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#really though this is EXACTLY the pose that i wanted to use for my actual pumpkin pumpkin pony picture back in 2020
kifu · 2 years
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When the Clock Strikes Midnight AKA Tick Tock. Actually almost exactly the Tick Tock I wanted to draw back in 2020. Note: cardstock less vibrant than watercolor paper. :(
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goldenlikedayl1ght · 2 months
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logan howlett blurb 18+
hi hi im sorry guys this isnt awesome but i love my wolverine and maybe ill make a part two or perhaps something cool like that if ya like it! also just general warning for smut and some kinky age gap stuff! also. reader is fem and a mutant! word count: 1030 edit: you can now read a full version of this blurb here!
You are absolutely enthralled with him. It’s actually sort of pathetic how your fingers twitch at the sight of him, at how the mention of his name or god forbid the sound of his voice makes your head snap up, attention deficit disorders be damned!
Funnily enough, you had no damn interest in Xavier’s stupid mutant school, because to you, you’re not an outsider because of your mutant abilities (that don’t have much of a physical apparition, at least one that you can’t hide) but because there’s never been much of a place for you to fit in.
But, you were behind on rent and of course, you fucking hate your job, so why not? You’d be able to be slightly less of a freak, and you’d get free room and board in the process! (Where Charles gets all of his money, you do not know.)
And because you’re a little older, Charles doesn’t force you to sit in a class room to learn about basic arithmetic and grammar lessons, so you really only do some training around three times a day, you have your own room (with a dusty box under the other bed, you also suspect your room used to be the ‘sex’ room) and you have the weekends off.
So for a twenty something year old with few ambitions, the social skills of a Martian with autism, and a huge crush on every older emotionally unavailable man you meet, it’s a pretty good set-up.
You’re waiting for time to pass in the garden, just reading a rather interesting book that Charles had recommended after he noticed you needed something to pass time before you started making bad decisions.
You hear his heavy footsteps on the gravel before you see him. Your heart beats faster, but you will yourself, do everything in your power not to glance up at him. And you let out a breath as you succeed, keeping your head down.
“In your natural habitat, are you, spitfire?” Your head darts up to him—There’s no way he isn’t talking to you, you know you’re the only one in this garden. And you can see his lips twitch up and you want to crawl out of your skin!
“My-My natural habitat?” You laugh, closing the book you’re reading because your attention is locked to him now.
“Yeah, seems like it.” He saunters on up to you and sits on the bench next to you.
And let’s make something very clear—
Logan Howlett does not sit.
This man poses, as if there’s always some invisible camera capturing every frame of movement, from the way his legs spread out, to the way his chest lifts when he inhales.
Fuck, you think you might die if you can’t suck him off right now.
“And what exactly is my uh.. habitat?” You question.
He takes out his lighter and a cigar, placing the cigar in his mouth as he gestures to the space around the two of you, lighter in hand.
“A garden.” He says, matter of facility, as his voice is muffled only the slightest bit by the cigar.
And you just sort of look at him before asking,
“Oh, you enjoy being boiled down to your mutations, Claws?” You question, and as he goes to light the cigar, he smirks.
“Alright, you gotta admit though, it is cliché!”
You are absolutely in agreement, there is zero doubt you are as much of a walking, breathing, real life living, stereotype.
“It is not!” And the pair of you give each other this look, like you’re both shocked at how whiney that statement is!
“Uh-huh, sure, Spitfire.” It sounds almost like he’s purring at you.
When he lights his cigar, he’s sort of eying you for your reaction, whatever you might say.
“You know, smoking is not only bad for you, it’s awful for the environment.”
“You’re probably the most cliché little freak around here.” Which.. honestly..? Shouldn’t possibly turn you on as much as it does.
You just stare at him for a minute, and he smirks.
“Cat got your tongue?’
And maybe it’s stupid and maybe it’s immature but your hand just comes over to fiddle with the pointed part of his hair.
“We’ll you certainly look the part.” He just looks at you, and honestly? The way he’s looking at you, it’s like he’s proud of you for teasing him.
“Aw, there’s my little spitfire,” He teases, just to see how red you get. And red you are— it’s embarrassing. And here’s the kicker—You are young. Exceptionally young, and what’s insane about that? How horny it makes both you and Logan.
The idea of fucking your innocent cunt, tight and all his, drives him genuinely mad. And you are, quite literally, a whore for the idea of riding this older man’s dick. You know he’s big—sometimes you see the outerline of it when he walks away from you all huffy and puffy.
“You’re a tease, Claws.” You respond, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Says you,” he raises and eyebrow, leaning closer to you now, “You’re the one laying around in the sun, looking like that.”
“Looking like this?” You scoff. You’re wearing a muscle tee and a pair of ripped jeans, but the gaps are huge and he can see your thighs. He wants to devour you, and you would let him if he only asked.
And let’s be clear—he is fucking you with his eyes. There’s no way to go around it.
“I think you’re just.. horny.” You tease, and he just growls. Seriously, this man who is undressing you with his eyes, growls, because he does want you and he is horny!
“I think you’re onto something.” He purrs, and you want to just.. god. You don’t know how to express the pit of desire that grows in you. “I would fuck you until you couldn’t think, right here among your pretty flowers. Would you like that, baby?” he asks, his hand finding your thigh.
But you just cough on the smoke from his cigar, before frowning.
“You really shouldn’t smoke.”
"Aw, I'll make it up to you," he smirks, "Promise, spitfire."
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sp0o0kylights · 2 months
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Part One / Part Two / Part Three (You Are Here)
Complete Thing on A03
Sure enough, Jason Carver had brought a priest. 
The idiot himself stood next to the guy, smugly grinning like a hunter posing with his prized buck, a small crowd already gathering. 
Opposing them was Michael Wheeler, hands planted on Hellfire’s table and back up like a pissed off cat’s, mouth moving faster than Eddie thought possible.
He couldn’t hear what Wheeler was saying. 
Frankly did not want to know what Wheeler was saying, and could only do his damndest to intervene before Mike tanked the situation entirely. 
Gareth and Jeff flanked him, both tense as hell. Neither had backed down though, standing tall and holding ground even as Jason pulled more and more people into his little spectacle. 
Lucas and Grant on the other hand, were standing off to the side.
They weren’t cowering exactly, but both were definitely wincing as Gareth opened his mouth to add his own two cents. 
Given the scowl on the priest, it was probably something nasty, 
‘Fuck.’ Eddie thought, teeth clenched, as Jason drew out his arms, making an even bigger production for his little audience. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ 
The worst thing of all? 
Dustin managed to reach the group before anyone else did. 
Wheeler and Emerson might have low charisma, but Dustin had a particular combination of snark and a know-it-all attitude that really pissed off authority figures. 
(And Eddie would know, given he was the reigning champion of pissing off authority figures.) 
He did, however, slide in right in time to hear the priest respond. 
“I don’t care for your tone, young man. Jason here has some concerns over your club and I have to agree, what I see is quite,” The guy paused, jowls jiggling as he looked over their table, clearly eyeing Hellfire’s logo. “alarming.” 
 At least wasn’t an actual sermon.
Not yet, anyway. 
Eddie came up right inbetween Mike and Dustin, intending to make himself out to be the new target for all to aim at.  
There was an art to making yourself the sole owner of everything evil in this world, and Eddie had learned it all, trial by fire style.  
“Carver is full of--” Mike snarled, and thankfully was cut off—not by Eddie, or the hand he’d just clamped onto Mike’s shoulder—but by Harrington. 
Who sauntered right up as if he was joining everyone for dinner, and not walking into a circus act.
“Hello Father.” Harrington said, voice warm and welcoming.  “Would you like some of our cookies? We have a sample platter.” 
“Oh--Steve!” The priest blinked, actually blinked, that he was startled to see Hawkins’ golden boy appear next to him. “I’m sorry but no. I’m ah, here for other reasons.”
He paused so long it was nearly comedic before tentatively asking; “ Are you with this table?”
Like the guy couldn’t see the same Hellfire logo plastered across Steve’s ridiculous jock chest. 
Eddie opened his mouth to give a resounding no, Hellfire shirt or not--when Mike of all people put an elbow into his side. 
As if Eddie was the one who needed to be silenced.  
“I am.” Steve put an arm down on Dustin’s shoulder, squeezing it in a way that looked like fond encouragement (but what Eddie was pretty sure was actually a warning in the same way the hand on Mike’s shoulder was.) “I came to help out my friends and fundraise.”
Then he beamed, face lighting up with the full Harrington charm, giga watt smile and all. 
Now the priest just looked awkward. 
“You’ve apparently been fundraising for what I have been told is a…Satanist Club?” 
It was hilariously delicate, how the priest said it. Like now that a respectable member of Hawkins was here, he had to be more careful about what words he used. 
Eddie would have interrupted then.  Retake the reins and do what he did best in terms of making everyone forget about everything but him--except Carver was rounding on Harrington, and well.
He was always a fan of the rich eating each other. 
“You cannot seriously be with these--these,” Jason’s eyes darted to between him and the priest, before physically reigning himself in. “hooligans, Harrington!” 
“I’m sorry.” Harrington said, and whatever Jason had been expecting to get hit with, it wasn’t “good ol’ boy” southern charm. 
He blinked, taking on the air of a kicked puppy who couldn’t understand why someone would be so mean as he glanced around the crowd.  “I think I'm a little lost here.” 
Jason clearly wasn’t prepared for that either. 
“What?” 
“This table is for a storytelling and math game.” Steve spoke slowly, in the same way one explained things to a toddler. “You have to roll dice and add the numbers up to do anything."
“It’s not a game, Steve.” Jason spat back. “It’s an evil trick made to tempt the susceptible minds of children to the dark arts!” 
Personally, Eddie was amazed Carver even knew the word susceptible let alone be able to properly use it in a sentence. 
(He tried to open his mouth to say so, and once again got elbowed, this time by Gareth. 
The look he gave his younger friend could have melted steel beams.)
“That’s what this is about?” Harrington slid his arm off Dustin's shoulders, leaning back to look at the priest and the people around them in a show of blatant disbelief. “You think the nerd club is related to satanism?” 
It was Eddie's own tactic--arguing that D&D was “using academic skills” and “making math fun!" not that Hellfire had ever been successful using it.
Of course, they weren’t Hawkins golden boy either. 
Jason sputtered. 
“It has monsters and--demons in it! It makes children do spells and sign over their souls!” He flung a hand out, for the first time acknowledging Eddie by pointing at his shirt. “Just look at that! It’s awful!”  
"Hey." Eddie said, hand going over his very well drawn dragon.
“I once had to stop an argument about how much weight a wooden bridge could hold.” Steve countered, hands moving to his hips. “I only got them to stop by agreeing to take the kids to a library so they could look it up.” 
He squinted, in Carver's direction, deadpanning; "I take it you think the library is evil now too?"
“The name of the club is called Hellfire!” Jason shrieked, sounding more like an angry teakettle than anything dangerous. 
“Look I get that it sounds scary,” Steve said, the tiniest hint of pity entering his voice, “but they’re trying to make math problems and English essays sound cool. It’s the same reason Father John here calls our annual haunted house Hell House, isn’t it? So people go in it to begin with?” 
Harrington turned to look expectantly at the priest, and Eddie had to admit it was an excellent way to both pander to the guy and sound like Jason was making a big deal out of nothing. 
Perhaps, he’d stay quiet after all. 
(Even if it went against Eddie’s entire being to do so.)
“Well, yes, but--” Father John had clearly picked up on the fact he was losing this particular argument, but plowed forward regardless. “Those activities are supervised by the church…” 
“This is evil Harrington, and you should know better to promote it.” Carver tacked on, like this was a two bit comedy sketch. 
“When I played it we just saved some poor town from a bad guy who set it on fire.” Steve rolled his eyes. 
Then he leaned in, converting his voice into a stage whisper that somehow projected it, giving the impression that everyone around them was listening in on a secret. 
“The doctor said it was a really good way for Dustin and Erica to process the mall fire. He’s a specialist--my mother managed to convince him to fly down to help all the kids who got hurt.” 
Eddie was 100% sure that was total bullshit, but the mere mention of Harrington's mother had seemed to have an effect on the people around them.
 Like Steve had invoked the name of an old but beloved God, not always benevolent but definitely memorable. 
“She’s always been a champion of helping when you can.” Steve spoke to the priest, like they were having a conversation between just the two of them. “Encouraging people to volunteer and helping fundraise.”
“She has been." Father John said, in the kind of instant way one does when they don’t want to offend a very large donor.  "Tell your mom I look forward to her coming back from her--ah, trip.”
 With an awkward glance to the table, he added; “...I suppose I don’t see how math comes into play?” 
“Oh it’s right from the start. Hey Jeff, come here, show Father John how you have to do a bunch of calculations and stuff to make a character.” 
“Ah--right.” Jeff sprung to life, moving around the table to Steve.
“We uh, we start with this character sheet…” 
“Eddie Munson runs the club.” Jason interrupted, before Steve could get Jeff to going.
“He’s right there! Does he look like this whole thing is just an innocent board game?” 
This was a last ditch effort, and it was clear by the chattering that had started circling amongst their audience that everyone knew it. 
Unfortunately, it was a good one.
This was the downside to making yourself a target. Once a bad guy, always a bad guy--particularly in the eyes of the PTA. 
“Munson?” Harrington dismissed with a scoff. “He’s harmless.” 
Which was news to most of their audience given the amount of attention Eddie suddenly had on him, but it was fine. 
He was used to the disapproving stares and glares, and gave his best award winning smile in response. 
Jason looked at Harrington like he’d lost his mind. 
“He has skulls on his fingers for fucks sake!” 
“Jason.” Steve admonished, in a perfect mimic of an upset southern mother. “Language.” 
Carver's jaw dropped, face purpling in rage.
Steve ignored him, turning back to the Priest. “I don’t know what's gotten into him but I’m sorry Jason’s wasted your time, Father.” 
“Munson is a drug dealer!” And ah, here came the Hail Mary move, Carver's one and only trump card.
“We all know he’s a drug dealer, and he’s using this--this game, to give drugs to kids!”
“Really?” Steve turned. “Lucas, what happens if I ever catch you smoking weed?” 
Lucas answered instantly. “You’re going to make us run laps at five in the morning.” 
“For a month.” Dustin added, with an exaggerated shudder. 
It would have been too much--except his disgusted face sold it. 
“Eddie’s just loud and wants to be a rockstar.” Harrington said, like this he was harmless.
No one on Steve's side of things had ever thought of Eddie as harmless.
 “I’ve babysat these kids for years and Eddie was a huge help in making sure no one in high school messed with them.” He continued, like they were some sort of team or friends even.
(Like Eddie hadn't been at Harrington's throat all day, pissy and defensive.)
“We have a real bullying problem right now. Funny enough,” Steve’s nailed Jason with a look, “I keep hearing that it’s coming from the basketball team.” 
“What are you implying?” Jason asked darkly. 
“Just that it’s funny how nobody got caught fighting when I was team captain.” Steve returned. 
God the man was such a bitch. Eddie kind of wanted to kiss him a little. 
Okay, more than a little.
“I get you have some kind of beef with Munson, but let’s not drag a bunch of people into it. Especially not Father John.” Harrington was playing up to the mothers around him now, dismissing Carver entirely as he did so. “He’s a busy guy.”
“Very.” Said Father nodded solemnly. “I do not appreciate being pulled into a high school squabble.” 
Jason’s mouth swam through shapes, words stuttering out of it. “This isn’t, thats not--”
“We can talk about this after church on Sunday.” Father John interrupted, the finishing blow to Carver's little show.
“You came all this way, at least have a cookie on us.” Steve said with an appeasing tone, reaching an arm back behind him.
Quick on the uptake, a cookie appeared in his hands. 
He offered it out to the priest, who took it happily.
"Okay, who wants cake!?” He called, in a clear and obvious dismissal of Jason. 
Who stood there, like he couldn’t believe what just happened. 
His eyes slid to Eddie's, fists clenched tightly at his side, hatred pouring off him so strongly one could almost taste it.
Eddie winked at him.
(Unknown to him at the time, Jason had also looked at Steve--and Steve would wink too.)
xXx
Steve Harrington, who Eddie had been an absolute ass all day too, had looked Jason Carver, a Priest and half of Hawkins in the eye and announced that he, Eddie Munson, was a good person at heart.
It made Eddie want to vomit a little when he thought about it too hard.
“I know this is horrible timing,” Robin said, sidling up as the crowd finally dispersed, “but I really, really need to talk to you.” 
Eddie turned, head full of far too many thoughts and ready to tell her such, when he caught sight of Buckley's face. 
Was reminded, by the sheer nervous, ‘horse about to bolt’ vibe, that he owed it to Robin as a fellow queer not to be a dick about her accidental outing.
Even if all he wanted was to preen in the wake of Carver’s defeat. 
‘See Mothers of Hawkins? Your own golden boy just gave me his stamp of approval!’ 
A mental image that immediately changed to Steve Harrington’s name stamped on his ass and dammit he had to get ahold of his thoughts before he fell down rabbit holes like this--!
“Back there, at the stairs,” Robin started, voice dropping low, and Eddie didn’t miss the way her eyes kept seeking out Steve, like he was some kind of safety net--which he probably was. “What um--what did you hear?” 
It took a lot of guts to come talk to him, knowing what he'd overheard--particularly given they'd just fended off the church.
He'd never exactly underestimated Robin Buckley, but then, he'd never expected this level of badassery from her either.
“Eddie?” Robin prodded again, chewing hard on her bottom lip.
“Sorry, distracted.” Eddie waved a hand behind himself. “Not everyday the King decides to defend your honor to a priest.” 
With a little bow, he offered his elbow out to her, a clear signal to take it and let him escort them away from unwanted ears.
In a show of bravery, Robin took his elbow and let him lead, even as she frowned up at him, looking like she was about to say something.
Likely it was in defense of Harrington, but Eddie had been interrupted enough for one day. 
“You and His Highness over there really should be more aware of your surroundings." He started, voice low. "Lucky for you, you’re among friends. You and Dorothy both.” 
He reached a foot out, tapping Robin’s own. 
Right on top of a doodled pair of tits. 
Robin let go of his elbow and glanced down, before flinging her head right back up, panicked.
"I--"
“If you’d like I can pretend I never heard a thing.” Eddie interrupted, dropping his voice into the gentler tone he reserved for delicate conversations.
People were always surprised by the lengths he went to make sure someone was comfortable--but then, people also forgot how often Eddie heard things he shouldn’t. 
People didn't take drugs just for fun, after all.
“Or I can offer a friend of a friend discount on my wares,” He put a finger to his lips, miming smoking with one hand while he opened his vest with the other to flash the little pink triangle pin that sat inside, announcing his own sexualities status.
“and we can, say, discuss the differences between radical and social feminism while admiring the fine forms of Susan Sarandon and Peter Hinwood?”
The smile he gets is two parts relief, one part genuine delight and Eddie grinned right back at her, flicking his vest closed.
“I did not take you for a Peter Hinwood type.” Robin said it hesitantly, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Thought you’d find Tim Curry’s…acting skills, more to your taste.”
“In the case of Rocky Horror? I am Tim Curry.” He announced, loud and proud (well for this kind of conversation at least.) 
He was rewarded by the tension finally melting out of Robin’s shoulders. 
(This, Eddie reflected, is what he should have been doing this entire time, instead of getting tied up in knots over Harrington and turning into some kind of non-conformist tyrant.) 
“Do you actually know the differences between social and radical feminism?” Robin challenged, braver now, and Eddie knew then and there he’d been successful in assuring her her secret was safe.
That she was safe, with him.
“Guess you’ll have to find out.” Eddie said, giving a playful nudge to her shoulder. 
Baths in the laugh he gets for it, and for the first time today feels like he’s finally on firmer ground.
They chatted for a moment longer, making a loop on the very outskirts of the gym, voices hushed when it came to things that small town ears shouldn’t overhear--but of course, Robin couldn’t just leave things at that.
“Hey Eddie?” 
“Yeah?” 
“Can you do me one more favor?”
“Anything for you, my favorite feminist.” 
For the first time since this conversation started, Robin managed to sound firm. 
“Stop referring to Steve as a King.” 
She rushed ahead, anticipating being cut off, and thus Eddie is hit with a wave of words, none of which he’d ever thought he’d hear in relation to thee Steven Harrington. 
“He’s working really hard to get away from it, the whole King thing and how he used to be. I don’t know what all he did to like--you guys,” She flapped her hand in the general direction of Hellfire, “and I know he wasn’t an innocent bystander, but I kinda realized over the summer that I blamed him for a lot of things that were in my own head, and that he wasn’t--he was never as bad as I thought he was and he's still trying to make it up to me anyway.”
Robin trailed off, seeming to try and piece out what she wanted to say next without giving away the whole farm. “It’s not some act, Eddie. Steve’s really trying to change.” 
Which yeah.
Eddie could see that, now. 
Maybe not before but…
“Okay.” He said, after a long, long moment. “No more King Steve. Got it.”
The smile he got for that also felt like a victory, even if it was wrenched out of him.
xXx
Two hours and a dispersed crowd later, Eddie found himself once again stuck in his own head. 
The facts were thus:
Steve Harrington was a good dude. 
He used his good dude-ness to save Hellfire from a literal priest, right smack in front of God and Principal Hairy Ass both
All of Hellfire actually liked him 
According to Robin Buckley, Steve was entirely fine with “all us triangles” quote/unquote 
And;
Eddie was jealous.
He was self aware enough to admit it, alongside the fact that Jason Carver aside, maybe Eddie had been the villain today instead of Steve. 
Which meant he not only owed Harrington an apology, but he owed it to both of them to work out his own stupid shit before it blew up in his face and cost him all his friends.
(He’d have called this move “pulling a Harrington” before today but now that feels mean, which Eddie supposes signals he’s grown as a person or some shit.) 
So now he sits on Steve’s beemer, knowing the move will likely antagonize the ex-jock but equally knowing he’s planning on jumping off the car the second the guy comes near, and that the move itself will get Harrington to listen to him the second he’s done supervising whatever Hellfire’s youngest is doing.
(Eating leftover cookies like the older members are as they finish packing up, Eddie assumes.) 
Ducking out like he did had allowed him some much needed time to think things though. Figure out what he was going to say--without an audience present.
He’d apologize publicly if he had to. But being vulnerable is hard, and given the way his friends had been acting, Steve isn’t the only person he owes an apology to. 
For now, he’ll begin here, without an audience. 
Eddie doesn’t get to plan for long--only gets to rehearse a few lines of his little spiel when a pointed cough jerks him back to reality. 
There stands Steve Harrington, a fat wad of cash in one hand and a box in the other.
Like a man sent to the gallows, Eddie leapt off the beemer, squaring his shoulders. 
He could do this.
 Apologize-- and mean it. 
Not that Steve gave him the chance to. 
“The guys told me to give this to you.” He said, holding out the cash. Then he took a breath, like he was preparing to go to war, and added; 
“I know you weren’t happy with me being here, and you probably don’t want this, but Dustin said you really liked cinnamon brownies so I made you some.” 
The box was now held out alongside the cash, proof that Steve had tried to start this whole thing off on the right foot. 
Eddie stared at it, then at Steve. 
Felt the guilt chew on his gut just that much harder.
“I have been shitty to you all day. Why are you giving me this?” 
Steve shrugged. 
“To be fair I didn’t exactly make it easy on you either. You said jump and I said ‘watch this’.” Steve laughed, a small, almost self depicting sound. “Dustin’s been on my ass all day about it.” 
Of course he had. 
“Mine too.” Eddie admitted. “It's his tone, I swear."
“Yes!” 
Carefully, Eddie reached out, accepted the box and the cash. 
“Thanks by the way. For the stuff you said about me earlier.” 
Steve grimaced, cheeks tinting a (lickable) red. “Yeah sorry, I--”
“No not--not that stuff.’ Eddie said, mentally hauling his thoughts back in line, fiddling with the cash. “The stuff about being a good person. No one’s uh. Said that. About me.”
Not except for Wayne, but Harrington wouldn’t know nor care about Eddie’s uncle. 
Steve shrugged. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” 
He’d argue that, except something was off. 
It took Eddie a moment to place it--that the wad Steve handed over was way too big for the little bake sale they’d just attended. 
He tucked the box under his arm, quickly counting the stack with a smoothness only drug dealers and bank tellers could manage.
“It’s all there, I promise.” Steve told him simply, but without judgment. He sounded like he expected this and that didn’t sit right with Eddie either. 
Not that he could do anything about it because he’d just counted up didn’t make any sense. 
Not trusting himself, Eddie stacked it back together, before counting it all again. He was faster this time, trying to figure out among all the ones, fives and tens how the hell they had managed to sell that many cookies. 
Particularly considering the most expensive thing was one of the cakes and he’d watched Steve sell it for fifteen dollars. 
So why were there three twenties sitting in the stack? 
“Either you up charged the absolute shit out of someone’s mom, in which case I congratulate you, you sneaky devil,” Eddie said slowly, “Or you put extra cash in here.” 
Steve blushed properly this time. 
Eddie zeroed in on his face, watching as Steve rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, trying to pull his charming mask into place.
He didn't quite manage it.
Hadn’t even been wearing it before now, Eddie realized suddenly.
This entire conversation Steve had a realness to him that Eddie had never really seen. 
Had maybe not wanted to see, from someone like Harrington. 
“I don’t know what you mean.” Steve protested, like a kid who’d been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “That’s what we charged.” 
“You are a terrible liar.” Eddie accused, hand trembling. “We can’t take this, man. This is a almost two hundred dollars.” 
Way more than what they’d need for Gen Con. It was enough to get them two fuckin’ hotel rooms! 
“If It helps any, I didn’t do it for you.” Steve’s blush slid into something more genuine, as he nodded his head to where Hellfire was spilling out of the gym doors, laughing and shoving one another. 
“They deserve to have a good trip.” He added, eyes fond as he watched Dustin and Mike squabble over how to fold Hellfire's banner.
It made his whole face soften, the harsh features of his jaw turning into something that was so adorable Eddie wanted to bite through it. 
“Do you want to come?” Someone said, and it took both Steve’s startled look and a second long pause for Eddie to realize that someone was him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid-! 
“To the convention?” Steve asked, looking doubtful. 
Pity that Eddie was already nodding, like his brain and his body were at a total disconnect.
Maybe aliens had finally taken him over. Or a demon. 
(Demonic possession could frankly explain a lot about today, Carver’s weird little power play aside.)
“Dude you don’t even like me.” Steve said. “Why would you want me to come along?” 
“I dunno Harrington. All of Hellfire seemed to like you, and not just my freshman.” Eddie countered easily, gliding right over the fact that he himself did like Steve.
Way more than he should, and that right there was half of Eddie’s problem. 
“They have pretty good taste in things.” He waived a hand, as if this wasn’t a complete 180 from how he’d acted all day. “I could understand if you didn’t want to slum it with us nerds though.”
Steve rolled his eyes. 
“I’ve been slumming it all day with you nerds, if you haven’t noticed.” 
“Yeah? What’s your verdict on us?” 
“Not as bad as you could be.” 
Eddie tilted his head back and laughed. “High praise from the King!”
He felt bad immediately after, and made himself promise to be more mindful about Robin’s ask--but  thankfully Harrington didn’t take it hard. 
(Habits, Eddie knew, were hard to change.
Took a lot of careful attention to change. 
He had a long road ahead of him, and he hoped this little olive branch put him a few miles down it.) 
Steve awarded him a small smile. “I haven’t been the King for a long while, man. But if you guys have an opening, I think I wouldn’t mind being a knight or whatever.” 
“Ste-eeeve Harrington, defender of the realm.” Eddie nodded once, decisively. “I can see it.”
He tucked away the cash, and thus missed how Steve looked weirdly contemplative at that. 
Raised his head and stuck out a hand. 
Tentatively, Steve took it. 
“Welcome to the club, Harrington. We meet on Fridays. Bring snacks.” 
“Cookies okay?”
“Going by Gareth’s judgment, they’re more than okay.”
Eddie smiled and Steve smiled back, and God how he hated how fucking cute Harrington’s face was. 
Particularly since he now got to think of the guy as “Steve” without feeling weird about it. 
As in his possible, potential, friend Steve.
What a fucking trip that was. 
“Oh, and Steve?” He called, the thought hitting him as Steve turned to welcome the group making their way to the beemer.
Steve had let his hand fall, turning to open the front door of the Beemer with a cocked eyebrow.
Eddie flicked a finger out, lightly tapping the Hellfire logo. “Tell Lucas I’ll get him another shirt. That one’s all yours, big boy.” 
If there was a pink hue to Harrington’s cheeks, he was blaming sunburn. 
(Two months, six days, and one meddlesome asshole named Henderson later, and Eddie would find out that Steve had in fact, been blushing.
He’d be furious at Dustin’s involvement, if it hadn’t directly led to Eddie finding out Steve’s blush did in fact go down his chest.
And his happy trail.
And his--
Well.
Men do not kiss and tell. 
Not to fucking freshmen, anyway.) 
