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farfromstrange · 7 months

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Austin: Prologue [Owen Sleater x F!Reader]

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Read Me on AO3

Chapter Summary: You receive an ominous letter from Enoch Thompson. It brings back memories of your past, memories you would much rather forget because they could get you into a lot of trouble, and you find yourself backed into a corner that you have to find a way out of.

Chapter Warnings: Murder, blood, canon typical violence, assault (not sexual), alcohol consumption, organized crime, flashback

Word Count: 6.4K

A/n: About damn time I started writing for Owen. I fell in love with him from the moment he first appeared on screen. This idea was a lot more complex than a simple One Shot in my head, even though I thought about writing one first, so now you're getting a series. Because I just can’t help myself. The Boardwalk Empire fandom seems fairly small, but I hope my fellow Charlie-obsessed people on here appreciate this story regardless.

Set from Season 2 episode 9 onward!

This series is rated E for explicit! 18+ only!

The evening sun relentlessly burns down on the cemented sidewalks from the magenta skies above. Not a cloud is to be seen. Cars roll over the paved asphalt roads leading through the city, past the many pedestrians peeking through the many storefronts, always looking for something new to buy.

Every once in a while, a swarm of birds breaks free from the trees and wanders to the next. It’s a small glimpse of nature that lies behind the city center of Austin, Texas, but a small glimpse is better than none.

Each dollar bill that slips through your fingers feels like paper gold. In a patriarchal society, all everyone ever sees are men sitting in their ivory towers and spitting at those who dare to threaten their position. They can’t imagine themselves to fall lower than the rest.

You are far beyond any of that. You’re not insecure in your power. You don’t need to show it off to know that you have succeeded. Your anger may burn brighter than the force of a thousand suns, and you may be far more powerful than any man could ever fathom to be, but you would never see yourself above anyone else.

One thing almost all men seem to have in common, you have come to realize, is that they underestimate the power of a woman scorned. And that is a very dangerous thing to do.

The windows in your office are open, allowing a gentle breeze to cool down the summer heat that has stuck itself to the walls. As you count the money in your hands, you can’t help but watch the sun slowly set over Austin.

You take another sip of Whiskey. The label on the back of the bottle reads Mr. Austin’s Finest. Only about a quarter left.

You trace the condensation with a finger along the crystal of the glass. The brown liquid shimmers in the fading sunlight. You will have to supply your own office with another shipment soon enough, but for now, you have enough to enjoy the flavor just a little longer—the one flavor that will always remind you of being a little girl in a small town in the middle of nowhere, who made it to the city of Austin against all odds. It tastes like home, in a way.

To you, Austin is more than a city. It’s more than your mother’s hometown, more than the capital of the State you were born in and have never left for more than one week at a time, and it’s more than the home of the most valuable business you could ever run. It’s who you are. It may have been a name of convenience, and not even a very creative one at that, but it saved your life.

Your eyes scan the books spread out before you. Production. Distribution. Expenses. Profit. Names. Two notebooks, three tables, five columns. You count each dollar bill with precision, fold the stacks into neat packages, and wrap them up with porous rubber bands from the first drawer in your desk. The rest, you place into an envelope.

The floorboards creak, and you divert your attention from your work to the doorway. “Beth,” you say.

She offers you an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss, but I just received a letter from you that wasn’t with the earlier correspondence,” she says.

Elizabeth Brown. She was the only person in all of Austin who, when you first got there, showed you that she understood the real meaning of discretion. Now, you would trust her with your life, and you value her opinion more than that of your associates. There is something about a good heart worth so much more than ruthlessness, even in a business that requires your heart to be made out of ice so you won’t get hurt.

But even Beth has her secrets.

You exhale audibly, swallowing the last sip of your drink before setting the glass down on the deep brown Mahogany.

“That’s unusual,” you state. “Where’s it from?”

Beth takes another step into your office, her heels transitioning from the wooden floorboards to the soft carpet. “Um,” she holds out the envelope in front of her, “It’s from Atlantic City. I haven’t opened it yet, so I don’t know if it’s important. I can still put it with the others if you’d like.”

You carefully observe her body language. She isn’t lying, merely confused.

“No.” You pat your desk. “Leave it here.”

She crosses the threshold and places the envelope next to your hand. “Is there anything else you need, Miss?”

Looking up at her, you shake your head with a smile. “I want you to finish up and take an early evening. Go home, see your children,” you tell her. “You shouldn’t waste your time in this office when you could be with your family.”

Something about the way her face lights up with the gratitude that wraps her fragile heart in a warm hug makes you feel a little better about yourself.

“Thank you so much,” she says. “You really are incredibly generous.”

“Ah, it’s nothing. You’ve been working so hard, you’ve earned yourself a reward.”

She sighs happily. With a gentle, “Have a good night. And thank you again,” she turns on her heel and makes her way out of your office to gather her things in the foyer.

You are well aware that her job—working with you and getting caught up in whatever criminal chaos you engage in—puts her future at risk every day, and yet every day, she comes back to work.

Not that she has much of a choice, anyway. You loathe yourself for being incapable of offering her one. Beth stays because she believes that she owes you, and that alone adds another hundred tons of weight to the bricks that are already weighing heavily on your heart.

You reach for the envelope. The paper feels expensive underneath your fingertips. You turn it around to see who sent it, and the name strikes a chord before it has even been fully processed. Your body knows that something isn’t quite right. The sense of doom that fills you hangs over your head like the blade of a guillotine, ready to separate your head from your body.

Enoch Thompson.

“Fuck,” you curse.

He is a man whose reputation precedes him. County treasurer. Bootlegger. The man who used to run the city. And definitely, a man who knows how to make a dime or two in ways that leave even the actions you had to take in the past year shaking in their boots. You may be a quiet contender, but you always have your eyes and ears everywhere.

The letter itself feels just as fancy as the envelope. You put down the blade you used to open it. Never before had someone rubbed their wealth in your face quite like Enoch Thompson just did.

With a heavy heart, you begin to read his delicate handwriting. It seems shaky, in a way, as though his dominant hand was injured when he wrote it.

Dear Mr. Austin,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. You may not know me because so far, we haven’t had the pleasure to make each other’s acquaintance. From what I’ve heard, your reputation precedes you, and I went to great lengths to find a way to contact you.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Enoch Thompson, and I have reasons to believe that we were both once acquainted with the same man.

Seeing your late father’s name on paper, your blood runs cold. The oxygen escapes your lungs and refuses to return. You skim over the letters over and over again until your head is spinning.

I was deeply saddened to hear about his passing. And I was even more saddened to hear that his only living relative—a daughter, for all I know—passed away suddenly a year later. That family left a great legacy behind.

Your vision blurs. With every line, with every statement, and with every well-concealed jab, you feel like you are being led to the slaughterhouse.

I remember him well, though it has been many years. He came to me in Atlantic City with a dream, and I couldn’t help but invest in him. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw his name on the back of a bottle of Austin’s finest rum. A fine spirit, I must say.

I am glad to see that his legacy has found a way to live on in a great mind such as yourself.

In your father’s journal, he always portrayed Nucky as a trustworthy ally. A friend. After moving to Austin, you studied every word he wrote, and the few times he mentioned Atlantic City, he never lost a bad word about Enoch Thompson, which, considering his reputation, always surprised you, but you had never felt the need to doubt your father’s judgment of his friends.

Now though, you are slowly coming to realize that you may have underestimated the secrets he took with him to the grave—that his judgment may not have been as infallible as you thought it was—and your veins flood with pure, unbridled fear.

Fearlessness is a myth, but you usually have better control over your emotions than this.

I understand that you are a man of influence in the southern regions, and your business ventures have not gone unnoticed. In light of recent events here in Atlantic City, I believe there may be an opportunity for us to help each other. You see, due to recent events, I have chosen to step down from my position as treasurer. The landscape of this city is changing rapidly, and I could use a man of your resources and capabilities to help me rebuild.

I know you prefer to keep a low profile, and I am aware of the risk involved in such endeavors, but I assure you, a meeting would be of great benefit to both of us. Besides, I would love to finally meet you in person, Mr. Austin.

One hand washes the other. It’s a concept as old as time, but it is also incredibly fragile. In a case such as this, a chance of leaving even a speck of dirt behind remains, and then one person is bound to lose. You have seen it happen more times than you can count.

You ought to be careful, playing with fire; Enoch Thompson could bring on an inferno that you may not be able to counter with your own.

I encourage you to think about my offer, and I hope I will see you soon in Atlantic City.

Yours sincerely,

Enoch Thompson.

The force with which you rise from your chair causes it to slide a good few inches back against the wall.

“Beth?” you call out into the silence. Into the darkness.

For a moment, it seems like she has already left, but not even half a minute later, she pokes her head into your office.

“Miss?” she answers.

You let out a sigh of relief. “I know I said you can leave early, but I need you to call Leo and tell him to find out as much about Enoch Thompson as he can and bring it to me,” you say. “Tonight. I don’t care what he has to do to get the information, I need it in the next five hours.”

“Of course. Right away. Do you want me to ring Mr. Johnson as well? It sounds rather urgent.”

“No, I’ll take care of Anthony. Right now, I just need Leo. Can you do that for me?”

The desperation in your voice leaves no space for arguments. Beth nods, and she quickly turns away to tend to her new responsibilities with careful urgency. When the storm in your eyes becomes visible, she knows that no one in your vicinity is safe.

Another silent curse passes your lips. You reach for the bottle of Mr. Austin’s Finest again. It was your father’s recipe; you merely adjusted it to fit the needs of the general public. This particular brand was his idea, his legacy, as much as the rum was.

If someone hadn’t tried to steal all your family stood for, you wouldn’t be standing here, but right now, you are not so sure if it is something you should be happy about. You made mistakes, and if there is even the slightest chance that he know, you are beyond fucked.

The desk almost splinters underneath your fist when you land it on the tabletop.

You touch your neck. Most physical bruises don’t last for longer than three months, but as you place your hand against your throat, you can feel the blood pulsing underneath your fingertips. You can still feel the indentation of his fingers that faded a long time ago. And you can still feel his hands around your throat, applying an inhuman amount of pressure to your fragile windpipe.

Every breath you take burns like a thousand wildfires, rivaling the adrenaline that is threatening to burst your veins.

You can see him clearly when you close your eyes. It’s not liquor. You are not drunk. The letter on the desk before you triggered a chain reaction of memories, and you are not strong enough to tune them out.

You remember that his blood stuck to your skin like corn syrup, running through your fingers and onto your dress, painting the wooden floorboards a deep maroon. You could have sworn you could even smell the faintest hint of copper in the air. But your senses weren’t that powerful.

He was just lying there—a man you’d known since you were a child in a pool of his blood with a golden pocket knife buried deep in his chest while you were cowering in the corner as if the knife had never been in your shaky hand in the first place.

Your father raised you to be an independent woman in a world where women have always been seen as property. You made peace with the fact that you would never be able to take over the family business because at least you knew that your father believed in your ability to fight your own battles. Still, he died, and a few months later, the Prohibition Act took what little you had left at that point away from you.

You had never planned to come back to your little Texas hometown. You’d had a good job working for a good family, saving up to leave the country behind for good; you had always wanted to go to Paris.

The only thing your father had left you was your childhood home, and you cherished it with all you had. Until the father of the family you worked for lost his job, and they had to let you go. You were no longer able to pay the expenses of the house, so you had to let it go. It took only a few days for your entire life to crumble. You had been miserable, but the thought of killing a man had never crossed your mind until it happened.

You had come back to your hometown to say goodbye. To clean out your childhood home and start anew somewhere with what little money the house would have brought you. But Henry Boyd had other plans that night.

One moment, you were on your way to the only speakeasy in town, wanting to check out what it was all about, and the next you found yourself at home with bruises around your neck and blood on your hands.

“I want to thank you all for being so patient with me,” he had said as he stood high on one of the tables in the golden establishment. “It is an honor to be here today, with you all, and announce that your favorite brand of whiskey and rum is officially back in business!”

As blurry as the night is in your mind, you still vividly remember watching him lift the bottle with the emblem that had become so eerily familiar to you because you grew up seeing it on every bottle on your father’s shelf. But the bottle in front of you had someone else’s name on it—someone who promised you that he would keep what he knew in confidence after the government shut down the business your father left him—and it dawned on you like a gray cloud threatening to break down on you in strikes of lightning.

The crowd around you erupted in applause. And from that moment on, your entire world started to blur. The anger that consumed you was new, unbridled, and before you knew it, you were storming out of the building into the crisp night air.

How much can a person possibly bleed after having their throat slashed? You had never asked yourself that question up until that point. To be fair, six pints in a human body don’t sound like a lot until all six pints are right in front of you.

Six pints of blood on your living room floor, and in it, the corpse of Henry Boyd.

He came to your house. He threatened you. You had known this man for over two decades before that, and he still disappointed you because once it benefitted him the most, he turned his back on you and your late father’s legacy as if it had never meant anything to him other than means to make money.

You had no choice. Your father gave you his favorite pocket knife with the golden handle when you were sixteen, telling you to always carry it with you in case you would ever need to protect yourself.

“You never know when you need to stab a man, kid,” he told you. “You should be able to defend yourself. I won’t always be around, and you shouldn’t have to rely on anyone other than yourself.”

You had to do it. You had to kill Henry. If you hadn’t, he would have killed you.

When the realization settled over the fog, it was like someone slapped you across the face and injected you with cocaine.

You remember rising to your feet. Every step you took squelched with the blood stuck to your soles. It is a well-known fact that blood doesn’t easily wash out of clothes. You never thought it would be the same for skin.

You scrubbed your hands wildly, but the water kept turning redder and redder. It has settled underneath your fingernails and the depths of your cracked knuckles.

A sob broke out of your throat when you caught a glimpse of Henry’s body in the living room, and it hit you again, stronger this time. Like a jolt of electricity.

He had promised you to keep your father’s legacy safe after they shut down the factory. He had promised he would tell the truth, always because you were your father’s daughter, after all. He had promised, then turned his back on you and betrayed you anyway.

You couldn’t let them arrest you. You couldn’t allow them to put you in prison. And you couldn’t disappoint your father like that, not after all that happened and the things you had to do.

In a split second, you made a decision that would haunt you for the rest of your life, but it was the only right one at the time. You had to burn your bridges if you wanted to make it out of this. You already knew back then that you were going to hell one day; you could confess your sins another time.

Reading books and educating yourself all of your childhood taught you a thing or two about how to deal with a seemingly impossible situation.

Your dress landed together with your undergarments next to the body. In the bath, you scrubbed yourself down until not a trace of Henry’s blood was left on you. By the time you were done, your skin was red and breaking out into hives, but at least you were clean.

There was nothing left holding you there. Everything you once held dear had gone with the wind. Died. Passed on.

You were never destined for this kind of life. Always the only child despised by everyone but her own father because she never acted appropriately enough. Because she had never been girl enough. Because she refused to conform to what was expected of her. Because her father had not cared about anything other than raising a smart young person who could fend for herself.

You cleaned out the hidden compartment in your father’s bedroom that held all the journals he kept on the business. You were the only one he ever told about it. And you took the bottle of Whiskey you hid underneath the mattress together with all the money Henry had on him when he came to you.

You felt like you had somehow violated his corpse by stealing from him—you remember the feeling as clear as day—but you just followed mere instinct that night. You had to do whatever it took to survive.

You tipped the bottle of liquor and poured it over Henry’s lifeless frame. It mixed with the blood, liquifying it again. You could barely feel it, even as it stained your fingers for the millionth time that night. You were going to scrub it off again, and then you were going to burn this last bridge for good.

You didn’t want to have another choice. That was the terrifying part. Part of you liked what you did. You truly believed, for the longest time, that the devil had possessed you that night. You could not stand idly by and watch your castle crumble down at the hands of a man who had never dared to think about anyone but his miserable self.

The lighter in your hand clicked. Your nose filled with the scent of gasoline. One advantage of living in the countryside was the visible distance between the houses. If there had been a fire in the neighborhood, it would have taken hours until someone reported it, and by then it would already have been too late. You used that to your advantage.

For Henry, it had been too late ever since you slit his throat, but he wasn’t the only bridge you had to burn.

“Forgive me, Father,” you remember whispering, but not to God or a priest; you were saying it to your father’s lost soul, in the hopes he would be listening.

The lighter slipped from your fingers with a little push, and the liquor on the floor reacted instantly with the spark of flames. As your childhood home burned to the ground, you turned your back on the past. You turned your back on your sins and all you had ever loved, and you built a wall around your heart that you swore no one would ever be able to get through again.

“I’d like to purchase a ticket, please,” you told the man behind the counter at the train station the same night. Well, it was early morning by then.

“Where to?” he asked.

The postcard in your coat pocket had a very distinctive postmark on it. You still keep it locked in your desk. It was the first letter your mother ever sent to your father.

“Austin,” you said, looking up from underneath the hat you were wearing. “I’m going to Austin, sir.”

“Really? You have business there?”

“You could say that.”

But, looking at the letter Enoch Thompson sent you, now, eighteen months later, the small flicker of hope that reignited when your train rolled into Austin that night burns out in front of your weary eyes.

“Boo!”

Your head snaps toward the doorway again. “Jesus, Leo!” You press a hand against your chest. “You just scared the living daylights out of me.”

The fourteen-year-old boy smirks at your reaction. “Since when are you this jumpy?” he asks.

“I’m not jumpy,” you retort. “How about you learn how to fucking knock?”

He raises his arms in mock surrender. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I just thought that, since you asked me here, you would be expecting me.”

“I gave you five hours. And don’t call me ma’am.”

You don’t usually smoke, but when your pulse is racing and you feel sick to your stomach like you do know, it is all you can do to get your mind back in order. You grab the pack from a drawer in your desk, instantly overwhelmed by the stench of tobacco, but you light it anyway.

Leo approaches you. He’s a lot more confident than Beth is. She always acts as though she were stepping into a lion’s den, and maybe in a way, that’s true. Leo sees himself as part of the pack. A cub. He’s a teenager with too big of an openness to getting in trouble. You would call him a rebel, but even that would be an understatement. He’s much more than that, with a good head on his shoulders.

“It only took me two. Not that it matters,” he says. “As it turns out, a lot of people have opinions about Nucky Thompson that they have just been waiting to share with someone willing to listen.”

You frown, looking down at the watch on your wrist. “It’s already been two hours? How?”

“I don’t know. I don’t study the way time works. I haven’t even finished school yet.”

“Did I ask for a smartass answer?” you snap, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.

“No?” Leo pouts. “At least I don’t think you did.”

“Then don’t give me one. Jesus! How long have we known each other now?”

“Long enough to know that you only get mad like that when you’ve had a rough day.”

You scoff. “Rough is an understatement.” Another breath of nicotine fills your lungs. The words you’ve said repeat in your mind, and your heart cracks a little. “I’m sorry,” you say. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, kid. You’re just here to do your job.”

The cigarette lands in the ashtray on the top right corner of your desk, your tongue still filled with the bitterness it tainted your body with. Walking over to your mini bar to replace the empty bottle of Whiskey with some rum in your glass, you clear your throat and decide to change the subject to what concerns you.

“So, Enoch Thompson. Nucky.” You open the fresh bottle of rum. “What did you find out about him?”

“Well, he’s one of the leading powers of the liquor trade down there, but you probably already knew that. Or well, he was. That’s the important part. Apparently, the people he used to work with have turned against him, and he had to step down as County Treasurer.”

“I’ve heard as much through the grapevine. What would interest me is why he did that.”

You finish pouring your glass.

“May I have one of those?” Leo asks and points at your drink.

“When you’re older,” you answer.

“So your employees don’t even get to taste the, uh, merchandise anymore?”

You roll your eyes. “They do when they’re older than fourteen. Now, answer my question.” You turn back toward your desk and take a sip. “Why did Nucky Thompson step down as treasurer? Surely there is a reason his…empire started turning against him.”

As you sit back down, Leo steps in front of you. He isn’t very tall, but what he lacks in height he makes up in attitude.

He reaches out and takes the glass from you, completely ignoring your previous words. You’re so taken aback, you can’t even be mad. You’re not his mother, after all.

His features contort at the taste, but he still swallows it. “Ugh,” he grunts. “The, uh, District Attorney’s office filed charges against him. And not just for bootlegging.”

You take your glass back, straightening up with a sudden spike of curiosity. “Do tell,” you press on.

“Violation of the Eighteenth Amendment under the Volstead Act, voter fraud, solicitation, and—hold onto your seat!—murder. They think he killed his current…let’s say lady friend’s husband–” he looks down at his little notebook, “His name was Hans Schroeder or something. The lady’s name is Margaret. Two kids. Irish.”

“So, he went for the woman whose husband he killed or had killed. Wow.”

Leo’s eyes switch between you and his notes. “Well,” he says, turning back to the subject at hand, “US Attorney Esther Randolf is looking to prosecute Nucky Thompson, and it seems she has very compelling evidence that might put him in prison for the rest of his life.”

The realization settles over you like a dark cloud, and lightning strikes you as the only pillar in an empty field. “That bastard,” you mutter under your breath.

“I know, right?” Leo scoffs. “Can’t even do his job right. Thank God he ain’t our problem.”

He’s about to sit down, but you raise your hand with a warning look. “Don’t push it.”

He stops in his tracks, nodding. “Right, sorry.”

“You’re my informant. Your job is to inform me. And everyone who’s connected to what we do in any way can become our problem, don’t ever forget that.”

“There is something else,” he says.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” you ask, and it sounds a bit more sarcastic than you intended.

He doesn’t take your attitude to heart. Leo knows you well enough by now to know that you are not an irrational person.

Connecting the unveiled truth to the letter you received, it all makes a lot more sense now, and you almost want to applaud the man for his audacity to pull all possible strings to get out of whatever hellhole he dug for himself. Almost. Right now though, you’re fuming, and you’re scared, and for the first time since coming here, you are not quite sure what to do or what choice to make.

Enoch Thompson can rot in hell for all you care, but your father’s words won’t leave your head and the looming sense of doom that is threatening to rain down on you like a guillotine continues to consume you.

Who knows; if you were in his shoes, maybe you would have done the same with the people you know who might be able to wash your hands in return for something else. The world of trading liquor for profit has become a dangerous game in America ever since Congress passed the Volstead Act.

There is a reason that legally, you don’t exist anymore. Legally, you’re dead. You burned alive in your childhood home, the one you set on fire. No one believed that you could have been cruel enough to orchestrate such a thing, and you are glad it ended that way. The town mourned you. It was sad. But you found a way to salvage all of what Henry ruined.

You may have killed a man in self-defense—you may have committed murder, stolen from his corpse, and burned your life to the ground to fake your death and start anew somewhere else like a criminal and as a criminal—but at least you didn’t stand idly by and let a man far worse than you ruin everything you had left. You know you’re not innocent, and you’re no angel either, but the ice that surrounds your heart makes it easier not to let it break you.

Mister Austin was born out of spite, but spite is as good a reason to claim the power of an undeserving man.

The things that need to be done are not always something you can be proud of, but your options are zero to none. To make money, you have to bend the rules a little. And sometimes, you have to break them clean through. You learned that the hard way.

You stop tapping the brim of your glass when Leo calls your name. Looking up, you meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, what?” you ask.

He clears his throat. “I said that his brother is in protective custody,” he says. Again, Leo checks his notes. “Eli, that’s his name. And I heard that James Damody has taken Nucky’s place. He used to be his protégée or something. I don’t know.”

“Hm.” You empty what little rum that’s left from the portion you poured yourself.

The sticky liquid is eerily similar to the consistency of fresh blood. You rub it between your middle and index finger, and for just a second, your eyes make it look like it’s scarlet.

In your peripheral vision, you can see Leo moving his hat back onto his head. “Well, that’s all I have. Not everyone hates Nucky Thompson, and not everyone loves gossip as much as old ladies peeking out of windows in Atlantic City.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, reaching for the envelope with the leftover dollar bills from earlier. “That helped a lot.”

“Hey,” he shrugs, “that’s my job.”

“You’re right, but I’m still giving you an additional fifty to buy something nice for your mother.” You count the bills that fit his rate, sliding them over to his side.

The boy takes them with a smug grin on his face. “So you’re giving my mother a raise but not me, the one who’s actually doing the dirty work for you?”

Rolling your eyes, you add another twenty. “Don’t waste it on something useless,” you warn him. “Our last deal may have been a financial miracle, but I can’t go around giving bonuses to everyone every week.”

Leo counts the money you gave him, and he seems rather satisfied with the fruits of his labor. “I’ll take it,” he says.

As he makes his way to the door, your eyes flick between the envelope, Nucky Thompson’s letter, and the telephone. You’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble, but you have reached a dead end. He forced you into a corner that you could only get out if you faced him. All the scenarios in your head end with a disaster. The only point of escape is the one Nucky forced you through.

You should think this through, but every second you spend thinking is another second closer to losing it all.

“Wait,” you stop Leo in his tracks. “How much would it take for you to look after the farm for…let’s say a week?”

He raises his eyebrows. “A week?”

“Yeah. Feed the cattle, take the horses out, make sure the chickens don’t starve, that sort of thing.”

“Twenty bucks an hour,” he says.

“Fifteen,” you counter, “and you get to take all the eggs.”

“Nineteen.”

“I’m not negotiating with a child.”

“Eighteen and the eggs.”

“Fine. Seventeen. Last offer.”

Leo’s lips curl up. “I guess your animals won’t have to starve after all.”

“I’ll tell Beth to make sure you get your money on time,” you state. “And I’ll let you know if my plans change.”

You pick up the receiver of your telephone, pressing the button to connect you with the operator.

“Where are you going, anyway?” he inquires.

The line rings into your ear with every breath you take. You know it’s a decision you shouldn’t make. You shouldn’t run toward danger without knowing what you’re getting yourself into, but there is nothing you wouldn’t do to assure the safety of the life you’ve built for yourself.

“Atlantic City,” you finally answer, and it dawns on Leo at the same time the weight becomes a reality on your shoulders.

The operator asks to know who you are calling for, and you repeat the number that is more than familiar to you back to her. Again, the line rings as it starts to connect.

“You’re going to Atlantic City to meet with Nucky Thompson, aren’t you?” Leo asks again.

He’s too curious of a child for his own good. Sometimes, you want to curse him for it.

The lump in your throat feels significantly bigger than it did five minutes ago. You nod, but that’s all you can do.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

With a bitter chuckle, you shake your head. “I wish I did, but no,” you say. “I have no fucking clue.”

Leo flips his hat back onto his head. “Well, at least try to stay safe out there,” he tells you.

“I will. Thank you.” But you know that it’s a lie.

The line finally stops ringing and clicks when the door has fallen shut behind him.

You tear your eyes away from the empty spot before you and focus on the piece of paper on your desk. Enoch Thompson’s name sticks out to you like a million candles on a pitch-black midnight.

“Andrew,” you greet him. Your fingers fiddle with the envelope. “It’s me. Listen, I have to tell you something, and I hereby ask you not to murder me.”

You’re going to Atlantic City to meet with Nucky Thompson, that much you have decided, and there is nothing in this world anyone could do that would stop you from doing what you believe is right.

Tag List: Let me know if you want to be tagged for this series! Starting after this chapter!

#owen sleater x reader #owen sleater x you #owen sleater x f!reader #owen sleater #boardwalk empire #owen sleater imagine #boardwalk empire x reader #charlie cox #female reader #owen sleater angst #owen sleater fluff #owen sleater smut #reader insert #x reader series #lizzi writes: austin

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piracytheorist · 2 years

Text

One of the things that make me very insecure about sharing my thoughts about Spy x Family as an anime only fan is that for the most part, whatever I say now has probably already been said and analyzed to death by people who read the manga months before.

But no matter. I am here to share my thoughts and I'm gonna make it everyone else's problem.

