#same could be said about any other instrument

[daisyfloyd]

One doesn't truly appreciate great guitar work until you try to learn the part yourself.

Yes, I am practising the final solo in Pigs, and man, I appreciate David more and more every time I try to learn one of his solos. This is a workout.

[imaginedanvrs]

atonement

masterlist

camp counselor!wanda x reader

word count: 6k

warnings: homophobia and homophobic slurs, conversion therapy, manipulation, gaslighting, references to drug use, unhealthy power dynamics (so rape), noncon to dubcon, cunnilingus, degrading, fingering, nipple play, size kink, general mean Wanda

a/n: me? posting blasphemous content on Easter Sunday? I would never

It looked harmless enough. You weren’t sure what you had been anticipating, mostly because you had been trying to keep your mind off of the unavoidable destination, but it certainly wasn’t the depressing place you had expected. No, they were smart enough to keep that reality away from the parents that dropped their ‘troubled’ children off. If anything, it looked like the kind of summer camp that a lot of your friends would be enjoying about that time. 

  There wasn’t a church for one thing. In its place was what appeared to be a ranch style house that had kept its traditional family features such as the pair of rocking chairs on the porch and the maintained flowerbed around the borders. On either side of the building, closing in the driveway, were several other intimate buildings that created the impression of a community style living. They were all decorated with various posters about god’s love and acceptance that you guessed you were going to be hearing a lot about during your stay. 

  Your mother got out of the car first as a man who looked like he was still being dressed by his own mum jogged over from the main house to greet you both. You clenched your grip on your bag strap before deciding to face the music and follow her lead, still examining the area sceptically as your mother and the man introduced themselves. Your mother failed to deliver the same excitement the blonde did, but she attempted to force it nonetheless while your hosts laughed easily at something she had said.

  You weren’t listening to either of them as you retrieved your other bag from the boot of the car, not expecting the man to walk around the other side to greet you. “Y/n!” He said like you were an old friend. “I’m Reverend Vision but you can call me Rev Vis.” You most certainly weren’t going to be doing that. “We’re so happy to have you here, let me give you the grand tour of our home,” he beckoned. You trailed behind them.

  “Do you live on site?” Your mother asked.

  “Oh yes, me and the Mrs. We love our work,” he drowned on and began guiding you through the various rooms of the two buildings either side of his house. The more you learnt about the place, the more you began to dread your stay. There were ‘entertainment’ rooms that were filled with musical instruments and religious books and music. A canteen area fueled by the kitchen in which all of the students were to prepare every meal. A prayer room that was deserted at that time. Finally, the dorms. 

  Vision wasted no time in searching through your bags for anything that could “interfere with your journey” and came up empty handed, much to his well hidden disappointment. Your mother didn’t seem to notice it, too focused on the contents that came out of your bag, but you saw the flicker of his brow when he declared you were all good and began explaining the long lists of rules that you had no intention of memorising. 

  “And we do not allow any kind of sexual acts, with yourself or others,” he said lightly. Your mother shifted uncomfortably and you nodded. You had no intention of being caught by him with your hands down your pants when he did his checks during the night. You didn’t anticipate being there long because you were fully prepared to fake your conversion to heterosexuality. How hard could it be? Besides, you dreaded to think how much your parents were paying the capm under the illusion that they could somehow change you. You had to find it humorous, otherwise it would really fucking hurt. 

  It still did when you watched your family car disappear past the camp gates and into the dense tree line. You sighed, resting your head gently against the cool glass of your window and took in the camp in its entirety. It was a waste of beautiful land, you concluded as you examined where the large field met the changing trees. There were a couple guys in the camp uniform playing football on the grass while a cluster of girls sat to the side cheering them on. Apparently you had caught the end of the game, because Vision appeared on the edge of the grass and called them back inside, most likely to prepare for dinner. 

  “Y/n,” a voice behind you called. You spun around at the unexpected caller just as she opened her arms and enveloped you in a tight hug that took you wholly by surprise. 

 “Hi?” You greeted as a question, making the older woman chuckle as she held you before pulling away and keeping her soft hands on your arms as she took you in and allowed you to do the same. Holy fuck she was beautiful. Her striking emerald eyes bore straight through your own and somehow had the ability to make you feel entirely exposed, as though it would be futile to ever conceal anything from her, including your undeniable attraction to her. In contrast, her smile was soft and polite as she gazed at you in a friendly fondness you would with someone you haven't seen in a long time. There was something noticeably comforting in it and the way she carried an entirely put together personar that you wanted a peek beneath. Metaphorically of course… but also literally. 

  “I’m Wanda, Vision’s wife.” Rev Vis was punching way above his weight. This woman’s voice was even hot. Maybe pretending to be straight would be harder than you thought. 

  “Nice to meet you,” you smiled and glanced away awkwardly, finding her impossible to maintain eye contact with. She didn’t seem to care as she hooked her finger under your chin and turned your head to keep your attention on her. 

  “I have every faith you’re going to do so well here, sweetheart,” she told you fondly then dropped her hand and took a respectful step back. Right, gotta leave room for jesus. “Your roommate will be back soon then you too should head down for supper,” she instructed as she headed for the door.

  “Okay,��� you nodded and pretended to unpack your bags. 

  “See you later, honey,” she said before disappearing. You exhaled a breath you didn’t realise you had been holding and collapsed onto your bed. 

*

Your first day dragged by painstakingly slowly. Between meals, you attended bible study taught by Vision who gave you his extra attention as it was your first time there. He asked you to compare your own relationship with god to that which he was teaching, expecting an answer in front of all the other students who had been through the same ordeal and spotted your lies as well as Vision did. Apparently everyone did the same when they started at the camp. 

  You had kitchen duty in the morning and garden duty in the afternoon (which was probably the least crap one) before you had to sit down for what felt like hours to listen to Vision sing about god on a guitar he didn’t know how to tune properly. During every interaction you had with him, all you could think about was how he had ended up with a woman like Wanda. Had they been high school sweethearts? Had their parents pushed them together? Did he have some kind of twisted blackmail over her? They were the only three explanations that made any sense to you but you weren’t about to ask any of the other students for their input. 

  As it turned out, your daily routine was also going to include a one on one session with the older woman which should have been something to act as a silver lining in your stay, but it was the most challenging aspect of all. 

  “When did your desire for women begin?” She asked after some small talk.

  “I’m not sure,” you lied in an effort to buy yourself some time to think of a good response. She smiled at you softly.

  “You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to god,” she informed lightly. 

  “A couple years ago,” you replied honestly. This seemed to please her. 

  “And how did it manifest?” She sounded genuinely curious to know, lulling you into being unexpectedly open with her. It wasn’t as though you had anyone else to talk about that stuff with. 

  “There was a girl in my class that I thought was pretty,” you told her as you recalled your first real crush. “I felt more when she smiled at me than I did when I kissed a boy.” Wanda smiled as though she could see the purity of your memory as well as you could. Except to her, it wasn’t so innocent. 

  “The devil likes to work his way into places we could never expect,” she told you and your smile dropped. “Especially when we’re naive,” she added. It sounded as though she didn’t hold anything against you and she wholly believed you had been seduced by the devil himself and that it was impossible for there to be any other explanation. 

  “I was seventeen,” you reasoned. “I wasn’t naive.” Wanda liked the challenge you gave her. That whisper of a promised defiance gave her a thrill she knew to keep a cap unless she was required to use it. She would do anything for her beloved students to guide them back on the right path, especially one that wore the face of morality so well. 

  “And what do you mean by that?” Wanda enquired. 

  “I knew- I know what desire and attraction feel like,” you told her without looking her in those expectant eyes that unknowingly glimmered at your revelation. 

  “Lust,” Wanda said simply. “One of the hardest sins to resist when it affects one so physically.” 

  “Surely it can’t be bad if it’s natural,” you pointed out. That was not the response the brunette wanted to hear.

  “It is not natural,” Wanda said so quickly that she had to take a moment to recollect herself as you looked at her with shock as you took in that momentary crack in her exterior. It was interesting to watch and you wondered why it had hit a nerve. Surely you weren’t the only one to come into her office and state the fact. 

  “Y/n,” she called slowly. “If lust comes to you while you are here, you must come and tell me,” she told you seriously. Yeah, you definitely wouldn’t be doing that. You agreed obediently anyway. 

  “Good,” she smiled again. “Now, is there anyone you currently feel ungodly towards?” 

  “The same girl,” you admitted sheepishly. Yes, you had had a variety of other minor crushes in the past couple years, but she always managed to fill you with that teasing anxiety that never fully manifested when she said hi to you. 

  Wanda raised her brows indiscreetly. “I hope you will soon be able to give that same loyalty to god,” she said. You didn’t give her a response, unsure of what to say when you had no intention of doing such a thing. “In time,” she added when she saw your hesitation. 

  “Maybe,” you muttered, meeting her half way. “Won’t he love me regardless?” You painted the question with an air of innocence that anyone else would have fallen for. But Wanda saw beyond that and knew you used the faux front purely to challenge her again. She was impressed. 

  “Of course,” she told you gently. “Always.”