THERE IS A GEN CON, "THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED BECAUSE DUSTIN IS A MEDDLESOME SHIT" BONUS BUT it's on A03 cause it was long enough to be its own post and I wasn't gonna add it to this one. You can read it here LINK
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buckyalpine · 2 years
Text
A little longer
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HI MY BEAUTIFUL 🐚ANON!! I adore this so much, I adore YOU so much, as always, your requests are everything!! 
Warnings: So so much fluffy fluff, angst if you really squint till your eyes go cross-eyed and blurry
-
"It's been decades. Not even a couple years. Almost a century. You probably shoot dust. Or whatever your bionic ass reproduces with"
Bucky contemplated throwing his half finished milkshake at Sam's head while they both scarfed down burgers from a late night diner after a taxing mission. Sam was pestering Bucky yet again about his nonexistent social and lack of a love life, a topic he seemed to get high off of. 
“For fucks sake Sam-”
"You need to get out more man, at least start dating. You don't need a whole girlfriend but a few dates wouldn't kill you. Or maybe it would, since you're what, 106?"
Bucky groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, his patience wearing thin. Dating wasn’t for him, not because he didn’t want to date but because he wasn’t sure who would even date him. He’d only just gotten comfortable talking to Sam though he’d never openly admit he actually enjoyed their conversations. He wasn’t exactly the most approachable, Peter had once told him he had a resting bitch face, whatever that meant. He wasn’t the most tech savvy unless it involved doing something illegal. He had a plethora of devices that could take down the US government at the push of a button he secrecy hoarded under his bed but God forbid someone ask him to pose for their Instagram story.  
Talking to a pretty girl was a completely different story. What would he even talk about? His time before the war involved a lot of nursing an injured or sick Steve back to health. After the war and his time in Hydra, he didn’t really have time for himself. He liked plums. The hobbit. He was thinking about getting a cat. Bucky internally groaned, maybe he’d find a girlfriend at the retirement home down the street; at least they’d have things in common. 
Sam cocked an eyebrow while Bucky narrowed his eyes at him. Usually he’d respond with a grumpy pout or complete silence but today his exhaustion had caught up with him. He debated on how to get Sam of his back, a dim, flickering, half broken bulb going off in his sleep deprived brain. 
"I already have a girlfriend Tweety bird"
The deafening silence that followed that statement made it clear both men were aware that was a lie. Sam snorted, shaking his head while they both finished they food, slapping a $50 on the counter before leaving. He looked at the super soldier, deciding not to press into the issue further for the night but he definitely wasn’t going to let it go that easily. 
5:30 AM
The buzz of his phone jolted him awake, the faint sound of the TV still playing in the background. Bucky felt around for his phone, tossing his sheet off, sitting up from his place on the floor seeing Sam’s caller ID light up the screen. 
“What are you doing next Saturday” Sam sounded unusually chipper, a hint of a smirk in his voice, a suspicious amount of enthusiasm for such an early hour. 
“Why” Bucky groaned, rubbing sleep from his eyes, going back to lying down. 
“Were having a cookout over the weekend, you should come”
“You woke me up to tell me what could have been a text message?” Bucky asked incredulously, closing his eyes, ready to let sleep free him from such a ridiculous conversation. 
“Ooo, white panther knows how to text now” 
“White Wolf” Bucky grumbled, regretting every telling Sam the name he had been given in Wakanda. “I’ll come if you just let me go back to sleep” 
"Alright, but bring your girl too"
There it was. 
He could feel the shit eating grin Sam was giving him over the phone, eye brows wigging up and down, all his perfect teeth out. 
“Whatcha say Barnes?” 
Sleep had disappeared into thin air as Bucky shot up, mentally kicking himself for the nonsense he’d gotten himself into. He fiddled with the corner of his sheet, hoping to find an out. 
"I thought you only invited family" 
"Hey, anyone that you're allowing within 3 feet of your personal space might as well be considered family" Sam snorted, not believing a single word Bucky had said the night before. The conversation moved on to a different topic, easing some of Bucky’s nerves. A whole hour had passed and Bucky was sure he was in the clear until-  
“Back to the matter at hand, you bringing her or not?” 
“Why are you like this, does being Captain America always come with the caveat with also being a pain in my ass, I’m not going to-”
Bucky was about to refuse until a knock at the door pulled him away from the conversation, the scent of fresh pancakes wafting through the door. He pulled himself up, a smile tugging on his lips, knowing exactly who was on the other side, not needing to check as he untangled himself from the sheets. 
His sweet neighbor. 
Bucky wasn’t religious and he wasn’t a big believer in a higher power but there had to be something out there when people like you existed. Whenever Sam asked him why he stayed in the dingy little apartment that barely had windows and a closet for a bedroom, he’d insist it was because he preferred a small space and was still getting used to living a normal life so he wasn’t ready for another move just yet. 
The part he always left out was that his dingy apartment came with an absolute angle that lived next door. Kind hearted. Sweet. An absolute darling. You were one of the first people he’d interacted with when he moved in. All the nerves he had about living alone and growing accustomed to a regular life melted away the first day, when you came over with a plate of fresh cookies. 
He felt like a little boy whenever you were around, having the biggest crush on the prettiest girl on the playground, his mind going to mush whenever you smiled at him. But it wasn’t a crush. Nope. No....? No. He narrowed his eyes at himself before making his way to the door. 
“Buck? Did your tongue rust-” 
“I’ll uh-I’ll think about it” He mumbled before cutting the call, a bashful smile on his face as he unhooked the chain and swung the door open. “G’morning doll” 
“Good Morning” You grinned, handing Bucky the plate which he gratefully accepted, his stomach rumbling between the butterflies that fluttered in his tummy. “I heard you get in last night, didn’t think you’d have time to do a grocery run or cook anything” You handed him a bag of fruits and vegetables, two of those bags full of plums. His favorite. 
“You didn’t have to do all this” If his cheeks grew any warmer he would’ve sworn he was running a fever. And he didn’t get fevers. 
“You’re out saving the world, I think getting you a few groceries is the least I could do. So, how’s the new Captain?” You had never met Sam in person but hearing enough stories from Bucky told you all you needed to know. No one else was better suited to take on the shield than him. 
“A pain in my ass even if he means well” Bucky smiled shaking his head to himself. “He’s been pestering me to get out more...start dating” He mumbled the last part, wincing. He’d fought off aliens, gone to battle alongside a tree and a talking raccoon, survived being help captive by Hydra but being boyfriend material? His flirting game was as strong as pre serum Steve's right hook. 
“Well, handsome solider like you, shouldn’t be too hard to find you a date” You felt your own face heat up as soon as the words left your mouth but wasn’t like it was a secret. There was no way he would have had trouble in the dating department; aside from being one of the most beautiful people you’d laid your eyes on he was also the sweetest. Bucky was nothing but a gentleman and with a pure and soft heart and if you didn’t get your shit together and control the way he made you weak in the knees-
“Not the same ladies man I was in the 40′s doll” He chuckled, blue eyes sparkling at your compliment, “Either way, I got myself into a mess with that” He smiled sheepishly while you cocked your head, urging him to continue. 
“Well, I sort of lied to get him off my case” Bucky blushed, rubbing the back of his head, his the pink on his cheeks deepening at your cheeky smile. “I-I told him I already have a girlfriend but as you can see-” Bucky waved into his empty apartment that showed no signs of human life, “-it back fired immediately because he's invited my nonexistent girlfriend to a cookout this weekend. In Louisiana. With all his family. And friends”
Bucky let his head hit the wall with a dull thump, cursing himself for putting a foot in his mouth. Sure he could just come clean and say he lied. But that would mean admitting he lied and that was worse because then Sam would give him shit for that, plus try to get him out more and- 
“What if- what if I went with you?” Bucky’s head shot up, blinking in surprise at your words, wondering if he heard you correctly. “I could pretend to be your girlfriend for a day, get Cap off your case. Only if you’re comfortable with it though”
“Really? You’d do that?” You giggled at his lost puppy expression, his eyes lighting up when he realized you were being serious.
“Of course” You smiled sincerely,  “I’d be happy to! Just let me know what time to be ready at and I’ll be all yours” 
All his.  
The little boy in his was running around in circles, his heart beating too fast for the rest of his body to keep up. The thought of you being his girlfriend for a day was more than he could ever dream of. Of course it was only pretend and he’d wouldn’t dare push for more; not when you deserved the world. At the very least, he wouldn’t have to deal with Sam’s nagging. 
Problem solved. 
*****
This was a bad idea. 
A bad, bad idea. 
Bucky had gone through at least 4 outfits, debating between an array of Henley’s, before settling on a blue one when he remembered you complimented it because it was blue like his eyes. He picked up his razor and then immediately put it down when he remembered you once said you liked the scruff on him.  Even if this was just pretend, every single part of him was on edge as if this were a real date. As soon as his enhanced hearing picked up your soft footsteps padding down the hall, he was right by the door, nervously chewing his lip. 
Bucky blinked, his heart nearly giving way at 106 years old when he saw you make your way down the hall towards his apartment. You were in a flowery sundress, with a large cakebox in hand, your sweet perfume already making him dizzy. If Sam didn’t kill him for lying, the crush he had on you would be the next thing to take him out. 
"You-you look beautiful"  And sweet. And adorable. And delectable. 
An angel.
You looked like an angel. 
"Thank you, you look good too Sarge" You looked down at Bucky’s chest instead of meeting his eyes, unable to look at his pretty face. His adorable face. Handsome face. That dimple on his chin. Blue eyes. Pink lips. Fuck, you had such a big crush on him. 
It was going to be an interesting day. 
*****
Bucky parked the car at Sam’s place, which wasn’t too far from the lake where everyone had gathered. Part of him was almost sad they had made it on time; the car ride over with you ending faster than he’d liked.  
“He wasn’t kidding when he said he only invited family” Bucky snorted, seeing all of Sam’s relatives there along with his closest neighbors, many of whom he’d met before. He took the cakebox from you, slipping his hand into yours, smiling when you gave him a reassuring squeeze. You both made your way over, hand in hand, your heart skipping a beat each time someone greeted Bucky, every single person over joyed that he’d finally met someone to call his. 
He made his way over to the grill where Sam filliped a few burgers; the new Cap grinning when he saw you both. There was no missing the sparkle in his eyes when he looked down to your hand in Bucky’s, noting you were was holding his metal one, no longer covered by gloves. 
Interesting. 
“You’re lookin’ good” Sam wiggled his eyebrows at Bucky, loving the way the soldier rolled his eyes, trying to brush off the way his cheeks were dusted pink. 
“This is y/n, my girlfriend” Girlfriend. Bucky loved the way it rolled off his tongue with ease, not feeling an ounce of hesitance. The word previously feeling so foreign to him now felt so natural when he had you by his side. And holding your hand. And hearing your laugh. And-
Relax Bucky, it’s just for a day. 
“I’m Sam, and it’s very nice to meet you” He pulled you into a hug, still curiously eyeing Bucky, genuinely unable to figure out where he’d managed to find a sweetheart like you. 
“Thank you for the invite” you giggled as he gave you a light squeeze before letting you go, inspecting the cakebox Bucky handed to him. He grinned at the fresh strawberries that decorated the cake, shamelessly plucking one off and popping it into his mouth. “Strawberry shortcake. A little white wolf told me it was your favorite” 
“Well if the big bad wolf likes you then I like you cause he doesn’t like anybody. You must be special” Sam mused, a part of him wanting to be skeptical but there was nothing, absolutely nothing made up about the Bucky was looking at you. He gazed down at you as if you’d hung the moon and stars right in his room, an utterly lovesick puppy. You felt your cheeks heat up, burying your face into Bucky’s side while he chuckled, pulling you closer to him and pressing a kiss on top of your head. Damn right, she’s special. 
You both made your way over to mingle with the rest of the crowd, have no trouble at all playing the role of an utterly in love boyfriend and girlfriend. Bucky didn’t miss a single chance to press little kisses on your cheeks, every so often pecking your nose. His hand never left your waist, always holding you close to him, his face occasionally buried into the crook of your neck. 
You played your part almost better than he did, gushing over what a gentleman he always was to you, stayed tucked by his side, nuzzling under his chin, occasionally actually getting lost in his soft scent of laundry detergent, his cologne and something distinctly him. You made the elderly ladies giggle and blush each time Bucky did something adorable, proudly showing you off to everyone. 
He didn’t even let you eat without being the most perfect doting boyfriend. You’d both served your plates, finding a nice spot to sit under a shady tree; Bucky sat on the large lawn chair, secretly happy there was only one. You were about to walk off to get another when he tugged your wrist and pulling you back. 
“C’mere, I wont bite” Bucky grinned, surprised with himself as he pulled you onto his lap with ease. You let out a squeak, your nose bumping against his as you plopped onto him, lips nearly brushing his. 
“Smooth, Barnes. Remind me again, how you don’t have a girlfriend” You let out a breathless laugh, screaming to yourself on the inside that this was fake. He was playing the role perfectly, that was all. So fucking perfectly. 
Why was he so perfect. 
Bucky smirked, kissing your shoulder, letting you relax against his chest, wondering if you’d feel his heart hammering against his ribcage from how flustered he actually was. He easily maneuvered you so you sat comfortably across his thighs, his arm still securely around your waist. 
When was he ever this smooth. 
If anyone else was this close, he’s run for the hills, but now he was contemplating tossing you over his shoulder and running to Sam’s house, the guest bedroom was upstairs and two doors to the right-
“Well I’ll be damned, he really does have a girlfriend” Sam shook his head while Joaquin snorted, both men looking at you and Bucky with heart eyes while they sipping their beers from the docks. 
“You think they’re faking?” Joaquin nudged Sam’s shoulder, watching Bucky now fed you a piece of cake, still keeping you on his lap, sneakily kissing the cream from the corner off your lips between bites. You’d giggle every time, feeding him a strawberry, squealing when he’s playfully bite your fingers. 
“You can fake a lot of things but not the way he’d blushing and giggling like a toddler in a candy store” Bucky played with your fingers, intertwining them with his hand, his nose scrunching as he laughed at something you said. 
“It’s nice to see him like this” Joaquin had seen grumpy Bucky, grouchy Bucky, angry Bucky, scary Bucky, sleepy Bucky, just about every Bucky on the planet, but this? This was a first. Love struck Bucky. Charming Bucky. Happy Bucky. Simpy Bucky. Sappy Bucky. Giggly Bucky. Playful biting Bucky. Ready to get down on one knee if you’d let him, Bucky. 
“Steve always said he was a charmer, he wasn’t lying”
They couldn’t take their eyes off the way the corner of Bucky’s eyes crinkled each time he smiled or the way you’d instinctively lean into him when he spoke. He’d tuck your hair away from your face, his hands lingering on your cheek for a second longer, giving them a glimpse of the man from the 40′s before the war,  youthful and innocent, his heart full of hope, a smirk that would make his best girl swoon; the both of you in your own little world. 
“He looks happy”
Sam had seen people look happy before. They’d smile but their eyes would be empty. They’d laugh but their voices were hollow. They’d look like they were on top of the world while sitting at rock bottom. The way Bucky’s eyes sparkled, his boyish laugh, the way he’d nuzzle into you, trying to be closer to you than physically possible, was more than just looking happy. 
“He is happy”
Bucky had completely forgotten about pretending with you, lost in how perfectly you fit in his arms. You had taken up your role very seriously, telling him how utterly handsome he was, never missing moment to peck his scruffy cheek or card your fingers through his short soft locks. You intertwined you fingers with his vibrainium ones, busing your lips against his cool knuckles. 
At some point in the afternoon, he’d slipped his jacket off and wrapped you up with it as evening crept around the corner. Not a single person doubted the nature of your relationship; at least four of Sam’s uncles had told Bucky to propose soon. 
You don’t meet a girl who makes you this damn giggly just anywhere, Sergeant. Hold onto her. 
****
Just when he thought he couldn’t fall for you more, you had fallen asleep in his arms, contently snuggled up in his jacket as the sunset over the lake. Most of Sam’s family had gone back home, a few close relatives still hanging around the boat, sipping on coffee. Bucky couldn’t help but wrap his arms around you, softly kissing your forehead; he could get used to this. Cuddling up with you after date nights. Hearing your laugh. The softness of your lips. The way your hand always found itself in his metal one without hesitation. 
Fuck he wished this was real. 
You stirred slightly, a content sigh slipping past your lips at the feel of his kiss. Nothing felt more comfy than being wrapped up by the super soldier, his solid arms holding you close. You didn’t want to wake up, wishing you could sleep forever if it meant you’d be this close to Bucky all the time. The day felt like a dream; the exact dreams you had when you thought about your sweet neighbor. How it’d be for him to call you yours. To Be his girl. To make him smile. To make him laugh. 
If only it wasn’t just for a day. 
“You have a nice nap, baby?” Bucky smirked as you blinked awake, stretching on his lap like a cat before snuggling against him again. “My pretty girl” 
“Why wouldn’t I when my boyfriend is the comfiest spot to sleep on?” You teased, bringing your hand up to toy with the chain of his dog tags. Bucky chuckled, tilting your chin up to meet his eyes, kissing your nose. There was no one around you both, though neither of you seemed interesting in dropping the act just yet. 
“You fit perfectly here, doll” He grinned, blushing when he hesitantly pulled you a little closer, your arms moving to wrap around his shoulders, resting on the back of his neck. 
“I think I like it here” You sucked in a breath as he rested his forehead against yours, bringing his hand to cup your cheek. His nose gently bumped against yours, his warm breath tickling your lips. 
“Me too” He closed the gap between you both, pressing his lips to yours sweetly, savoring every bit of your softness. He couldn’t help but deepen the kiss as you parted your mouth letting his tongue lace with yours while your hand made its way through his hair, tugging on his short locks. Bucky let out a groan, letting his hands drop to your waist, kissing you for as long as he could until you both needed oxygen. 
“Maybe we can pretend for a little longer?” Bucky broke away, panting, his forehead still pressed against yours. You giggled between breaths, peppering kisses across his face. 
“Just a little longer?” 
“Maybe- maybe forever?” He looked at you with his classic puppy eyes, his heart bursting when you pulled him in for another kiss; forever. Forever sounded good. 
A few years later
“So, you finally gonna admit I made this happen?” Sam whispered while Bucky snorted, shaking his head. 
“Not gonna happen” 
“C’mon, I made this happen, I caused this” 
“You caused chaos” 
Sam scoffed in fake offence, taking a sleepy Becca from Bucky’s arms while the soldier went to go check on you. “Now when do I get to meet my second God child?”
“In a few hours” Bucky stretched before making his way back to your room, smiling at your resting form. He carefully laid down beside you, letting his hand splay across your tummy; in just a few more hours there would be a little Samuel Grant Barnes in the world. 
“We’re really good at pretending” You murmured, make Bucky chuckle, taking your hand in his and kissing the ring that sat on your finger. 
“Maybe just one more baby after this? Really convince them, Mrs. Barnes?”
*
“Uncle Sam, tell me a bedtime story?” Becca pouted, having been at the hospital for hours, giving Sam the exact same face Bucky gave you. Her little bottom lip jutting out, big (y/c/e) eyes blinking up at him. He grinned, settling her on his lap before he made a thinking face before asking what she’d want to hear. 
“What kinda story, Beccs, an animal story, a super cool falcon story or Captain America story or a flying Falcon Captain America story?” 
“The chaos daddy said you caused” She giggled while Sam nodded, taking a deep breath before starting. 
“It all started when your daddy said he had a girlfriend...”
Tags: @glxwingrxse @hungryyeyess @sebsgirl71479 @beabutterfly987 @teambarnes72 @witchywhore @jamesbuckybarneswify @slutforsexyseabass @chrisdrysdale @littlemarvelmenfan @buggy14 @whimsyplaty92 @sergntbarnes @inkedaztec @pono-pura-vida @moonlightreader649 @brooklynscherry-z @elle14-blog1 @justsebstan @littlelightnings @psychomanniac-blog @happyt0exist @emmabarnes @bethyruth @matchat3a @cjand10 @getwellsoontana @cherryschaos @lokisasgardianvampirequeen @ashenc-blog @buckybarnessimpp @potatothots @goldylions @high-functioning-lokipath @morganemorganite-blog @kingfleury @peaches1958 @spiderman-stilinski @peaceinourtime82 @gublur @wintersmelodie​ @geeky-politics-46​ @lolawassad​ @almosttoopizza​ @a-poor-gryffindork​ @alternativeprincess​ @buckycallsmeaslut​ @kamaria-sweet-writes​ @charmedbysarge​ @xnorthstar3x​ @kryoee7​ @alina02​ @gh0stgurl​ @polishprincess999​ @jessybarnes​ @alltheficsiwant​ @chemtrails-club​ @eralen​ @perdidosbucky-yyo​ @clqrosmgc​  
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honkytonk-hangman · 7 months
Text
How It's Done – Oneshot Version
Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x Aviator!Reader
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Originally posted by unicornships
Summary: “Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean. “Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–” “–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by.
Warnings: erm maybe just some references to sex? jake being jake? language? minions. big warning for minions xD
Notes: Originally I intended this to be a two-parter series, but I wanted to change how it went, so I rewrote the parts I didn't like and made the entire thing into a oneshot instead!!! This fic will replace the 'part one' already on my blog, but I will keep this part up, linked at the very bottom of my masterlist! thank you everyone for being so patient! Thank you @hangmanssunnies, my love my biggest support <3
Words: 11.6k!
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“Well, I’ll be damned…”
You pinch your eyes shut and steel yourself at the sound of the all too familiar Texan drawl, hanging on to the hope that perhaps he isn’t talking to you. You’re out of luck though, and moments later Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin slides into the open space next to you at the bar, already posed in a casual lean as he looks you up and down appraisingly.
It makes your teeth grind.
It makes your face hot.
“If it isn’t Mirage. Would have invited you to play with us if I’d known you were here earlier…” Hangman cocks his head, and his lips tip up in an infuriatingly perfect smile. “But one can never really be sure if you’re around or not… and that's before you get in a cockpit,” he grins, but when you meet his eye at last, he looks away from you, toward Penny who seems to approach in the nick of time, saving you from needing to respond.
You blink down at your drink, and finish it quickly, unnerved by what you think might have just been a compliment of sorts from Hangman. You’d been stationed together previously, though you weren’t friends, so you’d been expecting something a little more acidic in nature. You’d heard him interact with other aviators, knew he liked to push and poke them, usually got away with it too. For some reason though, he’d never really gone there with you and frankly you’ve always just chalked it up to not being worth his time. In fact, you’re pretty sure the only times you’d ever actually spoken had been in the sky. To be completely honest, you’re more than a little surprised that he remembers you at all.
You didn’t exactly go out of your way to stand out…
You were naturally quiet, which wasn’t helped by your social anxiety, resulting in most people describing you as extremely shy. They wouldn’t be wrong, you suppose, you did tend to keep to yourself, the idea of having too many eyes on you all but unbearable to you. But if you’d thought a roomful of people singing happy birthday to you was bad, somehow being under the unwavering stare of Hangman is approximately one thousand times worse.
“Penny, my dear… I’ll have,” he stops to glance pointedly down at your now finished beer, adjusts his stance to lean even more and unwittingly makes the muscles in his bicep bulge.
“Five more on the Old Timer,” Hangman says, nodding to the man who sits on the other side of the bar.
Internally you blanch, but externally, you say nothing and give even less away, feeling a little ping of satisfaction that apparently, you know something Hangman doesn’t. Before he’d come along, you’d been carefully watching the interaction between Penny and Captain Mitchell. You’d never met the man before, but you knew how to read military insignia, which at this point, was more than you could say for Hangman, who dismisses him quickly.
You wonder if Monday morning you’ll be able to work up the nerve to tease him about it.
You’re distracted from your thoughts when Penny returns with the requested drinks. You had no real intentions of going and hanging out with Hangman and the others, but before you can excuse yourself, your empty beer is smoothly plucked from your hands, replaced quickly with a brand new one.
“Help me carry these back?” Hangman asks then, jerking his head in the vague direction of the pool table. You frown when he immediately takes off walking, not actually letting you help him at all, all four beers still slotted between his fingers. You find yourself following him anyway, as if he’d placed some kind of spell over you.
Hangman stops ahead of you at the ancient jukebox, looking back over his shoulder at you, nodding in a pleased manner when he sees you trailing behind. He waits for you, gaze never leaving your form, even as he nods to the space next to him. You awkwardly step up to the spot opposite to him, and look past the glass and at the selection inside. Hangman, once more, takes up a lean, this time against the rickety machine.
“Would you be so kind as to select track number…” he trails off as he checks the list of songs, but quickly flicks his gaze back to you, and smiles bright, tauntingly, again. “Eighty-Six?” he asks, but it's barely a question. You nod, and swallow, shifting from holding your beer with two hands to holding it with just one. You carefully tap the chunky ‘eight’ and ‘six’ keys as he watches. The machine’s little analogue screen confirms that your song is next up, and nervously, you look back up at Hangman, horrified to find he’s just been staring at your face for the past however long.
“S’been a while, Mirage.” He drawls, making you blink rapidly and look away.
“Has it?” Is all you can manage meekly in reply, surprised when he lets out a genuine sounding laugh. He hums warmly, and you practically feel it in your chest.
“And yet,” he lifts hand, two beers held expertly between his fingers, but he extends it to tap your nose, almost making you almost flinch.
“You haven’t changed at all.” Hangman grins Cheshire-like down at you, before his eyes narrow ever so slightly, and he leans in even closer while flicking his eyes up and down your form again.
“I don’t bite you know,” he tells you, his voice sounding serious, but his somberness lasts mere seconds.
“Well, not unless you ask me to first, sweetheart,” he winks and his smile grows large as your eyes grow wide and you splutter, flustered.
Your face grows hot with slight embarrassment, a wave of inner resentment at his teasing washing through you.
Hangman laughs, seemingly bored with you now, and he turns to walk back toward the pool tables. Without even looking, he beckons you to follow with one finger on his still occupied hands. For a moment your pique prevents you from doing so, certain that if you were to dip into the crowd now, he’d not care enough to seek you out again, let alone notice you were missing.
You know he didn’t mean it, you know his flirting is just to get a rise, but you also know that he’d never do it to Phoenix, or Halo, and a little bit of you hates yourself for being such a marked pushover. You make the decision now that you won’t let him do it again, if you can help it.
Your eyes travel past Hangman then, towards the pool tables where you can now see another figure has joined the other gathered aviators, and for the first time all evening, you don’t feel nervous to go join them.
You follow after Hangman, but quickly diverge from his path, cutting around a gathered group of Navy personnel to get there faster. As you approach, you take a moment to shake off any lingering anxiety, before gently laying a hand on the faded Hawaiian shirt in front of you, doing your best to keep yourself from bouncing on your heels.
Rooster half looks ready to wave off whoever is trying to get his attention, but when his shaded eyes land on you, he spins his whole body to face you, grinning widely in unguarded excitement as he gathers you up in his arms.
“Miri!” he exclaims warmly, and you can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of you when he briefly lifts you off the ground.
“I was just about to ask Phoenix if she’d seen you yet.” Rooster informs you. 
“Seen who?” Phoenix steps around him, frowning as she quickly glances you over, though it disappears quickly.
“Yeah, that about tracks…” Rooster mutters mostly to himself.
“Nat, this is Mirage, you know her right?” Rooster introduces the two of you, and while neither of you make to shake hands, you only feel friendly energy radiate off the other woman, even as she openly looks you over now, nodding at Rooster’s words.
“Right, I have heard about you… I guess there's no real mystery behind your callsign… I didn’t even realise you were here… Sorry,” she tells you bluntly, but you appreciate her straightforwardness.
“They said ‘Wallflower’ was too long.” You joke lightly, and the other woman smiles. A moment passes between you, and you get the distinct feeling that Phoenix has become determined to never let you go unnoticed in her presence again.
You aren’t sure just yet if you appreciate that, but you are sure that you’ve just made a friend.
“Mirage?” Another voice joins then and you look to your left, smiling again when you see another familiar face.
“Bob!” you move to embrace him too, not seeing the look shared between Phoenix and Payback who watch you in surprise.
“Huh. Figures.”
-
Neither you or Hangman have moved since Rooster and Mav went down. The rest of Dagger had returned an hour ago, mission complete. There was no reason for either of you to be on standby.
And yet.
When the call came through that Dagger Two had been hit, both you and Hangman had separately requested to be launched, to help, but you’d been denied.
As a rule, you made yourself easy to work with, even if those around you were less compliant, and you’d experienced plenty of that, flying alongside Hangman the past few weeks. Whether it was him leaving you to get shot down in training, or refusing to fly as a team during simulations. And yet, despite his habit of ‘hanging you out to dry’ being the reason behind his callsign, deep down, you’ve never once doubted flying alongside him in the real thing like the others seemed to.
You’re glad for that lack of hesitation now, glad that it only takes a single moment of eye contact from across the tarmac for the two of you to understand one another perfectly. Glad that when you got word that somehow, Rooster was supersonic again, you already know his answer before you even ask.
“Hangman? Hondo’s cleared us for take off with the ground crew, against orders. You with me?” you ask quietly, looking over at your wingman, knowing that when you return you’ll most certainly be court marshalled, but unable to sit and do nothing any longer.
