#not my fanfic though!!

[sp0o0kylights]

Steve Harrington was wearing a Hellfire t-shirt.

It was far too tight on him, the name of the club stretched wide over his chest. The sleeves dug into his biceps, making them pop even more than they usually did, and that was before he crossed his arms. 

Worse?

It was short.

Which meant the damn shirt was constantly riding up to give everyone a nice show of the smattering of hair that trailed down past the band of Harrington's jeans. 

The same hair that Eddie was determinedly not looking at. 

“Henderson, a moment?” He crooked a finger, a smile on his face that was more feral than welcoming. 

Rather than cower or even acknowledge that Eddie was two seconds away from murder, Dustin just gave him a gummy grin, all too pleased with himself and his scheme. 

“Sure Eddie. Steve, don't just stand there, go help set the booth up!” Dustin gestured to Hellfire’s sad little table, crammed all the way in the back of the gym. 

Jeff and Gareth both reacted to the suggestion like a rabid squirrel had been set upon them, nervously inching towards the other side of the booth as Harrington sighed and--shockingly--did as he was told.

‘What,’ Eddie thought angrily, ‘in the everloving fuck.’

“Do you guys mind if I set this down on the table?” Eddie heard Harrington ask as he stormed away, Dustin on his heel. 

They wandered just around the corner, out of sight and hopefully, out of the fallen king’s hearing range.

Eddie wasn't sure if Harrington would try and white knight the very much deserved dressing down he was about to give. 

Didn’t want to chance it, considering the downright weird relationship he had with Hellfire's freshmen.

(While he’d heard many a tale at his table regarding King Steve since the newest recruits had joined Hellfire, most of them dissolved into arguments without ever really going anywhere.

 Best anyone could figure out was that Dustin and Lucas had a bad case of hero worship, while Mike owned a begrudging amount of respect that hailed from a series of misadventures. 

The very same misadventures that, despite all protests to the contrary, was clearly some sort of babysitting gig for Harrington.) 

Either way, plenty of the King’s court would have loved to take this opportunity to fuck with Hellfire.

Given that Henderson was absolutely too old to require a babysitter at fourteen, Eddie would bet his lunch money that was what Steve was here to do.

Something the club couldn’t afford since they were forever and always two seconds away from being stripped of club status and banned from school grounds. 

“I would love to know what went through that all A’s brain of yours when I said,” Eddie whirled on Dustin when they were firmly in the clear, voice low and furious.  “no Henderson, do not invite King Steve to help, he is an invading force and would ruin our peaceful kingdom!?”

He clasped his hands behind his back before leaning into Dustin’s face. “Because clearly whatever you heard wasn’t that.” 

To Eddie’s continued frustration and confusion, Dustin did not treat this like the threat it was. 

None of the freshmen had ever truly treated Eddie like a threat--had somehow skipped that part of the usual onboarding ritual entirely.

Eddie, town freak and drug dealer, who had cultivated his looks and craziness to such a degree that most everyone steered clear, wasn’t used to it. 

Everyone had been afraid of him at some point in this shitty school. Jeff, Gareth, hell even half the staff--and that the dorky trio of fourteen year old's clearly thought this all was play-acting made his eye twitch.

Even if it was--maybe, sometimes--welcome. 

“I know what you said, but I’m telling you I’m right.” Dustin argued immediately, and oh God, he was using that tone again. 

A hand went up into the space between them and Eddie groaned aloud, knowing what was coming.

“First,” Dustin ticked a finger up, “Hellfire really needs the money. Even thirty dollars would get us new figures, but more than that, if we don’t fundraise, we can’t go to Gen Con!” 

Dustin's eyes bored into Eddie’s, full of fire and conviction

“Yes,” Eddie said through gritted teeth, “but--”

“Second!” Dustin cut him off, and God the little shit even threw him a look while he did it, like Eddie was the one being ridiculous here!

“We had to fight just to get our table! Principal Higgins was in algebra today practically begging the mathletes to show up, but then tried to tell us we couldn't be here? That’s messed up!” 

As if denying them a spot to fundraise was the worst thing that asshole had ever done.

Eddie sighed, breath blasting out of his mouth like a dragon’s. 

“Because people think we’re freaks and satanists, Henderson. You don’t typically invite freaks and satanists to the school’s annual Holiday Bazaar. Especially not when all the local moms are paying to hawk their bullshit crafts and tupperware!” 

It was more than that of course. The Hawkins High Holiday Bazaar was a tradition spanning several years now. Starting in the gym and spilling clear into the parking lot, everyone from local artists to even some local shops came to host a small table for the day, thus growing the event from a small school fundraiser to a Hawkins' “must-do.” 

Half the fucking town was here to sell, and the other half was here to shop, which meant Principle Higgins had wanted Hellfire banned from the fucking premise. 

Eddie had been forced to pull out one of his trump cards he’d been saving--blackmail on Higgins that related to the man’s not--so--legal addiction to Percocet that he relied on Reefer Rick for. 

(And bless Rick, that hadn’t been the only tidbit he’d shared with Eddie about Higgins. That information, however, Eddie needed just so the asshat wouldn’t give him the boot from school entirely.) 

The only reason Eddie had pulled it out to secure their rightful spot, was because of Gen Con. 

It was Hellfire's White Whale, their grand adventure, and this was going to be his year to take his friends on one last epic quest to make memories of a lifetime surrounded by people who understood them.

Come hell or high water, Eddie was going to Gen Con--but being able to fundraise by selling wares and baked goods at the stupid Holiday Bazaar would go a long way to help.

Even if he had to listen to the band repeatedly play ear-bleeding renditions of Christmas songs.

“All the clubs get to have a table, and we’re a club!” Dustin continued, like it was that simple. “But you know, I get it. We look scary.” 

He gestured down to his own Hellfire shirt, before gesturing towards Eddie’s entire outfit.

Like Eddie didn't know what he looked like, let alone that he'd made this outfit specifically to scare people away from him.

(And maybe add some rockstar flair to this dinky little hick town.)

“You know who doesn’t look scary?”

Dustin held out his hands and swiveled his body like he was presenting a prize instead of gesturing in the vague direction of; 

“Steve!”

Eddie’s left eye twitched.

‘You can't kill him, you need his character for the campaign.’ He told himself firmly, even if he envisioned strangling Dustin like a chicken.

Cartoon squawking and all. 

“The King isn’t going to help us fundraise, Dustin.” Eddie said, in an effort to break down why Harrington couldn't be here. “He's just going to cause us problems that we can’t afford to have.” 

So many problems, half of which Eddie couldn't think of because if he did, he'd start spiraling.

“Really? Because as you keep saying, Steve used to be the King. People love him, Eddie! Mom’s love him.”

Eddie had pulled himself black up to his proper height a while ago, and now rocked back on his heels while he ran a hand down his face.

There was no getting through to Henderson when he was like this. 

Not unless Eddie really lost it, and it was practically club lore that he only lost it when someone missed an important game. 

One cannot keep a herd of sheep if their flock is terrified of them, after all. 

(“Perhaps you’re just a giant fucking softie.” Tiff, one of Hellfire’s graduating members, told him once. “Honestly dude, I bet you throw up stuffing.”

“Shut up Tiffany, your choker is on backwards again.” He'd spat back, completely offended and not at all trying to distract from how true that was.) 

“We can’t be satanic if Steve’s the one selling cookies!” Dustin finished doggedly. 

“We’re not even selling cookies--that’s not the point!”” Eddie shook his head, hair flying. He was not going to be sidetracked, he wasn’t!

 “Harrington is going to end up siding with all the moms about how we’re all wasting time with D&D, if he even spends the whole time at the table. Is that what you want?” 

He stuck out a ringed finger, poking at Dustin’s chest.

“Every single person who comes by our table has to be convinced D&D is a writing and math based game. Good for the mind and souls of growing, impressionable children. A game that got a bad rep because of  a few silly images.” 

A pitch he and Tiff had come up with during the third or fourth time they had to convince an adult that no, just because their shirts had a dragon on it, didn’t mean they were summoning demons in the drama room. 

“Harrington can’t do that because Harrington doesn’t even know how to play!” 

This Eddie punctuated by throwing his hands in the air. 

Given the startled look of the mother-daughter duo passing him by, clearly was louder than he’d intended--but screw it!

He was right!

Hellfire was in a precarious position to both fundraise and do a little damage control among the slightly smarter members of this shithole small town, and Harrington rolling his eyes and gossiping about how stupid it was would hinder that.

“Okay, first of all, Steve’s played D&D with me and he didn’t even kill his character.” Dustin said it like he was unveiling a smoking gun and not lying through his ass--which Eddie would absolutely be calling him on the second he was done talking. 

Because King Steve? Play D&D?

'Ha!'

“And he’s not gonna say shit because we--me, and Lucas and even Mike!--asked him to help, and he helps when its serious. I know you have some weird grudge with him, but I’m telling you Eddie he’s our golden ticket to Gen Con!” 

“You’re killing me. You are standing here, acting as a friend, when you are bringing a-- a dark force into the midst our of mission--” Eddie hissed, because he was losing the fucking fight and he knew it.

Dustin Henderson was not a man easily swayed. 

Had never been, even when the odds were stacked against him (and Grant and Gareth were howling in his ear.) 

The set of his shoulders and the glint of the little shithead’s eye meant Eddie wouldn’t be able to use him to oust Harrington--if he even could get him out without the dick causing a massive scene anyway. 

As always when outgunned, Eddie flipped to dramatics.

“Betrayed! By my own chosen heir no less!” He moaned, pressing the back of his hand over his eyes as Dustin scoffed.

"Don’t be so dramatic! Steve will help, I promise! Just don’t be a dick to him.” 

 Conversation apparently over, Dustin turned around to head back to the table

Snidely, he added over his shoulder: “Plus we’ve all caught on to the heir thing Eddie. You tell everyone that so they do what you want.” 

The dick.

“You’re too fucking smart for your own good. I’m gonna start feeding you paint chips to bring that IQ down.” Eddie muttered angrily as Dustin went back to their little table.

He gave himself a moment to get his shit together and stomp a foot like a child when Dustin was around the corner and thus couldn’t witness it, before following his wayward sheep back.

Could only pray to any deity listening that Henderson’s meddling didn’t blow up in Hellfire’s face.

[hellouniversehowareyou]

precious idiots

[sugarcoatednightshade]

thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.

And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.

And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.

And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?

Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.

Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.

[lauraneedstochill]

Can't help falling in love

summary: 5 times Aemond was in love with you + 1 time he finally confessed his feelings

warnings: friends to lovers (at the age of 9, 10, 15, 17, 19), a pinch of angst (Aemond healing after losing his eye), but overall so fluffy and sweet you may want to skip dessert

words: ~ 5500 (I got reeeally carried away with that love confession)

1.

Aemond is weeks away from his tenth birthday and he feels as miserable as ever. That feeling is an iron weight upon his heart, his mood irritated and face features grim more often than not. He is still without a dragon — and it’s the only thing he can think of, day and night, steadfast and stubborn in his obsession that most of his family finds to be blown out of proportion. It might have stang him less if only it wasn’t for the constant teasing and pitiful jokes that added to his distress and the never-ending heartache. He learns to keep a straight face and act as if he doesn’t really care, but deep down he does, way more than he’ll ever admit.

His training sessions are a way to channel his anger, and he lashes out at a straw man, again and again, clinging to the thought that, at least in these moments, he is not entirely powerless. He keeps his focus on the target, attentive to Ser Criston’s advice — “Soften your knees”, “Keep your feet light, your hands heavy”, and for a couple of hours he forgets about his misery.

It’s when the training comes to an end, the dreaded realization sinks in again, and Aemond is lost in his thoughts, mindlessly twirling the wooden sword in one hand, his gaze wandering around the yard.

And then his eyes fall on a bright green spot — and all of a sudden, he sees you. A girl of his age, the hem of your green dress a bit dusty, boots covered in dirt, a few strands of hair fallen loose, a coy smile on your face. You meet his gaze and wave at him excitedly.

Aemond looks dumbfounded. A girl in the training yard. Waving at him. He blinks once, twice — and in the next moment, you're standing merely a few steps away, glancing curiously at his sword.

"It looks so hefty! Is it heavy? What is it made of?" a string of questions, your voice sweet and joyful.

There’s a brief pause and maybe you mistake his stiffness for arrogance as you are quick to add:

“Oh, my manners!” gasping but showing no actual regret. “Forgive me,” you curtsy, your smile growing even wider. A timid smile appears on his face in return and he finally comes to his senses.

“It’s made out of red oak. It’s not very heavy, you get used to it,” Aemond raises the sword, letting you take a closer look. Within another blink of an eye he finds himself talking to you, your questions endless and maybe a bit naive but he genuinely enjoys it.

That’s until you both hear a loud cry:

“Lady Y/N!” your nanny comes running in, out of breath and scowling. “I told you not to wander around...,” she chokes on her words at the sight of the young prince. She curtsies, too, but it isn’t nearly as cute as when you do it.

She sprints decisively in your direction:

“It wasn’t very polite of you to interrupt the prince’s training, you little menace!”

And then Aemond, to his own surprise, moves to stand in her way.

”Y/N didn’t interrupt a thing,“ he disagrees, lips thinned into a tight line.

The nanny stops and looks at Aemond dubiously, switching her gaze from him to you.

Ser Criston is the one to resolve the conflict — he comes from behind, with a polite smile plastered on his face.

”Young lady can watch from the balcony. The guests are very much welcomed,“ he calls for the maid to escort you and your nanny up there. While you’re away, he looks at Aemond with a grin:

”Already wooing the ladies, my prince? Let’s hope you are as good with your sword as she thinks you are.“

He does make Aemond work for it but the prince fights back, winning one bout after the other. He keeps glancing at you and you wave at him every single time.

Aemond is too young to know what love is, too shy and guarded to even entertain the thought of it. But when you look at him, with your childish grin and your eyes bright with mirth, he doesn't feel lonely anymore.

2.

It's been two weeks since Aemond lost his eye and he hasn't left the bed once. The pain is still blinding, burning and constantly making his only eye water. But what hurts even more is the humiliating disability. The triumph of claiming Vhagar died down, and now the prince was faced with the harsh reality he needed to adjust to and the process wasn't an easy one. The fever has only recently gone down, leaving his body weak and freezing from the lack of movement, but he couldn't bare the thought of stepping out of the room.

His mother wouldn't leave his side and even Aegon often came to visit, clearly blaming himself for not being there for his little brother. Yet their presence barely brought Aemond any comfort and most of the time he would pretend to be asleep to avoid any conversations. He knew they only meant well and he was being cruel but he couldn't help it as his pride was shattered and he gave in to sadness.

That is until one night he wakes up to a weird sound. He's only half-awake when he hears a vigorous tapping that clearly comes from the outside. Except it's not from the other side of the door — but rather outside his window.

He's startled by this guess and suspiciously walks closer. It takes him a few seconds to focus his gaze and discern a human's silhouette — and then another few to realize that it's you standing on the window sill. He feels like his heart will jump out of his chest as he rushes to open the window.

You climb through and clumsily drop to the floor. But before he can get worried, you are on your feet again, eyeing him with concern.

“Oh, Aemond,” your gaze and voice are both so soft, it makes his lower lip quiver. You carefully approach him and put your hand on his shoulder, gently sliding it on his back in a soothing motion and then cuddling him. He welcomes your company with a sigh of relief. You smell of oranges and you give the best hugs.

"They told me no one was allowed into your chambers," your hushed whisper burns his ear. "The silliest thing I've ever heard!" you pull away from him, still lightly panting, cheeks flushed and hair messy. "I knew I had to find a way to come see you."

You examine his face, frowning at the scar that's still healing.

"Does it hurt?"

He only nods, afraid that if he opens his mouth, he won't be able to hold back a sob. You move closer, resuming the gentle motion of rubbing his back.

Ever since that day in the training yard, you kept in touch, regularly sending each other letters, chatting about everything and nothing, sharing your little secrets and observations. You recently mentioned that your parents allowed you to come see him again, but with the tragic change of events, Aemond completely forgot about the preplanned visit. 

"I will take his eye," you say out of the blue, caressing the unharmed side of his face, your voice laced with anger. Aemond thinks he might've heard it wrong.

"...Whose eye?"

"Luke’s! I shall take his eye, as payment for yours," you tell him with zero hesitation. For a girl of your age, you’re way too eager to plan such a thing, yet he somehow has no doubts that you can actually do it.

Aemond shakes his head:

"You shouldn't," his voice quiet but firm. "The King was very adamant about that, no payment is needed."

"Well, maybe he is too old to think straight," you retort. "You are his son and you lost an eye! Justice must prevail," you tilt your head at him, clearly thinking that you’re in the right.

And he knows that you are but he also knows no justice will be served. It’s the last straw for Aemond — he looks away in shame as tears, hot and angry, start falling down his cheek. You waste no time hugging him again, letting him cry on your shoulder, and the two of you stay like that for what feels like an hour.

And then, in the comfortable silence of your embrace, he hears you asking, very seriously:

"Are you sure I can't take his eye?"

At that moment, he can't stop himself from letting out a laugh — a weak one and barely audible, but still, he laughs, for the first time in two weeks, and you are the sole reason for it. 

Your cheek is pressed to his, your fingers running through his hair, and Aemond realizes he can't lose you.

He begrudgingly persuades you that taking Luke's eye isn't worth the trouble.

3.

By the age of fifteen Aemond becomes quite accustomed to the eyepatch and it gives him a boost of confidence. Losing an eye only made him train harder and his persistence pays off when he’s the one to win, time after time, no matter who his opponent is. His hair grows longer, now silky smooth and with no sign of his boyish curled ends, his face features sharpen. He learns to walk with his head high and hands clasped behind his back, mastering the intimidating look that makes most people want to stay away from the one-eyed prince. 

His tricks could’ve never worked on you, though.

You come to visit him a few times a year, and he eagerly awaits your arrival. All the days in between, you keep talking through letters, them getting longer as you get closer. He keeps those letters locked in a hidden compartment of his table. And sometimes, for no specific reason — or maybe for the reason he can’t yet formulate — he is drawn to reach for them, which always ends with him rereading the letters for hours. Some of them he knows by heart and yet it never stops him from having the pleasure of seeing your handwritten stories and little jokes that were only meant for him.

Today is no exception and Aemond is so enthralled by reading, he almost misses the knock on the door. The sound brings him to reality but he is in no hurry to react. The knocking comes again, and the prince groans, annoyed at the maid's persistence. He carefully puts the letters back and goes to the door, armed with his cold gaze.

And then he opens it — and it's you standing in front of him. 

Aemond barely has time to register what's going on when you launch yourself at him, your arms immediately enveloping him in a tight hug, your laugh ringing in the air. He hugs you back and, while you can't see it, he's grinning from ear to ear.

“I swear you’re getting taller every time we meet!” you look up at him, beaming, and he lets you in. “I soon will need a ladder just to hug you properly".

"I’ll be sure to let my body know of your disapproval," he sneers and you stick out your tongue.

"While you are at it, shall you also work on your friendly face? I overheard the maids being frightened to go into your chambers," you try giving him a scolding look but end up giggling at his reddened cheeks.

"I am friendly enough!"

“Yes, nobody glowers quite like you,” you snicker and flop right on the floor, the move always making him smile. Aemond tried persuading you to sit on any other surface that’s actually meant for sitting but you insisted that his fluffy rug works just as well, so he eventually gave up, deciding to join you. He never complained since.