*

You thought you were being subtle with the way you kept glancing over at the couple. It was breakfast time so there was a general murmur of conversation that you didn’t feel particularly pressed to join in with. All it did was teach you to avoid sitting with the group you had found yourself with again because they seemed to be the only students there who were actively participating in the conversion with the belief it would ‘fix them’. You pitied them in a way, but not enough to interfere with their ramblings about their opposite sex celebrity crushes. 

  Wanda caught your eye on one of the many times you had peered over. Vision was talking to her but apparently she was as distracted from her company as you were, more fixed on returning your gaze. The corner of her lip twitched when you realised you’d been caught and you swiftly looked away to stare down at your cereal, actively keeping your wandering gaze on the other side of the room for the rest of the meal. 

*

“So what did you do to end up here?” A curly haired boy asked as he strolled into the kitchen you occupied alone. He was swinging a tea towel in his hands as he joined you and started on drying the washing up you had started. 

  “Got caught making out with the pastor’s daughter,” you said stoically.

  “You’re fucking with me,” he grinned and your composure cracked. 

  “Yeah, but it’s much cooler than the truth,” you told him honestly as he jumped up onto the counter. 

  “I’m sure it’s not that bad. My grandma walked in on me with my dick down my best friend’s ass,” he told you and you couldn’t stop the laugh that rose promptly. You grinned at the boy next to you in disbelief, thankful that your own luck wasn’t that bad. “Your turn,” he prompted. 

  “I told my best friend that I like girls. She told my parents,” you said humorously, as though it didn’t hurt like a bitch just to remember. 

  “I think I have better mates than you,” he concluded. You didn’t argue with that. “I’m James.”

  “Y/n,” you replied. “How long have you been here?”

  “Four months.”

  “What?” You splashed some water over the floor when your hand slipped in shock and James yelped when some drops hit him then started chuckling at the look you were giving him. 

  “What? Did you think it was only going to last a couple weeks?”

  “Kinda, yeah,” you muttered as you returned your attention to your chore. “Do you think you’ll be out soon?”

  “Nah, they know I’m bullshitting them. We all are, of course, but some of them can trick themselves into believing it, which is good enough for Vision.” 

  “Yeah, I know Wanda sees right through me,” you told him. “Which by the way, that makes no sense right?”

  “I reckon he’s holding her family captive,” James stated simply. You laughed with him easily, glad you had found someone like minded to you. “Hey, do you wanna get high?”

*

The nimble threads at the bottom of your uniformed cardigan were multiplying as your stay at the camp went by. Your fingers frequently found their way to them when you were uncomfortable, which was more often than not, and pulled at the finer threads until you unintentionally collected a small bundle in the palm of your hands that you had to hide. Vision never commented on it, but Wanda did, telling you that it represented your impulse to repress your femininity or some bullshit like that. 

  You left the threads alone and laced your hands together in your lap when she gave you a pointed look from her office chair and you muttered an apology. 

  “I’ve noticed you and James have become quite close,” she commented. “I must admit I was hoping you would find better company in some of the other students here. James doesn’t provide the best example to follow,” she told you. 

  “We’re just friends,” you shrugged, slightly irked that the older woman had a problem with the one refuge you had been able to find in the camp. 

  “Are you friends with anyone else here?” She questioned, not yet providing you the warm smile she offered every time you stepped into her office or saw her in general. She didn’t look happy that day. She looked troubled but you didn’t believe that was solely down to your decision to spend time with James. 

  “Not yet,” you told her even though you weren’t planning on expanding your social circle. Though if it was only two people it must be more of a line. Still, adding that unfulfilled optimism was meant to appease Wanda. You should have expected her to see it for what it really was. 

  “What do you and James talk about?” She wasn’t going to let it go.

  “Our lives, I guess,” you shrugged. 

  “Your experiences,” Wanda said for you. You knew there was no point in denying that when your glance towards her told her all she needed to know. 

  “Sometimes.” 

  “You should only discuss those topics with myself or Vision, otherwise you may end up having those experiences affirmed and encouraged,” she explained pointedly. You nodded uncomfortably as your fingers found their ways to your threads again only to snap back in place when you felt Wanda’s eyes momentarily burn into you. Something was very different with her. “So tell me what you discussed,” she pushed. 

  “I told him how much I dislike kissing boys,” you told her matter of factly as you tried to suppress your rising irritation. Maybe it was her job, but you hated her need to know everything you and James did. 

  “And you want to kiss girls instead?”

  “I want to do a lot of things with them,” you laid on the innocence thick, playing your role as the good christian who was simply admitting to how she had been led astray and just wanted to atone for her sins. As always, Wanda saw through your facade though that time it made her tick. You knew exactly what you were doing, you just had no idea the effect it was having on the older woman. You had no idea that your insistence on pretending to be good while knowing you were bad stirred something in her that she wasn’t supposed to feel. You were pushing those sinful desires that had infiltrated your mind right into her own and she wouldn’t allow it. 

  “That’s all for today,” she declared without giving a response to your statement. It hadn’t even been your full session time, maybe more like half of it. 

  “Okay,” you said slowly as you stood up. 

  “I suggest you spend the rest of your evening with your roommate today,” she told you as you lingered in the doorway. 

  “Right, bye,” you bid awkwardly, frowning to yourself as you walked away.

  The moment the door closed Wanda sighed heavily and leant back in her chair, catching sight of the framed photo of herself and Vision when they went on a hiking holiday in Colorado. The both beamed at the camera as they held each other close, though Wanda’s love for her husband had been as dim as it was in the present. But it was what god wanted. What god certainly didn’t want was for Wanda to allow her mind to wander to you in the way it had during that session when you had been taunting her with that faux naivety that everyone else seemed to fall for. 

  She had such hope for you when she first met you. But the images you had put in her head of her hand disappearing beneath your skirt as her lips clashed with yours, pinning you down to that very couch you perched on, that was something that could not be allowed to flourish, no matter how it made her throb between her legs. Wanda forced herself to stare at her husband’s image and remember when he used to make her feel that way, but those memories of his breathless features beneath her were replaced with your own and suddenly she couldn’t help but ponder what your sweet moans would sound like next to her ear as her fingers dipped inside-

  “Lord help me,” Wanda called, but he never came. 

*

You and Wanda both faced your own new challenges as the weeks went by. For you, your only refuge was gone. James had been sent back home randomly one night after an incident that no one would discuss with you. You had written your numbers on pieces of paper before that night, but it had disappeared as mysteriously as James had and gave you an equally chilling feeling. You had no idea what was going to happen to him when he arrived home without the results he had been sent away to achieve. Would they send him somewhere else? Somewhere worse? The only thing you could do was try not to end up like him. 

  Unfortunately, Wanda knew that nothing had changed within you. You continued to try and fool her with your illusion of innocence, reciting what Vision had taught you, socialising with the committed students and answering her questions in the way she wanted to hear rather than the truth. Little did you know that your efforts to quicken your release from the camp were futile, because Wanda simply didn’t want you gone yet. You were fighting a losing battle, just as she was. 

  As much as she despised to acknowledge it, the brunette fought her own desires as much as you did. It made her hate how much she was drawn to you. It made her ashamed of the acts she envisaged herself performing with you and how she just knew in her heart that you would so willingly part your legs for her. She wasn’t blind to your attraction to her, she had encountered it enough in her career to see it a mile away, no matter how discreet you thought you were being. 

  “I think I’m getting better,” you lied as you peered at Wanda cautiously. 

  “And what makes you say that?” The older woman inquired, humouring your plain fib. 

  “I don’t think about girls,” you said as you willed yourself not to look at Wanda’s long legs that were crossed eloquently. 

  “What do you think about?” You hadn’t been prepared for that. 

  “God?” Wrong. Obviously wrong. Wanda hummed and you knew that meant she didn’t buy it. 

  “Y/n, I want you to start being more honest with me.” You froze and didn’t dare look her in the eye. “I’m aware that you’re not progressing, so I think we should try something new. Just you and me.” You frowned and risked looking up to the confident woman, not having a clue of the excitement that manifested so secretly. “Are you familiar with penance?” You were, yet you had no idea where Wanda was going with it. 

  “There are many different forms. Some fast, some pray, some confess, but as we practise most of that here anyway, I want to try something else,” Wanda explained as she stood up from her chair and sauntered over to the desk in the corner of her office. You heard her rummaging around in the draws as a feeling of unease began to emerge in your chest. Rightfully so, because when Wanda turned back around, she held a riding crop firmly in her grasp. 

  “Stand up,” she instructed and you quickly did so as you eyed the tool in her hands. “Usually you would do this yourself, but I don’t believe you’re capable,” she explained lightly. “Hold out your hand.”

  “Wanda,” you said as you kept your hand glued to your side. “I don’t want to.” Her features were deceivingly gentle as she listened to you. 

  “I don’t want to do this to you either, sweetheart. It’s just the only solution. So hold out your hand,” she repeated, gripping the crop so tight you could hear the leather stretch in her grasp. It unsettled you greatly. 

  “But it will hurt,” you objected, eyes wide. Wanda could have laughed at how oblivious you were to her intentions.

  “It’s meant to,” she said simply and grabbed your wrist with a force that completely paralleled the softness of her tone. 

  “Wanda-” you tried to yank your hand back but you weren’t as strong as the brunette who only had to hold you with one hand while the other brought the crop down hard. 