“To hell and back, Mirage,” comes his immediate reply.
You see him move in sync with you, both of your canopy’s lowering at the same time.
You ignore the panicked voices ordering you to stand down, long enough for Hondo and the others to get you on the catapult, and by then it’s too late.
In two seconds you’re propelled from zero to over a hundred and sixty, and in your ears you hear Hangman right behind you.
-
“Do you want to get a coffee with me?” The question makes you jump, your drink almost sloshing everywhere. The sudden voice, as well as the person it belonged to, takes you completely by surprise, but you’re thankful he doesn’t draw attention to your startling.
Up until moments ago, you’d been peacefully watching the ocean toss and turn, burying your feet in the damp sand and thinking about what you were going to do with your upcoming two weeks of post-mission leave.
Most of Dagger were a little further up the shore, a bonfire crackling away, although you weren’t the only one to have splintered off. Mav and Rooster were currently standing in the shallows talking, and you think Halo and Phoenix have moved to sit apart from the others as well. You had managed to sneak away easily enough, content to just sit on your own for a while, though your efforts appear to have been mostly in vain, if the man now plopped in the sand beside you is any indicator.
You blink at each other.
“What?!” you blurt out dumbly, not completely certain you really understood what he’d said. Hangman’s lips press into a thin line, and he looks away from you, linking his hands together around his knees, and staring out at the rolling waves.
“Coffee. Would you like to get one with me?” He repeats, sounding only a smidge impatient, but it still doesn't clear up much for you.
“I… No, I heard you the first time… I… I just don’t understand… why?”
Over the past three weeks you’ve been forced more out of your shell than you ever have before. It was torture. It was wonderful.
Part of you pats yourself on the back for being able to ask him so starightly, but another part of you slaps yourself in the face for questioning him.
Hangman turns to look at you apprehensively.
“Are you asking why coffee or why am I asking you?” He speaks slowly and carefully, his face blank and devoid of any hint he was teasing, though you think he might be anyway.
“Why… Why are you asking me?” You push, shuffling your feet in the sand, drawing his attention for a moment. He looks back at your face and frowns slightly, cocking his head.
“Because I like you? And that is usually what somebody does when they like someone. Ask them.” He answers, and this time you definitely get the impression he’s politely trying not to laugh, but for once, you don’t feel like you’re on the outside of the joke.
Still, you find yourself taken somewhat aback at his confession, admitted so easily and freely, as if it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, which confuses you.
“Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean.
“Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–”
“–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by. Especially when for the past three weeks you haven't been able to get rid of the odd heart skips you got whenever Hangman acknowledged your presence at all.
And besides, you weren’t blind.
Hangman was ridiculously pretty, and not anywhere near as much of an asshole as he wanted people to believe.
He looks at you blankly for a moment, processing your words, before his face breaks out in a smile. It isn’t one of his usual smirks or tauntingly pearly grins, though. It’s softer, sweeter, and you stare mesmerised as he looks away from you again quickly, and down at his linked hands, nodding.
Two days pass, and even when you’re sitting across from him in a small, niche little coffee shop you had no idea existed, you feel like you’re in a dream.
You’ve never seen Hangman out of uniform, you realise, and it’s a whole new experience you’re forced quickly to process when he stands to go get your drinks.
Dark jeans, white shirt, casual jacket. It’s a simple outfit, but goddamn does he make it look good. Nervously you have to wonder if your white and blue sundress, sneakers and bomber jacket were having the same effect on him, though you highly doubt it.
He returns quickly, attentively, placing both your coffees down, before folding himself into his chair once more. You both look at each other awkwardly before you distract yourself by taking a sip of your coffee. Hangman seems to do the same, but instead of drinking, he begins tearing into several little sugar packets, and emptying them into his coffee foam.
You huff out a tiny laugh before you can stop yourself, and his eyes quickly snap to you.
“What?” he asks defensively, but the corners of his mouth twitch.
“I just… I guess I never figured you for a sweet coffee kinda guy…”
“Oh, and why is that?” his twitching lips turn into a full smirk, but it isn’t his usual Hangman smirk. You chew on the inside of your lip, and sip your coffee once more before answering.
“I’m not sure. I guess you just don’t seem like the type of guy who…” you trail off, unsure of what exactly you’re trying to say and even more; how to say it.
“Listen, I may have rippling, glistening abdominals, but I have a sweet tooth,” he says, putting on the defensiveness now, leaning toward you and pointing at himself. You pinch your brows together and purse your lips, nodding vehemently.
“I know how to have fun,” he tells you, tipping a third sugar into his coffee.
“Of that I don’t really doubt, Hangman,” you say, but his gaze snaps back to you again, almost sharply this time.
“Jake.” he corrects you.
You pause.
Of course, you knew his first name, but you’re fairly certain you’ve never once used it. Hangman has just always been, well, Hangman. But you weren’t in a cockpit right now, he’d asked you out, this wasn’t the time and place for callsigns. He wasn’t Hangman, and you weren’t Mirage.
“Jake,” you say slowly, carefully, as if he’ll tell you any moment he’s just kidding around. But he doesn’t.
“Miri,” he replies, slow like you, but softer, and it’s silly, but it sounds so nice coming from him. You shake your head and swallow.
“Jake, if you don’t like coffee, why did you ask me out for one?” you ask him, watching as he blinks slowly at you, before his gaze slowly drops to the latte in front of him.
“If I asked you for a drink, you might’ve got the wrong idea,” he starts, speaking carefully. “If I asked you for dinner, it could be too formal, too awkward–”
“–It’s already awkward,” you point out, making him grimace slightly, so you shrug.
“Coffee just seemed like– I just wanted to–” he cuts himself off and drops both hands to the table.
“Look– I just didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about what this was. I like you. I know you like coffee.” Jake admits all in a flurry, his voice quiet, and his eyes flickering around as he speaks.
For as long as you’ve known him, you’ve never seen Jake unable to maintain eye contact, actually it seemed to be something he took immense pride in, and it always made you slightly uncomfortable, but right now he appears completely incapable, and it's not a side of Hangman you’ve ever seen before. You realise you might be meeting Jake properly for the first time.
You decide to let him off easy, with all the newfound courage Dagger had been feeding into you the past few weeks, and you change the subject.
“You know, when you came up to me at the Hard Deck that first night, I was kinda surprised you remembered me at all,” you say slowly, sipping your coffee and eying him evenly. Jake frowns then, but it smooths out into a cool grin, and he leans back in his chair, cocking his head.
“Are you kidding? I’m always clocking possible threats.” he tells you, making you cough lightly.
“How am I a threat to you?!” you ask in disbelief.
“Oh, I could name a few,” Jake teases, nodding at you, but flicking his eyes away, almost making a show of clocking an incoming group of customers behind you.
You weren’t clueless, you knew you were a part of Dagger for a reason. You were damn good at your job, but still, Jake was Hangman, not only was he an aviator you respected, he was an aviator with very high personal standards, and for him to see you as comparable to him… well truthfully, you find yourself rather humbled.
And then flustered, at his clear unabashed flirting.
“I always thought you flirting was just you messing with me,” you admit, and he grins wider.
“Can’t it be both?” he asks, leaning forward again, and clasping his hands together. He seems to have no problem maintaining eye contact now, you note. When you cold-stare him, he simply shrugs.
“You’re cute when you get all flustered and nervous, what can I say?”
“Literally anything else.” You grumble back.
You finish your coffee and push the cup to the side, crossing your arms on the table and leaning forward like he was. Jake mimics you, pushing his own coffee away, clearly with no intention to start, let alone finish it. You aren’t as good as him with eye contact though, no matter how much you’d come out of your shell, so you take the opportunity to glance sideways out the window, only for your gaze to catch on something.
Your heart thumps loudly for a moment in your ears, and you wonder briefly if you should act on the thoughts popping around your brain right now, or if you should just stay put.
You lean forward even more, and flick your eyes back to Jake who is staring at you curiously.
“Hey, I have an idea…” you start, chewing on the inside of your lip, before standing up. You only hesitate a little before offering your hand.
“You with me?” you ask without thinking, the words the same as the ones you ask time and again to your wingmen while in flight manoeuvres. Jake stares up at you for a moment, before he too stands, your heart skipping when he takes your hand. With a tiny squeeze you almost don’t notice, Jake grins, and nods.
-
“Oh, hey! Stop! That’s not fair!” You elbow Jake in the side, but it’s already too late. The hand he’d shot out to block your light gun had done its job, and where you’d previously been neck in neck for score on the dual Time Crisis cabinet, Jake’s character was now cheering in victory, while your screen was asking you to insert more coins and try again.
Jake chortles and you both slot your plastic guns back into their plastic holsters at the front of the machine.
“We never agreed to no interference,” he says proudly, and you sock him in the arm only half as hard as you can.
“I didn’t think it needed to be said!” you exclaim pointedly. Jake grins down at you, and collects his tickets.
“Quit complaining, all these are gonna go towards whatever stuffed bear or whatever the hell you want anyway.” He rolls his eyes, and gestures to the shoddy ‘rewards’ counter of the arcade you’d spotted from the coffee shop.
“I want the Minion.” You state firmly after glancing at the redemption counter for three seconds, and spotting the big ugly yellow creature on the top shelf. Jake sighs in a put-upon manner and shakes his head.
“See, this is how you know I really like you. I’m willing to ignore that,” he says, and you actually think he might be serious this time. You grin up at him as he takes your elbow, and begins leading you toward the back of the room.
“What are you going to cheat me out of kicking your ass at this time?” you glance around you, goosebumps trailing up and down your arm as Jake lets his hand slide from around your elbow, down your forearm and into your hand, which he squeezes as if in warning.
“I didn’t cheat, I simply used black ops tactics,” he says, narrowing his eyes at you. You purse your lips at him and narrow your own eyes back.
“Cheat.” you say again, pronouncing each syllable deliberately.
You come to a stop then, and you look up at the old photo booth machine. Jake pulls out a fistfull of tickets, squinting his eyes at the label with instructions, before looking back over at the redemption counter. He seems to run some numbers before he looks back down at you with a grin, and waves the strings of crumpled tickets.
“My cheating means we can use the booth, and still have enough for a Kevin plush, so I don’t wanna hear no more complaining outta you,” he waggles a finger in front of your nose, and you blink up at him sheepishly.
“Jake– I don’t really want the Minion…” you say, before your voice turns suspicious. “Anyway, how do you know which one is Kevin?!” you lift an eyebrow, only for Jake to roll his eyes and push you into the curtained booth.
You orient yourself in the tiny enclosed space, looking around you as Jake takes a moment to feed several lines of win-tickets into the machine before he follows you. He’s forced to duck down real low, making the space even smaller, and you both stare for a moment at the small seat barely big enough for one person, let alone two.
“Well, either you can sit on my lap, or I can sit on yours, darlin’, but I know which one I’d prefer.” Jake intones lowly, and for the first time in an hour or so, you feel yourself get all flustered again. Honestly, you’d kind of forgotten about the explicitly romantic tone of this meeting until now, and more than that, your stomach begins to flip and flop like the first time you’d gotten in a jet when he eases past you and drops himself onto the bench before patting his thighs.
“Jake, maybe if you just move over a litt–”
“No can do, honey,” and he’s not even trying to tease you, he demonstrates the spread of his legs, and the tight fit into the booth, before looking back up at you expectantly again.
“Okay… Okay…” you say more for your own sanity than anything else, and turn, quickly perching yourself on his leg before you can really think too hard about what you're doing.
Your efforts are for naught though, because the moment you’re sat down, Jake’s hands are tugging you against him further, sitting you more comfortably on the thick expanse of his thigh, and you barely repress the noise that nearly escapes you at the feeling of his fingers digging into your hips.
“There we go, sweetheart,” he says softly, almost to himself, and moves his hands to wrap around you completely. If he notices your little noise, which by his self satisfied smirk he definitely has, he thankfully chooses not to say anything. Your face grows warm, not only at the hold he has on you but at the pet name too.
“Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?” you ask, sounding half bewildered, half incredulous, forgetting for a moment where exactly you were and why. As you look over your shoulder at the man behind you, Jake stares back, his smirk still in place even as his eyes seem to search your face, his own expression mostly unreadable.
“Would you prefer ‘honey’?” he almost purrs, his voice distinctly amused, but you notice that he doesn’t back down, doesn’t apologise or step back.
It makes your stomach twist up in knots. It makes your heartbeat skip like a record.
You turn away from him, shake your head.
“It’s fine,” you tell him bashfully, wanting to grumble slightly when against your back you sense what you think is him puffing his chest a little. Quickly, you add: “Not at work, though…”
Jake chortles, but as you peek over your shoulder to look at him again, he’s relenting, his smirk gone and replaced with a far softer smile as he nods.
“Not at work, though.” he repeats lowly in confirmation, almost making you jump when he shifts one hand to steady you around the waist, his other reaching out to begin fiddling with the controls on the lit up screen in front of you.
“Alright, let's get this show on the road shall we?”
By the time you’re exiting the tiny cubicle, Jake’s hands still attached to your hips as he follows you out, you’re both laughing quietly to yourselves. You’re amazed to find just how much Jake can affect you, either setting you at complete ease or sending you into a tizzy, depending on what he’s said or done. Usually you wouldn’t be surprised by other people’s effects on you, you were jumpy and anxious by nature, but it was rare that somebody who put you on edge as much as Jake did, could also give you such comfort.
When he detaches his hands from your sides at last to survey the sheets of photos spat out by the booth, you marvel at how much you start to miss the contact. With all the subtlety you can muster, you inch closer to him, under the guise of getting a look at the photos as well, though really, you’re only hoping that you might prompt him into reaching out for you again.
Jake chortles and points at a set of two pictures. In one, you’re both grinning madly, pulling silly faces, and in the other, you’re wearing softer smiles, and you notice now, that Jake had pushed his face a little closer to yours. It makes heat rise in your cheeks, not just at the seeming intimacy of the photo, but truthfully, of how much you like seeing the two of you like that.
“You won’t mind if I keep these, will ya?” Jake asks, looking over at you. You simply shake your head, and he grins a little wider, carefully tearing off the two pictures before pulling out his wallet and tucking them inside, for sake keeping, you assume.
Jake lets you keep the rest, and absently, you fold them into the zipper in your purse, too distracted by the fact that he does indeed take your hand again, before quickly releasing it to instead wrap his arm over your shoulder. You can’t stop yourself from smiling a little as you blink dumbly up at him, and he grins down at you, ducking his face even closer to yours.
“Now sweetheart, I believe I was instructed to win you a minion plush.”
-
You try to avoid Phoenix’s hard stare, and focus on wiping down your helmet.
“You’re acting weird,” she finally announces, still managing to make you jump despite your anticipation. You then immediately proceed to do yourself exactly zero favours, proving her point by refusing to look up at her, choosing to instead hurriedly continue with your current task.
“What? No I’m not. I’m fine. You’re being weird,” you argue, wincing at your clearly abysmal attempts at behaving like a normal adult human. You start re-cleaning the pristine surface of your helmet, your nerves conjuring imperfections you logically know don’t exit.
Just before you completely lose yourself down the spiral of unhealthy compulsive behaviours, A hand, Nat’s hand, stops your own. Tugging the cloth out of your hands and taking your helmet away from you, she places it down on the workbench you stand on opposite sides of. Chewing your lip, you at last meet her eye.
“Miri, it’s okay to have a crush–”
“–I don’t have a crush!” You blurt out both far too quickly to be believable, as well as in sheer panic. Your face grows immediately hot, and you can tell Phoenix is trying not to laugh at the show you’re putting on so poorly. Her lips twitch, but her expression softens from amusement into something softer, mixed with traces of pity. Just when you’re starting to debate the pros and cons of sprinting out of the room, getting in your jet, and then flying away never to be seen again, she relents, releasing you from her eye contact and making herself busy as she tidies up bits and bobs littering the workbench.
You swallow thickly, and stay watching her, your heart rate only spiking higher as your anxiety builds once more at her sudden apparent indifference. You follow her movements without moving an inch, sharply aware that not only was she still very much focused solely on scrutinising you, but even more mortifyingly, that this conversation was far from being over.
“Nat,” you say with surprisingly more strudiness than you believed possible, pausing to swallow the dryness in your mouth. “I don’t have a crush, okay?” You wait for her to look back over at you, nothing but disbelief rolling off of her faux-casualty, giving you a bullshit shrug and a smile.
“Okay.” she says. You had hoped that would be enough, but you should have known better. You clear your throat again.
“Nat,” you say, only making yourself louder, as if that was a sign of nothing going on. She looks up at you somewhat blankly. You know you’re totally screwed already as her eyes dip to watch your finger begin quickly tapping on the bench before you with barely any acknowledgement from yourself. “There’s nothing weird going on,” you say, pleading with your voice and face and every atom of your being that she drops it.
She drops something, unfortunately it’s not the subject though, but you still feel some semblance of stress leaving your body as her fake lack of care dissolves, and she leans back to rest against the cabinet behind her. She crosses her arms and shrugs again while letting out a soft, pitying sigh, which this time doesn’t raise your non-existent heckles as much as it had when it first showed its face.
You stare at one another, at what you think is an impasse and wordless agreement to now never talk of this episode in your friendship ever again, but once again, you should have known better.
“If it’s any consolation, I think he has a crush on you too, so it's not like it’s a total waste of energy… despite all evidence to the contrary,” She says conversationally at first, before muttering out the last part under her breath.
“He doesn’t,” you state with so much certainty you almost forget for a moment that it’s not even a little bit true. Instead, crossing your arms too, you feel like a middle schooler having a much too serious fight with her friend at lunch. “We’ve just become closer, like all of the squad have. You’re just noticing it cause you want to!” you’re a little taken aback by the sound logic of your own reasoning, all points earned to your side then immediately becoming forfeit when you can’t help yourself from stupidly continuing to speak. “Why? Has he said something?!”
Your outburst of near-giddy excitement destroys all chances of you walking this back, and you find yourself with only one option left available. But your prior readiness to exit out of this failed interaction at roughly 300 kts/min becomes soberingly not so fun to fantasise about when you sheepishly remember the current charges against you, for the theft of the $70 million dollar military aircraft you’d technically stolen when you and Jake had taken a joy ride to pick up Mav and Rooster.
You're snapped back into the present as Natasha Trace regards you unreadably and slowly lifts one perfect eyebrow at you. You cover your face and hang your head, you reason with your now permanently mortified brain that if you just admitted to the thing she already believed to be true, she’d stop looking any closer, possibly finding out something actually secret.
It helps that your embarrassment for the flurry of extremely obvious questions is very real, and you groan into your palms. You hear before you see Phoenix laugh, listening to her chortle at your outing yourself, but you notice that he demeanour is warmer now, and she pushes herself up to sit on the top of the bench between you, crossing her legs.
“He’s not said a thing, but he doesn’t need to,” she tells you, seemingly glad to just be able to share her findings and observations, which you uncomfortably realise have been going on for a lot longer than you realised.
“It's what he’s not saying,” she explains, and you blink up at her in genuine curiosity.
“Huh?”
Phoenix turns her gaze upward as she thinks.
“He doesn’t make fun of you… or snipe at you, not really,” she begins, resting her head in her hand. “To be honest when we first met, I was expecting to defend you. You’re a good pilot, a great one, but Hangman isn’t exactly known for recognising that in others…”
You frown up at her, unsure of anything to say to abate her suspicions.
She’s not exactly wrong, even when the two of you were first stationed together, he’d never poked fun at you, never really called you out. To be fair, he hadn’t really acknowledged your presence at all, but these days you knew that was more to do with the fact that all this time, Hangman had liked you, had seen you were shy, and didn’t like crowds, and as you’d found out recently, often made more of a spectacle of himself to draw attention away from you.
You have to stop yourself from smiling dreamily at the thought of him.
“And I mean, he disobeyed direct orders for you, he knew what you were doing, and he went with you anyway… I’m just saying Miri, I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you were to say something–”
You quickly cut her off.
“I’m not saying anything to him!”
At last, given your already clear admittance of your supposed ‘crush’, Phoenix relents, holding up her hands and shrugging.
“Just think about it alright? It’s even sort of… cute, in a weird, Hangman-y way.”
You grumble at her, but thankfully she doesn’t bring it up again for the rest of the afternoon. Still, you leave the workshop with a sparkling helmet, cleaner than you think it ever has been, and with a pressing matter to relay to your boyfriend, most of which involves playing it much, much cooler in front of Phoenix the next time you all hang out.
-
You know you’ve made some personal growth when you answer the door in your matching Star Wars X-Wing PJ’s and slippers, and aren’t immediately mortified.
Jake stands there, already grinning back at you, and looking like a greek god sent to earth in his dark jeans and plain white shirt.
“Red Leader Mirage, your rescuer has arrived!” he announces, doing what you judge to be a surprising spot-on impression of Lt. Porkins from Star Wars, shooting a lazily salute down at slippers
Unfortunately, you aren’t given the chance to ask him more about his perfect Red Six however, as he’s almost immediately pushing away from where he’d been leaning against the side of your door, posing for your perusal you assume, and holds out a brown paper bag for you to take. You swipe it, and shoot him a thankful smile.
“Thank you, Jake, really…” you side-step his self-congratulatory jokes, but he doesn’t seem phased, simply shrugging, and taking a step closer to you, letting one hand rest gently on your shoulder, before he hooks it and tugs you into him.
You’d started getting all-too familiar with just how physically attentive Jake seemed to be, something you would never have guessed about him several weeks ago, but had come to terms with now. Clingy was never a word you would have used to describe him before. He hugs you briefly, then pulls back to look down at you, his brow furrowed and his expression filled with genuine concern, another thing you’d been getting more familiar with.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks, inviting himself in by walking you backwards and kicking your door closed lightly behind him. You’d come not to mind this sort of thing either, but mostly because you know if you asked him to leave again, he would, no questions asked. That was another new thing you’d been learning about Jake Seresin.
In comparison to how Hangman could be up in the sky, Jake was entirely understanding, one hundred percent supportive, and almost a little too observant when it came to your particular anxieties. It meant he often knew without you saying when to push you, and when to not, and on the occasion that you did need to say, he always respected those boundaries.
It was starting to make you nervous, how much you were growing to like him.
“Cramps are kicking my ass, but other than that, mostly fine. Thank you for these,” you try again, hoping that he really understands just how much you appreciate him coming over for you tonight. Never in your life would you have imagined feeling comfortable enough to ask Hangman to stop by the pharmacy and pick you up sanitary products, and never would you have imagined he’d make no issue of it.
“Sure,” he says, again with a shrug. “You want me to head out?” he asks then, tipping his head back at your door, even as he inches his face closer to yours, brushing his nose tip against yours. Your lips quirk, then break out into a full smile when he grins before dipping low enough to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. Your stomach somersaults and pulls at least ten G’s for sure as he continues to brush his lips against yours teasingly.
This hadn’t taken much getting used to at all. Jake was a good kisser, and had proved it after your second date, almost in the exact place you were now, both his hands cupping your cheeks and his lips full on yours, hungry and insistent. That had been almost four weeks ago now, but after his hands had tugged your hips flush to his, you’d quickly put the breaks on.
You were still slightly uncertain about going further with Jake so soon. The fact was, you worked together in a high impact, high stress job, and if anything should happen between you, it would be easier to keep things professional if you took it slow
Jake had, to your slight surprise, though you aren't sure exactly what you were expecting, nodded slowly and taken a step back. He’d told you that the only thing he wanted more than you, was for you to want him too. You’d had to explain that your position wasn’t because you didn’t want him, which had led to more making out, but he hadn’t pushed to go further and he’d left that night with the affirmation that however long you wanted to wait was alright by him.
“No, you can stay,” you tell him, wrapping your arms around his neck to stop him from pulling away too much as you try not to full-on pout. Jake smiles against your lips and presses into you further, moving to push you against the wall, where he crowds your space entirely and stops teasing you, capturing your lips with his at last.
You’re about to experimentally slide your hand up his shirt, a thought that had been lingering in your mind more and more these past few days, but your kiss is over too soon, and he pulls back, leaving you breathless.
“Weren’t you waiting for me, so you could do chores?” he prompts, nearly making you grumble. Instead you nod, and gently push back against him, heading towards your bedroom just down the main hall.
“You can wait in here if you like,” you suggest, feeling a little nervous about the idea, but it was something you’d been thinking about for a while now. Even if you and Jake weren’t sleeping together, that didn’t mean the two of you couldn’t sleep together, did it? It was something you’d wanted, specifically with him, but not really something you’d ever experienced before. You were ready to move out of these early stages of your relationship, eager to push yourself and your limits just a little, so you could settle into something more comfortable with Jake, something where you weren’t always a little surprised when he touched you, or called you by one of his innumerable pet names.
Jake shoves his hands in his pockets and nods, clearly thinking through what this invitation could mean as he follows you quietly.
“Um, I feel like I should say ‘excuse the mess’, but you know–” you cut yourself off and gesture around your bedroom when you both have entered. Jake snorts.
“Well that’s what being in the Navy gets you. I won’t judge if you say it anyway,” he tells you lightly, and you scoff.
“Yes you will!” you insist, and are met with a confident, familiar cheshire-grin.
“Mhm, but only a little. Have you changed your mind, honey?” he steps toward you again then, almost closing the distance in one stride, his hands still shoved in his pockets, but his gaze locked intently on you in a way you haven’t felt since that second date. Your heart beats so loudly you’re sure he must be able to hear, but he doesn’t mention it, just waits for you, crowding your space again.
“Oh, I– No… not… I didn’t… I’m sorry…”
The moment you speak Jake is stepping back, pulling his hands from his pockets to hold them up, his expression losing the intensity again.
“No need to apologise, my mistake.” Jake’s words are sincere, but he looks away from you.
You let out a little sigh.
“It’s just so soon, and with the trial–”
“–You don’t have to explain yourself, honey,” Jake pulls his hands from his pockets at last and places them at your waist, drawing you in. You fall quiet as he lowers his face to yours, though he teases you again by not kissing you, simply looking you over, and then smirking when you pout. “You want it when you want it, and that’s when I want it, okay?”
He makes you nod, before he at last lowers his lips to meet yours and kisses you, slow and sweet. You finally get the chance to test the waters a little, easing your hand carefully underneath the back of his shirt, making you giggle against his mouth when he jumps slightly at the feel of your skin on his. Jake doesn’t say or do anything about it though, thankfully just letting you explore a little as he tips your head back further to deepen your kiss, and you brush your fingers up his spine.
After a short while of this, he must feel the urge to tease you again, because with little to no hesitation at all, unlike you, he slips his hands beneath your shirt, his warm palms gripping onto the bare skin just above your PJ shorts, almost making you moan. You’re glad you’re able to hold back the sound, mostly, but your own surprise doesn’t go unnoticed by the blond currently kissing you.
He only continues doing so for a short minute longer, before he’s eventually pulling back, lips pink and kiss swollen. You can’t help but frown at the parting. He squeezes your waist, and nudges your nose with his own.
“What do you want to do, honey?”
You groan at the apparent lack of making out in your future, not because you don’t think he’d agree, but mostly because you’re not quite ready to ask him for more, though a part of you senses he’s not willing to let you off the hook for those chores you’d told him about earlier.
“I need to fold this laundry,” you point past him, to your walk-in wardrobe and the basket that lies within. Jake looks over at it and lifts an eyebrow, which you choose to ignore. He nods then, and takes a step away from you, making you frown even more when his hands fall from your body.
“I’ll help,” he says, making your eyes widen, and you quickly step around him to block his path, where he is clearly about to make for your basket.
“No! Um… It’s okay, It’ll be easier if I just do it…” you trail off, wondering if you sound insane and neurotic, but Jake simply raises his hands again and nods.
“Well, what do you want me to do?” he prods, and you realise, he’s come inside thinking you want him to help with your chores.
“I was thinking… I was thinking it might just be nice for you to just… be here?” You cringe, and narrowly avoid making a face at yourself. Jake blinks at you as if he doesn’t understand.
“You want me to… sit around while you do laundry?” he asks, tone confused, but equally unimpressed. You nod. Jake shifts, then clicks his tongue. “I was not raised to let somebody work while I sit and watch, especially not my girl. My mother would tan my hide.”
You’re a little surprised by the seriousness on his face, despite the humorous inflection in his voice. You suck in a breath, mulling over how to explain to him what you had been thinking when he came inside. Jake’s eyes flicker over you for a moment before he shifts again, crossing his arms and lifting his chin at you.
“Alright sweetheart, just say what you gotta say, I can hear those cogs turning from here…”
“I… I like that you want to help me, I think that’s really sweet…”
“But…?” Jake prompts.
“I find this kinda thing hard, and I was hoping we could just try and do something… domestic…? Together?” your face goes hot at your admission, and when Jake doesn’t immediately respond you wonder if using the word ‘domestic’ was too much, too soon.
“What is ‘this kind of thing’? I get the other part honey,” again, his voice is playful, but you see the seriousness behind his eyes and it lends you even more comfort. How is he so good at this? It’s almost like he’d read your teenage diary entry all about your perfect guy… it's the sort of attention, care, and behaviour that you’ve never actually gotten from a guy you were seeing before, so you aren’t really sure how to compose yourself.