So! Nightfall appears! I've already seen reactions about people not liking her and I'm like, cool okay, but I am so curious to see how her character in the story develops the dynamics among the Forgers. I'm not here to like her as a person, I'm here to like her as a character dynamic.

And the first, and probably biggest, dynamic she throws in the story right away is by being an outsider of the Forgers who knows Twilight better than the other Forgers themselves do. In some parts, at least. God forbid the guy has a change in his coffee preferences. But anyway! She sees Loid smile at the family he's created...

And she spots some truth behind it. Nightfall has seen and studied Twilight himself, along with his fake identities and the smiles he had to perfect in order to convince even the most suspicious of targets.

This is the first time we get actual confirmation that Twilight is slipping. We've been seeing it ourselves in the ways he acts, but it's now that a third party sees the situation and confirms it with words in canon.

Nightfall's obsession with him is not a hindrance to spotting that; in fact, it's thanks to that obsession that she even spots it. She spends the entire episode internally monologuing how she is the perfect fake (or not) wife for Twilight, how and in what ways Yor falls behind in that, how there's nothing Yor or Anya are doing right... when she's shocked by Twilight having milk with his coffee, she immediately makes up an excuse to make it make sense - another reason why this was a brilliant detail to add in; Yor bringing him milk was a deadly sin that meant she's a bad candidate for a wife, but Twilight actually using it was just him being a Brilliant Spy. She's ready to blame the clueless parties and to glorify Twilight and his spy skills. All while making wrong assumptions, by the way.

Nightfall has no low self-esteem. She's ready to bring everyone down in order to get what she wants, and she fully believes in her right to do so.

But then, Twilight's/Loid's smile hits her hard, because it hits her emotionally; it makes her jealous. She sees all the ways Yor and Anya are "failing" him and his mission... but even she cannot deny the truth under his smile. The unbreakable, unshakeable Nightfall who will destroy you to get what she wants, now suddenly feels there's competition she needs to take into consideration. The milk incident proved she has Twilight in such a high pedestal that she's ready to make any kind of mental gymnastics to justify what she sees, but in the case of Twilight's smile being 0.1% genuine, she immediately fails to make up any excuse. Because Twilight expressing real emotion, real happiness, because of the previously considered incompetent Yor and Anya, is just that huge for her. She considered them incompetent, hindrances to the mission... but she failed to anticipate the emotional impact those two have had on him. And it's what shocks her, what finally makes her insecure. Because she sees herself as someone who would do a better job at supporting "Loid Forger" as his fake wife, like no-one else would... but when it comes to making him happy, suddenly there's someone competing for that place.

And this is why I like her dynamic; she's cold, calculated and confident, but at the same time she has an uncontrollable obsession over a one-sided infatuation, which makes her the perfect medium to suss out to the audience that Twilight is actually growing feelings for his fake family. It takes both her being cold and distanced AND obsessed to notice the subtle truth behind Loid's smile, and to make it her life's mission to outdo that. And the more she tries that, the more it'll become clear that it's only through Yor and Anya's innocent, genuine efforts to help build a working family that Twilight can find true happiness.

#in this essay I will #Spy x Family #sxf meta #sxf Nightfall #Loid Forger

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crassinova · 1 year

Note

Tell me about your OCs 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

UPDATE DEC 14 2023 if you saw the last one no you did NOT NO YOU DIDNT! NO YOU DID NOT THat was embarrasing so now heres a cooler and BETTER ONE

TW: Drug abuse, Religious trauma (implied homophobia)

uaga what was i gonna type down here again????? oh well uhh thankyou everyone and fuck you tenna

Images below are placeholders for now before i remake/made all their reference sheets. again if anything sounds weird blame my lack of vocabulary and everything

anyway thank you for reaiding

“Chancellor” (He/Him)

A mysterious stranger who is seen wandering in the wastes, appearing and disappearing. He is perceived as a guardian angel to people who were once saved by him from danger. Though some others think differently, believing he is a “prolific serial killer” due to his abundant kills and getting away with it freely. Previously seen in the Mojave frequently tagging along with the lone courier, MJ Akabine, until he disappeared to the Commonwealth to occasionally aid the sole survivor, Cain Cross, on finding his son…while also being chased by the synth detective again. It makes you really wonder what his story is if the detective is so adamant on knowing more about him, especially how little is known about him.

Trivia:

Is occasionally seen in The Tops theatre at 10PM to listen to The Lonesome Drifter. Assumptions is that its his favorite singer since he’s seen more often when the drifter was introduced in the tops.

He can play the guitar!

Has a fear of fire…why is that necessary???

Marty Jean “MJ” Akabine (they/them)

An eccentric and sneaky gunslinger and part-time mad scientist who can always lend a hand (metaphorically and literally) to people who are in need of help. Though despite his quirky and eccentric behavior towards their close friends and victims they are quite an anxious mess! ( their charisma is a 1 or 2… or even at the negatives).

Occasionally been seen dragging raiders/ dangerous people to a recluse area to experiment on them to make new unique healing items and for curiosity sake. If the victim is lucky to survive their experiments they set them free, expecting the victim that they stop their reign of terror.

Back when they were a courier…well an ex-courier they had a strong obsession on becoming stronger so they can prove to people he is capable of surviving the wastes. They were really insecure about everything about themself like “What will make me stronger?” or “Will this makes me stronger?” which in their solution to that is to take drugs and force themselves to use more blunt fighting methods because they think it’ll make them “stronger”. That didn’t go so well.

Trivia:

Has a special interest in all kinds of small little creatures like insects and bugs as they are dressed like a cazador that are mostly populated in the Mojave.

Probably ate someone, theres no evidence of it but he probably did or not idk

has a strong father-son relationship with Chancey. The coat he has on right now is from Chancey before they have to seperate paths. They just "slightly" modified it

He got that name because two (or three) of his groupmates named him at the same time. Which formed Marty Jean Akabine. (though in reality its my indecisive ass having trouble choosing Jean and Marty so i used both. Oh yeah the name "Marty" idea is when i remembered the protag from back to the future for some reason and thought it was cool)

Cain Cross (He/Him)

A sole survivor from the great war who was under cryogenic stasis beneath vault 111 for 2 decades, a man lost in time trying to find his lost son to rebuild his life. His life before the Great War was decent to say the least, if you ignore his struggles. He was apart of the Cross family, a religious and wealthy family that want what’s best for their children, to be pure and free of sin. For what seems to be a straight male with a loving family with a wife and a child, he kept that act for as long as he can remember in the name of everyone, to his parents, society, and God. All what his parents taught him go in vain as he prayed on and on wishing he could wash away the sins he made with a man during the 2nd Battalion. The guilt lingers on due to the fact he never told his wife about the affair before she died.

Trivia:

Gay (if it isnt obvious enough. He likes Maccready) and also asexual

Really likes detective media like the silver shroud, his parents didn’t like him liking childish things so he reads them in secret.

he wears shades because to look cool and because i would also be irritated if the sun keeps blinding me

think of johnny cage but hes not egotistical and suffers from internalized homophobia

Abel Cross (He/They?)

Back before the war, they were perceived as the “The golden child” due to his outstanding grades and leadership skills. Their parents noticed his potential in the business and planned his entire life of being a business man… a life he never even wanted. He wasn’t fond of the attention as they like their time alone (and also with his brother, Cain). He wanted to do art which was something he was passionate in because it gives him freedom to do whatever with a canvas, he wanted to be free, to make their own choices. But he wanted to make his parents proud of him, they already planned his life around and he didn’t want to disrupt their plans so he forced himself into business. And for what? a couple of bones and a person who doesn’t exist?

Trivia:

had a huge identity crisis after the war (imagine having your parents shape your life and identity that you have no free will. he started to draw and paint more after the war so that’s good atleast)

Despite his charismatic personality he really just wants to sleep and watch his brother play video games and make art and eat hot chip and lie (he’s bisexual)

Lustful. Though he has to keep it a secret because of his parents strict behavior (Cain is aware of it but he doesnt tell because he isn’t a snitch(i wont elaborate than that because im uncomfortable just talking abt it further for now))

fun fact abt the Cross siblings: they have a matching snake tattoo that representing “sin” and freedom from their religious background. (based on the serpent in the Adam and Eve story)

YIAPEEE DONE ATLAST!!!!!!! thank you for reading this behemoth of text!!!!! there are more fallout ocs to be told but these 4 are the ones that I like so aahwhahhwhahwaaaaa !!!!! Shout out to my friend tenna for reading this once in a while I really hate them

#asks #I had to rush writing this cus I had to study for math and I was really hungry starveing I was starving #thank you for asking <3 <- that’s a face #ofc questions are encouraged if u wanna know something%#there will be more drawings in the future and a art dump. I’m just busy with school I’m so tired #saved

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katherinebotten · 1 year

Text

Jack Donoghue, the opioid epidemic merch hoodie, and Salem

Jack is cool because of what he brings to the situation. The situation isn’t cool. It’s cool because jack is there. Jack sets the tone he does not let the tone dictate how he is received. He has a romantic mid-west America sensibility. Humble. Disappearing to become a heroin addict ploughing the fields of Alaska like a gold-rush miner in the 1800s. Always in a BPD codep relationship but he remains the Elvis of his life. The captain of his ship. Enough self hating insecurity that we relate to him yet enough mastery over his exterior material conditions that we are in awe. The shame never takes him under the way it would us. He is a god amongst men because shame would kill us mortals yet he takes his shame and turns it into capital through the commerce possible from fine art. Everyone else tries to be Salem but only Salem is Salem. Everyone else should try being themselves. He dated lana because they are both magicians. Liam wanted to be Jack. Every boy wants to be jack. If I saw a person in a Salem t-shirt I would make sure not to talk to them. I think identifying with Salem is for losers only. But I can’t deny the appeal of jack. And of Salem!

Daisies boyfriend wore a black hoodie it said “I survived the opioid crisis” and I wanted it even though they are the most loser couple of insecure losers on earth. Australia’s prom king and queen if the high school was Insecure High. And it really makes you think, huh, it must be true… money doesn’t make you happy. I didn’t know who made this hoodie - for days I was thinking about it. It was like a sigil. Charged with subcultural power. Then I googled it and saw it was Salem merch... Of course! Salem merch is cringe by nature because when you signal the code that your into Salem you also signal that your a desperate creton lazy death lover with no creativity. Like every art gallery in Melbourne named after death. But this hoodie got me. Death has built in sex appeal that’s why I think it’s lazy. I wish Salem made pro-life merch but they wouldn’t, couldn’t, and won’t. Because then they wouldn’t be Salem. I come for the death and stay for the sex. Jack is the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” song, walking down the street in spring using your denim cock crotch as a compass. Jacks cock = true north. He is magnetic because he is a child looking for a whore and/or a mother and won’t break out of himself to become sovereign (ie to become a magician) and we identify, the magnetism is that he is us but he looks, sounds, and seems cool doing it, so we idolise. We want to feel okay. We also can’t break out to become sovereign selves, we want company. But jack is accidentally a magician and I can’t figure out why. He is a martyr in that he becomes magician so we don’t have to and we praise him for it. (Idk how u become a magician without becoming a magician????) He is America. He is a poet. He is a beat poet. He is a dumb hunk. Drunk. Drug addict. Sex addict. Bpd pest. Annoying regressed pitbull. The archetype of the Casanova, Eros, Mars the planet named after the Roman god of war. He signals an authenticity that hipsters feed off but being death obsessed isn’t authentic it’s fake and a cover and fear centric and our authentic core is always life obsessed. My magic coach max says life and death are the same thing. Idk I just know Jack is a loser because death is pathetic but I also know that he gets me everytime and we love him because we want to love the fearful parts of us too and in jack we see the dualism of fear and the things we do to camouflage it that to dumb people appears as fears opposite. We want to empower the parts of us that are scared and weak and lying to cover themselves over as strong (see: in Melbourne - indifferent, apathetic, amoral, apolitical). So we love jack. Scum John Travolta. A boobytrap. Salem is for the codependent. Salem is loaded, charged, cool.

I watched a fan made documentary on YouTube about Jack and spent the next 12 hours totally desperate to relapse. Every product we want has a secret promise it will make us feel safer. No one wants to die and to change is to die and to be attracted to darkness is liking this sensation you get when you think you are changing because you are dying because you like darkness, and how happy it lets you feel making believe like you're changing when your actually not. Surrounded by darkness my loser XXXXXXXXX thinks he is so cool because he loves death but he doesn’t change he is stuck because he thinks the attraction to death is death (he's not brave enough to die). The final thing out of Pandora’s box was hope and it was the cruellest of all because it kept people exactly as they were. Unchanging. We are such liars. Salem hoodie losers declare themselves as liars. Looking beyond death is life, like in Zazen setting up seated meditation and staring through the hoodie. Refracted out on the other side is the understanding that there is a quality within you that is dependent on external validation for your sense of mysticism, and this is of a low vibrational frequency and probably blocking you from real divine union, being yourself, knowing your purpose and carrying it out.

I wish they didn’t have the opioid brands on the back it makes it uncool, glib and heavy handed. It’s cheap like loser graphic design not fine art and you could find anything that looks like that at Savers or someone in Brunswick yuck. The front is kind of dope in that it’s a public service announcement and mysterious and doesn’t technically have to be true. Then the brands on the back is this energetic doubling down but it’s confused and Vibrationally comes off as not mysterious. Too “of the world”. Plus can you imagine all the losers behind you as you walk being intrigued or scared while reading the branding on your back it’s kind of beyond ugly thing to force to happen in the environment in fact I would go as far as to call the graphic element on the back of the hoodie environmental rape.

It seems like no matter what he has friends and some what accepts himself. If it was one of us who ended up picking olives in willunga, South Australia, or being a cleaner on a FIFO offshore oil refinery, or in the mines of deep Queensland I doubt we would remain cool and desirable, it is the perserverance of Jack’s essense despite the material conditions that we admire. It’s like he is in the olympics of remaining cool despite what is happening around him. I would kill myself if I ended up childless and living in the fleurieu peninsula alas I am sober and Jack copes by smoking, driving a ute, staying reflexive to trends, and contributing to the zietgiest with markers reminding us of his virility via Instagram posts. I’m torn, it’s not king behaviour. I stan a drop-out, jack hangs-in.

One day zac described to me that Ed Sheeran was famous because he distilled the essense of England into a man and that is what was being celebrated. England championing the spirit of “England”. The schizophrenia of it was enticing, I don’t know if it checks out. I think we just want to be carried off to sleep, our consciousness blunted. Nothing toooo much but enough of enough to think we’re being satisfied. A Course In Miracles says nothing of this world could be satisfying. I think jack represents the edge of an edge most hipsters are happy to occasionally occupy or aim for. If Jack actually was a frontier explorer we wouldn’t know or see him because he wouldn’t be so representable and locatable. (I wonder if that’s truly true?)

I like jack because he shows me beauty in hopelessness. Where jack is is ok not because it is ok but because jack is there. This is a representation of presence-creation. If I am ok then I can be present. At the end of it all we love hope. The art is dark but it represents making the most of nothing and that is hopeful. Jack is a magician because he is an alchemiser.

I still think wearing Salem merch shows yourself to be retarded it’s the same as saying I am four years old but I can’t deny that the graphic design of the Salem font is an effective sigil. I respect the mastery of magic in this regard. Salem tea towels would be cool. “I survived the opiod epidemic” on a teatowel would have such a different register vibrationally than a black hoodie. I guess I’m missing the point again people want death not life from salem and tea towels are too life coded. I wonder if there is a way for salem to have less loser attracting merch?

I know they have such bad porn star sex. I actually feel so sad writing that, I look into their eyes above and see broken 4 year olds crying out for affection and security. They could perfectly heal together, two of the same wounds. My heart breaks to think of both of them stuck on the same merry-go-round from hell.

#katherine botten #jack donoghue #salem

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yuikomorii · 3 years

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I feel like they made Yui like that because of her blood type?In Japan ABs are known as the intelligent ones,while Os(aka Yui)as the optimists.

//Ooh,I know what you’re talking about!A few years ago,I found out about the Blood Type Personality Theory and it’s really interesting to me since I’m a 0 too and honestly I can relate to what’s written there.

Basically, in Japan, blood types are considered an important indicator of a person's personality,for this reason many anime characters get the one that defines them the most.

Rejet was quite smart here,some blood type traits really reflect the personalities of the DL characters!

0:Yui,Ayato,Kanato,Laito,Reiji,Yuma,Shin

0 blood types are considered generally optimistic. Japanese people call people with 0 blood type, warriors because they are strong and enduring. They are honest and hate people who hide the truth.They have a habit of setting high standards for themselves and do all they can to achieve them. They like to look after people, especially those younger than them.

These people have good leadership qualities and little things do not bother them. Their lack of care for the ‘small things’ can cause others stress or anxiety because they give less weight to actions that are important to others,which can be read as rudeness or insensitivity even if they don’t want to appear that way. They also have some difficulties in expressing their feelings because they are afraid of being rejected.

Positive personalities traits:easy going, positive outlook, confident, energetic, outgoing, cautious,strong-willed,loyal, peaceful, passionate, independent, reliable,determined,carefree, trendsetter and devoted.

Negative personality traits: Jealous, ruthless,insecure,rude, non-punctual, insensitive, cold, unpredictable, self-centered and arrogant.

AB:Shu,Ruki,Carla,Kino

Blood type AB is a hybrid of A and B, two different personalities mixed together. They are calm and rational but have a complicated personality. The holders of AB blood type are the highest ones in the percentage of their intelligence. They try to keep their true personalities from strangers, thereby making most believe that they are a mixed personality. It is hard to decode these people until you know them thoroughly.

Positive personality traits: Charming, controlled, cool, dream chaser, caring, rational,calm,talented,trustworthy, adaptable and creative.

Negative personality traits: Complicated, vulnerable,complicated,mysterious,discriminating, self-centered, forgetful, unforgiving and critical.

A:Subaru,Azusa

People with A blood type are sensitive, cooperative, emotional, passionate and clever. They are very patient, loyal and love peace and thus do not like to get into a fight with anyone. But sometimes these people become overly sensitive and fragile-hearted.They are anxious and easily get hurt; that’s why it takes time for them to open up to people. They like to keep things neat but can be stubborn and get stressed out easily. They do not like to show their emotions and feelings to anyone unless comfortable with them.

Positive personality traits:kind,shy,attentive,polite,, reliable,organized,responsible,neat,loyal.

Negative personality traits: obsessive,anxious,overly sensitive, pessimistic, stubborn, easily stressed and fastidious.

B:Kou

People with blood type B are known to be easy-going, honest, and bubbly. Compared to all blood type personalities, the B group is the most outgoing. They are generally curious and are not afraid to speak their minds. They can sometimes express their opinions regardless of what other people might feel. Because of this, they are sometimes perceived to be selfish and self-centered. These people are very creative and quick decision makers,but they are not good at taking orders. They put every part of themselves into something they want to focus on. They are focused on achieving their goals and don’t like interference from other people.

Positive personality traits: Curious, strong, relaxed, creative, adventurous, passionate, cheerful, active and outgoing.

Negative personality traits: selfish, unforgiving, uncooperative, irresponsible and unpredictable.

Of course,not all traits apply to every character,but somehow each description fits them ;D You can check this site if you’re fond of learning more about blood types!

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #admin #(I really had fun writing this lol)

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s-brant · 3 years

Text

Angels Roll Their Eyes (2/2)

(gif: @toesure) (PART ONE)

Summary: Hurricane Agatha approaches Kildare Island during the aftermath of the eventful Fourth of July party. JJ and Y/N are determined to continue avoiding each other after what happened at the party, but John B has other plans for them.

Warnings: Smut, strong language, angst, implied physical abuse, depictions of anxiety/panic attacks, and sickeningly sweet fluff.

Word Count: 24k

A/N: Here we goooo! To celebrate the trailer dropping today, here’s part two to Devils Roll The Dice. If you haven’t read the first part, I suggest you read it and come back so this makes sense. This one has all the drama and spice, so buckle up! Thank you for the love and support on the first part. Let me know if you enjoyed this and have fun, cause I had a blast writing it.

Hurricane Agatha.

It was the first thing she heard about as soon as she woke up yesterday to the sound of her phone blaring with an obnoxious tone that reminds her of waking up too early in the morning for work or school.

Her sleepy eyes couldn't make out who was calling, so she pressed the button to answer and lifted the phone to hear her mom's voice squawking through the speaker at her about the hurricane projected to hit the island in the middle of the night tonight.

The problem is, her parents are out of town this week, leaving her all alone to prep the house and endure the storm alone. And for someone who flinches whenever she thinks she hears the sound of thunder in the sky, that is the worst it can get.

It's a fear her friends are conscious of. One time when they were out on the HMS Pogue, a quick summer storm started to drift overhead and it took all of her self control to not fall into a blind panic when thunder began to rumble above. John B was already steering them back in the direction of the Chateau but she knew it would do nothing to calm her nerves until she was back inside of the house.

The anxiety was starting to become too overwhelming when JJ sat down beside her and threw his arm over her shoulder. It was their first month of knowing one another, so the casual friendly gesture made her jump at first and turn her head to look at him, but he acted like everything was normal.

The next person to notice was John B. With JJ currently out of commission, the only person she thought to call to help her prep the house for the incoming storm was him. Since they never got hurricanes up where she used to live her whole life, she needed someone who's been through a couple to help her while her parents weren't home.

That's how she ended up here. Sweating bullets in the front yard of her house as she unloads the contents of the van with John B was not how she envisioned her Saturday night to go, but she's glad she has someone who's willing to help.

In the past five months of being with the Pogues, she's learned that it's lovely to have friends. She never used to have any before she moved, so in situations like this or when she got so drunk at the party, she never would've had anyone to be there for her. It's quiet moments of kindness and companionship like this that make her realize how much better life has been on the other side of uprooting everything to move here—self-inflicted boy drama and all.

The sandbag on her shoulder sends a growing ache through her back muscles with every step she takes to follow him up the length of unpaved dirt path up to her front door. As usual, he makes it look way easier than it is, and it almost makes her want to laugh at how different they are.

Most of her new friends are effortless, naturally picking up anything they decide to try at while she is inept by comparison. It's part of what attracted her to JJ in the first place. He may have his insecurities the same way every other individual does, but in her eyes, he has nothing to be insecure of. Even when he wipes out on a wave and appears out of the water with sand clumped in his salt-kissed strands of blonde hair, he manages to make it look cool.

"What are you smiling about?"

John B's laughter makes her look up from where she concentrated on the dirt path to see him looking back at her. He stands at the entrance to her house with the rest of the sandbags they carried up placed meticulously in front of the door to prevent water from entering the house. They did the same thing with the back door an hour ago.

Is she smiling? She hadn't even realized her expression changed from one of exhaustion and fear at the dark clouds closing in above to a grin, so her face instantly drops in guilt. After running out on JJ for the second time two days ago to go to work, any mention of him from their friends has left her drowning in shame.

She can't recall the bulk of her memories from the night of the Fourth of July party, but she fills in the gaps between those flashes of memory with what their friends told her about it.

Thanks to her overindulgence, there are holes poked in the fabric of her memory.

It jumps from her last fully sober moment of seeing JJ across the room with the kook girl to dancing clumsily with Kie to the floral scent of her makeup wipes that she can't attach a specific visual image to.

Then, she can remember waking up with a start in the middle of the night to throw up in a pot beside the bed while he held back her hair. Before John B explained it, she was quite confused after waking up about how she somehow got from being jealous over JJ flirting with another girl to waking up in the same bed as him.

She grunts as she plops the last sandbag down into place and decides to take a seat on the steps leading up to the door.

"It wasn't anything special," Y/N says and watches him come down to sit next to her, "I was just thinking about taking something so I can pass out and avoid having a panic attack over this stupid storm."

Unlike JJ, she isn't that skilled of a liar. It's obvious to anyone who knows her well when she does it based on the way her eye contact begins to drift away and her voice raises in pitch when she speaks. She's too honest with her friends to handle keeping secrets from them, which is why it's been so difficult for her with everything that has happened recently. Not only does she lie to the Pogues, she also avoids them by association in the process of trying to avoid JJ.

Regardless of how obvious her bluffing is, John B doesn't call her out on it. Instead, he focuses on a different part of what she said.

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay alone? I know your parents are out of town till next week..." he trails off into concerned silence.

The tip of her sneaker hangs off of the edge of the bottom step and absentmindedly digs a line into the dirt as she takes in his question.

Being alone when she's prone to panicking is a recipe for disaster. Anxiety and loneliness have a relationship similar to that of a weapon and ammunition. It takes very little for her to fall down the rabbit hole of obsessive thinking and break down into a hyperventilating, fearful mess, especially when no one else is there to tug her out of those dark thoughts.

Most of the time, the people who help her with that are her parents. If they're home during one of these episodes, she'll come stumbling downstairs to them from her room for help, and they'll do everything they can to bring her down from hysterics. Her friends, on the other hand, have yet to witness her have one of those moments.

"Having people with me helps, you know? But it is what it is, I'll just try to cope the best I can and hope for the best."

He nods, and though he's a portrait of understanding, she wonders if he finds it as juvenile and stupid as she does.

Logically, she knows that this anxiety is something many people experience. She understands that it's something that is mostly out of her control but can't help but tear herself apart over it.

She thinks to herself, What kind of weirdo can't sit inside during a thunderstorm or hurricane without losing their shit? Why am I not the one in control of my own mind when this happens?

Do her friends think similar things? Do they think it's as pathetic as she does, or is she just paranoid that they pick her flaws apart as much as she does? And, of course, she wonders what JJ would think if he saw her panic like that. He may have seen her start to become anxious on the HMS Pogue, but he hasn't seen her panic panic before, not in the way that her parents have, and she wonders if he'd think less of her for it.

Right when she's about to change the topic and steer him away from a chance to think of how ridiculous she's being about the approaching hurricane, he says something that makes her look back over at him.

"Then come spend the night at the Chateau. I can distract you. We can play board games and shit."

"Really?" she asks.

The idea of anyone wanting to waste an entire night playing board games and possibly signing themselves up for having to talk her down from a panic attack makes her heart melt.

"Yeah, why not? You need a friend tonight. You know any of us would do anything for you. You're like my little sister, dude, we'd all probably hack off a limb if we thought it'd help you. Especially JJ."

John B's last second name-drop is designed specifically for where he wants this conversation to go. Underneath the need to get his friends back to normal, he does feel a little guilty for having to do this. She thinks he's only offering to let her stay with him to help her—and he is, even if there weren't a rift between her and JJ, he'd still offer—but he has a different reason.

"Right," she says softly. "Speaking of which...is he gonna be there tonight?"

With how often he escapes his house to spend a night or two in temporary safety at the Chateau, it's not an unfounded assumption. He and John B spend more time together than any of them because of this, and when she goes over to hang out, she knows that he and JJ often come as a package deal.

He tries to play it cool and not give up anything that could make her suspicious of him, looking off at the van parked in the driveway as he takes a second to collect his thoughts. It's never easy for him to deceive people he cares about, even if it's for their own good. It wasn't easy when he invited JJ to spend the night a few hours ago with the knowledge that he'd soon invite Y/N too either, but he managed.

As always, Pope is the brains behind this operation. He was the one to suggest inviting them both over to wait out Agatha together when the three of them put their heads together to come up with a solution to their oblivious friends' drama. After JJ stormed out of the house the morning after the party, they knew they had to do something about it. This was what it came to.

"Nah. I offered but he said he's staying at home until this whole thing blows over."

He isn't sure why she buys into it.

She knows JJ well enough to know that he would literally rather eat glass than be trapped in a confined space with his dad for an entire day. Perhaps it's only because it's what she wants to believe. She wants to believe that she won't have to see him again tonight after everything that happened. How can she handle having to tell him why got so drunk that night and made an ass of herself? She can't bear to tell him all of that unnecessary drama started because she was jealous.