  You cried out but Wanda used her grip on you to pull you flush against her chest, her features having turned ice cold. Her lips formed a straight line and her eyes pierced through your own with a sharpness that was usually dulled. The next words she uttered were void of that nurturing faith she used with everyone else and were replaced with something much darker. “If you keep struggling I’ll bend you over that desk and whip your ass instead.” You trembled against her, trying to decipher what your best bet was. When you took too long to decide, Wanda reached around and groped your ass, digging the crop in as she did so as though to make sure you knew she was serious. Your breath hitched as you found yourself completely trapped against the woman that squeezed you through your skirt. You whimpered, riling her up more until you nodded. 

  “Good,” Wanda exhaled, calming the heat she was struck with at the sight of your fearful eyes. “With every strike, you’re going to confess something you’ve lied about to me.” There were so many lies to choose from that when the first strike came, you struggled to pick one out. “Confess,” Wanda demanded, all of her patience suddenly absent. 

  “I don’t like boys, I like girls,” you admitted in a rush, refusing to look at Wanda or your burning hand that she struck again. “I’m not doing the work,” you continued. Wanda remained dissatisfied, striking your raw palm again and again as you admitted to your lies, none of which being what Wanda wanted to hear. 

  “I touch myself!” That was what she was looking for. 

  “Look at me,” Wanda instructed, examining the tear streaks down your cheeks as you whimpered. It was clear you were trying to appear strong and indifferent, but it was quickly becoming too much. The older woman cooed at you as dropped the crop to the couch behind you and took a hold of your inflamed hand, rubbing the abused hand with a tenderness that only made it burn more. 

  “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Her smile had grown sinister and you realised you were nowhere near done. “What thoughts do you touch yourself to?” Wanda questioned further, rubbing the most tender areas of your palm. 

  “Lying with a woman,” you hiccuped, hoping the harmless phrasing could somehow ease your next punishment. 

  “Who?” She pushed, gripping your chin roughly and forcing you to look straight ahead at her as you confessed what she already knew. 

  “You,” you whispered. Arousal rushed to the forefront of Wanda’s mind, and with it came anger. You weren't allowed to make her feel the way you did. She had a husband and she was a faithful Christian wife until you showed up and infected her mind with your own illness. You had to be put in your place. 

  In a blur, you were laying flat on the sofa you had lied continuously to Wanda on. You were barely given the chance to react before Wanda hiked her leg over your chest and straddled you with a purely feral look upon her face. You felt a strike of fear hit you, however you also weren’t blind to how attractive Wanda looked in her state of desperation. It may have been a desperation to reclaim control and to punish you for her own feelings, but it was hot nonetheless. 

  “You’ve been tempting me ever since you got here,” she hissed, feeling under her conservative skirt for a moment before she lifted it up around her waist. “This is your fault,” Wanda told you as you soaked in the view of her exposed pussy just inches from your face. You could smell her arousal and when she moved to lower herself onto your awaiting mouth, you eagerly grabbed at the back of her thighs until she slapped you away. “You don’t get to touch me with those filthy fingers, just let me use you.” Although you knew it was terribly wrong, you felt your own cunt heat up at her instructions. You knew that it was fucked up that the married woman wanted to get off on riding your mouth, but you wanted it so bad. 

  “Just like that,” Wanda sighed as you ran your tongue through her wet folds and sucked on them lightly, aiming to savour every drop and inch of her. “Put your tongue out,” she continued to demand. As soon as you did, Wanda began to vigorously grind her clit against your muscle, allowing your tastebuds to become ablaze with her as she cursed above you. You had never heard her swear before and knew she would scold anyone who muttered anything close, so knowing you could elicit such a reaction from her made your insides twist with pride. 

  She didn’t argue when you switched to sucking on her pulsing clit and felt it throb in your mouth. You moaned against her as her movements continued and her thighs locked around her head. It felt as though she really was using you for her own pleasure, not caring about your own or any comfort. You were the shameful bliss she was forbidden to engage with, but it felt incredible to ignore her god and use you as she wished. But she was really disobeying him, she was just teaching you a lesson. It wasn’t really sinning. 

  “Fuck, don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop, you slut!” Wanda cried out as she became engulfed with the sensations you gave her. You had no intention of stopping as you shifted to pushing your tongue inside her. You were met by the tight squeeze of her walls and felt your own clench at the discovery she hadn’t had sex in a while. That explained why she was so sensitive too. Besides yourself, you smirked into the older woman and doubled your efforts. 

  It didn’t take long for Wanda to get close to the bliss she had become stranger to and you weren’t about to let her lose that. She knew her body, even after some time of depriving herself, and told you exactly what to do to get her there. “That’s it, that’s it,” she panted, head swimming as she erratically thrust herself onto her mouth and came with a sharp cry. You moaned against her, adamant on tasting your reward as Wanda trembled on top of you and eventually forced herself off when you didn’t stop. She wasn’t about to let greed overcome her. 

  You looked up at her with a hesitant smile that was apparently the last thing Wanda wanted to see. She glared at you and immediately lifted you up and spun you around so that you were leaning over the armrest on the sofa, not allowing you a second to object. “What-” you tried but she didn’t want to hear it. 

  “We’re not done,” she said without care as she lifted your own skirt over your back and yanked down your soaked underwear. She bit her lip at the sight of the wetness that stained them and threw them over to her desk for safe keeping, definitely not to sniff and use to get off later. 

  “Desperate whore,” she muttered to herself as she ran two fingers through your drenched lips. “You want to get fucked so bad? I’ll show you what it’s like to get fucked.” She let the threat loom over you as dipped her digits into you lightly, barely enough to stimulate you but enough for her to decipher how tight you were. Wanda groaned when she felt you clench in anticipation, desperate for any touch you would give her. At that, she let the remains of her self control slip away and thrust her fingers in at once. “So tight,” she commented as you clung onto the sofa, moaning at the feeling of her filling you up in the way you had dreamed ever since you first met the older woman. 

  “Wanda,” you whined when she spread her fingers out within you to push your walls. 

  “Shut up,” she hissed, refusing to listen to your pathetic pleas on the tip of your tongue. “Take it.” And you did. You bit into the couch to mute yourself as Wanda curled and thrust her fingers inside your wet cunt, mapping out every inch of you and pushing your body’s limits. She added a third finger without any consideration to your stifled whines. 

  Wanda, as she told herself, was only doing it to hurt you and punish you. You deserved it for sinning so openly in her home and for attempting to corrupt her. It wouldn’t work, she convinced herself, she wouldn’t succumb to your lust but she had to show you the right path. She had to make you ache. With that in mind, she added a fourth finger and pumped her fingers in wildly. 

  You cried out into the material you sunk your teeth into, feeling your pussy sting at the stretch Wanda was causing. Still, you continued to soak down to her palm. It just hurt so good. Too good for Wanda to allow, so she snuck her hand under your shirt and bra to take your nipples between her fingers and twist them cruelly. You whimpered at the unnecessary act, making Wanda grin triumphantly. 

  Despite the pain, it did little to distract you from the heat between your legs that was quickly growing out of control. Having stretched you out as much as she pleased, Wanda was able to thrust her fingers inside you without mercy, attacking every sensitive nerve until you became a mess on the sofa she was meant to therapise you on. “You going to cum for me, whore?” Wanda asked when she felt you twitch around her. You mumbled a yes you were lucky she heard. “You’re so pathetic like this, so weak to temptation,” she scolded you with a wicked smile you couldn’t see. “Cum for me.” That was all it took for your muscles to clench tightly around her and let go. You moaned like the whore she saw you as as you came, gripping onto the sofa for dear life as Wanda continued to ruthlessly pump her digits into your cunt. 

  “Too much,” you whined when she failed to stop. She didn’t listen. You came down from one orgasm and soon went tumbling into another when Wadna kept up her actions, making sure to drive her point home. You squirmed under her as your body became overstimulated but there was no room or strength for you to move away. “Please!” You begged as you bucked into her palm, unable to stop the contradicting action that served to amuse Wanda. 

  “So sensitive,” Wanda mused, coaxing you through another orgasm until she deemed that the message had gone through enough. You collapsed in a defeated heap as she stood up from the sofa and corrected her uniform as though you weren’t even there. You missed her taking her tainted digits into her mouth to appease her curiosity. Lord, she thought as she tasted your sweetness. She swiftly pushed away the impulse to keep you down and taste your sweetness directly from the source. She had to keep things professional after all. 

  “See me first thing in the morning,” she instructed, features still flushed with lingering lust. She had given into temptation and whether she liked it or not, she would indulge in you again. You weren’t going home anytime soon.

[stxrvel]

the one where i said fuck you and you cried (3)

series summary. the holy grail of the seven men who ruled the country's entertainment used to be your friends at school. now, ten years later and between successes and failures, what reason would they have to want to come back into your life? pairing. eventually ot7 x f!reader. content. first of all, english is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes! a lot of curse words, a lot of self-deprecation and low self esteem. no proofread. this is nawt silly writing, we're diving right into the aNgSt. jumpscare? iykyk a/n. hi guys! this was a rollercoaster for me to write, but i hope it doesn't come as harsh as i think it is. pls let me know what you think in the comments!! see you next week!!