“This kind of thing,” you gesture between you and him, before clearing your throat. “I don't know what to call it– us, but–”
“–a relationship.” Jake cuts in firmly, and you pause, heart thumping. You hadn't actually had this discussion yet, but you guess you’re having it now.
“Right. I mean, I’ve been in relationships before, but they’ve never really worked out and I feel like I never get to the point with boyfriends where I feel fully comfortable, so I–” you clamp your mouth shut, both at the use of ‘boyfriend’, and at the fact you were rambling, and you’re pretty sure it's too early to start telling him about how all your prior relationships failed.
“Right. So, let me get this straight; you were going to come back in here and put your laundry away, regardless of me being here?” Jake holds up a hand as he repeats back the information.
“Yeah…”
“And you just want me to keep you company?”
You nod, and clear your throat.
“Yeah.”
Jake stares at you, a level of understanding crossing his face, before his eyes flick to your laundry behind you, then back to your face.
“... And you’re sure I can’t help you?” His resolve sounds weak, and you think he’s already made up his mind to do as you asked, but his upbringing requires him to triple check. You smile, and this time step toward him, gingerly resting your hand on his arm, which he immediately raises, and flips, sliding it so now you’re holding his hand.
Again, you can’t fathom how he got so good at this sort of thing. Your knees go wobbly.
“I have a bunch of lacy unmentionables in there, so…” you try to lighten things, but it's not a lie. Jake picks up what you’re putting down, and gives your hand a squeeze. He tips his chin at you and lifts an eyebrow.
“Now why’d you have to go and say that honey? You sure you’re certain I can’t help?” his hands slip from yours to rest at your hips again, completely bypassing your top this time and your heart stutters.
You bite your lip, and nod your head, trying not to laugh him off fully, because while that may be your instinctual nervous reaction, you didn’t want to discourage him entirely. You liked that Jake acted as if you were a pretty girl, like you were desirable, and not like the awkward dork you actually were. You didn't want him to stop doing that.
His expression turns a little softer, and he leans down, moving slowly as to give you time to process, and he presses his lips to your cheek, lingering for just a moment before he taps your sides with his fingers, then steps away.
You’re still catching your breath when he looks back at you, pointing at what looks like one corner of your bed.
“Can I?”
You nod, and gesture at the whole mattress.
“Make yourself comfortable!”
You can feel the pounding music of the club in your whole body. The lights flashing and dancing in different colourways in time with the music give everything around you an ever changing aura, and maybe it’s all the drinks you’ve had tonight, but in front of you, Natasha seems to glow.
Her hands grasp your forearm firmly and you giggle, uncharacteristically carefree as you almost slip again.
“Alright! Okay, let's get you seated!” she says. She’s had a few too, but not nearly as many as you, and you’re glad for it now as she steers you toward the bar and grabs a paper cup to fill with water from the nearby water station toward the end. You find yourself drinking it without prompting, but miss the taste of the fruity cocktails you’d been downing all night. “I’ll call us a cab,” she says, beginning to pull out her phone, but you hastily stop her, placing a hand on her arm and shaking your head rapidly, making the colours spin even more.
“No! My boyfriend said he’d pick us up!” you insist, ignoring the way her eyebrows shoot up, then stitch together.
“You boyfriend?” she asks, but you miss the real question behind her words, instead you simply nod, and begin to fumble around in your own purse until you find your phone. Nat watches you expectantly as you open your messages, quickly tapping ‘call' on the top icon, and pressing the phone to one ear, and your finger to the other.
It rings less than once before it connects.
“Heeyy!” you sigh in relief down the line, happy to even just hear his voice after all night going without. “Yeah, no, everything’s alright, you just said to call you when we were done!” you say in reply to his amused questioning. You look up at Nat briefly, and if you were more sober, you might’ve been able to tell that she was leaning in slightly to try and hear the voice on the other end, but you aren’t, so you don’t.
“Okay, I’ll meet you out front!” you tell him excitedly, before adding on; “Is it okay if we give Nat a ride home too?” there's a short reply, and at last you’re smiling wide and nodding, even though he can’t see you. “Okay, we’ll see you soooon!”
You hang up and stare back up at Natasha, who's giving you a funny look that you ignore. “He said he’ll be here in ten, he’s been at the sports bar in town waiting!” you tell her dreamily, like she might understand what it means to you that Jake would choose to remain only a short distance away in case you needed anything, in the knowledge that you didn’t always enjoy nights out like this.
Nat simply nods and after making you drink one more glass of water, you begin making your way through the crowds and out of the club.
The air outside is warm, but refreshing and you take in as much of it as you can, not realising how stuffy the air inside the club had been until now. It was getting late, and bars and restaurants around the club are lit up and busy, the streets all around full of people either on their way to their destination, or lingering as they talk.
It doesn’t take long for you to spot Jake’s car and he pulls up close to the curb, allowing you to beeline for the passengers side door, not realising that Natasha follows with more confusion and trepidation. Jake jumps out of the car to greet you, rounding it to quickly steady your wobbly walk with a hand on your hip, and with the other, he pulls open the car door and helps you inside, leaning in to help you buckle in, grinning even as he murmurs quietly.
“You had a good night, sweetheart?” he asks, clicking your seatbelt into place for you, making you giggle at him. You lean forward for a kiss, but he dodges you, somewhat more aware than you are of your present company, and instead rests his hand so he can squeeze your knee. Your good mood isn’t spoiled and you barely notice the dodged kiss, so you simply nod your assent to his question vehemently.
“I had a lot to drink!” you tell him, before bursting out into giggles again, the soft, sweet smile Jake gives you going unnoticed as he squeezes your leg again.
“Yes you did,” he says with clear, fond amusement, and at last moves back so he can shut your door.
Unlike you, on the other hand, Natasha may as well be sober as a judge, and she eyes Jake somewhat distrustfully as she steps closer, lifting her chin up at him as she talks.
“What’re you doing here?” she asks accusingly, making Jake cock his head at her, only half as annoyingly as he can. He gestures back at you in the front seat of his car.
“Miri called, sounded pretty hammered,” he tells her as if that explained it. Natasha narrows her eyes and crosses her arms.
“Yeah, but she said she was calling her boyfriend, what’re you doing here?” She dares him to reply with anything but the truth, however luckily for Jake, unlike most men caught in her crossfire, he’s able to brush her off with an infuriating grin.
“I guess she dialled the wrong number, do you want a lift home or not?”
At his ultimatum (however hollow it really is, he wouldn’t leave her on her own in the middle of the night), Natasha frowns darker at him, but accepts the door he opens, waiting for her to get settled before he closes it behind her and returns to the driver's side.
When Jake checks his rearview he notes in amusement that Nat has situated herself in the middle seat, giving herself a perfect view of the two of you in the front. You don’t, nor do you seem to have any weariness in the bloodhound you’ve just set upon the both of you, but if he’s honest, Jake had known from day one that the second Natasha Trace suspected anything, your little secret was over.
He drives back as normally as he can, but it's strange to him now to have you sitting right there in his passenger's seat, and not have his hand in yours, or on your thigh. It’s strange to him to be in this space where the two of you are usually so open with your affection, and have to suppress it. Jake does not like it.
The car ride home is quiet, you seem content to look out the window, the tiredness hitting you now, but every so often he and Nat make small talk about whatever football scores interested them in the past week or two, and before too long, he’s pulling up outside her home.
Looking over at you to find that you’re slumped over asleep on his window, Jake follows Natasha out of the car with a simple offer of making sure she gets in alright. The congeniality doesn’t last very long, and once they’re standing on her porch she turns to him with a frown.
“You don’t really think I’m that stupid, do you?” she asks, for once not sounding angry or scolding, but seemingly subdued, maybe even a little upset. Jake sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Looking back to his car to make sure you’re still alright, he levels his squadmate with a serious expression.
“No, I do not,” he tells her sincerely. “But it’s Miri’s choice to not want to be public yet, all I’m asking is that you respect that,” he goes on after a moment. He doesn’t really believe she would say anything, but he feels the need to get her agreement, if only for your peace of mind in the morning.
Nat hums to herself and briefly looks away to fish out her keys. Once she has them in hand, she looks up at him again, a little grin on her face this time.
“How long?” she asks. Jake rolls his eyes and can’t resist the urge to mess with her just a little.
“Few years,” he states matter of factly, waiting for her eyes to pop wide before he lets out a victorious laugh and shakes his head. “A month or two,” he admits truthfully, accepting the hard sock in the arm as Nat scoffs at him and moves to unlock her front door.
“Something, something, I’ll kick your ass if you hurt her,” she grumbles as she steps inside, immediately kicking off her shoes. Jake straightens up and gives her a mock salute.
“Yes Ma’am,” he says, chortling to himself as he receives a middle finger for his efforts and the door is closed and locked again.
Jake feels a little lighter on his walk back to his car, and when he climbs in, he leans over to carefully adjust your crooked neck and make sure your belt is still strapped properly. You wake a little, confused at first, and blink up at him in happy wonderment.
“Hey!” you mumble, like it's the first time you’ve seen him tonight. Jake chuckles and leans closer to press a kiss to your forehead.
“Let’s get you home baby.”
You awake the next morning with nowhere near the headache you’re expecting, but with an array of distinct memories that cause a pit to open up in your stomach. The pit then begins to growl as you register the warm, homey smell of food, and with little effort, you force yourself up and into the kitchen, where you immediately attach yourself to Jake’s bare back.
His skin is warm and feels so comfy against your cheek, and the soft little laugh he gives makes your belly flop around. He lets you stay like that for a few moments more, moving slowly but smoothly so you can move with him, and at last when whatever he’s doing with his hands is finished, he reaches around for you and rests his hands where he can.
“Did I really call you last night? While with Nat?” you squeeze your eyes shut, hoping you’d just imagined it all, but another soft chuckle lets you know you hadn’t.
“Never thought you’d be the one to let our little secret slip first. I underestimated you baby.”
You groan into his back, and try to hide your face, but before you can complain or dodge him, Jake has turned himself around, letting you instead smoosh your face in between his gloriously golden pecs, and you think things may not be so bad.
He wraps his arms around you properly, and for a moment you just stay like that. You wonder if you can convince him to come around shirtless more often, the warmth radiating off his skin feeling heavenly, not to mention he looked almost as delicious as the food he’d made. You wonder if he’d already worked out this morning, or if you can join him after breakfast.
One of Jake’s hands moves away from your back and cups the back of your head tenderly, making you mewl slightly, and you look up at him to give the attention you know he’s asking for. Jake stares down at you with a soft little grin, and readjusts himself slightly, so he’s able to drop his lips to meet yours briefly.
One kiss becomes two kisses, becoming three kisses and after that any semblance of chastity is given up on and he kisses you full and sweet, deliberately slow like he’s teasing you to ask for more, but for now you’re simply content to wash away all of last nights worries like this.
Coming up for air, Jake barely breaks apart from you, his lips still brushing yours when he speaks.
“I asked Nat not to say anything, she respects you enough to do that I think,” he says, dropping a few more soft kisses to your mouth when you crane your neck up for more. He goes no further this time, though, and leans back from you to gauge your reaction after several moments, and you force yourself to open your eyes and pout.
“It’s not that I think she’ll tell anyone…” you say to him, scrunching up your features as you recall your lack of playing it cool the first time she had brought Jake up to you. The memory makes you grumble to yourself, and you once more attempt to hide your face in his chest. Jake laughs, and makes you jump when he pokes your side.
“What is it?” he asks, like he already knows. You tell him, voice muffled in his skin, but clear enough for the details of your embarrassing inability to throw the scent off to be heard. Jake’s body shakes with more laughter as you relay the information, but instead of trying to make you stop hiding away, he simply cups the back of your head again, and holds it nearer, allowing you to wither your embarrassment away in the safety of him.
“I think we both know that the minute that woman suspected anything, it was game over,” he tells you once you’re done, still holding you close, but you feel his lips press to the top of your head sweetly, and you do your best to snuggle yourself closer.
After the bulk of your mortification has eased away, Jake makes you detach from him, but only so the two of you can eat your breakfast while it’s still hot.
“You know I don’t want to keep it quiet, like, forever, right?” you ask out of nowhere, your memories of last night replaying over in your head while you ate. Jake looks up at you and cocks his head.
“I’m happy to do whatever you’d like to do, for as long as you’d like to do it,” he says matter of factly, but despite the sweetness of his words, you can’t help but frown at him.
“No you’re not, and we both know it,” you push back, grateful for his always tender manner of going at your pace, but you’d likely never have been with him in the first place if he hadn’t thrown you out of your comfort zone that first time.
The only difference is, now you are with Jake, and you understood these things about yourself, and how they weren’t always as scary as your mind might make them seem. Jake frowns back at you, clearly ready to protest.
“I know you pretty well too, you know,” you cut him off. “I know you like PDA, and that you wish you were able to be more open when we’re out with people. I know you like to show off, and part of that includes me,” you tell him adamantly, because you know you’re right.
Jake huffs out a sigh and leans back in his chair, looking at you dead on, you know him well enough to know he’s a little annoyed at you calling him out, but you aren’t doing it to annoy him or just for the sake of starting an argument.
“Okay, so what if I do? That doesn’t change the fact that until you want something, I’m not gonna go for it,” he says, still frowning at you like he doesn’t understand what the point of talking this through is even about.
You change tack and, with your heart beat thumping a little wildly, get up from your seat and move toward him. Even in his annoyance, Jake makes room for you, pushes out his chair and wraps his arms around your waist when you seat yourself on his thigh, your own arms linking around his neck.
“Well maybe I’m giving you permission to go for it,” you say softly, quietly, because the idea still does make you incredibly nervous. But you like Jake, no scratch that, you think you’re in love with Jake, and you think he’s in love with you too, and something about that feeling for once in your life makes you want the same things he does too, including the PDA. You want him to sling his arm around your neck, you want to be able to kiss his cheek or hold his hand or whatever it is you two want to do, not just in the comfort of your own homes, but out at the Hard Deck with your friends, too.
Jake blinks up at you, like at first your words don’t even register, but then he’s tightening his hold around your waist, and grinning wolfishly up at you, all cocky and infuriating if you didn’t find it utterly charming. If you didn’t completely adore him, even this part.
“Permission granted, Lieutenant?” he asks mischievously, and you can’t stop yourself from giggling, like you’re drunk all over again.
“Permission granted, Lieutenant!”
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nyoomerr · 2 months
Note
if fic prompts are still open then bingge and shen yuan both trying to attic wife each other?
if they aren’t then sorry for bothering you
big fan of bingge trying to atticwife sy, VERY big fan of sy trying to atticwife bingge.
warnings on this one for - you guessed it - atticwifing. lmao.
---
Shen Yuan considers the fireplace of Luo Binghe’s study with a critical eye. Near the back of it, he can see a piece of wood that sticks out from the others, skinnier and shorter and of much higher quality wood than the other logs. It’s struggling to burn, the lacquer on it making it harder for a flame to catch than a plain log would.
This is because it is a piece of Shen Yuan’s cane, which is certainly not designed to be firewood.
It isn’t a large piece. It’s small enough that someone who doesn’t actually use a cane might not even notice it. If, for instance, the person who cut the piece off wasn’t someone familiar with using a cane, they may think this to be a very stealthy length to cut.
Shen Yuan has been using this cane for over half a decade, though, so he’s intimately familiar with exactly how tall it should be. Having it suddenly be shorter by a couple finger widths was so startling that he’d nearly fallen this morning when he first put his weight on it. More than that, it’s a significant enough change in the cane’s height that using the cane has become a bit more difficult than it should be, making the pain in Shen Yuan’s knees and back flare up after only half a day.
Difficult enough, in fact, that it becomes tempting to not move around much at all. Shen Yuan suspects that had been the point.
“Binghe,” he calls, still staring thoughtfully at the missing piece of his cane in the fireplace. “Come here for a second?”
Obediently, Luo Binghe abandons his paperwork to come up behind Shen Yuan, laying his arms over Shen Yuan’s shoulders and resting his head on Shen Yuan’s. 
Luo Binghe is no small man, but he’s also not foolish, and has quite a bit of experience with past lovers. With his core strength and… intimate understanding of Shen Yuan’s body, it should be no trouble for him to take up this pose without actually putting any of his weight on Shen Yuan. After all, Shen Yuan can barely keep his own weight up, some days.
Luo Binghe instead leans just enough of his weight on Shen Yuan that he can feel his joints creaking. This, too, makes him want to sit down and not move much. It might even force him to - it wouldn’t surprise Shen Yuan if this pressure from Luo Binghe is slowly worsening his bones and joints, bit by bit until something gives.
“Yuan-er,” Luo Binghe croons, nuzzling into Shen Yuan’s hair. “Did you miss me?”
Shen Yuan hums. He hadn’t missed Luo Binghe, really, because Luo Binghe had been in the same room as him this whole time.
It isn’t good to encourage Luo Binghe that ‘in the same room’ is close enough, though. ‘In the same room’ could quickly become ‘in the adjacent room,’ which could become ‘in the same wing of the palace.’
Shen Yuan has no intention of letting Luo Binghe off his leash so easily.
“It’s lonely without someone close,” Shen Yuan lies. “If you know you can’t be with me, can’t you at least warn me so that I can call for someone else to chat with me?”
Luo Binghe’s weight on Shen Yuan increases, his arms no longer hanging over Shen Yuan lazily and instead curling to grip tightly at whatever parts of Shen Yuan they can reach. Shen Yuan shifts, acting as if Luo Binghe’s stickiness is burdensome, and Luo Binghe’s grip turns harsher, not giving Shen Yuan any room to wiggle out of it.
As always, Luo Binghe’s possessiveness is the easiest string to pull. 
“I’ll stick closer to Yuan-er in the future,” Luo Binghe promises. 
“Good,” Shen Yuan says. He turns his attention back to the fire. “For now, though, I just wanted to ask if you knew what happened to my cane?”
“Something happened to Yuan-er’s cane?” Luo Binghe asks, concerned. One of his hands trails down Shen Yuan’s arm to rest on top of the hand Shen Yuan has on his cane, as if to check.
It would surely be a convincing act to anyone who didn’t know Luo Binghe as well. Shen Yuan can not be fooled so easily. Luo Binghe’s claws are not extended, and his breath didn’t hitch at the idea of someone vandalizing something of Shen Yuan’s. 
As Shen Yuan expected, it must really have been Luo Binghe who cut this piece of his cane off.
“Mm,” Shen Yuan says, pretending not to know the truth. “It’s shorter than it’s supposed to be. It makes it harder to walk.”
“If Yuan-er is having trouble walking, then he shouldn’t walk at all!” Luo Binghe cries. He does not seem concerned about who or what could have caused Shen Yuan’s cane to shorten.
Shen Yuan nods. That’s fine. He doesn’t mind this outcome; it’s easy to twist in his own favor.
“It might be best for me to stay in our bedroom, for now,” he agrees. “But…”
Luo Binghe’s hand goes tight over Shen Yuan’s, his claws digging into Shen Yuan’s fingers. “Is there something wrong with staying there for a while?”
Naturally, the time period that Luo Binghe is really thinking of is much longer than ‘a while.’ Luo Binghe has been trying to lock Shen Yuan up somewhere safe and away from everyone else for as long as Shen Yuan has been in this world.
Shen Yuan knows this because he’s the one who carefully engineered it that way.
He knows this because he’s the one who decided that this would be the easiest way to lock Luo Binghe up somewhere safe and away from everyone else.
It isn’t that Shen Yuan doesn’t think Luo Binghe can take care of himself! On the contrary, no one is more aware of Luo Binghe’s martial prowess than Shen Yuan. Nothing in this world can hurt Luo Binghe in a meaningful way - not now that Luo Binghe has reached this stage of his life past all his training and suffering - because this world was written around him. 
Shen Yuan isn’t concerned about Luo Binghe’s safety in the traditional sense, though. 
The world was written around Luo Binghe, and so naturally everyone who lays eyes on him can see how brilliant he is, how beautiful. Everyone who sees Luo Binghe wants them for themselves, and far, far too many of those people are bold enough to dare try and take him.
Women that lose all sense of reason when they see him, women that lose all their clothes when they are near him, women that lose their virginity when they are seduced by him -!
If all the stupid, useless, would-be wives in this world can’t help losing pieces of themselves to Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan thinks viciously, then it’s for the best if Luo Binghe isn’t around them to begin with.
These women are everywhere, though, in every corner of the combined realms and every hallway of Luo Binghe’s own palace. Luo Binghe could simply be going down to the kitchens and encounter two handfuls of needy, whiney women on his way there, ready to waste Luo Binghe’s time with their miserable attempts at seduction. 
Shen Yuan won’t allow Luo Binghe’s time to be wasted any more, not now that he’s here instead of just reading about it. He won’t allow Luo Binghe to lay with any more women who may give him a nasty disease, or who may burden him with a child, or - worst of all - who may pretend to care for Luo Binghe while knowing nothing substantial about him.
Shen Yuan knows Luo Binghe, though. He knows Luo Binghe best. Luo Binghe is safest with him, most loved with him, and it’s really only responsible of Shen Yuan to make sure that Luo Binghe doesn’t stray from this green pasture.
Shen Yuan doesn’t have the strength to overpower Luo Binghe, though, nor the tools to trap him. If he’s to keep Luo Binghe in one spot away from all those nasty parasites, he’ll have to make Luo Binghe want to stay put. 
“It’s not that it would be difficult to stay in our rooms,” Shen Yuan says. “It’s only that I don’t think I can be left alone there. If I can’t walk without assistance, then I’ll need help with normal day-to-day stuff, too.”
“If it’s to help Yuan-er, I can do anything he needs,” Luo Binghe says instantly.
Shen Yuan hums again. No, he decides, he’s not deep enough in it, yet.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that…” Shen Yuan demures. “It’s - I mean think about it, Binghe, it wouldn’t just be helping me to change or helping me move from the bed to the couch. I’d need help with things like going to the bathroom, too, which is just - no, it’s too much.”
Luo Binghe shudders, and Shen Yuan feels the movement of it resonate through his whole body. No doubt Luo Binghe was just picturing what it would be like, to have Shen Yuan so thoroughly dependent on him that Shen Yuan even needed to be held through the process of taking a piss. How did he imagine it, Shen Yuan wonders - did he just think about helping Shen Yuan to the chamber pot? Or did he imagine pushing Shen Yuan’s robes apart and taking hold of him, and of being the one to clean Shen Yuan after? 
Naturally, the later vision wouldn’t be necessary. Shen Yuan has a limp, not full body paralysis. Even suggesting that he needs constant assistance to stay in one room is a stretch.
He doesn’t mind keeping the leash tighter than it needs to be, though. If it’s the vision that Luo Binghe prefers, Shen Yuan will act it out with him, if only to get Luo Binghe to stay safely in his room without leaving.
“I can do that for Yuan-er,” Luo Binghe insists. His voice is rougher than it had been just a moment ago.
“Then,” Shen Yuan says, satisfied, “we’d best return to our rooms, and send a letter to your court that we won’t be leaving.”
Luo Binghe shudders again, holds Shen Yuan tight for a moment longer, and obeys.
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loving-strawberry · 1 year
Text
✶Stray Kids reacting to their s/o ignoring when she's being sexualized✶ (HCS)
Summary: You are being sexualized by people because of your body, but you're so used to this, that you simply choose to ignore that.
It was a request!
A little note: To the person who requested, if you read this, I'm really sorry for what is happening to you:( Also, I couldn't really do exactly as you asked me, because my brain is refusing to cooperate with me sometimes! But I hope you like it!
Warning: Swearing. Some comments about body parts. Mention of food and drinks. Probably some writing errors.
Genre: A bit of angst. Fluff. (I don't know other ones???)
Pairing: Bf!Skz x Fem!Reader
Bang Chan☆
He was simply shocked when this happened for the first time in front of him
You two were just taking a stroll in a park, enjoying together your little time off both of you had that same day, which is a pretty rare occasion
And all of a sudden you hear some nasty and disgusting comments about your body coming from an old man
While poor Chan was feeling sick hearing that someone could say something like this in the a public space, without feeling ashamed of themselves, you simply ignored it
"My love, how could you just ignore something like that? Do you want me to go and talk to him??"
"Channie, it's ok. I'm used to it by now."
Now he's even more shocked
What do you mean used to it???
How many times did this happened???
Why didn't you told him anything yet???
He has so many questions and he feels so bad that there's not much he can do about your situation...
Lee Minho☆
This was happening as the two of you were on a date at a restaurant
And one man who was sitting at the next table, was looking intensely at your chest, even throughout your shirt
You just ignored his gross looks and focused on other things
But your boyfriend couldn't
He was pissed.
He doesn't want to accept that someone is looking at you like you're some kind of object and you to just ignore it like it's a normal thing
Even if it is normal for you, unfortunately
"You need to stand up for yourself when this happens!"
"Why? It's much more easier to just ignore them and don't show any reaction. They wouldn't understand anyway."
If you don't stand up for yourself when this happens to you, he will
And next time this happens, Minho will send deadly glares towards the people who dares sexualize you in any way
If that doesn't work, he'll go and have a little talk with them
You will need to stop him before getting his ass in trouble with JYP
Seo Changbin☆
This one takes place at the gym
You were doing some squats, and a group of men was constantly checking your butt and disgustingly smirking at each other
And of course, doing unnecessary comments
Wants to have a little talk with them part 2... Even though he's outnumbered
But stops when he sees that you don't give a flying fuck about this whole situation
"Babe, you really don't care? The way they commented about your body is unacceptable and disgusting..."
"Bin, I'm used to it. It's happening more often than you think."
Now he's all pouting, sad and disappointed with himself for not noticing sooner
And of course, disappointed with the people who can do such things
"You shouldn't be used to this, babe..."
Hwang Hyunjin☆
During one of your photoshoots for modeling, the photographer was starting to make you pose more and more sexy
Indecent actually
Like, almost Playboy style
But you just tried to brush it off
On the other hand, Hyunjin, who came along with you just to keep you company during this session, wasn't exactly happy about what just happened
He's having a pit in his stomach after all of that and you can tell he's angry
He will just tell the photographer to fuck off and takes you out of that place as fast as possible
"Hyunnie, what's wrong??"
"You're seriously asking this...? You've just been sexualized and you're asking me what's wrong?"
"It was happening so many than you could think off... I just don't care too much anymore."
Now he's furious and grossed out.
Of course Hyunjin wouldn't let you go back to the same photographer, despite your reassurances that everything is fine
And he'll search himself for someone else who to be trusted with you
Han Jisung☆
(I don't have any ideas of scenarios here🙃)
You two went out for some ice cream, and suddenly someone says something like 'I have something better for you to lick'
Han is about to go and deal with him, until you stop him
"Ji, don't waste your time with that."
"But-..."
"Just ignore him."
He's honestly confused as to how unbothered you are
Makes him question himself how many times did this happened before and never noticed
"Does... Does this happened frequently...?"
"Yeah."
"HUH?!?"
He'll start from now on to look after you and pay attention to your surroundings constantly
Lee Felix☆
You both were at a TV show when this happens and having an interview
After a while, the hosts attention is focused just on you and starts telling suggestive jokes about you
Probably to entertain who's watching the show
But you don't pay attention at all to them
Felix by now is mad.
And a little disappointed that you don't react at all about this
You know the expressions he always have when he's jealous/mad about something?
Yeah... That's how I'm imagining him right now
Moving on...
After the show is over, of course he'll start questioning you
"How could you just brush those jokes off like you being sexualized is a normal thing???"
"Because it's a normal thing, unfortunately."
"What...?"
Poor Felix, he will probably start crying after hearing this :(
Kim Seungmin☆
(Out of ideas part2)
Location for this one?
The beach.
You are wearing a one piece costume, not feeling like showing too much skin this time
But this never stopped two man to approach you
And starts make unnecessarily comments about how you should wear a bikini instead, because that's what men wants to see
Seungmin went to get you two drinks, and right when they said those gross things, he came back
He expected you to say something back to those men
But you straight up ignored them and started scrolling on your phone
Leaving Seungmin to get rid of the pests
He just fake tripped on his own feet and threw the cold drinks, with ice in them, on the men skin
Skin that probably was warm of because how much they stood in the sun
They just scattered away in the contact with the extremely cold liquids, and muttering some curses under their breaths
"I didn't know you can be so lame to not talk back in these situations."
"I talked back enough. No one listened. So I don't bother anymore."
"... I'll go grab other drinks..."
Most likely feels bad for saying that now that he knows you're struggling with this everyday
Will make sure to be the who speaks up for you next time something similar happens again
Yang Jeongin☆
I.N was doing a live, with you being somewhere in the background, laying in bed and minding your own business
You were also reading some of the comments that people had left in I.N chat, from your phone
Both of you saw a pretty nasty comment left from a "fan" about your body and how hot you looked laying like that in bed
But neither of you said anything about it
I.N didn't said anything, cuz he hopped you didn't saw it
You just ignored the comment, truth be told
Shortly after that comment was left in poor boy's chat, he ended it, feeling too sick to continue the live
"Are you ok, Innie? You look a little pale..."
