sees more of the truth in his glassy gaze than she hears in his words. “This morning, I panicked, and I just needed some time to figure out what I want.”

No, no, no.

She’d rather he tell her what actually happened than do this. Than pretend he left because he doesn’t want her.

“I love you-,”

“You said that, already.” She can’t help the bite in her tone as she prepares herself for the hit. The I love you, but.

“You’re so important to me. Being your friend, it’s like it’s what keeps me sane lately.”

She chews at the inside of her cheek as she feels the tears start to well at her lash line.

“Poppy, I don’t want to mess up what we have,” he shakes his head as his gaze drops, dark eyes darting to focus anywhere but on her own, pleading and watery as she watches him slip away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t think this is hurting me?” She feels weak as her voice breaks, “You don’t think this is already messy?”

She reaches out to take his hands in hers, digging in to unclasp them, to try thread her fingers through, but he doesn’t make it easy.

“Nico, I love you, too, you know I do, we can figure it out, you don’t have to run away from me.”

It’s a desperate attempt and she knows it is, but she needs to know she tried. When she’s sobbing into her pillow and crying herself to sleep tonight, she needs to know she didn’t just let him go without a fight.

“I can’t give you what you want, I can’t be in a relationship, I’m no good at it.” 

Regardless of what she had told herself earlier, about taking what he says at face value, and trying not to fill in the gaps like she does so often with everyone else, she can’t help herself. When he says, I can’t be in a relationship, he means with her. He can’t be with Poppy. He would be no good with Poppy.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you-,”

“No, you said before that you’ve wanted this for as long as you’ve known me, you don’t just wake up and change your mind, not after-,” Poppy starts to feel panic building within her like a flipped over sand timer. Rising and rising until she starts to feel nauseous, getting harder with each second not to jump to conclusions. 

The voice inside her that tells her he got what he wanted and decided it wasn’t for him sounds caustic and bitter, and if she hadn’t wound herself up so much about this whole situation over the course of the day - the past week, even, or the months before - she might have been able to fight off the way it so easily convinces her.

“I have to put the team first, it doesn’t matter what I want, I have to focus on them, on hockey.”

She’s too caught up in her own emotions to notice how weak he sounds - glassy eyes unable to catch the glint in his. All she can hear, all she can see, is the minute hints of a cover-up - that she isn’t getting the whole story, that he’s lying to her, and that the excuse he’s giving is cowardly.

He still hasn’t mentioned the call, hasn’t mentioned Talia, hasn’t explained why he left her, why he didn’t say anything, why he didn’t come back.

“And you didn’t know that before?” She scoffs, pushing herself up off the couch and stepping away from him, “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks as soon as they fall, but she can’t rid her skin of the feeling that they were there, her flesh damp and sore.

“I know we took things a little too far last night, but that doesn’t mean-,” She almost thinks he notices how bad that hurts her, referencing the night they shared as a mistake - an instance where they got carried away, and not where they followed through on years worth of built up tension and adoration for one another. She doesn’t even have to fill in the gaps, this time. Took things a little too far is clear enough. “We can still be friends. I want to be friends.”

“Friends?” Poppy jeers in disbelief, turning completely away from him now and missing the tears that drop from his own cheeks - missing the way his chest cracks and stretches open in a last ditch demonstration of his vulnerability, his desperation not to lose her completely. “You should go.”

“Poppy,”

“I can’t,” she tries so hard not to cry, knowing she won’t be able to stop, but the words come out in a choked sob, and her voice carries on in the whiney way she always hates. “You told me you wanted more, you said I was yours, and I’m supposed to just act like it never happened? Just accept you didn’t actually mean the things you said?”

“I meant them,” he says, defiantly, so sure of himself that it makes her head spin. “I wouldn’t-,”

“No, you didn’t. You’re a liar. You were either lying then, or you’re lying now. I don’t know which is worse. I can’t be your friend. I can’t pretend like you can that I don’t feel the way I feel.”

“Please, Mohn,” His fingertips just manage to reach out to land on her forearm before she shucks him off, wincing as if his touch has pained her.

“Don’t.” She takes an immediate step back, arms crossing over herself as a defence mechanism, body language screaming at him to go away, and she watches his pleading eyes drop to her arms just as she feels the cold of the metal there - so in tune with her every thought despite his denial of their true connection. Her arms move before her mind can make the decision, before it can remember what even sits on her skin, and her shaking fingers fumble to unclasp the jewellery adorned on her wrist. “You should take this back.”