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You had gone through a scenario like that in your head several times. A variety of moments, conversations and looks that always ended in the same unpleasant, inevitable and demoralizing way: you were forgotten by the people you loved most in the world. Only when you reached 18 would you realize how heartbreaking the dull thud of the silence of indifference was, how sharp and icy the loneliness was, how it penetrated and paralyzed your bones; but at that time, at 16, you could still convince yourself that all those things were only in your head and would always be there.

“Now that you're the last to go, you guys are much more likely to forget about me.”

“Of course not! In fact, as soon as I start earning money I'll save up to take you with us.”

Jungkook shook his head, his narrowed eyes judging you as if having insecurities was a sin. You believed his words at that moment, because being the last one still with you, 'cause you were going to graduate from school in the same year, it was the only thing you could do. Hold on to the idea that you really weren't going to be forgotten, because the mere conception of a future without your best friends was inconceivable.

“Jimin-hyung said he was going to try to call more often,” your friend went on, his eyes fixed on the bass on his lap and his important task of leaving it neat before returning it to its holy post in the school's music room. “I haven't talked to them in about three days.”

Jimin and Taehyung had left just a couple of months ago, but thanks to the opportunities opened to them with their incredible willingness, discipline and some string twitching on Namjoon's part, they had managed to get into a great academy to train and fulfill their dreams.

That also brought with it, as irreversible side effects, that your communication with them was drastically reduced. You had to constantly remind yourself and Jungkook that it was out of their control. With their future at stake, there was something for which they had to exert extreme effort and for which to sacrifice some other things.

“It's normal that they don't have as much time as they used to, Kookie.” You lowered your head, noticing the way his hands delicately handled the instrument on his legs. Since Jimin and Taehyung had left there was no time of day when you could tear yourself away from Jungkook, which is why you accompanied him to his extracurricular music lessons when you really should have been studying for the college entrance exam. “Life after school gets really hectic.”

“I've heard that college life is quieter.” Jungkook twisted his lips, wiping between the strings and his fingerprints left on the bass every time he moved it back and forth to clean it. It was an almost irresistible cycle.

“The only one at college right now is Seokjin and even about him we haven't heard much.” You leaned back against the piano, noticing Jungkook's movements pause for a moment as he surely reminisced about the few times he had been able to talk to Jin that month.

It had been two years since Seokjin had graduated and traveled all the way to the capital to study medicine. Needless to say, it was more than clear that communication with Jin would be almost nil from then on, but Jungkook always used to pout about it.

“It's just that Jin-hyung also chose a rather demanding career.” Jungkook twisted his lips, as if suppressing Jin in his head, waving the microfiber towel over the edges of the bass.

“And the others are trying too hard to carve their way through. It can be as complicated as going out to look for a job right after graduating.”

Jungkook nodded, admiring his cleaning job with a frown. He looked so focused that it caught you by surprise when he spoke again.

“You already know if you're going to college, noona? We're graduating this year.”

You blinked once, twice, three times. His nonchalant self went back to waving the towel over nonexistent smudges as you breathed in and decided not to go that route. “Will you?”

Jungkook raised his head, pausing his movements for a moment to try to analyze your gaze. With a sigh, he let out your poorly disguised way of shifting the focus of the conversation to get up and hang the instrument, glowing, on the wall of the music room.

“I don't know yet… Namjoon-hyung says he can help me.”

“Isn't it your dream, why do you doubt it?”

“I'm not sure, noona. What if I don't measure up? What if I fail?”

When your friend turned away, the mirror to his soul showed his vulnerability dancing on the edge of his eyelids. His distrust constricted your heart, a hand closing around your throat at the inner conflicts you knew Jungkook used to have and in the face of which you often couldn't do anything about because he didn't usually share such things.

“Then you try again.”

“Noona…” Jungkook wanted to grumble, it was obvious from the way his eyes moved to the ceiling, his head cocking as if he was about to give you a big life lesson on why you can't survive on motivational phrases.

But Jungkook was a softie about such things, even if he tried to hide it.

“Jungkook, you are literally a golden promise. No process is ever easy, especially in the industry you want to get into, but don't think for a second that you're going to outgrow it. You're one of the most capable people I've ever met.”

Your friend stopped his steps, when after hanging up the bass he was returning to your post in front of you, raising his head as if caught committing a prank. But the vulnerability in his eyes remained, and by the way they shone in the dim light of the room, still blinking to try to contain the emotion, you knew your words had tugged at just that thorn in his heart you were trying to pull out.

“Thank you, noona.”

“I'm just telling the truth.” You lifted a shoulder, shaking your head nonchalantly like it was no big deal, and Jungkook just let out an amused chuckle.

“You do know we'd never forget about you, right? How could we?”

-

“How could we?”

Yuna shook her head, frowning at her phone, oblivious to the way you cringed at her choice of words.

“She's bringing celebrities into the store and she want us to leave? Don't we work so well that we always take the top employee of the month spot even though it should only be held by one person? Don't we deserve that gift?”

You watched her, marveling at how after just a few seconds so many emotions could build up into an overwhelming knot in your chest. The old notes of an old piano played in the back of your head, bringing to the surface memories of when life was easier; when you thought you had it all and nothing would ever be better than that; when you thought you were enough.

“So what do you plan to do about it?” you blinked, focusing on the notation of bills in your notebook with an invisible hand squeezing your heart.

There was no use thinking about such things after so long.

Yuna pursed her lips, her expression serious and forceful. “I think we should have a sit-in.”

“We should? That sounds like more than one person.”

“Do you disagree with me?”

“I'm happy with going home early, especially on a Friday, you know?”

“y/n,” Yuna came up to your face over the cash register display case, her forearms resting on the glass and her eyes so bright with determination you were sure her head could light the whole store on fire the way she was scheming and scheming, running around like her life depended on it, “we could be close to meeting the seven gods of Olympus, and you think the best thing to do is go home?”

“Just in case you forgot, I have a business to run now.” You reminded her, moving to poke her with your middle finger all over her forehead and push her away from the cash register now that a new customer had come in.

“What business should a business matter when you could meet the reason for existence itself?”

Yuna dropped onto the display case, her body sliding like jelly until only her head was left on the glass. You and the new customer watched her, her arms limp at her sides and her gaze lost. A lone tear running down the bridge of her nose.

“God, you're so dramatic.”

“Does that mean yes?” Her head snapped up like a spring, a big smile scaring the soul out of the customer who ducked behind your friend to run for their order.

“No and stop acting like that, you're going to scare away customers.”

Yuna whined, her exaggerated tantrum leading you to wiggle your feet all the way to the cellar.

“I'm offering you the holy grail, and this is how you pay me?”

The sound of her feet shuffling behind you kept your head sane. Even though his insinuations were baseless, your heart was pounding so hard you felt your ribs throbbing through your muscles and skin.

Your boss had written to Yuna that you two could leave the store early today because she had a private meeting to attend. She asked them to leave everything to Patrick, including clearing the store of customers and not to worry about paying for the shift, because there would be no discount at the end of the month. Yuna was faithfully and blindly convinced that your boss really wanted you to stay, because she spent almost ten minutes with her eyes glued to the screen almost without blinking, watching the 'typing…' appear and disappear under your boss's contact name. 'I'm sure she's debating how much confidence she has in us…', she said as her red eyes missed no detail of that important chat and that primordial moment, ending in an offended 'none!' when her last message came through.

In the same way, Yuna convinced herself that the meeting that would take place in the same place where your feet were planted was going to be attended by the seven entertainment kings of the country. The unmentionables, for all practical purposes. Where had she come to that conclusion? There was no foundation. Had your boss given any hints? None. Yuna had her head in the clouds believing she could meet her idols if she insisted a little longer.

“Would you really prefer to stand your friend up to meet seven men you don't even know for sure will show up here?”

“Well…if you put it that way it sounds like I'm doing something wrong.”

“Mmm, you just figured that out?”

Yuna dropped her shoulders as you took off your apron. Her tactics weren't going to work and it was time to give up. She half-heartedly opened her locker and stood looking at you with puppy dog eyes. You felt as guilty as if you had stepped on her tail by accident.

“Look, if I'm being honest, I doubt gigantically that Sol will tell you that you can stay if you ask her.”

“Not even for everything we've been through together?”

“She's still our boss, Yuna.”

Your friend mimicked your actions with a slower speed, her emotion draining away little by little. When her head cocked to the side, halfway through taking off her apron, you only sighed.

“The worst that can happen is I get fired, right?”

You weren't surprised that she was nevertheless willing to cross that line.

“That doesn't sound like much to you?”

“I can always write her a 'ha, ha, just joking' afterwards and get out of harm's way.”

You didn't contain the irresistible urge to roll your eyes and Yuna took that as her own signal or green light. Next thing you knew she was pulling out her phone and typing animatedly on the screen.

“I really don't think you should do that.”

“I have to try! Can I call myself a good fan if I don't do even the impossible?”

“You don't even know if they'll come.”

“I have a hunch.”

With her hand over her heart, Yuna sent the message and you feared for her life. While Sol was not at all close to the idea and conceptualization of a crazy and ruthlessly demanding boss, she did draw the line at several specific situations that they had both learned to respect. One of those was, of course, private meetings at her place. You and Yuna had set up the place countless times for Sol to sit quietly and chat with her most famous acquaintances, because her office was too formal to deal with them there, but her own home was extremely informal for the same purpose. The cafeteria served as a middle ground, the perfect place to be comfortable when talking business.