"Y-Yeah... It's just... I read a comment that made me feeling unsettled."
"Oh? The one about me? I just ignored it. I've gotten even worse."
If I.N wasn't pale before, he is now
He just couldn't understand how anyone could say something like this so easily
.............................
✧ Masterlist ✧
✧ Tag List ✧
@bangchansbae @tattywood @nebulousbrainsoup @https-skzology
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quibbs126 · 3 months
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…Okay, you may end up seeing these drawings yet again on a later date
I finished the page, which was small at 500x500 px, but I wanted to make the page bigger. I did that, and I drew one new thing, but now I don’t know what else to draw on there. So for now, I figured I might as well post the original full page right now
Yeah, sorry for the laziness
This is the other sketch I finished on there, for those curious
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Anyways, so yeah, this new style practice I’m trying
The original page I tried these out on is this, which also isn’t full, but I thought trying it out with actual characters instead of just random poses and shapes would be better, so I switched over to Cookie Run characters
The method is still a work in progress when it comes to all the shapes and the red sketch layer
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I suppose what I should do now is try drawing a bunch of different Cookies that have different body shapes, so that I have practice with that. As well as maybe attempt some full body ones
I suppose you can suggest some if you want, considering I don’t know who to draw other than like, Hollyberry or Avocado, since I should try drawing large but not buff characters here. But I should also probably draw more skinny, and also chubby
But on to what I actually drew
So I already talked about Peach Blossom and the top Dark Choco drawing prior, so no real need to elaborate
The Dark Choco and Dark Cacao one was me drawing them in their younger forms to see how they compare. Not for any sort of study thing, but just in a symbolic sort of way. Since they’re so similar looking
I think I had a lot more fun with Choco, especially his hair. I remember Cacao being mostly annoying for his weird cloak thing that I don’t understand
The hand pose was ass though. I knew the general idea of what I wanted, that being them with their hands over their swords, but I was struggling to figure out how to draw the hands. Not to mention I had to change the pose from the red sketch because the swords were further down than I put them. I still don’t think I did the pose exactly correct, but screw it, it’s good enough
I’m also noticing that Choco looks way lighter in skin tone compared to Cacao. Like yeah, I know he’s normally slightly lighter, but it’s far more noticeable here. I’m pretty sure it’s because I used Dark Choco’s ToA colors here (bc they work better with my black lineart), which are slightly lighter, as well as just that Dark Choco is wearing much lighter colors while Dark Cacao’s are relatively darker. So maybe it just makes them contrast more
I liked drawing them, but I also did basically do the same body type 3 in a row, so I should probably draw different characters
Anyways, let’s talk about that extra sketch
So for those who likely don’t remember, that there is an OC of mine called Prickly Pear Cookie
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I made her entirely on a whim one day, and she doesn’t really have any character or story, just vibes, but I really like her design and wanted to draw it again
I probably should give her some sort of bra though. The shirtless chest looks cool but in my opinion sounds really uncomfortable without at least that
I did originally draw her with the green skin, but it looked weird so I shifted it to more of a yellow so it looks more human
Honestly I really like how she turned out
But yeah, I think that’s about it for now. Just wanted to show this
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narcjsistx · 2 months
Note
Heyy hope you're doing good. I have a request.
Rindou x gf reader where they're play fighting and he does his joint lock technique on her, without the bone snapping though. And now she wants him to teach her how to do it. You know for 'educational purposes'.
IT'S NOT LIKE ME TO WRITE SOMETHING SO SHORT, I KNOW, BUT I REALLY HAD VERY FEW IDEAS FOR THIS REQUEST 💔💔💔
𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓
— Just for "protection"
"And with this... I can say that I have finished my work" Rindou says, tightening his grip even more. You laugh at his gesture, but you have to admit that you are more surprised every day by how physically strong your boyfriend actually is
It wasn't the first time that Rindou pinned you on the sofa with the moves he typically used to break the bones of his opponents, in fact, for him, in your opinion it was just a stranger way of having physical contact with you. Today it happened that he blocked you after you hadn't stopped tickle him for about 10 minutes: you knew very well that if he wanted he could stop you immediately, but you appreciated that he made you play with him even in an almost childish way
"Let me go!" you say laughing, and only after leaving a kiss on your forehead does your boyfriend pull away. You're still a little amused by his behavior, however you'd be more than curious to understand how this move actually works "Rin" you say to your boyfriend, who turns around as he puts his glasses back on "What's up doll?" he asks as he approaches
“Did you create this bone-breaking thing?” You ask, crossing your legs. At the beginning of your relationship you both avoided his more violent gang side, but by now you had been together for 3 years and you had gotten used to it. Rindou seems a little surprised by your words “Why do you ask?” the boy asks, and you let out a sigh "Simple curiosity. You've never told me since we've been together" you say even more curious
"Mh... I think it was me. It's very similar to some sport fighting moves, but in those you can't break your enemies bones, but I do it" he says sitting down next to you "I understand. It would be strange if I asked you to teach me how to do it?" you ask, and you see him quite surprised by your request "Why should you learn it? You no longer trust my strength and you want to protect me?" he asks with a hint of sarcasm that makes you giggle "You know very well that I trust your strength! Mine is simple curiosity, plus it could be a nice couple moment!" you say all excited "You know, we have a quite different concept of couple moment, doll... but forget it, come here" he says a little perplexed, but motions for you to sit on the floor with him
You immediately follow him to the floor, where you find him already with his legs stretched out; you imitate him and it makes him giggle "Start with this pose and let's pretend the enemy is coming from... the right" he says with a pedantic manner, and then suddenly stands up fighting with someone invisible. You look at him and you don't understand exactly what he's doing, and your face seems to answer for you as he seems to understand your perplexity "Ok no, the single practice doesn't make you understand the concept well... I think I have to use you as a reference" he says sighing, moving closer. Without you understanding his words, you once again find yourself pinned under him "OH" you exclaim in surprise, feeling his hands rest on your inner thighs. Rindou seems to giggle at the contact, not giving us who knows how much importance "And so you immobilize your enemy" he says remaining above you, with his face a few centimeters from yours. You turn red feeling his grip tighten as his hand travels up to your hip
"I didn't think it was that simple" you say ironically, since in reality he hasn't explained anything to you at all "It's easier to do something else" Rindou says with a look you recognize: you know what he's thinking. His hand moves up to the level of your breast “Oh really, and what?” you ask playing dumb, even though you know he means it "Let me show you, doll" he says with a smirk on his face, before diving for your lips as his hand comes to your tit
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octuscle · 5 months
Note
Hey, so I ran into a bit of a problem with my stupid car. I drove a pretty old model since I didn't have the money to afford a new one (I'm still training to be a doctor). But it finally broke down and now I need to get it fixed. The guy at the auto repair place told me I could borrow one of their models for the next few days for an "extra cost". I need a car to get to work so I was happy to accept and they gave me one of their old lifted trucks. But now I'm starting to wonder what exactly this extra cost is and why I'm suddenly so interested in cars and auto repair. I have a few days left with this truck before I need to return it so any advice would help.
Well, the first extra cost is the scorn and ridicule you get in college. This truck is really embarrassing. A gas guzzling behemoth that you need three parking spaces for. And you literally have to climb into the car. For someone for whom the walk from the parking lot to the lecture hall is already sport, this is of course a horror. You park at the end of the parking lot so that nobody can see you. But on the second day, pictures of you getting out of your car go viral on campus. It was a shitty idea to take the car.
Sitting alone in the canteen, you watch the video of yourself again… Yeah, it looks really silly, you'd be making fun of the lanky guy in that huge car yourself. Even though you'll be rid of this beast in a few days, thank God, and when you can finally drive your Prius again, you should do something for your body. It's not by chance that they say "Mens sana in corpore sano"… You're looking for a gym where no one from your faculty is guaranteed to be studying. A little outside. For men only. No courses, only iron. I'm sure none of your Crossfit or Pilates friends go there. All you need is for someone to post pictures of you using dumbbells online. You join online and arrange a trial session for tonight. You don't know yet whether this is a good idea.
You roll into the parking lot. A parking lot full of pickup trucks. A few lifted trucks too. But yours stands out. Yours is really huge. Somehow you're proud of it. You jump out of the cab and grab your gym bag from the passenger footwell. You've never been here before. But somehow you feel at home. The guy at reception greets you with a fist bump. "Hey, welcome to the dudes-only gym! I'm Chuck. You gotta be Lance, right? Sweet wheels you're rockin' there.". You reply that your name is actually "Lanny", but Chuck just grins and says that a guy like you with a car like that is hardly called Lanny.
Chuck shows you the gym, the changing rooms, the showers and, after you have changed into your workout clothes, takes you to the training area. A bunch of musclemen are sweating on the weights, grunting. The air is thick with sweat and testosterone. Chuck scrutinizes you. "Well, you're no newbie to pumping iron, bro. But a few more pounds of mass would really beef you up. Let me walk you through some of my top moves." This is actually the first time you've ever pumped iron… But you don't contradict me. And follow Chuck's instructions. You train together with Chuck for the first hour. After that, he has to go back to reception. It's only 8:00 pm. The gym is just starting to fill up. The guys here are not men of big words. A nod of the head. That's usually the whole conversation. Apart from the grunt you let out when you finish the last repetition of a sentence with your last ounce of strength, you don't say a word for the next few hours.
Chuck comes onto the training area at 00:30. You are about to get your biceps on fire. "Big boy, it's time, I want to call it a day." He stares at the tent in your pants. The thing is, if you give it your all on the dumbbells, you'll get a hard-on. The two of you are alone on the training area. You finish your last set. You check the result with a double bicep pose in front of the mirror. You pull down your pants. And you and Chuck call it a day.
The next day you park your baby right in front of the university entrance. It's still early, but you want to be back at the gym early. The early bird catches the worm, as they say at home with mom and dad on the farm.
Dann all this medicine shit is terribly tiring and boring. You almost fall asleep in the first lecture. In the cafeteria, you try to talk to a sane person about chiseling iron or tuning engines. But all the idiots here can talk about is medicine and patients and stuff like that. By 4 p.m. you can't take it anymore. You need some normal people around you now. You swap your doctor's coat for a sleeveless checked flannel shirt. You meet one of your professors in the hallway. He asks you if you are one of the janitors. He has a problem with his car. Finally, a sensible task. You were hoping he had a problem with his engine. You would have liked to have had a look at it. He drives a BMW 540, a cool car. But unfortunately, he just changed the language in his on-board computer from English to German. A little something for you. He thanks you and slips you five dollars. Pathetic nerds!
Chuck greets you with a fist bump. Rituals are rituals. He thinks his ass is still sore from yesterday. You should take it easy on him today. You grin, inspect his tight ass and say it's a disgrace. But then he’d probably have a sore throat tomorrow. You laugh. And you head off to the training area. Too bad about Chuck. But there'll be another ass to fill today. There are lots of tight asses here. But first you work on your own. Leg day!
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The next day, park your baby right outside the entrance. It's still early, but you want to be back at the gym early. The early bird catches the worm, as they say at home with mom and dad on the farm. In the workshop, they call you the truck doc. Because you can fix any problem. And because you once studied medicine. That was a long time ago. It was an idea you had in your youth. But you're not a guy who works with his head. You work with your calloused hands. And with your heart. And your heart beats for mighty engines and mighty wheels!
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eilidh-eternal · 9 months
Note
Your Nasty Man™️ Johnny is fueling my freaky side, and I don't know how to handle it.
I must have more....(pretty please)
What would that smug, disgusting bastard of a man do if he found reader also had a nasty side?
Say she found out about his little video collection? She hacks into it, and to just one up his arrogant ass, posts it to OnlyFans and is now getting paid for it! (Realistically, don't ever do this. I'm just being hypothetically horny here)
OR.....
Car Salesman Johnny. She borrows Ghost's classic vehicular muscle baby, finds an abandoned parking lot, and straps herself into the front seat. Uses the vibrator Johnny bought her to overly pleasure herself, capturing the whole ordeal on her phone. But it's not Johnny's name she's moaning. It's Ghost's. And, of course, she sends it to both just to really stick that knife into that Nasty Man™️'s side.
I'm going down the Nasty Man™️ MacTavish drain here. Must cure it with SingleDad!Johnny before I become a complete fiend for that repulsively sexy, damaged man...
Hehehehe that Nasty Man™️… he’s going to have a heart attack because he’s just overheard you asking Simon if he’d be willing to lend you his car again, but not for another driving lesson.
As it turns out, Simon is pretty good with a camera. Has an eye for photography, at least where his car is concerned (He actually has a sizable following on insta and is pretty well known in the car scene) but what you weren’t expecting is how well he directs you as a model.
Knows exactly how to pose you, has learned the angles you look the best from in a matter of about 5 minutes. And the best part? He’s not creepy about it. He’s actually sort of unfazed by your skimpy clothing and the suggestive poses he’s snapping you in. Lets you wear the leather jacket he wears at meets with his name embroidered across the back of it between shots while you both look over the raw photos. And maybe, just maybe, when you have your back turned to him, adjusting an errant strand of hair or preening in the reflection of the tinted windows, he’s snapped a few shots of you in his jacket with his phone.
And oops! His thumb slipped. Accidentally sent them to Johnny.
And Gaz.
And Price.
When you get to the dealership on Monday there’s a shipment of office supplies that needs to be unboxed and put away. More paper, extra ink cartridges, pens and paper clips in bulk, and, because it’s the start of the new year, calendars for the office.
But wait… these… don’t look like the calendars ordered from the supply store? That looks an awful lot like Simons car on the front…
You chalk it up to coincidence, think maybe your manager wanted something a little less bland and more on theme to help liven the place up. It’s probably just some classic car calendar or something.
You don’t realize what it is until a few hours later when you walk by Johnny’s cubicle and something snags your attention. You backpedal, round his desk to look at the calendar pinned to the fabric-lined divider, and freeze, stomach leaping in your chest because that’s you.
That’s you on the hood of Simons car, laid out in your skimpy dress.
What the fuck?
“I think August is my favorite,” a heavily accented voice breathes from behind you. You whirl on him, back pressed to the divider, and stare up in shock at Johnny, grinning down at you impishly.
“Didnae ken they did custom calendars at the supply store. Think we’ll be doin’ these from now on.” He takes a step forward, cages you between him and the divider when he braces a hand on the metal frame. His breathing is heavy, eyes glazed, and the fabric of his button down pulled taught over the bunching muscles in his arms. “Next year though… I think next year should be ye, in that slutty dress, sittin’ pretty on my ride.”
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bogleech · 1 year
Text
REVIEWING THIS WHOLE BAG OF RUBBER BUGS:
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I mentioned recently that bags of cheap rubber bugs are harder to come by in real stores, but that there are a few options for them online. I just received this set from Aliexpress that’s currently only $4 with free shipping, you might even find the same set cheaper since there’s multiple listings for it, but I can verify this source is using an accurate photo and I am now going to REVIEW THEM:
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SPIDER: obligatory, all-purpose spider, ambiguous species, noodly legs, minimal paint application, 3/5
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COCKROACH: nice silky black coloration on the back, tan on the underside, rather haphazard leg pose, I like it but in terms of objective quality it’s unfortunately a 2/5 compared to other fake roaches and even to other bugs in this set.
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DRAGONFLIES: so this set is definitely pieced together from what were once multiple different rubber bug sets, but I can also confirm that you always get the same selection I’m reviewing, which includes several redundancies. You get both a large and small dragonfly with entirely different sculpts, the smaller one more accurately sculpted but not as dynamically painted! Both I’d give a 3/5, adequate dragonflies
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ORTHOPTERA: you get a cricket AND two different styles of grasshopper! The big, detailed black and red cricket is crudely painted but very unique, 3.5/5. The small grasshopper is cute and inoffensive, barely painted, 3/5. The large grasshopper is a 4/5 for me because while I’ve seen plenty like it, it has a really nice gradient from lime green to a darker grassier green that I just find very pleasant.
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BEES: two very differently sculpted bees, and they both use a sparkly metallic gold with black stripes. Both deserve a 4/5.
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ANTS: collectively I’m gonna say these are a 3.5/5, on their own very plain but I like that together you have a dull yellow-tan ant with comical googly eyes and a bigger, more ominous shiny black ant with spooky red eyes. I like that the black ant is also tied with a couple others as the largest bug in the set. It’s actually only slightly larger than the real life Giant Amazonian ant, Dinoponera, which is also entirely black.
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MANTIDS: excellent choice for another double bug, I like the simple cheapness of the little one with its awkwardly sculpted forelegs but to fair it’s a 2/5 compared to the 4/5 of the larger, red-eyed mantis which has more of that “sparkly” paint style!
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SCORPIONS: the only other arachnids in the set, and it’s amazing they included two different scorpions but only one spider. Trust me when I say that’s the most radical maverick decision a rubber bug set has ever made in the history of mankind. The small red scorpion is alright, a 3 I guess. The larger one has only six legs which is not accurate (the claws of a scorpion are modified mouthparts, not legs!) but I can’t look at its little black eyes and not want to cry so 5/5 actually.
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CICADA: not terribly common in these! Charming, chunky brown cicada, though the thorax piece is so transparent you can always see the hole it plugs into. At one time, this sculpt may have been part of a higher quality set that actually painted over this design flaw. 4/5 regardless.
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FLY: there’s a pattern here in which almost every flying insect in the set has a gold-brown base, which I’m not a big fan of. Sadly I’m overall neutral on this fly, normally my favorite of all the basic insects, perhaps because it looks just as much like some sort of wasp. It’s definitely a fly due to having only one pair of wings, and plenty of flies look exactly like this, but I’d just be a bigger fan if it was a chunkier, larger-eyed blowfly or horsefly. 2.5/5
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UNKNOWN: there are actually several insects this could possibly represent including a few Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera, but the one insect it most closely resembles is an adult caddisfly. I like it, but it’s difficult to fairly judge it with no certain identification so 3/5 has to do.
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HAWKMOTH: stellar choice! I’ve seen only one cheap-grade plastic hawkmoth in my whole life, actually! Several hawkmoths are even clear-winged, though those usually still have dark markings around the wing edges. Would’ve been more accurate to some real species if they just cast the wings in a solid color, but that’s a trivial criticism. 5/5
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WASP: the wasp is SO good. The paint on this one is skewed funny but that’s fine, the green of the abdomen pops really well and I love the grouchy red eyes. 5/5
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CATERPILLAR: larvae are so rarely included in these, and when they are, they’re often an incredibly plain segmented tube that doesn’t look like anything in particular, or a recolor of a generic caterpillar I’ve seen several times before. This caterpillar sculpt is actually new to me and nicely shaped, with a tapering body and accurate limbs. It is however a rather stiff hunk of plastic, not as rubbery as the others, and honestly this is the one you would want rubberiest! Still a 5/5 for its inclusion at all.
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BEETLE: beetles are the most abundant, diverse insect group and the most common rubber bug toy after spiders, so it’s another bold move that they include only one in this whole set and it isn’t even one of the more recognizable, more famous beetles. On its own merits as just a rubber beetle it’s a 3/5, but its metallic blue stands out so nicely in this set, and the sculpt appears to be some sort of blister beetle, a rare choice and a very cool (but dangerous! Don’t touch them!!!) insect group so 5/5
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MOSQUITO: mosquitoes are another of my favorite animal groups, and as one of the world’s most abundant, most recognized, most controversial insects you’d think they’d be a standard bug toy already, but this is only the third plastic mosquito design I’ve ever seen in my entire long life! It’s brown, unpainted, dinky and bent funny. 10/5
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raidark · 2 months
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Look, i'm not saying that Jacaerys' insecurities are not interesting or that he has legitimate worries (which will be proven right if they stick to the book... though i'm unsure on whether they will blame his behavior with Them for the betrayal).
But i'm still angry at everything they did to him. Especially since Book Jacaerys is my favorite character of Fire and Blood, of the whole Dance.
It makes me furious how many people are saying we the angry Jace stans have 0 media literacy and asking if we rather have Jace still doing nothing as he did for the whole season.
THAT is exactly the problem. That he didn't do anything in the show while in the book he did SO MUCH.
"And now you say you will strip that from me too" could be perfectly something Jacaerys says to the writers of this mess.
They sidelined all of his alliances achievements with the Vale, the Three Sisters, White Harbor and the North (the lack of Pact of Ice and Fire hurts the most). All the time that could have been spent to develop his character had they wanted and show his potential. Instead we only got a little show only scene with the Freys that barely proved anything about him.
I loved Baela's scene with Corlys, but it was Jace who mediated between Rhaenyra and him in the book, it was by his order that he was made Hand of the Queen.
It was also him who had the Dragonseeds idea... and before you say that he was also the one with the idea in the series, take into mind that in the book he called for the Dragonseeds (Valyrian ascent bastards) from the very beginning. The whole thing with nobles only is only in the show. Book Jacaerys didn't have any prejudice or apparent problem with bastards at this point of the story. It's obvious that he had already accepted this fact and it's in fact because he knows his origins that he gave Dragonseeds a chance and his faith. He leaded them for the love of god.
Yes, it's true that due to the nature of the book we don't know exactly what was he thinking. But it's the complete opposite reaction to his show version. Whether Book Jace understood or not the danger this plan posed on long-term, he did so just like Rhaenyra did, because they had no chance at the moment. Not to mention that while in the series all the candidates come from Kings Landing (?¿?), in the book they're taken from Driftmark and Dragonstone (which is populated, not only a castle for Targaryen), so there's a bit more of trust on them as subjects than on completely unknown people from the city taken and ruled by your enemy. (It also weren't so many who tried in the book)
I've seen some people say that Jace was besties with Addam and Nettles... and while we actually don't know their relationship, we do know that they mourned him badly while Ulf and Hugh weren't that affected. I really don't think they would be that affected if they didn't have some kind of bond before, even if it wasn't told to us. And I mean, it was Jace who supported legitimizing Addam and Alyn and make Addam heir to Driftmark ahead of Joffrey. Which, well, doesn't seem likely in the show.
The thing is that Jace DID a lot of things in the book, supporting his mother, basically leading the Blacks on the name of Rhaenyra Targaryen, who couldn't do it since she was RIGHTFULLY grieving during a lot of time after everything that had happened in quick succession, both Luke and Visenya's deaths.
And you know, THAT'S NOT BAD. It gave time to have other characters doing things like Rhaenyra's sons. It explored a side of Rhaenyra and how much her children's death affected her, explicitly showing how much they mattered to her and how brutally it broke her inside (while filling her with pure unadulterated rage after the Gullet). But well, playing devil's advocate, I understand a bit why they didn't go with this since I don't have any faith most watchers would try to emphatize with the grieving mother part of Rhaenyra, and would instead call her a weak queen.
Jace was a supporting and loving son, an extension of Rhaenyra, heart of the Blacks, responsible for the alliances that would bring them to victory by the end of the war. A boy who came to understand and accept his status in the world and used it on a positive note for her mother's cause. A worthy heir to Rhaenyra, one of the few people in this whole period that was worthy of becoming King in the future.
This wasn't about wanting him to do nothing in the show. It was about not butchering his character and be faithful to all the stuff he actually does. But because the writers couldn't (or didn't want to) understand it wasn't Rhaenyra's turn in the characters front lines right now (it would have come later), instead they had to underline him and strip him of everything he did and give it to other characters, while giving him traits and opinions that has made a lot of people despise him.
His fate was meant to be a tragedy that made an apparent victory for the Blacks as hollow and catastrophic as a defeat. And now there's almost no more time and Jace will be remembered by show onlys just for his self-hating identity crisis (which he could have had in the book as well, or before in the show, but not anymore at this point) and his bordering hypocritical classism. Not for everything he actually did and the traits you could imagine of him from what is said in the book.
But hey, apparently a certain part of the fandom thinks that's the only thing that makes a character, a human, complex and interesting.
I don't hate show Rhaenyra. I don't hate show Jacaerys. I will always support Rhaenyra's claim. But I can't just stand after so many decisions that go against them. Especially in the case of Jace who is already receiving such amount of vitriol hate while receiving love just from being victimiced and poor sad boy.
Ah. My boy needs his own sub-team inside Rhaenyra's supporters at this point -- not putting him against Rhaenyra or anyone else. But. Seeing Rhaenyra's stans wishing for his death...
I don't hate the characters. I hate the writers. I hate the changed dynamics, the change in characters' ages, the erasure of Nettles, how Jace was striped from everything his characte is, the stupid decisions....
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Dog Unleashed (M) ~Lee Know
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Pairing: Werewolf!Minho x Human!F.Reader Themes: Supernatural/Fantasy AU | Smut | Fluff | Mild Angst? | Established Relationship Word Count: ~11k | AO3 Synopsis: Starting a relationship with the man that had been your best friend since you were a kid was and wasn’t easy in equal parts. It was, because there wasn’t anyone in this world you trusted more than Minho, there wasn’t anyone that made you feel this safe. But sometimes, it just wasn’t. Not only because of the physical distance, but also because of the challenges that posed having a supernatural boyfriend who didn’t like to talk about his equally supernatural problems. [This story is a sort of pt. 2 to Camping with Wolves, and it’s an instalment of my WereRoomies series]. Warnings: pet names (baby, kitten, etc) · a bit of miscommunication (it’ll be fine, i promise) · graphic depictions of intercourse (smut warnings under the cut). please let me know if i missed anything !
Due to all the abovementioned warnings, this story is intended for an adult audience only. Minors please do not interact.
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Author’s Note: i dedicate this one to my fellow monsterfuckers. this had been sitting in my WIPs for a while, but i finally got some inspo to write about Minho and his kitten, so here it is 🥰 kudos to the anon from this ask for cementing in my brain the idea that minho would text his kitten every morning like he does here. as usual, don’t hesitate to let me know if anything’s phrased weirdly, or to leave your thoughts in the tags/captions/send an ask/etc. y’all know i really appreciate them💜
for those that might not know, a queen is an adult female cat that hasn’t been spayed.
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Minho’s WereRoomies Instalments: Camping With Wolves · Dog Unleashed · Are You There, Wolf?
Smut Warnings: sexting? (nudes are sent) · an anal plug is used · oral [M&F.Rec] · mouth fucking · fingering [F.Rec] · forced orgasm [F.Rec] · unprotected penetration [piv] · good ol’ rut driven intercourse · creampie · knotting · a barely present breeding kink.
Disclaimer: the story represented in this work does not represent Stray Kids in any way; anything described in this story and all actions performed by the characters are purely fictional, this was created just for good fun.
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You’d always known you were in love with your best friend, although you weren’t quite sure when you fell for him exactly, much less when you realised it.
Maybe it had been the moment you saw him on the brink of death, attached to all those life support devices after he’d been attacked by a werewolf… Or maybe before that, when he started to become the most reliable person in your life… Or, maybe, it was the very first day you met him, when he was placing injured stray kittens in a box to get them to a vet as soon as possible so they wouldn’t die.
Regardless, it didn’t really matter to you when it happened or when you noticed it, all that mattered to you right now was the fact that, after one fateful camping trip to the woods, you had finally been able to confess your feelings. That, even though you had never even entertained the possibility of him wanting you, he actually did. And not only did he want you, he wanted you a lot–for a long time, too.
Minho was your favourite person in this world, and starting a relationship with him seemed to have only heightened that feeling tenfold. He was your biggest supporter, he was always there for you. Even if you lived almost an hour away, you knew that, at any given moment, you’d be able to call him and he’d be there for you. Either on the phone or he’d drive to your place as fast as he legally could. 
The distance hardly ever seemed to matter. Of course you missed him every day–you’d always done so, even when you were just friends–Of course you wished you could go to bed with him next to you every night, but that wasn’t a possibility at this time, so you both made do however you could. 
Your previously monthly schedule to hang out had turned into a weekly one. You both tried to meet up every weekend. Most of the time it was you who drove to his place–to his den–since being surrounded by him and his family was always incredibly comforting to you. It was always much, much better than your cold, borderline sterile flat.
He’d asked you to move in with him several times throughout the years, and you had never really entertained that offer, mostly because of your job–and maybe also because, at the time, your feelings for him were too hard to ignore even with the distance, so living with your best friend who you had deep feelings for simply would’ve made it all so much more difficult.
Now that you were officially A Thing, the offer hung in the air. Minho hadn’t asked again after you got together, but you knew it was on the tip of his tongue every time you both became tangled limbs on his bed. And even though he had not asked yet, you were still thinking about it, wondering what you would answer, and how you’d handle the aftermath of that answer.
If you said yes, you’d have to drop your job and try to find one closer to his place, and honestly, at this time, you weren’t sure you were ready to face the levels of anxiety job hunting always brought you to. But then, saying no wouldn’t have felt right at all, because, ultimately, you wanted to be as close to Minho as you could. You supposed it was for the best that he hadn’t talked to you about it yet, it’d give you more time to figure things out, to mentally prepare yourself.
The sound of your phone vibrating on your nightstand brought you back from your thoughts. You’d been waking up earlier than usual these days, probably because you had a lot of things on your mind, so you had been lying there for around an hour already, waiting for your alarm to go off. 