What right does she have to feel that way? He isn't hers. They aren't together, and she thinks it's quite obvious that he doesn't want a relationship out of whatever it is they have together. It was one night. She has no right to be mad at him for flirting with other girls because of it.

"Then I'll definitely be taking you up on that offer. Thank you," she says.

The old wooden stairs make a squealing sound when she stands to make her way inside to gather her things for the night, but the feeling of a warm hand gripping her forearm stops her mid-step. Her eyes follow down the length of her arm back to where he sits, glancing at her with this knowing look in his eyes that makes her want to turn and hide.

"When are you gonna talk things out with him, Y/N?" he asks. "He misses you."

Since the party, no one has had the courage to burst her bubble of pretending not to care until now, but now that someone has, all of her bottled up emotions stir inside of her at a simple concept she hadn't considered yet.

JJ misses her.

For the first time since they began this stupid game of cat and mouse, she is confronted with how desperately she misses him back. So consumed with the task of concealing everything that happened and trying to avoid him, she hadn't acknowledged that all she ever really wants is to be with him lately.

She misses his jokes and the way he looks at her when she giggles at them. She misses his smile when they play fight on the HMS Pogue. She even misses when he dangles her over the edge of the boat as a means to end the wrestling match, making her squirm in his strong hold as he threatens to toss her overboard.

But what she misses most of all is how he never lets her fall in. It's something about the way he looks at her as he pulls her back onboard, how time itself seems to stop in the moment between when he's still holding her and when she feels her feet touch the deck again.

Then, they'll suddenly want nothing to do with each other for the next half hour.

JJ will make himself busy forgetting the way her hands felt holding onto his shoulders for dear life, burning the memory of her palm prints into his skin for the next few hours. And she'll try her hardest to forget that charming smile and the feeling of his arms around her. But it won't work, not really, and when they're both laying down to sleep at night, they'll have one thing keeping them awake.

She takes a second to internalize what he said and avoid exposing the effect it has on her to hear it before asking, "Did he tell you that?"

The sky overhead grows darker and darker by the second, but she has yet to notice it due to the topic of their conversation. With JJ involved, her attention shrinks to a tunnel leading only to him. There's no room for anything else but the audacious idea planted in the back of her mind that he might miss her as much as she misses him.

"No, he didn't," John B admits, and right when she's about to say more in response, he cuts her off, "but hear me out. I've known him since we were kids, so I can tell when things aren't right with him, and ever since your relationship with him got complicated, I picked up on some weird vibes."

Y/N doesn't give anything away with how she reacts. He can't tell if she's about to bolt like JJ did or stay to talk and open up to him. All she does is cross her arms over her chest and lean back against the railing.

"Weird in what way?"

"Weird in a way that makes me think you two have to talk it out before you ruin your friendship. I've never seen him act this way over a girl."

That doesn't surprise her. He has a reputation for chasing after any girl available to him, something the Pogues have gently teased him about, and it factors into why she doesn't want to have this dreaded conversation with him. She doesn't want to sit there and listen to him tell her that she was just another one of those girls to him.

Going for broke and being honest about what he thinks of their situation is a better strategy for trying to get her to talk to JJ than the other way around. John B can look back on what happened the morning after the party and see where they went wrong in their approach of trying to get him to talk, but she's less unpredictable and turbulent than he is. The fact that she's hearing him out is enough proof of their differences.

She sighs.

"I know we need to talk sooner or later, but it's hard, you know? I'm so embarrassed of how everything went down at the party, even though I was too fucked up to remember most of it, and I just—" There's a brief second that lapses between when she stops and when she starts again where he can almost see her working through it in her head. "I don't wanna get hurt."

John B's face falls at the mention of the party and her feelings surrounding it.

"You have nothing to be embarrassed of. You drank too much but who cares? The only person who should be embarrassed about that night is the guy that tried to take advantage of you."

That part is the most fuzzy in her mind.

She can remember what led up to it and the moment she saw JJ pull him away from her, but she can't remember anything about the interaction itself. It wasn't as if he did anything to her—not yet—but the thought of it alone makes her skin crawl because she's seen that before. She's been the JJ in that situation, pulling a wasted Touron away from someone who thought nobody would be looking out for other people at the party, and she knows how quickly those situations can escalate past "harmless" flirting.

The sound of JJ shouting at Tyler echoes in her mind as she reaches for any remaining memories left from the party. He said it right after he punched him, when he was starting to rush forward to follow him onto the ground and pin him there.

"If I see you near my girl again, you're fucking dead! You got that?"

She doesn't remember realizing that he called her that at the moment. She was confused and upset and all she wanted to do was stop him from getting himself in trouble, so she pulled him away from hitting Tyler again without realizing what he said. And even now, she tries to avoid acknowledging it. She reasons with herself, telling herself that he was pissed off and didn't mean it, because if he did, why hasn't he told her how he feels yet?

Y/N looks up and sees how dark the converging clouds have gotten in the time since they began working on prepping the house for the hurricane, so her next words are shakier than usual.

"I guess you're right." She pushes off of her spot against the railing. "But can we not talk about JJ tonight? I kind of wanna hang out and forget about the rest of the stuff I've got going on right now."

This makes him feel a pang of guilt inside of him for the ulterior motive he's kept hidden from her for the duration of the conversation, but he knows it's for the best. Even if her and JJ's inevitable conversation goes in the wrong direction and they don't end up mending fences, it's better that they let it out sooner than later. If they wait any longer, it'll make it worse, and he knows that they're stubborn enough to keep this childish game going for another week or so.

So, he keeps her in the dark for now and offers a kind, "Sure, that's cool with me," despite knowing how messy the night will soon become.

A smile pokes at the edges of her mouth, making the sides of her eyes crinkle, and she extends a hand to help him up from where he sits.

"Now," she says as they make their way inside the house for her to pack a bag, "are you ready to get absolutely crushed in Monopoly?"

It started to rain before they left her house, and by the time they pull into the driveway of the Chateau, it's pouring down on them with violent winds whipping droplets at their faces hard enough to hurt.

The rapid pace of her pulse beats with such an intensity, she can feel it in her head. They shouldn't have taken so much time at her place before heading over here. While she was packing, they talked and dilly-dallied the whole time, and now they pay the price for it.

If she knew that it would start this soon into the night, she probably would've hurried things along sooner, but it's too late. She's already starting to feel that tightness in her chest and each breath of air feels less satisfying with every inhale. It's not so bad that she loses complete control of herself, but it's getting there, and she can't express how badly she doesn't want to lose her shit in front of John B.

The passenger side door is slammed shut by the force of the wind behind her, the noise becoming swallowed up in the rest of the budding storm, and she stifles a sound of surprise that escapes her in reaction to it. They're lucky they made it here in the first place. Any later in the night and they probably would've had to take refuge at her place until it blew over.

She decides to focus on how the edges of her white sneakers are swallowed up by the muddy earth on her way through the front yard to distract herself. It stains them a deep brown color and simultaneously washes them clean from the rain coming down from above, which she'd probably be annoyed about if she weren't such a nervous wreck. But, because she's too busy keeping her backpack raised over her head to shield herself from the rain on her way up to the front door, it's not high up on her list of priorities.

Since both the screen door and the door behind it are unlocked, she doesn't hesitate to come bursting into the house as she usually does.

Y/N lets out a deep breath, feeling that telltale tension in her chest and shoulders, and laughs at the sight of John B running in as she kicks off her shoes. His t-shirt is speckled with rainwater, and his hair is saturated enough with it to stick to the sides of his face after he crosses the threshold into the Chateau.

The sound of her laughter makes JJ's heart stop from where he stands in the kitchen.

"There was an umbrella right on the dashboard, why didn't you take—"

Her heart might as well have stopped just as abruptly as the sentence she was in the middle of saying when she turned and saw him standing there.

Maybe they're both a tad too dramatic, but it takes a full few seconds for them to stop staring at each other in surprise. He looks like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide with surprise like he was caught doing something he shouldn't even though all he was doing was grabbing a beer from the fridge.

It's been two days since they last saw each other. For him, the last glimpse he got of her was when he peeked through the blinds to see her pedaling away on her bike to go to work, but hers was somewhat different.

The last time she saw him, he was asleep. Their legs were tangled together underneath the sheets and his face was smushed against her chest, allowing her to feel the soft puffs of his exhales on her skin every few seconds. It's a wonder that she managed to slip away unnoticed once she remembered she had work that morning. He was holding her closely, so closely that she found it hard to discern where she ended and he began in the dazed, hungover headspace she woke up in.

It's when the conversation she had with John B on the front steps of her house comes back to the forefront of her mind that she puts together what's happening right now. Now that they're here, it's far too late to leave. With how aggressively the wind and rain batter the area surrounding the house, it's obvious that they're not going anywhere.

It seems to click with them at the same time, because JJ turns to look at him only a half second after she does.

Y/N says, completely serious, "If you did what I think you did, I'm gonna kill you."

Before either of them can think of doing anything, John B shoots out from the doorway and runs past her in the direction of the hallway where his bedroom is.

"Gotta catch me first!"

They both chase him, JJ hopping over the back of the couch to run after him, but they end up coming to a screeching halt at the shut door right when they hear the lock turn and click.

Neither of them knows what they were planning to do when they caught him, cause it isn't like they'd hurt him, but they bang on the door nonetheless. The sound is drowned out by the sound of the wind and rain pounding the outside walls of the house, picking up speed, and for a second she wants to kick the door open.

She shouts, "John B! Open this door!"

The last thing she wanted tonight was to be trapped in a house with the one person she didn't want to see. Doesn't John B realize how embarrassing it is for her to be around him when she knows that he's gonna reject her? He may have said something about JJ never acting so weird over a girl before, but he's wrong. There's no way JJ actually wants her...right?

"I can't hear you, this storm's kinda loud!" he yells back at them through the locked door. "Maybe try again later!"

Neither of them wants to acknowledge the other. In fact, they don't even want to look at each other right now, so all they can do to stop themselves from acknowledging the elephant in the room is continue trying to get answers out of John B. What does he think that locking them together in the Chateau for the night will accomplish other than make them ignore their own drama and team up to plot their revenge on him?

Though he's significantly less angry than she is, JJ pulls the doorknob enough to make the door whine on its hinges and pleads with their friend, "This isn't funny, John B. Open the door."

"Not until you guys stop being immature and talk to each other."

She furrows her brows at him even though he can't see her, saying, "It's none of your business. You can't just trap us here cause you think you know what's best for us."

The sound of thunder rumbling above the house makes her flinch, hand shooting out to latch onto JJ's arm on an instinct she couldn't consciously resist. Feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her palm and the fingers clutched around his wrist sends shocks of familiar electricity up her body. Touching him always makes her feel hyperaware of herself, leaving her to wonder if he can sense her pulse picking up or notice how her breathing pattern turns uneven.

With that being said, it's safe to say that the night they spent together took that sensation of electricity and hyperawareness to a height it hadn't reached before.

That time, it wasn't a brush of their hands or an arm over her shoulder, it was the epitome of physical closeness. She couldn't handle it. He was so sickeningly sweet with her, yet, at the same time, he knew all of the right times to be commanding and in control too. There were awkward moments at first, sure, but once they became comfortable with each other, it was game over.

And whenever they've touched since, she hasn't been able to get those memories off of her mind. It's less prevalent now, since she's only holding onto him out of fear, but it's still there underneath it all—the unfiltered desperation of the lust in his eyes, the low noises that escaped his parted lips, and the strong pair of hands that pinned her hips down on the mattress to give him the leverage to really give it to her at the intensity she begged for.

It's pathetically easy for her to be sucked right back into the vortex of emotions, memories, and fears that haunt her whenever they touch, but he brings her back out of it just as easily when he speaks.

"You okay?"

John B was as good as forgotten by him as soon as he felt her jolt next to him and grab onto his wrist like she was hanging from a ravine and he was the only thing preventing her from falling. It makes him feel like a fool, but even when they're ignoring each other, the urge to comfort and protect her from anything that displeases her never disappears. He'd literally fistfight Zeus if it meant there'd be less thunder to scare her.

If he weren't hiding behind a locked door to avoid their wrath, JB would probably be calling him a simp right about now.

The concern on his face is so pure and unaffected by any of the chaos that surrounds them, both physical and emotional, that it makes her stomach turn with a sick feeling. God, he really does care about her. Why does that scare her? Why doesn't she want to believe that he cares? Why is she so set on believing that he wanted nothing more than a quick fuck from her?

Her eyes turn down to see their connected hands, realizing all in one moment what she did and pulling her hand away as if she were burned.

"I—Yeah," she stops, looking up at him, then back to the closed bedroom door, "I'm fine. You know how it is, it's just the storm."

They're both left with no choice but to face the music after days of avoidance that had no good reason behind it other than the respective doubts and fears they have. Yet even now that they're standing here, unsure of what comes next, they're hesitant to say or do anything that might disrupt the illusion they've created in the week and a half since they first ruined their friendship for good.

It feels as though the tension that has been boiling between them is coming close to turning explosive and all it will take is one tremor of their self-control for it to spill over.

Every feeling they have feels so contradictory. They want to but they also don't. They almost do it, then hesitate and decide to ignore each other for days. At the party, this tug of war game was at its peak for JJ when she was telling him about her jealousy and cuddling up to him, but he couldn't do it then, not when she was drunk. And by the time he had a whole night to think it over and see her biking away, he didn't want to risk it.

She looks away from him, hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" may ring true for once, and says to John B through the door, "Whatever, have fun. I won't hold JJ back when you finally come out of there though."

He won't actually do anything to him, maybe just a non-serious fight that'll end with her walking in on them rolling around on the floor trying to wrestle each other, but she likes to fuck with him anyway. For the dick move he just pulled, she thinks he can withstand a little teasing.

Without anything else to say, Y/N turns and walks off to make herself useful elsewhere—anything to distract from the buzzing, anxious energy that surrounds her from both the hurricane and being forced to confront JJ. She tries to play it cool though she is anything but at the moment, allowing herself to grimace once her back is turned to the blonde boy still standing against the wall in the hallway.

Maybe if she keeps pushing this false sense of normalcy, it'll work. It worked when they both started pretending things never happened between them initially after they had sex, so who's to say it can't work now?

All they have to do is get through the next 12-24 hours without talking and all will be well. Right?

They tried.

They truly tried to get through the night without inciting chaos within the Chateau, but, for these two idiots, not inciting chaos is a task easier said than done. Not only was John B much more stubborn with staying in his room than either of them bargained for, he didn't even attempt to speak to them for the first five hours and they were left with nothing to do but find new ways to avoid talking to each other.

It was simple in the beginning.

She went off on her own and sat with her headphones in to drown out the sounds of the storm.

With her eyes fluttered shut to block out anything but the sound of The Cure blasting into her ears, there was no reason for her to have to worry about anything once her nerves began to settle. Since the songs drowned out any sound and all she could see was darkness behind her closed eyelids, she was able to drift away with the distraction of the music.

The thing is, after a while, she started to see pieces of him in every song she skipped to. She made it a full minute into Just Like Heaven before a supercut of her most treasured memories of him began appearing in her head. Fade Into You? Skipped as soon as the first dreamy lyric flooded in through the tangled cords of the headphones. Cloud 9? Forty seconds in. By the time Dirty Little Secret came on, she decided that her playlist was mocking her.

The headphones were out of her ears, hastily wrapped up, and stowed away in the small pocket of her overnight bag before the chorus of the song could hit. Thankfully for her, JJ wasn't looking when she ripped the headphones out and put them away in a huff, so by the time he turned to see her again, she was laying down on the couch to "nap"—meaning she laid awake for another hour and cursed John B for making her endure this.

While she was daydreaming of a John B voodoo doll, JJ was worried about her.

Yes, the topic of their relationship/friendship/situationship/whatever-the-fuck-it-is was bombarding him against his will every five seconds, but not without him coming back to his concern for her. A small sound of thunder on an otherwise perfect day was enough to make her zone out and start getting antsy that day on the boat, so he didn't want to know how bad it could get during a time like this.

He tried to play it cool, and, in all honesty, his remaining scraps of sanity lasted a lot longer than hers. Four and a half hours passed, then, as the storm began to do its worst on their town, the power flickered out and left them in complete darkness. At that point, John B was passed out in his bedroom, so he didn't care nor notice when they had to find a few candles and stumble through the dark.

Somewhere along the way, having to search through the dark house for candles to light and place around the living room led them here...he isn't quite sure how.

JJ can hardly open his eyes enough to see through the rain that pounds against him the second he runs after her through the back door. The wind is so aggressive and unrelenting, it almost sends him stumbling a few steps when he follows her blurry figure a few paces behind where she tries to flee the house in a panic.

"Get back inside!" he shouts as he picks up his speed to catch up, "Y/N!"

The part of him that isn't focused on the pure physicality of trying to see and move through the stormy weather is utterly overwhelmed with fear. Not for himself but for her. She's deathly afraid of mild storms, let alone hurricanes, and yet she ran through the back door when he tried comforting her through an anxiety attack. One would think that she wouldn't want to go directly into the thing she fears the most, but what sent her running for the hills wasn't the panic itself, it was him.

It's hard for her to think rationally in this state, but all she knows is that he was there, he was saying all the right things and holding her, and she couldn't do it. The fear began to blend to one centered around both him and the storm. The hours of useless distractions and ruminating in her thoughts built up to this point of contention, then it snapped.

Between the thunder, his voice, and the voice in the back of her head that was urging her to confess her feelings and do as John B advised them to, it became too much. Maybe it was the most idiotic split-second decision she made without any regard for logic or reason or her safety, but she bailed. For the third time, she couldn't handle the pressure and ran from him.

The only difference is that he couldn't let her leave this time.

He gasps for air against the streams of water flowing down his face, soaking his hair and making it hang in his eyes to obstruct his view more than the weather already has. It happened so fast, neither of them are wearing shoes. His feet sink into the muddy yard with every stride he takes in his frantic pursuit of her and it frustrates him no end because of how it slows him down.

There's endless dangerous possibilities with her being out here. She could be knocked over into the marsh by the wind, or stuck and hurt by a piece of debris—merely thinking about it makes him call out her name louder in the hopes that it'll wake her from her panicked trance.

After trudging through the mud all the way to the edge of the yard, he finally manages to get to her.

"What are you doing?" JJ shouts, turning her around and grabbing onto both of her arms as if one gust of wind would sweep her away if he didn't, "You're gonna get hurt!"

Stumbling backwards in the direction of the screened-in porch that surrounds the back door, he uses their difference in strength to tug her away in the direction she came out in. The rain makes it difficult to keep a firm grasp on her, and she almost slips away a couple of times when the wind picks up enough to make him too unsteady to hold on.

His arms slip around her waist for a better grasp on her the closer they come to reaching the house. The last thing he wants is to almost get her back inside and lose her at the last second. She isn't thinking rationally right now with the panic she feels taking full control of her responses. He knows firsthand how it feels to be thrown headfirst into a panic attack, he's been in her shoes before and knows better than anyone the lengths your irrational mind will go to if it means survival. And for whatever reason, her response is flight, not fight.

The door to the screen porch takes all of his effort to open against the power of the wind blowing it back against the house.

He grits his teeth as he forces it open, one arm secured around her midsection, and helps her in before he slips inside too. The second he lets go of the door, it's sent slamming back into place and rattling in the frame behind them, but he doesn't spend anymore time on it other than the few seconds it takes to lock it. As soon as it clicks with him that they're safe—most importantly, that she's safe—he whips around to face her with a cold rage flowing through his veins.

"What the fuck?"

She stands in front of him with water pouring off of her in rapid drops onto the rug, and there are no thoughts in her head outside of the ones telling her to leave. Her tears blend in with the droplets of rain so seamlessly that he wouldn't know she's crying if not for the sound of it.

In between her rapid breaths and sobs, she yells back at him, "I was scared, okay?"

"Why'd you run out into the storm if you—"

"I wasn't afraid of the storm, I was afraid of you!"

The silence that follows is louder than anything they've experienced. Nothing can rival it, not the thunder, the rain, or anything can drown it out while he stares at her in shock. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted as he reaches for something, anything, he can say in response to that, but there's nothing. For once, he is absolutely speechless.

Things got awkward between them in the initial aftermath of last week, but not like this. There was never an instance where he felt like there was nothing left for him to say to her to fill the uncomfortable silence that always brought forth memories of them together until now. Until she said the last thing he wanted or expected to hear.

His anger subsides as he picks over what he did in his head for anything that could've made her feel unsafe.

Before it evolved into him chasing after her through the hurricane, he noticed how terrible it had gotten for her when he lit the first candle. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her chest began to rise and fall faster with each second that passed. He could see it on her face that things were getting worse, but, now that he thinks of it, it got worse once he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder.

It felt like a dream sequence in his head, so hazy and faraway now that it's over, and he was so stunned by what she was doing, he didn't run after her until a few seconds later. There was a delay in which he stood there in surprise and tried to process what the hell just happened to no avail. Though it wasn't very long, he remembers it feeling like eternity tucked into the cramped space of four seconds.

JJ's voice is softer than she's ever heard it, asking into the void of the near-darkness that encloses them, "What'd I do?" And it breaks her heart in half to hear him sound so concerned, so terrified of the idea that he did something to hurt her when all he did was try to help. "I never meant to scare you, I swear. I know how bad it can get sometimes, and I know we haven't been talking but I'd never try to hurt you if that's what you thought..."

His thoughts run rampant with the possibilities of what she was thinking at the time, and he realizes that he can't stand the idea of her thinking anything badly of him. He never cares about what people think, but, fuck, he loathes the idea of her having any ill feelings toward him.

Y/N immediately starts shaking her head, her face scrunching with the emotion and incessant tears.

"I know you'd never hurt me. I was scared because..." she stops herself mid sentence, catching it right when she was about to admit the one thing she promised herself she wouldn't.

But the need to say it doesn't go away this time. Usually, once she catches herself she comes to her senses and realizes how foolish it would've been to confess, but this time is different. This time, the urge to speak her mind and tell him everything sticks around. The words left unsaid creep up her throat, thrashing and begging to let out after months of being pushed aside.

The look in her eyes is strangely reminiscent of the way she looked at him the night they hooked up, almost yearning in its nature, and he couldn't be more confused. She's scared of him, but she's looking at him like she did when she was two seconds away from jumping his bones. And if he didn't do anything wrong, why was she afraid enough to face her worst fear in order to avoid him?

"Because what?" he asks.

That frustration from when they first stepped into the porch hasn't vanished, it only took a backseat once she said she was afraid of him, not the storm, and he can feel it stirring up again. He's tired of not having answers. He's tired of mixed signals and loneliness and unrequited love. Most of all, he's tired of her running away all the time. At this point, he questions whether or not it's worth it to expose his feelings to her and suffer the consequences.

John B was right. This isn't healthy for them, nor is it healthy for them to put their friends through this along with them, and it might be better to not be friends than to stay this way forever. At least that way they wouldn't be wishing for answers that would never come for the rest of their time together.

She decides at this moment that this has to be said before it gets worse, before she runs away again like a scared, immature child and ruins everything.

"Because," she has to shout over the lightning that cracks down on the earth down the street, something she would be trembling in fear over if she weren't so focused on him, "I've been in love with you for a couple months and it scares me more than anything, even this stupid fucking storm! And I've tried so hard to ignore it because I know you don't feel the same way, but you touched me and I just"—a soft cry escapes her—"I couldn't do it anymore."

There it is.

After months of ruminating over it and hiding everything, he knows, and her immediate feeling after she says it isn't what she thought it would be. She expected trepidation and regret, but what she finds on the other side isn't either of those, it's relief. Her dad often tells her when she's nervous about something that the anticipation is worse than the thing itself, and that has never been as true her as it is now.

However, some of the nerves return with the time that passes after she spoke in complete silence. Much like the delayed reaction he had to her running out of the house, it isn't as long as it feels to her. It's a short span of time that it takes for her words to process with him, but it feels like an eternity that he stands there with his head facing the floor in quiet contemplation.

Her heart sinks.

This means he doesn't feel the same way, doesn't it? If he were the one telling her he loved her, she likely would've leaped into his arms and said it back, but he stays where he is.

Then, after what feels like forever, she thinks she sees him start to smile and feels like she's losing her mind. It's quite dark out here, so there's only a limited amount of light to allow her to see his features, but there's no doubting it when a flash of lightning floods the porch with a split-second of harsh light.

Oh God, why is he smiling? What does it mean?

Much to her frustration, the first thing he says after her confession isn't much help in making her understand his feelings either.

"Why didn't you just talk to me?"

Why? The voice in the back of her mind asks incredulously. Is he seriously asking why? He ignored me too. He didn't want to talk about it either, so what else was I supposed to do?

Maybe she was undeniably worse when it came to the avoidance and lack of communication, but he could've reached out to her too. They both could've. Instead, they spent day after day waiting for the other to make the move and pushed the tension further and further until it finally broke. Now she's waiting for him to hurry up and reject her so she can move on with her life.

She shivers from the wind blowing at her wet skin through the screens separating them from the outside world, crossing her arms over her body to hug herself. His eyes follow her movements down to the breaths that are slowly evening out without her realizing it. It turns out that confessing your love for the guy you've been crushing on since the day you met him is a hell of a distraction.

"I thought you wouldn't wanna hear me being all emotional and shit over a one time thing. You've literally never had an actual relationship before. And that's fine," she rambles, "I'll be okay eventually, but that's not who you are and there isn't a problem with that. I just caught feelings when I shouldn't have."

In her defense, she isn't making baseless assumptions about him, he hasn't had a relationship before. His love life hasn't ever really revolved around love itself, it was mostly comprised of random chicks he'd meet at parties or at the beach during the summertime when tourists come to visit the island. Out of all of them, he's the last one the Pogues would expect to fall in love with someone and commit to a relationship, but then...

He looks over at her with a swell of emotion within him that he's never felt before. It wasn't like he hadn't known before now. He did. He even said it out loud to himself that morning after the party, but this is when it feels the most real. Now that she's said it to him, he doesn't feel so stupid for toying with the four letter word in the back of his mind for the entirety of the past week.

In all honesty, he was the last person he would've expected to fall in love with someone this quickly too. He thought he knew himself better than this. He thought he could keep himself hidden away and not let anyone close enough to see him—the real him, faults and feelings and vulnerability included—but she proved him wrong. In walked Y/N with her pretty smile, teeny bikini bottoms, and oddly strong opinions on Ratatouille, and he stood no chance.

This sudden crescendo of emotion only continues to grow when he watches her shiver, soaked to the skin, across from him and decides that he never wants to deny himself of her again. Those feelings of inadequacy that forced him to question his relationship with her may not have gone away, not by a long shot, but they can't stop him anymore. Nothing can.

Like a light flickering to life in this swirling, stormy darkness, she hears JJ's voice asking her, "What if it is who I am?"

It was said so softly, she nearly lost it beneath the rain and wind. But it was not said with a lack of certainty, which is why she questions if she heard him correctly. He sounded so sure of himself that it feels too good to be true. After his reaction, or lack thereof, to her telling him she loved him, she accepted what was coming and this was not it.

"What?"

He doesn't miss a beat.

"You heard me." There's a pause. "Maybe I needed to meet the right girl."

There is no way he's saying what she thinks he's saying because if he is...if he is then that means the tears and frustration have all been for nothing because he loves her back. But if he loves her, then what was with the kook girl? Was it to make her jealous, or is she misinterpreting him right now and he was flirting with that girl because he doesn't have real feelings for her?

"JJ..." she trails off, looking down and thinking to herself how thankful she is that it's too dark for him to fully see how nervous he made her, "don't do that."

Partly, he should feel offended that she'd think he'd toy with her feelings like that, but he isn't. He's too busy wondering what on earth made this poor girl so insecure to think that someone has to be joking to confess their love to her. It makes him wonder if anyone wronged her before she moved here, and he feels that switch of impulsive anger inside of him flip at the thought.