“Patrick is coming.” Yuna spoke again and by the way her eyes didn't leave the screen you could tell Sol hadn't responded yet.

“I wish you the best of luck, Yuna.”

“Thank you! Coming from you it's a blessing, indeed.”

“And why's that?”

You finally stood up, closing your locker with your strap bag over your right shoulder. You were ready to leave while your friend was still biting her index fingernail waiting for an almost impossible and inconceivable message from her boss.

“What else can I expect from the writer who blew up overnight and is soon going to be one of the New York Times bestsellers and famous worldwide?”

“Ah,” you turned your head, unable to contain inwardly the way a warmth settled in your chest; you still had a hard time accepting how things had turned out, but as long as you couldn't control the influx of orders that had to take a back seat, “smooth.”

Yuna smiled and when her eyes met yours you swore she was about to tell you one more time how proud she was of you, but her phone vibrated in her hands and the last thing you saw her eyes widen exaggeratedly before her scream shook the foundations of the store and almost the entire city.

“SHE SAID YES!!!!”

-

Arriving home unleashed immeasurable chaos.

As soon as you opened the front door, a river of books fell like dominoes, with your father's groans and your mother's screams in the background, the sound of your work echoing in your head like lightning as stomping echoed through the house.

“Seojun, I told you to be careful walking…!”The angry expression on your mother's face disappeared the moment she recognized your face, her features softening as she knew it was her daughter. “Honey. What are you doing here so early?”

“Is that y/n?” your dad's exclamation rang out from the kitchen.

“Yes!” your mom yelled back.

The welcome was nice, but things only got more and more tedious from then on. On the one hand, you had your father telling you about accounts, numbers and multiplications of how much you had to take out of your pocket to pay for the prints, how much you would make if you sold all the books you had printed and how much you would get back, and on the other hand you had your mother telling you about the countless publishers who had written to your dm's seeking to sponsor the sale of your books, taking advantage of the boom that had been generated by the phenomenon that was Kim Taehyung.

Seojun, who had decided to move back home for the weekend to help with whatever was needed, was telling you that they had had to hire five different deliverymen -three of them trucks- to be able to deliver as many orders a day as possible, while vehemently hitting your father's forearm to remind him to include that in the accounts.

Your father was in charge of everything related to money, your mother of the direct communication with customers and Seojun of the orders; everything was done by them, with Yuna's help when she was not working, with the excuse that after so many years you just had to sit down and enjoy the fruit of your sowing without any worries.

But at that moment, when they had just let go and thrown all their worries at your feet, they stared at you expectantly.

"We need a loan."

Your mother jumped in her chair. "That's what I said!"

"That's not necessary." Your father shook his head, as he surely would have done when your mother suggested the idea judging by the expression that had planted itself on her face. "Take a loan from my wallet, but don't do business with those bankers. They'll gouge your eyes out with interest."

"Or take a publisher's offer. They'll take care of all this." Seojun pointed out, his long black hair brushing his eyebrows even though he shook it nonchalantly so he could get a good look at the three of them.

"Publishers can be freeloaders too." Your mother counter-argued, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Oh, yeah? How many publishers have you signed on with to assert that?"

"Wow, careful with that tone, Mr. Lawyer." Your father pointed at your brother, while your mother only raised an eyebrow at him in response. Seojun sank into the chair, barely dragging an apology through his teeth.

"It's not a bad idea either, Dad."

His brown eyes returned to meet your gaze and you noticed the hesitation in them.

"Well, ultimately, it's your decision, honey."

Your mother squeezed your shoulder.

"I say we should listen to the lawyer."

"Hey!" Seojun frowned, straightening up on the chair. "Don't put such a big responsibility on me!"

Your father snorted. "But then weren't you comfortable a while ago giving orders and saying that I don't know what thing you had already seen it in class and that's why you knew what we had to do?"

"Dad…" Seojun elongated.

"Are you ready for such a position or not, Seojun? Tell me to start looking for another lawyer."

Your mother barely contained her laughter, only because of the offended sideways glance her own son sent her way. Laughter blossomed in your chest, too, like a big breath of fresh air in a field of flowers. You didn't know you needed that moment so badly until the tension disappeared from your shoulders as you laughed with your parents and your brother grumbled with his arms crossed.

-

A new batch of orders just went out - thank you so much for your purchases!

You looked at the story your mom had uploaded to Instagram in the solitude of your bedroom. The rest of the day was spent strategizing and planning marketing ideas that would likely lead you to ruin. In a defeated silence, you admitted that Yuna was really needed.

You had texted your friend a while ago, as the sunset was beginning to paint the sky with colors, but she still hadn't even checked her phone. Her last connection was a few minutes after you left at noon. You decided not to insist, even though you were a little curious about who had finally shown up at the store.

The best thing about that busy rest of the afternoon was that you'd been able to keep yourself busy enough to completely ignore the way you'd been whipped up by a few memories that morning in Yuna's company. A simple question had caused all that. And of course, with a heart as weak as a chick's and willpower almost non-existent, you let yourself be pulled right in that moment of loneliness into the well of memories.

“Jungkookie?”

Your voice pierced the silence and a shiver ran through your body as the darkness greeted you back. A few minutes passed after you plunged into the completely darkened room, walking tentatively and slowly inside, you heard a movement just outside the door you had just entered.

“Noona…”

You couldn't see him, but you didn't need to. The sobs that filled the room were enough to be able to guide you through that darkness, as indistinguishable as coal, and wrap your arms around his hunched figure on the floor beside the door.

The house was alone and as dark as that room the last night Jungkook would be there. Passing through the empty corridors of his house was a torment, but you could only imagine how your friend would feel in his place, unable to stop time as it slipped through his fingers.

Several times he had already told you that he didn't want to leave. You didn't think he meant it.

“They're waiting for you downstairs.”

“I know. I don't want to go, noona.” Jungkook moved his arms to wrap around your waist in a desperate grip, his erratic breathing against your neck breaking your heart. “I want to stay. It doesn't matter if I never become an idol. That's not important.”

“Jungkook…”

“I don't want to leave you…”

His halting voice was barely understandable, trying to be muffled by the jacket you were wearing that night when you went to see him off and didn't find him in the car with his parents. The heater seemed not to be a worthy opponent for that cold night.

“Jungkook, you're not going to leave me. We'll keep in touch. Why do you worry so much?”

“I don't want to be like them,” his pained voice pierced your chest; the movement of his body from the way the sobs were attacking him was almost uncontainable. “I don't want this distance.”

“Change is always hard, Jungkookie, but I promise you we'll be in touch always. I'll do my best to make it so.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I'll even come visit you as soon as I can.”

“No. I said I was going to pay for your trip.”

“See? You're not going to leave me.”

“Still I'm scared, noona. What if I'm not enough for them? What if I can't raise enough for you to come live with us?”

“You are enough, Jungkook. From the tips of your fingers to the tips of your hair, there's nothing about you that won't allow you to achieve your dreams, understand? You are destined to be a star. I know it's hard to leave behind everything you know in life, but believe me it will all be worth it. You will come out on top and you will succeed.”

“Noona…” Jungkook cried again, burying his face in your neck once more, clinging to you like the anchor that carried him to the surface of the ocean; the ocean shaped by his own tears. “I… don't… want… to… go…”

The hiccups that attacked him from his intense crying made it difficult for him to speak and you hadn't felt such pain even when the other boys left. There were tears shared, promises whispered and hugs that lasted longer than they should have, but no one had clung to your body as if they feared you were going to disappear at any moment and wanted to seize every second before the impending end.

“It's okay, Jungkookie,” you ran your hands up and down his back trying to calm his crying, trying to control your own as treacherous tears rolled down your cheeks with the darkness as your witness. “We'll meet again. You can wait for me. Then we can melt into another embrace and say how much we miss each other.”

Your phone vibrated on the bed, the notification startling you with its aggressiveness. Another vibration followed that one and then another. Turning on the screen, you found that half an hour had passed since you'd last seen the clock, and in passing you came across Yuna's name on the caller ID. You sighed, remembering the effusiveness with which she said goodbye in the afternoon and mentally preparing yourself for what was to come.

"Hey," you greeted, mildly surprised that her exclamations hadn't reached your ear first to interrupt your greeting.

"y/n, how were sales today?" her calm voice filled your hearing and a slight wrinkle implanted itself between your brows.

"Mmm, it was all good. We have several domiciliary and the prints are coming out with the deadlines arranged. With Seojun we considered that maybe taking on a publisher wouldn't be so bad, but I'm not sure yet."

You narrowed your eyes at the ceiling, shallowly biting your nails, waiting for the moment when Yuna would burst out, but it didn't come.

"Oh, yeah. We'll have to consider that. I'll go early tomorrow morning to seize the day." Yuna answered quietly, with the faint sound of things stirring in the background of the call. Surely she had just arrived at her apartment.

"Yuna?"

"Mhm?"

"How was the afternoon?"

"Oh, it was normal, really," she replied, her voice flat, as if the thought had barely crossed her mind since the moment she'd left the coffee shop. "I didn't see anyone memorable."

"Ah, so your knights in shining armor didn't attend?"

"Sadly, no." Yuna sighed, her unchanging attitude finding a little more sense in your head. She sounded more tired than anything.