Nico shakes his head, stepping back and away from the outstretched hand that holds her gemstone bracelet like it’s an actual danger to him. “No, that’s yours, Poppy.”

“I don’t want it.” She knows she’s the one that’s lying now. She wants the bracelet. She wants him. She doesn’t want him to leave. She wants to be his friend over being nothing. 

But she doesn’t want to hurt.

Looking at him hurts.

Remembering last night, remembering their kiss, the things he has said, the things he has done, it all hurts, and she can’t keep hold of a constant reminder of the pain, can’t wear it on her person at all hours of the day just to know deep down that the man who gave it to her will never want her the same way.

“I want you to leave.”

“Please,” he begs again, head tilting as devastation floods his features, brows pushing together, tears welling at the corners of his eyes, “We need to talk about this-,”

“No, you were right, we went too far, it was a mistake.” Her voice breaks as she says things she knows she doesn’t mean, but he’s already put it out there, so she doesn’t see the harm in echoing his own opinions. “There’s nothing more to talk about.”

She can’t look at him anymore, and so she drops her gaze to his hands, stepping and reaching forward and forcing him to take the bracelet from her before she rounds the couch and heads to the door.

If he isn’t going to give her the whole truth, she isn’t going to entertain part of the story, and she needs him gone so she can give in to the way her body wants to fold in on itself.

It takes him a minute to gather himself, but she refuses to look his way, waiting by the open door to her apartment and staring at the floor in front of her until his shoes appear.

“I do love you, Poppy. I’m leaving because I don’t want to upset you any more than I already have, and I’ll give you space if that’s what you need, but I’ll be here when you want to talk about this. I mean it when I say I can’t lose you.”

 She doesn’t say anything. She can’t say anything.

There’s a stabbing pain that’s building and building in the centre of her chest, and she doesn’t even think she can breathe in his presence.

He clasps a hand around her upper arm, and leans into her, his lips pressing a firm kiss into the crown of her head, and he lingers there for a moment before he retreats. 

She manages to push the door closed behind him, the click of the lock louder than ever, and waits a good few minutes in silence before her body is wracked with a silent sob.

The one time she had tried to be brave and fight her own intuition, and this is where it gets her.

So much for Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 @kenziepickle @josierosie @laheyxlover @mrsmattytkachuk (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw)

[buckrecs]

You are literally doing god work thank you so much for this blog

I kinda have a request if that's okay. Can you please give us some Mob Bucky recs . Series or one shots

Thank you so much

Mob!Bucky

masterlist | req masterlist

Thank you so much:) Here are some Mob!Bucky fics!

* = contains smut

ONESHOT

Kiss it Better by @straywords

You’re not entirely sure your boss with the staring problem even likes you, but you’re determined to do your job either way.

little lilly. by @raysheart

you unknowingly bring out a side of bucky he never knew was there.

*Come Home. by @sinner-as-saint

Bucky comes home to find you and your son asleep in your bed and his heart damn near explodes with how much he loves his family. And after putting your baby to sleep, Bucky proceeds to show you just how grateful he is to have you and how much he loves you... 

That I What? by @itsthewritergal

Y/N’s ex seems to have more of a hold on Y/N than Bucky realised.

Never Giving Up by @itsthewritergal

Reader is ill on the one day Bucky said no interruptions... 

*the proposition of a lifetime by @tee-swizzle

mafia!bucky teaches his best friend how to please a man.

Put My Mind At Ease by @slyyywriting

You married the head of the mob in payment for your father’s debt. The contract includes that you must give whatever Bucky wants. And what Bucky wants is for you to be jealous.

protector by @vxntagedior

the moment bucky fell in love with you

Kerosene by @metalbuckaroo

“You took my heaven away and didn’t think that I wouldn’t go looking for revenge?”

Black Card by @jelsasnowflakes1

When Bucky finds out you finally used the card he gave you he was confused why you only spend 15 dollars with it.

third date rule by @classylo

you had a rule, the third date rule, you had never reached it so perhaps that’s why you were still a virgin...that is until you meet the infamous sweet mob boss.