But that anger has nowhere to go, so it shifts into something different—a need to spend every waking moment of the rest of their time together proving to her that she doesn't have to be so afraid. Does it make him a hypocrite? Probably. It wasn't too long ago that he was telling the Pogues how much he didn't deserve to be with her, but he doesn't see himself the same way he sees her. In his head, he has reasons to believe he doesn't deserve her love, but how could she ever think that herself?

He steps closer to her, the movement something so natural and unconscious to him that he doesn't recognize he does it until he hears her breath hitch in the back of her throat. They were already close enough to reach out and touch each other if they wanted to, yet now it's the kind of closeness that wipes the slate of her mind clean with nothing else but the thought of him there to stay.

He starts to say, "I'm not fucking with you, dude, I'm being serious—"

"Then prove it."

Oh.

The sound of his unfinished sentence lingers on the tip of his tongue as he blinks away his surprise at what she said, though it was less of a statement and more of a challenge. What the challenge is, he isn't too sure, but he thinks there could be a couple of meanings there.

The fire in her eyes when she looked up at him is one he recognizes very well, it stars in one too many of his daydreams that center around their secret night together. She rose to the occasion without fail and matched his chaos every time, and that steely-eyed stare is reminiscent of it.

Yet, the sexual undertone isn't the only part of it to be discovered. There's a clear meaning there for him to actually prove it, to put his money where his mouth is, grow a pair, and tell her how he feels with no room for confusion. No more miscommunication, running away, or insecurity getting between them, just a clear cut confession like hers.

His hand runs through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes and keep the wet strands from dripping down his face. It helps him see her a little better too, grounding him to the moment and calming him at the dimmed sight of her expectant, wide eyed gaze.

There were a million versions of this whenever he let himself imagine admitting it. He only let himself picture it on the worst days, days like the one two days ago when he went home to his dad, ending the night by cleaning his own cuts and inspecting his own bruises in his locked bedroom. He did it to distract himself from wanting to storm out of the room and finally kill the son of a bitch after years of suffering in silence.

JJ closed his eyes, shaking with anger, and dreamed of how he'd tell her. There were versions with long speeches that were far too sappy to exist outside of the realm of his imagination. There were versions with him burying the words between friendly jokes to play down the extent of his feelings too, but he thought it worked best in its simplest form.

So he puts it as simply as it gets, lips fighting a soft smile as he crosses the space between them and rushes in to kiss her. It's charged with an accumulation of the pent up love, anger, and sexual desire that has been repressed until now, resulting in something utterly explosive.

He stops for a second to whisper, "I love you too," into her parted lips, and she finally lets herself go at the sound of those words.

Forget that they've only known each other for five months, when you know you know. This is the real deal. This is the kind of feeling that possesses every accessible inch of her heart and she'd never be open enough to admit that to anyone but him at the moment, but neither of them minds that. It's such a new, rapidly developing feeling that they want to protect it and keep it close to them for the time being.

His arms twine around her waist, tugging her the last bit forward and leaving no space between their bodies this time. The sudden movement draws a sharp gasp from the back of her throat and sends her hands out to brace themselves on his shoulders. The sound of the gasp that disappears into their connected mouths only fuels him on more. It makes him more eager with how he touches her with his hands drifting down the plane of her back, one of which playfully slipping beneath the hem of her soaked shirt in a way that makes her smile into the kiss.

He knows exactly what he does to her. He can sense it in the small reactions that would often go overlooked if it were someone less familiar with her.

It's easy to tell by the way she completely surrenders herself to him, letting out these soft little noises she doesn't even realize she's making when he takes control of the interaction and kisses her like he's starved for it. In a way, he is starving for affection and attention from her. He never knew it was something he needed so badly until he got it, and now he never wants to go without having her again.

That's why it doesn't surprise him when she starts getting antsy after a moment or two, especially after keeping away from him for days.

Her hands run down the length of his chest over the soaked t-shirt, taking a quiet victory in how his stomach flinches inward in response to her exploring touch, and she could swear his next exhale trembles as she continues lower. Never once does she break the kiss, which, by the way, has gone past the point of being passionate and straight to downright needy, but her concentration does falter. The perfectly paced rhythm of her mouth moving with his is interrupted when she touches him over the fabric of his shorts.

Those plushy soft lips go on an exploration of their own too. Leaving him with the first opportunity to catch his breath in minutes, she dips her head beneath the sharp edge of jaw in pursuit of the sweet spot she remembers reducing him to a grabby, moaning mess the last time they did this. It doesn't take her long, not if the tightening of his arms around her and the satisfied hum of a moan she feels vibrate beneath her mouth has anything to say for it.

He loses himself in it for a second or two...okay, fine, maybe ten.

The separate sensations combined spark a flame inside of him that burns so hopelessly for whatever she'll give him. His mind sends him images of them together, both real memories from their first time together and imagined fantasies he only let himself visit in his dreams, and he realizes how thinly spread his self control has become lately.

First, it's the thought of her from last week, thoughts of her gasping, writhing, and begging beneath him that makes his cock throb under the teasing contact of her hand through his shorts. But then he's brought elsewhere. Then, though he hasn't thought of it since the day after the party, he thinks of the mix of jealousy and anger he felt when he saw Tyler with her.

He remembers being sane one moment and charging across the room like a madman the next. He remembers how it felt to watch another person's hands slip under her dress, how it felt to see someone else try to kiss her the way he had, and this raw wound of a memory is all it takes to spur him into action.

It happens so quickly, she doesn't even notice what's happening until he has her scooped up in his arms with her legs around his waist. She doesn't even have the chance to voice her surprise or crack a joke at the expense of his neediness before he reconnects their paused kiss with enough force to make her teeth ache in the collision.

JJ's rings are colder than ice, digging into the flesh of her thighs as he holds them with a tight grip and blindly takes the few steps necessary to reach the back entrance of the house. His wet handprint smudges on one of the cracked-open glass doors and sends droplets of water dribbling down the surface. The teardrop of rain zig-zags at the swinging motion of the door on their way in, only changing course again when he nudges it shut behind him a little too loudly.

"Wh"—her question is cut off by him laying her down on the rug-covered floor in between the couch and coffee table—"What if John B wakes up?"

His first thought was to bring her into the spare bedroom, but then he realized that it shares a wall with John B. Then, he considered the pull out couch but realized that would be louder than the room adjacent to their friend's. His only conclusion was this.

It isn't nearly as romantic as either of them would've pictured, but they're not exactly picky either. They're so desperate for it, they'd likely do it on the porch in the middle of a hurricane if there weren't another option. And in their own weird way, they make it romantic.

There's no one else she'd rather risk rug burn for, and that is the peak of romance.

"John B sleeps like a fuckin' rock," JJ says, "and it's own his fault for trapping us here anyway."

He follows her down onto the floor without a second thought, not even looking up to see if they woke their friend with the sound of the door shutting behind them.

Hovered above her, he looks particularly captivating in the flickering candlelight. The fire burning in one of the three-wick candles they scoured the bathroom cabinets for brings out the warm hues in his blonde hair and highlights every edge of the angular face that looks down at her. The porch was far too dark for her to see him in all of his near-perfection, but this is enough for her to notice a multitude of things.

His slicked back, wet hair allows her to see his features better and the way he looks at her...it's enough to make anyone feel red in the face. How hadn't she see it before? She knows it was denial, but, somehow, she used to overlook the small hints along the way like how he looks at her like she's the only thing that makes sense to him. For the first time in a while, she allows herself to embrace the idea of being loved without looking for something to justify her fears surrounding it.

The sound of her voice brings him out of the mesmerized trance he fell under at the sight of her.

"I've missed you," she says softly, "like a lot."

The sweet admission slows him down for a second, making him stop to ignore the distracting desire that she sparked to life a moment ago and take the time to cherish this moment of rare serenity with her.

It's a wonder that she hasn't even acknowledged the storm raging on outside since they've come back in. It's all thanks to him, of course, since she's been too focused on everything happening between them, but it surprises him. It makes a sense of pride flare up in him on her behalf for being capable of forgetting something she fears so much.

But, on the other hand, it reminds him of how distraught she was right before their conversation/argument on the porch shifted from her panic to the topic of their relationship, and he can't help but hesitate a little.

"I missed you too." The hand he isn't using to support himself above her cups her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. "Are you okay though? You were just crying and I don't wanna make you—"

"Yes."

It was so said so quickly, there was zero hesitation. It's not that it doesn't surprise him that she's as eager as he is after what started to happen out on the porch, but it does make his eyes widen a little. His mouth curls with a slight grin. It's the kind that never fails to make her stomach fluttering and light with butterflies.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm okay, and I promise I'll let you know if I'm not," Y/N clarifies.

"Okay."

There's a short moment where all they do is look at each other with a complete loss for words to convey what they feel right now. It isn't as awkward as it would've been prior to tonight. Before they confessed their feelings, they wouldn't have been able to look at one another for any longer than a few seconds without needing to walk away to break the tension. Now, things have changed. They don't feel the need to conceal how much they care anymore.

They're still the same bickering duo they've always been with the added fun of being head over heels. She never used to understand how some people could let their feelings for another person drive them crazy, but it's done more than make her crazy this past week. It made her jealous, obsessive, and somehow happy too, and no one has ever made her feel so many varying emotions in her life.

Her fingertips graze the stretch of skin between where his cargo shorts sit on his hips and his shirt rides up the side of his torso, and he swallows thickly at the feeling.

"Do I make you nervous?" she asks.

Her lilting, smooth voice is enough to soothe any nerves he could possibly have. It's as if hearing her ask that paired with the hand teasing the waistband of his shorts pulled him back to the place he'd been before when she was teasing him over his clothes.

He answers honestly, his head going fuzzy with the crushing desire that courses through him, "Not as nervous as I make you," and closes the space between them again.

The cheeky comment doesn't go unnoticed by her, not one bit. It makes her face heat up in embarrassment that is purely instinct after having to hide her feelings from her for so long. Maybe after they've been together for longer, it won't make her blush every time he acknowledges the effect he has on her out loud, but that day isn't today. Today, she goes hot in the face from a sole second of his attention, let alone this.

JJ lets his hand climb up the length of her torso as they kiss as if they have all the time in the world, as if their best friend isn't sleeping less than twenty feet away from them, until it flattens at the base of her neck. It doesn't curl around her neck and squeeze, nor does it do anything but remind her how much she loves the feeling of him touching her, the large palm of his hand simply stays draped over her throat to flaunt his ability to sway her nerves.

She's pretty sure if it were anyone else, it wouldn't work, but he's JJ for fuck's sake, and the quiet display of dominance sends an exhilarating little thrill rumbling through her. It isn't anything over the top or exaggerated like some people would do in an attempt to stake a claim over the person they love, just a simple gesture that they both know the meaning of.

She's his. After five months of friendship, two months of silent pining, and a week of sexually confused hell, she's his, and he'll never let her forget it.

The wind rattles the windows over the couch with its force and she notices that his hips grind into hers at the sudden sound. Even in the midst of such a heated moment, it's downright cute how he still makes an effort to distract her from what she fears. And, boy, does it work.

Their panting breaths in the brief seconds they allow themselves to break away from each other are the only sounds audible in the small living room. The storm drowns it all out for now, including the noises that start to leave them from the steadily building pleasure of their bodies moving together.

She can feel how hard he is through the layers that separate them with every absentminded thrust that brushes the fabric of her panties up against her clit each time. It leaves her breathless and wondering, despite already knowing, what it'll feel like when he finally slips inside of her again.

They both fantasized about it in the time they spent apart. Neither of them would dare deny it, least of all JJ. It actually became frustrating after a while because she started to become the only scenario he could conjure to get himself off when he had a rare moment of privacy. His fantasies, all stemming from the night that was so perfect, he began to question the reality of it, linger in his head.

The best part of his fantasies were the parts of them based in truth, and if he knows anything about her when she's in this state, it's that she's needy. Her tongue swipes along his bottom lip in a silent urging to let her deepen the kiss, and he complies without a second to spare, willing to entertain her every whim so long as she keeps being so good for him.

He revels in her muffled squeak of a moan when he presses down on the sides of her throat at the precise moment his hips grind down to meet hers. She can't keep herself still for any longer than a half-second, always meeting his movements halfway and unknowingly doing another thing that will be the death of him.

She leads his shirt up his body without having to second guess herself, knowing that he's always on the same wavelength as her no matter what. This was how it was the last time too. Anything she did, he was already one step ahead, and tonight isn't much different. By the time her hands ball up the dripping cotton fabric, JJ is lifting the hand off of her neck to reach for the neckline of the shirt and help tug it off.

There's a sense of urgency in everything they do. Charged up with frustration and jealousy that brewed within the days they spent apart, there's nothing to stop them from reducing themselves to a pair of panting, impatient lovers too consumed in each other to care about the outside world.

The sopping wet fabric is thrown beyond her line of sight and lands on the hardwood floor with a 'thwack' that accompanies their cacophony of moans and gasps, and she whimpers at the sight of him. It may have to do with the fact that he's guiding their bodies together at a cadence and pressure perfect enough to make her legs tremble, but seeing him like this does nothing but aid the sensation.

Golden skin glistening under the candlelight, tendrils of half-dry blonde hair falling into his face with the lazy effort of his movements, and a stray raindrop that squeezed from the wet shirt dripping down his chest...she's not gonna make it out of tonight alive, is she? In her memory, she knew he was a sight to see in the midst of a heated moment, but, fuck, memories do not hold up beside the real experience of it.

Y/N is so caught up in his seemingly endless beauty, she doesn't notice him peeling her damp denim shorts off of her hips until they're halfway down her legs, and the only reason she does notice is because he must shift his position to do it. Suddenly, the budding feeling that stirred from their needy antics is plucked away and left to ache for more in the absence of him between her thighs.

Her middle and index fingers hook around the front of his necklace to pull him back down to her, but he doesn't budge at first. He's too busy trying to rid her of her shirt to care.

It was too much of a distraction while they kissed for him to resist slipping it off of her when he got the chance to. Much to his frustration when he first realized they were trapped with each other, she's braless underneath, and it's only worse now that the t-shirt is soaked to her skin and clinging to every delicate curve.

Once the clothing gives way to the canvas of her bare skin, he submits to her urgency and follows her down by the fingers hooked around his necklace without any qualms.

As soon as they resume, it's as if they never stopped to begin with, and they start to realize how seamlessly they fit together as the seconds elapse. Neither of them are actively thinking about it while he dips his hand into the front of her panties, but it is in their subconscious.

It's a revelation of sorts, an ah-ha moment where it hits them both in a sweeping realization that it was obvious from the day they met. They should've known sooner, they should've dropped their pride and admitted it as soon as the first inklings of desire began to pop up, but they didn't. Instead, it washes over them now and they let the current take them away together.

Her mouth falls open against his cheek at the feeling of his fingers swiping through the arousal that pools in her underwear for him, dragging the wetness over his fingertips and spreading it up to brush fleetingly against her clit. It's a split-second of a touch that it makes her hips lift up off the floor on their own accord to seek out more. It makes her dig her nails into the skin stretching over his taut shoulder muscles in a wordless plea for more that he doesn't indulge her in at first.

He makes her earn it from him without having to say a single word. He touches her, but he doesn't touch where she wants or ease his fingers into her to satisfy the need she feels yet. It's a blessing and a curse that he manages to turn her on to such an extent. He does it for her like nothing else can, so much so that she's noticed a distinct difference in how it feels when she's alone versus when they're together. When she's alone, it can tend to feel like active effort, but when she's with him, it's as natural as the urge to breathe.

His smirk is felt against her skin the entire time she begs for it through the revealing actions of her body—her hips jerking up toward him, her chest pressing tightly to his, and the sound of her murmuring, "Please," in a breathy tone that could stop his heart.

"Tell me what you want," JJ says, every word constrained and tight in a way that tells her he's a lot less composed than he lets on, and "accidentally" swipes his thumb over her clit again. "Talk to me, baby."

She almost forgot in their time apart how much of an effect he has on her, but this is the best reminder of that she could possibly imagine. If she could, she would find a way to bottle the feeling he gives her and keep it with her forever so that, no matter what happens between them, she'll never have the misfortune of forgetting him.

What he said simultaneously melts her heart and frustrates her to no end because he knows! He knows damn well what she wants from him and won't give it to her unless she asks for it, and she hates herself for loving it. She hates herself for enjoying the flushed-face embarrassment it brings to her cheeks to be so open with him about what she needs.

She swallows the lump in her throat and tries to focus through the clouded landscape of her head to speak to him. It's hard to concentrate when he's above her like this, touching her, calling her pet names, and looking at her like that.

With his lips worshiping the sensitive skin along her neck, she finds it hard to choke out the words, "I want you," into the humid air that has infiltrated the house.

It's not a lie. Anything regarding her wanting him or any related feeling is no longer something she can hide anymore, but they both know it isn't exactly what he wanted. No matter how it took his breath away to hear her say it, he was seeking something more specific. He was aiming to make her ask, maybe even beg, for it. They're both too impatient to wait and based on how wet his fingertips are from barely dipping into her, he can tell she's as eager as he is.

It's been thirteen days too long since the last time they allowed themselves to meet this way, and neither of them wants to let it happen again.

She was nearly trembling with the urge to go to him whenever they were together in the company of their friends, unable to think about anything except for how badly she wanted him. All the while, he appeared so unbothered, especially on the night of the party when he flirted with someone else, that she didn't even believe he felt the same way back. Thankfully for her, she couldn't have been more wrong.

He clicks his tongue and says, still teasing her with light touches that never linger in one place for too long, "That wasn't very specific."

Part of her should know that he's about to do something based on how he withdraws his head from its cherished place in the crook of her neck, but she's too caught up in the anticipation and seeing his face for the first time in a minute to think about it. How dare he look so good? She could cry in frustration, although she might actually already be tearing up a little with the rush of neediness hitting her in its full force.

Never has she felt so turned on by so little physical contact before. It usually takes longer for her to get to this point, whether it be alone or in the past with previous partners, yet all it took was being kissed, touched, and being given his undivided attention and now...She realizes she's in trouble. He has her in an emotional and sexual chokehold at this point, and she fears that no one can compare.

"I want—" her voice is snuffed out in an instant when he eases two fingers into her, "Oh!"

So that's why he pulled away from her neck to look at her.

It was worth abandoning the mark forming on her neck just to see the expression on her face shift. She gets this cute look when anything overwhelming starts to happen where her brows scrunch a little to create a soft wrinkle between them as her mouth drops open in a moan. And after ten steady minutes of doing nothing but some over the clothes action and painstaking teasing, this is as overwhelming as it gets without it crossing the line to being too much.

It never occurred to her how much larger his fingers are compared to hers until now. This type of pleasure is like an itch only someone else can scratch to her, she feels virtually nothing when she does it to herself, but when he does it, it's like an explosive being set off inside of her. Especially with the thumb that sneaks up to circle her clit without stopping to tease her again, she is putty in his hands at this point.

Every smooth stroke of his fingers into her reaches a spot she can never quite find on her own, and she can feel the cold bite of rings when they're buried into her to the knuckle.

It's a surprise every time, even when she knows to expect it. Like a delightful chill running up through her body and down her spine exactly how it's intended to. It strikes an idea in her head for when he eventually pulls them out of her, conjuring the image of her sucking them clean for him just for the sake of imagining what it'll do to him.

With that idea tucked away in the back of her mind, he's the center of her world right now. All she breathes, thinks, and feels is him. Whether it be the sight of him, or the feelings he's giving her, or even the taste of his kiss that still lingers on her tongue, it connects to one common thread.

"What were you saying?" JJ asks, and she wants to wipe that smirk right off his face.

It's virtually impossible for her to piece together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence detailing every filthy idea she has for him, but she tries. It takes another moment or two of her succumbing to the rapid incline of pleasure that he gives her, watching her in wonder through any greedy buck of her hips or gasping inhale that makes her head loll back onto the floor.

At first, what she wanted to say was that she wanted him to touch her, to do anything more than the fleeting touches he gave before. Now, she wants more than that. Now that she's drawn in closer to the eventual high that's to come, she doesn't want it to happen like this. She wants to feel closer to him than this, wants to feel him throb inside of her and fuck her with all of the urgency and desperation that has accumulated in their time apart.

That's why her hands start to grab at the belt loops of his shorts to tug him closer by them, meeting his gaze through the hazy bliss of his fingers pumping into her. It's not enough.

"Please"—she keeps pulling him closer to her, so close that there's hardly any space left to cross, and he revels in her desperation—"just fuck me already..."

Internally, JJ is losing his shit.

Though this was what he wanted, what he coaxed out of her with the teasing and the pretend sense of a nonchalant attitude on his part, it hits him harder than he expected it to to hear her say it. It's not necessarily the act of begging itself either, it's the fact that she's the one doing it. She may have been jealous of the girl at the party, but she had nothing to worry about. Not in the slightest.

Before her, he never thought he'd fall for someone this way. It's not like he had a hatred for love or anything, he understood the appeal, it simply wasn't his thing.

He was perfectly content with his only form of companionship being his friends. Then, she came along and changed it. So to hear her say something like that isn't just breathtaking, it's the kind of thing that makes his heart ache for her. It hits him precisely where she wanted it to, and he has never felt as consumed with love the way he does now.

JJ can do nothing to stop himself from pouncing on her at this point, like some animalistic form of himself has worn down the restraint he used to keep himself at bay.

The loss she feels when his fingers slip away from her is an emptiness she mourns at first before she realizes what's happening. He pulls away slightly to reach down between them for the front of his shorts, and their hands clash as they both frantically try to undo them together. The rings adorning his fingers glisten when they catch the light and remind her of the thought that popped into her head when she first felt their coldness against her skin.

That idea paired with the promise of what they're trying to accomplish in their uncoordinated attempt to get the rest of their clothes off makes her want to press her thighs together. Her hands abandon the task of undoing his shorts for the sake of ridding herself of the last layer that separates her from him.

Her most embarrassing old pair of brightly colored panties, courtesy of past Y/N's questionable decision to trust her mom to buy some on her behalf, are hardly a sight to behold. They're the kind that come in a value pack from Walmart, vibrant blue with the word, "Tuesday," printed on the front of them, and she could hide her face into the rug in shame if she weren't so determined to get them off. Of all the days to wear the day of the week undies her mom accidentally got her, of course she chose today.

By the time she reaches for the waistband, he has pushed his shorts and underwear down his thighs and comes back to her with just as much excitement as he left with, but when he helps her tug her panties down her legs, he laughs. Apparently, he had also been too eager to touch her to notice what was written on them before.

"Cute," he breathes out through a laugh, then adds as the cotton fabric slips over her knees, "Pretty sure it's not Tuesday though."

"If you tell anyone, I swear I'll—"

He cuts her off, "Whatever you wanna threaten me with won't work, chances are I'm gonna be into it."

Her eyes are alight with a certain fire he's had yet to fully lure out of her. Even her voice is slightly more airy and seductive as a result of it.

"Promise?"

JJ grins down at her as he finally tosses her panties aside with the rest of their clothes, "Cross my heart, pretty girl."

His hands grip her thighs and tug her down the rug to him with a quick jolt that snaps them out of the playful nature of their back and forth teasing. No matter how lighthearted of an interruption it was, the mini-conversation might as well have never existed for how easily they fall back into it again.

She watches with her forehead pressed against his as he strokes himself a few times, then drags his tip, messy with precome, through her wet heat. And though she watches it happen, her body still arches into his when he lines up with her and sinks his hips forward.

She anticipated it, but she still gasps and digs her nails into his biceps at the sensation of him pushing into her. Neither of them bothers to worry about the obvious lack of a condom—it was discussed the first time around when he offered and she told him it was okay. He's often the one to silence the alarm on her phone warning her in its title to, "Take your birth control or else, bitch," while she searches her bag for it anyway, so he trusts her.

Both of them prefer it this way enough to risk the minuscule failure rate of the pill anyway. It's more intimate, closer, and they can both feel the warmth of each other in a way that would've been somewhat muted with an added layer between them. It makes the feeling of him entering her all the more gratifying as she tenses up around him in reaction, drawing a groan from where his parted lips brush against hers.

She lifts her head off of the floor as much as she can to capture his mouth with her own and stifle the sonorous sound despite the storm doing a better job of it.

It seems that every blast of wind and roll of thunder is in their favor tonight, so much so that he isn't even worried about getting walked in on. It's not a thought in his head at this point, the only thought he's capable of having is this. Forgive him for being shortsighted, but he doesn't give a shit if John B notices or hears what's happening when he's buried inside of her so deeply.

His hips are flush with the backs of her thighs in a matter of seconds, and right when he pauses to give her a breather, he feels her shake her head ever so slightly against where their faces are pressed together.

The touch of her hands on his hips is not timid by any means, it's commanding. Her palm prints singe an indelible claim into the surface of his skin as she guides him to start moving without a second spared to dwindle the discomfort of him filling her up. It's less like a pain and more of a pressure blooming from the insistent presence of him, not so overwhelming that it's painful, but it's an effort to breathe evenly and the only thing that'll ease this transitional moment is to continue.

At first, their bodies start to rock together lazily as though on autopilot. They'd hardly be conscious of the fact that they're doing anything if not for the initial sensations of heady ecstasy that flash like the sparks of a lighter in response to their movements. As soon as he felt her hands coax him into action, he sighed happily and surrendered himself to the instinct of wanting to move.

The merging of their bodies is less of the aggressive rutting motions they'll surely succumb to once their current pace is no longer satisfying, but that doesn't make it any less intense. She's partly sure that this is one of the most vulnerable moments either of them has ever had when it comes to sex, and it wouldn't work if it weren't them together. No other person could consume her the way he does, taking up every unoccupied space of her soul until there's nothing left but the silent begging of her heart for him.

Their kiss is messy when it breaks to allow them the chance to suck down a couple breaths of air, saliva shining on his lips in between the seconds it takes them to come crashing back together.

It's loving enough to rot her teeth with its sweetness, a slow but impossibly deep grinding of their hips together that continually presses the tip of him into that sweet spot inside of her, but it takes a turn.

Not only do her hands shift from his hips up to the sides of his waist to get a firmer hold on him, the kiss starts to become vigorous, almost hungry, in search of something more. The dreamlike sequence of the first moment or so they spent slowly fucking under the warm hues of candlelight starts to unravel to reveal the baser instincts that guide them forward.

"Fuck, you feel so good," he whispers the praise into her mouth.

As soon as the words are said, he can feel the effect it has on her. The hands braced on his waist pull his body closer to her at the same moment that she involuntarily squeezes down around him, making the smooth drag of his cock against the velvet-soft heat of her walls even tighter than he thought possible.

The sudden feeling of it makes his first returning thrust much harder than the last. He jerks forward into her with none of the restraint he's retained for the past few moments, and her reaction is nothing short of perfection, at least from his perspective. He watches her throw her head back in a moan, hips bucking to him in pursuit of more, and feels the tips of her fingernails digging crescent-shaped marks into the unmarred skin along his waist.

"JJ!" she gasps in surprise, and if her initial reaction weren't enough to spur him on in a frenzied state of desire, this is.

He almost forgot how intense it had been the first time. Their confessions of love preceding this made them both somewhat softer and sweeter in their approach when they started, but he knows how she likes it.

Nobody would expect it from her. He's another story entirely, especially considering how much John B and Pope know about him, but her? He didn't have any in depth conversations about it with either of them, so none of their friends know how dirty she is.

But when you start to tease it out of her, she's got a side to her that makes his blood run hot. Considering how polite she is, he sure as hell didn't see it coming. For fuck's sake, she's the kind of person who'll apologize to a chair if she bumps into it. With that in mind he never thought she'd be the type to demand such things of him.

Just like that, with one moan of his name, it's like she flipped a switch in him that they forgot was there in the first place. It'll never stop surprising him how little it takes to get him going when he's with her, and he doesn't see that changing no matter how long they spend together in the future. Just a touch from her is all it takes, so it's needless to say that the sound of her calling out his name was more than enough.