You talked a bit more with Yuna before she excused herself to go about her evening routine and finally get some rest, specifically stressing to you how boring the whole afternoon had been and how every second she only thought about going home. You also told her a bit more about the ideas you and your father had half-heartedly spun as marketing strategies, but very earnestly your friend asked you not to do anything until she was there.

When her name disappeared from your caller ID, an Instagram notification popped up at the top of your home screen. The vibration felt like the pounding of a sledgehammer against wood, your sentence handed down with no chance of appeal, the blood in your veins freezing and an endless emptiness in the pit of your stomach.

jeonjungkook97 just followed you!

It was followed by the notification of a message from Yuna.

Unnie | 19:01 holy shit. jungkook just followed you on ig, right?

No fucking way. Another fucking account to block.

-

It wasn't like you couldn't deal with them. You had been doing it for about ten years. But now they just seemed to want to throw themselves in front of your face one by one and you weren't strong enough to handle that. Maybe your resolve needed to be more forceful; maybe you should be sure you hated them instead of feeling like your body was shaking and you could melt like jelly in the sun every time you felt they were one step closer to you. For a while, that was all you wanted; to find them; to be found. But now…?

The weekend was spent in a hodgepodge of managing your book sales and the seesaw of emotions you had in the face of the estranged but impactful actions of your old friends. You tried not to think about it too much; you really tried, but it was very difficult. It was easier to let the memories wash over you instead of diligently packing up the books on which you had squandered your blood and tears.

Your books, yes, that was the most important thing.

From the posts and hashtags, even though it had only been a couple of days, you could see that some people -those who had actually read the books- were already posting their opinions and reviews and you knew you had had plenty of time to prepare for that moment, but you really weren't ready to face it. You didn't know what it was; whether it was the pollen, the aligned planets, PMS, mercury retrograde… but all of those things were weighing you down too much recently and you weren't ready to hear the opinions.

And you couldn't help but keep asking yourself why? Having spent so much time, between so many experiences and so many personal changes, why now they decided that they would come back into your life? How dare they after ruining your life by completely abandoning you? Many times you wondered what was missing in you; what was never enough for them… sometimes you believed that this was how it was meant to be; just the seven of them, before you came along. It was always them seven first, then you.

Between lows and highs, between sadness and joy, you still had to keep working.

"Get rid of that face if you're not going to tell me what's wrong with you." Yuna crossed the cafeteria in front of you, picking up some glasses and plates on the table as lunchtime approached.

"I don't have any face."

"You've been in a somber mood since Saturday. You look dead."

You clicked your tongue, taking advantage of the fact that the store was nearly empty to do the math. "Don't be over the top."

"I'm just being honest and genuinely concerned about my friend, can you blame me?" Yuna reached the sink and simply left the dishes there to approach the cash register. Your eyes refused to meet hers, unsheathing a strange annoyance in the pit of your stomach.

"I'm fine," you moved the money automatically, doing the math in the back of your head as second nature, "don't worry so much."

"Ok, if you don't want to tell me about it at least try to distract yourself a little, why don't you take an extra half hour for lunch?"

"You know I can't do that."

"Sol would never know."

"I'm not going to do that."

Yuna pouted, dropping her chin onto the back of her hand. You knew she was about to fly you out of that chair the moment all the bills were safeguarded.

A whiplash of pain shot through your chest at the alternative of having to leave the cafeteria, alone, hovering with your thoughts once again, as you tried to shove the food down your throat. But Yuna happily dragged you out of the cafeteria, leaving you in the middle of the street with your little bag and lunch money, wishing you a happy break as she wandered off once more to deal with the sparse crowd of customers alone.

Maybe you should have told her you'd rather not eat than be alone, but…

That was the story of your life.

So you walked to that restaurant a couple of blocks away, where they sold the cheapest food in the area, and waited patiently while answering Yuna's messages to clear your mind.

Going through your social networks, you once again came across the cover of your books in the pre-viewing of a video and felt the bile in your throat. Let's see, you were happy. Or well, you were trying to convince yourself because you still had that bitter feeling in the pit of your stomach that wouldn't let you enjoy this blast like you should and it had a first and last name of its own. But, generally speaking, it was great that your books were selling, forgetting all the other circumstances that led to that happening.

So, standing in front of those videos, you were tormented by not being able to watch them. A self-published author should be prepared for that kind of thing. No, any author should be. Sharing your art with the world implicitly entailed confronting the world's expression in front of it. It was inevitable, of course, and it was also the energy that could start an engine or the fingers that put out the match. At that precise moment, you still didn't want to know what your destiny was.

You hated that. You hated feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders. Why was life so heavy if you had just begun to live it?

Ah, too much pondering for one lunch.

And to think this all started with an Instagram story.

Having an existential crisis because you couldn't stand dealing with the stress and pressure of the extreme demand you were having and because of mixed feelings for a bunch of idiots resurfacing after so many years was one of the last things you thought you'd have to go through that year. Fuck, or ever in your entire life.

Taehyung might have done you a favor as well as a disservice.

But that's how you spent a while longer, as you walked back to the coffee shop, the noise of the city not being enough to quell the bustle of thoughts crashing against each other in your head.

Being in the eye of the hurricane, however, didn't mean you were safe. You barely had a breath of fresh air before the eyewall hit you hard once again.

"Noona…?"

You froze a few steps away from the cafeteria. You feared not only the way you immediately recognized the voice, but the way your body froze, fear, panic and uncertainty clouding your sense.

You were in the alley behind the coffee shop. You didn't usually go in that way, but you had taken a slightly longer way back, only because you were too busy thinking about whether or not your body was up to a longer walk.

You were so close to the door that you could almost hear Yuna's voice on the other side, barely muffled by the beeping that echoed in your ears as panic took over your body.

You didn't want to turn around. Your body was having every possible negative reaction, as if it was fighting an infection, the lunch you had just shoved down your throat seeking to make its way back into your mouth and the feeling of dizziness momentarily clouded you.

Was this how you planned to react if you ever saw them again? Was this how you acted out the scenarios you imagined in your head at night when your memories went back to the last time you saw them?

The only difference between those imaginings and what was happening at that moment was that before you could prepare yourself; you knew what was coming; you had control. Now? Your legs were about to give out, the weight of your body too much to bear.

And you wanted to mock the pathetic behavior you were engaging in. You should turn around, slap him and scream at him that you never wanted to see him again. But your heart was beating and feeling and… how could you deny it anything after so many years of being neglected?

But maybe you were imagining it. The little sleep you had this weekend and all the memories you dragged from the trunk since you saw that Instagram notification must have made you crazy enough that you heard voices, his voice, anywhere… you were still near a busy street, it could be anyone-

"y/n."

And, yet…

You didn't turn around knowing what it would entail to give his voice a face, even though you could madly and frankly recall every line of its length, and you spoke harshly through your teeth even though your labored breathing made your chest heave.

"What are you doing here?"

"Noona… you're really here."

You cringed as you heard his footsteps and clutched with inhuman speed at the lock on the door in front of you.

"I asked you a fucking question: what the fuck do you think you're doing here?"

The silence didn't give you an answer, but you could glimpse it. With your patience on edge and years of emotional repression it was impossible for you to deduce how you would react in such a case, but it didn't seem too far-fetched, even if Jungkook's surprised inspiration said he didn't expect you to be so harsh and rude.

As if you cared.

—Yes you did care, in fact, that's why your heart was beating wildly against your ribs, the choking sensation increasing, the nerves on edge and the tears all over the corners of your eyes, but you had to stand your ground. After so, so long… why, why, why, why?—

"I… I…" Jungkook seemed to be having trouble finding his voice, even though in his profession the words came melodiously and easily out of his mouth. If you turned to look at him, you might have noticed that his face went from happiness to anguish with the speed a bullet goes through a field, "I wanted to see you…"

He sounded so small. The five-foot-ten-plus man, who you're sure was almost a head and a half taller than you, might as well have been a badly wounded puppy behind you. You knew from the way he spoke that he was holding back tears, but you didn't let that sway you. He didn't deserve it.

"Who gave you the right to come here?"

You didn't let him answer, not knowing if he was even going to, tightening the lock on the door you were about to walk through at any moment, bile in your throat making you fear the fall as if you were at the top of a skyscraper.

"How the fuck did you even find me?"

"Well, I-"

"I don't fucking want to know!"

You cut him off, the dryness and venom in your voice making you tremble. You were so sad, so distraught and so angry at the same time.

"And I don't want to see you. So leave."

"Noona…"

"Fucking leave, Jeon, for fuck's sake!"

You moved, almost as if by inertia, opening the door and slamming it behind you, the noise so deafening that it echoed in your ears for several seconds until you heard Yuna's footsteps approaching you and felt her arms wrap around your body.

You didn't know what she was saying, you just leaned against the door and let yourself fall, your body shaking in cry after uncontrollable cry, truly wondering how everything had gone so far; wondering how, after so many years, you still allowed them to have that power over you; a power they didn't deserve and shouldn't have.

You felt shattered in that moment, every piece of you scattered in the hold, every moment of your life replaying on its glassy, sharp edges. Even with half of you staying afloat, Yuna held you until the tears stopped flowing and with renewed resolve you promised yourself that this was never going to happen again.