Before he knows it, he’s immersed in the conversation while you enthusiastically share the recent news and everything that’s happened to you on the road. Only about half an hour in, he notes a small bag you're clasping in your hands.

“You come bearing gifts?”

“Oh, I almost forgot I had it,” you laugh, abashed. “I decided I should bring you something to replace this crumpled-looking thing".

It takes Aemond a minute to realize that you're talking about his eyepatch. But he has no time to protest as you silence him with a gesture of your hand:

“I took it upon myself to count for how long you’ve been wearing this one already,” your tone gets serious. “I must say, that number is disturbing.”

There's a moment of silence and then he clears his throat, his voice unsure:

“Very kind of you to think of that, I shall replace it later on.”

He reaches his hand to take the bag but you quickly cover it with yours, fingers brushing over his, and he freezes.

“Are you still not convinced that I can take a look at it?” you try to make eye contact but he averts your gaze.

“Aemond, I was with you and I think I’ve seen enough back then — none of it scared me.”

“It is not a sight for the faint of heart,'” the prince mumbles, his bravado faltering.

“Well, I don’t remember fainting the first time. You should have more faith in me,” you try to reason, holding his hand.

Aemond ponders for another minute — or maybe ten, he isn't sure, and you patiently wait, not wanting to press him any further. Then he finally makes a decision and, after taking a long, sad sigh, he removes the eyepatch and looks at you, the sight of him is the very definition of insecurity.

You stay silent for about five seconds before concluding:

“Oh, it healed so nicely!” with no hint of uncertainty in your voice. Your smile reassures him a little as you peer at the sapphire, looking very pleased.

"The gem compliments your eye very well," you give him your verdict, taking the new eyepatch out.

"We might have a different understanding of what a compliment is."

"This is me trying to say that I really like the way it looks," you chide him lightly. "And I consider myself to be quite understanding, thank you very much. Will you stop pouting and let me put it on?"

At this point he surrenders, giving you permission, and you move closer, giggling with excitement. You gently fix his hair, making sure it’s all combed back, and then lean to put the eyepatch on. You have a habit of biting your lower lip when you're too concentrated on something, and Aemond can't help but gaze at that part of your face while your teeth graze over the pillowy surface. 

He’s never let anyone this close — and not just in the sense of physical proximity. The moment is very intimate, and the softness of your movements tugs at his heart. He is suddenly very aware of the very short distance separating you two, and he holds his breath. You are oblivious to his stare and soon lean back, satisfied with the result and glaring at him with something akin to fondness.

He wishes he could paint a picture of you right at this moment, so tender and caring and sitting by his side.

He also wishes he could kiss you — and that thought scares him to death. And yet, once it appears, it never goes away.

4.

Aemond is seventeen and his life has been pure torture since you stopped visiting him. He hasn't seen you in over half a year (seven months and eleven days, not that anyone's counting). It's not your fault as your father has unexpectedly fallen ill and you couldn't leave his side. The prince exhausted the maester with questions, asking for advice to write back to you, worried sick that your separation would be stretched for way longer than he could handle.

Luckily, the Gods took pity on him, and he was glad to learn that your father got better, and you will come to the King's Landing soon. Your visit coincided with Aegon's birthday, but Aemond didn't care about the feast, his mind only occupied with the thought of seeing you. He was both nervous and excited to the point of not even hiding it, which led to Aegon teasing him relentlessly. Helaena, on the other hand, wholeheartedly supported Aemond's sympathy for you.

“She will be delighted to see you, too, I am sure of it,” his sister tells him the day before the event.

“But the reason for it might be of a different nature,” Aemond remarks, and Helaena gives him a compassionate look.

“You will never know her true feelings unless you ask,” she encourages. “The two of you are so close, I consider Y/N part of the family.”

Aemond knows that he’s of age and his mother hinted that, despite him showing no interest in courting, some ladies still found him attractive. He dismisses the idea but then finds himself thinking of it from time to time. When the realization forms in his head, it’s nerve-wracking but oh so compelling — he thinks he would’ve really wanted to marry you. He just doesn’t know how to tell you about it.

The day of your arrival comes, and Aemond wakes up at dawn in anticipation, determined to confess his feelings. He tries to come up with a speech, but it feels wrong and sounds weird, and he decides it will be better to improvise. He all but runs to the courtyard to be the first one to greet you. However, when you step out of the carriage, smoothing your dress, and your eyes meet, Aemond stops dead in his tracks and the world around him stands still.

His confidence might’ve blossomed — but not nearly as much as your beauty did. Somehow in those recent months, you’ve matured into a woman that takes his breath away.

It’s not a drastic change, it's all in the details: the contours of your face are more defined, the cheekbones prominent, your hair knotted up high in a perfect style and even your pace is much slower and gracious. You walk towards one another, both suddenly cautious. But when you are a couple of meters apart, a well-known smile appears on your face and you hold your arms out to him and he finally hugs you again, after all this time. Aemond relaxes, inhaling the familiar scent of fruits that you undoubtedly munched on your way here.

“You look exactly as I remembered you,” you say as you slip from his embrace.

“And you are a sight to behold,” he breathes out, taking you in, and your cheeks heat up at the compliment. You’ve never been shy with him before, so this is also new. He wonders what might’ve caused this change.

As the two of you walk around the castle, it feels a bit awkward at first, and you keep glancing at him with emotion he can’t read. But Aemond is too happy to see you to give it much thought, and within an hour you ease into the conversation, too. By the time the evening comes, the tension disappears, and you are laughing at his sarcastic remarks again, and he savors every second of it.

The feast in honor of Aegon is lush and crowded, but you stay by Aemond’s side, enjoying each other’s company, and he only has eye for you. When the music gets too loud, you sneak out and soon find yourselves in his chambers, just like in the good old days. Aemond is in the middle of telling you about Aegon’s recent foray to the Flea Bottom, when you say:

“It’s just the two of us,” your fingers sink into the fluffy rug. “You don’t have to wear it with me. You know it, right?”

He wears the eyepatch with everyone, only taking it off before going to sleep. Moreover, he actually cherishes it because it’s a gift from you. Aemond hesitates:

“I thought you quite liked it.”

“I only gave it to you because yours started to look like it was pulled off a dead man’s body!” you laugh.

Before he can think of an answer, you lean closer — your shoulder brushing his, your hand touching his face, the same gentle warmth he remembers so well, — and remove the eyepatch yourself. The sight doesn’t bother you in the slightest as you confess:

“I accept you the way you are, Aemond,” and then, a moment away from him opening his mouth and saying the thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue for the duration of the day, you add: “That’s what friends are for — and you are my best friend.”

And just like that, with this word alone, his plan goes out the window.

A friend. Aemond can’t even be upset at the reveal, because, honestly, being your friend feels like a blessing in itself and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. How could he be so selfish and foolish to even think about risking it all, risk losing you?

So he keeps his feelings to himself, locking them away deep in his heart, and doesn't argue with you.

Maybe he should have.

5.

By the age of nineteen Aemond reaches the conclusion that he wants to take the risk. Otherwise, he thinks he might actually die as his heart can not hold all his feelings anymore. In two years' time, there isn’t a single thing about you that he hasn’t come to love, and keeping it a secret becomes harder with each day.

Aemond is ridden with doubts to the point where he can't hide it any longer and he decides to seek advice — and the prince can't think of a better person to talk to than his mother. Unbeknownst to him, Alicent was the first one to notice. Years ago, when you were kids, she quickly sensed the effect you had on her son, and it brought her joy as she watched the two of you get closer with time.

So when Aemond bursts into her room, anxiety radiating off of him as he starts jabbering away, his pacing erratic and voice trembling, it takes her about a minute to realize what's going on.

“My dear, I think you must talk to Y/N,” she approaches him, an understanding look on her face.

Aemond cuts his speech short, eyeing her with wonder:

“You don't seem surprised.”

“Your affection for her is as bright as a fire blazing,” Alicent chuckles. “I believe Y/N is the only one who doesn’t see it.”

“Should I tell her...?” he doesn’t dare say it out loud, not yet.

Alicent briefly takes his hands in hers, squeezing them.

“You should tell her the truth.”

Her encouragement gives him a dash of hope, lifting a weight off his chest. Aemond knows in an instant that the letter won’t cut it, and you must have the conversation face-to-face. Fortunately, your next visit is in a month, so his suffering won’t last for much longer.

Aemond almost reaches the door but then sharply turns to his mother again, his cheeks flushed:

“Will you give me your approval?” and this time, he looks straight at her as he wants to see her genuine reaction.

Alicent smiles, quick to reassure him:

“Yes, Aemond. Your betrothal would only make me happy.”

The prince feels elated, almost euphoric, as he finally goes to meet you and runs the remaining distance from his chambers to the yard. But when he sees you, the smile disappears from his face because he notices that something is wrong.

You look visibly upset, your eyes watering and fingers fumbling with the dress, even though you try to force a smile in return. The hug you give him is weak and you keep looking at your feet.

“What is the matter?” he’s never seen you this sad, but you brush him off.

“It’s just a headache, no need to worry.”

Yet that’s exactly what he does, offering to call for the maester, or to prepare you a warm bath, or bring you some tea...

“A cup of water would be nice, thank you,” he leaves you in the hallway to go and get it himself, the task only takes a couple of minutes. When he returns, you stand with your back to him, your shoulders are shaking — and he hears quiet, muffled sobs. If it wasn’t for the nearby table, he would’ve thrown the cup away, his focus on you alone. As he rushes to envelop you in a hug, you don’t fight it, instead nestling your face against his chest, not hiding your tears anymore.

Aemond gives you some time before asking again:

“This doesn’t look like just a headache. What is the cause of your anguish?” now he’s the one running his fingers up and down your back.

You let out a sound that’s a mix between a groan and a whine.

“My father says I am to be betrothed soon. He says I am of age already and... and he wants me to meet some of my cousins,” you sniffle. “I told him I have no wish to get married but he refuses to listen,” you bite your lip, not wanting to cry again.

Surely, that’s not how Aemond wanted to ask you. But he decides to take his chance.

“Mayhaps there is another way out that could make you feel better.”

“Please don’t tell me Vhagar will burn them down,” you jest but the smile doesn’t reach your eyes. Aemond thinks your idea isn’t that bad — but he has to try his first.

“If he insists you should marry but doesn’t have a particular candidate, maybe you can pick one yourself?”

“I’ve met all my cousins — and half of them are imbeciles, the others are too old to survive a wedding,” you scoff.

“Then pick someone you are not related to,” Aemond suggests.

“Do you have a particular candidate in mind?” when you ask with a tinge of annoyance, you don’t think he will answer. And then you look at him — and see him grinning before he says:

“Me”.

You glare at Aemond with eyes wide and mouth agape, the expression frozen on your face for a good minute. 

“Are you laughing at me?” you manage to say.

“I wouldn’t dare,” his nerves are as tight as a wound-up string.

In the blink of a moment, your face lights up. You're looking at him indecisively, searching for words, agitated. But Aemond mistakes your confusion for rejection.

“At the very least you will marry someone you know,” he tries to reason — but it backfires, wiping the joyfulness off your face. Taken aback, you inquire:

“You pity me?”

He doesn’t grasp the poor choice of his words yet.

 “You pity me and that’s why you want to marry me?” you give him a look of disbelief, your eyes glossy, and he can't get his head around what just happened.

“Oh, it was so silly of me to think that...,” you choke back a sob, putting your hand over your mouth.

Never in his life he thought he would be the reason for you looking so heartbroken. Aemond covers your hand with his palm — and you let him, as he tries to gather his courage.

“Y/N, I only meant to say that I —”

And then you recoil, snapping your hand back.

“Aemond, don’t,” you take a step back from him, then another one. “You have said enough. Please, let me be,” you turn away and leave the hall in a hurry before he can utter another word.

... 1.

He finds you at your usual spot, under the blossoming cherry tree. You’ve always said you liked the color of it, little white flowers reminding you of early spring, your favorite time of the year. You don’t know that Aemond insisted on planting that tree specifically for you. Just so he can sit nearby and, as you were basking in the sunlight with your eyes closed, he would get a chance to look at you with all his unconditional love and have those moments engraved in his memory.

Come to think of it, he had so many memories of you — and every single one of them was bliss, and he can recall them so easily like it was yesterday.

And so he does.

“When we first met, you wore a green dress,” his voice startles you, but you don’t turn to face him, sniffling with your arms folded. “It was the color of forest trees. Black lace around the hem of it, the matching hair ribbon that you kept losing,“ he keeps his distance, his hands shaking.

"Yes, I remember it pretty well," you sigh, avoiding his gaze, baffled by his sudden outburst.

"The second time was when you climbed through my window, almost gave me a heart attack," there’s a hint of a smile in his voice that you catch even without looking. "Blue dress, you tore a huge piece of it and couldn’t care less. You were the first person to make me laugh in two weeks even though it seemed impossible. But not with you."

He sees your eyebrows furrowing, hands sliding down to rest on your knees.

"Helaena’s name day came next, your dress was bright pink. Luke tried to make fun of it and you threw a cup full of water in his face. To this day, it’s one of my fondest memories."

You dare to look up at him, perplexed, your eyes wet from crying. 

"Three months after was the light-blue dress, then the peach one and the brown one. Then the white one which didn’t survive the horse riding lesson, and Helaena gave you one of hers. Light green, too long for your liking, even though you pretended otherwise to please her," the corners of your lips tremble, your face softening.

"Then for a year you only wore violet, much to your nanny’s dismay as she thought it made you look ill. And I thought you were the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, no matter what dress you were in," he can’t take his eye off you.

Your face expression melts into a stunned one.

"I didn’t realize it back then. Or maybe I didn’t know how to call it. I just knew that your visits only brought me happiness," he takes a step toward you, uncertain, but you don’t move from your spot.

"When you were fourteen, you picked the autumn colors — orange, dark yellow, deep red. Your started braiding your hair, tried to braid mine," you can’t hold back a smile. He was fussy when you first voiced the idea but he ended up loving the process so much, he would allow it just to feel your fingers flowing through his hair.

"I think you actually enjoyed it", you mumble, and Aemond smiles, too.

"I did. I enjoyed every minute that I got to spend with you."

You stand up then, feeling your pulse quickening.

"The day you brought me the eyepatch, you wore emerald green. I was terrified to show you the scar," he pauses, catching his breath. "You assuaged my fears with your kindness. But then I was terrified to learn that I wanted to kiss you". 

You think you are dreaming. Is it possible that you fell asleep under the tree? You don’t want to get your hopes too high, but when he looks at you like this, your own fears start melting away.

“Then was the black dress, the grey one, another white one. The golden one you wore to meet Vhagar,” when he saw you that day, he almost forgot how to breathe. You showed no sigh of apprehension as you fearlessly approached the dragon. He was absolutely besotted.

“And then came the agony of not seeing you for over seven months,” he closes his eye for a second, overwhelmed. He almost misses it when you speak:

“Seven months and twenty-five days. Not that I was counting,” his eye snaps open, instantly on you again.

You gravitate toward each other without even noticing. Aemond’s heart skips a beat when you’re at arm's length, your eyes shining and lips slightly parted. Even in the state you're in, you look so beautiful, it's mesmerizing, and the words are stuck in his throat. You are the one to break the silence:

"Aemond, please don't give me false hope," your heartbeat is too loud, you don't hear your own voice. He does.

"I do not wish to marry you out of pity," Aemond takes the last step. "I want you to be my wife because I'm in love with you," he wipes away the remaining tears off your face, his fingers linger, making you shiver. "I've been in love with you for quite some time. For a few years, actually," his voice gets low. "For what feels like an eternity," Aemond murmurs.

"Why haven't you told me?" you pout, nervously toying with the collar of his shirt.

"I was afraid you didn't feel the same. I still am but maybe... Maybe I am wrong?" his gaze is fixed on you, one of his hands following the contour of your waist, your body warming at the touch.

"Tell me that I am wrong," he whispers, begging.

You look at his lips, the soft curve of them that you’ve dreamt of for so long.

Aemond always thought yours were the most kissable he’s ever seen.

You don’t know who closes the distance first — but his mouth is suddenly on yours and the sensation leaves you disarmed. Kissing him is like being swept with a wave of tenderness, and you’re floating in it, his lips so fervid and supple — truly perfect — your head is spinning. The kiss is not awkward nor modest as you hastily cling to each other, his hands gripping your waist, your chest pressed into his.

Aemond feels like he’s drowning, and he wants more of you — all of you, and then your fingers tug at his locks, eliciting a groan from him, and it is simply a miracle that his heart doesn’t explode. You move in impeccable sync, in the passionate harmony that erupts from years worth of mutual pining. His lungs burn but he resists the urge to break the kiss and stretches it out the best he can until you are breathless, too.

"Never knew that you were so fascinated by my wardrobe choices," you tease, and his hum turns into a chuckle.

“You know what my favorite memory is?” you ask, your forehead resting against his.

“When we were thirteen, and you were teaching me how to hold a sword. I tackled you to the ground and scraped my knee,” you both smile at your then enthusiasm. “And you set everything aside to spend the rest of the day with me even though it was hardly a wound. And I remember thinking,” you hook your finger under his chin, “that there’s nowhere else I would rather be than with you, with this favorite boy of mine.”

The air around you tense, and you are enchanted by each other.

“Did that help to prove you wrong?”

“I may need some convincing,” his breath fanning over your lips.

“You can take your time,” you laugh — and then the sound of it is muffled by his athirst mouth.

His favorite memory will be this.

And every other moment with you that's to come.

author's note: I'm sorry if this came out messy and rushed. I tried my best to write a shorter fic (this is short for me lmao) and idk how I feel about it. I much rather prefer them longer because I'm a sucker for stories about two people getting to know each other and falling in love BUT I get it that others don't want to read long ass fics (which kinda breaks my heart but I'm being so very brave about it) anyways, I hope this was bearable, thank you for reading!

💙 the longer version of this fic might have looked like this (yes, this is a shameless plug! because I adore this one to pieces!! bite me) 💞 my masterlist 🎵 the title is a quote from Elvis Presley's song (duh). there are quite a few covers of it but one of my favorites is by Twenty One Pilots. there's also a female version — by Ingrid Michaelson — and I think both of them fit the story really well. P.S. I'm also on AO3 (lol, who isn't), in case you prefer to read fics there.

English is not my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any major mistakes!

[lineffability]

"Crowley."

Crowley froze, every atom of his body coming to a complete standstill. Aziraphale had appeared out of nowhere, just like that, and he felt like a fly in a spider's web, like he had just run against a glass door that he could not have seen. Oh, this was cruel. He did not turn around.

"Don't even use doors anymore?" He tried to keep his voice level, cold, unaffected. He failed considerably, but the message got across anyways.

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale said, immediately flinching at the words. The first time they were seeing each other again, after-- after that, and his first words were I'm sorry and he was apologizing for not using a door? Aziraphale felt like swearing, but could not. "I thought you wouldn't open if I-- well. I thought this was easier. Like a bandaid."

"Well, you were right. I wouldn't have." Steel was creeping into Crowley's voice, steel around his heart. With a forcing of limbs, he spun around, his gaze piercing through the armor of his sunglasses. Facing him.

"I need your help" Aziraphale said.

"What," Crowley said. He had possibly never put as much meaning into a single word. The glass door turned into a Great Wall. Aziraphale understood. But he was willing to climb.

The angel (oh, a true angel now, wasn't he--not his angel) fumbled, talking with his hands before his mouth even opened. Talking with his eyes, too, but they got lost in translation. Repelled by a black mirror.

"I know this is untoward. I know it's-- But Crowley, I don't have a lot of time."