Those slow, deep movements he made to sink into her again and again have turned rapid and rough, but still controlled enough to have a semblance of precision to them, hitting in all the right places.

"I bet," JJ speaks lowly, "that you want John B to walk out and see us right now."

She doesn't want to admit how much of an instantaneous effect those words have on her, but the feeling of her clenching around him as she bites back a moan completely betrays her. Partly, she worries that he'll take that the wrong way and think it has something to do with John B when it has nothing to do with him at all, but he doesn't. For the spare second of thought she's allowed to have before her mind goes hazy again, she notes how much more eager he is on the upstroke of the next thrust.

Noticing how right he was in his assumption about her liking the risk of getting caught jumpstarts his heart and makes everything he does rougher. She can sense that he's starting to lose control over himself and is acting on instinct alone.

It makes her much more sensitive to everything he does, and all she can do is cling to him and enjoy it as she takes in everything he says and does. It's hard to pick one thing to focus on between the switch up in pace and what he said.

"You want John B to know you like getting fucked like a slut, don't you?"

She could get off on the sound of his voice alone. Hearing him say stuff like that kills her, it makes the swirling bliss that builds in the pit of her abdomen with every thrust he gives her triple in its extremity.

Her legs are tightly wound around his hips to keep him as near to her as possible, her hands sliding up around his waist to keep a steady grasp on him while he pounds into her. The rug scratches at her back enough to make it sting alongside the immense pleasure building in her, but she doesn't care. When blended with the good sensations, the pain underscores the addictive feeling of him inside of her, fucking her exactly how she asked him too.

Looking up at him when he's like this is simply unreal. There's no other way of describing it in her eyes except for that. He's so stunning, she's inclined to believe that he isn't even real as a means of explaining it. This shouldn't be real. It should be one of her daydreams while she steals covert stares at him as they hang out with the Pogues, but it isn't. She can't wrap her head around it.

Those strands of hair that were damp from the rain are mostly dry as they fall into his eyes with the force of his movements. The sight of him alone, set aside from the rest of it, is enough to make her writhe beneath him and claw at his back in tandem with another thrust that sends her jolting against the rug.

He takes one of his hands up from where they both held her hips for leverage to weave his fingers into the roots of her hair.

He demands between the panting breaths and moans that flood the limited space between them, tugging on her hair, "Answer me."

She instantly blurts out the words, "I want him to see us." The feeling of him tilting her head back by the fistful of hair he has wrapped up in his hand is her persistent reminder to concentrate enough to continue, and she bites down on her lip to contain a moan before speaking again, "I want him to know..."

Her cheeks burn with the mere thought of it, let alone saying it out loud. He's the only person she'd ever let in on this intimate side of her, the side that makes her crazy when she hears him say stuff like this. The reason she feels so comfortable doing this with him is that she knows he understands her. It's as if he can read her mind without even having to try, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.

It wouldn't matter if the topic of their exhibitionism were any other Pogue or a stranger, it isn't about who it is, it's about the thrill attached to the concept of almost getting seen during such a heated moment. In all actuality, John B is probably snoring face down into his pillow right now with no care for what's happening out here, but he knows what it does to her when they push the boundaries of decency this way. It's the same rush he gets from stealing random, useless things every so often, it's the thrill of getting away with something.

The hand tangled up in the roots of her hair sneaks down between their colliding bodies to rub her clit, and her mouth drops open to take in a shaky breath.

The sight of her beneath him is undoing in and of itself. Head tilted enough to expose her neck to him, chest rising and falling rapidly with her breaths, and breasts bouncing gently with the momentum of their actions—seeing her this way makes his thrusts ramp up into more of a frenzied, uncontainable pace rather than one with the same control and cadence as before. But it's mostly the eye contact that kills him. She doesn't dare to shut her eyes the entire time, as if she can sense that he'll tell her to look at him again the second she does.

"You want him to know what?" he asks, and she knows he won't let her get away with not saying it.

She whines, utterly helpless to the climax starting to build inside of her, "Please."

What she's pleading for, she isn't quite sure, but he can tell by how she's acting that she's starting to get closer, and he wants nothing more than to tease her with the impending chance of her orgasm.

"If you wanna come, you're gonna have to do a lot better than that."

Just like that, he withdraws his hand from between them and leaves her desperate, blindly grasping for the peak she was so close to reaching, she could almost feel it already.

With JJ rocking into her at a relaxed, slower rhythm, the pleasure hasn't disappeared completely. It's there, but she can sense the feeling of her orgasm receding as quickly as it had creeped up on her as soon as he slips his hand out from between them.

It's instantly clear to him how desperate she is as all of her previous shyness surrounding having to admit this to him out loud withers away in seconds. She isn't beneath begging again at this point. He could tell her to crawl across the floor to him and she'd happily do it for the chance of touching him. It's pathetic but true. As much as she has him wrapped around her finger, he has done the same to her and she isn't afraid to admit it anymore.

Her hips jerk toward him in search of the familiar frenzy they were in before that sent her to the brink of climax, but he is impressively stubborn. Despite the fact that it physically pains him to dial it back again, he tries to keep the signs of his own frustration at bay. She knew what she had to say to get what she wants, so he'll only cave when she does.

This time around, she doesn't give a fuck about how badly she blushes or the voice in the back of her mind telling her she should keep this side of her to herself. This time, the one thing she needs to do to prompt her to open her mouth and speak the dirty words he asked her less than a moment ago is look at him. One second of staring up at him and here she is, driven mad enough to say or do anything to get him to pick up where they left off.

She says between the soft noises and breaths coming from them both, clinging to him through every slow but deep thrust that sends sparks ricocheting through her body, "I want John B to know I like getting fucked like slut." Her voice is breathless, and he hangs off of each word as she pauses, looking up at him with a challenging attitude swirling in those pretty eyes. "So stop being a tease and fuck me like one."

His jaw clenches at the bratty statement, one he's too far gone to resist at this point, and right when he's about to respond to her, she speaks again.

"Either that," she says, and a deceptively sweet smile crosses her kiss-swollen lips, "or I can go ask him to—"

She doesn't even get the chance to voice the rest of that thought before he's set into motion.

The hands on her hips flip her over with such casual strength, all she can do is yelp in surprise at the sudden movement that blurs the living room in her peripheral version until she lands with her hands and knees pressing into the rug. He was so swift in pulling out of her and tossing her onto her front like she was nothing more than a rag doll, she hardly had the time to take a breath before she ended up here.

There's hardly any time between when he pulled out to flip her over and when he returns to her again, but it feels like an eternity for them. The few second transition might as well be a few years as she feels his hands guiding her body where he wants it, pushing down on her back until it arches just so, and falls down onto her arms. But as soon as she gets situated, she feels a pair of hands yanking her arms away from where they were braced against the floor and put them behind her back.

It's only then, when he has an unflinching grasp on where he keeps her wrists behind her back with one of his hands, that she is met with the relief of him sinking into her again.

Y/N's jaw goes slack, and she cries out into the rug that her cheek is pressed into as he gives her no chance to adjust or catch her breath before resuming the brutal pace they kept a moment ago. Mentioning anyone else but him doing this to her was the quickest way to get him to snap, so it's safe to say that she's getting what she wanted. After all, she did what he asked, it's fair that she gets rewarded for it.

Amidst the sounds of the storm waging war on the landscape outside of the house, the one thing she can hear over the buzzing pleasure that drowns out her senses is the sinful blend of sounds they create together. It's the sound of their bodies merging, his name falling from her lips, and the curses he makes under his breath that never fail to drive her a little wild.

The hand that isn't holding her arms behind her slides down the length of her curved back until it wraps around her throat to pin her down, and her reaction is everything he could ask for. Seeing her rock back against him to meet him halfway makes his grip on her wrists tighten enough to turn his knuckles white.

Her hair is spread in endless directions in a fan around her head, and he can only see one side of her face from where he kneels behind her, but that glimpse is more than enough. Brows scrunched in pleasure, mouth dropped open in a gape as soft 'uh's and 'ah's escape her on the upstroke of each thrust—she's a mess right now. A beautiful, perfect mess.

"Oh God, JJ," she moans between her rapid breaths and the strong hand constricting her neck, "I'm so close. Please, just let me come."

It took virtually nothing for her to be pushed right back to the edge of the peak she was at less than a minute ago. It took a mere half-minute of this and she's once again reduced to incoherent pleas for more and shaking with no control over herself. Her legs tremble with the effort to keep herself up in this position, and she isn't even the one doing most of the work. In all fairness, this change in position has made the intensity triple. It's deeper this way, and with how harshly he slams into her, it's as though she can feel it in the base of her abdomen.

It's the enjoyable type of pain, however, not the bad type. It'll surely end up with her being sore tomorrow, but she can't hide how much she loves the painful pleasure of how rough it's getting. Being denied an orgasm when she was so, so close to it was initially disappointing too, but it was worth it. If the build up to what would've been her climax before was a spark, this is a flourishing fire spreading through her with no chance of smothering the flames.

He lets go of her throat and taps the side of her jaw in a silent request that she picks up immediately, letting her lips fall open to suck his fingers into her mouth without a second of hesitation.

The taste of her arousal on them is faint, but still there, and it occurs to her that she thought about this earlier before things evolved into chaos. Her tongue swirls around the tips of his fingers as he starts to pull them away in what feels like the blink of an eye to her, leaving him to remember what it felt like when her lips were once wrapped around a more sensitive part of him a week and a half ago.

The one other time he let himself remember it was when they were on the boat with the Pogues, yet that wasn't really of his own volition. It was hot out, so Kiara bought ice pops for them and his mind wandered far from where it should've stayed.

Shining with her saliva, his fingers are pulled from her lips with a soft 'pop' in pursuit of that sensitive collection of nerves at the apex of her thighs. She just needs is a little push to go over the edge, and when he slips his hand down her body to rub tight circles onto her clit, she loses whatever remnants of control over herself she had left.

The steady rhythm of her hips moving back against him falters as she is overwhelmed with the separate sensations culminating into one and giving her the push she needs to come. Her entire body tenses up in anticipation, and since she's pinned to the floor with her hands behind her back, she can only lay there and savor the feeling as it hits her.

After what felt like ages of having it build and build within her, then having it taken away to start the process over again, finally being given a release is a relief beyond any she's felt before.

It's so consuming, it takes away her ability to think of anything outside of how it feels to dissolve into the shockwaves of euphoria rushing through her. Every pulsing wave is prolonged by him, not even through the peak of it does he let up on his precise touches and unforgiving thrusts into her that turn a typical orgasm into the most intense thing she's ever felt.

She's melting in his arms through it all, and as if the change in position didn't make it worse, her involuntary spasms leave him hanging on by a thread.

JJ collapses onto her, barely having the chance to keep himself propped up on his arms as he lets go of her wrists and falls forward onto her sweat-slick back.

The heat of his panting exhales raises goosebumps in its wake where his face is buried into the curve of her neck, and he whines at the impossibly tight feeling of her squeezing around his cock through the end of her climax. Those sounds he doesn't realize he's making have her writhing through the aftershocks, answering with a sound of her own that almost makes him come instantly.

For that reason, he makes the decision to pull out and flip her onto her back.

At this point, she's so dazed and fucked out that she doesn't register any of it until she notices the hollow absence of him inside of her, but it doesn't matter when his face appears through the partial darkness above her.

Despite how sensitive she is right now, the sight of him makes her hands reach out blindly to pull him closer again. They're frantic in their need to get back to one another, grasping and clawing until he finds his way back to her in less than a second, hiking her legs up around his waist with a touch that is somehow demanding and tender at the same time.

It's only when he's inside of her again that it occurs to her why he rolled her onto her back again, and it makes her want to kiss him until her lips turn numb. It may be undeniably hotter to pin someone down and fuck them hoarse, but, no, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be able to look at her, to see her face, and the thought of that has her biting back a sudden confession of love. She isn't sure why she doesn't say it right away, since it isn't like they haven't already done it, but she keeps it to herself for a second first.

It's different now. It's not less passionate or frenetic. It isn't as if he isn't being as rough with her as he was before, but they can both sense a shift in the energy between them as soon as he reenters her. It's less about the pursuit of pleasure and more about the feelings they've kept hidden away for so long. It's a simultaneous realization that hits them a little late after they initially confessed their feelings for each other: this is reality. It's real, and when she touches him this time, he isn't going to disappear if she opens her eyes.

The realization of what happened tonight had yet to hit them until right this second, but now that it has, they move forward with a sense of sentimentality that remained partly dormant before.

If there's anything JJ dislikes, it's being vulnerable. The idea of letting someone in to see every part of him, including the parts he doesn't want to see of himself, has always terrified him after years of being made to believe he's undeserving, yet he isn't uncomfortable right now. Somehow, he feels safe with her. Sex has never been something so emotional for him until now, until her, and he doesn't want it differently.

Their bodies are drawn in close, her arms thrown around his neck, and he's so close, he can feel the muscles leading down past his lower abdomen contract with the inevitable approach of his orgasm. She can sense it too in how he acts.

When he gets close, he becomes clingier and lets his feelings get the better of him. His hands squeeze at her hips, sliding up her sides and back down to hike one of her legs up high around his waist to press deeper into her. He can't bear to allow his touch to stay in one place for too long before exploring another part of her, wanting to memorize the delicate intricacies of her body in its entirety.

It's as if she can read his mind too, cause even when she's sensitive enough to gasp when he pushes her thigh to her chest and throws his remaining energy into fucking her at a satisfying pace, she understands what he needs. She knows to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, to tug on it gently until the light strands are taut from his scalp. She knows to lift her head off of the floor enough to trail tender kisses along his face, his jaw, his neck—anywhere she can access.

"Come for me," she says into a kiss placed on the edge of his cheekbone, reeling in overstimulation as she jolts with his quickening thrusts, "I want to watch you..."

Hearing those words, paired with the kisses and fingers pulling on his hair, does it for him. It doesn't take more for his hips to falter and jerk forward into her a final few times before he comes.

Their foreheads press together as they cling to one another for stability, though it's mostly JJ clinging to her while she watches in adoration, and she has to bite her lip to contain a moan at how it feels. The aftershocks of her orgasm have yet to fade as the feeling of pulsing warmth inside of her makes them stronger, reigniting the fire she felt a moment ago if only for a second.

There's a closeness to this situation that they hadn't felt the last time, and they know it has everything to do with what was said before this happened. The sex itself feels like a dream sequence in her mind now that she's coming down from it with him, moving together slowly and gently beneath the candlelight until they ride out the ends of their highs. It was like they were put under a trance by each other, and now that it's over, the first thoughts that come to mind are of what comes next.

It's not the sole topic on their minds though. They're more focused on catching their breath from where they lay, tangled up together, on the living room floor. As soon as the very last of his orgasm faded from him, he fell onto her without a single ounce of energy left to spare. He's careful not to crush her, but, for the most part, he relaxes on top of her and lets his head rest on her heaving chest.

Strong arms slip down to loop around her waist, and she sure that she couldn't get him to release her if she wanted to, which she doesn't.

But they can't stay like this, not for any longer than a few moments anyway, since they don't know how if John B might wake up and come out of the safety of his bedroom after hours of leaving them to their own devices. JJ was right. He's out cold, but for as much as it turned them on in the heat of the moment, neither of them finds getting caught by him as hot with the clarity of their rational minds coming back to them.

He's the one to break the silence.

"As much as I wanna stay like this, we should probably move in case John B wakes up."

The sound of his voice settles in her with the effects of a sedative. It calms her more than anything else could, especially with the added comfort of him cuddling her so closely. One of her hands strokes through his hair and pushes the damp tendrils of sunshine away from his face as he cranes his neck to look up at her. And, for fuck's sake, what else is she to do except admire him?

His cheeks are dusted pink in a way they often are when he spends too much time outside without one of his hats shielding his face, and she thinks he's never looked better.

Ever since they became friends, she's had this theory about him. In the unrealistic landscape of her overactive imagination, JJ didn't come to this world the way the rest of them did. To her, it seems impossible that someone so good, even in his worst moments, could've come from someone like his dad.

So, in idle moments where she would watch him on a day out with the Pogues or daydream about him, she decided that he's the sun.

She imagines he was created in those breathtaking but brief moments where the sun meets the horizon atop the ocean and washes the sky with a vast array of colors. She likes to think he's the incarnation of it. Golden, warm, and bright for everyone but himself, he keeps the world light for her and their friends without intending to.

Some days are warmer than others too. Some days, the light is dimmed by another bruise beneath his clothes or a bad run-in with some kooks, but today is not like that. This moment is eighty-five and sunny with a balmy breeze. Looking at him right now feels like basking in the sun, and she'd burn here forever if he let her.

Without realizing she zoned out, she jolts when he pinches her arm to rouse her from her ridiculous thoughts. He has this dopey half-smile on his face that nearly draws her back into them again.

"You know what they say," he says, "if you take a picture..."

Her soft laughter invades the room, filling his heart with this light, fluttery feeling that always finds him when she's near. His smile grows as she playfully shoves him and reaches above their heads for her wet shirt to cover up with just in case. Odds are, their friend isn't waking up at the exact moment before they seclude themselves to the spare room and get dressed, but she doesn't wanna take that chance.

"I wasn't staring."

She was totally staring. But who could blame her? When someone looks at a person the way he looks at her, how could they ever stay away?

"Whatever you say."

JJ keeps smiling to himself while he pulls his underwear and shorts up his legs and waits for her to be decent enough to sneak past John B's bedroom to the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

The clothes are soaked through with rainwater, so they feel quite uncomfortable to slip back on, but they merely redress enough to be covered. She stole his shirt to avoid putting her shorts back on, the hem of the grey tee hanging right at the tops of her thighs when she walks. As soon as she slips her panties back on and picks up the rest of their cold, wet clothes, that's the cue he needs to scoop her up and take her away.

Y/N curses under her breath in surprise at feeling her feet being plucked off the ground, but she relaxes again once she's settled in his arms, realizing that it was just him who snuck up behind her and lifted her into his arms.

She doesn't say anything on the way to the bathroom. Instead, she lays her head on his shoulder in exhaustion and finds herself staring at the mark she left behind on his neck.

It's a deep, purplish red against the backdrop of his tan skin...the Pogues will surely notice the next time they see him. And while it will make her blush, it won't make her scared as it once would've. There may be a lingering sense of doubt and insecurity within her, but she wants this with him. Even if it means being teased by their friends or dealing with the jealousy of watching kook girls and tourons at parties hit on him, she wants this.

By the time the shower is spraying the rainwater from her hair and washing her clean of sweat sticking to her skin, she realizes that he isn't saying anything either, but she doesn't think it's out of any awkwardness or miscommunication. There's truly nothing to say, at least for now.

Though they didn't have the chance to talk in depth about everything yet, neither of them thinks of that right now. All they know is that they're together, whether it be officially or not, and it feels good. For once, something in his life feels right, and he lets himself enjoy it in silence.

The shower is a cramped space when shared between them and the wet clothes they have draped over the back edge of the tub, but they make it work. It's not like they mind anyway.

They bump into one another whenever they do so much as breathe, and the white walls echo the sounds of her giggling when he tries to tickle her. She leans her head back against his chest and lets out a laugh with shampoo dripping down the front of her face, and he'll be damned if he ever heard a sound as intoxicating as that.

It's a little weird. He's never been as soft and loving with a person before, and he has already felt overwhelmed in the lulls of quiet between them when he's given the chance to think about it.

When she washes his hair for him, insisting that she must return the favor after he so kindly washed hers, he was struck with the same mixture of wanting to simultaneously lean into and pull away from her that he felt the night of the party.

The warmth of the water loosens his sore muscles, washing suds of the green apple scented shampoo over his shoulders and down, down, down until it circles the drain beside his feet. All the while, her fingertips are delicately tracing over a healing bruise on his torso. Those pretty lips of hers are painted in a suppressed frown that she can't hide from him.

"Are you okay?" Y/N asks.

His instant reaction is to fake a smile, to brush it off and distract her as he usually does, yet he doesn't. He forces himself to remain neutral and not push her away.

"Happens all the time," he murmurs, shrugging and averting his eyes to reach for the soap off on the ledge.

The hands holding either side of his waist tighten as he tries to turn, pulling him back to her with more strength than he knew to anticipate from her. Their chests gently collide back together beneath the stream of water, and she can feel his breathing catch for a second or so in response.

The fact that their relationship has changed doesn't change how she handles this aspect of his life. Their new confessions don't have an impact on the part of his life he never wants to let anyone see, so she isn't going to force him to talk about it because they're trying out this whole relationship thing now. He has hard boundaries that she knows not to push sometimes. That's the way it is, and it might change as they grow closer but she knows to accept it for the moment.

As soon as he hears what she has to say next, he could crumble in relief at the realization that their new dynamic doesn't change anything.

"I didn't necessarily mean...that...I meant generally, you know? It's just that—" she sighs, "you shrink away a little when I hold you, and I wondered if I was making you uncomfortable."

Before she could finish the sentence, JJ was already thinking of what to say to prove her wrong, because that's not it. That's not what it is, and if she thinks she's done anything wrong, he'll do anything to convince her otherwise because it isn't her. It's him.

It's his dad lingering in the darker trenches of his mind, commanding his fear and attention so that even when he isn't physically present, he's still here. Part of why he denied wanting her was because he knew these types of things would arise in the beginning, that there would be difficult adjustments to make and conversations to be had, and he didn't want her to leave him as soon as she was faced with one of these things.

He shakes his head.

"You didn't do anything."

The feeing of her chest rising and falling with his begins to steady him after a moment of allowing the initial hesitation to dissolve. His internal reaction to her touch is the mental incarnation of a flinch. It's him waiting for the other shoe to drop and expecting her to do something, to hurt him, before his mind catches up with his heart. But once he realizes everything's okay, he loves it.

"It's kinda embarrassing, but I guess when you touch me, I'm expecting something else," he says softly, scared that if he speaks too loudly, everyone in the world will know how weak he feels.

She should've figured, but hearing him say it is different than wondering what the reasoning behind it is. Hearing him admit it after months of strict avoidance on the topic is a sucker punch to the gut.

Both times they had sex, he was too distracted and thoughtless to get caught up in that part of himself, but it's when the bliss of the afterglow disappears that it creeps back in. That's why he could always handle touch when it came in that context. It was his way of obtaining what he wanted without having to face this side of it—a temporary fix to a greater web of issues.

But there's nothing temporary about her. He doesn't want her to leave him, not without him resisting the urge to beg her on his knees to stay and at least remain his friend, so there's no choice but to face these momentary challenges head on.

She pauses for a second, thinking, then says, "You don't have to be embarrassed about it, I get it. We'll just have to take it day by day then. We can take it slow, and you'll let me know if it gets to be too much, okay?"

It's hard not to be shocked by how well she's taking it. A lot of people probably wouldn't feel too great after someone they love tells them they expect to be hit whenever they touch them, yet she's taking it in stride.

Things are back to normal as soon as she sees the grin on his face.

"So, you're saying you're gonna be trying not to throw yourself at me all the time?" JJ asks, then clicks his tongue as though in thought. "I give you a week. Tops."

Her eyes go wide as she looks at him. She holds her hand over her heart as she pretends to be scandalized by such an accusation, but they know it's true. They both can't keep their hands off of one another, which is why it confuses him. How can he want to reject and enjoy her touch at the same time? Sure, the discomfort disappears after the first split-second, but the fact that it happens in the first place annoys him to no end.

She rolls her eyes and tries to hide the fact that she's giggling as she reaches for the soap.

"You're a little shit, you know that?"

He doesn't miss a beat, saying back, "Yeah but I'm your little shit, so I feel like that says more about you than it does me."

While he's too busy rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of his hair, she smiles to herself at what he said.

Hers.

Nobody has ever been hers before, or proclaimed themselves as belonging to her as proudly and casually as he just did, and her heart melts over the sweet sentiment he didn't think twice about.

Less than a day ago, she was agonizing over her relationship with him and trying to ignore how powerful those feelings for him were, and now they're here. She no longer has to steal glances when he looks away or hide how jealous she feels when other girls flirt with him. To finally let the tension disappear is an immense weight off of her shoulders.

The rest of the shower is as quiet as the start of it was, and that comfortable silence continues through from when they're drying off and redressing to when they hit the mattress in the spare bedroom with tired sighs.

After the day they had, the mere suggestion of sleep is enough to make them start yawning, so being able to slip beneath the sheets and rest their heads almost sings her to sleep instantly.

Their bodies are laying in the exact outlines of where they laid the night of the party, the only difference this time being their mindsets. This time around, they aren't holding themselves back from anything, and it's most evident in the little things. Like how she doesn't turn around to shield her face from him, instead laying with her head propped on the other end of his favorite pillow.

They're so close, their noses brush if they make any slight movements, and this would be enough for him to submit to the urge to drift into sleep if not for the fact that he feels her jolt when thunder rumbles loudly outside of the window.

Much like his own fears being pushed to the side amidst their desire for each other, her anxiety about the storm wasn't on her mind until they laid down to sleep.

She was so wrapped up in him and everything that happened between them that she didn't have the time to think again until now, until she hears the violent patter of rain against the roof and feels her stomach drop at the sound of the thunder. Suddenly, she's not the one reassuring him about his fearful reactions, it's the other way around.

His warm hand takes hers, snatching it up as though he's worried it'll disappear if he doesn't take it quickly enough, and she lets him. Her eyes flutter shut with the release of a slow, deep breath, and she lets the presence of his hand in hers bring her back to earth.

JJ asks into the darkness, "Can I take you out on a real date?" After a beat of silence, the comforting sound of his voice returns to her. "Not that this isn't fun, but I think you deserve a little more effort than John B's living room floor."

A short-lived chuckle escapes her—a win as far as he's concerned. It's difficult to lure her head from the clouds when she gets this way, and it isn't like he has much experience with calming her during these moments either, but that sounded good to him. It sounded like she wasn't thinking about the increased pace of her heart or the howling wind outside.

He was planning on asking anyway. However fitting of a first night together this was, he wants to take her out for real sometime soon. He doesn't have much money for it, like at all, but they can come up with something special together, even if it's similar to the same shit they usually do together. As long as it's time alone together, they don't necessarily care if it's a perfectly traditional first date.

The tip of his thumb rubs comforting circles onto the back of her hand in the brief time it takes her to respond, stroking the soft skin as if to tell her that everything's okay. It seems to say, I'm right here. Nothing can hurt you. And it might make her crazy, but she believes him. JJ could take her back out into the eye of the hurricane at this very moment and she'd still believe his unspoken promise of not letting her into harm's way.

"Of course," she says, then pauses, and the sound of her sleepy voice hardly reaches his ears when she speaks again, "...I'm sorry I avoided you for the past few days. I was scared to tell you how I felt but I shouldn't have left that morning."

The memory of waking up in his arms is fresh in the forefront of her mind, so much so that she can remember the way his breath felt where it exhaled in warm puffs onto her skin.

In the first few moments of consciousness, it was peaceful.

She laid awake for a minute or two to count his breaths and soak in the comfort of being cuddled up next to him, wishing she could stay there for hours. It wasn't until another moment passed that it clicked with her where she was and what was going on between them recently, and that was what prompted her to slip away from the bed to get ready for her day at work.

It was the second time in a row that she left him in that bed with nothing to wake up to but the cold absence of her body between the sheets he slept under, and he can't deny that it's part of why he holds onto her hand so tightly tonight. Even though she's promised him otherwise, he can't help but think she'll be gone by the time he wakes up. At this point, he's struggling to stay conscious. She can see those pretty eyes drooping more and more by the second, yet the hand holding hers doesn't loosen its grip.

He takes a deep breath and scoots closer to her, keeping his one hand in hers while the other arm drapes itself over her waist, and he can feel her relax into the touch.