The vibration wasn’t produced by your alarm, though. It was produced by an incoming message, so you stretched your arm, taking your phone from where it had been charging all night. A smile made its way to your face as you read the preview of a message you already expected to receive, and as you read the contact name your dear boyfriend had decided to add to his number no more than two days after you got together.
You wasted no more time and unlocked your phone to read the whole thread.
> MinhoTheBestBoyfriendEver: good morning kitten > did you sleep well? > was i in your dreams?
Minho had always had his own way of being clingy when you were friends. He’d sent messages throughout the day with any and every thought that he wanted to share with you, he’d try to hang out for as long as possible, or he would hug and cuddle you for hours when possible. Now, as your boyfriend, that clinginess had doubled, and you were honestly enjoying the extra attention he was giving you, just as much as you were enjoying his extra need for attention.
< You: Of course you were. < You’re the man of my dreams, after all.
> MinhoTheBestBoyfriendEver: 🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀 > 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 > cmon > tell me everything > dont you dare leave any details out
You couldn’t help but chuckle as you moved to your notes app, copying the text you’d written on this morning’s note and pasting it in the conversation with your boyfriend. It was a habit you’d picked up throughout the years, to write your dreams in a journal or your phone as soon as you woke up, so you wouldn’t forget. Minho knew, of course. So if he found out you dreamt something, he wanted to have every single detail.
Once you finally got out of bed that morning–at the protests of Sir Percival, your elderly cat that loved to cuddle you to sleep, a cat Minho himself had rescued when you were little–you started getting ready for your day. It was Thursday, but you were already excited for the weekend since you had taken a compensation day tomorrow, so you’d have three whole days you could potentially spend with your boyfriend. He didn’t know yet, though. Your plan was to surprise him tonight, and you hoped everything worked in your favour.
With a fresh face of makeup, dressed in your most professional outfit, you took the bag you kept ready in your closet, full with clean changes of clothes, pyjamas, underwear, toiletries, and anything you could need for your weekend out of the house. The bag was a bit more stuffed than usual today, all thanks to the other part of the surprise you had prepared.
Shooting your friend–and neighbour–a quick text to confirm she’d be able to take care of Sir Percival during your absence, you finally took your belongings and made your way out of your home, into the elevator, and finally to the basement, where your car was parked. Once you had placed the extra bag in the boot of your car, you opened your messaging app again, searching your conversation with one of Minho’s closest friends, and the alpha of his pack, Chris, so you could send him a text, too. 
Thankfully, it seemed like Chris was awake already, because he replied almost immediately.
< You: Hellooooo, Mr Alpha of the Pack.
> Chris (Minho): hey mrs kitten of my left hand > hows it going
< You: All good, all good.  < I was wondering if it was okay for me to stay over tonight? < And, subsequently, the entire weekend? < I wanna surprise Minho. Please don’t tell him.
> Chris (Minho): of course u can stay over > u dont even need to ask at this point tbh > also consider my mouth sealed shut > welcome back (:
As soon as you knew you could carry out your surprise the day seemed to slow down immensely. Work was just taking too long to be over, the minutes seemed to be lasting a hundred and twenty seconds instead of sixty, and by the time five o’clock rolled in you were already coming out of the office and practically sprinting to your car.
As soon as you sat down on the driver’s seat and secured your seat belt, you checked your phone to see if your boyfriend had answered the message you had sent him earlier in the day. Thankfully, he had just replied.
< You: How’re you doing, baby? < How’s work?
> MinhoTheBestBoyfriendEver: hi kitten > on a break rn > but im pissed > people are just so bad at taking care of their furry friends > cuz theres this like huge ass dog that swallowed a ball > a whole ball baby can you believe? > all cuz these people just werent paying attention to him > hes done this before you know? > im gonna have to stay back for a few hours > he needs surgery > and im the only one that can carry him around > so im pissed > sorry for rambling ☹
You did feel bad for Minho, you knew these things usually got to him, especially since he could quite literally understand his furry patients. However, you also felt relieved, because his overtime meant you would be able to sneak into his flat no problem.
< You: Aw, baby, I’m sorry 🙁 < That sucks. < I hope the big baby makes it just fine. < Do you need a pick-me-up?
You had this habit with Minho even before when you were just friends. When your day was rough either of you two would offer a pick-me-up, which previously consisted of sending cute pictures of Sir Percival, or memes, or just videos of cute animals in general. Lately, though, your pick-me-ups had turned a bit more… Intimate.
> MinhoTheBestBoyfriendEver: god yea > i could use a pickmeup > you can send whatever you want > anything really > but if it influences your decision > know that im alone in the break room > and that i miss you a lot > a whole lot
You chuckled, amused at just how Minho would take every chance you presented to him. So you went into that private folder in your gallery, searching for the most recent pictures you’d taken, the ones with the new lingerie set that you had yet to use.
< You: [sent a photo] < [sent a photo] < [sent a photo] < [sent a photo]
> MinhoTheBestBoyfriendEver: ffffuck me > thats a pickmeup alright > look at you > is that new? > that bras so fucking sheer tf > barely covering your tits > you should bring that tomorrow > so i can rip it off of you
< You: I’ll see what I can do 😇 < Going to start driving now. < Let’s talk later, yeah?
> MinhoTheBestBoyfriendEver: alright kitten > drive safe > lmk when youre home
You didn’t have that particular set in your bag today, but you were sure that what you did have would be even better.
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Recently, Minho and his pack had added these digital door locks to the doors of their den. You’d always had a spare key to Minho’s flat for emergencies, but now whenever you came here and tapped the exact date of the day you and Minho met made you feel incredibly special, maybe embarrassingly so.
You still remember when Minho told you that was the number combination he had decided to use. He’d presented his cheek to you and asked ‘aren’t I the best boyfriend ever?’ to which you couldn’t help but laugh, kissing his cheek and replying ‘you’re the cutest boyfriend ever’. 
You gave him amazing head an uncountable amount of times that weekend.
As soon as you were inside you settled your belongings in his room, and took your time to freshen up. After around thirty minutes of you being in his flat, Minho had sent you a message whining that he had finally been able to leave work and that he was dying to be home already. So you quickly got yourself ready, after all, the surprise you’d prepared today wasn’t just your presence.
You’d honestly been wanting to try this for a while; you’d been eyeing this entire lingerie set and its added accessories for months, and a couple of weeks ago you finally got the courage to get it. Was it a bit corny? Perhaps. But you knew Minho, and you were certain that the combination of the black top with the cat-shaped cutout in the middle showing where your breasts met, the flimsy panties that could very well be called lacy straps more than anything else, the black stockings with squishy paw pads, the choker with a dangling bell around your neck, the cat ears clipped to your hair, and the plug with the attached black tail inside your ass would make him lose it. Which was exactly what you wanted.
A riled up Minho meant a riled up werewolf boyfriend that’d fuck you silly, and after spending days without seeing him, that was exactly what you were craving tonight.
Your heart almost leaped out of your chest when you heard the characteristic beep, beep, beeps of the front door’s keypad. They were obnoxiously loud and they seemed to bounce off the walls and shoot right inside of you, making you all giddy. So you got comfortable on Minho’s bed, laying on your stomach, adjusting your tail so it’d rest over your back, and propping your chin on your hands.
Very quickly, the sound of the door closing shut was replaced with the sound of your boyfriend sighing, coupled with an ungraceful thud as you figured Minho dropped his bag by the entrance. And suddenly, everything was quiet.
“No fucking way!” You couldn’t help but smile as you heard your boyfriend’s footsteps grow closer. “Please tell me I’m not fucking hallucinating your scent in my house right now, that’d be so mean…”
As soon as he reached the open bedroom door, he brought a hand to his chest and gasped. The surprise lasted a second, because he immediately crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk on his face. “Well, well, well… What do we have here?”
“Welcome home, Minho”, you gave him a smile, just as you kicked your stocking clad feet in the air.
“Well…” Minho walked to the bed, stopping by the end of it and reaching for one of the cat ears clipped to your hair to flick it softly. “It seems like a kitten has truly made her way into my house, hm?”
You–very shamelessly if you might add–moved your gaze from his eyes to his crotch, seeing the bulge in his trousers grow with every second he looked at you, and it sent a rush of excitement down your spine. Returning your eyes to his, you simply smiled at him again before you rolled onto your back, exposing your stomach to him.
The motion had the plug in your ass moving a bit, and immediately you felt yourself heat up with arousal, especially so as you took notice of Minho’s blown pupils, and his borderline predatory stare.
“I was just missing my wolf boyfriend so bad. Figured I’d pay him a visit. Give him a little surprise”, you dragged your hands down your torso, from your chest, all the way down to squeeze them right between your bent legs.
“Mmm…” Tipping his head to the side a bit, Minho’s eyes fixed for a moment on the exposed skin of your breasts, only to move along to your exposed stomach. “I’d say it’s more than a little surprise”.
“Do you like it, though?”
“Kitten”, Minho’s eyes snapped back to yours. He moved his hand to his crotch, effectively diverting your attention to the movement just as he cupped himself over his trousers. “Look how fucking hard I am. I’m absolutely fucking delighted”.
You couldn’t help but chuckle, reaching for his crotch, too, slipping your hand between his and the denim, giving him a hefty squeeze.
“Baby, wait. I have to take a shower”, despite his words, his hips bucked, chasing the warmth of your palm as you pressed it a bit more firmly against his erection. “I’m serious. I’m probably covered in all sorts of animal fluids”.
“You could be covered in my fluids, though”.
“God”, Minho dragged his hands over his face, pulling himself away from you entirely and walking towards the door, making you pout. You knew he was right, he surely needed his shower, but the ache that had steadily been building between your legs as soon as he stepped into the room was just too strong to ignore.
Before he disappeared into the hall, he turned to you again. “Wait for me right there, okay? Just like that. Won’t be long, promise”.
So you giggled, reaching for your phone as soon as he was out of your sight to keep yourself entertained while he was in the bathroom.
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The sight of your boyfriend, all flushed from his hot shower, with droplets still travelling down his torso that got caught on the towel he had wrapped around his hips, was, quite honestly, mouth watering. As soon as he was standing at the end of the bed, with a smirk plastered on his pretty face, you just reached for the towel, letting it fall on the floor to find his already hard length.
“And I haven’t even touched you, baby”, you chuckled, licking your lips, looking up at him from where you were lying on the bed, still on your back, right where he left you. Even upside down, you still found Minho to be one of the most handsome men you’d ever seen, and you honestly felt incredibly happy you could be here with him right now.
“You didn’t need to”, he walked closer, placing a hand on your cheek as he looked down at you. “I got so fucking hard just thinking about you being out here while I was in the shower. Now, kitten, come a bit closer to the edge and open up. Hm?”
You just did as asked, letting your head fall over the edge of the bed as your boyfriend took a hold of his length and guided it to your mouth. You couldn’t help but moan as soon as he eased himself inside, just like it didn’t seem like he could hold back the groan that left his lips as soon as your lips wrapped around his cock.
“Mmm… Fuck”, with a deep inhale, Minho threw his head back, starting to rock his hips, fucking your mouth, and the sounds coming out of his mouth, coupled with the feel of him slowly easing into in and out of our throat had you pressing your thighs together.
Minho took his time with you from then on, teasing you, bringing you to the brink of insanity numerous times. He played and toyed with you however he pleased, getting you close to your high with his hands before he slowed down his motions to let it dwindle down, only to do it all over again with his mouth. He did this several times, for a while, until you were desperately begging to be fucked. 
‘Hands and knees, kitten. Ass in the air, just like the queen you are. I’ll fuck you just how you want’, and how could you not comply when your body felt tingly all over? From Minho’s words to the way he held your hips as he plunged his cock into your aching heat, all combined had your senses on overdrive, all thoughts finally flying out the window as soon as he started to pound you to the bed, reducing you to a moaning, borderline pathetic mess.
The force of his thrusts had the bell around your neck tinkling with every harsh smack of his hips against your rear, barely even audible over the sound of your desperate pleas and his blissed grunts. His pace didn’t relent until you were shaking with your release, until he pushed you to the brink of overstimulation chasing his own, until the results of his high painted your back as a drawn out groan came from his lips.
The soaked washcloth on your back made your body jolt. ‘Shh, you scaredy cat. It’s okay’, Minho mumbled as he cleaned you up, offering words of encouragement while he helped you get out of your soiled outfit, removing each item one by one–taking special care with the tail plug to avoid any discomfort, wiping away any remnants of lube or cum off of your body.
As soon as you were completely nude and clean enough, you finally plopped on the bed with a satisfied sigh, feeling incredibly light and content. Minho pulled you into his arms, placing a kiss on your forehead as he hugged you tightly. “Mmm… That was so good, baby. Best girlfriend ever. My dearest kitten, I missed you so much”.
You chuckled, feeling your heart swell in your chest as you cuddled closer to him. “Missed you, too, baby”, you pressed a brief kiss on his chest before you rested your head over his heart, listening to its slightly accelerated pace. “How was your day? How was it with the big baby?”
So Minho started talking, recounting any and every detail he could remember of his work day. You could listen to him speak for hours, honestly. Especially at times like these, when his volume was this low, when his words came out slowly, when he looked this peaceful.
He asked about your day, too, of course. He always did. So you told him, only the details worth telling, not really feeling like thinking about your boring job right now. Minho knew that anyway, he’d always known you hardly ever felt like talking about it, so he never pressed for any extra details unless he got particularly intrigued by something–meaning, unless any possible office gossip was mildly interesting. 
These days, though, there had been something on your mind, so you figured now was as good a time as any to talk about it. “Just out of curiosity…” You mumbled, playing with Minho’s fingers. “When is your rut starting?”
You knew about ruts. You’ve known since Minho’s very first rut when you were still teens, but he never really liked to talk about them. He always seemed to avoid the topic completely whenever you tried to ask him about it before. Most of the knowledge you had on the topic was given to you by Jisung or the other girls at the den, but you wanted to know about your boyfriend’s experience specifically.
“How do you feel about hot dogs for dinner?” Was all Minho replied, immediately untangling his limbs from yours and getting up from the bed. 
You blinked a few times, confused at the sudden question, watching him put on the joggers he kept folded on his nightstand and leave the bedroom entirely. Was he… Was Minho ignoring your question? Why? It was a normal thing to ask, wasn’t it? You were his partner, you assumed you had to know these things.
So you stood up from the bed, making your way to the dresser to fish a fresh pair of panties from your bag to cover yourself, and one of Minho’s oversized t-shirts to pull it over your head. If Minho thought he was going to avoid the subject like he had done all these years he was certainly in for a surprise.
You found your boyfriend walking around his kitchen, getting pots from the oven and ingredients from the fridge. Leaning on the kitchen island, you crossed your arms over your chest, focusing your gaze on him. 
“Do you want one or tw–”
“Why are you changing the subject?” You interrupted him, voice level, looking him right in the eyes. “I know you’ve never liked talking about your ruts, but now that I’m your girlfriend I figured I should be prepared, so I’d like to–”
“Prepared?” Minho was looking at you like you had three heads, like what you were saying made no sense. “You don’t need to be prepared for anything, kitten. Don’t worry about it”, he returned to his task, dismissing you entirely–or at least, you felt like he was dismissing you.
Walking his way, you got between him and the sink, where he was about to place a pot–to fill it with water, you presume. You saw Minho’s Adam’s apple bob, looking anywhere but your eyes.
“Minho. Look at me”.
He sighed, placing the pot next to you on the counter. Turning away from you, Minho brought his hands to his hair, ruffling it and tugging at it.
“Minho–”
“I’m not spending my rut with you”, Minho cut you off, and your eyes widened immediately. “So you don’t have to worry about that”.
You knew from Jisung and the girls that werewolves, especially alphas, preferred to have a companion to get through their rut, and also that, whenever they found themselves going into rut and they had a significant other, they craved said significant other the entire time, which was why his words stung. They pierced your heart, more than you ever thought they would.
“You don’t… Want to spend your rut with me?” You could feel your hands tremble, just as you felt your heart sink to your stomach.
“No”, Minho replied firmly.
You scoffed. The tremble in your hands seemed to increase, not only because you were hurt, but also because, all of a sudden, you were absolutely pissed. “So you don’t want me”, your voice was way too level, cold, scarily so.
“It’s not… It’s not like that”, Minho looked slightly alarmed, shaking his head, and with his eyes wide open. Still, he took a step closer to you, but you moved away.
“What is it, then?”
“I just… Don’t want to”, he swallowed, once again avoiding your eyes. “Can we–Maybe we can talk about this some other time, right now’s not–”
“I want to talk about this now, though. That’s why I asked”, you could feel the lump form in your throat the longer you looked at Minho, the longer he stayed quiet. It went on for a while, a thick, uncomfortable aura settled between you two. You’d never had such an unnerving exchange with Minho, so this was a completely unfamiliar territory. 
Eventually, you just couldn’t take it anymore. “Fine, then. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s alright. I can’t stay here, though”, you walked past him and made your way towards the front door.
“Wait–!” was the last thing you heard Minho say before you slammed the door closed.
You were barefoot, still wearing only his shirt and your underwear. And as soon as you stepped out into the building’s corridor, you felt tears prick your eyes. The trembling in your hands seemed to have doubled, so you decided to go to the closest place you knew you’d be able to find comfort.
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“It’s okay… It’s probably not what you’re thinking”, Jisung mumbled, caressing your hair, hugging you tightly against his chest while you cried.
“What else could it be, though?” You said between hiccups. Had it been anyone else, you would’ve probably felt embarrassed to be this emotional over something like this. But this was Jisung, your biggest confidant–second only to Minho in that regard.
Pulling yourself away from his chest, you rubbed the tears away with the back of your hand, feeling furious again. “Don’t you crave your partner when you’re in heat?”
“Yes, of course, but–”
“See?!”
“Listen to me”, Jisung held you by the shoulders, tightly, trying to ground you. “First of all, I’m an omega. The way I feel during my heat is different from the way he might feel during his rut. We’re instinctually different, yeah?”, you nodded, so he continued. “Second of all… Minho, he… He wasn’t born like this, remember? He’s a bit… Peculiar”.
“How so?”
“I can’t really explain it well, you know me… But he just… He’s really good at ignoring his instincts. So maybe… It’s something like that?” Jisung sighed, pulling you back into his chest. “I don’t know, babes. Minho’s a weird wolf”.
“He was a weird human, too”, you mumbled, rubbing your face on his top. “My weirdo…”
“I don’t doubt it”, Jisung chuckled as he kept caressing your hair, and honestly, it was helping you a lot. Even if you were still crying, at least you felt heard.
You both stayed in silence, until eventually Jisung fell back on the sofa with you in his arms, caressing your back or your hair, still trying to soothe you. You appreciated it. It wasn’t really in Jisung’s nature to care for people, but he often did, anyway. Or, at least, he tried his very best. He loved being on the receiving end of cuddles, but he also loved giving them, and he was great at it, too.
After a while, you pulled yourself from his chest, wiping your face with the back of your hand again. “You mind if I stay here tonight?”
“‘Course not. Minho wouldn’t let me hear the end of it if I denied you shelter. Even when you’re asking for it because you’re mad at him”, Jisung chuckled, and it made you smile a bit.
You couldn’t help but pinch one of his adorably round cheeks. “You’re like the little brother I never had, you know?”
“I know”, he was positively beaming, and it warmed you up from the inside out. But then you thought about your boyfriend again, and you felt your lower lip wobble. Jisung looked at you, alarmed. You only saw him for a second, because you were burying your face in his chest again, crying again. He just held you tighter, sighing.
It was going to be a long night and you both knew it.
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The gentle light filtering through the drapes was hitting your face, warming you up. You stirred awake, turning under the covers to lay on your other side. Even though your mind was still hazy, you still registered the presence in the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. You assumed it was Jisung, so you got your hand out of the covers, blindly trying to find him.
“Morning”, you mumbled, finally making contact with his warm upper arm, and you patted him a few times.
“Morning”.
It wasn’t Jisung’s voice that greeted you. It was your boyfriend’s.
Your eyes snapped open. Minho was wearing just some washed out vest top and his grey joggers–the ones that were already too old and thin to wear out, the ones that he just used around the house, and his hair was tousled. Had he just gotten out of bed?
“Here you go. Drink up”, he handed you a glass of water. As soon as you saw the vessel filled almost to the top with liquid you realised just how much your head was throbbing, and how parched your mouth felt. You must’ve cried way more last night than you’d realised.
Sitting up, you stretched your limbs, and a small squeak left your lips with the motion. You took the glass from him, dawning it in one go, all as he just looked at you.
You were both silent for a moment, a long moment of you just looking at the glass in your hand and him looking at you. You could feel his gaze on you the entire time, but you didn’t dare speak first. You honestly didn’t even know what to say.
“It’s not that I don’t want you”, Minho broke the silence first, and he turned his gaze to his lap, where he linked his fingers together, playing with his thumbs. “Please, don’t ever think I don’t want you. You’re the most important person in my life, in this entire world, you know that, right?”
You looked at him for a moment. You still felt hurt, but after your crying session with Jisung last night, and after hydrating some, you realised you might have jumped to conclusions. You knew, of course. You knew you were Minho’s favourite person in this world. Because he always showed that to you.
All these years, Minho had not only told you that, but he had also always shown you how important you were to him. Just as he was to you. So you sighed, placing the glass on the nightstand and shuffling closer to him. “I do know that”.
Taking his hand in yours, you caressed his knuckles with your thumb. “But you do understand where I’m coming from with what I asked you last night, right?”
Minho sighed. “I do…”
He squeezed your hand briefly, only to bring it to his mouth to place a small kiss on the back of it.
“I’m… Scared”, out of all the things Minho could’ve said, those weren’t exactly the words you were expecting to hear, and they really took you by surprise, especially when he said them so quietly, almost as if he was embarrassed by them.
“Scared of what?”
Minho finally looked at your face, cupping your cheek with his free hand, dragging his thumb over the dried tears on your skin. “Baby, when I’m going through my rut not wanting you is exactly the opposite of what actually happens. All these years, every single rut, every single one, all I ever wanted was you”.
You felt yourself flush. “You did?”
“Mm… I’ve always wanted you, but twice a year, for as long as we’ve been friends, it’s heightened tenfold. Why do you think I never wanted to talk to you about my ruts? Do you not remember how I couldn’t look at your face for a month after I got the first one? The thoughts that roam in my head when I’m going through it are just… Filthy”.
“Minho… I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but you already say and do filthy things when we have sex?”
Minho chuckled at that, shaking his head a bit. “I mean, it’s not just what goes through my head… It’s what happens when those thoughts cross my mind”, he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before he continued talking. “I get so… Violent when I’m going through my rut… I… I’m really scared I’ll hurt you”.
Oh.
That was something you certainly hadn’t considered. But, Minho being violent for real didn’t seem to match him at all. He loved to pretend that he was mean and murderous, but, in reality, that wasn’t your Minho. “How… How violent?”
“I’ve broken beds before”, Minho shrugged. “And dressers. Doors… Many appliances… All by accident, but I did. Kitten, baby, you know I’m also an animal… I really don’t know how I’d react to your presence when I’m seriously feral. I… Don’t want to hurt you. I’d never be able to forgive myself if I did”.
He looked genuinely concerned, like he’d been hurting with this for a long time, and it made your heart feel heavy in your chest. So you closed your eyes and took a deep breath, nodding in understanding. That was when Minho finally leaned in closer, pressing a lingering kiss on your forehead, then one on the tip of your nose, one on each cheek, and finally, one on your lips.
“I’m sorry I made you feel unwanted, baby. I should’ve… Communicated it better”, he mumbled the words on your cheek, placing a kiss on your skin again for good measure.
“You should’ve”, you mumbled back, finally looping your arms around his neck to pull him close, just as he hugged your waist, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “But I’m sorry, too. You didn’t want to talk about it, and I pushed it”.
“I forgive you”, he pressed kisses on your neck, slow, tender kisses that had your heart fluttering in your chest and heat settling on your face.
“Me too…” You hugged him tighter, getting lost in his body heat and the feeling of his lips on your skin.
Minho shuffled around, getting under the duvet, and pulling you into his chest. “Let’s not go to bed without settling an argument ever again. Please?”
“Okay”, you mumbled against his chest, enjoying the smell of his fabric softener when you took a deep breath. “I’m sorry…”
“Me too”, he repeated, holding you a bit tighter, pressing a brief kiss to the top of your head.
After a maximum of ten seconds of silence, a couple of loud knocks made you jolt in Minho’s hold.
“You guys want pancakes?”
“Jisung! Were you eavesdropping?!” Minho shouted, making you laugh because of course Jisung was eavesdropping. It was Jisung.
“I won’t answer any accusatory questions without our Pack Mum here!”
You intercepted as you saw Minho was about to engage in possibly the pettiest discussion to ever happen in this flat. “Yes, Jisung! Yes, we want pancakes! Thank you, sweetie, you’re a great friend!”
The sound of Jisung’s footsteps got quieter the further down the hall he went, going towards the kitchen, you presumed. Just as you heard his shout of ‘of course I am!’ 
Minho scoffed, but he pulled you back into his chest. “You’re spoiling him rotten”.
“Technically, he’s yours to care for, Mr Left Hand of the Pack. I’m just the cool step-mum”, you chuckled, angling your head a bit to press kisses on his jaw. “Besides, don’t you want pancakes?”
“I do want pancakes”, Minho grumbled, rubbing his cheek on the top of your head, probably tangling your hair a bit in the process.
You both went silent after that, simply cuddling under the covers and sharing your warmth until Jisung called you to the kitchen for breakfast. You’d admit his pancakes were to die for, and after the rollercoaster of emotions you’d gone through the last handful of hours, you were grateful for the familiarity of a breakfast with Minho and Jisung. They always made you laugh with their antics, something that didn’t seem to change as the years went by–if anything, both of them just seemed to get funnier and weirder with age, and you loved to see it. You just loved them both with your whole heart.
With a stomach full of both sweet and savoury pancakes, with your boyfriend’s warm hand in yours, and a heart full of love, you just made your way back into Minho’s flat. The second you stepped into the threshold he just scooped you in his arms, making you giggle as he pressed kisses on your cheeks, taking you with him to the bathroom.
‘Need to get ready for work, want to shower with me?’ were the last coherent words coming out of Minho’s mouth before you found yourself drenched in lukewarm water, with your back against the cold tiles and his head between your legs, mumbling reassuring words against the skin of your inner thighs as he moved towards his destination.
‘Me not wanting you? Absurd. That’s absurd, kitten. I’ll show you just how much I want you’.
He might’ve been running late after that, but he still placed you on the kitchen counter once you were both dressed and squeaky clean, slotting himself between your legs and kissing you one last time. ‘Later, after work… Wanna take you to the park, to that ice-cream parlour you like. What do you think, kitten? Wanna go on a date with me?’ and, honestly, how could you refuse.
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The girls of the pack had become good friends to you, which was quite refreshing. When it came to close friendships, you’d only ever had Minho and Jisung, which, even if you loved them to death, wasn’t the same as having friends that had gone through similar experiences in life–after all, the experience of being A Girl surrounded by supernatural creatures was a whole thing. Sure, you had one close female friend–your neighbour that usually took care of Sir Percival when you were gone–but even if you were comfortable when she was with you, there were things you just couldn’t talk about with her, so having these two girls in your life now was quite comforting.
Getting to sit on Chris’ sofa, with his girlfriend on one side, and Changbin’s girlfriend on the other while drinking a cup of relaxing tea was one of your favourite activities lately. Whenever you dropped by, you’d always try to make some time to hang out with them, and sometimes, like now, you liked to hear their opinions on certain things.
So, as soon as they were both available, and while you waited for Minho to get back from work, you seeked their advice.
The topic of discussion today was your boyfriend’s rut. Since Minho had always been very reserved when it came to giving you details about it, you honestly felt a bit lost, so you hoped the girls could help you understand the situation better. The conversation started after they swore they’d keep the details of what you talked about between you three, just like you always did whenever any of you needed some advice on a very private topic.
“Minho doesn’t really peg me as the violet type”, Chris’ girlfriend said as soon as you finished explaining the situation, looking thoughtful while her fingers tapped the mug in her hand.
“I agree”, Changbin’s girlfriend placed her empty mug on the coffee table, proceeding to turn to you and cross her legs on the sofa. “I’ve dealt with violent alphas before, and I don’t think Minho fits the criteria, to be honest…”
You grimaced a little at her words. You knew her story, how she had run away from an abusive pack with an equally abusive alpha, so you didn’t doubt her judgement, but it all only made you more confused. “Then? Why do you think he’d get violent during his ruts?”
She looked at you for a moment, pondering. After a few more moments, she finally spoke again. “Alphas… When they go through their ruts it’s hard for them to deal with their needs. Do you know if he gets violent when there’s another person involved?”
You shook your head. “As far as I’m aware, there’s never been another person involved”.
“Huh… Maybe that’s his problem”.
“Makes sense to me”, Chris’ girlfriend placed her mug on the coffee table and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the backrest, looking at the ceiling. “When Chris is going through his rut he’s so… Needy. In his own way, of course… I wonder how he dealt with it before we got together”.