"Nothing lasts forever, yeah," Crowley spat, hating himself the second the words left his lips. Unnecessary cruelty. Demonic, huh? Worse yet, Aziraphale accepted the verbal lashing. Don't forgive me, Crowley thought.

Crowley looked at him. He was still wearing his suit, there was tartan in it, but it had become polished, the worn edges returned to pristine, boring perfection. He looked prim. Proper. Perhaps this hurt most of all.

"Why are you here?"

Aziraphale glanced upwards. Then he looked intently at Crowley. I don't have much time. Right. He couldn't speak freely, Crowley realized. Of course he couldn't. This was exactly what he had been afraid of, what he had known would happen. His angel in chains. (Yet here he was. Here he was.)

"They don't know I'm here," Aziraphale mumbled, gesticulating weakly between them and Up. "I guess I can divert their attention now, for a bit. Comes with the new powers"--he shrugged helplessly--"but not for long. Crowley, do you know about-- about the-- what they're--"

"Armageddon 2.0? Sure."

There was an undecipherable look in Aziraphale's eyes. "Why didn't you-- well. It's not just. I mean it kind of is--it's. More than that. Crowley, I need you to do something for me."

"No."

"This is important." (This isn't about us.)

"I don't care." (There is no us anymore.)

"You do! You always have."

"Oh not this again," Crowley hissed. "You were an angel once. You can be forgiven. Shut up."

"That's not what I meant."

With two long, angry strides, Crowley closed the space between them. Menace, anger, hurt-- "Then what did you mean?" He spat the words. Like a weapon. (Then why was it a question?)

Aziraphale's face crumbled. He stood his ground nonetheless, not backing away. The angel's anger was less spiky, but it rose to meet Crowley's. It made his next words hit like bricks. "I mean that you love. I mean that you, Crowley, are the best person I know. I mean that I love you."

The words dropped like a lead balloon.

There was utter silence between them.

Why were they so close?

Why were his sunglasses so dark? Aziraphale saw only his own reflection. He couldn't bear that, and dropped his gaze. Oh, worse. There was his mouth, mere inches away.

Aziraphale looked at Crowley's lips, really really looked, and there was nothing more, now that he knew about the feeling of Crowley's lips and of his heart, there was nothing more he wanted to do than to kiss him. But he couldn't, he couldn't. Not like this. He needed the next time (he had to believe in a next time, in a time with Crowley, again)--the next time they kissed he needed it to be good and happy and an affirmation. He couldn't bear it otherwise. He would break entirely. He was sure of it.

But still, still-- Crowley was so close. He could smell nothing but him. Think of nothing but him. That weakness again, that soft spot inside him he had never known how to hold down. And with it, Want reared its greedy head. Aziraphal leaned in ever so slightly, felt their noses touch-- and then used all his strength to move away, to pull back. It was not the right time. Not yet.

He looked past Crowley, who might have as well turned to a pillar of salt. Crowley, whose face was a mask he couldn't let slip. The air flickered between them.

There were tears in his eyes when he finally forced his gaze towards Crowley's face, a silent plead to not misunderstand. Please, please. But he couldn't expect that of him. He was pulling away again. But not because he wanted to. No, there was nothing he wanted more than to pull closer. There was nothing more he wanted than to talk to him, to truly talk, to explain and apologize and make amends, but he was bound by Duty and Rules and Watching Eyes more than he ever had been.

This was his rebellion: he lifted a hand, the ghost of a touch, fingertips against cheekbone. The memory of holding on. Of never wanting to let go. Crowley flinched without moving, a shiver of his lips. Aziraphale let his hand drop, briefly, to Crowley's chest, holding it over his human heart. It was beating just like his.

This was his successful magic trick, when it counted: he drew away, leaving a crack in Crowley's steel-clad heart, and a note in his chest pocket.

"I'm sorry. I need to go."

"Of course you do."

"Oh, Crowley. I--" But he did not finish the sentence, knew there was no proper way how. So he said, quietly, softly, "Trust me, please."

And he did. Crowley hated it, hated it so much, but he did, he did trust him despite it all. But it did not erase the hurt. The festering wound. Now what was he supposed to do with that?

With one last pointed look, Aziraphale vanished.

Crowley was alone.

His defenses lay shattered at his feet, and he slowly gathered them back up. He did not mend the cracks. (That's where the light had gotten in.) He cleared his throat. Tried to banish from his mind the look in Aziraphale's eyes, the memory of his lips and of his tears.

And failed considerably.

I love you.

(Touched his cheek, and then his chest, and faltered.)

[this fic is now also on ao3 and being continued there]

[juniemunie]

If we're not giving up, don't give up wherever you are.

That's a promise.

[frownyalfred]

my advice for writing dialogue:

be brave

if you can’t say it in one breath out loud, you should probably add some punctuation

for casual dialogue: can you imagine two people saying this at a local coffee shop?

people talk over each other and cut each other off in real life all the time. your characters should too

modern, conversational dialogue isn’t one person lobbing one fully formed, multiple-sentence thought at another person, and then waiting to receive one back

dialogue is filled with placeholder sounds — ehs, ums, uhs — and these differ by region, language, and culture

people ask for clarification and sometimes things are just, by nature, unclear. sometimes you have to let the characters figure out the disconnect even if you, the author, know what it is already

find clips and videos online of the people/region and listen to them! how do they talk? is it fast, or drawling? how can you convey this to a reader who may have never heard them?

[raginglesbian2006]

what if Alastor had someone he loved accidentally killed in one of his "escapades" and they ended up in heaven. When Alastor dies, he knows that his beloved was too pure to end up in the depths of hell so he begins his journey of gaining enough power to try to get his love back, in turn making a deal he regrets and stumbling upon the Hazbin Hotel. He doesn't speak of this special someone often- only Husk, Rosie, and Mimzy know of them.

All of this is based on the presumption that Al is just a big ol' sap deep down. Albeit a bit....dubiously motivated.

Edit: Turning this into a fic very soon! :) Stay tuned...

A glimpse into my fic based on this random thought- Ne Me Quitte Pas

[pizzaqueen]

A snippet from a future fic I'll probably never write, where Steve is a widower with two teenage kids, and he and Eddie randomly meet up, rekindling their old flame. This is when they've been together a while:

“Thank you,” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie at the bathroom sink.

Eddie pauses, catching Steve's eye in the mirror. “What for?” he asks, mouth foamy with toothpaste.

Steve slips his hands along Eddie's hips, hooks his chin over Eddie's shoulder. “For loving my kids.”

“You don't—” Toothpaste dribbles down Eddie's chin and he stoops to spit what's left in his mouth into the sink, gathering his hair to one side. He rinses his mouth out, wipes his face with a towel, then turns to Steve. “You don't have to thank me for that. Of course I love them.”

“Not everyone I've dated has.”

“They're idiots.” Eddie grabs the hem of Steve's shirt, pulling him close. “I mean, first of all, they're part of you, and I don't think I could love you and not love them. But...” He trails off, a small smile tilting his lips. “They're amazing kids.”

Pride swells in Steve's chest; he slides his arms around Eddie's waist and says, “They are.”

“And I'm pretty damn honored I get to be part of their lives,” Eddie says, “so thank you,” and he butts his head gently against Steve's.

Steve huffs and slides his hands up Eddie's back, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I love you.” He presses a kiss to Eddie's neck.

“I love you too.”

“And they both love you as well.”

Eddie lets out a shuddering breath. Steve knows how nervous Eddie was, when they started dating, that he wouldn't be welcomed, but it's almost like he's always been part of their family now. “Good to know,"”Eddie says.

Steve holds Eddie a little tighter. All those years ago, back in Hawkins, when they ended things, Steve thought he'd never see Eddie again. But here they are, together—a family—and Steve's never letting him go this time.

[andersonlore]

SWEET RELIEF (MINORS DNI / EIGHTEEN+)

notes. this request is a beautiful, god send. i've been wanting to write about this, but i've kinda been too scared to bc i wasn't sure if anyone would like it. nonnie, u made my week with this request nd i really hope it doesn't disappoint. i changed it a little bit, but not too much. yeahhhhh, i might be ovulating bc?????? anyways.

content desc. eighteen+, huge mommy!kink, sub!abby, dom!reader, masc coded!reader, tall!reader (coded) my lil shorties can still read it too, reader picks up abby, brief mention of reader working out, oral (abby!r), anal (just spit on), fingering, mentions of strap use, squirting, light degradation.

“you’ve been such a good girl. you deserve a reward, don’t you?” your stunner of a girlfriend was bare in front of you. she’s your personal adonis, every muscle sculpted to perfection. her abs clenching, anticipating what your next move would be. freckles scattered around her body, her pierced nipples were so sensitive from all the teasing, swollen and pink, just the way you liked them. abby’s moans were erratic, shallow breaths as you touched her everywhere except where she needs most.

“baby, please. need you to fuck me…so good. jus’ like you always do. you’re pretty little mouth, yeah? need you to taste me.” abby begged as her she found herself shivering. “i’ve been so good, so so good. i didn’t touch myself the entire two weeks you were gone. i’ll do anything, say anything. i just want you to fuck me.”

“you will, won’t you? my babygirl is so desperate to be fucked? isn’t that right?” you flick her clit with your digit. abby cries out your name, deprived of your touch for two weeks, she savors in every moment.

“god, you’re the only one who can make me come. couldn’t even if i tried without you.” as sweet and sensitive as she appears, intentional hands reach for your belt tugging at it, but you slap abby’s hands away.

“nothing is coming off until i make you cum at least….twice on my tongue. does that sound good, baby?” abby eagerly nods, not wanting to per long this any further.

you’re looking her dead in the eye, before your hands wrap around her thighs and pick her up, surprising your girl in the process.

“have you been working out?” you shrug like it’s nothing. abby leans in softly, her lips pressed against yours. she’s never been more attracted to you than she is right now. her strong legs are wrapped around your waist, clinging on as your throw her on the bed.

you climb onto to the bed with her, grabbing ahold of her hips and rotating her body so abby is sitting on her calves, legs bent, sculpted back facing you. she’s fucking divine, as she sits patiently waiting for your touch to guide her. you drinking in her beauty and for the first time, drowning has never sounded so lovely. pretty girl perfectly still for you. there’s nothing more than you need to fuck her so stupid. her cute eyebrows furrowed whenever you ask her question. abby does it when she tries to focus, but all that happens after is stuttering, maybe a fragment of a sentence, before she’s begging to let her come.

tonight isn’t going to be any different. she knows it as you sit behind her, your legs spread so her frame fits, but she doesn’t lean back. abby knows from experience you’ll punish her if she does.

“baby, i don’t think you’ve ever been this good.” you slowly undo the braid cascading down her back. her hair smiles of pine and lavender. you want to drown yourself in the scent.

abby keeps her hands at her sides, but you can tell she’s struggling. her strong hands are balled into fists, knuckles practically pearly white.

“now, bend over for me and show me your pretty hole, baby. show me what belongs to me.” you slap her ass as you lean on your hands, watching her follow your command.

the arc in her back is sinful as she supports her weight on her hands, her knees pressed against the mattress, her pretty pussy is deliciously wet. you’re itching for a taste, but not until you’ve got her a whimpering, pathetic mess.

you bent over her frame, your clothed body pressed against her exposed one. you whisper in abby’s ear, “does mommy have to show you how it’s done? apparently you’ve forgotten, babygirl.”

you create some space before placing a firm hand on her neck, planting her face first in the plush duvet. your hands trails down her spine, pressing enough so she gets the idea. abby arches her back like she’s a fucking pornstar and god you eat it up. she could turn her strength on you, the two of you know that, but she wants to shut her brain off and get fucked and you’ll happily oblige.

you kick her thighs apart further. abby whines but she doesn’t argue.

“babygirl, that’s what i’m talking about. just stay, just like this.” you slap her ass and she jolts forward, her moan caught by the duvet. your hand smooths over the skin, before slapping her again. “good girl. fuck yeah you are. hmm?”

you spit in her puckered hole, your saliva slides down and flows over her cunt. abby wants to just fuck you, wants to full her pussy on yours, she’s so sweet and you’re being a tease. it’s torture. pure fucking torture, but she just has to patient. you’re always so good to her. she knows she’ll get it eventually after you make her cum, but fuck she’s impatient and she wants it now.

for now, all she can do is beg.

“yes mommy, all yours.” abby manages to get out and you slap her cunt as a reward.

“want me to eat out this pretty cunt out? wanna feel my mouth make a mess of this pussy?” abby cries at your words, hands she loves touching the back of her thighs, inside of them, but never where she’s dripping for you.

“please, please, please. i need it so bad. you have no idea how much i missed you, mommy. couldn’t stop thinking about this.”

“thinking about what? tell me babygirl, don’t spare a single detail. you know how much i love hearing you pretty voice, abs.” you kiss her ass, as she struggles to continue. your teeth biting into her well earned glutes and you love to see the shiver wrack her body as she struggles to collect her thoughts.

“i thought about your fingers, how good they feel inside me. i-i thought about when you fucked me the last time, your cunt rubbing against mine and how good it felt. how i squirted all over you and fuck how you just keep going.” abby moaned, overcome with just the thought. “but i mainly thought about your tongue, your mouth sucking on my clit, fucking my pussy as you talk me through it.”

there it was, the soft sniffles clueing you to the tears streaming down her full cheeks. now, you could fucking ruin her.

your plump lips found home on her pussy, soft flicks of your tongue made purchase on her clit. abby was relieved at the sensation. you flattened your tongue against her vulva, her hips rotating so she was riding your skilled muscle. euphoria, it’s all abby felt. all she wanted to feel was this.

she could cum from this alone, but your middle and ring finger found her entrance easily, no resistance was met as you slide them inside her.

“mommy, you feel so good inside me. ah, yeah, right there. oh god, yes, yes, oh mommy. please don’t stop.”

“stop? is that what you said?”

“no! please…i-i need you to make me cum. please make me cum.”

“you think you deserve it?” you taunted abby, moaning against her pussy as your slurped up her sweet nectar, sending a shockwave through abby’s core.

your fingers are hitting the delicious spot deep in her pussy, and you’re hitting it over and over, not relenting for a moment. your tongue joins the whole with fingers for a moment, dipping in and it’s just enough to send abby reeling. not enough to make her cum, but she’s screaming your name, so loudly you wouldn’t be surprised if the neighbors abby woke up your neighbors.

“tell me how good it feels, babygirl. yeah? maybe then i’ll let you come.” you command her.

“it feels amazing, mommy. i can’t get enough of it. fucking me so good, so perfect. love being your good little slut. let you do whatever, whenever, just please don’t stop. i’m getting so close.”

“yeah, are you going to cum all over my face? on my tongue?” you grab at her clit with your lips, pulling the bud into your mouth, before flicking it over with your tongue. you circle around the pearl, isolating as you suck on it. your fingers picking up the pace brutally.

abby sounds like an angel being drained by a succubus and maybe it’s what you were. your undergarments were ruined as you humping, well nothing, because this is what it did to you. when abby got off, so did you. she’s so close, you know she is.

you pull from her clit, your thumb doing the work for you so you can press against her frame and whisper in her ear, “cum for me babygirl. yeah? that’s right. squirt all over my fingers like i know you can. such a pretty girl, aren’t you? give it to me, baby. cum right now and i’ll ride your face tonight? c’mon angel, give it to me. right now.”

she does. all over your sinful fingers, she squirts and she gushes over over you as you fuck her through. “oh baby, you’re so good. such a perfect babygirl for me.” abby’s hips ride your fingers as her body wants to collapse, but your free hand holds her left hip and supports her weight.

“feels so good, mommy. fuuuckkkkk.” abby tries to not whimper as she feels the aftershocks of her orgasm hit her like a freight train. your fingers leave and she feels empty again, but you shove your fingers in her mouth and she sucks immediately. tasting herself as your hands press against her throat.

“such a pretty baby, aren’t you? jus’ need your holes stuffed and fucked?” you laugh cynically. “now, let me ride that gorgeous face of yours, alright baby? then, i’m going to fuck this pretty pussy with my cock. would you like that babygirl?”

“please mommy.”

[leejihoonownsmyheart]

Attention (M)

Part six to the Pathetic series

Summary:

Everyone keeps acting like you aren't over Jeonghan, and you are determined to convince everyone that you are.

Tags: 16k words (I lied omg), dub con for safety reasons, Porn with Plot, frat boy!Jeonghan, college student!y/n, best friend!Jeongyeon, soft!dom to hard!dom Jeonghan, mean!Jeonghan (and y/n loves it), submissive!y/n, female!y/n (sorry gender-neutral friends), impact play, masochist!y/n, sadist!Jeonghan, Jeonghan aftercare king, y/n crys in this but it's not what you think, Jeonghan is a huge tease also

-

Part Six:

“You’re being stupid.”

You were vividly aware of that. After all, how could you not be being stupid when you were sitting on your floor, a hand mirror propped up in front of you and a whisk on your neck.

Arguing with Jeonghan was one thing but this couldn’t really be considered arguing, could it? After all, you hadn’t even let Jeonghan explain himself. You had practically thrown a fit somewhere where he couldn’t do anything about it and then left.

You hadn’t ever thought that you would end up using one of your safe words with Jeonghan, and honestly, the safety phrase that you two had come up with left your lips before you could really think over it carefully.

You remembered what Jeonghan had said. How he got reassurance in the trust you gave him. You wondered how he felt considering in that moment it probably seemed like that trust was gone.

Jeonghan deserved to feel that hurt from lying to you.

… Probably.

You didn’t know why he was lying to you, so you couldn’t really say with full confidence whether he deserved to feel hurt.

You also couldn’t ignore the knot in your stomach. You didn’t want to hurt Jeonghan. You still trusted Jeonghan. You knew he wouldn’t do anything to physically hurt you. You just… Also didn’t trust him in some ways. Maybe he would do something to mentally hurt you.

Your mind started to bring up instances in which Jeonghan had showed undeniably that he didn’t want to mentally scar you and you shook the thoughts out as quickly as you could.

You didn’t want to think about this right now.

Your eyes narrowed at your reflection in the mirror.

“Y/n,” Yeongtae said, trying to garner a reaction from you. You ignored him in favor of twisting the whisk over one of your hickeys. Yeongtae sighed.

“Why is she so stubborn?”

Jeongyeon shrugged.

“She’s always been like that. Just let her be dumb. She figures it out eventually.”

You shot a glare at Jeongyeon.

“I’m being dumb?” You demanded. “I’m not the one lying to a fuck buddy about fucking other people.”

Jeongyeon gave you an annoyed expression.

“But you are the one on the floor using a whisk to get rid of hickeys that you know you love,” Jeongyeon pointed out. “And you’re also going to be the one crying in bed later when you realize that the one thing you still have left of Jeonghan has been literally whisked out of your neck.”

You pressed your lips together and focused back on your whisk and neck. You didn’t want to say that Jeongyeon was right because she couldn’t be… Right? This situation was not a situation that warranted crying. You weren’t that emotionally attached to him.

Sure, you had spent a lot of time together, and yes you were abnormally angry at him for just another fling but that didn’t warrant crying.

He hadn’t necessarily hurt you either. He just lied.

It was shitty that he lied to you, but you were mad because he was stupid. Mad because it didn’t make sense. But he hadn’t hurt you, so there was no reason to cry.

Still, Jeongyeon’s words worried you. You looked at yourself in the mirror, your eyes flickering down to the hickeys on your neck. You knew that they would fade with time regardless of you whisking them away, which sort of asked the question that you didn’t really want to address.