"It's okay," he says.

It's easier for him to adjust to so much physical contact when he's the one initiating. He knows that's why she only reached out to hold his hand. If she had it her way, she would've already been cuddling with him as soon as they laid down, but he likes that she gives him the space to initiate it. In the ways it counts the most, she cares about him more than anyone else has.

The touch in itself is his way of accepting her apology. However, truth be told, he already forgave her for it before knowing his love was reciprocated could be a possibility.

Right when she's about to fall asleep, the screen door slamming open and shut with the wind on the back porch makes her whip her head around to look over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. It seems like every time he successfully distracts her from it, the storm finds new ways of reminding her of what's happening outside of the safety of the Chateau.

There's the sound of a barely audible, sharp inhale, then her whispering into the dark room as she looks at the closed door, "I can't believe I went out into that. What the fuck was I thinking?"

It's beginning to close in on her again; the sounds of the storm, the sense of being trapped no matter how safe they truly are, and the rising tidal wave of anxiety that picks up speed the more she tries to will it to stop. This is the part where she tries to relieve it in some way, usually by smoking weed to sleep or going to one of her parents so they can help her through it, but she can't help herself right now.

Debris was being picked and tossed around in the wind like it weighed nothing when she was out there, she could've been knocked into the marsh or struck by a piece of debris.

How could she be so stupid?

Not only could she have hurt herself, she could've hurt JJ knowing that he'd likely follow her out into the storm to bring her back inside, and the thought of him being hurt makes the tension in her chest heavier. Her breathing picks up speed, the anxiety starting to snowball out of control when—

"Hey, look at me," JJ says, reaching up to turn her head to face him, and she damn near crumbles in relief at feeling his hand cup her cheek. It doesn't make it all disappear, but it provides a momentary comfort that she doesn't take for granted. "You're safe here. You know damn well I'll do anything to protect you. I mean, shit, dude, if I have to go out there and tell that rain to fuck off, I will."

This draws out a laugh from her, chest stuttering with the happy sound through the tears glistening in her eyes, and he never wants to stop hearing it. His thumb swipes away the first teardrop that falls before it can slip over the apples of her cheeks. I'm Her quiet cries and shaky breaths continue for a while after the laughter disappears. For a second or two, he watches with his thumb still wiping her tears away and hopes that it'll be enough to comfort her, but it can't do it completely.

He pulls away from her to get up from the bed with an idea popping into his mind, but upon hearing her whine at the loss of contact with him, he pauses to say, "I'll be back quick, don't worry."

The remaining humorous side of her left wonders if he's actually gonna go tell the rain to fuck off, but he's just opening the bedroom door to trot out into the living room.

A candle burning on the coffee table illuminates the space for him, guiding him straight to the forgotten backpack she left slumped against the arm of the couch hours before their relationship was changed for the better. It takes him an instant to get there and back with the bag in hand, and he's digging through it for a second before climbing back into bed with her.

If anyone else rifled through her bag, sifted through her personal belongings, and dug her phone out of it, she'd probably be annoyed, but she never is with him. She's inherently protective of her things, but JJ can do whatever he wants and it has always been that way. It should've been the first warning of what was to come.

He pulls the sheet back over his body and scoots up close to her, trying to resist the urge to retreat at first when he maneuvers her to lay with her head on his shoulder. It should trigger the flight or fight response that often alarms in his head, but he's able to push it away.

She's so vulnerable right now, so gentle and in need of the warmth of another person that he isn't as intimidated. It's not that she couldn't hurt him if she wanted to right now, she could, but he knows her. He knows that the last thing she'd ever want to do is hurt him, so he has to remind himself of that and give himself the permission to enjoy the physical intimacy of her touch. The part of him that questions if he even deserves it can't reach him now, not when he's so focused on her.

"Thumb?" he asks with the phone held out expectantly.

The screen is less than two inches from her face, so she has to push it back slightly, but she flattens her thumb to the button without further hesitation.

When he unwraps the pair of headphones from around the palm of his hand and plugs them into the charging port, she realizes why he left in the first place.

When she was facing away from him, eyes shut and headphones in to distract herself with music earlier, he was stealing glances at her every so often. He tried to keep away from her for the most part. It was difficult though, especially knowing what she said about being jealous the night of the party and knowing how scared she was of the hurricane. He couldn't help but keep an eye on her, for both his own selfish needs and his worry for her.

He keeps an arm tucked around her, pressing her body into his while he pops one of the headphones into her ear and the other into his. The thing is, her eyes aren't trained on the screen like his are once he starts looking through her vast collection of not-so-legally acquired music for a song that suits both of their tastes, they're trained on him.

Their taste in music tends to diverge in certain ways and overlap in others, so there's always a fifty/fifty shot of him liking what she plays when she's the one picking the music. That is why he smiles to himself and halts the endless scrolling in its tracks to hover his thumb over one song.

He obviously heard it before she played it that one time, but it's different for him now. They were riding together in the backseat of the Twinkie on the way to the beach with John B, Kie, and Pope when they let her take her turn to play a song.

That's how it is with them, the driver goes first, then it goes to the front seat passenger, and so on and so on until they make their way back to the beginning of the rotation. It was her turn when she picked this song, and it could've been the song, or the sunset shining through the window, but he felt as though his heart exploded when he looked at her in the middle of it.

He remembers feeling confused, confused as to why he couldn't catch his breath and why he suddenly adored the song he only heard casually a couple of times.

It was her. It was everything about her. The soft hum of her voice murmuring the lyrics, too shy to actually sing them in the presence of anyone else, was too delicate for the others to appreciate over the sounds of the van. He heard it though. He clung to it and admired her, so unashamed in his staring that he didn't realize he was doing it. It wasn't until she noticed that he stopped.

"Do I still have ice cream on my face or something?"

Her fingers came up to wipe at the corner over her mouth, and the action sent him turning his attention away quicker than he knew he could move, pulling the lighter out of his pocket to fiddle with as he mumbled, "Yeah, but you got it off now."

The cheery melody of Just Like Heaven bursts out of each headphone into their ears.

How did he know? How is he constantly reading her mind without realizing it?

This was her first song on the couch that she couldn't stand to sit through without thinking, naturally, of him when confronted with the topic of love. Somehow, it's like he knew that, and instead of feeling exposed and scared he'll know her feelings like before, she feels loved.

She is never skipping this song again.

"Go to sleep," he murmurs, clicking the screen off and resting it on his stomach.

It takes him a short thirty seconds to fall into an easy, calm pattern of breathing that tells her he isn't asleep, but soon will be. But she's fighting her sleepiness to continue looking at him. His eyes are fluttered shut, hair messy on the pillow, and she'd want to reach up to kiss him if he weren't trying to fall asleep.

Instead, she settles for matching her quickened breaths to the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand and shuts her eyes along with him.

By the time the song reaches its end, she thinks he's asleep, but she still whispers, "Thank you," and feels his arm squeeze around her body in response.

The next songs fade into white noise at this point for her, drowning out the storm to the point where she begins to forget it's happening out there.

Maybe they can be each other's safe place when things get rough. After all, he handled this wonderfully considering his lack of experience with her anxiety and she never pushes him on his plethora of unsorted issues, even when she wants so badly to be the one to initiate the touch.

She never makes him think she pities him, or wants to "fix" him like so many partners with savior complexes who will never try to understand how it feels often do in these situations. With each other, maybe it doesn't have to be so complicated anymore, even when they have those inevitable arguments here or there.

The last thing he does before allowing himself to be dragged under is brush his lips on her forehead in a tender kiss. And when he eventually wakes to the rising sun shining through the windows in the aftermath of the violent hurricane, she's still there.

Tag List: @jjjmaybank, @its-simply-fanfiction, @naughtydild0swaggins.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank smut #outer banks #obx s2 #obx #fanfiction

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dear-yandere · 4 years

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☽ darling, don’t leave me.

yandere! jojos + dio. general headcanons. tw: mentions of physical abuse, gaslighting, confinement, and noncon (dio’s part).

art credits: rosuto, ぴの, wW 武 Ww, unknown, suan, tumbleweed.

Jonathan Joestar is obsessive.

A true gentleman, Jonathan knows better than to let his feelings stray from his control. Still, he’s never been one to pursue love, so these feelings are entirely new. He courts his darling like any other self-respecting man of his time, allowing them the space to choose whether or not they desire him too. He doesn’t take being turned down personally as he’s perfectly content with merely being by his darling’s side. Even seeing them fall for another man is something he cannot force himself to intervene in; every smile and laugh not directed at him hurts far worse than any punch he’s ever received, but Jonathan thrives in seeing his darling happy and carefree.

Clingy as he may be, he isn’t above taking a few of darling’s possessions should the opportunity present itself. A head band or hair tie here or there, perhaps a pair of gloves or a hat his darling is sure to not miss — Jonathan is surprisingly adept and subtle at stealing and keeping these little trinkets. Darling may notice a few missing possessions, but it’s nothing Jonathan can’t laugh off as a misplaced item and easily replace with something new and extravagant. Money isn’t a problem, especially when it comes to his sweetheart. If it means they’ll stay by his side — or even look his way as more than a friend or confidant — he’ll give his darling the world.

Overbearing and well-meaning as he is, even gentleman aren’t without their flaws.

“You don’t have to feel the same. All I ask is that you don’t leave me.”

Joseph Joestar is protective with a hint of possessiveness.

Acting much more like an older brother rather than a lover — similar to his grandfather Jonathan — Joseph is hyper-aware of anyone that might hurt his sweetheart. He’s not sure how it came to be this way, really; it’s a first for him to not know even his own feelings. His darling is easy enough to read, and perhaps that’s what got him into this situation, where even the slightest brush of skin against his or the mere sound of them saying his name sends his nerves on edge. He likes the attention they give him when he acts like a brotherly figure; there’s no need to worry about unwanted feelings developing between the pair. At least, darling doesn’t have to worry, because Joseph falls in love despite his precautions. It isn’t until a competent rival appears that Joseph becomes rather intensely possessive and competitive — a rival like Caesar.

He hates losing, especially when he had his eyes set on the goal first. The moment a suave man like Caesar sets their sights on Joseph’s darling, he’ll turn snarky, snappy with even his darling. It’s a brutally stark contrast to the playful, chipper demeanor he usually bears, but it’s easy for darling to play it off as him having a bad day — until he doesn’t relent. His grip is harsher these days, his tone more grating and condescending whenever darling shows interest in his rival. At some point, he’ll lash out whenever they show interest in any man other than him.

If his insecurities and one-sided love are kept unchecked, he has no qualms with cutting his darling’s connection to anyone he deems a threat.

“Of course I’m jealous! You’re mine! You need me!”

Jotaro Kujo is manipulative with a hint of sadism and lucidity.

With a cool and collected exterior, it’s easy to convince his darling that everything they believe is wrong. Even a lionhearted lover will doubt themselves; or rather, Jotaro would seek an individual like this out. He’s used to women and men swooning over his good looks and alluring physique, though he doesn’t care much for the attention. Even when he degrades and admonishes his admirers, they fawn and swoon over him — it’s nothing short of disgusting, really.

His ideal darling — the only type of person he’d seek out, rather than let come to him — is someone with a steel heart, someone hellbent on rejecting his words as law, someone who puts up a fight. Degrading and humiliating them will be a treat, a fun little challenge to come home to. He doesn’t want them to enjoy this in the slightest; he wants them to slowly break, to slowly doubt every piece of information they hear unless it comes from his mouth. Even the death of a loved one will seem surreal, exaggerated, fake unless he says so himself, and even then he won’t allow his darling that sort of luxury.

Once he’s tied his darling down (with a ring, and with ropes), they won’t see very much of him. As he pursues his career in Marine Biology, he’s often away on business trips, his only excuse for long periods of absence being “it’s too dangerous”, or some slew of insults thrown his darling’s way. He isn’t fond of divulging much of his personal life with them even if they are the love of his life; to him, secrets come hand-in-hand with relationships. Darling’s life is in danger simply by association; it’s best to act as if they don’t exist. Still, that doesn’t mean he’ll let them slip through his fingers. When he wants something, he’ll get it even if it’s eventual.

Darling was doomed the moment he found an inkling of interest in taming them.

“Don’t look so scared when I’m around. I shouldn’t have to repeat myself.”

Josuke Higashikata is protective with a hint of delusion.

Sweet and compassionate as he may be, Josuke isn’t immune to feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and obsession. He rationalizes these feelings as merely being protective of a good friend of his, but it’s not until his friends point out that what he’s feeling is love that he truly understands why his heart pitters and patters like raindrops when his darling’s around. He completely understands if darling doesn’t return his feelings — these things take time, he’ll say — but he doesn’t take kindly to jealousy of any sort. A mere mention of liking someone else will have him moping and distancing himself, but he’ll stay around just enough to ensure his beloved’s protection.

Josuke wouldn’t fare well with a darling who’s familiar with getting under his skin. Even an insult or two to his hair isn’t enough for Josuke to give up on his one-sided love; if anything, it’s an opportunity. Crazy Diamond has the power to heal after all, and when Josuke’s emotions run away from him, his darling may end up with more than a few cuts and bruises. Bones will be shattered, blood will be spilled, and apologies will fumble past trembling lips as darling’s abuser fixes them up — as if nothing ever happened. The only trace of evidence are the tears in Josuke’s eyes and the excuses on his lips — this easily becomes the norm. Both he and his darling will constantly tread along eggshells, the former worrying that his actions destroyed any chance of a relationship and the latter worrying the next time they step out of line, they’ll die.

But Josuke wouldn’t let his sweetheart die, no. He can heal whatever wounds they may receive, even its its from him. He’s a platonic yandere, at worst, and an overbearingly violent one at best.

“Please don’t scream. People will think I did something terrible to you.”

Giorno Giovanna is manipulative with a hint of protectiveness and lucidity.

This soldato is cunning and intuitive, a natural-born leader with charisma rivaling his true father’s. He turns heads wherever he goes, inspires everyone he meets — it’s almost laughable how easy it is to twine people around his fingers. As a mere Passione soldato, he isn’t much threat to his darling, but as don, any hope of escaping his suffocating love is slashed. His control reaches farther than his darling can ever tread, and although he understands why his little coccinella would go so far as to run away, the thought of being without them is inconceivable. How can he protect them if they’re not at his side? Without him, darling could fall in love with the wrong person, someone who wears a mask and will hurt them once they’ve settled down together; without him, darling could fall in love with a monster. His step-father was like that, and he’d made Giorno’s childhood a living hell. So how could he let his darling tread that same path?

With a well-behaved darling, the don is a fairly normal lover... once they get past all the bodyguards and paranoia-filled lifestyle. Unlike his father, Giorno is not sadistic in the slightest; rather, seeing his darling in physical or emotional turmoil hurts him. He’s more apt to manipulate them in subtle, gentler ways rather than through brute force or threats. After giving them a new identity, he’ll keep them someplace safe, a private island off the coasts of Italy, somewhere heavily guarded and devoid of life except for his beloved and their bodyguards. It’ll be lonely, he’s sure, so he’s certain to visit whenever he has an ounce of free time. But even he can’t replace one’s need to feel social, safe, normal. That’s just the price his lover has to pay as the future spouse of a mafioso.

If he lived a different life, there’d be no need for all of this. Giorno’s love is bittersweet at best, but that realization isn’t enough to let his darling go. They need him, perhaps just as much as he needs them.

“I really can’t take it when you cry like that… smile for me, alright? You’re so pretty when you smile.”

DIO is sadistic, manipulative, and possessive.

Love has never done much for him, not in the way feeling powerful has. He prefers ruling over others rather than giving someone the ability to rule with or over him. His darling is nothing more than a plaything, at best — something to pass the time, something to sate his curiosity. Just how far can he push them before they crumble between his fingers and shatter like a precious gemstone? He takes pleasure in testing these boundaries, humiliating his darling as if that will help him understand this odd feeling humans call love. It’s possible for him to truly fall in love with his darling, but they will never take priority over his desire to end the Joestar bloodline. Perhaps, once he accomplishes this goal, his darling will be something nice to come back to, something stagnant and forever his.

He’ll go to lengths to break his darling, over and over again, see how much torture they can withstand before they realize that crying out or begging gets them nowhere. Will they hide their defiance under a facade of obedience, or will they truly break? It’s all an experiment to Dio, but either way, he’ll force them to be his little sex slave — sometimes, if they’ve behaved particularly nasty, darling will be the sex slave of his devoted followers, a little reward for being such wonderful subordinates.

Apart from sexual torture, he’s keen on testing his darling on tidbits of information from the books he reads — completely mundane and often vague questions designed to make his little slave fail. It’s just a precursor, really, because he likes seeing them shine with determination only for it to shatter before their eyes. Punishments always follow, usually humiliation or sexual assault of some sort; though if he’s in a particularly bad mood, he won’t shy away from physically hurting his darling. All the better to break them with.

It’s a miracle if darling survives this little game of his, but if they do, he’s certain to keep them around for far longer than he originally anticipated. Being immortal can get so boring, you see, and what’s the fun of bottomless money and endless casual sex if he can’t keep an entertaining and worthy slave here or there?

“Tell me you love me as I fuck you into the mattress.”

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mydisasteracademia · 3 years

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SFW Alphabet: Shuichi Iguchi

This man needs more love! He’s such a cutie!

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Depending on how far along in your friend/relationship together, he’s gonna vary with his affection. In the beginning, he won’t really touch you, but he’ll stick up for you and stay near you on missions. As you go on, he might pat your back, seek you out to do things together, and just plain be friendly. In the relationship, this poor man is so shy, he might actually pass out if you full-on kiss him. Sticks to hugs and hand-holding unless you initiate.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

You both hit it off after a few missions together. He’s friendlier than some of the others and will actually talk to you. He’s cautious in the beginning, but when you show no discriminatory behavior, he relaxes.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

If you can get past the flustered phase, he loves cuddling up to you. Likes to sit with you and lean his head on your shoulder.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

He can kinda cook, I guess. He knows how to take care of himself at least. Hasn’t thought of settling down since he’s still only a young adult, and he wants to follow in Stain’s footsteps.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He’d try to be as cool about it as he can, but he just looks nervous as he tells you he wants to break up. He avoids you for a while afterward.

F = Fiancé(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Not only can’t get married (as a villain and in a mutant-human relationship; discrimination is still very widespread), but just doesn’t see the need for it. He’s devoted to Stain’s ideology and would consider marriage a roadblock in his plans.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Fairly gentle and awkward with you, compared to with the others. Doesn’t want to mess things up and often waits for you to initiate things. If he does touch you, it’s shy and hesitant, exploratory and curious.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He likes hugs, especially from those he trusts. He likes to bring you in for a one-armed hug more often, but when he’s feeling more tender he gently hugs you, resting his chin on your shoulder.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Accidentally blurts it out during a chill evening at the bar a while into your friendship, then his whole face gets hot and he runs away. (Dabi laughs at him for a week.)

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Can get fairly jealous. His insecurities about being a mutant run deep, and he has a lot of moments when he’s afraid he’s going to lose you. Give him lots of encouragement. He needs it.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Doesn’t kiss you often due to his snout, but likes it when you kiss his face, especially his nose. When he does kiss you, it starts off awkward, but you get into a rhythm quick enough.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Not very good around kids. Much prefers being around older ones if he has to.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

He gets up early, surprisingly. He does a light workout before getting ready for the day.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Goes to bed at a fairly regular schedule. The others may tease him for being (relatively) early to bed, but who’s laughing when he doesn’t even need coffee to energize himself in the morning?

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

He keeps the big things to himself, but as your friendship grows, he starts giving you little tidbits of information about himself. You really have to work to get stories of his past.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Depends. If he’s insulted, he can take a few jabs until he loses his cool. He’s heard just about every anti-mutant slur in the book. He generally keeps a level head in everyday life.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He tries to remember as much as he can, but he can be prone to forgetting things. If you say something in passing, he’s not gonna recall it as well as if it comes up in active conversation.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

His favorite moment is when you first told him you thought he was beautiful. He’d been really insecure about his looks and Quirk, but when he asked if you thought him a freak, you just smiled and said you loved his appearance. It was a pivotal moment in your friendship that he thinks back on fondly.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Very protective of you. He would fight just about anyone to keep you safe. He trusts that you would do the same for him too.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He puts a lot of effort into your relationship. He tries to get you something just about every week and date nights are intimate one-on-one gaming sessions with your favorite titles. He really tries his best to make you feel appreciated.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

He can be incredibly singleminded on his goals and ambitions. If you’re not used to Stain, his obsession can be really offputting too. He puts a little too much stock into what he would say.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Very concerned with his appearance. He tries his best to look presentable, even out of costume. He doesn’t like going into crowded areas because he gets kind of anxious about how other people see him.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

At this point, yes. If he had to let you go, it would really tear him apart. You would likely be his last relationship.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

He keeps tabs on where Stain is active, just in case they happen to run into each other. (Or he did, before he got arrested.)

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Anything contrary to Stain’s ideology, and especially discriminatory/racist, judgmental people. He’s dealt with racism from strangers far too much to let that behavior creep into his relationships.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

Fairly okay schedule. Goes to bed earlier than most of the League and wakes up at the same time every morning for a workout. He’s dedicated to getting a good rhythm going.

#sfw alphabet #shuichi iguchi #iguchi shuichi #spinner

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crebby · 3 years

Text

PI Woods - A personal take on Homicidal Liu

Important Disclaimer

This entire post was solely written for fun! I do not in any way want to demean the original version of Homicidal Liu. The original creator seems v cool and if the only thing that may be considered ‘fixed’ is the way Liu’s DID works, as even the creator themselves has stated that if they had written Liu today, they would’ve approached things differently. The rest is all just me throwing out my own ideas.

Also, if any corrections are to be made about his DID or if I wrote anything wrong, please do let me know!

Additionally, I must warn that this contains mentions of s*icide, self harm, violence, murder and mentions of past trauma. Said content is all beneath the cut.

The past

Liu came from a troubled, abusive household and spent a good few years in an orphanage until he got adopted into the Woods family at the age of 7. Despite now growing up under a loving family, Liu has always sensed that something about him made him different from other kids, finding himself often stuck with memory loss. Meanwhile, his parents had to deal with sudden outbursts and tantrums, their son suddenly insisting that his name is Sully, and at other times they had to stop 'Liu' from doing anything harmful to himself.

The possibility of dissociative identity disorder wasn’t considered, and at the time, the Woods parents assumed this behaviour to be the result of trauma from Liu’s previous household.

In the beginning, Liu didn’t quite have a word to describe his experience. He knew there were others living alongside in his body in a way and it made things harder for him. It was only once he got older that he discovered what DID was, and things finally made sense to him. He’s absolutely certain he has it, but never felt this was something he could bring up around his family, not even his brother. It took him even longer to figure out how to achieve some proper normalcy with his alters.

Despite the difficulties, the Woods family has always loved Liu like he was their own.

The system

Liu is the host of this system, and there are three alters alongside him. Liu always used to be rather taciturn and introverted, but was very kind and polite. Between him and Jeff, their parents always noted that Liu was the most well-behaved out of the two, also being studious and responsible: something that came naturally as the older sibling.

Sully, on the other hand, has always been rather antsy and anxious, always on guard like something bad is bound to happen. He isn’t necessarily violent, but he is very reactive and therefore is prone to outbursts at times. Notably, Sully is a very avid lover of all things strawberry. Sometimes a switch occurs, leaving whoever fronts now wondering why there’s so much strawberry yoghurt in the fridge, only to then remember Sully probably went to buy groceries. He’s also prone to triggers as he holds certain traumatic memories. Generally, he still manages to be functional. He's the most likely to hold grudges (relevant for later) and his cautiousness usually makes sure nothing stupid happens.

Myra is easily the most responsible in the system, and is also the only female alter. Sometimes she forgets that she is residing in a male body, but has gotten used to it, though Liu has insisted on at least making himself appear somewhat more androgynous for the sake of her comfort when she's fronting, while also preventing discomfort for other alters. Myra is more in charge of solving things like conflicts and occasionally manages switches as well, but also makes sure regular tasks get done.

Calypso is… Quite the subject. He is the carrier of most of the system's traumatic memories, and is the least stable out of the four. They are most susceptible to self-destructive tendencies. Sometimes Myra, Liu or Sully will wake up feeling horrible and sore, only to realise it was because Calypso tried things the night before. Due to these tendencies, the system tries to make sure they don't front very often, both for their own and Calypso's safety, even if this isn't always pleasant for him.

The Incident

Things were quite shaken up after the night Jeff tried to kill the system, but it was Sully who underwent the direct experience that night, while Liu woke up, confused and in pain in the hospital after his memory stopped at him welcoming Jeff back home. Naturally, he was quite distraught and disoriented, as was Myra and Calypso.

Trying to achieve a new sense of normalcy was tough for the system, and it took a while to even recover from the initial shock. They were sent off to Liu's aunt, who was more than happy to take the system in, especially considering Liu was her favourite nephew.

After the attempt on the system's life, Liu became far more withdrawn, and got more and more absorbed by his studies. He still had no idea what lead up to Jeff snapping the way he did, but had managed to forgive him and simply wants a chance to talk to him again. Given the opportunity, he moved out, eventually working as a private investigator. When he was younger, he dreamt of being a detective, but all the incidents leading up to Jeff's decline left Liu with a permanent distrust towards the police, making private detective work the next best thing. Along with this, Liu has completely dedicated himself to finding out where Jeff went, and to hopefully talk to him.

Sully, on the other hand, may forgive but never forgets, and this time he couldn't forgive. Similarly to Liu, he has developed an obsession with pinning down Jeff's whereabouts, but he has far more sinister reasons for this, as he is quite vengeful towards Jeff. He isn't as stable as he used to be, either.

Liu and Sully's dedication to finding Jeff has been the source of a lot of conflict, as Myra - and Calypso to an extent - wants to be able to move on from what happened and return to living a normal life, heavily disagreeing with what the two are doing. At times, she has tried sabotaging their investigations, and the system still hasn't come to an agreement regarding this situation.

Homicide

Things only get messier from here.

Once Liu is set on a goal, there is nothing you can do to actually stop him. This means he's more than willing to turn to murder if it means furthering his goals. He has already murdered several people, most being related to the investigation into Jeff. However, he approaches this very methodically. His go-to method is staging suicides or accidents, and cooldown periods are quite long. He only kills if he deems killing to be necessary, and does in fact feel guilty about it. He tries rationalising what he's done by telling himself that Jeff would most likely be killed by authorities, and that this is a way of protecting him, but deep down he knows he's kind of lying to himself.

Sully is much messier, much to Liu's chagrin. On some occasions he intentionally kills, and in many other cases it's because something triggered the trauma experienced from what Jeff did, and he reacts violently. Many of the people Sully kills either resemble Jeff or remind Sully of him in one way or another. Contrary to Liu, Sully takes pleasure in brutally killing these people because to him, it's the closest to actually killing Jeff. Sometimes Liu instructs Sully mentally on how to dispose of the bodies, other times there's a switch and Liu does it himself.

Myra and Calypso are extremely against this, leading to even more conflict in the system. Self-destructive tendencies coming from Calypso end up worsening as a result, and they have attempted to consciously kill the entire system, feeling like it’s the only way to stop what they’re doing. In some cases, they have nearly succeeded, so all three other alters have to collectively block Calypso from fronting entirely for safety reasons. Despite this, he’s still very much present.

Extra (can be updated)

Myra, Sully and Calypso are eager to have an image of what they believe they look like, and as a result love recreating themselves whether it’s through art or through character creators like Picrew. This is how the system would make themselves on Picrew:

Liu

(He very intentionally portrays himself without the scars and stitches. They’re a huge insecurity of his.)

Sully

Myra

Calypso

If I have made any mistakes in the portrayal of DID, please let me know and correct me!! I wish to do my best, as I know it’s a heavily misportrayed condition.