I Am Your Fall by @sinner-as-saint

You’re hiding from your past, in Madripoor. You did nothing wrong, other than mix dangerous business with a lot of pleasure. You couldn’t go home because... he would find you and Madripoor was the only place he didn’t do business, or had any allies or friends. But little did you know that the mob boss had finally found you after obsessively looking for you ever since you left, and left him in pieces. He didn’t want revenge, he just wanted the one thing he had hopelessly fallen in love with; who also happened to be the one who had betrayed him and hurt him more than anyone or any bullet ever did before - you. 

A Simple Housewife by @beyondspaceandstars

A new member starts getting too friendly with you one night, forcing Bucky to show a side of himself you’ve never seen before. And possibly never want to see again.

Could It Be Fate? by @bxcketbarnes

taken. by @wintersldr1

when you are captured by Bucky’s enemy, he will stop at nothing to get you back, and remind everyone the lengths he will go to to keep you safe.

a wolf in man’s clothing by @witchywithwhiskey

you walk into a bar owned by the Russian mob, and Bucky just has to swoop in to save you—and claim you.

Protector by @cherryrogers

Ironically, the man with blood on his hands and a permanent target on his back was the one you’d never felt safer with.

*My Devotion by @cryptidcasanova

The one where Bucky doesn’t take your breakup well.

SERIES

A Business Deal by @ezm-imagines

Mafia Boss Bucky and Stark Reader agree on a deal to improve their businesses. A deal which will unite them together forever, whether they like it or not. Well, that is if they go through with the deal…

*A Moment of Your Time by @stevesbestgirl

A soulmate AU where the headstrong reader realizes that she’s meant to love the brutal mob boss of New York City, James Buchanan Barnes. She doesn’t want to be a part of organized crime and she doesn’t want to rely on anyone, but how do you ignore your soulmate?

*Deception by @avecra

Growing up in the dark business your father ran, violence wasn’t new to you. Rivalries and bloodbaths were something you unfortunately were used to. And in order to save your father from an unnecessary fight, you force yourself into an arranged marriage with Brock Rumlow. But when he threatens your father over a small mistake on your part, you find yourself in front of your husband’s biggest rival and your old friend, Bucky Barnes. With the shared history between the two of you, Bucky finds himself drawn to you once again, and will risk everything he has just to keep you safe.

Gunslinger by @ghostofskywalker

The bitter reality was this: you did what you had to do to survive. And if that meant going head to head with the most feared mob boss of the city, so be it.

*honey, there is no right way by @bonky-n-steeb

when you agree to be the feared mobster Bucky Barnes’ sugar baby, you expect to get enough money to pay your bills. what you don’t expect is to fall head over heels for him.

*Hostage Of Your Eyes by @sinner-as-saint

You accept an unusual offer made by a very familiar, but dangerous mob boss. And despite the rather bizarre situation and all the troubles which come along the way; old flames rekindle – and you find love again, where it wasn’t supposed to be.

Invisible String by @oitommothetease

James Buchanan Barnes, the owner of the most expensive-looking club in town and your new apartment. He was a dick and you hated him. What could possibly go wrong when you, the new girl in town, start bartending at his club to pursue your dreams?

*Lost Without You by @angrythingstarlight

Soft Mob Bucky Series

Missing by @buckyalpine

Bucky’s baby is missing and he will not stop until he finds her.

Run to Me by @sgtjbuccky

In where you’ve always had a habit of ending up in situations you shouldn’t, and when you caught the eye of the man who ran New York, Bucky Barnes, your life changed. They warned you about him, but the one thing they never warned you about was how you’d always want to run to him. 

*Run To You by @bestofbucky

Mob boss Bucky Barnes hires you to be his bodyguard.

The Light We Lost by @world-of-aus

James Buchanan Barnes had been it for you, and you wanted to believe that what the two of you had, was you making it. You wanted to be the other side of the statistics that actually made it, but your marriage wasn’t meant for this life. You fought hard to make your way back to him, to get him to see you, but life had a funny way of kicking you down when you were already down.

*wrong choice, right places by @mvtthewmurdvck

never wanting to work for him or protect his fiancé, falling for you was the last thing he should do—especially when his boss was zemo, who now ran most of the city.

The Maid of Mr. Barnes by @disasterofastory

You get a job as Mr. Barnes's maid. You heard about the notorious gangster, but since you desperately need money and a place to live, you are not in a position to be picky.

Icarus by @marvellous1917

it’s the day after giving the dangerous mobster his first tattoo, and he hasn’t contacted you yet. What a dick.