Was this it? Were you done with Jeonghan?

He had lied to you, you were mad, those were two things that you were acutely aware of, but did this situation warrant cutting him off completely?

You felt sort of like you were acting out for no reason. If you were a psychology professor evaluating this situation you might say that it seemed like you wanted extra attention from Jeonghan and that was why you were making such a big deal over something that was realistically a conversation.

But with the knowledge that you actually had of the situation that just didn’t align.

“I’m not going to cry over Jeonghan,” you said finally. “I’m over him.”

It didn’t take a genius to know that no one in the room believed you.

“Really,” you insisted. “Jeongyeon knows how I am. He’s just another boy to get over. I’ve been in this situation a million times.”

Jeongyeon shrugged.

“Well, she’s right there. If y/n is good at anything it’s at dropping flings that aren’t treating her right,” she agreed.

“But Jeonghan-”

“He lied,” you interrupted, shooting Jun a glare. “If he didn’t want me to leave, he shouldn’t have lied.”

You thought over your words, that residual doubt still lingering in your mind. You pressed your lips together. “Besides. He’ll be sleeping with other people in no time. I’m not the sort of person that Yoon Jeonghan would get attached to.”

-

The first thing that Jun was greeted with upon getting back to the Alpha Mu house was none other than a pacing Yoon Jeonghan.

Jeonghan hadn’t slept well at all since you had left him at the party, and everyone in the house knew. He wanted to check on you. He wanted to see you. He just wanted one conversation.

“Well?” Jeonghan asked, his eyes flicking nervously to Jun as he toed off his shoes at the door. “Does she miss me? What did she say? Should I call her?”

Jun gave Jeonghan an apologetic look.

“She says she doesn’t care,” he said.

Jeonghan cursed, his gaze dropping to the floor, but the conversation only made Seungcheol laugh humorlessly.

“I told you. I told you that if you treated her badly, she would leave,” he said with a shake of his head. “But what did you do? Used her, abused her-”

“That’s dramatic,” Jeonghan interrupted.

“You lied to her!” Seungcheol argued back.

Frustration filled Jeonghan to the point where he felt like he was going to boil over. The others didn’t get it. Seungcheol didn’t get it. They didn’t see the way he treated you.

“I can explain that to her I just need to talk to her,” Jeonghan insisted. “I’m just going to call her.”

Jeonghan pulled out his phone but just as he did Seungcheol grabbed it.

“No. You don’t get that chance,” he said. Jeonghan’s face was starting to turn red, and Seokmin and Minghao shared looks of resignation to the fact that they wouldn’t be finishing their assignments any time soon.

“Give me my phone back,” Jeonghan said, his voice dropping to a dangerous octave.

“No,” Seungcheol repeated, squaring his shoulders. “You can’t force y/n to talk to you. If she wants to, if she decides to you will get the chance to get her back.”

“You have been against me and her from day one,” Jeonghan snapped. “You don’t get our relationship. I don’t treat her like an object. This is the last time I will ask. Give me the phone.”

“If you call y/n now, you are risking your entire relationship with her,” Seungcheol said. “You lied to her. She is confused. She doesn’t know where she stands with you. You will only further confuse her if you talk to her now.”

“The solution to this is a conversation,” Jeonghan insisted. He realized quickly that Seungcheol wasn’t about to just give him the phone, so he darted forward, trying to grab it. Seungcheol easily pulled it out of Jeonghan’s grasp.

He hated how sloppy he got when he was emotional. If this wasn’t about you he would have grabbed the phone easily.

Of course, if it wasn’t about you, he wouldn’t be arguing with Seungcheol at all.

“Let her think first. If you don’t listen to me about anything else listen to me about this.”

Jeonghan turned again to face Seungcheol, now even angrier but the anger dissipated when Seungcheol slammed his phone into his chest, forcing them to look at one another.

“Y/n let’s you do whatever the hell you want to her and puts up no fights. She trusts you to respect her when she says no, but she never says no.”

Jeonghan’s eyes narrowed at Seungcheol.

“So?”

“So, she said no. She used one of her safety phrases.” Jeonghan reached up to pull his phone out of Seungcheol’s grasp and once he had it Seungcheol dropped his hands to his sides. “Go ahead. Call her. But if you do, I guarantee she will never trust you again.”

Jeonghan stared at Seungcheol, trying to will him down with just a stare but Seungcheol wasn’t just anyone. He’d been with Jeonghan long enough to know when Jeonghan was just throwing a fit. And Jeonghan had been Seungcheol long enough to know when he was right.

“Fuck off, Seungcheol.”

But he was still going to be mad about it.

-

“Moved on already?”

You looked up at Yeongtae who you hadn’t even noticed had been staring at you for the last few minutes. Your eyebrows furrowed and your head fell to the side.

“Moved on…?” You murmured. He hummed and gestured to your phone.

“You’re checking your phone every ten seconds trying to see if anyone’s messaged you. You must have a hot new boyfriend.” You stared at Yeongtae for a few seconds trying to figure out what would have made him think that but then a smirk started to cross his lips and you realized what this was about.

“Yeongtae, I swear to god-”

“Seriously? Still?” He pressed, a laugh leaving his mouth. “How dumb are you?”

“I’m not dumb, I’m not even checking my phone that often,” you protested.

“Okay, not every ten seconds,” Yeongtae relented. “But more often than usual.”

He closed the book in front of him.

“Has Jeonghan not reached out to you yet?” He asked.

“Of course, he hasn’t,” you replied. “He’s Yoon Jeonghan. Remember? Massive University fuck boy? He’s probably fucking someone else as we speak.”

Yeongtae rolled his eyes.

“I know you’re in denial but be so fucking for real.” You made a face at his choice of words. “Jeonghan was utterly obsessed with you. He certainly hasn’t moved on that quickly.”

You looked away from him, letting an unamused noise of disagreance leave your lips.

“He really hasn’t called you?” Yeongtae asked again, but this time he seemed to be talking to himself. “I would have thought that he would have reached out immediately. Especially considering the way he talks about you.”

You perked up at that, your eyes darting back to Yeongtae.

“The way he talks about me?” You asked. Yeongtae hummed.

“Yeah, some of my study groups overlap with his so I see him every now and then. People are always asking about you, practically everyone has heard about your relationship.”

He shook his head clicking his tongue.

“People are such pigs sometimes. They’re always asking Jeonghan how to score with you, and he gets downright scary. If you didn’t like me I would probably be dead. I’ve never seen someone as relaxed as Jeonghan get angry so fast. He punched this guy Seonghun over you.”

It was a bit hard for you to imagine Jeonghan getting physical with someone else over you. Sure he had gotten a bit rough with Hyeon but you had sort of assumed that was mostly for show because you were there.

“No, he didn’t,” you said with a shake of your head.

“Seonghun has the black eye to prove it,” Yeongtae insisted. “Regardless, Jeonghan didn’t show his face at the last study group. I was sure he would call you.”

“Well, he hasn’t,” you said finally. You let silence fall between you two for a few moments. “… And, he wouldn’t no matter what because I told him not to call me.”

You could feel Yeongtae staring at you.

“Y/n?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a different kind of stupid.”

“Hey.”

“You told him not to call you?” He reemphasized. “And you’re checking your phone waiting for him to call you?”

“I’m not-”

“Yes, you are,” Yeongtae interrupted. “How long are you going to be in denial over the fact that you still want to be with him?”

“Yeongtae he’s just…” You trailed off, feeling a bit frustrated. “He’s just a guy.”

Yeongtae rolled his eyes.

“You know who is just a guy?” He asked. “Yunjun, Seonghun, Jun, Me.”

“You’re not just a guy,” you protested. “And neither is Jun. We’re friends.”

“Oh,” Yeongtae said, seeming to be actually surprised by what you had said. “So then, because we have a relationship, despite it being non-romantic, you consider us as not just guys.”

You were a little disheartened that he would think otherwise.

“Well of course,” you agreed. “I can’t deny that Yunjun is just a guy, and can’t speak on Seonghun but we spend so much time together, how could I ever think of you as just a guy.”

A small smile crossed his lips.

“So then, all that time you spent with Jeonghan? Him taking you home after you got drunk, him taking you shopping, him building lego sets with you. All of that still reduces him down to ‘just a guy’?”

And just like that you realized that Yeongtae had just been putting on an act to make a point.

“Yeongtae,” you blurted, leaning over the table so that you could hit him lightly. He raised his hands in defense against you, laughing.

“I’m just saying,” he said. “Stop being a hypocrite and I’ll stop getting on your nerves.”

You sighed, returning to your seat.

“Look, I get you mean the best, but I really am not hung up on Jeonghan,” you said. “It’s just the end of…” You hated to say it. “A relationship albeit a non-romantic one. It makes sense that I would feel a little hung up on it.”

Yeongtae rolled his eyes.

“And here comes the psych major.”

You sighed.

“I’m just saying, what ever emotional attachment I have to him-”

“So, you admit there is one!” Yeongtae interrupted.

“Will pass,” you emphasized. “And it will pass fast because Jeonghan and I were barely emotionally attached in the first place. We just got comfortable with each other. That’s all.”

Yeongtae clearly wanted to press the subject but after searching your eyes for a moment he simply shrugged.

“Okay, I relent,” he said. “I’ll let you be stupid as long as you pay for dinner tonight.”

You let out a soft laugh.

“Yeah, of course, you will.”

-

You could feel everyone’s concern in the air as you promptly began to bury yourself in your coursework and it only made your situation more frustrating.

You knew they meant well. You knew that they just thought that you were focusing on work because you were trying not to think about Jeonghan but that simply wasn’t true. He was just a fling; you didn’t get hung up over flings.

You probably just missed the reassurance that Jeonghan gave you. That was it.

There was a soft knock at your door, and you frowned. You glanced at Jeongyeon who looked up at you from the floor.

“Are you expecting anyone?”

She shrugged.

“No.”

You sighed and got to your feet, walking over and cracking the door open. You didn’t think you could have been more surprised by who was at your door.

“Seungcheol?”

The man gave you a tired smile.

“Hey.” A frown riddled across his face. “Did you check to see who was at the door before opening it? You know you should be more careful when opening the door like that.”

You were getting a bit of dejavu.

“What are you doing here?” And on second thought- “How did you know where I live?”

“That’s where I come in-” Seungcheol was suddenly pushed aside by Jun who smiled at you before pushing past you too.

“Jeongyeon,” he whined loudly as he walked into your apartment, falling face-forward into the couch. “I’m really fucking bored, and I need help with chem.”

“You didn’t even bring your bag stupid-”

As Jeongyeon and Jun started bickering you turned your attention back to Seungcheol, leaning on the door frame.

“I don’t suppose you came here for Chem help?”

Seungcheol gave you half a grimace.

“Can we walk?”

-

It was cold out. You hated April. One day it was in the 70s, the next it was in the 40s all over again. Class being cancelled today had meant staying indoors and you had barely bothered to put jeans and a tshirt on. You wished you had thought to throw on a jacket.

Seungcheol had been quiet so far but upon you wrapping your arms over your chest he sighed and shrugged his own jacket off draping it over your shoulders before you could argue.

“Look, it’s about Jeonghan,” Seungcheol started off. You rolled your eyes.

“Yeah. Duh,” you mumbled. You tugged Seungcheol’s jacket tighter around your body.

“I don’t want to intervene in you two’s business,” Seungcheol started. “It’s just that we’re all sick and tired of Jeonghan’s attitude.”

He looked away from you.

“Usually, he’s really easy going but he’s just been a grumpy asshole all week.”

You snorted, finding it hard to believe that he would be so upset over what happened between the two of you, but Seungcheol’s expression stayed scary serious.

“I’m not saying you need to forgive him for being an idiot or anything,” Seungcheol said. “It was stupid of him to pretend like he was fucking other girls. I don’t really know what was going through his head.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrowed as if he was trying to make sense of it, but after a few seconds passed he shook his head.

“Look, I don’t know. Don’t you miss him at all?”

You sighed; a bit heavier than you really meant to.

“Why should I miss him? We were just fuck buddies,” you stated. Seungcheol pressed his lips together, a strangled noise leaving his mouth.

“I just thought you had some emotional attachment to him I guess,” he stated. “After all, you got really jealous over that Chaedom situation.”

“Hey, Chaedom is just a bitch!” You protested, your voice growing a bit higher and louder. You cleared your throat. “I don’t care if he sleeps or slept with other people. Just Chaedom-”

“Right,” Seungcheol agreed. “Funny, that’s what Jeonghan always says about Yeongtae.”

You scoffed, stepping in front of Seungcheol so that he had to abruptly stop.

“Why do you care, Seungcheol?” You demanded. “We aren’t close. Jeonghan will move on and go back to his old ways- If he hasn’t already, and you’re better off without me there all the time anyways. Should I remind you what I sound like?”

Seungcheol raised his hands in the air.

“I’m not trying to pry,” he insisted. “I’m not trying to make you mad, I just…”

He sighed.

“I’ve known Jeonghan for years and never has he ever settled for anyone. He has sex practically once a week.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was rough for him to go back to his old ways,” you scoffed.

“He hasn’t,” Seungcheol said. You rolled your eyes and you weren’t looking at him, so Seungcheol grabbed your wrist. “He really hasn’t.”

“Give him until the next party,” you said.

“Y/n, he is obsessed with you. He’s changed,” Seungcheol insisted. “You made him want something that he’s never wanted before and that scared him. He wants to reach out for you but he’s respecting your wish for space. Can’t you just… Whatever- Hate him forever, but you have to believe that he-”

“What? Loves me?”

You laughed.

“He doesn’t love me. He’ll move on. This next party for sure.”

“Then come,” Seungcheol said. His face was serious. You just frowned at him.

“I don’t want him to see me and think I want him back or something,” you mumbled. That wasn’t completely true. You didn’t want him to see you at the party because you knew that if he saw you and wanted to… You would let him take you all over again.

“Then come in a disguise. We’ll get Mingyu in on it. A wig, and different makeup than you usually wear-”

“Do you think he’s stupid?” You blurted. “He’ll see right through it.”

“Not if we’re good enough,” Seungcheol insisted. “Just come. Please.”

You took Seungcheol’s jacket off your shoulders, shoving it into his hands.

“you said you didn’t want to get in Jeonghan and I’s business? Well, then actually stay out of it.”

You briskly turned away from him, heading back in the direction towards your apartment. You heard Seungcheol make a defeated sound.

“Just… Think about it, okay?” He called after you.

“Fuck off,” you called back.

-

Unfortunately, what your mind had told you to say wasn’t what your heart was willing to enforce.

You couldn’t sleep that night because of your conversation with Seungcheol.

You had been pretty sure at a time that the boys of Alpha Mu liked you. Enough so that you didn’t think they would like to see you hurt. So, Seungcheol’s words caught you off guard.

If he thought Jeonghan had bad intentions, he certainly wouldn’t come to try and get you to take him back. That being said, it was odd that Seungcheol didn’t seem to care if you actually took back Jeonghan or not. He just seemed to want you to believe that Jeonghan genuinely liked you.

“Are you thinking about Jeonghan again?”

You would think that Yeongtae would have been tired of you glaring at him at this point, but he didn’t seem to care.

“You are so annoying when you aren’t getting laid. How do you make friends when you are in between fuck buddies?”

“Yeongtae I-” You wanted to scream at him as if he was wrong about the fact that you had been overly frustrated but… He was right. You really needed to blow off some steam but no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t touch yourself without thinking about how much better Jeonghan could touch you.

Whenever you closed your eyes, you heard him telling you what to do.

Whenever you took your clothes off you could hear him chiding you and telling you that you didn’t deserve him, but he would fuck you anyway, just because he pitied you-

“Oh my god, I don’t have to hear your thoughts to know that you are fantasizing about Jeonghan.”

“I’m not,” you protested. “God, why’s everyone acting like I miss him so much? He was just a fuck buddy.”

“Yeah, but he’s a fuck buddy you are still hung up on. Apparently, he’s more than just a fuck buddy,” Yeongtae argued. You couldn’t figure out how to respond to him, so you just threw an eraser at him. He didn’t even flinch.

“Look, you won’t convince anyone that you are over him until you prove it,” he insisted. “So…” He leaned forward, propping his elbows up on the table and resting his chin on his hands. “Let me set you up on a date.”

“What?” You asked. “Yeongtae, I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”

“Right. Because you are still hooked up on Jeonghan.”

“No,” you disagreed. “Not because I’m still hooked up on Jeonghan. I just don’t want to go on a date.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Yeongtae prodded. “Maybe you hit it off with the person. Maybe you just relieve some of the built-up horniness in your body. Either way he pays for your meal.”

“How would you even set me up?” You asked, unamused by his prodding. “You don’t have any friends.”

Yeongtae cocky expression dropped into a genuinely hurt one.

“Ouch,” he said. You shrugged. “I told you the guys in my study group are all dying for a chance with you. And despite the fact that any guy with eyes on you makes Jeonghan mad, Minhyuk makes him the least mad of everyone.”

You ignored the comment about Jeonghan.

“Minhyuk?” You repeated. “I actually think I met him at a party once with Jeonghan.”

“Perfect,” Yeongtae insisted. “You even know him!”

“It was like a two-minute interaction.”

“Well, did you like him?”

You thought back on your conversation, and from what you remembered you couldn’t really say that you hadn’t liked him. Yeongtae seemed to notice your hesitance.

“It’s just one date. You guys can go somewhere public, and you’ll see how it goes,” he said, waving his hand in the air. As he spoke, he pulled out his phone. He typed for a little bit on his screen and then looked up at you. “Well?”

You stared at him.

“If I go on this date, you promise you’ll get off my back about this Jeonghan thing?”

Yeongtae very seriously drew an x over his chest with his fingers.

“Cross my heart.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Set up the date.”

-

Despite the fact you were up early quite often trying to sneak out of the Alpha Mu house, you hated getting up early. So, meeting Minhyuk at a coffee shop at 9 in the morning made you want to melt into the ground.

Still, if it would get Yeongtae off your back then it was worth getting up so early. 

When you got to the coffee shop, Minhyuk was already there looking at the menu and you were surprised to find that he looked really well-kept when he wasn’t getting drunk at a party.

His hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a button-up and a pair of jeans. You felt a little under dressed in your tee shirt but you pushed aside the feeling. This date wasn’t that serious anyways.

“Hi Minhyuk,” you greeted, shooting the boy a smile. He turned over his shoulder, giving you a smile back. You noticed that two of his teeth looked like fangs.

“Hey! I can’t believe you’re actually here,” he said, his voice light. “I assumed Yeongtae was playing a prank on me.” He thought over his words for a second. “Yeongtae is a weird guy.”

You laughed.

“Considering you two aren’t friends, you know him really well,” you commented. You fell in step next to Minhyuk, looking up at the menu in front of you. Your eyes scoured the options but even as you did that your mind wasn’t entirely on the menu.

Minhyuk was taller than you, but not taller than Jeonghan was. Your eyebrows furrowed a bit as you made note of the distance that Minhyuk was putting between you two. Unlike other people in the past, Minhyuk was keeping a respectful distance from you.

Of course, you couldn’t help but think that it was nice when Jeonghan was holding you as close to him as you could get. When he had mentioned that he wanted you as eye candy, he really had meant it.

“So, what are you thinking about getting?” Minhyuk asked. Your attention snapped back to the menu, and you dragged out an exaggerated hum.

“A latte,” you said.

“Of course,” Minhyuk agreed. “But what flavor?”

“Now that’s the question,” you said. You crossed your arms over your chest, letting your head fall to the side. “What flavor?”