#creepypasta #homicidal liu #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta fandom #headcanon #character headcanons #liu woods #liu hodek #sully creepypasta #creepypasta sully #liu creepypasta #jeffrey woods #liu woods headcanons #homicidal liu headcanon #sully headcanon

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suncatchr · 3 years

Note

Heyo if u wanna talk abt ur ocs can u tell me abt the newest ones (or at least the ones that r new to me which is all of them on the last pic of ur oc post I think?) :3

omggg thank you for asking :3 this is long sorry i haven’t organised my thoughts about them yet ahjfklsa but here we go

before i can talk abt rain n evie i have to explain the universe with kes, amaya, and rio. im sure you remember them :3 but umm you said they were based on pacific rim and i don’t know anything abt pacific rim fhjlafnj sooo i made a bunch of stuff up. soooo there’s a parallel universe/alternate dimension full of people and like, monsters. the alt. universe people r testing ways to break into our dimension and open the door permanently so that both dimensions are their domain. the... city...? that the story is set in is like a capitalists’s dream, split harshly between rich and poor with no middle class. the poor faction of the city that will be named soon is the one responsible for keeping the other-dimension-ers out of our dimension, most if not all of them are responsible in some way for keeping their area safe from those tears in the ozone layer. they in return are given technology, money, and supplies from the rich faction. those guys do next to nothing, they operate like any other city where everyone has jobs and pays their dues to the government. they are very strict about who they let into the city; they don’t want outsiders to know about their dimension problem lest they stop the warriors from doing their jobs or do something to make the tear bigger etc etc. they also don’t want poor people in the city, even if they’re responsible for everyone’s safety. I’m thinking of making the story a really obvious allegory similar to older-fashioned dystopian novels like animal farm and brave new world because i’m obsessed with those in concept. so i think supporting characters will be one-dimensional caricatures of types of people in society, and only the MCs will have nuance. this also makes it easier for me to write side characters ;3

so kestrel and amaya are siblings mostly born and raised into monster-fighting. you know when there’s a factory or whatever in town that most people in that city work at? there’s one of those but it’s like... a firehouse for monster fighting. they mostly live and sleep there, they’re fed and clothed here for free so long as they fight and they’re both content with that. I’m not sure what happened to their parents yet but they’re probably dead. not everyone’s parents are dead, some people have families that they live with at the... compound, these two are just tragic and whatnot. families are encouraged to fight together in duos or trios so that loyalty makes them fight smarter and harder to protect each other. when they’re not at the compound, like if they have shifts off or whatever, they live in an abandoned subway station and steal power from the government who’s unaware that that track is unused 😌

so as far as them as individuals, i kept the planets that u based them off of :3 kestrel is based off mars and mars is the planet of action, energy, motivation, temper. kestrel is moody and temperamental, but their choices are never made without careful consideration. they’re a quick thinker and that makes them confident, so they never back down from a challenge. they have a hard time masking their emotions and it’s easy to see what’s going on in their head. they’re hard to embarrass, though, and they’re very confident in most of their assertions. they’re impatient and crabby, but they aren’t at all shy.

amaya is based off venus, so she’s more emotionally rounded than her sibling and more interested in the poetry of life. she’s very expressive and polite, and she has a thing abt maintaining her image. she’s a bit materialistic and self-centred, focused on her looks and her space, but she’s realistic in her material n sensual desires because al things considered she lives in a subway station. she knows what to expect from life, or at least she thinks she does, and is just as confident in her own assertions as kestrel. she’s stubborn and argumentative for that reason, but her confidence makes her a natural leader and people flock to her for advice and assistance. she loves this.

and adrion, based off earth, comes into their lives later. rio used to live on the rich side of town until a second dimension creature escapes the notice of the warriors (i swear they won’t actually be called “warriors” forever 😭) and destroys his part of the city. his family is alright, but the destruction makes him feel like he could do a better job than whoever’s currently there. he leaves his family to join up with the. the compound, and when asked to find a partner to fight with, chooses amaya and kestrel because they’re a top-of-their-class team who are always talking about how things could be better. at first, they don’t want him bc they’re lone wolves and they do not like to be told what to do. but he’s a tough fighter and he’s got the motivation to be good, so they let him stay on the team. as far as personality, rio is really chill and understanding, often willing to let other people’s faults slide. as long as he’s allowed to do what he wants to do, other people can have their way. he’s cheerier than the other two but he’s quieter and more in-the-background. his strong will makes him sensitive and he refuses to change his mind often because he’s quite naive and gullible, making him easy to trick and take advantage of which makes him insecure. this makes him prone to snapping when people put pressure on him.

now for rain and evie. i originally created them as prototypes for their own narrative but the story seemed really similar to my other stuff so i scrapped it BUT i thought the characters themselves worked in this story instead so i kept them :3. rain and evie are brothers who were initially raised in a fighting ring. they live on the poor side of town but they never worked for the compound. they make a living by gladiator fighting, people pay to come in and bet on them and obviously they’re paid for winning fights. rain is an extremely adept fighter and usually manages to beat opponents with brute strength. evie is smaller and less physical and usually fights by using the opponent’s strength against them. they’re simultaneously popular and unpopular in their neighbourhood as they’re like. cool for being good in the ring but they’re really weird otherwise. they’re aggressive, angry and irrational, they act like they’re always in the ring. rain is more sociable and capable than evie, who tends to be reactive and angry. he doesn’t want to be here, but rain is more content in his abilities, so he handles mostly everything so that evie doesn’t have to be responsible for anything. they end up moving on from the ring after evie takes on an opponent that rain tried to tell everyone that he could never beat. evie takes a violent blow to the head that leaves him comatose, and rain spends a huge chunk of money for a piece of technology that replaces the damaged areas of evie’s head and functions in its place. no one tells rain, though, that the thing he put in evie’s head is technology from the other dimension. after the two leave the ring, they decide to make themselves useful and fight the monsters that forced them into this life in the first place.

personality-wise, rain is a laid-back, go-with-the-flow kind of guy. he likes to let things take their course and he isn’t much concerned with proceedings outside of himself and evie. he purposefully denies himself negative emotion and usually tries to fake that everything is good all the time. despite this, he’s emotional and reactive and extremely defensive. he doesn’t like to be challenged or made unhappy and in his dream world he and evie are always just hanging out doing what they want and not having to answer to anyone. people often find him charming bc he’s able to finagle most situations into him getting his way, he’s exceptional with people but he doesn’t like them.

evie is more sullen and droopy. he almost always lets rain do all the talking and he usually appears unconcerned with most goings-on because he’s letting rain evaluate the situation. he’s usually inside his own head, daydreaming or fussing. most of his interactions with others are verbal or physical fights bc he’s unsure how to manage himself without rain around and is often willing to fight for whatever he thinks rain would want. he’s independent outside of that, doesn’t like to be told what to do or how to act. not even rain can calm him down when he’s on his soapbox because he truly believes that if he had to grow up a fighting dog he should be allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants. in downtime he’s usually a little bit more uppity than rain but still similarly laid-back and willing to act like things are okay.

the five of these characters r in the same universe and they go on missions together often, though kes and amaya don’t really get along with rain and evie because they’re all so stubborn.

next are niko and andre, who i got from sammy! we got urban fantasy going on here, and i’m thinking of setting it in like. the mid 1800-s. i’m feeling spicy. umm so i think the key thing about this universe is that “hunters” are a species of humanoid monster. this world is spinning with vampires, werewolves, faeries, demons, etc. pretending to be human in order to survive, and hunters are a mimic species that look human but just... aren’t. they have an insatiable desire to hunt and kill (used to be for food but humans make food more easily accessible), but killing humans makes them vulnerable to being found out. killing other monsters is the perfect substitute, plus humans praise them for it. they’re onto each other but they can’t make scenes in human society so they have to dance around each other to do all of their killing in secret.

andre is a hunter living in the shadow of his older sister, angel. she’s a better, more ruthless hunter than he is, with stronger instincts and a greater prey drive. she’s popular with people in town and generally just more charismatic. he really wants to be like her, but he’s klutzy and insecure and his instincts are poor cuz he overthinks them. one day he comes across niko in a bar and, perceiving him to be human bc he has 0 instincts, they get their flirt on. until niko says something that makes andre realise he’s a vampire. embarrassed and ashamed of his attraction, andre tries to turn his feeling of betrayal into murderous instinct, and he can turn that anger into his first solo kill. niko keeps chasing after andre trying to catch his non-murderous attention because he actually really likes him and doesn’t want to let what they are get in their way.

personality wise, niko is a noisy little wisecracker who likes to be popular. he’s a genuinely nice guy and is famous wherever he goes for being wise and helpful. he’s usually pretty optimistic and very charming, especially in bigger crowds where he can fit in. he can be purposefully oblivious and is very good at disguising his feelings and intentions. he’s witty and sarcastic, often masking negativity for the sake of keeping it light.

andre is a straightforward intellectual type who likes to work and create and achieve. he’s intelligent and steadfast and always strives to do his best (which is why being terrible at hunting is upsetting for him). making achievements kind of replaces his understanding of himself, and not being good at things really digs at his self-worth. he’s not much of a people person but he’s not really shy, either. he’s polite and good-natured, though his feelings are quite fragile.

next generation, same universe, next is honour (whose name HAS to be spelled with the u), journey, and solace. resident throuple. honour and solace are hunters, and journey is human. honour was raised in a big home with lots of hunters under the iron fist of like, the mean nursemaid from annie. they hunt monsters as an organised group, but its a violent institution that doesn’t believe in autonomy nor the worth of human lives. humans exist as something to blend into while they exterminate all other monsters. honour stops believing this when she gets older, mostly due to meeting journey. she assumes journey is just going to be vapid and goofy bc he’s a human, but he ends up being a really cool dude who’s just as in-depth as her and she begins to realise how terrible the lessons she was raised on are.

journey’s family were aware that they were often surrounded by monsters and as such were very protective of him and his siblings. journey never gets to go out and do things, and being stuck in the stuffy comfort of his home is not what he wants to do with his life when he knows there are monsters out there. when he and honour hit it off, they decide to run away together, deciding to shed their upbringings entirely by changing their names to the things they want most.

i set this in the 1800s JUST so that i could have honour and journey use the train to run away. not nice public transit trains, i mean they are riding the dirty rusty rails to seek a better life. they intend to ride a long time to make sure that they’re never recognised. on one of the trains they catch to head north, they come across solace, helping him onto the train as he got there a split second too late to catch it. despite his initial gratitude, solace is unpleasant to ride with. turns out he’s been on the run for most of his life and is just trying to find a place to stay where no one will care that he’s a hunter. in human-only societies hunters are known as mimics and are heavily discriminated against if you’re suspected of being one and straight up killed if you are. after living an uncomfortable life and seeing his father killed, solace decides to go from town to town until he finds a place that’s mostly hunters. when honour reveals they’re looking for the same thing, solace decides to go with them. he’s hesitant to give up his name because it was given to him by his parents, but ultimately he wants to leave that life behind and embody comfort and. yk. solace.

haven’t quite figured these three out personality-wise bc i only finished their designs and names in time for posting the art, rip

and lastly my warriors ocs! I decided to make regular fanclans as opposed to using my existing ocs in an au mostly because i didn’t wanna add in random npcs (as it were) to fill the nursery and elder’s den even tho those r important to clan life. so, i made separate ocs, they live in the arctic! summitclan in the mountains, tundraclan in the plains, and glacierclan by the. glacier. the story so far is a murder mystery, cats of all clans are being killed and going missing and no one knows why. while most warriors assume there’s a bear or fox hanging around the territories, the apprentices saw something while they were hanging out that made them decide to investigate deeper...

our mc is snowpaw, a repurposed rp oc fjdkfjld;af. he’s a summitclan cat and he’s known to be strange and standoffish. he seems cold and apathetic about almost everything and it’s hard to see what he enjoys and dislikes. his secretiveness makes it easy for him to investigate the murders, no one ever questions where snowpaw is going or what he’s doing. with his friends and family snowpaw is a little more jovial, he has very dry humour and is also always trying to help

crowpaw is a tundraclan cat. he’s stuck up and big-mouthed, very arrogant little know it all. don’t ever tell him that, though, bc he’s very sensitive and he will cry. he likes to be seen as the best at everything so he dedicates excess time to learning and is actually a very curious and adventurous cat underneath.

swiftpaw is a glacierclan cat. he’s very mature and is often rumoured to be a great deputy choice when he’s old enough. he’s calm and level-headed, a quick-thinking problem solver with a bit of a superiority complex but not one that anyone in his life would be aware of bc he’s so darn polite. the warrior code is important to him and so are rules of daily clan life that reduce conflict in any way.

teapaw is also a glacierclan cat. she, like snowpaw, is a little bit quiet and secretive, the kind of person (..?) that kinda lurks in the back of important things going on rather than offering her voice. she’s a healer’s apprentice and takes a lot of pride in being effective and efficient with all her duties. she’s curious and observant, and shes good friends with her clan’s seer, deadhawk (i split the medicine cat position into two for these clans, healers do doctor stuff, seers talk to starclan), so she tends to be up to date w what starclan says, which helps her and her friends w their mystery.

and finally, breezepaw! he’s a summitclan cat and snowpaw’s bff. he’s kinda clueless and distractable, very much a follower personality as he likes others to decide what’s important for him to do. he’s a quiet cat, but he’s not afraid to speak his mind when the time comes. kinda a goofy jokester dude, but he knows how to read a room and keep quiet when he doesn’t know what to contribute and jokes won’t help. he likes snowpaw because snowpaw’s always confident in what he’s doing and never clowns on breezepaw for not knowing wtf is going on

#this took me so long to type out all the way jfdkslfjd sorry abt that #maybe its been a week and a half who are you to judge #anyway thankie again for asking it was great to tupe out stuff abt them for the first time :D #type* -_-#oc ask #edit: ive just decided that hunters feed off life energy but only as it escapes #that's what drives their desire to kill

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sooghostwriter · 5 years

Text

The Bee and the Fly

Pairings: Do Kyung Soo x OC

Genre: Mature, Romance, AU, childhood friends, fluff, a tiny bit of angst because being a teenager is hard.

Summary: Kyung Soo and Eunji have been friends since always. Growing up together, finding themselves, following their dreams.

Part 2: Life, second cut.

He was only one year older.

Then why one year felt like a decade with him leaving and she staying there. And the closer the date was, the slower the days went by.

The day she was accepted, Kyung Soo called her at night, hurt because she didn’t give him the good news and he had to find out through his mom. She could barely speak, so his hurt faded away easily “I’m very proud of you Eunji, and I’m so glad you will be coming here, I miss you”

“Same”

“Are you happy?”

“Very” He giggled.

“You can barely speak, I’m going to leave you then, and Eunji…I’m sorry if I disappear for some days, even a week…I noticed that in this environment when is just me, I tend to obsess over my work and I forget about everything, I’m sorry”

“I can understand that, don’t worry, Am I going to see you soon? or I have to wait until summer?”

“Stop talking, you little Fly! Your voice! I’m planning on going for new year’s” She cursed, or tried to.

“I’m going to Taipei to visit my grandmother” Their conversation that night left them both with their spirits on the floor. Kyung Soo was going back to Seoul the same day she arrived back from Taipei. He wasn’t going to come back during the summer, because he had work to do at the institute, and he needed to work to make money. Eunji was planning on moving to Seoul a couple of weeks before the beginning of classes. At least they would meet before being consumed by work.

A week before her move, Kyung Soo called Eunji telling her that he wasn’t going to be there for her arrival. He had to go to Busan with his classmates and one of his teachers for a workshop. She played it cool, but when he hung up, the rage brought some tears to her eyes. Why was it so hard to see him? She just wanted to see him, hug him and maybe if she was brave enough, daring enough, she would caress his face. She missed him like crazy, they were finally going to live in the same city, and the day she could see him again kept moving farther and farther away.

New years went by too slow. She had a lot of fun in Taipei. She went to all the night markets, visited several towns around the city and soaked into the suffocating heat of the city. No complaints. But all the time, upsetting her, at the back of her head was the thought of Kyung Soo at his house. Finally, at home. And she wasn’t there.

Summer wasn’t very different from the rest of the year for Kyung Soo. He was as busy as before. Between his part-time job, assisting some of his teachers at their studio, and working in his own art. His texts were few. Maybe one per week. But the day before she had to leave, he video called her from the train station on his way to Bussan wishing her a safe trip and promising that they would meet as soon as he arrived in Seoul.

She couldn’t sleep the night before. There was so much going on in her head, so many things were about to happen the next day. And in a couple of weeks, a new part of her life was going to start.

Starting university, new people to meet, new responsibilities, finding out more things about herself. It was terrifying. Thinking about meeting Kyung Soo kept some of her fear away. But not enough.

Her dad paid for the plane ticket for her and her mom to Seoul. As they were passing through security her mind kept repeating the words “I want to go home”. Because the closer she was to start this change, the more she wanted to stop all this from happening and just stay where she was. The anxiety that all this caused her settled on her chest, frightening her. She had to meet new people. After years of school, now she had to go through the same, but harder. To top all that she was going to be away from her mom for the first time, living by herself in a student residence.

She didn’t want to do any of this. She just wanted to stay at home, writing. Kyung Soo be damned.

It was too late now.

But a light of hope began shining on her fear spiral. This wasn’t unfamiliar. This fear and insecurity weren’t new to her. She had had it before, this initial fear. And she walked past it to then look back at it and realize how stupid it was. How nothing is never that terrible.

This couldn’t be the exception. And she kept repeating that for the rest of the flight.

Her mom helped her settle for a couple of days. Doing some paperwork at the Institute and at the residence, walking around the neighborhood with her to check how safe it was, etc. Just mom things that were done more for her comfort and calm than for Eunji’s. She didn’t complain. For sure this was harder for her mom. She wasn’t crying like Kyung Soo’s mom, her mom wasn’t like that, but when she went back home, she gave Eunji the longest and tightest hug she had ever given her. Then she kissed her on the cheek, holding her face and caressing her cheeks as if she was a little child.

Kyung Soo called one morning when she was reading in her room.

“I’m at the train station, I just arrived, but I’m exhausted, can we meet tomorrow?” She said yes, eagerly. Why hide it when Kyung Soo sounded as eager as she was?

Kyung Soo’s residence was very close to hers, just two stations apart, so they arranged a meeting at a park that was close to their respective houses, just in the middle. Kyung Soo said to meet him at 12 o’clock at the fountain of the park, so she arrived there at 11 o’clock. It was a bit crowded since there was a food fair in the park, so she sat down on the edge of the fountain and searched for him. She probably looked like a meerkat.

Her phone vibrated with a message from Kyung Soo telling her that he was there. She lifted her head and combed the place until she saw him. His face, his round, and balanced face. His warm skin, smooth to the eyes and touch. His forehead, now bigger in appearance due to his shaved head. His thick eyebrows crowning his big dark eyes, his full lips, marvelously shaped. Her mouth whispered his name, and then shouted in desperation, wanting his attention.

“Kyung Soo!” He saw her and the smile he gave her made her eyes water. She wanted to run to him, but Kyung Soo was quicker, and he was already there. Eunji received him in her arms and hugged him tightly. The realization that they could be close again fell on her like warm water. She couldn’t control her shaking arms, nor could she explain her sudden loss of voice, or how she couldn’t move, just hug him. He was quiet too. His warm cheek pressed against hers and his breathing close to her ear. His hug, as always, was so warm and comforting.

“Are you alright? Did you settle in your room? You like it?” She answered yes to all the questions.

“Were you too scared of coming here?” Why lie and try to act though with him? She nodded and Kyung Soo’s arms held her tighter.

“Coming here is terrifying, I know, you could need some help sometime, you have me here, just ask ok?”

“Thank you” He took a deep breath and let go of her, but kept holding her hands.

“You like where you are staying?”

“Yeah, a lot, it’s big and cute and very close to the campus” His eyes grew with the sudden realization.

“Is the big one in the corner right?” She asked him how he knew it.

“A classmate lives there” She felt something like the touch of a needle on her chest. The first sprout of jealousy in her life.

“I don’t think you have met her, she was with me at Busan, I’m going to text her to tell her about you” She was quick to hold his hand so he couldn’t reach for his phone.

“Do that later, let’s go somewhere” Her voice was back, but she could hear some bitterness in it. A year was a lot of time. A long year where he could meet so many people. Man and woman.

“Ok, but it would be great if you met her, her girlfriend studies creative writing like you, but in another university” The needle fell with a deaf sound to the ground. No more jealousy.

Kyung Soo invited her to a dumpling shop just in front of the park. He said he was paying, as a welcome gift.

“I have more money now, so I’m going to take you out a lot, only happy meals though” They laughed together at a small table at the back of the packed restaurant.

Despite the number of calls, messages and video-calls, there was still so much that he had to tell her, so in front of her was a very talkative Kyung Soo. So much that he choked a couple of times. She felt like Kyung Soo was someone who went on a long trip and now was back with new secrets to tell from faraway lands. Parties, art fairs, classmates and teachers, small and big scandals around the campus. And as Kyung Soo felt like the traveler, she was the newbie who was about to board this train.

“I knew you were going to make a lot of friends Kyung Soo” She told him after he shared some stories about his new friends and roommates “You always connect with everybody” He nodded absentmindedly, still not good in the art of receiving small compliments.

“I’m planning on doing the same, connect, be a bit more open in university, be more social” That was in her to-do list, just under becoming a writer. She knew there was nothing wrong with being an introvert, but her fear of meeting people, and sometimes the laziness and cynicism involved in meeting someone kept her from potential great experiences.

“Your work and mine are very lonely, which I think we both enjoy, and you see those two sides at uni, the artist, the designers, and the writers by themselves, and the dancers and the actors in big groups…but of course, it feels more like a community, for the welcoming of the new students they are organizing a lot of great things, all together” Multitudes, yikes.

“Eunji, you always struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by groups, and we all search for the place where we fit, you find it at school, and then you press reset and have to do the same here, but I feel like more important than that is to own yourself, so you are not scared of not fitting in”

“Kyung Soo…I think I grabbed half of what you said” He giggled and took a couple of seconds to organize.

“I’m trying to say that you will get both here, you are going to be very lonely, but also you are going to meet your second generation of friends, and is nothing to be afraid or insecure about…because I know how you get, I bet every night you wonder how much you would screw up if you went back home right now” He dared to finish with a half-smile as if reading her mind and sensing her biggest insecurities was a laughing matter. She made him stop and change the subject. She wanted to hear more from him. And he fed her with that. She heard so much about some of his friends that she wanted to meet them already. And if those friends brought that smile to his face, it meant they were good people.

After their lunch date they walked together to the station and took opposite directions to their respective houses. Before leaving, Kyung Soo grabbed her hand and made a promise.

“I’m going to be there with you on the first day, ok? Just like when we were kids”

“Ok, thank you, but don’t go and check on me every thirty minutes, I am an adult now” He lowered his head, hiding his shy laugh.

“I did that” He said between laughs “I thought you didn’t know, ok, I’m not going to do it”

He said goodbye, still laughing in embarrassment.

That night, she left the book she was reading on the nightstand unable to focus on it. After leaving him she couldn’t stop smiling, as cliché as it sounded. Even the girls at the house made her notice it. And she wasn’t ashamed of it. There were so many reasons to be happy. The most important one was meeting him again, of course. But there was so much more. Now they had four years ahead of sharing this together, without periods of loneliness and disconnection. She was also so incredibly happy that she met the same man that left. He was the same person she missed.

The same peaceful voice with careful thoughts.

++++

She was only able to sleep the night before her first day of class because she took an antihistaminic, and those always shut her down.

She woke up at 7 am the next day, completely rested and ready.

Kyung Soo offered to go and picked her up so they could go together, but she said no, she was an adult now. She did accept when he offered to wait for her at the entrance of the campus though. She was only three-fourths of an adult.

The first day went by very quickly. That year’s generation of students of creative writing was a group of 40 people, separated into two groups of 20 for most of the classes. It was a diverse group, although the majority were men. Most of them were the same age and most of them were just like her, people of few words, avid readers and with a clear bias for individual work. She got to talk with a lot of them, noticing quite quickly how easy it was. And although she mostly relied on the conversation of the people around her, she felt like she could express herself clearly, and also could hear and analyze everything that everyone was saying with ease.

The week was short but very entertaining. She noticed with a lot of glee that the program was just what she expected and needed. People who would help her polish her writing, who would tell her how to write, but not what to write about.

By Friday she was asking for some rest. But rest will come on Saturday because that Friday was the welcoming event for all new students and the celebration of the beginning of the year. Kyung Soo went to pick her up at her only class of that day so they could enjoy the festivities together.

“You are not doing anything?” She asked him since this was a gift from the older students to the new students.

“No, I did a lot for the anniversary of the Institute, so I’m free” They went to the Greek-style theater so they could listen to the words of the president of the institution and the respective deans, followed by an amazing performance by the second year dance group.

A staggering performance with music from Vangelis with references to the man on the moon. The main dancer, a tall man, with long legs and a lean body moved around simulating the lack of gravity, jumping high and falling lightly, flying around the stage with the help of the other dancers. But his face showed the fear and loneliness of the space. He danced with every muscle of his body, including the muscles of his face.

“These people are really from second year? Not ex alumni?” He chuckled and confirmed what the dean had said.

“They are from second year, I’m friends with some of them, I’m going to introduce them to you later” He didn’t say more. He didn’t say that he was best friends with the main dancer, she would have to find out about it later that night.

The people from the film department, Korean music, applied music, and theatre also performed and by the time that this huge festival celebrating arts was done, it was time for dinner and drinks. The entire campus turned into a food market, dance floor and bar. She was never a person that enjoyed parting. Mostly because the idea of going out with her classmates and friends was ‘Let’s find a way to get drunk` and ‘Let’s get into clubs where there’s probably a lot of people doing drugs`. All those settings caused her horror, so she refrained from them. And yes, there were already some people drunk at the party, but there were also people singing, dancing and even doing some art performances. Everything felt very safe. Even when there were close to a thousand people there. She shared a beer with Kyung Soo, toasting for the obvious and then they went in search of food. In their way, he introduced her to some of his friends and classmates, and her first impressions were quite good. They had just finished their serving of fried chicken when some of her classmates came to her and invited her to get together with the rest. She looked at Kyung Soo and without words he told her to go ahead.

The get together lasted about an hour, and she had a great time. But the night was still young, and she wanted to keep enjoying it with her friend. She called him to know about his whereabouts and he told her to meet him at the theater because the dancers were doing something. She walked for ten minutes before she noticed that she had no idea where the theater was. She kept walking, to not look lost and pulled out the GPS of her phone. Which didn’t help a lot, since she wasn’t sure where she was either.

“You need help?” A rather loud voice spoke to her, and when she turned around to look at the person asking, she only met a chest, she had to look up to meet his face. It was the dancer from before.

“I need to go to the theater, but I forgot which way is”

“Oh, first year! I am heading there, wanna come with me?” It was crowded enough to not fear for her life, so she accepted his help.

“I’m Jongin by the way” She introduced herself, getting a pout in response.

“Your name sounds familiar…from where?” He pondered for a while until he gave up and asked her the second obvious question.

“What are you studying?”

“Creative writing” His cheer surprise didn’t sound fake.

“That’s cool, I’m studying dance, second year”

“I know, I saw you today, it was so beautiful” She could swear she saw him jump a little bit with her compliment and made sure to thank her profusely. The noise coming from the theater sounded closer, and she could see the lights now. He asked her if she was meeting someone and she said yes, her friend Kyung Soo.

“Do Kyung Soo? From second year?” She nodded.

“Me too! We are friends, oh my god, now I remember, you are that Eunji! His friend, I can’t believe I’m meeting you! You are finally here, he must be happy” He elongated the last sound of his sentences and giggled like a child. Who was this approachable, innocent young adult that looked so godlike some hours ago on stage? She was tempted to ask if he had some kind of split personality, but that was rude. It was easy to spot Kyung Soo in the small crowd that was watching the dance performance on stage. As soon as they reached their friend, Jongin began patting his back.