As if on cue, the obnoxious beeps of the door’s keypad started to resonate in the flat. The door opened seconds later, followed by a tired groan and a thud–probably produced by Chris dropping his bag on the floor.
Chris came into the living room looking tired as ever, but still with a smile on his face. “Didn’t realise you were having a girl’s night. I would’ve gone straight to Changbin’s”.
As soon as he made it to the sofa he bent at the waist to peck his girlfriend’s lips, making her giggle a bit as she offered him a ‘welcome home’ and a ‘it’s alright, baby. It was an impromptu thing’. 
“Actually, now that you’re here…” You said when Chris finally pulled himself away from his girl and started to take things out of his pockets to place them on the kitchen counter. “Can I ask you a question? A very personal one?”
“Sure”, Chris replied simply, focusing on the items in his hands.
“What’s it like when you’re going through your rut?”
Chris’ face snapped in your direction, looking at you for a second only to turn to his girlfriend right after as a blush started to settle on his cheeks. “Wow, that’s… That’s certainly a personal question…”
“God, you can’t just ask that”, Changbin’s girlfriend laughed next to you. “Let me rephrase what our dear kitten here is curious about… Being more specific, if you went through your rut, and you didn’t have someone to spend it with, how’d you feel?”
“I don’t even want to ask what you guys were talking about before I came here, God…” Chris rounded the kitchen counter, going straight for the sink and opening the tap to wash his hands. “Guess it depends”.
“On?” His girlfriend urged, watching him return from the kitchen after he wiped his hands on a rag.
Chris sat next to his girlfriend, on the armrest of the sofa. “Well… Before I met you, it was okay-ish if I had to spend it on my own. I mean, it still hurt like hell, and I’d be incredibly frustrated the entire time, but I managed just fine”.
“And after?” You asked, although based on what Chris just said, you had a hunch as to what his answer would be.
“If I recall correctly, I went into rut only once after you moved in”, even if he was answering your question, Chris had his full attention on his girl as he said it, but after taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze he finally turned to look at you. “It was probably one of the worst ruts I’ve ever gone through in my life. It just… Hurt so bad. Everything hurt, and nothing I did made it better”.
“Baby, you never told me this”, Chris’ girlfriend placed her free hand on his thigh, pouting and giving him a squeeze, making him chuckle.
“It never came up”, Chris shrugged. “But, yeah… I think I almost broke the bathtub at some point because I was beyond frustrated… I think I could say I was borderline enraged. I honestly don’t know if I would’ve been able to stand another rut like that”.
Chris changed the topic after that. He stayed for a handful of minutes more, until he finally excused himself and made his way to the bathroom. As soon as he was gone, Changbin’s girlfriend placed a hand on your shoulder, whispering a ‘I think you’ve got your answer, then’.
And you also thought you did. After all, if Minho only ever wanted you during his ruts, the most logical conclusion to you was that the reason he got violent was because he simply couldn’t have you, and the rest seemed to agree.
The girls gave you their experience when it came to being with their partner’s while they went into their rut. They gave you pointers, advice, how to prep, all valuable information you were immensely glad to have. And after all that, you honestly didn’t feel as clueless anymore.
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After that long weekend at Minho’s den, you never spoke about his rut again. You tried to bring up the topic a couple of times, but Minho still wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet, which you realised was something you simply had to accept. You couldn’t push him to tell you things when he didn’t feel comfortable doing so, and you honestly didn’t want to push him to talk about things that made him uncomfortable, so you offered one last ‘it’s okay, then. Whenever you feel like talking, I’ll be here. Hm?’ which he seemed to be immensely grateful for.
Minho still hadn’t asked you to move in with him again, but, after a couple of months, you realised he’d started to free up some space for you, or he’d add things to his flat for when you came over. All of a sudden, there were two bathrobes in his bathroom, two different sets of towels, all articles of clothing you’d forgotten over the weekend started to appear neatly folded inside a suspiciously empty drawer in his closet, to the point where sometimes you couldn’t find in your flat something you wanted to wear, only to find it that weekend in Minho’s closet or his dresser.
Which was why, at this point, whenever you went to visit you hardly ever took any extra baggage with you. Everything you could possibly ever need was already at his place, so sometimes, whenever you felt like it, you found yourself driving to his den to visit him, just like you were doing today.
You had the day off, so you just made sure Sir Percival had enough food, checked with your neighbour that she could check on him throughout the day, and you went on your way. You wanted to be there before Minho left for work, so you left very early in the morning to surprise him.
However, it seemed like the one that was in for a surprise was you.
As soon as the door of Minho’s flat closed behind you, you were almost winded by how fast everything happened.
Logically, you knew Minho was a supernatural being. He had enhanced senses, as well as enhanced abilities. You didn’t even see him coming, you just felt your back hit the door, the warmth of his body pressed flush against yours, and his panting in your ear.
“What… What are you doing here?” Minho rasped. His entire form was taut, he had his hands planted firmly against the door at either side of you, caging you in place. Immediately, you just knew something wasn’t quite right. How much warmer he felt against your body, the thin sheen of sweat covering his skin…
His rut.
Minho’s rut had started.
And you were here. Probably severely unprepared.
“I’m… I…” You gulped, suddenly feeling light-headed. The girls had told you you could be affected by his pheromones, but until now you hadn’t fully understood just how much. Your heart was racing, your hands trembled slightly at your sides, and heat was quickly pooling in the pit of your stomach.
Minho pressed his nose against your pulse point, inhaling deeply, and the sigh that came out of his lips after had you blushing immediately. “Answer me, kitten”.
“I just… Missed you, and…” You heard his fingers drag by your sides, producing an almost squeak-like sound with the movement because of how sweaty his palms were. 
“Leave”, Minho all but choked on the word. Fuck, you wanted to touch him… You wanted him to touch you, and that need had you pressing your thighs together to try and ease some of the ache that was quickly building between your legs. “Shit, you smell so fucking good, kitten… So–” He moved closer to your neck–if that was even possible–and for a moment you thought he was going to kiss you there, but then he was shaking his head, pulling back just the tiniest bit. “Leave now. I won’t… Be able to stay coherent and hold myself back for much longer”.
You licked your lips, closing your eyes and inhaling deeply. “No”.
“Kitten–”
“I won’t leave”, you said firmly.
“Baby… Please–”
“I trust you, Minho”, you turned your head slightly, enough so you were almost whispering in his ear. “I trust you. I want you. Take me–”
In an instant, his mouth was on yours and his arms wrapped around your waist, holding you tight against his body as your arms looped around his neck. Your whole body seemed to be alight, and the growl that resonated from deep inside of him as soon as his lips were on yours completely drowned your own moan of delight. With a hand holding the back of your head Minho angled you however he pleased, pushing his tongue inside your mouth, kissing you as if he were a starved man, as if the moment he stopped you’d vanish.
“You fucking…”
Minho detached himself from you enough to pull your shirt over your head. 
“Come in here…”
Shoving his hands down your joggers, he dropped to his knees and pushed them down along with your underwear. 
“Smelling like…”
Yanking your shoes off and finally pulling your bottoms fully off of you. 
“A proper queen in heat…”
With a tight hold on your hips, he flipped you around, the motion eliciting a moan from your lips. 
“Driving me fucking insane…”
He pulled your hips back, and you pressed your chest to the door, arching your back to give him better access once his hands found your buttcheeks, gripping you tightly and spreading you open. Cold air hit your centre, but that rush of cold was quickly replaced by the warmth of Minho’s tongue licking a fat stripe from your clit all the way up to your ass, making him groan in absolute ecstasy, making you groan in absolute ecstasy.
“My sweet, sweet kitten. All drenched and ready for me, huh?”
You desperately nodded, moaning as soon as his tongue was back on your heat, deliciously licking your clit as his hold on your buttocks tightened ever so slightly. “Just for you–”
“Fuck…” In a second, Minho was back on his feet, pressing his chest to your back, bringing his hands to your front to immediately dip two fingers into your dripping hole, just as he pressed two fingers on your clit with the other, making you tremble in his hold. “Gotta stretch you out, hm? Get you ready for your alpha, yeah?”
“Ye–yeah”, you could barely recognise the sound of your own voice, all your senses were focused on Minho, Minho, Minho, and his fingers inside of you, and his rumbling chest against your back, and his fingers on your clit, and the sound of his voice so incredibly low next to your ear.
Minho was working you up increasingly fast. Your high was approaching at an alarming pace, he shoved another finger into you, pushing them in and out, and the squelching sound was loud enough for you to hear among his rumble and his heavy breathing. You could feel him, hard, leaking fluids all over your ass as he kept working you up, as he kept rubbing your clit faster, thrusting his fingers harder, making your legs tremble.
“Gonna stuff you so full, fuck… I want you so, so bad…” As he eased his fourth finger into you, all you could do was pathetically whine, getting lost in the feel of him in you, around you, and all you wanted was for him to shove his monster cock inside of you, uncaring if he ripped you in half in the process.
“Want you, baby… Need you”, you panted, rolling your hips to stimulate his length where it squished between your bodies.
Minho just pressed himself further against you, snarling in that utterly animalistic fashion a wolf would to stop your movements. He shook his head, speeding his fingers on your clit, eliciting a breathy moan from your lips. “Need to stretch you first, kitten. Need it, hm?”
You just whined in response, pressing your cheek against the cool door, finally submitting completely to your boyfriend. For a brief moment you were reminded of how physically different Minho was to you. He was able to produce sounds no human could, sounds you hardly ever heard from him when he was in his human form, and, coupled with his digits working you up, it was, quite honestly, getting you so incredibly close to your release you started to feel tears prick your eyes.
“Minho, baby–”
Minho’s fingers moved impossibly faster as soon as his name left your lips, and you could feel your essence start to drip between your legs. “Come on, kitten. Give it to me, yeah? Come for me, my love”.
With a few more flicks of his fingers on your already sensitive nub, you finally tipped over the edge, just as a mix of swear words and your boyfriend’s name and many pet names escaped your mouth. Blinding-hot pleasure raked your entire body, making you shake in Minho’s hold.
“That’s it, baby. Good, good kitten. God, you’re just a perfect little thing, aren’t you?”
You could hardly hear Minho over the ringing in your ears. You felt your legs jolt as he kept stimulating your clit, and, very quickly, you realised he had no plans to stop the movement of his hands.
“Min–Minho–”
“Shh, it’s okay. I know you can give me another. Please, please give me another, hm? Need it…”
“Oh, fuck–Minho, fuck–”
His pace didn’t relent until you were coming again, until tears collected in your lower lash line only to finally fall and paint roads on your cheeks. That consecutive high turned your limbs into jelly, it made you slump completely in your boyfriend’s hold once he finally removed his fingers from your core.
“So good, baby. You did well, kitten. So well for me…” He mumbled the words against your hair, letting you catch your breath just for a moment, just until you were able to stand on your feet unaided.
In a swift movement, he turned you around and scooped you into his arms, making you yelp when he pressed you hard against the door. Your legs wrapped around his waist for stability, just as your arms looped around his neck to keep yourself secure–not like Minho seemed to have any plans to let you fall, considering how hard he was holding onto you, how he was practically squishing you against the door as he ravished your mouth.
“Minho… Minho, baby, want you inside”, you whimpered as soon as his lips attached to your neck, sucking harshly on your skin to leave love bites all over. You had just had two earth-shattering orgasms, but you needed more. The desperation you felt to have your boyfriend’s cock inside of you was clinging to you like never before, and as soon as the words left your mouth, you felt his tip at your entrance, drenching you in his slick, mixing it with your own juices.
“Inside, huh? Here? Right here, kitten?” He eased fully into you in one swift motion, deliciously filling you up to your limits, making you throw your head back against the door and moan a string of noises that were akin to his name. “Fuck… Fuck, fuck, fuck–”
Minho immediately started to ram into you. No build up, just straight up pounding you to his flat’s door as if he’d die otherwise, making it rattle with each thrust. Had you not been so incredibly cock-drunk, you would’ve probably felt slightly embarrassed at the possibility of anyone walking by the corridor and hearing you, but instead, that brief thought only made you clench around your boyfriend’s length, aroused at the idea that everyone would know how good he was making you feel, that everyone knew just who you belonged to.
“So fucking good, shit. Almost feels… As if this cunt… Was made for me”.
You swallowed, feeling yourself clench harder around his length, feeling your tits rub against his chest and your clit against his pubic bone every time he moved. “It was–”
“Yeah, it fucking was”, he was fucking you impossibly harder now, and you were already past the speaking point, your mouth only able to produce unintelligible noises of pleasure as he kept ramming his cock into that sweet spot inside your walls, as he kept stretching you time and time again.
After a while, you started to feel the sting between your legs, and you vaguely registered the whimper that came out of your mouth.
Minho started to lick your cheeks, an oddly tender gesture compared to the way he was borderline rearranging your insides with his supernatural cock. “Shh… Kitten, it’s okay. You’ll take it just fine. I just know it. I’m gonna fill you to the brim, mark your delicious cunt as mine, hm?”
You just nodded in response, unable to say anything else, whimpering and whining and moaning as you quickly felt another release edge close.
Minho seemed absolutely determined to get you to come on his cock, his unrelenting pace seemingly unchanging despite the steady swelling of his knot at the base of his length. It kept catching at your entrance with each thrust, giving you a sensation of pleasurable pain quite like nothing you’d ever felt before.
“C’mon, baby… My precious queen in heat, aren’t you gonna come for your alpha again? Milk my cock so I can stuff you full of my pups?”
With a few more thrusts, you felt heat rushing all throughout your body, dragging an incomparable feeling of ecstasy from your centre to every single one of your limbs, just as Minho’s knot lodged deep inside of you and his lips found yours. The kiss was messy, all uncoordinated movements and bumps of noses as his warmth started to fill you up.
The blissed out noises coming out of his mouth had you holding him even tighter, making him hold you tighter in response. You knew Minho produced more fluids than a human male, but you’d never quite felt this amount coming out of him, it seemed like he was coming for at least a couple of minutes, and his kisses eventually became softer, more tender with every second that passed, almost as if that desperation he had when you came into his flat was finally diminishing.
You felt so impossibly full. Full of his cock, full of his cum, full of his love… Once he stopped coming Minho finally separated his lips from yours, slowly opening his eyes to look at your face. He was panting a bit, but the blinding, satisfied smile that made its way to his lips had your heart almost bursting in your chest.
“Holy… Fuck…” He panted, making you giggle a bit just as you tried to catch your breath as well.
“I agree”, was all you said, pressing a lingering kiss on each of his cheeks.
“Hold on…”
Minho made sure his hold on you was secure before he pulled you both away from the door a bit, enough to find your discarded clothes and push them towards the door with his foot. Slowly, and with admittedly a bit of discomfort, he lowered himself to sit on your clothes and rest his back against the door. You whimpered a bit once he fully lowered your ass to sit on your clothes as well, with your legs slightly bent at either side of him, and your knees against the door, the tug of his knot was a bit sharper than when he was moving before, but it seemed to ease as soon as you were finally settled.
“I’m sorry, baby. This is a horrible position to get tied in”, he caressed your lower back, keeping you as flush to him as he could without having his knot pull on your entrance. You just hummed in response, closing your eyes as you inhaled deeply.
You both were silent for a while, just holding onto each other, catching your breaths. Until you finally had regained enough of your strength to speak.
“Minho, that was…”
“A lot–”
“Hot as fuck”, you spoke at the same time, making you both chuckle. “Was that you being violent? ‘Cause… Damn…”
Minho laughed, a breathy laugh just as he leaned his head back against the door, shaking it from side to side in disbelief. “No, fuck. I was violent when you came in. I was close to breaking the bed in half… Then the smell of your scent hit me and I lost my mind”.
“You held back more than I imagined, I’d admit”, you chuckled, pushing his fringe off of his sweaty forehead.
“I don’t even know how I did it, to be honest”, Minho pecked your lips, and you hummed in content. “Now that I’ve finally had you like this… I see it so clearly. I’ve needed you so bad this entire time. Years, kitten! It’s been years of pure torture…”
You gave him an apologetic smile. “I figured as much”.
Minho blinked. “How come?”
“I did some digging”, you shrugged. “And after I just… Connected the dots. But you wouldn’t want to talk about it so I didn’t press you further”.
Minho just scoffed at that. “Alright, smarty pants”.
You squeezed his shoulders in protest. “Hey! Don’t call me smarty pants when I’m stuffed full of your cum while your supernatural cock keeps it all trapped in!”
Minho just laughed at your comment, and you felt your heart flutter in your chest at the sight of his eyes almost disappearing when he smiled.
“Which, by the way, is it always this much? I feel so… Full. Can’t believe it’s all in”.
“Yup”, Minho brought a hand to your cheek, stroking shapes with his thumb. “It’ll diminish eventually, but the first couple of days is a lot. But then again, your cunt was made for me, so of course it can fit it all in”.
You felt heat spread on your face at his words, and suddenly you felt a bit shy under his sparkly eyes. The ache in your legs was lessening a bit, and you realised his knot was starting to deflate, and his seed started to pour out. “Oh, crap. My joggers…”
Minho snorted at that. “Your joggers were ruined the second you stepped into this flat, baby. Don’t worry about them now”.
When your boyfriend’s length finally slipped out of you, he took you in his arms again and carried you to his bedroom, dropping you on his bed for you to rest while he got you some water.
“How many days do your ruts usually last?” You asked Minho once he was back, downing in record time the glass of water he’d handed you.
“Four to five days”, Minho huffed as he dropped himself on his bed next to you. “I’ll warn you now, just based on how I’m feeling right now, I’m confident it’ll be at least five”.
“At least?” Your eyes widened, and Minho chuckled at your expression.
“Didn’t you want to spend my rut with me? Fuck around and find out, babe”.
You scoffed in disbelief, ignoring the urge you suddenly had to rub in his face how you were right, and that you should’ve talked about this earlier. But, instead, you just rolled on top of your boyfriend, planting your lips on his. “Well… Guess I’ll just have to let my alpha take care of me for those five days. Hm?”
Minho licked his lips, and a blush settled on his cheeks. “Don’t worry, kitten. I’ll make sure to take good care of you”. With how deeply he was kissing you, there was just no room for doubt, he certainly was going to take good care of you, and you were absolutely ready for it.
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Constructive feedback (or even keysmashes, really) is always welcome :)
Minho’s WereRoomies Instalments: Camping With Wolves · Dog Unleashed · Are You There, Wolf?
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g-xix · 1 year
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20 vs 1 | Tobi Brown
Now TRY tell me Tobi blessed Brown isn't absolutely fine... Exactly! We don't lie here, and you can't say Tobi isn't 100% gorgeous. That's why we get a Tobi oneshot today 😎 Quick pose for the camera? Go on girl:
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Killin it babe. Extra bit of media for what the character looks like + wore (bc i love seeing those things on ff's):
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Anyways, go on and enjoy the story lovelies
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"Hey, how you doing?" I asked the guy as I walked into shot.
I had been invited by my friends, Kon, Kirsty and Charlie, to join in on one of a YouTube video by a group group whom they was friends with. The only information I had been issued was that I had to walk into shot, say hi, have a short conversation, be accepted of declined to a date and then if I was accepted I would get the opportunity to decline, before going on a date.
Now, I was in the shot talking with the said person who I might have to date.
My heart beat a little faster as I walked into the plain white set, containing nothing but a vast array of cameras and mics all wired and facing myself... and a man stood in the middle.
As I approached him, his eyes met mine with a simper from myself as I felt my heart flutter. He had dark eyes, though they were warmed by the smile he wore on his face. I broke eye contact to look at his outfit- mentally commending the matching silver rings and necklace he wore, also appreciating the way his clothes complemented him- his white shirt highlighting the muscle definition in his arms. I looked back up to see his eyebrow quirk with a grin, clearly having spotted me checking him out.
"Hey, I'm Erin and I'm 23." I spoke quietly, his eyes drawing me in more than the cameras- soothing me and telling me I didn't need to worry about all the eyes on us.
"Lovely to meet you, Erin." He grinned as learnt forwards, offering a hand. I slipped mine into his, expecting a simple hand shake, though I was surprised as he leant down to press a kiss to my hand, maintaining eye contact as he pressed his lips to my hand before taking a step closer to me as he came back up.
I felt a blush rising to my cheeks as I looked away, not wanting him to see the effect he had on me. "Erin- it just has to be a yes." He let my hand fall as he accepted, giving a nod before I walked off.
As I walked off I turned around to look at the guy once more, seeing that he too had turned around to glance at me. I giggled as my eyes made contact with his own, before speeding my walk into the changing room to find Zara with a squeal.
"How did it go?" Zara asked, linking hands with me and smiling as I jumped in excitement.
"It went really amazing! The guy... I didn't actually get his name, but he was... he was fit as hell, Zara." I smiled at the thought of our interaction.
"Really?" Zara asked. "All he said to me was a 'hi' and 'sure'."
"Oh, I mean, we didn't speak much more, he just said hi and a yeah too, but he was just so... I can't even explain it, attractive."
"Damn, I didn't even get a second glance after he accepted." Zara grumbled. I blushed, thinking back to the look we shared as I exited the set.
"Alright, everyone been accepted or passed?" Kirsty (one of the camera crew) popped her head around the door and questioned. Everyone nodded or replied a yes.
We then walked out depending on whether we liked Tobi or not, before sitting back-set once more and waiting for our date with him.
"Erin?" My head jolted upwards as I heard Kirsty say my name, beckoning me out for my date with Tobi.
"Do I look alright, Kirsty?" I questioned, straightening my clothes in an attempt to look good. I'd gone simple, with an oversized tee-shirt which covered most of my ripped black shorts, leaving my fishnets and chunky boots on my lower half- though I now began underestimating my outfit, the pressure of seeing him again causing me to overthink every minute detail.
"Shut up Erin, you look fit- and anyways- he's already accepted you for how you look so you can't look that bad." Kirsty rolled her eyes jokingly, her humour loosening my nerves slightly. "Alright, step through there and take a seat on the left. Tobi will be with you in a sec."
I took one of the two desolate seats in the middle of the room before I sat, staring at the large mirror on one of the walls. There had to be people behind that. Kon had told me before the shoot that the boys would be watching the date, hence I assumed they'd be behind there.
Kon had also issued a warning previously not to expect a normal date, which slightly worried me as I fidgeted with my fingers and sat in the chair, waiting for my date.
The sound of shoes hitting the floor woke me form my trance, causing my head to jolt upwards a smile to grace my face as I saw the familiar Tobi walk towards me, a grin slapped onto his face and his arms outstretched for a hug.
Dear God I was nervous for this date...
I picked myself up from my seat and beamed at Tobi, responding with a little 'hi!' as I reached up to sling my arms around his neck, whilst he hugged around my waist.
I sat down on my seat and began the date, making small talk and finding myself blushing every so often as he complemented me or started planning out our "next date", but also became slightly confused when he took off his bandana every few minutes claiming he was getting a bit of a headache- only for there to be another one underneath.
It was like a clown car- just when you think that the last bandana is off- there's another yet to come off.
A few bandanas down, he offered the black and white one to me, saying it 'matched my outfit', before I took upon his offer and allowed him to gently pull my hair back and knot it as an accessory behind my head. He didn't hesitate to call it cute from behind, before he turned to face me in front, Kon cutting off our date by saying it had been more than ten minutes- to which Tobi let out a groan in disappointment, bidding farewell before kissing me on the cheek and exiting- leaving me covering my face to hide the bright red blush that bloomed across my face as I sat in the chair, waiting for the final interview.
"How'd that date go then?" Kon interviewed.
"I thought it went really well- Tobi's really cute and I think he's really funny ... I thought it was a pretty fun date and with a nice guy too." I replied, trying not to gush over him. That was what I would do when I found Zara behind the set.
"Would you go on a date with him again?" Kon asked, smirking from behind the camera and giving me a knowing look which left me wondering whether he'd invited me onto the shoot to try and set me up with Tobi, today...
"Easily a yes." I giggled. "I mean- we already talked about what we'd do on other dates we have, and I've got his bandana which I think I'll have to return on another date." Looking down the lens of one of the cameras I smiled and mouthed 'call me', shaking my hand in the shape of a phone.
No sooner had I made that gesture, did I hear muffled screams from behind the mirror, causing me to laugh lightly before beginning to leave the set as Kon had gestured- though I was stopped as Tobi burst out of one of the doors behind the set, jogging up to me before smiling and grabbing my hand.
"Another date?" He questioned, panting slightly- seemingly having ran to get to the studio.
"Mhm, for sure!" I responded, unable to wipe the grin off my face.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping on it for a few moments before holding the phone out for me, gesturing for me to type my phone number out, under the contact name Erin 💗🫠
"I'll see you again soon, Erin." Tobi smirked, enjoying a short hug before walking away- myself blowing a kiss at him before laughing as he did the infamous Garfield heel-click as he walked off.
Who knew that the Sidemen studio would be a place to find love...
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Hope you enjoyed and to anyone that got this far into the story Thank you!!
I know this is unrelated and not something any readers are really obligated to care about, but my guinea pig passed away earlier today. Really gutted tbh and it feels like the end of a really great era, as I've had guinea pigs for the last 4 years but from today, I don't have any guineas. Praying and hoping Jordie passed away in peace and is happy in a better place now. Can't make anyone pray the same, but if you could just think of Jordie with some love for a moment I'd really appreciate that. God bless little Jordie and thank you to anyone that's shown some love🤍
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honkytonk-hangman · 2 years
Text
How It's Done (1/2)
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Aviator!Reader
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Summary: “Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean. “Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–” “–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by.
Warnings: erm maybe just some references to sex? jake being jake? language? minions. big warning for minions xD
Notes: This is part one of a two-parter, the next will be mostly smut lmao. Thank you for reading! I would love any feedback or comments and dont forget to reblog if you feel so inclined!!!
Masterlist
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“Well, I’ll be damned…”
You pinch your eyes shut and steel yourself at the sound of the all too familiar Texan drawl, hanging on to the hope that perhaps he isn’t talking to you. You’re out of luck though, and moments later Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin slides into the open space next to you at the bar, already posed in a casual lean as he looks you up and down appraisingly.
It makes your teeth grind.
It makes your face hot.
“If it isn’t Mirage. Would have invited you to play with us if I’d known you were here earlier…” Hangman cocks his head, and his lips tip up in an infuriatingly perfect smile. “But one can never really be sure if you’re around or not… and that's before you get in a cockpit,” he grins, but when you meet his eye at last, he looks away from you, toward Penny who seems to approach in the nick of time, saving you from needing to respond.
You blink down at your drink, and finish it quickly, unnerved by what you think might have just been a compliment of sorts from Hangman. You’d been stationed together previously, though you weren’t friends, so you’d been expecting something a little more acidic in nature. You’d heard him interact with other aviators, knew he liked to push and poke them, usually got away with it too. For some reason though, he’d never really gone there with you and frankly you’ve always just chalked it up to not being worth his time. In fact, you’re pretty sure the only times you’d ever actually spoken had been in the sky. To be completely honest, you’re more than a little surprised that he remembers you at all.
You didn’t exactly go out of your way to stand out…
You were naturally quiet, which wasn’t helped by your social anxiety, resulting in most people describing you as extremely shy. They wouldn’t be wrong, you suppose, you did tend to keep to yourself, the idea of having too many eyes on you all but unbearable to you. But if you’d thought a roomful of people singing happy birthday to you was bad, somehow being under the unwavering stare of Hangman is approximately one thousand times worse.
“Penny, my dear… I’ll have,” he stops to glance pointedly down at your now finished beer, adjusts his stance to lean even more and unwittingly makes the muscles in his bicep bulge.
“Five more on the Old Timer,” Hangman says, nodding to the man who sits on the other side of the bar.
Internally you blanch, but externally, you say nothing and give even less away, feeling a little ping of satisfaction that apparently, you know something Hangman doesn’t. Before he’d come along, you’d been carefully watching the interaction between Penny and Captain Mitchell. You’d never met the man before, but you knew how to read military insignia, which at this point, was more than you could say for Hangman, who dismisses him quickly.
You wonder if Monday morning you’ll be able to work up the nerve to tease him about it.
You’re distracted from your thoughts when Penny returns with the requested drinks. You had no real intentions of going and hanging out with Hangman and the others, but before you can excuse yourself, your empty beer is smoothly plucked from your hands, replaced quickly with a brand new one.
“Help me carry these back?” Hangman asks then, jerking his head in the vague direction of the pool table. You frown when he immediately takes off walking, not actually letting you help him at all, all four beers still slotted between his fingers. You find yourself following him anyway, as if he’d placed some kind of spell over you.
Hangman stops ahead of you at the ancient jukebox, looking back over his shoulder at you, nodding in a pleased manner when he sees you trailing behind. He waits for you, gaze never leaving your form, even as he nods to the space next to him. You awkwardly step up to the spot opposite to him, and look past the glass and at the selection inside. Hangman, once more, takes up a lean, this time against the rickety machine.
“Would you be so kind as to select track number…” he trails off as he checks the list of songs, but quickly flicks his gaze back to you, and smiles bright, tauntingly, again. “Eighty-Six?” he asks, but it's barely a question. You nod, and swallow, shifting from holding your beer with two hands to holding it with just one. You carefully tap the chunky ‘eight’ and ‘six’ keys as he watches. The machine’s little analogue screen confirms that your song is next up, and nervously, you look back up at Hangman, horrified to find he’s just been staring at your face for the past however long.