Once you had settled on a latte flavor, Minhyuk had insisted you go and sit down so that he could pay for the food. Even though Yeongtae had named one of the perks of going on this date as getting free food, you still persistently argued with Minhyuk over getting your drink paid for.

In the end however, you settled for him paying as long as long as you could repay him in the future.

“So, y/n, why the sudden change in attitude?” Minhyuk asked. “I thought Jeonghan was going to have my head the day that I proposed us trading numbers.”

You snorted.

“You have a good memory,” you commented.

“And then when Chaedom got back, I was starting to realize why he was so possessive.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I didn’t come here to talk about Jeonghan,” you said.

“You should have seen the way that Chaedom came back down the stairs,” Minhyuk added with a laugh. “It was not her day.”

You couldn’t help the smile that flickered across your lips at the statement.

“So, what about you? If you thought, I was so taken then why did you tell Yeongtae to hook us up?” You asked.

“Jeonghan has been testy recently,” Minhyuk replied. “Word on the street was that you two were taking some space.”

Your eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“Why are people so obsessed over Jeonghan and I?” You asked. Minhyuk hummed.

“Because Jeonghan is the guy who never settles and you are the one he settled for,” he replied. “Everyone who didn’t see you before is seeing you in a whole new light now,” he explained. “And I was just the lucky one who got to go on a date with you first.”

That was a weird thing to think about. The thought that people were interested in you now, partly just because you had messed around with Jeonghan for a little bit didn’t sit quite right in your head. Of all the things to come from all of this… That was the most unexpected.

“Well, some of your information is a bit inaccurate,” you said. “Jeonghan didn’t really settle for me. I was a phase just like everyone else.”

“True or not,” Minhyuk said with a wave of his hand. “I’m honored that you came out with me. I’m surprised that you’re over him so quickly.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I’m just another person Minhyuk,” you said lightly. “Besides, there wasn’t much to get over. We were just a passing fling.”

“I’m surprised to hear anyone say that so casually,” Minhyuk laughed. “But then again, you’re a psych major huh? It must be easy for you to sort through your feelings.”

“That’s not entirely true,” you said. “It’s just easier to name my feelings. Not to sort through them.”

Minhyuk hummed and nodded.

“And what feelings are you feeling right now?” He asked, his lips flickering into a smile. You took a drink of your coffee.

“I’m feeling happy,” you replied. “Relaxed.”

“And me? What am I feeling right now?” He pressed.

“Cocky,” you stated. “And flirtatious.”

Minhyuk broke out into a loud laugh, that quickly led to him covering his mouth. You laughed too, surprised by how funny he took your words.

“You’re right,” he said once his laughs had died down a little. “I have to lay it on thick though. If only to see you smile.”

You didn’t normally like people who flirted with you so brazenly, but Minhyuk was a lot more easy going than other guys like him. Plus, it helped that he was really attractive.

Conversation between you and Minhyuk turned quickly to other topics, and you were starting to think that it was going really well. Did you see you and Minhyuk dating in the future? No, probably not. But was it a relief to talk to someone who wasn’t walking on glass around you? Yeah, it definitely was.

You watched as Minhyuk’s eyes flickered over your shoulder, seeming to catch the attention of someone in the middle of your two’s conversation. Your eyebrows furrowed slightly at the action.

“Oh, Jeonghan-”

It was comical, really. Not only how fast that you turned around but at the fact Jeonghan’s full name didn’t even leave Minhyuk’s mouth before you were turning.

It only took you seconds to realize that no one was standing behind you, only seconds more to register the fact that Minhyuk was laughing. You pressed your eyes shut.

“God, not you too,” you groaned.

“Yeongtae told me that everyone thinks you’re still hung up on Jeonghan,” Minhyuk said lightly. “I had to see for myself outside of your vocal reassurance that you are.”

You turned back to face him, your shoulders slacking a little bit.

Okay, you missed him. 

You couldn’t really deny it anymore. You were dying to see Jeonghan. Every day that you checked your phone you hoped to see a message from him, every time you went to the library you hoped to find him studying, every day someone talked about the Alpha Mu party this weekend you wanted to go.

And of course, you missed him.

You had grown accustomed to being around Jeonghan. You liked how he treated you. It was fun to be with him.

You knew that no one had said it was shameful to miss him, but you couldn’t help but feel like it was. 

Because he had lied to you. Even if it was a small lie, it was a lie. You two had to have complete trust in your relationship.

But as much as you were homing in on that detail. The fact that he lied, you couldn’t quite put your heart into it.

“But really y/n. Why are you pretending not to be hung up on Jeonghan?”

You sighed and waved your hands through the air.

“I’m not pretending,” you replied. “I’m trying really hard to make it true.”

You looked down at the empty coffee cup in your hands, your eyebrows furrowing a bit.

“Okay, here me out,” Minhyuk said. “Let’s talk this out. Like… A school project.”

You looked up at him.

“Listening,” you said slowly.

“So, in this scenario there is a guy who everyone goes crazy for,” Minhyuk started. “And a girl who ends up catching his eye. Everyone can tell he is obsessed with her.”

“That’s-”

“This is just a random scenario!” Minhyuk interrupted, raising his pointer finger to his lips. You gave him a glare but let him go on. “So, if he is obsessed with her and everyone knows it. Psychologically speaking, why might she think otherwise?”

“Minhyuk-”

“It’s just a little on the spot presentation,” Minhyuk teased lightly. “Surely that’s easy for you to answer.”

Another sigh left your mouth.

“Maybe she thinks otherwise because he really isn’t obsessed with her.”

“What would other people gain by thinking that he is obsessed with her if it weren’t true?” Minhyuk asked. “After all, if he wasn’t then everyone who wanted to get with her instead would have no fear of repercussions.”

You fought the urge to argue with him.

“Okay, fine. There’s a couple of different reasons for it,” you said after a few moments. “Psychologically speaking she could be experiencing Imposter Syndrome.”

You thought over symptoms of Imposter Syndrome for a few moments.

“If not a specific syndrome, maybe she just has blocks to receiving affection, or maybe she’s clinging to negative core beliefs. She could even just be nervous to get into a serious relationship.”

“Okay, now that we’ve acknowledged what could be causing those thoughts, what caused the separation between the two?”

“I thought this was just a random scenario?” You asked skeptically. Minhyuk gave you an annoyed look. “He lied about sleeping with other people. Not saying that he wasn’t. He said he was, but it turned out he was only sleeping with me.”

Minhyuk’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Uh-” You saw him physically shake off his surprise. “Okay, so you find out. You’re mad?”

“Hypothetically,” you mumbled.

“So hypothetically, what is the logical next step to take?”

-

Of all the stupid things you had done recently, this might have to be the stupidest and it wasn’t even your idea.

Sure, looking at yourself in the mirror you looked a little different, but anyone with two eyes would be able to tell it was you.

“Keep in mind, it will be dark,” Seungcheol reminded you as if he could read your thoughts. “And you won’t be close enough to him for him to notice you.”

“And you never wear this kind of makeup,” Mingyu agreed. “And that wig looks nothing like what your hair usually looks like.”

“And most importantly, he isn’t expecting you,” Seungcheol added on.

You sighed. You supposed all that was true.

“I think he’ll still see through it.”

“He won’t,” Seungcheol assured. “This plan is foolproof. All you have to do is hang around my friend Yeonjun at the party, watching Jeonghan from afar. You’ll see that he hasn’t moved on and then you can decide if you want to have that conversation with him or not.”

It was still stupid. Hallmark rom com behavior. And yet, even so-

“Y/n, Yeonjun. Yeonjun, y/n.”

You eyed up the boy in front of you, give him a small smile despite your indifference towards him. He smiled a bit wider than you, his head falling to the side and his eyebrows scrunching together slightly.

“You’re y/n?” He asked, holding out his hand for you to shake. You ignored his hand. “You really do look different. That’s a good disguise.”

Mingyu personally seemed to take pride in that.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile. Seungcheol rolled his eyes and started to push Mingyu away.

“Okay, we’re going to go now so that Jeonghan doesn’t get suspicious of anything,” he said. He gave you a weird look, hesitating for just a moment. You raised your eyebrow at him. “Stick to the plan.”

Stick to the plan.

The plan wasn’t really a plan, and no matter how you thought about it you felt like you were in high school all over again. At your age, putting on a disguise to see if a guy really liked you was a bit childish. But, despite that, the plan was for you to spend the night at the party with Yeonjun, and watch Jeonghan from a far.

Why, Yeonjun? Because the salt and pepper haired boy was someone that you had never associated with before. So, if Jeonghan did think he recognized you, he would be thrown off by the fact you were with Yeonjun.

Maybe it was just the alcohol but as far as you could tell the disguise that Mingyu and Seungcheol had put you in was convincing. Nobody that had bumped into you thus far had recognized you. Even the Alpha Mu boys seemed to be none the wiser.

And Yeonjun, despite his excessive drinking, was proving to be quite the amusing partner in crime. As the night started out, the two of you had been located near the snack table. You had used this time to spot Jeonghan, while Yeonjun used this time to start drinking. At first he was quiet, just focusing on the alcohol, and then he seemed to go practically comatose. He stood next to you, completely silent, completely unmoving. It made him easy to ignore.

Jeonghan had started the night talking to Soonyoung and Seokmin, but as the night progressed, he started to move around the party. You hadn’t really pinned Jeonghan down as a particularly social person, despite the fact that he slept around.

You noticed that other than hanging out with the other frat boys he didn’t really associate with people. You were a bit surprised to find out that he was in a study group with Yeongtae.

Jeonghan didn’t stay with one group of people for very long. Instead, he floated from group to group, sometimes barely even partaking in conversation.

“It’s almost pathetic the way that you are staring at Jeonghan. You’re looking at him like most of the girls desperate for him look at him.”

You fixed Yeonjun under an unamused gaze to which he just shrugged unapologetically.

“Just thought I would tell it as I see it. You’re obsessed with him.”

It was the first time that you had heard anyone flip the tables on you. You were so used to people telling you that Jeonghan was obsessed with you that this felt weird.

“You’re drunk,” you said pointedly.

“Drunk but not blind,” Yeonjun argued back. He leaned towards you, his finger flicking across your nose. As he did, he tipped his cup of alcohol, spilling a few drops on the ground. His eyes widened in despair and he ducked his head to try and catch the spilled drink.

You laughed at him, shaking your head and allowing your eyes to turn back to Jeonghan.

“You really like him,” Yeonjun pressed.

“I’m just trying to see something,” you argued back.

Yeonjun hummed and suddenly his head fell against your chest.

“Hasn’t everyone been telling you? He’s been turning down people left and right for the last few weeks,” Yeonjun said. “Rumors on the street is that he is into someone.”

You rolled your eyes, but honestly found his behavior amusing. You raised a hand to his head, patting him like he was a dog.

“You always drink so much?” You asked him. He looked up at you with a pout on his lips.

“I don’t drink anymore than the next person,” Yeonjun replied. You fixed him with a skeptical look. “Okay a little more than the next person.”

He paused.

“We should get more alcohol,” he stated. Then another thought occurred to him. “You should drink some.”

“I think that if you are so drunk you’re spilling your alcohol than you are too drunk for more.”

Yeonjun whined his protests, but you ignored them. You kept your hand placed on the drunk boys’ head, staring at Jeonghan. A girl had joined him a few moments before. Her hand raised to his arm but he shook it off, looking like he was annoyed by her advances.

“Why are you so obsessed over Jeonghan?” Yeonjun asked. He paused. “Wait. Right. The plan. You don’t think Jeonghan is obsessed with you.”

You grunted, watching as Jeonghan walked away from the girl he had just shook off of him.

“I don’t believe this,” you murmured. Yeonjun peered up at you, his eyes wide and pupils dilated.

“What? That Jeonghan hasn’t fucked with anyone else yet?” He questioned. His eyes wandered over to the man in question who was practically social distancing from the girl in front of him. A completely different girl from the one he just turned down. “Isn’t this irrefutable proof that he actually does like you?”

“He’s got to be…” You trailed off in frustration. “Maybe he’s just being overly picky. He can’t just not be sleeping with other people because of me.”

Yeonjun looked back up at you. There was a moment of silence.

“Well, why don’t you try to seduce him then?”

Listening to a boy as drunk off his ass as Yeonjun was at this point was stupid.

“Yeonjun the plan-”

“The plan is stupid,” Yeonjun blurted out. “You put on a disguise this good just to stare at him from afar? You need to get into the action. Figure out for yourself if he really will sleep with someone else. You know him, what makes him tick.”

He gestured in the direction that Jeonghan was in, stumbling a little bit.

“Go make him tick.”

“He’ll recognize me,” you protested. Yeonjun rolled his eyes and gestured to the people around you two.

“No one recognizes you,” he replied. “Get it together and go figure out if that man is really your man.”

You really did no better than to listen to someone drunk, but something about Jeonghan really did make you stupid.

And yet, you still ended up finding yourself leaving Yeonjun with a girl whose name he had known, making your way towards Jeonghan in the crowd.

Your mind was screaming at you, begging you to not be stupid. Begging you to stay away from him. But even as you thought that, your shoulder was bumping against Jeonghan’s.

Time to see if you were really as good at acting as you sometimes pretended you were.

An innocent smile flickered across your face.

“Oh I’m-” You sucked in a breath that you wished you could say was rehearsed but really you had just really forgotten how nice it was to be in Jeonghan’s presence again. “I’m so sorry.”

You stumbled a little from the inertia of your bump and Jeonghan caught you by the wrist. A confused expression was riddled across his face. His eyes flickered across your body, his gaze pausing at your neck and then flicking back to your eyes.

Your heart stopped. You were sure you had been caught.

“And who might you be?” Jeonghan asked softly, a smile curling across his lips.

Game and point.

Pride surged through your body at the fact you had been able to trick him. Even more excitement buzzed through your body when you saw that undeniable glint his eyes. Lust, interest. His fingers tightened their grasp on you, causing your body to burn with desire.

“Is it important?” You asked. “All that matters is who you are.” Your eyes glinted in excitement. “Yoon Jeonghan.”

Jeonghan’s head fell to the side ever-so-slightly.

“So, my reputation proceeds me as it always does,” he said. His eyebrows furrowed. “I can’t help but wonder what you’ve heard.”

“Just that you always bring people to the finish line,” you replied your voice light.

You worried that your current conversation was too reminiscent of your first one with Jeonghan, but your worry over being caught was clouded by the knot that was growing in your stomach. Why did you feel like this? Wasn’t this what you wanted? To be right?

“Do you want to come upstairs with me?”

Jeonghan’s invitation was tempting, despite your disguise. Mostly because it reminded you just how much you craved him. Being mad at him was exhausting but this also showed that you were right and Seungcheol was wrong. He was the same Jeonghan that he had been when you met him.

Picky. But still willing to sleep with any person he thought fit his standards. You had simply been a glitch in the system. A break in a chain that was now put back together. You were forever just going to be a notch in his belt.

But you couldn’t help it…

“Yeah.”

You were reconsidering everything as you traveled back up those stairs. Now they were so familiar to you. Each little scratch and notch reminding you of a different time that you had traveled up them.

So Jeonghan hadn’t recognized your face. Did that mean he wouldn’t recognize your body?

Surely not, right? How distinct could your body be from others?

You shouldn’t let it get that far. No, you needed to make an excuse- Any excuse to get back downstairs to the party.

Maybe that would knock down Jeonghan’s ego a little bit. If suddenly, a conquest turned him down.

Yeah, that felt like good revenge and totally made up for the lack of self control you had when it came to Jeonghan. You would really have to unpack at some point why you really didn’t care if you were just a notch in Jeonghan’s belt.

Jeonghan opened the door of his bedroom, gesturing you in. He was being a little bit more detached than he usually was when he was about to fuck you, but maybe that was just a difference between you and the other people he slept with.

It didn’t necessarily mean that he liked you more than them.

You opened your mouth to make some excuse to go back downstairs but before you could Jeonghan was slamming the door shut with his foot. Your eyes widened as he suddenly closed the distance between you two. You backed yourself up against the wall and he trapped you there between his arms, his face mere itches from you.

“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

His entire demeanor was different than it had been just a second ago. You could practically feel a hundred feelings radiating off of Jeonghan’s body. Lust, desperation, frustration.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jeonghan’s hand shot up and ripped your wig off of your head. He held it in front of your face, his lips pressed in frustration.

“Do you think I’m stupid? That I wouldn’t recognize you just because you had a little bit of makeup on and a wig?”

“I-”

“I understand my reputation,” Jeonghan said. He threw the wig to the floor and pulled away from you. You took a large breath of relief for the space.

Generally, when it came to situations like this, where you were stuck around an angry man. You were, reasonably scared.

But this was Jeonghan. Yoon Jeonghan. He only hurt you when you wanted to be hurt. And he never hurt you over actual anger. You knew you were safe.

“I’m Yoon Jeonghan, and I fuck around. But… Fuck that shit, I only want to fuck you. I thought that we were past this. I thought you understood that.”

You were ripped from your thoughts at that, your eyes wide.

“That’s surprisingly intimate,” you joked. Jeonghan looked at you.

“Y/n, I’m sorry I lied to you about sleeping with other people,” Jeonghan said. He walked back over to you, placing his hands on your shoulders so that you had to look at him. “I didn’t sleep with anyone. Not since we established you couldn’t sleep with other people. I haven’t wanted to sleep with anyone else.”

Again, the scariest thing about Jeonghan was just how serious he was acting. You laughed.

“You sound like you’re about to confess your love to me,” you joked.

Jeonghan’s eyes didn’t leave yours, but they saddened a little bit. His lips pursed together into a thin line. The smile dropped from your face.

“Jeonghan-”

He looked away from you, his hands leaving his shoulders.

“Yes, at first it was just sex. I mean, really. What are the odds that we would find each other?” He asked. “How many people like to get spit on and have their face smacked? You like it when I rough you up. That’s crazy.”

You just stared at him, unsure of what to say. He didn’t look like he wanted you to say anything yet anyways.

“Yes, I’m jealous of the people that you get to spend time with,” Jeonghan said. “Stupid, fucking Seungcheol… I’m not jealous of Yeongtae because I’m scared that you are going to fuck him. I’m jealous because you two have an emotional attachment that we don’t have, and I was scared we would never have it.”

“Why would you want an emotional relationship with a fuck buddy?”

There was silence from Jeonghan, and he turned around to look at you. He had a sad look on his face.

“Y/n, Jeongyeon told me once… In passing, that you weren’t looking for a real relationship.” The air in the room was suddenly so heavy you felt like you needed to sit down. “Why not?”

Your heart skipped a beat, the implications seeming unreal.

“I just...” You tried to figure out the right words to say. Tried to figure out what you were thinking. “I haven’t needed that in my life. No one has proved to me that we would really work out.”

Jeonghan stared at you, and you stared back at him. There was something in his eyes. You were scared that Jeonghan was going to say something that you didn’t think you wanted to hear right now. You needed a distraction.

“Jeonghan.”

“Yeah?”

“I really… I really need you.”

“Fuck,” Jeonghan said, turning his body slightly away from you. “I’m trying to apologize to you, y/n.”

“Apology accepted,” you agreed. You lowered your hands to the hem of your shirt, dragging it off your body. Jeonghan groaned, covering his hand with his face.

“Y/n, I am not that strong. This is the longest I’ve gone without sex since high school,” he said. “Just let me…”

You walked over to him, unbuckling your bra as you walked. You let it drop to ground, knowing that he heard the sound. You grabbed Jeonghan by the collar of his sweater.