“She is here, she is here, we met by accident, can you believe it?” Kyung Soo introduced them again, just to be polite and then their focus went to the traditional dance performance on stage. After that, they watched another two performances and agreed to go for food somewhere else.

They took her to their favorite place “We go there when we stay until late at the campus working, always after dancing I feel very hungry” The place was small but warm and the smell lingering in the air was a strong predictor of how good the food was.

The conversation was easy with the two of them. With Kyung Soo for obvious reasons, but Jongin drenched every question with so much curiosity that she felt compelled to answer clearly and lengthy.

“Why writing?” Jongin asked her, giving her time to answer.

“I write…in hopes to dig something with language, I’m not sure what I am digging but I believe in the power of language and words, which is express”

“Get something out there,” He added.

“Yes, exactly”

“I don’t read, it takes time and also, you can’t dance when reading” He sounded apologetical, but Eunji appreciated the honest confession, risking sounding stupid or ignorant. Kyung Soo laughed and patted his arm.

“When Jongin is not sleeping, he is dancing or eating”

“I’m not judging you, actually it makes sense” She told him, so he wouldn’t get self-conscious.

“I watch movies though, Kyung Soo takes me to the movies often, so whatever book you have read, I watched the movie for sure… It, for example! Did you read it?”

“Yeah, when I was 12” His eyes went big and round and his mouth fell open.

“12?! How?! It is terrifying!” Kyung Soo told her how Jongin had a hard time sleeping after watching the movie, but Eunji didn’t remember being scared watching the movie. She told this to Jongin, and he looked scandalized.

When they were ready to leave Kyung Soo went to the bathroom and they waited for him outside. Staying alone with people she had just met always made her uncomfortable. There was a silence that was supposed to be filled, and she always felt the pressure to do it, but never did.

“You remind me a lot of him” Jongin said, grinning at her “I can’t tell what you guys are thinking, but I would trust you both with my life” She laughed nervously and was quite surprised by his comment.

After Jongin went back home and Kyung Soo walked her to her dorm, the words of her new friend came back to her, and slowly they began to make sense. As they walked in comfortable silence, at the same speed, she began contemplating a beautiful idea in her head. She and Kyung Soo were from the same species. She felt equal to him. She understood his language, all of them. And he understood hers. Even when they lived different lives, she knew there was something in their brains, heart, and blood that was the same. They seeked silence and solitude. Their minds were slow-paced. And yes, they developed in different contexts, they had different survival skills, but the base was the same in both of them.

They were old souls. An old and cliché concept that now was the most accurate for her to describe them.

++++

The first month of classes was fast, messy and hard.

Getting accustomed to all the new things wasn’t hard for her. In fact, it was something that she secretly craved. The freedom, compared with high school, that university gave you was like a big gulp of water in the desert. You knew that at some point you were going to die, but that instant satisfaction of finally having something you wanted was good enough.

She had something on her side though. There was a lot of reading during the first month. A lot of ‘Learn this style, analyze this writer, you haven’t read Chejov? How could you?’.

Well, she had read Chejov, quite recently. She even had her notes about all his tales. That was a gift from the Eunji from the past that meant less work for the Eunji of the present.

“See how being a bookworm and a nerd paid off for you” Kyung Soo said, messing with her.

“Oh Kyung Soo, I always knew it would pay off, I already read seven out of the ten books they asked us to read this first trimester” She asked him how things were looking for him.

“This first semester for us is mostly about learning whatever technique they are teaching us, as we work on our final project” Kyung Soo’s project from the past year gave him reasonable popularity at the Institute. It consisted of a set of hyper-realistic paintings of wild herbivores in ferocious positions.

“It’s something like the rebellion of the weak one” He explained to her. She didn’t like it a lot, it was a bit grotesque for her taste, but the execution was amazing. When he showed the paintings to her, he immediately could tell what she was thinking “You don’t like it” He said calmly, smiling.

“Is not my cup of tea, I’m a bit scared of that deer”

“I know” He answered between laughs. She was glad he didn’t get offended.

++++

Eunji never thought her university life could be so good. In her first three months, she spent two nights without sleeping because of a short story about politics she had to submit, and she knew nothing about politics.

She ended up at the infirmary one time she skipped breakfast, and lunch and any kind of food for about 20 hrs. She got her first bad grade, which ended in a small breakdown in front of Kyung Soo and Jongin. She got a part-time job at a coffee shop that belonged to Jongin’s sister, she had to serve customers, which wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but the pay was good, and the food better. All these things sounded kind of terrible, but for her, it was part of the experience. And she felt how she was growing, slowly, but steadily. She faced things that she never had to face before, and she was able to overcome them. And there were all kinds of things, with different difficulty levels, from using the subway without getting lost, to settling a disagreement with a girl from her dorm.

One new thing that happened to her, and wasn’t her favorite, in fact, she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to repeat it, was getting drunk.

It happened at a small gathering with her classmates to celebrate the end of their first round of exams. This was her first time drinking, she informed her friends about it, and they didn’t force her to drink or anything. But they didn’t stop her either. After two bottles of soju, she was gone to the world. It surprised her that her drunkenness expressed as non-stop giggling, a bit of somnolence and a desire to drink more. Her closest classmate almost friend, Jongdae, stopped her from doing it “Tell me the name of that bald guy who’s always with you so he can come and pick you up”

“You take me home, you are my friend” He laughed loudly, grabbing her right index finger to unlock her phone.

“No no, I’m going to drink a bit more and then head to my girlfriends home, your boyfriend has the responsibility of picking you up”

“He is not my boyfriend!” She hit the table and pouted at him.

“Oh, look at you being so cute, ok, tell me the name of your friend so I can call him” She mumbled his name and went back to giggle about the very fun shape of the shrimp in front of her. She could hear Jongdae talking next to her, but couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“Kyung Soo says that he is going to be here in 20 minutes, so we are going to eat and not drink until he comes here ok?” She quite liked the fatherly tone he used with her, it made her feel at peace.

“Ok dad…no more soju for me, hey! Dad! You are not Jongdae, you are Jongdady!” She saw Jongdae trying to hide his laugh as he flicked her forehead, but it was too late, everybody heard it and now it was his new nickname “You are going to pay for this Eunji”

As promised, Kyung Soo arrived 20 minutes later and dashed to her table. He introduced himself to the people seated around her and then sat behind her. Eunji was resting her head on her hand, drowsing for a bit.

“Is she really drunk?” Kyung Soo asked Jongdae.

“Yes, we stopped her as soon as she began showing signs of drunkenness, since this is her first time” Kyung Soo patted her back, she turned around and smiled brightly at him, mumbling his name as she held his cold hands.

“I thought it was a good idea to call her boyfriend since she can’t leave like this by herself” Eunji heard the words of betrayal from Jongdae and felt like Julius Cesar.

“Jongdady?!” She asked in astonishment, trying to attack back. Everybody around them laughed except her and Jongdae. Kyung Soo looked as if he wasn’t paying attention to it and just helped her get up. Everybody said goodbye, loudly and lovingly and she left by his arm. Walking wasn’t really hard, but she was now very tired, and her head felt somehow bloated. Kyung Soo walked in silence, but smiling.

“What are you thinking Bee?” Kyung Soo snapped his head, looking at her with surprise.

“You haven’t called me that in years Eunji, I thought you have forgotten about it”

“It's just that you are not a bee anymore, you are a bumblebee now” She shared the joke that she told herself a while ago. Kyung Soo laughed, that goofy laugh she liked so much, and brought her closer to him to cross the street.

“Why a bumblebee?”

“You are not small anymore, now you are big and manly, although I wouldn’t say that bumblebees are manly, they are still very cute, and you are very cute too, so bumblebee it is” This time his laugh was a shy one, and he mumbled something, but it was probably only for himself to hear because she couldn’t grab what he was saying.

“So if I’m not a bee anymore, what are you?” Eunji took a while to answer thinking about what insect she had evolve into.

“I don’t know enough about insects to answer that Kyung Soo, but I will say I’m just a bigger fly now, my eyes are still very big, I’m still hearing what everybody says without being noticed and as a fly I’m insistent, I’m still here with you, buzzing in your ear, I’m still here even if you batted me away”

“I never batted you away” She shrugged, holding onto him strongly since they were walking down the stairs.

“I know, I was just building some drama, I am a writer, Bee” He patted her hand laughing softly. He sat her at one of the seats in the platform and texted someone over the phone.

“I’m going to take you to your dorm ok?” She nodded, resting her head on the wall.

“You think they would let me in?”

“Sure, you are harmless” He mumbled again, but this time she could understand him.

“I hope so” He said, but her drunk brain decided to keep quiet and not comment on that. The train ride made her feel very dizzy, and all her strength went to not vomit. Kyung Soo rubbed her back and helped her breathe better so she could subdue the nausea. The voice over the speaker announced her station and she got out immediately. Quickly, Kyung Soo stood next to her and grabbed her hand for support. The fresh air outside the station made the nausea disappear, but not the drunkenness.

“Kyung Soo, as a thank you for bringing me here, I’m going to write another character based on you”

“Another?” She huffed, waving her hand.

“Bee, you are in every single story I have written”

“I am? Why?” Eunji shrugged dismissively.

“In that way I missed you a bit less”

“You missed me a lot?” Eunji could only release a long sight, if she voiced her feelings, she could end up crying. And she didn’t want to be the crying drunk girl. Kyung Soo apologized, but she didn’t need an apology, there was no reason to apologize.

They arrived at her residence and Kyung Soo had to take care of opening the door, since she was trying to do so with a pencil. Since it was a Friday night, the place was empty. She told him where to take her and finally, after what felt like an eternity, she could lay on her bed. She rolled over it until she found a comfortable position as Kyung Soo went to her bathroom. He appeared with a glass of water and helped her sit up so she could drink it. She wasn’t thirsty, but either way, she drank the entire glass.

“Tomorrow morning drink some more water ok? And take some medicine if you need it” He got up, ready to leave, and Eunji felt desperation crawling up her chest.

“Don’t leave, why are you leaving? Stay” She reached for his hand but couldn’t grab it.

“I can’t stay here”

“Says who?” He didn’t answer.

“Are you sure Eunji?” She nodded and moved her body to the edge of the bed against the wall.

“Come here” She patted the spot next to her and in the darkness, she could see his wavering stare. She insisted, pouting and complaining a bit because she was drunk and drunk people were allowed to act spoiled. To that Kyung Soo gave up and landed on her bed with a thud, smiling softly.

“How are you feeling?” He asked in a whisper.

“Good, hey, tomorrow I’m going to feel like crap, right?”

“Maybe not, your friend Jongdae said you didn’t drink a lot, so you are probably going to be ok”

“I am a good drunk people? person, a good drunk person?” He laughed brushing her hair away from her face.

“You are a very good drunk person, it was my pleasure to take care of you”

“Thank you Bee”

“Call me whenever you need me ok, I’m here now, you don’t have to miss me anymore, use me”

“I don’t miss you, no, I get to see you every day, it’s like a dream”

“You like seeing me?” She nodded, feeling a bit drowsy, Kyung Soo was talking a bit too much, asking so many questions.

“Remember the last time we shared a bed Eunji?”

“Yes, for my birthday, best birthday ever”

“I enjoyed it a lot too” She really wanted to sleep, but Kyung Soo had another question left.

“Eunji, are you going to allow me to read your stories where I’m a character?” Her response was absolute.

“Never, or maybe someday, maybe after our wedding” Kyung Soo didn’t speak again, and if he did, she didn’t hear him because sleep decided to take over at that exact moment.

++++

There were some things in life that you hear about in movies, books and on TV. One of them was the myth that you don’t remember anything that happened during a moment of drunkenness.

Everybody was right. It wasn’t a myth, at least not for her.

Eunji woke up to a sleeping Kyung Soo, in her room, on her bed. Right off the bat, she couldn’t remember why he was there. Not that she was worried, but a bit of explanation was always great. She remembered going for drinks last night…then getting drunk…and well, on the bright side, she was fully clothed.

It has been a while since she got to see him like this. Since her birthday actually. Kyung Soo’s features looked a bit harsh, with lines forming on his brow, whatever he was dreaming, it wasn’t calming. But he didn’t look mad, he looked focused on something. Poor thing was probably working on his sleep. Her arms were touching his, and she could feel his warmth. Eunji wanted nothing more than to curl up into his chest, cover themselves under the blanket and just cuddle for the rest of the morning. Kyung Soo was still a brick. The only movement was the slow rise and fall of his chest. His lips were slightly open, making him look adorable. She kept looking at his face for a while. She always did her best to not do that. Her rule was to look at Kyung Soo only when they were talking. But now he was dead to the world and he wouldn’t notice an innocent stare.

Or maybe not so innocent. She focused so hard on his lips that now she wanted to kiss him. Kiss him until losing her breath and even after that just keep kissing him.

It surprised her a little bit noticing that this was the first time she had a thought like this. Even when she has been pining for him for so long, her thoughts lacked carnal passion and relayed only in some kind of dramatic romanticism.

Now she felt both.

If she was very careful maybe she could touch him. Cares his lips with the tip of her fingers, draw the line of his eyebrows, if she was daring enough, she could pass her hand over his freshly shaved head.

She could move a bit closer and maybe hide her head under his chin, move just a bit closer so she could rest against his chest and get more of his warmth. And if he woke up, she could always say that she was asleep. Maybe she was still a tiny bit drunk from last night because convincing herself to move and get what she wanted took her a second. She wiggled closer to his side and sunk her head under his chin, her nose resting against his collarbone. His arms were on her way, and she really didn’t know what to do with hers, but it was good enough. Kyung Soo stirred in his sleep, stretching and sliding one of his arms around her waist. She tensed, already acting up as if she was in deep sleep.

“Eunji?”

“Huh?” Damn it. She cursed a million times in her head. So much for her acting.

“How’s your hangover?”

“It’s ok I guess, I feel ok”

“Good, then let’s sleep some more” He brought her closer to his chest and after a long deep yawn, he went back to sleep.

She couldn’t.

++++

As her world opened during the last four months, some habits changed on her.

Her eating habits, her social habits, her sleeping habits. And her writing habits weren’t an exception. She used to lock herself in her room and write non-stop for an entire afternoon. No breaks in between.

Now she liked to move. One week she would write at the library of the campus or a coffee shop. Sometimes when creativity, and mostly will, were out of duty. There were two places that inspired her the most. Kyung Soo’s shared studio and Jongin’s rehearsal room. Sometimes Kyung Soo would go with her to Jongin’s rehearsal room and sketch, or sometimes Jongin would go to Kyung Soo’s studio with her and watch videos to study for his performance. It was mandatory to keep your artistic flow moving and everybody there did what they could to do so.

It was Friday morning and she only had one class on Fridays. After that, she went to Kyung Soo’s studio with Jongin and they hung out together until Kyung Soo’s next class. This time Kyung Soo wanted to change plans.

“I don’t want to be here, I spent most of the morning here trying to do something with that lump of clay and nothing came, I’m incredibly frustrated, can we go somewhere else?”

“I need to rehearse for next week, want to come with me?” Jongin offered and they both nodded.

Jongin closed the curtains of the room, winter was showing its arrival and the cold slipped past the glass of the room. Eunji and Kyung Soo settled on a mat on one corner of the room and immediately she pulled out her computer to finish editing Jongdae’s story. They helped each other proofreading their assignments. Kyung Soo on the other side pulled out his camera and asked Jongin if he could take some pictures of him dancing.

“What for?” Asked Eunji after Jongin agreed.

“I have something in mind for my final project” She asked more questions, what, why, who.

“I have been doing some research in human sculpture…and all I find are mythological creatures, biblical characters or european people, I want to make sculptures with Asian people as models, I began working with clay, and I have been studying human form”

“Why clay?” She asked in complete ignorance.

“I think is the best product for a poor student like me, rock or marble are too expensive and require a knowledge of the technique that I don’t have, and can’t learn by the end of the year, also renaissance isn’t a thing anymore, so sculpting in stone is for crazy people”

“And you want to use Jongin as your model” He nodded, grinning at her.

“I haven’t asked him yet, I’m not sure what I want from him as a model” She supported his idea commenting on how gorgeous he was. Kyung Soo agreed.

“Not for nothing his nickname is god”

“He totally embraced that name,” Kyung Soo agreed, giggling.

“You became very close to him, I’m glad, also you come here often to write” He said, and she knew that he was trying to talk with her, he was in that mood probably, so she closed her computer to give him all her attention.

“Yeah, he is the sweetest, and coming here to write helps me focus, as I write I can hear the music, his sneakers scratching the floor and his loud breathing, is like white noise, if I lost my line of thought it helps me to go back in track, he is always so focused, it’s like trying to follow his rhythm, he as a very positive energy too…it’s very easy to talk to him and just be around him, I trust him” Kyung Soo smiled, looking at her in silence for a while and she had to ask him what was he thinking.

“You don’t show it and you think I can’t see it, but you always feel so strongly about everyone, I think that’s why you allow only a few people in your life and I’m glad Jongin is one of them, he deserves our love and everybody needs someone like him around” Sometimes it terrified her how much he knew her. How easy it was for him to read into her behavior and how understanding he was. It was discouraging to know that someone like Kyung Soo was like a comet that passed through our atmosphere once every fifty years.

“My first two months here were rough, there were so many new people and it was so weird to think about them as future collages because I met some of them and they are crap Kyung Soo, and to think that maybe some of them will share some success is so…crappy” He chuckled at the word she chose but understood her.

“I imagine it must have been hard to share so much time with so many new people, I didn’t ask you anything because you didn’t say anything to me, but…you know” She chuckled bitterly.

“I meet a lot of people and a first sight everything was fine but after a couple of weeks I began feeling like such an outsider, which I don’t think I am, but my brain was sending all these signals”

“You can’t pretend to fit immediately”

“No, of course not, but after a while I saw myself and I noticed that I didn’t need to fit because of none of us does, I just needed to adapt temporarily, in certain situations and with certain people, and then back to my own self…I just like that all of us are studying in an environment of respect and camaraderie, that’s enough for me…and for friends, I have Jongdae, and is more than enough” Her stomach hurt after speaking so much about herself, not like the pain of a stomach ache, but more like the pain of running without breathing properly. She was tense and spoke too fast when it came about talking about herself. And there was always that moment after finishing a long rant about herself when she imagined the other person acting indifferent. Even Kyung Soo.

In fact, imagining him acting indifferent was her biggest fear. But he only looked into her eyes, and she saw how he knew. He knew and understood, and he was interested, he was listening. Through his eyes, he saw and understood how she felt, maybe even before she could say anything.

“Hey you two, you are only there chatting, what about me? Look at me so you can give me feedback”

“We are so sorry, take off your t-shirt so I can take better pictures” Kyung Soo told him, making Eunji giggle nervously. Jongin complained a little bit but did as told. He danced again, with their attention on him, and when he was done, of course perfectly, Kyung Soo whispered to her.

“I think I’m sculpting one of these shirtless pictures”

“I think you should, your hands are tied Kyung Soo” They fist bump and Jongin came to them, grumpily telling them how he felt left out.

++++

She didn’t see Kyung Soo for almost a week. He apologized saying that he was developing his final project and he had to show the first proposal to his teacher. She felt a bit self-conscious. He was already working on that, should she start working on hers?

“No, he is like this because they evaluate the entire process, and also he normally develops a small collection of pieces, so it takes time” Jongin tried to calm her down.

They were done with their classes and she had to study but she didn’t feel like doing so.

“Want me to distract you even more?” He asked excitedly as they left the campus behind. She accepted his vage proposal.

“We haven’t had the chance to go out together, let’s go for an early dinner and chat a little bit” Eunji liked the idea.

And he was right. They became friends through Kyung Soo, but they never shared much time by themselves, only when she went to his rehearsals, but they barely spoke during those situations.

He took her to a tent bar close to the subway station. The sky was getting darker and the cold was perfect for a shared bottle of soju and a couple of spicy dishes. Jongin led the conversation, fortunately, and it went from how their day was, to gossiping and somehow it moved to Kyung Soo and what was going on between them.

“We are friends” She answered on autopilot. Jongin giggled, batting his hand adorably.

“That is not true”

“It is, we are friends”

“Yes, but not just friends” She didn’t answer “You know, when I meet him we hit very quickly, and he got along with a lot of people, he was and still is very popular, I saw him reject a lot of people, and he never paid attention to anyone, I mean, he never showed interest in anyone, I thought he was asexual or something, until he began to share more about his life, and about you, and I thought, oh, he is not asexual, he is just in love” Eunji rolled her eyes and tried to hide behind her bowl or ramen.

“Shut up” Jongin giggled again.

“But it's true! And it was so much clearer after you came” If she was going to talk about this with someone, she could do it with Jongin, she thought. She never shared anything with anyone, especially the matter related to Kyung Soo. She never had the need to do it, but maybe an opinion, a view from the outside could be good.

“You think?”

“Don’t you?” He raised an eyebrow, mocking her a tiny bit.

“I don’t dare to think about that”

“I asked him about this a couple of times and he said nothing, the third time I asked he pinch me here and it left a bruise, now that I think about it, it was quite wise because look at me now, talking about him with you” He was right, he could have told her what Kyung Soo trusted to him. Maybe he could tell Kyung Soo what she would share with him.

“Of course I’m not telling him anything you share with me” Eunji jolted thinking he had read her mind. Jongin’s phone rang, taking his attention away from her.

“It’s him!” He shouted before picking up. After a call that lasted a couple of minutes he hung up and looked at her with mischievous eyes.

“He said that I shouldn’t let you drink more than a bottle of soju and if you did, I have to call him so he can come and pick you up, he is sorry that he can join us but he is working” He held her stare, waiting for her to say something, moving her eyebrows up at down, up and down.

“Stop it Jongin”

“Eunji!” He whined “He loves so much is stupid”

“We have known each other for such a long time, of course he would take care of me”

“Yes, that’s true, but let’s not talk about how he feels, how do you feel? Would you call me just to end up talking about him?”

“That’s what we are doing now”

“You know what I mean” Eunji took a deep breath and ate the last spoon of soup weighing this situation. It was unknown to her why he was asking so much about her relationship with Kyung Soo. Could be innocent curiosity, maybe he wanted to be part of it, to make a connection between her and Kyung Soo. But if she was going to talk about this with someone, why not Jongin. There wasn’t a single hair of evil in his body, so for sure he could only have good intentions with all this.

“If you are asking me if I care about him, of course I do”

“I feel like you are part of who he is by now” He commented not giving too much importance to what he was saying. So probably he didn’t know how his words sounded in her head. Because if Jongin was right, she could understand that, it was the same for her.

“He has influenced me so much, he as conquer me in the most precious way, I don’t feel possessive towards him, I don’t feel selfishness, I just want to be like him, to learn from him how to be peaceful, loving, respectful, I want to be a great person like him, and not just because I want to be good for him, it’s because he taught me that’s how I want to be treated and how everybody should be treated”

“And it has been like that since you guys were kids”

“He taught me all this when we were just kids”

“You love him since then?”

“I don’t think so… I mean, I have loved him always, but in different ways, the love I have for him now is different from the one I felt as a child” After that ping pong session of questions, Jongin kept quiet, a soft smile on his lips.

“Were you checking if I was good enough for Kyung Soo?”

“Maybe, look, we are all very protective of him, I think you can understand that?”

“I punched some faces in preschool because of him, so yeah, I understand” Jongin held his hand in front of her, waiting for a high five, to which she answered reluctantly. His phone ringed again with a message.

“He is asking if we are still here”

“Tell him I left, this was too much for me, it’s going to be weird” She was thankful that he didn’t insist. She paid for her food and left Jongin there.

She decided to walk home, it was dark, but the streets were still busy, and it only was a 30-minute walk. She needed some time to relax, to digest all the things she said and all the things she heard and then go to sleep.

What Jongin told her didn’t surprise her. Of course, she wasn’t going to bet all she had on his suspicions about how Kyung Soo felt. But she could have some hope.

Just a bit of hope.

++++

She was in the middle of her first class that morning when she got a text from Kyung Soo. He wanted to talk with her. She still had an hour left of class so he told her to go to his studio once she was done.

She didn’t have the chance to think about it because she had to present an assignment. As soon as she was done with her class, she walked to the two-floor building where the art studios were and searched for Kyung Soo’s.

He was sitting next to the window carving a bust. She knocked and he waved at her telling her to come in.

“Is that Jongin?” She asked, recognizing his cheekbones.

“Yeah, it's just a study though, you like it?”

“Looks just like him, you are planning on making a sculpture of his whole body, right?” He showed her his sketches of Jongin standing gracefully in the midst of doing a spin. She could imagine how majestic the sculpture would look.

“And he agreed to do it?”

“Yeah, he was a bit unsure, when he is not dancing he tends to be a bit shy, but he said yes… actually, I asked you to come here for something related to this” Eunji felt something on her knees and back. A bad feeling maybe.

“I have to present the final proposal for my art project to our teachers’ tomorrow, and I need to ask you something?”

“What is it?” Kyung Soo doubted for a couple of seconds. Looking at his knees, finding a place where he could hide his stare. Eunji became a bit anxious. She suspected what he could need, but also she wasn’t prepared for that suspicion.

“I find this project very intimate for me, is something I always craved to do, to work with clay and to represent the human body, and I would love to…I would be so glad and honored if you could model for me, for one of my sculptures” She repeated his last four words, shocked, for lack of a better word. Kyung Soo asked her again.

“Could you model for me, so I can make a sculpture of you?”

“Why me?” He was still nervous, a nervous Kyung Soo wasn’t a sight that she saw very often.

“It is a mixture of people that I care about, people I find beautiful and people who inspire me”

“Which one am I?” Her question was daring, and she felt slightly brave by asking it. Those were the important things for her at that moment.

“All of the above” He answered, meeting her stare.

“You find me beautiful?”

“I do, you are gorgeous” Eunji had never felt beautiful, let alone gorgeous. Cute maybe. Not bad under the right lighting and with a bit of make-up. But beautiful, never. No one ever told her she was. Her mom always compared her with other girls, so she was never beautiful enough. She avoided mirrors most of the time, just to avoid the disappointment and the waterfall of insecurity.

She avoided mirrors when in reality she should have watched herself in his eyes.

With time and care, she learned to read Kyung Soo. She knew all his gestures, she understood him by the tone of his voice. She knew beforehand when he needed silence or a distraction. She was sure about those. But his gestures of love were the ones that were still a mystery for her. But not because they were hard to read. She didn’t want to read them. It was like learning a language without considering the culture behind that language. It was robotic almost. Kyung Soo was around her because they have always been friends. Period.

But he was now opening a window because he cared about her, he found her beautiful and was inspired by her. A friend could find you beautiful and be inspired by you, of course, but maybe he loved her. The way he looked at her and the way he touched her was more than a habit.

She couldn’t read his mind to be completely sure about his feelings, of course.

But she could read hers.

She could easily know how she felt. And she loved him. Romantically. Very romantically. She wanted everything from him and wanted to give everything to him.

She wanted him to see her.

In life, we only have three choices: Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Yesterday is yesterday, the only thing that belongs to us it’s the memory of yesterday. The today is only real when it becomes past, so we are left with only one option, the future.

In the past, she let Kyung Soo go. In the present she never reached hard enough for him, so he was almost a memory. But in the future, Kyung Soo could be hers. Or not. But at least in the future, the possibility was real, and she was going to take it.

“I will, I will model for you, I would love to do it” He grabbed her hand and pressed his forehead against it, sighing loudly. He thanked her and his words were overfilled with gratitude.

Eunji made a pact with herself to show him how she loved him. How she had been loving him long before she had the guts to let him know.

TBC

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