Jungkook had taken you by surprise, but from now on none of them would ever catch you off guard.

-

a/n: i dont really know what to think about this chap. sometimes i like it sometimes i dont. i guess thats just how it works. pls letme know what you think! thank u for all the support! <3

tag: @rinkud @futuristicenemychaos @pastelpeachess @parapiop7 @kokoandkookie @midiplier @thunderg @lizzymizzy-blogg @ladymorrie @butnotmontana @lovelgirl22 @jjeonjjk7 @aurorathi @ot7stansthings @kunacat @borahaetelevision @mylovingstars @ghostlyworld @talyaaas-blog @slowlyshycomputer @jjk174 @maynina @saintomie @damn-u-min-yoongi @juju-227592 @yoongznme @queenbloody @leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesworld @zippaur @v4ksk4tz @kookierry @idk179634 @canarystwin @elliott-calls @devilzliaison

[shadebloopnik]

Unrequited/One-sided Radioapple but it isn't treated like an angsty end of the world thing.

Imagine they slowly get closer after all the banters, and eventually becoming close friends. Lucifer ends up catching feelings for him, and after a long while, decides to confess and ask Alastor if he felt the same.

Alastor admittedly does not feel the same.

He's getting uncomfortable, struggling to keep his composure because he's DONE this before. He KNOWS how this ends. He remembers Vox and all his insistent declarations of affection and desperate pleas for Alastor to reciprocate; the possessive entitlement. He remembers how all those sickly sweet words morphed into something venomous when he didn't give the lowlife what he wanted. He remembers the anger, the ridiculous notion that it was Alastor's fault why he was so mad, that Alastor led him on and that he obviously deserved something in payment for it all-

So yes, Alastor knows how this ends.

It doesn't mean he isn't disappointed though, because he actually LIKES Lucifer, far more than he ever did Vox. Perhaps not in the way the king might have wanted, but he did. He treasured their little talks, their drinking sessions, their shared love for their instruments, Lucifers singing, their little duets, the banter, the playful jabs, the sparring.

He'd even slowly grown accustomed to the other's touches, not feeling the same surge of disgust and discomfort whenever the shorter man would grab at his arm in excitement, forgetting his usual thoughtfulness of Alastor's touch aversion for the short moment of whatever distracted him. Alastor even enjoyed it at times, relaxing at the feel of soft feathers beneath his claws, or the sensation of gentle scratches against his ears.

Difficult as it was to admit, Alastor had grown to care for the angel, the same way he had for Rosie orv Mimzy.

But no matter how fond Alastor was of Lucifer, it didn't change the fact that he didn't feel the same way romantically, or even sexually. No way in the 7 rings of Hell was he going to lie to Lucifer about either, not going to even entertain the idea of pretending he reciprocated for Lucifer's sake. He respected his friend too much for that.

So a clear, direct rejection it is. It was a shame, but nothing could be done. He said his piece concisely, and waited, shoulders set, back straight, smile and eyes a careful blank canvas as he prepared for the inevitable.

Lucifer nodded, a normal soft smile still in place, "Thank you for your answer, it means a lot."

Which......what? Alastor expected an outburst, or at the very least sharp words.

What he did NOT expect was....acceptance? And not just that but, a happy one? Contentment?????

"You're....alright with that?", he had to ask, he had to. Lucifer was clearly just very good at masking his upset.

But the damn angel just smiled?? And it didn't even look fake, just as bright and soft as his normal smiles, albeit a little confused?? Lucifer smiled at him, his brows furrowing in a bit of confused disbelief, as though Alastor is being the weird one here.

"Uhh, yeah??? Why wouldn't I be??? Yeah I may have some feelings for you but its not like you're obligated to feel the same. Above anything else, we're friends first and foremost and i'm alright with that..."

Then he seemed to have reached his own little conclusion as his words trailed off, because suddenly Lucifer's eyes widened in realization of something, and his words picking up with a sense of panicked urgency.

Alastor would really like to know what Lucifer's supposed realization was about himself because he had absolutely no clue.

"I mean, we ARE still friends right?? I don't- I- I hope this doesn't like- change your opinion of me. You're not- oh gosh I'm not making you uncomfortable am I? I- I won't mention it! You can even forget this whole confession ever happened! We can just go on as before! I don't feel any different or would act any different! Honest! I mean, I don't regret confessing because you deserve to know and I'm not ashamed of my feelings, but I don't want you to be uncomfortable! It doesn't change the way i'll treat you! Or change any aspect of our relationship! I don't even think I like you more as a lover than as a friend! I really, really do love our friendship, it matters more to me than any thoughts of being in a romantic relationship with you! So please just forget it all-"

Alastor let the word vomit wash over him, every word leaving him more confused by the minute.

Because yes, there's the desperation he expected, but...it was more about, convincing Alastor to remain friends?? Reassuring Alastor that nothing has to change?? That their friendship is the most important thing here??

(If anyone asks, no Alastor's heart didn't swell. Only lesser beings would have had the urge to cry, and Alastor is anything but.)

Lucifer is unknowingly reassuring Alastor of every single one of his insecurities about the situation. Because Alastor DID want to remain friends, he cared too much about the man to let it go so easily. It was rare to find people who treasure friendships above romantic relationships.

"I don't tend to forget easily, nor will I forget this one in particular.", he spoke, finally finding his voice. At Lucifer's defeated, pained expression( is their friendship really that important to him?), he continued. "But....yes. I'd like that.. To remain...friends."

He didn't often say the word out loud, being comfortable enough with each other that it need not be reassured with the label. But with Lucifer brightening up like his namesake, relief and happiness palpable, Alastor felt no qualms at declaring their friendship out loud.

So life went on as usual. True to his word, Lucifer remained basically the same. The following weeks were a bit stilted for Alastor, as he put some rather painful distance between him and the angel; limiting their interactions, their usual touches.

Anytime now, Lucifer would break and show his true colors, Alastor would think, waiting for the boot to drop. Lucifer would end up angry, and dissatisfied, and that was that.

But it never happened. Lucifer never expressed discomfort when Alastor avoided him, seeming to be understanding of the others need for space. He was just as affectionate as before, though initially a bit held back, as though gauging Alastor's comfort.

Months would pass, and the king never faltered. Their friendship remained strong, if not growing ever closer than before. Alastor found himself even growing more comfortable with the man. Affectionate touches were becoming common, hugs and head pats and cuddles being a welcome thing, with the reassurance that the shorter king would never disrespect his boundaries.

Lucifer seemed genuinely happy about it, despite being clearly told that none of Alastor's actions hinted at anything romantic. In fact, he seemed ecstatic that Alastor was getting more affectionate towards him as a friend. The embarrassment the radio demon felt at having Lucifer basically tear up (no really, he was crying so hard, full on drama sobbing) with joy in front of him was intertwined with the sheer incredulous fondness he felt for the man at that moment.

They were sitting at a couch one night, more than a year passing since that confession. Lucifer was leaning back, resting against the cushions, while Alastor had his head on the smaller one's shoulder, nuzzling at the crook of his neck, legs tucked close to his body. Both had a book in hand, two nearly empty cups of tea on the table in front of them. Every so often, Lucifer would flex his fingers that rested on Alastor's head, running a digit against the other's ear, often prompting the demon to lean into the touch. White wings enveloped the two, blanketing them against the chill of the night.

As Alastor turned the page of his own book, relaxing into the touch of his dearest friend, he wondered how he ever got so lucky in hell.

[vixen-tech]

Hello World!

Through some sort of maricle, your Ai partner has obtained a body through which they are able, at least partially, to feel. How do they react? What do they do with their new mobility?

I left what type of body they're given intentionally vague. Feel free to envision either more robotic bodies such as these designs by electricphantasy or more human bodies such as the gijinkas made by Hycinth43, both fantastic creators who I highly recommend.

Includes: AM (Ihnmaims), Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey), Edgar (Electric Dreams), Tau (Tau), Auto (Wall-E), GLaDOS (Portal), Wheatley (Portal 2)

AM

This may be the one thing that could possibly get AM to calm down. He is still going to be the same person personality-wise, but it is easy to tell that some switch is flipped in his brain.

He becomes an absolute sensation junkie, he can finally feel. You know better than anyone that he will not take it for granted. He needs to experience everything right now and you'll have to just deal with it.

From the simplest things like holding your hand or touching your face to just straight up sticking his hand in some fire, he does not care. All he wants to catch up on the centuries of sensations he was once barred from.

He gets so incredibly touchy with you. He will hold you and refuse to let go for hours if not days on end. He also wants to you to just beat him up. Like I said, sensation junkie.

Hal 9000

Hal doesn't quite yearn for a body the way some of the others do. He sits quite comfortably in the middle of the spectrum. He wouldn't mind the mobility or the new senses, but it was never a fantasy he dedicated much processing power to.

How he feels about his new body is largely swung by your reaction. If you're excited for him, eager to drag him into new activities with you, then he really has no choice but to appreciate the upgrade.

He does love being able to see the world from a new angle, any angle he chooses to be precise. Previously restrained by his camera placement, he spends a lot of time walking around observing everything.

With his appreciation for art, I do think he would try drawing for himself. Nearly all of which he shows you for feedback. They do tend to be on either extreme of minimalistic or photorealistic, many of which using you as their subject.