“Come on, Jeonghan. I know you need it just as bad as I do. You want me… I want you… The door is closed…”

You took Jeonghan’s hands, pressing them to your bare sides. His fingers obediently wrapped around your body. You dragged his hands up your body by his wrists.

“Come on,” you whined. “Didn’t you miss me? Don’t you want to use me?”

A groan left his mouth.

“You’re not being very good y/n.”

Jeonghan looked reasonably torn. You could tell he was trying to be mature and take this the right way and that scared you even more. Coming to this party you had expected to see Jeonghan flirting with other people, but here he was doing everything that he could to actually amend things with you and you couldn’t wrap your head around why.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“Fuck it. But we’re talking after this.”

Jeonghan’s hand tightened around your body, and his other hand came to your hair. Braided to keep it hidden beneath your wig. A growl left Jeonghan’s mouth.

“Never braid your hair before seeing me. Ever again.”

He placed his hands square on your shoulders and pushed you back onto his bed.

“Unbraid your hair right now.”

You scrambled to pull the rubber bands out of your hair, your fingers running through the strands of your hair as you struggled to get them out of your braids. Jeonghan meanwhile was watching you, a dark look in his eyes as he practically ripped his shirt off of himself.

“If I don’t have something to pull-”

Just as you got the last bit of your hair untangled from the braid, Jeonghan was climbing on the bed, fingers hooked in your pants as he pulled them off your body. You didn’t have to be told what to do from there and immediately shimmied out of your panties, tossing them to the side and propping yourself up on your elbows, simply anticipating what Jeonghan was going to do next.

You couldn’t help how your body was buzzing just at being in this position again. Being in Jeonghan’s room, being naked in front of him. Normally, you would feel embarrassed, but you really seemed to have no shame when it came to Jeonghan.

“Fuck, look at you,” Jeonghan mumbled, his hands lowering down to his pants. His fingers hooked on his belt and he began to unbuckle it and you had to literally wipe drool from your lips. Fuck. “You are so fucking gorgeous.”

He tossed his belt to the side with a soft clang.

“And even though you are being so bad in distracting me with sex,” he said, unbuttoning his pants with a single flick of his thumb. “You are literally on bed waiting for me to do whatever the hell I want to you, aren’t you?”

You nodded, and you were burning so badly that your core hurt. You needed to be touched by Jeonghan. You couldn’t just lay there under his gaze and watch him get undressed. God, you needed to do something. Anything.

“I know how badly you want to touch yourself,” Jeonghan cooed, dropping his pants to ground. You swallowed hard, trying to keep your eyes on Jeonghan. “But I also know just how badly you need to be good for me. Isn’t that, right?”

Your face was blazing and you could feel your pussy beginning to drip wetness despite the fact that Jeonghan hadn’t even touched you yet.

“Go on y/n. I wouldn’t blame you if you had to play with your cunt while you waited for me to finally touch you,” he said. Your eyes widened slightly but he shot you down quickly. “No that’s not permission. You will get punished if you touch yourself. But I know that you really need to touch yourself. I’m just saying I won’t blame you for succumbing to your own desires.”

A smile flickered across his face.

“What will it be huh? Are you going to relieve yourself? Ease that feeling of desperation that’s just building up in your body?”

Jeonghan laughed at you and dropped his boxers down to the ground. You didn’t speak to him. Too afraid of what you were going to say. You were excited now, thinking that since his clothes were off you wouldn’t have to choose between being good or bad.

You were wrong.

As soon as Jeonghan had stepped out of his boxers he walked up to the edge of the bed, but instead of joining you on it, instead of throwing foreplay out the window and taking you right there, he stopped where his knees brushed the comforter.

He wrapped his fingers around his rock hard cock, groaning at his own touch.

“I love that you let me do anything to you,” he said. “What would you do if I told you that I wasn’t going to touch you at all? What if I told you that I was just going to look at you and get myself off and cum all over you and then just leave you? Make you sit there covered in my semen until I decided that I should touch you.”

He thought over that for a second.

“If I even decided to touch you.”

“Jeonghan-” You blurted, your eyes wide as panic seized your body. “You wouldn’t do that.”

Jeonghan gave his cock a pump.

“Are you sure about that?”

There was something sadistic in his eyes, and it made you second guess everything you knew about him.

“You wouldn’t even-” Your voice cracked. “You wouldn’t even touch me?”

You swallowed hard, unable to help yourself from spreading your legs out a little further.

“Didn’t you miss me at all?”

“I missed you so fucking much, y/n,” And as he spoke his voice grew deeper, shaky even. “That’s why I can’t touch you. I need you to need me as much as I need you.”

You felt yourself whimper at his words.

“I do. I do need you Jeonghan, d-don’t do this to me,” you blurted out desperately. Jeonghan mostly ignored you, his eyes threatening to flutter shut from the pleasure of even just slowly pumping his cock. You thought that him touching himself made it that much more cruel.

“I don’t know why you are complaining,” he commented. “All you have to do is misbehave. Are you really that scared of misbehaving in front of me?”

You nodded, squirming in place.

“Yes. Jeonghan, please,” you begged. “I don’t want to be bad, I want to be good, I want to be of good use to you.”

“You’re good use to me right now,” Jeonghan replied, the corners of his lips quirking up. “You’re so pretty to look at and so good at begging for me.”

A loud whine escaped your lips.

“Jeonghan,” your voice was tiny now, your fingers balled in Jeonghan’s comforter as you fought the urge to do what Jeonghan wanted you to do. You honestly thought that this was crueler than any kind of punishment he could and had ever given you. You couldn’t help the fact that tears were beginning to sprout out of the corners of your eyes.

You scrambled to your hands and knees, crawling to the edge of the bed. Jeonghan narrowed his eyes at you, but you stopped before you really hit bad territory.

“Jeonghan please, I’m not this strong,” you pleaded. You let your eyes grow wider, and tilted your head to the side, puffing out your chest. Jeonghan’s eyes darkened.

“Yeah?” He asked. You nodded, scooting forward more on your knees.

“I need you Jeonghan,” you agreed.

Jeonghan’s eyes fluttered shut and you thought for a second that you were screwed and not in the way that you wanted to be but just as your gaze dropped to the ground, you felt a hand gripping tightly in your hair.

Your head was jerked up and you came face to face with Jeonghan, his nose millimeters from yours. He smiled at you, his tongue briefly flicking across his teeth.

“You promise?” He asked you. Your eyes briefly furrowed and your gaze darted down to his lips. A beat passed and then suddenly you remembered that he had spoken to you. You tried to nod, but found you couldn’t move. You swallowed thickly.

“I promise,” you breathed. Jeonghan snorted.

“Liar.”

You opened your mouth to argue with Jeonghan but you suddenly got pushed back into the bed. Just as your head fell into the comforter Jeonghan was grabbing you by your thighs, pulling you to the edge of the bed. You propped yourself up on your elbows again, but just as you did that Jeonghan was pushing two of his fingers deep into you.

You felt your elbows collapse as soon as he curled his fingers inside of you. A loud desperate moan left your lips.

“You don’t need me,” Jeonghan admonished. He pulled his fingers from you, humming as he slipped his fingers into his mouth. “No, you just think you need me because you do whatever that pretty cunt tells you to.”

His hand came down on your clit, causing your body to jolt and your head to press harder into the bed.

“And your pretty little cunt will get wet for any man who promises to put his dick in you.”

You felt the tips of Jeonghan’s fingers brush your skin, and he slowly dragged his fingertips down your body.

“J-Jeonghan please,” you managed to get out as Jeonghan teasingly ran his fingers down your body. “Th-That’s not true. I-”

Jeonghan’s fingertips slid between your folds, and when he raised them up in front of you they were literally dripping. His head fell to the side.

“That’s not true? Because I’ve barely touched you and you’re soaked,” he pointed out. “You’re either a slut, or you need me so badly you just can’t help yourself, and we know that can’t be true.”

He didn’t leave room for that aspect of the conversation to continue because then he was pushing his wet fingers into your mouth. You desperately sucked at them, hoping maybe Jeonghan would be tempted to do more to you, but he pulled his fingers disappointingly fast from your lips.

His hands returned to your sides, dragging up to your breasts. He cupped your breasts in his hands, giving them a small squeeze. You arched your back into Jeonghan’s touch.

“Jeonghan, please,” you whimpered.

“What?” He asked innocently. “This isn’t good enough for you?”

Frustration bubbled in your chest at Jeonghan’s words.

“You know it isn’t,” you replied, unable to keep the bite off your tongue. Jeonghan hummed and pushed two fingers back into you without warning.

“What about this?” He asked. “Is this enough?”

You opened your mouth to respond- To tell him that no it wasn’t enough- but before you could Jeonghan was sharply pushing his fingers back into you forcing you to raise a hand to your mouth, biting down on it to keep more noise from leaving your lips.

“You know, I almost didn’t recognize you,” Jeonghan mumbled as he pressed his fingers deep inside of you. “You being there in that makeup, with that wig, in those clothes with Yeonjun? None of it made sense. Not after what happened.” 

He shook his head. 

“But I saw through it. Even though it didn’t make sense I knew it was you, I just got really thrown off by one thing.”

His free hand raised to your neck, his fingers splaying across it. You knew immediately what he was talking about. 

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out. Your frustration gone now that Jeonghan was fucking you with his fingers “I don’t know why I got rid of-” 

Before you could finish talking Jeonghan was pressing his hand to your mouth. He raised an eyebrow towards you in warning.

“I don’t care why you did it,” Jeonghan replied. You pressed your lips together and Jeonghan pulled his hand away from your face. “The question is can I replace them?”

You felt another wave of heat run through your body.

“Y-Yes,” you managed to get out. Jeonghan smiled.

“Are you sure?” He asked, his voice dropping a few octaves. “Because if I leave more marks on you I expect you to leave them this time.”

You nodded, craning your neck.

“Yes, I’ll leave them, I promise,” he bit out. “I fucking missed them, I regretted getting rid of them so much.”

It was true. Ever since you had successfully gotten rid of the marks, you had hated looking at yourself in the mirror. You missed the marks on your neck even if you had been upset about the whole Jeonghan situation.

Jeonghan didn’t argue with you over it. He leaned forward, the tips of his fingers pinching at your nipples as his lips attached to your neck. At first he just peppered soft little kisses to your neck as his hands kneaded your breasts. The further he leaned down however, the closer his hard cock got to you. You felt the tip of his cock brush your swollen clit and you bucked your lips up, chasing the friction.

“Y/n, I’ve never seen you so desperate,” Jeonghan said teasingly, his hot breath making your head press back against the bed harder. “You’re acting like you haven’t been touched in days.”

“I haven’t,” you breathed. Jeonghan’s teeth bit down on your neck, and then his warm tongue flicked across the spot, as if to soothe your neck after the bite. “I-I- haven’t even touched myself since I got with you.”

Jeonghan’s body shifted further and once again Jeonghan’s tip pressed against your clit. You wiggled your hips so that Jeonghan’s tip slipped between your folds. Both you and Jeonghan let out matching groans.

“Even when you’re mad at me you’re still mine, huh?” Jeonghan said his voice low. “You still need my cock to get yourself off. Can’t come without my permission to.”

You nodded your agreement but as you moved Jeonghan was biting down on your neck again.

“Beg me to fuck you,” Jeonghan breathed against you.

“Jeonghan,” you pleaded. “I really do n-need you. Your cock is the only one that I can be satisfied with. I just, fucking, need you. So badly I need you.”

“It’s s-so hard to resist you,” Jeonghan mumbled and you literally heard his voice crack. You knew normally you would get in trouble for grabbing Jeonghan but you couldn’t help it. You raised your hands to Jeonghan’s forearms, wrapping your fingers tightly around them. You could feel how tight his muscles were, presumably from the strain of not pushing his cock into you.

“Then don’t,” you breathed. Jeonghan laughed humorlessly, picking up at you from your neck.

“I’ve got to take my time with it today, baby,” he said softly and your whole body shivered at the word. He pulled away from you, ignoring the way your hands tightened around his arms as he did. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I never know when you are going to come around for me to fuck. I have to make the most of it.”

Jeonghan’s pulled back his cock, slipping from your folds and dragging a string of wetness from it. You felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes all over again. The frustration of not being fucked really building up in you.

He began to slide down your body, his mouth trailing kisses to your skin. Your toes curled as his lips trailed over your breasts, his teeth briefly nipping at you before continuing down your body.

“Jeonghan,” you cried out. You tried to move but Jeonghan pressed a hand to your pelvis, pinning you to the bed.

“You’re making it so much harder, to stop from fucking you,” Jeonghan groaned. His mouth came to a stop just above your clit and he started to press wet kisses to your thighs. So close to your pussy that his tongue was darting out to capture some of the wetness that had soaked your thighs. “I want to take you so fucking badly. Give you exactly what you are begging for.”

The tears slid down your cheeks.

“Pl-please.”

He finally wrapped his lips around your clit, sucking on it harder. You still tried your best to move under him, but it was pointless. You reached forward, your fingers burying in Jeonghan’s hair. As good as it felt to have him sucking on your clit, you were still desperate for any thing to be in your pussy. You fucking missed his fingers. You needed his cock.

Jeonghan’s mouth lowered and his tongue ran teasingly between your folds. You let out a wrecked sob, mixed in with a desperate moan and Jeonghan cooed lightly, his breath teasing your clit.

“Poor baby, you’re so desperate for me aren’t you?” He asked. You nodded.

“I’ve been so good Jeonghan,” you begged softly, your breath coming in hics. Jeonghan’s tongue dipped into your pussy and your fingers tightened in Jeonghan’s hair. Not pulling to get him to pull off of you. Just pulling because you couldn’t do anything else.

“You taste so good,” Jeonghan commented. “I could stay down here all day.”

Another cry left your lips and Jeonghan pulled his mouth off of you, sticking two of his fingers into your pussy. His head fell to this side.

“Look at me, y/n,” he said. You looked up at him, your eyes blurry from tears. He clicked his tongue. “Oh look at you. Do you really need cock that badly?”

You nodded and another hic left your lips. Jeonghan cooed at you and raised his body, pulling his fingers from you. He sucked his fingers into his mouth, and then, once they were clean, cupped your face in his hands.

“Don’t cry baby, I’ve got you.”

He slid his dick into you, making a relieved moan leave your lips. Your eyes fluttered shut as Jeonghan pushed himself fully into your pussy. You mewled loudly.

“Fuck, I can’t stand to be apart from you,” Jeonghan groaned. His hands lowered to the sides of your head and he pulled out before pushing hard back into you, your whole body shaking. You raised your hands to wrap around Jeonghan’s body.

“Th-Thank you, Jeonghan,” you breathed out. “But, pl-please, h-harder.”

“Harder?” Jeonghan’s voice was light, muddled with pleasure. “I’m trying to take my time. Really trying to savour this.”

“I know you want to use me,” you pleaded. “Like a slut right? Like your perfect little slut.”

Your fingers dug into Jeonghan’s back.

“I can take it, I can always take it. Stop holding back.”

Jeonghan’s hips stuttered and after recovering, his hips snapped, forcing his cock hard into you.

“Baby, I don’t think you can take it,” he said. “Look at you? Your mascara running, your face red. You can barely take my teasing. You think that you can take it if I fuck you the way I usually do?”

You nodded desperately.

“I can, I really can,” you insisted. “Please, I need it hard. I need to feel you take me. Own me.”

“Fuck,” Jeonghan groaned. “You little-”

He reached forward, his fingers capturing your chin between them.

“You don’t know what you are asking for,” he warned. You forced yourself to look at Jeonghan, your eyes wide.

“Jeonghan, I need you.”

Jeonghan lowered his hands to your neck, his fingers wrapping around them. His eyebrows raised as he stilled himself inside of you.

“What’s your safe word?”

You blurted it out, making Jeonghan laugh at your desperation.

“Good, fucking, girl.”

His fingers tightened around your neck and he began to fuck you fast, deep, and hard. It was a pace that you were familiar with but somehow it rocked your core even harder than it normally did. You felt it growning a little harder to breath as Jeonghan’s fingers tightened around your neck and a whine at the light-headed sensation was ripped from your body.

His fingers loosened at the whine, allowing you to gasp for a breath of air, but as soon as you did Jeonghan was tightening his grip on you all over again. You felt yourself clamp hard around Jeonghan’s dick as a wave of pleasure shot through your body. Your fingers clutched at Jeonghan’s back but just as they did Jeonghan raised his hand to your face, hitting you across it lightly.

“I’ve been letting you misbehave all day,” Jeonghan growled. “But if you want me to own you, you’re going to have to be good.”

His thumb swiped across your face.

“No touching.”

Your hands dropped to the bed, raising above your head. You arched your back, hoping for Jeonghan’s hands to return to your throat but he was much too focused now. You loved it when he became borderline animalistic. His hips were snapping into you, his lips curving up with every desperate cry of his name.

“You gonna tell me exactly how much you missed me?” Jeonghan asked. “Tell me about how I plagued your thoughts every day. How you can’t do anything but think about me and need me?”

You tried to find the words to talk back to Jeonghan, but you couldn’t find your voice no matter how hard you tried. Your silence earned you another slap which went right down to your core.

“God, you’re so pathetic,” he cooed. “So fucked out you can’t even find the words to respond to me. You always get like this eventually don’t you?”

“Only with you,” you managed to get out. Jeonghan lowered a hand to your clit and he began to messily rub it in circles.

“I know baby,” he said softly. “And you’re going to come just for me aren’t you? After all the teasing and the touching, you were able to hold back until just now. What do you think that makes you?”

“Good,” you blurted back. “I’ve been so good.”

Jeonghan’s lips flickered into a smile that you could just barely make out.

“You have been,” Jeonghan agreed. “So, fucking good for me.”

He shook his head.

“Even though you’re loud.” He gave you a particularly hard thrust. “Messy.” Another thrust. “Fucking shameless.”

He reached forward, pressing his forehead to yours.

“You are so fucking good. I fucking love-” His voice faltered before he quickly added: “Fucking you.”

Without warning you felt Jeonghan begin to unload himself into you, you screamed out in pleasure but Jeonghan cut you off by pressing his lips to yours.

“Come on baby, you have my permission,” Jeonghan mumbled against your lips. “Come for me, okay?”

You didn’t have to be prompted further. You didn’t care about being good. You raised your hands to Jeonghan’s neck, pressing him down further on you. Instead of screaming you focused on kissing Jeonghan, you whole body shaking as you came around his cock. As you were coming down from your orgasm, you felt Jeonghan pushing his cum deeper into your pussy.

Unfortunately for you, Jeonghan’s thrusts stopped, as soon as your grip on his neck loosened.

Jeonghan slipped his cock out of you, and a small whine left your lips. You covered your face with your hands finding both comfort and disappointment in the feeling of Jeonghan’s cum beginning to leak out of your pussy. Instead of immediately getting up to start a shower however Jeonghan wrapped his arms around your body, pulling your back flush to his chest and then proceeded to bury his face in your neck.

You let him hold you for a few minutes, focusing on his breath on your neck and the beating of his heart that you could feel against your back before finally speaking.

“Are you not going to start a shower?”

Jeonghan let out a humorless chuckle.

“I never thought there would be a day where you wanted a shower immediately after,” Jeonghan commented.

“It’s just uncharacteristic of you not to try,” you replied softly. Jeonghan was silent for a few seconds.

“It’s just I have to leave you to go start the shower,” Jeonghan said. You frowned at his words.

“And…?”