“S’been a while, Mirage.” He drawls, making you blink rapidly and look away.
“Has it?” Is all you can manage meekly in reply, surprised when he lets out a genuine sounding laugh. He hums warmly, and you practically feel it in your chest.
“And yet,” he lifts hand, two beers held expertly between his fingers, but he extends it to tap your nose, almost making you almost flinch.
“You haven’t changed at all.” Hangman grins Cheshire-like down at you, before his eyes narrow ever so slightly, and he leans in even closer while flicking his eyes up and down your form again.
“I don’t bite you know,” he tells you, his voice sounding serious, but his somberness lasts mere seconds.
“Well, not unless you ask me to first, sweetheart,” he winks and his smile grows large as your eyes grow wide and you splutter, flustered.
Your face grows hot with slight embarrassment, a wave of inner resentment at his teasing washing through you.
Hangman laughs, seemingly bored with you now, and he turns to walk back toward the pool tables. Without even looking, he beckons you to follow with one finger on his still occupied hands. For a moment your pique prevents you from doing so, certain that if you were to dip into the crowd now, he’d not care enough to seek you out again, let alone notice you were missing.
You know he didn’t mean it, you know his flirting is just to get a rise, but you also know that he’d never do it to Phoenix, or Halo, and a little bit of you hates yourself for being such a marked pushover. You make the decision now that you won’t let him do it again, if you can help it.
Your eyes travel past Hangman then, towards the pool tables where you can now see another figure has joined the other gathered aviators, and for the first time all evening, you don’t feel nervous to go join them.
You follow after Hangman, but quickly diverge from his path, cutting around a gathered group of Navy personnel to get there faster. As you approach, you take a moment to shake off any lingering anxiety, before gently laying a hand on the faded Hawaiian shirt in front of you, doing your best to keep yourself from bouncing on your heels.
Rooster half looks ready to wave off whoever is trying to get his attention, but when his shaded eyes land on you, he spins his whole body to face you, grinning widely in unguarded excitement as he gathers you up in his arms.
“Miri!” he exclaims warmly, and you can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of you when he briefly lifts you off the ground.
“I was just about to ask Phoenix if she’d seen you yet.” Rooster informs you. 
“Seen who?” Phoenix steps around him, frowning as she quickly glances you over, though it disappears quickly.
“Yeah, that about tracks…” Rooster mutters mostly to himself.
“Nat, this is Mirage, you know her right?” Rooster introduces the two of you, and while neither of you make to shake hands, you only feel friendly energy radiate off the other woman, even as she openly looks you over now, nodding at Rooster’s words.
“Right, I have heard about you… I guess there's no real mystery behind your callsign… I didn’t even realise you were here… Sorry,” she tells you bluntly, but you appreciate her straightforwardness.
“They said ‘Wallflower’ was too long.” You joke lightly, and the other woman smiles. A moment passes between you, and you get the distinct feeling that Phoenix has become determined to never let you go unnoticed in her presence again.
You aren’t sure just yet if you appreciate that, but you are sure that you’ve just made a friend.
“Mirage?” Another voice joins then and you look to your left, smiling again when you see another familiar face.
“Bob!” you move to embrace him too, not seeing the look shared between Phoenix and Payback who watch you in surprise.
“Huh. Figures.”
---
Neither you or Hangman have moved since Rooster and Mav went down. The rest of Dagger had returned an hour ago, mission complete. There was no reason for either of you to be on standby.
And yet.
When the call came through that Dagger Two had been hit, both you and Hangman had separately requested to be launched, to help, but you’d been denied.
As a rule, you made yourself easy to work with, even if those around you were less compliant, and you’d experienced plenty of that, flying alongside Hangman the past few weeks. Whether it was him leaving you to get shot down in training, or refusing to fly as a team during simulations. And yet, despite his habit of ‘hanging you out to dry’ being the reason behind his callsign, deep down, you’ve never once doubted flying alongside him in the real thing like the others seemed to.
You’re glad for that lack of hesitation now, glad that it only takes a single moment of eye contact from across the tarmac for the two of you to understand one another perfectly. Glad that when you got word that somehow, Rooster was supersonic again, you already know his answer before you even ask.
“Hangman? Hondo’s cleared us for take off with the ground crew, against orders. You with me?” you ask quietly, looking over at your wingman, knowing that when you return you’ll most certainly be court marshalled, but unable to sit and do nothing any longer.
“To hell and back, Mirage,” comes his immediate reply.
You see him move in sync with you, both of your canopy’s lowering at the same time.
You ignore the panicked voices ordering you to stand down, long enough for Hondo and the others to get you on the catapult, and by then it’s too late.
In two seconds you’re propelled from zero to over a hundred and sixty, and in your ears you hear Hangman right behind you.
---
“Do you want to get a coffee with me?” The question makes you jump, your drink almost sloshing everywhere. The sudden voice, as well as the person it belonged to, takes you completely by surprise, but you’re thankful he doesn’t draw attention to your startling.
Up until moments ago, you’d been peacefully watching the ocean toss and turn, burying your feet in the damp sand and thinking about what you were going to do with your upcoming two weeks of post-mission leave.
Most of Dagger were a little further up the shore, a bonfire crackling away, although you weren’t the only one to have splintered off. Mav and Rooster were currently standing in the shallows talking, and you think Halo and Phoenix have moved to sit apart from the others as well. You had managed to sneak away easily enough, content to just sit on your own for a while, though your efforts appear to have been mostly in vain, if the man now plopped in the sand beside you is any indicator.
You blink at each other.
“What?!” you blurt out dumbly, not completely certain you really understood what he’d said. Hangman’s lips press into a thin line, and he looks away from you, linking his hands together around his knees, and staring out at the rolling waves.
“Coffee. Would you like to get one with me?” He repeats, sounding only a smidge impatient, but it still doesn't clear up much for you.
“I… No, I heard you the first time… I… I just don’t understand… why?”
Over the past three weeks you’ve been forced more out of your shell than you ever have before. It was torture. It was wonderful.
Part of you pats yourself on the back for being able to ask him so starightly, but another part of you slaps yourself in the face for questioning him.
Hangman turns to look at you apprehensively.
“Are you asking why coffee or why am I asking you?” He speaks slowly and carefully, his face blank and devoid of any hint he was teasing, though you think he might be anyway.
“Why… Why are you asking me?” You push, shuffling your feet in the sand, drawing his attention for a moment. He looks back at your face and frowns slightly, cocking his head.
“Because I like you? And that is usually what somebody does when they like someone. Ask them.” He answers, and this time you definitely get the impression he’s politely trying not to laugh, but for once, you don’t feel like you’re on the outside of the joke.
Still, you find yourself taken somewhat aback at his confession, admitted so easily and freely, as if it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, which confuses you.
“Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean.
“Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–”
“–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by. Especially when for the past three weeks you haven't been able to get rid of the odd heart skips you got whenever Hangman acknowledged your presence at all.
And besides, you weren’t blind.
Hangman was ridiculously pretty, and not anywhere near as much of an asshole as he wanted people to believe.
He looks at you blankly for a moment, processing your words, before his face breaks out in a smile. It isn’t one of his usual smirks or tauntingly pearly grins, though. It’s softer, sweeter, and you stare mesmerised as he looks away from you again quickly, and down at his linked hands, nodding.
Two days pass, and even when you’re sitting across from him in a small, niche little coffee shop you had no idea existed, you feel like you’re in a dream.
You’ve never seen Hangman out of uniform, you realise, and it’s a whole new experience you’re forced quickly to process when he stands to go get your drinks.
Dark jeans, white shirt, casual jacket. It’s a simple outfit, but goddamn does he make it look good. Nervously you have to wonder if your white and blue sundress, sneakers and bomber jacket were having the same effect on him, though you highly doubt it.
He returns quickly, attentively, placing both your coffees down, before folding himself into his chair once more. You both look at each other awkwardly before you distract yourself by taking a sip of your coffee. Hangman seems to do the same, but instead of drinking, he begins tearing into several little sugar packets, and emptying them into his coffee foam.
You huff out a tiny laugh before you can stop yourself, and his eyes quickly snap to you.
“What?” he asks defensively, but the corners of his mouth twitch.
“I just… I guess I never figured you for a sweet coffee kinda guy…”
“Oh, and why is that?” his twitching lips turn into a full smirk, but it isn’t his usual Hangman smirk. You chew on the inside of your lip, and sip your coffee once more before answering.
“I’m not sure. I guess you just don’t seem like the type of guy who…” you trail off, unsure of what exactly you’re trying to say and even more; how to say it.
“Listen, I may have rippling, glistening abdominals, but I have a sweet tooth,” he says, putting on the defensiveness now, leaning toward you and pointing at himself. You pinch your brows together and purse your lips, nodding vehemently.
“I know how to have fun,” he tells you, tipping a third sugar into his coffee.
“Of that I don’t really doubt, Hangman,” you say, but his gaze snaps back to you again, almost sharply this time.
“Jake.” he corrects you.
You pause.
Of course, you knew his first name, but you’re fairly certain you’ve never once used it. Hangman has just always been, well, Hangman. But you weren’t in a cockpit right now, he’d asked you out, this wasn’t the time and place for callsigns. He wasn’t Hangman, and you weren’t Mirage.
“Jake,” you say slowly, carefully, as if he’ll tell you any moment he’s just kidding around. But he doesn’t.
“Miri,” he replies, slow like you, but softer, and it’s silly, but it sounds so nice coming from him. You shake your head and swallow.
“Jake, if you don’t like coffee, why did you ask me out for one?” you ask him, watching as he blinks slowly at you, before his gaze slowly drops to the latte in front of him.
“If I asked you for a drink, you might’ve got the wrong idea,” he starts, speaking carefully. “If I asked you for dinner, it could be too formal, too awkward–”
“–It’s already awkward,” you point out, making him grimace slightly, so you shrug.
“Coffee just seemed like– I just wanted to–” he cuts himself off and drops both hands to the table.
“Look– I just didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about what this was. I like you. I know you like coffee.” Jake admits all in a flurry, his voice quiet, and his eyes flickering around as he speaks.
For as long as you’ve known him, you’ve never seen Jake unable to maintain eye contact, actually it seemed to be something he took immense pride in, and it always made you slightly uncomfortable, but right now he appears completely incapable, and it's not a side of Hangman you’ve ever seen before. You realise you might be meeting Jake properly for the first time.
You decide to let him off easy, with all the newfound courage Dagger had been feeding into you the past few weeks, and you change the subject.
“You know, when you came up to me at the Hard Deck that first night, I was kinda surprised you remembered me at all,” you say slowly, sipping your coffee and eying him evenly. Jake frowns then, but it smooths out into a cool grin, and he leans back in his chair, cocking his head.
“Are you kidding? I’m always clocking possible threats.” he tells you, making you cough lightly.
“How am I a threat to you?!” you ask in disbelief.
“Oh, I could name a few,” Jake teases, nodding at you, but flicking his eyes away, almost making a show of clocking an incoming group of customers behind you.
You weren’t clueless, you knew you were a part of Dagger for a reason. You were damn good at your job, but still, Jake was Hangman, not only was he an aviator you respected, he was an aviator with very high personal standards, and for him to see you as comparable to him… well truthfully, you find yourself rather humbled.
And then flustered, at his clear unabashed flirting.
“I always thought you flirting was just you messing with me,” you admit, and he grins wider.
“Can’t it be both?” he asks, leaning forward again, and clasping his hands together. He seems to have no problem maintaining eye contact now, you note. When you cold-stare him, he simply shrugs.
“You’re cute when you get all flustered and nervous, what can I say?”
“Literally anything else.” You grumble back.
You finish your coffee and push the cup to the side, crossing your arms on the table and leaning forward like he was. Jake mimics you, pushing his own coffee away, clearly with no intention to start, let alone finish it. You aren’t as good as him with eye contact though, no matter how much you’d come out of your shell, so you take the opportunity to glance sideways out the window, only for your gaze to catch on something.
Your heart thumps loudly for a moment in your ears, and you wonder briefly if you should act on the thoughts popping around your brain right now, or if you should just stay put.
You lean forward even more, and flick your eyes back to Jake who is staring at you curiously.
“Hey, I have an idea…” you start, chewing on the inside of your lip, before standing up. You only hesitate a little before offering your hand.
“You with me?” you ask without thinking, the words the same as the ones you ask time and again to your wingmen while in flight manoeuvres. Jake stares up at you for a moment, before he too stands, your heart skipping when he takes your hand. With a tiny squeeze you almost don’t notice, Jake grins, and nods.
“Oh, hey! Stop! That’s not fair!” You elbow Jake in the side, but it’s already too late. The hand he’d shot out to block your light gun had done its job, and where you’d previously been neck in neck for score on the dual Time Crisis cabinet, Jake’s character was now cheering in victory, while your screen was asking you to insert more coins and try again.
Jake chortles and you both slot your plastic guns back into their plastic holsters at the front of the machine.
“We never agreed to no interference,” he says proudly, and you sock him in the arm only half as hard as you can.
“I didn’t think it needed to be said!” you exclaim pointedly. Jake grins down at you, and collects his tickets.
“Quit complaining, all these are gonna go towards whatever stuffed bear or whatever the hell you want anyway.” He rolls his eyes, and gestures to the shoddy ‘rewards’ counter of the arcade you’d spotted from the coffee shop.
“I want the Minion.” You state firmly after glancing at the redemption counter for three seconds, and spotting the big ugly yellow creature on the top shelf. Jake sighs in a put-upon manner and shakes his head.
“See, this is how you know I really like you. I’m willing to ignore that,” he says, and you actually think he might be serious this time. You grin up at him as he takes your elbow, and begins leading you toward the back of the room.
“What are you going to cheat me out of kicking your ass at this time?” you glance around you, goosebumps trailing up and down your arm as Jake lets his hand slide from around your elbow, down your forearm and into your hand, which he squeezes as if in warning.
“I didn’t cheat, I simply used black ops tactics,” he says, narrowing his eyes at you. You purse your lips at him and narrow your own eyes back.
“Cheat.” you say again, pronouncing each syllable deliberately.
You come to a stop then, and you look up at the old photo booth machine. Jake pulls out a fistfull of tickets, squinting his eyes at the label with instructions, before looking back over at the redemption counter. He seems to run some numbers before he looks back down at you with a grin, and waves the strings of crumpled tickets.
“My cheating means we can use the booth, and still have enough for a Kevin plush, so I don’t wanna hear no more complaining outta you,” he waggles a finger in front of your nose, and you blink up at him sheepishly.
“Jake– I don’t really want the Minion…” you say, before your voice turns suspicious. “Anyway, how do you know which one is Kevin?!” you lift an eyebrow, only for Jake to roll his eyes and push you into the curtained booth.
You orient yourself in the tiny enclosed space, looking around you as Jake takes a moment to feed several lines of win-tickets into the machine before he follows you. He’s forced to duck down real low, making the space even smaller, and you both stare for a moment at the small seat barely big enough for one person, let alone two.
“Well, either you can sit on my lap, or I can sit on yours, darlin’, but I know which one I’d prefer.” Jake intones lowly, and for the first time in an hour or so, you feel yourself get all flustered again. Honestly, you’d kind of forgotten about the explicitly romantic tone of this meeting until now, and more than that, your stomach begins to flip and flop like the first time you’d gotten in a jet when he eases past you and drops himself onto the bench before patting his thighs.
“Jake, maybe if you just move over a litt–”
“No can do, honey,” and he’s not even trying to tease you, he demonstrates the spread of his legs, and the tight fit into the booth, before looking back up at you expectantly again.
“Okay… Okay…” you say more for your own sanity than anything else, and turn, quickly perching yourself on his leg before you can really think too hard about what you're doing.
Your efforts are for naught though, because the moment you’re sat down, Jake’s hands are tugging you against him further, sitting you more comfortably on the thick expanse of his thigh, and you barely repress the noise that nearly escapes you at the feeling of his fingers digging into your hips.
“There we go, sweetheart,” he says softly, almost to himself, and moves his hands to wrap around you completely. If he notices your little noise, which by his self satisfied smirk he definitely has, he thankfully chooses not to say anything. Your face grows warm, not only at the hold he has on you but at the pet name too.
“Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?” you ask, sounding half bewildered, half incredulous, forgetting for a moment where exactly you were and why. As you look over your shoulder at the man behind you, Jake stares back, his smirk still in place even as his eyes seem to search your face, his own expression mostly unreadable.
“Would you prefer ‘honey’?” he almost purrs, his voice distinctly amused, but you notice that he doesn’t back down, doesn’t apologise or step back.
It makes your stomach twist up in knots. It makes your heartbeat skip like a record.
You turn away from him, shake your head.
“It’s fine,” you tell him bashfully, wanting to grumble slightly when against your back you sense what you think is him puffing his chest a little. Quickly, you add: “Not at work, though…”
Jake chortles, but as you peek over your shoulder to look at him again, he’s relenting, his smirk gone and replaced with a far softer smile as he nods.
“Not at work, though.” he repeats lowly in confirmation, almost making you jump when he shifts one hand to steady you around the waist, his other reaching out to begin fiddling with the controls on the lit up screen in front of you.
“Alright, let's get this show on the road shall we?”
By the time you’re exiting the tiny cubicle, Jake’s hands still attached to your hips as he follows you out, you’re both laughing quietly to yourselves. You’re amazed to find just how much Jake can affect you, either setting you at complete ease or sending you into a tizzy, depending on what he’s said or done. Usually you wouldn’t be surprised by other people’s effects on you, you were jumpy and anxious by nature, but it was rare that somebody who put you on edge as much as Jake did, could also give you such comfort.
When he detaches his hands from your sides at last to survey the sheets of photos spat out by the booth, you marvel at how much you start to miss the contact. With all the subtlety you can muster, you inch closer to him, under the guise of getting a look at the photos as well, though really, you’re only hoping that you might prompt him into reaching out for you again.
Jake chortles and points at a set of two pictures. In one, you’re both grinning madly, pulling silly faces, and in the other, you’re wearing softer smiles, and you notice now, that Jake had pushed his face a little closer to yours. It makes heat rise in your cheeks, not just at the seeming intimacy of the photo, but truthfully, of how much you like seeing the two of you like that.
“You won’t mind if I keep these, will ya?” Jake asks, looking over at you. You simply shake your head, and he grins a little wider, carefully tearing off the two pictures before pulling out his wallet and tucking them inside, for sake keeping, you assume.
Jake lets you keep the rest, and absently, you fold them into the zipper in your purse, too distracted by the fact that he does indeed take your hand again, before quickly releasing it to instead wrap his arm over your shoulder. You can’t stop yourself from smiling a little as you blink dumbly up at him, and he grins down at you, ducking his face even closer to yours.
“Now sweetheart, I believe I was instructed to win you a minion plush.”
---
Jake’s appearance in the women’s locker room should startle you more than it does. As it stands, you barely even bat an eyelash when you spot him all of a sudden in the mirror behind you, like he was enacting some sort of horror movie jumpscare. It doesn’t really have that effect on you though, his presence nowadays is both common enough and exciting enough that he holds your rapt attention whenever he’s around.
In the mirror behind you, he stands at a casual lean against the row of locker doors, making sure to face you, but also making sure he has the opportunity to rifle through your locker, get a good look at the things you kept in there.
“What are you doing?” you ask, sounding less scolding and more genuinely curious, which is a point against you as far as you’re concerned. You turn from the mirror and move back toward your locker, replacing the small toiletries bag you kept with you inside. Jake doesn’t move a muscle, standing exactly in the same position, which meant that now he was practically leaning over you, crowding your space in that way he did sometimes just to make you flustered.
You were long past the point of it really working though, now you revelled in it just as much as he seemed to, eager for any small moment where you had an excuse to be so close to him. Especially at work.
You blink up at him doe-ishly, finding his gaze exactly where you expected it to be, which is trained on your face. His signature smirk grows slightly as he meets your eye, and your stomach explodes in a flurry of butterflies and fireworks at the way he seems to either consciously or subconsciously lean even further in toward you, completely dwarfing you now. It makes you feel small in the best way possible, and you have to actively work to put aside the thoughts of his big hands at your waist, and other such things that make your legs go all wobbly.
“Say, you don’t happen to have any plans for the fourteenth, do you?” Jake ignores your question entirely, but you’re not bothered by it, too caught up now on his own query.
“The fourteenth?” you ask, a little dumbly, racking your mind for something you may have forgotten, which you know is the correct course of action thanks to the amusement currently playing out on his very handsome features.
“Valentine’s Day?” Jake supplies for you eventually, putting you out of one misery and into another.
“You want to do something on Valentine’s Day?” you’re not sure which part of his suggestion you’re not getting, but you do know that something isn’t quite clicking. Jake’s features soften only slightly, and he bends his face even closer to yours, his eyes flickering down to your lips briefly before back to your eyes.
“Mhmm. If my girlfriend is alright with that?” Jake practically purrs the words, and they reverberate down your spine, making you blink rapidly.
You don’t think you’ll ever get over hearing him call you that, although you do note that he definitely shouldn't be doing it at work, considering none of your friends and colleagues know about the two of you yet.
“Y-yes, she is fine with that…” you reply, doing your best not to sound as lovesick as you felt. Jake lifts an eyebrow and turns his body in toward you even more, almost bringing your chests to touch now.
“Just ‘fine’? Sweetheart, I am hoping to get more of a reaction than that,” he again makes a show of trailing his eyes up and down your face, and you feel yourself swallow thickly.
“After all,” Jake continues, lifting an arm now to rest against the locker above your head, actually crowding your space now. “I believe we had a discussion about exactly how Valentine’s Day would play out, around… four weeks ago?” Jake makes a humming noise, as if he himself didn’t remember clearly, despite everything else about his delivery saying otherwise.
Your lips part ever so slightly as you recall the conversation he’s referring to, a heat crackling over your skin when you realise that, despite you not remembering it until now, this had clearly been something Jake was looking forward to.
You definitely were too, now.
“Thank you, Jake… tonight was really great,” you cringe a little at how scripted the words sound, but when you look up at where Jake stands just behind you, waiting for you to slot your key into your door, he’s only gazing down at you in a way that makes you immediately drop them. The sound makes you jump and turn away, but before you can clumsily begin apologising and scooping them up, Jake takes a slight step forward, never breaking your eye contact even as he swipes your fallen keys from your feet.
He’s right in front of you now, still slightly bowed over so that his face hovers right in front of yours as if by accident, though you know it's anything but. You can’t even bring yourself to move, as much as these dates had you a little off-kilter still, you couldn't deny the fact that your feelings for the man in front of you had been increasing exponentially, in a way that was becoming harder and harder to physically hold back from.
You don’t even mean to, but your eyes drop to his lips for several beats, transfixed until you force yourself to look away again. You part your own lips, getting ready to say something, anything, but Jake sees your wandering gaze for what it is, and doesn’t let you ruin the moment.
Instead, Jake surges forward, the hand not holding your keys moving to cup the side of your face, and at the same time, stands to his full height once more, the space previously still left between you now completely nonexistent as you find yourself pushed up against your door.
You’ve had relationships in the past, but you had never, ever, been kissed like this before, all heat and fire and what you can only describe as desire. However, as that thought sets in, you find that oddly, it doesn’t fluster you like you think it should, or would have. In fact, for the first time in a really long time, you don't feel any of your normal anxieties or nerves. Everything is replaced by the knowledge that Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin is currently pressing his body against yours, his hands carefully starting to roam a little and how much you want everything that that strong grip of his promises.
Unfortunately, that's when the one useful anxiety you have left returns to you, and just as always, you can’t bring yourself to ignore it like you so badly wish you could.
It takes only a slight push against Jake’s chest for him to pull away from you, though it's as though he can’t bring himself to go far at all. He stares down at you, lips kiss-swollen and his face so close still that you swear if he blinks, you’ll feel his lashes brush your cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Jake’s voice is incredibly gravely and rough and the sound of it alone is almost enough to push you back in toward him.
“I’m sorry– I just–” the rising panic in your voice makes Jake shift again, though he still doesn’t detach himself from you entirely, he does move his hands to rest on your shoulders.
“We– We work together, and I don’t do this often–ever, actually, and I just don’t want to get into something where we can’t come back from, because I’m actually really starting to like you, a lot, and I know this is a thing normal people totally do all the time– sleep together I mean– but you’re just so– and I’m– and I–”
“Hey, it’s alright, calm down,” Jake’s stern ‘work’ voice startles you a bit, but just like always, he seems to know exactly what it is you need. You blink up at him, realising you’re clinging tightly to his forearms, and he’s looking down at you with so much concern and care you could almost just start crying.
“It’s alright, Miri,” Jake continues after a moment, lifting one hand from your shoulder to cup your cheek again. You stare at him, your brows furrowing into a frown.
“Alright? You’re not– you don’t mind that I don’t want to sleep with you?”
Jake’s lips quirk, and he rolls his eyes a little.
“Miri, the only thing I want more than to take you inside and continue this with far less clothing, is for you to want that too. So, no, I don’t mind.”
You keep staring up at him, unsure of how to proceed now, but once again, Jake swoops in.
“You want to give it time?” he asks, earning a nod from you, but you suddenly feel the need to reassure him of your own affections.
“Just to be clear, this isn’t me not wanting to have sex with you!” you state quickly, earning a somewhat confused frown from the man still cupping your cheek. “I mean, I do, that’s not an issue, my problem is specifically just… rushing into this, when we work together. Our jobs are so high-stress as it is, I just think it would be better to… I’m not sure, ease into it I guess…”
You’re glad you made a point of explaining yourself, because Jake’s face flashes with brief understanding, and his approach seems to switch tact.
“Well…” he clears his throat. “That’s still alright, but it does make it a whole lot harder to resist, I have to tell you,” you know he’s only half serious, but the way he looks at you in the dim lighting of your porch sends your insides twisting and curling.
“So… when do you think it will stop being ‘too soon’?” Jake asks lightly, but you do think it’s an entirely fair question given that you are asking him to wait for you.
“A few weeks? I’m not sure, I just…” you trail off, but watch as Jake appears to do some mental maths, and then his face lights up, his grin pulling his lips in a rather distracting way.
“Valentine's Day?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows playfully.
Before you can verbally agree, his mood seems to shift, and he’s leaning in a little closer again, lowering his voice. “I’ll take you out, real fancy, suit and tie dress code, you’ll get to wear something slinky and I’ll pretend the way I keep touching you is an accident all night.”
Your breath catches in your throat as Jake crowds in closer to you as he speaks, looking over you as if the things he’s describing were visible to him right now.
“Then, I’ll take you back to mine, maybe I’ll be presumptuous and buy you some lacy little underthings to wear for me, and–” He seems to snap out of the intensity all of a sudden, smirking down at you and cocking his head at your dazed and almost drooling expression.
“Well, the rest is a secret, but for now, let's just pencil all that in, hmn?”
“S-so, what did you have planned?” you bite your lip a little and reach past him to grab a scrunchie from your locker, but before you can slip it onto your wrist, Jake takes it off of your and begins combing your hair back himself. You stand and watch him dumbly as he does, already blanking out when his fingers seem to tighten ever so slightly as he gathers a ponytail at the base of your neck, and tugs.
You almost let out a pitiful little sound at the feeling, but unfortunately you aren’t able to control the fluttering of your eyes the same way. Jake smirks above you as he slips the scrunchie off his wrist and secures your hair into a somewhat regulation bun, all the while still grinning down at you. You want to tell him to screw valentines day and screw you now, but you manage to keep your mouth shut long enough for him to answer your question.
“I’ve already told you too much. Just be ready by seven. Wear something slinky for me, yeah?” he murmurs, letting his hands fall from the back of your head to your waist where he pulls you in.
“Alright,” you confirm, mind already wandering to what on earth you had in your closet right now that would fit the bill of ‘slinky’ and deciding that you were probably going to have to go shopping.
“Don’t worry about the lacy things,” Jake says softly, lips now ghosting over yours as he speaks, though he hasn’t broken your eye contact once yet. “I’ve already got that covered.” He says, making you go blank again.
The thought, no, the mere idea that Jake has bought you lingerie to wear, and that he wanted to see you in it, makes you want to vibrate right out of the room, and possibly several times around the planet, but you manage to resist, and instead just swallow heavily, and nod.
Jake grins wide, no longer smirking cheekily, his smile is nothing but warmth now, and you can’t help but mirror it.
“Great,” he says, giving your waist a squeeze, and you a tiny peck on the lips before he pulls away. “Now, I gotta get outta here before I get court-martialed.”
You snort as he spins on his heel and heads toward the door, but turns back and gives you a lazy salute and wink before he leaves.
When you’re certain that he’s gone, you let out a sigh and fall back against your locker, your heart thumping wildly along in your chest as you mull over your upcoming plans. The thought of shopping enters your mind once again, and you hum to yourself. Reaching for your throne, you shoot off a text to your group chat with Phoenix and Halo, and hope they won’t ask too many questions about your Valentine’s plans.
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