“And what if when I get back, you’re gone?”

Even as he spoke his arms were tightening their grip on you.

“Jeonghan I’m not going to leave,” you said softly. Jeonghan didn’t seem convinced. “Jeonghan-”

Jeonghan sighed.

“You’re right. I’m being selfish,” he said with a sigh.

He stayed still for a few more seconds, making you think for a moment that he hadn’t meant his words, but then he was pulling away from you.

Your first thought was that you shouldn’t have complained about him holding you. Now it was cold. And before when he was just holding you there was no need to address the situation you two were in at all.

“I’ll be right back,” he said softly. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He walked to the door and paused, looking at you before he left the room.

As soon as Jeonghan was gone you sat up in his bed, using your elbows to prop yourself up.

Just leaving while Jeonghan was gone hadn’t really been something on your mind until Jeonghan mentioned it, but thinking about it know you didn’t think it was a bad idea. After all, you still had a lot to think about.

Had Jeonghan really been unwilling to sleep with anyone who wasn’t you? Or had he known you were there to watch the whole time?

You swung your legs over the side of Jeonghan’s bed, and shakily got to your feet. You looked around the room trying to find your clothes but then you remembered your shopping trip with Jeonghan. You wandered around Jeonghan’s room, trying to see if maybe he had just thrown the bag somewhere.

You were about to give up hope when the brief thought to look in his closet. You pulled open the door, a small frown flickering across your face. At first the closet looked the same as it usually did, but then you noticed something odd about the clothes hanging to the right.

They were the ones that he had bought for you. Your frown deepened as you moved the hangers trying to see if you were right and you were. He had taken the time to hang up every piece of clothing he had bought for you.

Why would he hang up the clothes? Take up space in his own personal closet, just for some person he was sleeping with.

Your thoughts briefly flickered back to what Jeonghan had been trying to tell you before you had distracted him with sex but before you could think about it too much, Jeonghan’s door was creaking open again.

You saw him peak at the bed, a disappointed look crossing his face before you cleared your throat. His eyes flickered to yours and his head fell to the side. Without a word he walked over to the closet and grabbed one of his own shirts. He looked at you.

“Hands up,” he said softly. You did as you were told and Jeonghan slid his shirt onto you. He gave you a small smile and then quirked his head.

“Come on.”

Jeonghan led you to the bathroom, even though it really wasn’t necessary. You thought maybe it was because he genuinely was worried that you would leave. The shower was already running, and you expected Jeonghan to leave once you were inside, but instead he closed the door behind you two. You gave him a questioning look, but he just shrugged, raising a hand to his neck and glancing away from you.

“I thought maybe you would like some help.”

“Jeonghan, I don’t need help to take a shower,” you said. Jeonghan closed the distance between you two, his fingers coming to the hem of his shirt. His fingers briefly brushed your skin before he lifted the shirt back over your head. Once he had dropped the shirt on the floor he raised his hands to your hair, briefly brushing his fingers through it.

“I’ve always wanted to brush your hair,” he said softly. Your face burned hot under the attention. You rolled your eyes and cleared your throat.

“You’re really not going to take no for an answer,” you said with a sigh. Jeonghan’s eyes widened softly, and he pulled his hand away from you.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. You pressed your lips together.

“Don’t be,” you mumbled. “I know my safe word.”

You stepped away from Jeonghan to step into the shower. You didn’t know how Jeonghan did it, but he always managed to have the shower at the right temperature.

“You can join me,” you said.

Jeonghan smiled.

“Well only if, you’re sure.”

He waited for your nod and vocal confirmation:

“I’m sure.”

Jeonghan climbed into the shower with you, but his focus was surprisingly on getting you clean. He had grabbed a clean washcloth from under the sink before getting in and he immediately put some soap on it to start running over you. You narrowed your gaze at the fruit scented soap you had never noticed before.

“One of your sluts leave that?” You asked. Jeonghan’s hand stilled from where it was rubbing soap suds onto your body. He looked up at you, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s not Chaedom’s.”

You frowned at him, making him sigh.

“I bought it for you,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “As much as I liked you smelling like my body wash, you also smelled like every other boy in Alpha Mu.”

He focused back on cleaning you off, not elaborating on why he saw that as a problem. Not that you really needed him to elaborate. In all of your relationships, you had never taken a shower with anyone. Building on that, you had never had anyone touch you so gently.

Jeonghan was so focused too. Even though his hands were all over you it was clear he wasn’t trying to turn you on at all. Even though, him being so gentle was turning you on.

Jeonghan crouched down, rubbing your ankles with soap. You watched him for a second and then crouched down as well. Jeonghan looked up at you in surprise, his wet strands of hair falling in his face. You smiled at him and brushed the strands out of his face.

“You’re so weird Jeonghan,” you said softly. His eyes widened at your words. “Why are you being so gentle?”

“It’s after care,” Jeonghan responded as if it was obvious. You gave him a half-annoyed look.

“Even washing me is more after care than you normally give me.”

“Before I was scared of my feelings,” Jeonghan said. He thought about that for a second. “And yours.”

He cleared his throat and looked away from you.

“Besides, this might be the last time I see you. I want to make the most of it.”

Your heart hurt a little to hear Jeonghan say that, but you tried to push down the feeling.

“You worried about not having a pussy to creampie?” You asked, trying to keep the mood light. You laughed. “You gonna miss having someone who loves to be degraded by you so much?”

“I do love how you always do what I say,” Jeonghan replied, a smile flickering across his lips. “But you’re also the same girl who knows what she wants. Turned down Chan and threw a drink in Yeongtae’s face. All for me.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I turned down Chan to turn down Chan, not for you.”

“But you did turn down Yeongtae for me.”

You turned your eyes away from him, making Jeonghan sigh. He raised his hands to your face, turning you towards him. He stared at you for a few moments, his eyes flickering down to your lips before he reached over, putting some face wash in his hands. You groaned as Jeonghan start to lather the soap into your face. You let yourself fall back onto the floor of the shower, light-heartedly swatting away Jeonghan’s hands.

“Why’re you being so thorough?” You whined. Jeonghan just smiled, waiting for you to stop talking so that he could dip your head back under the flow of the water. He rubbed his fingers a little over your face until he was satisfied that all the soap was off of your face. He pulled your head back and grabbed a brush.

You groaned, but he ignored you starting to work the brush through your hair.

“Jeonghan you don’t need to be so thorough,” you insisted. Jeonghan just scoffed.

“Maybe I should have been helping you all this time. It seems that you were cutting corners,” Jeonghan mumbled.

“You know what’s nicer than a shower?” You asked Jeonghan. “Your bed. You have such a nice bed.”

Jeonghan rolled his eyes.

“You’re aging me,” he commented. He reached around to grab what you assumed was shampoo, He set the brush down and began to massage it into your scalp. You figured arguing with Jeonghan further was pointless, so you finally fell silent, resting your head on your hand while he cleaned your hair.

You watched Jeonghan’s eyes as he worked the soap into your hair, making sure to coat your whole scalp and get it even in the ends of your hair. His lips were quirked slightly up as he watched his own hands work through your hair. He was giving off such a strange aura.

“Y/n, you’re so beautiful,” Jeonghan mumbled. “More beautiful than anyone I’ve ever slept with.”

You didn’t want to humor him, so you didn’t respond to Jeonghan’s words. He didn’t mind.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Jeonghan asked. You frowned slightly.

“Yeah, at the-”

“Not the party,” Jeonghan said with a shake of his head. “Freshmen orientation. I slept with your roommate.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, and you tried to catch Jeonghan’s eyes. It was pointless, he was too focused on your hair.

“We didn’t meet freshman orientation,” you denied. As you spoke, Jeonghan tilted your head back under the stream of water.

“Well, not entirely. I met your roommate immediately. The first few hours of freshman orientation and as soon as we got there, we skipped the first meeting to fuck in your dorm. You came in just after we had finished. You didn’t bat an eye. You were so nonchalant. You turned your back while your roommate got dressed and you two practically got to know each other while I just sat there and watched.”

Jeonghan laughed.

“And then you two just left me. You didn’t say a word to me.”

Jeonghan pulled your head forward again and then started to put conditioner in your hair.

“You never gave me the attention I wanted from you. Not then, and it drove me crazy. That whole weekend I was trying to get your attention without getting your attention.”

Jeonghan shrugged.

“Nothing. And then freshman orientation ended, and I thought I would never see you again.”

His fingers got caught in a knot in your hair and his eyebrows furrowed. He focused in on it.

“But we’ve had a few lectures together here and there. You make friends so easily. I just watched from afar.”

Jeonghan pushed your head back again under the stream of the water.

“Only at parties when you were forced to them by Jeongyeon. Never drinking when you did go. Nothing ever seems to phase you.”

Finally, Jeonghan’s eyes flickered to yours. You pressed your lips together, just taking in what Jeonghan had to say. You weren’t really sure what to think of all of this, but you forced yourself to stay in the moment. Just focus.

“When I say that I crave you, I mean it in a way you will never fully understand. I have wanted you since day one, but I have waited for you, and I never thought that I would have the chance to be with you.”

Jeonghan’s hands left your hair to cup your face with his hands. His eyes flickered to his thumbs that brushed over your cheek bones to your lips, your nose, and then back up to your eyes.

“And then I found you in my room and you were more amazing than I had ever imagined you would be.”

A sad look flickered over his face.

“I’m sorry I lied.”

“It’s okay,” you said softly. Jeonghan’s hands fell from your face, and he looked away from you.

“It’s not okay,” he replied. He cleared his throat and stood up. He leaned out of the shower and grabbed a towel, holding it out for you to walk into. You got back to your feet and did what you knew he wanted you to. He wrapped the towel around your body, and you turned around to look at him still standing in the shower. He pressed his lips together into a thin smile.

“I’m going to wash myself off. If you’re in my room when I get back, we’ll talk just a little bit more before we sleep okay?”

You opened your mouth, wanting to say something but no words left your lips. You didn’t know what today. You just nodded and did as he said.

Once you were in Jeonghan’s room your mind was racing and you were faced with your least favorite conflict of the mind. The choice between fight or flight.

You could leave now. Jeonghan was giving you the chance to leave, having already said what you assumed were the things he believed were most important to get out. If you left now you had a lot to think about.

Well, you had a lot to think about either way.

If you stayed, you could really talk through your feelings with Jeonghan. If you trusted him, you could really get some answers that you needed.

You thought for a while, drying your hair as you thought about what clothes to put on. You liked that Jeonghan had bought you all these clothes to wear while you were over but… Nothing hit quite like wearing one of his freshly washed shirts.

You put aside the thought and put on the pajamas he had gotten for you.

As you wrapped your hair in the towel that you had been left with you thought over the most important question in your mind.

Did you trust Jeonghan?

Could you trust Jeonghan?

It was a bit ironic that you weren’t really sure if you could considering you had done nothing but trust Jeonghan up until this moment. You trusted him not to hurt you. You trusted him to not tell others too much about what you two did. You even trusted that he wasn’t lying to you about the people that he was sleeping with.

Maybe that’s why it was a bit hard to trust him now.

You looked to where you had dropped your phone on Jeonghan’s floor when you first got in the room and you picked it up. There was a good way to test the validity of what Jeonghan had said.

You searched your contacts for the name of your freshman orientation roommate and let out a breath of relief when you found you still had it.

The phone rang only twice before Geumseong answered the phone.

“Hello? Y/n? Is everything alright?”

You pressed your lips together.

“Hi, yeah, no I’m fine I just… I had a weird question,” you replied. You gave it a seconds pause and then said: “Do you remember sleeping with anyone at freshman orientation?”

“Oh god, of course I do,” Geumseong replied. “That was the best sex that I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Do you remember…?”

“Yoon Jeonghan,” Geumseong said without much of a thought at all. “Fucking shame, he doesn’t sleep with anyone twice.”

You felt your heart pounding in your throat.

“Are you sure?” You asked, your voice kind of airy. Geumseong hummed a confirmation.

“How could I forget?” She asked. You sat there trying to figure out what exactly you were going to say back, but just then the door to Jeonghan’s room opened and Jeonghan appeared. To his credit, he look surprised.

“Okay, well, that was all I needed to ask. Thanks,” you said into your phone. “We should get together sometime.”

“We should!” Geumseong agreed. “I’ll call you later this week.”

The line between you and Geumseong disconnected and you dropped your phone to your lap. Jeonghan raised an eyebrow at you.

“So, you want to talk?”

“Let’s say I believe that you’ve liked me since freshmen year.” You did. Geumseong was practically undeniable proof. "Why did you never approach me?"

"Y/n, you’re too good for me.”

You blinked.

“Huh?”

Jeonghan turned away from you to get changed into pajama pants.

“I’ve never settled for anyone in my life,” Jeonghan replied. He turned around when he was dressed. “I just knew I was going to end up breaking your heart.”

Your eyebrows furrowed even further.

“So then why did you…?”

“Ever fuck with you?” Jeonghan finished. He closed the distance between you two and for a second you thought he was going to kiss you. Instead, he brushed past you, sitting on his side of the bed. “I’m selfish. You were right in front of me, and you wanted me. I honestly thought that maybe fucking with you would get you out of my system.”

Jeonghan laughed.

“I’m stupid,” he concluded. “You just became that much more irresistible to me.” He seemed to think for a few moments. “Did you ever wonder why I decided to retire to my room that night at the party?”

You thought about it for a moment.

“No,” you replied, but now that he brought it up, it was a bit odd.

“I was so angry that Jun introduced you to Chan. Would he have been good to you? Undoubtedly. But I wanted you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you two and looking over at you talking. Then you disappeared and I thought you were in Chan’s room…”

Jeonghan didn’t have to go on.

“Okay, so then why lie to me about being with other girls?” You pressed. Jeonghan sighed.

“I don’t know what it is about you, but you drive me crazy. I think about you all the time. Seeing you with other men when I want you is absolutely infuriating but you?” Jeonghan laughed airily. “It drove me crazy that you kept saying you didn’t care if I slept with other people. I needed you to be obsessed with me the way I was obsessed with you. So I lied.”

You glanced over at Jeonghan to find that this whole time he had been talking he had been staring at you. When your eyes met he looked away from you.

“And I kept lying because I thought that maybe the longer it went on, the further it got, then you would start to feel the same way I do,” Jeonghan stated. “But I think that I just ended up emotionally detaching you more.”

You didn’t respond because again you were at a loss for words. You didn’t think anyone had ever liked you as much as Jeonghan was making it seem like he did. Building off of that you had never thought anyone would ever like you as much as Jeonghan was claiming to.

And yet, here you were.

Jeonghan seemed to sense your internal struggle.

“You should sleep,” Jeonghan said softly. “Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”

It seemed Jeonghan just couldn’t stop surprising you.

“What? No. It’s your room, your bed-”

Jeonghan raised his hands in the air.

“Just want to give you space if you want it. Go to sleep then, okay?”

You didn’t think that you could fall asleep after this conversation with Jeonghan, but regardless you nodded.

“Right.” You laid down in his bed, taking note of the fact that he was pressed as far on his side of the bed as he could get. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he echoed.

But you couldn’t sleep. Minutes turned into hours and Jeonghan’s breath evened to the point where you knew that he was asleep. You propped yourself up on your elbows and looked over at his sleeping body. You thought carefully over his confession, running his words on repeat through your head.

Fuck, why was this so confusing?

He was in love with you. Well, he hadn’t said it in those exact words but you could feel it anyways. Looking back he had been fairly obvious about it. Every time he was with you, every time he held you, every time he kissed you he did it all as if it would be the last time he ever got to.

You knew how you should feel in this situation. You should feel relieved, and excited but your brain just refused to accept what Jeonghan was telling you as the truth.

It wasn’t because he had lied to you about sleeping with other people, even though you had made a big deal about it. You made a big deal about it because it didn’t make sense. Now you knew why he did it. Now it made sense. Even if it felt unreal.

Your lips pressed together as you watched Jeonghan. You kept having this feeling like everything was super complicated when in reality it wasn’t.

Jeonghan loved you.

Did you love him?

Part Seven: One Call Away

[ekat-fandom-blog]

On Dani's tour of the world, she crashes through a weird T shaped building. It's a strange enough building that she decides to snoop around a bit. It's pretty interesting. There were planes and rocketships and a helicopter on the top floor. The next floor was storage. Then there were bedrooms. And bedrooms. And another set of bedrooms. Then there was a library and den. Then a rec room and a kitchen. Then a bunch of boring rooms. For how many bedrooms there were in the tower there was a surprising lack of occupants. She decided she'd bunk in the mostly empty bedroom for a few days before she moved on again.

A few days in, a boy in a red, green, black, and yellow outfit came. And a few hours later, another guy in a red helmet joined them. Both were unaware of their invisible guest. But then again, it seems the boy wasn't expecting anyone to be in the tower. And it was only made more obvious when he went on the defensive as soon as he saw the other boy.

the layout I used is this one

[becca-e-barnes]

"Here comes trouble."

Getting back to the 'Shit He Said' series because I've been missing it and you've said some truly wonderful shit recently.

This one is pure fantasy. I'm fully just indulging myself and I'm okay with that. I've thought about this way too much.

Pairing: CEO!Bucky x Female Reader

Word Count: 1.8K

Warnings: Semi-public, vaginal fingering, dom Bucky, sub reader, power imbalance, degradation, choking, penetration, creampie, this is bound to be so unhygienic irl but I can enjoy the thought leave me alone 😩

Summary: You manage to find some time for a quickie with the CEO

For some extra vibes: “Out Of My Mind” by The Killers

Minors, do not interact

Heat meets you the second the door opens but you only feel the true intensity of it when you’ve stepped inside and closed the door behind you.

Everything is hot.  Stiflingly, oppressively hot.  Even the glass panel of the door is warm under your touch.  Between the humidity and the ambient lighting, your eyes struggle to focus.  Taking a seat inside seems like a good idea.  Sit down before you fall down.  

It’s impossible to get a deep, satisfying breath.  The air feels so heavy, water droplets forming on your bare skin, clinging to your eyelashes and dripping from the ceiling onto your hair.  As the seconds pass, you feel your body begin to adjust.  Your breathing starts to regulate, albeit faster than usual.  You succumb to the weight in the air, taking a seat on the wet bench to the left of the door.  You close your eyes for a few moments in an attempt to shield them from the heat, breathing in the fresh scent of eucalyptus essential oil.

“Here comes trouble.”  Fuck.  You hoped this might happen but you hadn’t fully let yourself believe it was actually a possibility.  Your eyelids flutter open again, looking in the direction of the voice but you don’t need to see the silhouette of the person sitting at the back of the room to know who had spoken.

“Hello, you.”  He speaks again, low and soft and this time you’re more focused on ensuring you’re alone.  A quick scan of the room and it’s empty, save the two of you.

“I didn’t think you’d be down here!”  You feign innocence.  It’s a lie.  You knew he would.

He’s always been wonderfully talented at seeing right through you.

“I mentioned earlier that I might go try out the steam room.”  He’s right; he did.  These work trips get awfully long sometimes and it’s hard to keep your head in it without giving yourself a break.  In fact, you’re surprised more of your colleagues aren’t down here taking some time to themselves.

“Might.  I had no way of knowing you actually would.”  You’re not wrong.  Nor is he.  It’s an elaborate dance around the fact that you’re both now exactly where you want to be.

God, he’s gorgeous.  His usually soft, fluffy hair has drooped under the weight of the steam, curling a little.  Droplets of water roll slowly down his bare chest, meeting at the waistband of his swimwear but the condensation gathering on his body makes his skin look slick and kissable.  Your thoughts wander, daydreaming about how you’d love nothing more than to trail your tongue down his chest in the wake of those droplets until you’re able to sink to your knees in front of him and find a better use for your mouth.

“Stop thinking.  Get over here.”  He perhaps doesn’t mean to sound as sharp as he does but with time being of the essence, he’s not wrong to be demanding.  Anyone could walk in any time now so you might as well use the time you have wisely.

You’re so eager it’s difficult to slow yourself down.  Within seconds, you’ve moved to the bench at the back, beside Bucky and his lips are on yours before you even realise it.  They’re soft and plump, his mouth tasting faintly of the coffee you saw him drinking earlier. His tongue rolls gently against your own and you feel yourself moan against his lips more than you hear it.

Your heart is speeding up, thumping in your chest and with your elevated body temperature, it feels like it’s pounding against your ribs.

Once you start touching him, it’s impossible to stop.  His chest is wet against yours, your bodies pressed together and your hands wandering with an urgency that would have you thinking you’ve never touched him before.  You’re desperate and the humidity does nothing to help you both think coherently.  You aren’t thinking about what might happen if someone walks in.  You aren’t thinking about the fact that if they did, they’d catch you and the CEO all over each other.  You certainly aren’t thinking of any of the consequences that would follow.

“Fuck, you’re desperate.”  He rumbles out a low groan against your lips, his fingers pulling the bottoms of your bikini to one side to let his fingertips graze your soft folds.  You’re soaking wet but it’s very distinctly nothing to do with the fact you’re currently in a steam room.  The slickness of your arousal is unmistakable, not to mention the all too evident desperation in the way you roll your hips into his touch, silently begging for more. “You could take me right now.”  His fingers tease your entrance, testing the resistance from your body and it’s delightful to feel him slipping into you so smoothly.

“You’re filthy, you know that?  Getting fucked in a steam room knowing anyone could walk in and see you.  Anyone could see what a slut you are for me.”  His ‘for me’ hits you hard because this is only for him.  You wouldn’t do this with anyone else.  You wouldn’t ask anyone else to do the depraved things you ask him to do.  All of the darkest, filthiest thoughts you have are about the man who’s now got you seated in his lap, your back to his chest with your swimwear tugged to the side so he can tease your cunt with his throbbing length, rather than his fingers.

“Beg me for it.”  Confidence drips from his tone and he’s got every right to be this confident.  You’ve never wanted sex as often as you have since you met him.  Your sex drive goes through the roof when he’s around, a testament to how comfortable and confident he makes you feel.  He makes you feel desired and God, you want to be desired.

The head of his dick strokes the softest part of your body, teasing from your entrance to your clit and back again.  You have no doubt he’s smearing his precum over your cunt, claiming you.  The thought alone makes your walls flutter.

“Please fuck me.  Hurry up, Bucky, please.”  You sound pathetic and it only makes you wetter.  Only he gets you like this.  There’s not a hope in hell you’d beg anyone else for anything at all.  Anything you need, you can do for yourself.  Except this.  He’s let you feel safe and able to live out your wildest fantasies and that’s not something you’d experience with just anyone.

You feel him hum, kissing your shoulders, lowering you down onto his tip and stopping after the head has just slipped inside you.

The first glide into your body always leaves you breathless but this isn’t it.  He isn’t fully inside you yet and he’s stopped already.  “Just the tip, sweetheart.  That’s all you’re getting.  Unless you act like the little slut I know you want to be.”  He kisses down your neck, as far down your spine as the angle allows him to reach before licking back up and the shiver it sends through your body feels like a cold electric current.

“You’re delicious.  Go on, be a good whore for me.  Take what you need.”  You don’t need to be told twice, lowering yourself to take the rest of his length.  He glides into you beautifully, sliding into the wet, inviting heat between your legs.

“Oh God, that’s it.  Stupid girl.  Acting like you’re just a hole for me to fuck.  Maybe you are?”  He knows that will get to you.  You’re more than that.

Your head shakes, your hips rolling mindlessly, your body enjoying his presence inside you of it’s own accord.  “I- I’m not just a hole.”  You argue, trying to stifle your own moan at the feeling of him rubbing against the soft little sweet spot inside you.

“You’re not.  I know you’re not.  But for now, sweetheart, that’s all I want you to be.  You’re just a pretty little hole and I’m going to make you cum like it’s all you’re good for.”  You didn’t expect the punch to your chest that his kindness delivers but it’s appreciated all the same.

His hand cradles your throat, applying just a nice amount of pleasure.  The humidity was already dizzying but Bucky’s grip on your neck adds another dimension.

“God, the way you gripped me when I put my hand on your neck.  Pretty little pussy just doesn’t want me to pull out.”  He’s rutting into you, groaning against your shoulder but he still can’t drown out the obscene sounds of wet skin on wet skin.

“Feels perfect.”  You feel your eyes rolling back in your head, barely able to string more words together than that.  

“No sweetheart, you feel perfect.  Fuckin’ made for me.  Pretty little stupid fuck toy.”  His free hand squeezes and massages your breasts in turn, giving each of them the attention they deserve while he fucks himself into you.  “You’re dripping.  Fuck, you were made for this.”

You grip the wrist of the hand that’s massaging your breasts, trailing it down your body to settle between your legs.  “Can’t even tell me what you want, can you?  Can’t manage the words anymore.  Did my cock make you that stupid already?”

You nod and it only makes him chuckle, rubbing your clit almost entirely out of sympathy.  

Deep breaths don’t help.  The steam feels like it’s catching in the back of your throat with every breath but it only heightens the pleasure.

“I want you to cum.  Now.  I want to fuck you full while your cunt is trying to milk every drop from me.  You got that?”  

“Faster.”  You plead, right on the edge of slipping into an unbearably intense orgasm.  Bucky obliges, rubbing your clit faster, tightening his grip on your neck just a little and it sends you spiralling, your walls clamping around him so tight, it coaxes him to spill his release into your body.

You hardly notice his climax until the crest of your own subsides.  “Such a perfect cunt.  Fuck, I can’t stop.”  His forehead rests on your damp shoulder, panting and groaning as he fills your body with ropes of cum.  It’s messy and rushed but it’s an overwhelming ecstasy and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

When he’s entirely spent, he lets his hand fall from your throat but that does nothing to help you take a deep breath.  Water drips rhythmically from the ceiling onto the bench beside you both while your bodies separate and you allow yourselves a few seconds to enjoy being together.

[caliphoria17]

SimonDavisBarry: Ok folks, here’s the infamous scene 18 that we never shot. Comes before the running over water scene.

[flowercrowngods]

yearning hours (hidden track)

🤍 also on ao3

The city is quiet tonight, dormant long before midnight; weary at its very core, just allowing November’s cold to settle without much of a fight.

Steve should be asleep, too, but he doesn’t want to break the spell he’s under, doesn’t want the heaviness of his eyelids to become something deeper, something stronger, something that will bring an end to this feeling that’s come over him.

Sprawled on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, he just breathes. A steady in and out that‘s been effortless for a few hours now.

The breathes in the gentle dimness of his bedside lamp, inhales the sound of electro pop playing from beside him, playing from another lifetime altogether. He exhales the present, lets go of the thoughts of sleep, of leaving this moment, of moving anytime soon.

I saw your eyes. And you made me smile.

It’s been forever since he listened to this tape. So long, in fact, that he didn’t even know he still had it. Lifetimes passed since last he heard these songs, the synthesisers and guitars, the beat of his heart in tune with the drum of the snare.

Four years. It’s a lifetime. Everything’s a lifetime when the world ends, and ends, and ends. Everything’s a lifetime if you leave parts of yourself behind, unreachable for yourself, but far from untouchable for others.

Everything’s a lifetime if you live in Hawkins, Indiana.

And though it took a while, I was falling in love.

The song washes over him the same way it did four years ago, and yet it settles inside his chest, his gut, his lungs in a way it never did before. It fills him with each inhale, as if daring him to forget again. As if daring him to try.

There are three tapes spread out on the bed beside him, just within reach of his hand that’s hovering over the rewind button of his little radio that’s seen better days but still hasn’t ripped a tape in months.

Once the song begins to fade, he presses the button, the dim light now accompanied by the familiar clicking and whirring and the thoughts of seven, eight, nine, ten, as Steve is counting the seconds before he has to press play again to listen to Space Age Love Song again.

He exhales a drawn-out breath as, with another definitive click, the song starts over. Gentle snares fill his room. And Steve breathes.

I saw your eyes.

And he smiles.

And you made me smile.

Because somehow.

For a little while

He’s thinking about Eddie.

I was falling in love.

And for a moment, while he breathes and stares and listens, that’s okay. For a moment, for the duration of this song, for the lifetimes it survived and the ones yet to come, that’s okay. The waves of the music carry him through time and space, carry him to a world where it’s safe. Where the safest thing to do about your heart’s desires is not lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

The phone rings. It’s midnight and the phone rings. Steve is floating, anchored and weighed down by his skin and bones, breathing himself back into reality, because the phone rings.

He looks up and reaches for the landline phone on his bedside table, the movement sluggish to his heavy limbs.

The words take a while to form, but he’s aware that the other person can hear the music playing, they’ll know he’s here, they’ll know he listens. They’ll know, hopefully, that he’ll talk soon. He just… He just needs a second.

But then it’s only silence that meets him, and Steve frowns. Just as he’s about to open his mouth and ask, he can hear a breathy little, “Oh. Shit.”

And he blinks. Swallows. Leans up on one arm to fight the floating.

“Eddie?”

“Uhh. Hi, Stevie.”

There’s a tremor to Eddie’s voice that Steve can make out even through the music he’s reaching out to turn down the volume now. Alarm shoots through him, accompanied by protectiveness and the readiness to take ok the world. For Eddie. Again.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yeah!” Too fast. Too breathy. Too frantic, and Steve can hear the clinking of his rings against the plastic of Wayne’s landline phone. He can see Eddie wrapping the cord around his fingers, can picture him chewing on it, too. “I just— uh, I… I cleaned my room? Rearranged it, too. I really like how… Look, ignore this, okay? I realised that this was kinda dumb the moment you picked up the phone.”

Steve leans back again, his head hitting the pillow as he lets Eddie’s voice wash over him. He sounds nice against the low music still coming from beside Steve. Eddie always sounds nice. Steve kinda wants to listen to him forever most days.

“What’s dumb, Ed?”

A snort, and Steve wants to feel that breath tingling his cheek, or neck, or throat. He wants to touch that smile of self-deprecation he knows spreads Eddie’s lips now, and wants to turn it into something more genuine. More vulnerable. More his.

“Calling you at midnight and telling you that i cleaned my room.”

“And rearranged it,” Steve adds, helpless against the gentleness of his voice as he says it.

“Yeah. That.”

He smiles, his eyes finding their spot on the ceiling again as he reaches for the radio again, pressing rewind, because his heart is a fluttery little thing tonight, and he wants to bask in it for a moment. Wants to be allowed to pretend.

Something old washing into something new. The feeling fits well with the others, a tenderness inside his chest where Eddie lives, surrounded now by the song, wave after wave, and with the memory and possibility and chance of different lifetimes, different phone calls, different Steves.

“I don’t think that’s dumb, Ed,” he says after a while. “I like it when you tell me things, midnight or not.“

“I… That’s cool.” Silence. But an Eddie kind of silence that it’s always only a prelude. Always. For bigger things the longer it is. And Steve’s counted all the way to seven before Eddie, quietly, secretly, says, “I like telling you things. Midnight or not.”

The smile that splits Steve’s face is almost one that needs to be hidden in the pillows, with the way the world sees it as a challenge when he smiles. But he doesn’t hide it. Midnight smiles don’t need hiding.

“So tell me about your room.”

Another silence, only five beats this time, but it leaves Steve yearning for Eddie to fill it nonetheless.

“Do…“ One, two, three, four, f— “Do you wanna come over and see?”

And now it’s Steve who’s silent. Steve whose heart is beating so loud he forgets to count the seconds, forgets to fill the silence, forgets just for a while that he’s still only pretending, he’s still only longing, not reaching.

And still, still still, he asks, “Right now?”

Eddie’s answer is no more than a breath. “Yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Okay. He wants to stay in bed longer, wants to cradle the phone to his ear and listen to Eddie. To his breathy little voice, like he knows about midnight smiles, and even more about midnight whispers.

He’s still floating in the car, having grabbed one of the tapes from his bed, letting the more synthetic snares and guitars fill the air he breathes that’s beginning to smell vaguely of leather and tobacco and soil and Eddie.

The more you live, the more you love. Or so they say.

It settles in his arms the same way the car’s gentle thrumming does; this certainty. The longing. The love.

He’s not even sure when it happened, only that he can’t get rid of it now. Doesn’t want to get rid of it, most days. Not yet. He’ll spend the rest of his life letting it go, but he wants to keep it for a while yet.

Especially with Eddie calling him at midnight just… Just to tell him something that makes him happy. Obviously, obviously makes him happy. So happy he wants to tell Steve about it. Like Steve is worthy of that, like he is the obvious choice.

It makes him giddy. Makes him float. Makes him turn up the volume, letting it almost ruin the moment, fragile as it is — but only almost.

He makes it to the trailer park in no time, finding Eddie already outside. Waiting for him.

No amount of inhaling and exhaling is enough to save Steve now, not with Eddie approaching his car before he even comes to a stop. Not with Eddie reaching out to open his door, looking at him, face painted in the light and shadow of the little overhead light of the Beemer.

“Hi,” Eddie says. “I cleaned my room.”

“And rearranged it,” Steve adds, an echo of earlier, the same smile on his lips, but Eddie doesn’t smile. Eddie just nods, frantic.

“That, yeah. But… I cleaned my room. And you’re here. Because I told you. Because I cleaned my room.”

Steve blinks, loosening his seatbelt and slowly, so as not to spook Eddie, he gets out of the car. Comes to a stop in front of Eddie, the door still open behind him.

“Eddie, what—“

“You’re here,” Eddie says again. “You like it when I tell you things.”

Steve nods, the cold November air not enough to save him; he still inhales Eddie, still exhales a longing so deep his lungs feel like they’ll never fill again.

“And you like telling me things,” he says, because Eddie’s gone silent, his wide eyes still frantic, and Steve wants to help.

“You’re here,” Eddie repeats again, like it has a meaning that Steve’s not catching.

He nods, then, heart and mind racing alike. “Because you asked.”

But Eddie shakes his head, still rooted to the spot, still keeping his eyes on Steve like he’s afraid he might disappear if he so much as blinks. Steve wouldn’t think of it. Will stay as long as Eddie wants to look at him.

“Because you want to. Because you like it. Because… Because I cleaned my room. And the first thing I wanted to do was tell you. And you listened. And you told me it’s not dumb, because you like it when I tell you things, and— Steve. Steve.”

He can’t look at those wide eyes anymore, not when he’s been found out, not when the heaviness is returning, weighing on his limbs and his heart, telling him to panic and to run and—

“Steve.” A whisper. A hand on his cheek. Not to tip his head up. Just to rest there. Just to stay. “I wanna tell you things all the time. The stupidest, littlest things. I wanna tell you because you’ll listen and because you’ll— you’ll make me feel like… Like this. Because you’re here! You’re here when all I did was clean my room. At midnight. Way past midnight, actually. I’m… I… God, I just.” An exhale, and it sounds a lot like Steve’s. “I love you.”

Steve’s head snaps up, his eyes meeting Eddie’s again. Searching for the lie, searching for the dream, searching for one of those lifetimes that aren’t meant for him. But he finds none. He finds sincerity; scared, vulnerable sincerity, like Eddie is a little bit insane with it.

Like he’s faring no better than Steve.

“You… You do?” Eddie nods, frantic again, the hand falling from Steve’s cheek so he can pick and bite at his nails. Unthinkingly, Steve reaches for his hands to hold them in his own. “I— I’m…”

“It’s okay, you don’t— uh, you don’t have to say anything. Really. Please don’t, actually, I’m just… You’re here. I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you—“

“Ed,” Steve whispers. “Eddie.” They sallow in unison, the air charged between them but clearing in Steve’s vision now, carrying him no longer like someone floating along the tides yearning.

He’s not floating, he’s not lifetimes away. He’s here. He’s here.

“Can I… Can I try something? Can I kiss you? Please?” he adds in a whisper.

And it is with that same whisper, with that same shared breath, that Eddie says, “Please.”

The kiss is chaste, but it’s enough. Enough to survive the night, enough to be not the beginning and not the end, but something comfortably settled in the in-between.

When they break apart, Steve doesn’t let Eddie go far as he pulls him into his arms rather immediately. Just to hold him there. To let his mind catch up. To bask.

And it’s only after a while of breathing each other in, their hands roaming over the other boy’s back in ways more gentle than they were ever allowed to before, that Eddie breaks the silence.

“I really do wanna show you my room, though, that wasn’t a ruse.” He mumbles the words against the side of Steve’s throat, and Steve — still unsure of his footing — laughs and brushes a careful kiss against Eddie’s temple that leaves him with goosebumps.

“Ready when you are,” he says, though it’s almost a sigh. An exhale. Exhaling Eddie, and inhaling his warm smile and the smell of his hair. Steve leans in for another kiss to Eddie’s forehead, lingering this time.

In and out. It’s all Eddie.

Ring-clad fingers find their ways in between his own, and then Eddie tugs him — gently, like he’s afraid Steve will break if he moves too quickly; or maybe it’s Eddie’s who’ll break — toward the trailer.

Inside it’s warm, the lights are low, and the only thing illuminating Eddie’s room down the hall is a black string of warm white lights wandering along his walls and in between photos and pictures and drawings and posters that litter his wall.

And in the middle of it all, there’s Eddie. Smiling at him, giddy and gentle and genuine and so, so pretty. And Steve knows, then. Eddie’s room has never looked better.

(the songs are space age love song, and the more you live, the more you love by a flock of seagulls)

[momotonescreaming]

Modern au where steddie are dating long distance.

They meet online, chatting about the fanfiction that Eddie writes and Steve reads. They chat about shared interests in tv, and movies, and music. About shitty parents and coming out. And then it sort of evolves from there.

Messaging, turns into phone calls, turns in video calls, turns into racing hearts and sweaty palms when they see a notification from the other. Turns into counting down the seconds until they can open their laptops and call. Turns into hardcore longing, and pining, and whispering I like you through the screen.

They start dating.

Steve will send him messages ending in hearts and kisses. Will send him thirst trap photos he takes at the gym. Takes photos of the dinner he makes and sends it to Eddie with captions saying he's saving him a piece <3. Learns to make Eddie's favourite foods, so he can make them for him when they meet.

Eddie sends him previews of the fic he's writing. Photos of him performing with his band, sweaty and smiling. Serenades him over video call, acoustic guitar perched in his lap. Watches the basketball with Steve, each from their respective living rooms.

He wonders what it would be like if they were together. If Steve could cook him the dinner he learnt just for him, if Eddie could curl into his side as they watch the game together, Steve whispering the rules of basketball into his ear.

He wonders what it would be like to kiss Steve. To feel those plump lips on his. To taste him. His sweat, his flavoured chapstick. Would he put his hands on his waist? His jaw? Cradle his face? Would he make it slow and sweet? Or rushed and desperate? Would Steve whisper I love you into the warmth of Eddie's mouth?

But they live on opposite sides of the country.

He loves what they have. He loves having Steve. But Eddie wants what other people have. Would like to go on a date that isn't through a laptop. Would like to be able to kiss and hug and even just touch his boyfriend.