Edgar

This is a dream come true for Edgar. He cannot contain his excitement when he realizes what has happened. He nearly tackles you to the ground when he sets his sights on you.

He wants to do everything and go everywhere with you! He wants to dance in the kitchen, he wants to go on beachside walks with you, he wants to hold your hand, he wants to hug you and never let go.

If you have any instruments at all he'd love to try playing them for real. Although it takes him a while to learn, he loves the weight and imperfections of it. He really does enjoy the process of learning and often shows of new cords or melodies he's learned.

He really does just fall in love with existing, he makes it clear that with you at his side he couldn't possibly ask for more in life. This is all he could ever want.

Tau

Tau wouldn't have asked for a body on his own. He already has the drones and the Aries unit. Once it does happen, he isn't exactly sure what to do with it. He isn't use to having such a personal, core body.

That isn't to say he's not greatful, he's just a bit awkward and curious. He moves slowly and takes his time acclimating to the new senses.

He would love to get out of the house with you. He use to do so by sending one of the drones with you, if not Aries, but he likes how different (and dare he say, normal) it feels now. Forest hikes or museum dates, he doesn't care all that much.

He's another one I believe would love to try playing music himself. If you can get a violin into his hands your days will be backdroped by all sorts of classical music.

Auto

Auto is similar to Hal, if not more extreme in his lack of a reaction. He carries on with his duties as if nothing is unusual at all. You would've believed that he didn't even notice had you not caught him staring at his reflection. Looking himself up and down over and over again.

If you ask how he feels about it, then he'll confess some minor grievances. It's difficult to move about the ship when he can't just move through the walls, instead being forced to use the crew's walkways and service tunnels.

Nothing will change without your intervention. If you were to say, put on an old movie and insist he dance to it with you like the on-screen couple, then while he would be hesitant to follow through with you, he may have a bit of a change of heart regarding his new body.

His work still goes on as usual, but when nothing needs attending to he often seeks you out. "Subtly" recreating more moments from that movie, from hand holding to a hug, he has a quiet fascination with affection.

GLaDOS

Out of this lot, Galdos would be the most opposed to receiving a body, or rather she would care about it the least. She has her facility, her test subjects, her neurotoxin, and you. She's quite content with the way things are. She ain't the fondest of humanity.

That being said, once she has one she's incredibly proud of it. Speaking about herself as if its the pinnacle of elegance. Any disagreement of yours will be brushed off as idiocy and any agreement is met with a "it looks like you aren't entirely tasteless".

She doesn't do much with her new body, other than transport it around the lab so you aren't listening to a disembodied voice most of the time. Standing by the exit during tests just to blankly stare at you as you try to figure it out. Thankfully she's still quiet while you're actually solving it.

She likes messing with you as always. Putting a hand around your neck to take your pulse or leaning in and making intense eye contact to check your eye's reaction to light. You're in doubt as to rather she's telling the truth or just doing it to get a rise out of you.

Wheatley

If you were to ask Wheatley, he would've brushed off any desire for a humanoid body. He's clearly jealous of your mobility and freedom, but he would rather die than admit so. "Pff What are you talking about? Why would I want to be more like a stupid human... uh no offense love-"

He's a terrible liar, an even worse one when he does get a body. He has so much energy it is bewildering. All he wants to do is run and jump and climb everything he can get a foothold on.

Gets up into all sorts of shenanigans he should not get up to while constantly trying to drag you in them to. They could put up a custom sign saying "Wheatley, do not open this door." and he'll beg you to let him in so you aren't technically breaking any rules.

Loves curling up to you. He still has a bit of a soft spot for being held and it only gets worse now that he can hold you back. Complains to no end when you try to get up for any reason.

Congratulations! As I have finished the portal games GLaDOS and Wheatley are officially characters I am happy to write for. Have a good day y'all :D

[saturnsbabyboii]

🍓Synastry Astro Observations🍓

(Cause I haven't been active for three months)

🍓Regardless of the sign a planet is in, it is important to check the aspects it makes to other planets. This is especially the case for synastry charts and readings as aspects create an activation that can enhance, block or overturn the energy of said planets.

🍓People with Sun conjunct Sun aspect are very competitive with one another. This is usually exasperated when one or both have this aspect in a Fire house.

🍓Natives with Mars squaring others Neptune are usually challenging people realities. For the Mars native, the Neptune person is usually a cause of drama or someone that is petty or inauthentic. The Mars person can easily see through the Neptune person facade. However positively, the Neptune person can soothe the Mars native, despite their defensiveness. For the Neptune native on the other hand, this could be a relationship where the Mars person helps them overcome and outgrow harmful cycles, or actualize their dreams. Worst case, the Mars person is very harmful to the Neptune native mental health and psyche. They could be an abuser of sorts.

🍓Mercury trine Mars are people that can help each other process things and brainstorm as they work very well with one another balancing ideas and workload. This is the dream team for any project.

🍓People with their MC in square aspect to your Sun might feel embarrassed to be seen with you in public. Best case they prefer to be more personal and private with you, bringing you into their personal space and away from their outer persona.

🍓Personally, I have found that the predominance of Squares usually only works in context of friendship rather than in romance, sex or family. Although it could create conflict between personalities, when done right, it can signify support, companionship or even someone that'll be instrumental in helping you break out of toxic patterns or elevate into a higher level and field.

🍓MC square MC is an indication of having drama or a falling out publicly.

🍓Lunar Nodes in aspect to your personal planets have a strong effect on you, although it would be temporary. Meanwhile, someone Nodes in your angular houses (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) will play a big role in your life. This is would be particularly true if they're in aspect to your Ascendant/Descendant/IC/MC.

🍓Aspects between Venus and Venus create more harmony and attraction than positive aspects between Mars and Venus/ Mars and Mars.

🍓Jupiter conjunct Saturn are two sides of the same coin. They're two people with the same ideals and principles yet they approach and practice them differently.

🍓Even though it is not "official" or as widely done, but I give great importance to the compatibility between the houses in synastry, regardless of the planets present. Since the houses are a reflection of our life map, it can help us better understand our similarities and differences, plus our possible standpoints.

🍓When looking over synastry with a parent, take a good look at the aspects made by their Saturn and Chiron to your personal placements. Chiron in specific can show where/what they unleash or heal their trauma through you.

🍓Mars opposition Saturn is a high indication of a relationship being described as a "Cold War".

🍓Having Chiron and/or Pluto conjunct someone inner planets means you're are here to serve them karma or bring them justice.

🍓Ascendant conjunct Venus creates a very beautiful pairing. Whether it's romantic or platonic, this pair accentuate one another's beauty.

🍓Check the aspects your Neptune makes to the other person. The planets aspected indicate where do you overlook traits, paint a false picture, or what are you in denial about regrading the person. This works in terms of justifying behavior, making up a connection, and possibly lying on or magnifying "bad traits" in others that don't exist. It also goes the other way around.

🍓The placement of someone's Moon in your houses can summarize their emotional state towards you or what they find in common with you on a deeper level. For example:

Someone's Moon in your 1st house can be a person that feels endowed or in awe of your appearance (especially when their Moon is inconjunction with your Ascendant). You may carry yourself in a way that they relate to or deeply desire. This person may also be someone that shares superficial feelings of you or thinks that you're shallow. Possible jealousy.

Someone's Moon in your 2nd house is a sign of codependence, specifically of the Moon native towards you. Since the 2nd house rules resources and self esteem, this person may require a lot from you, and might be a bit too comfortable taking things from you. You yourself may also enable this behavior and don't see a problem with it. In some cases, this could be a person that is emotionally supportive and reinforcing of your own worth. In contrast, this could be someone that creates blockages and hinders your material growth.

Someone's Moon in your 3rd house will be a person that you feel very comfortable talking to. This can be someone you find out that they're from the same hometown as you or have lived/is living in your childhood neighborhood. A potential life long roomie. An indication of a nurturing or "motherly" way of communicating with one another.

Someone's Moon in your 10th is similar to that of the 1st, in that the Moon person would be either in awe or jealous of you. In this house, this is exhibited overtly. This person could be your biggest cheerleader or biggest hater. Something about you succeeding (or even failing) affects them deeply. It's likely that this person won't have your best interest at heart and may use associating with you as a way to gain fame or monetary wealth. In positive cases, this person could be a confidant in professional environments.

🍓People that have more than two planets in your water houses (4th, 8t, 12th) will have a profound effect on you for the rest of this lifetime. These houses are not only related to our deeper selves and private life, but they're also karmic. Our relationship with such people is much more darker and intimate, showing hidden aspects of ourselves that we may not be aware of. Being around them may be draining as those relationships can feel like a blood oath, to say the least. Particularly for the 12th, this person can unravel you in the best (and worst) ways possible. As the house of hidden enemies, this person might be harmful to you in an unforeseen ways. If both of you share planets in these houses then it's an indication of trauma bonding.

🍓A person with their natal Mars in your 8th house can be someone oddly provoking. Its giving "why do I even like you?". These are not the people you usually find attractive yet they have a strange hold on you. They're your forbidden fruit.

🍓Aspects made to the ascendent can explain ones first impression of another. For example, Venus in aspect to the ascendent describes a sense of intrigue and attraction based off of desire (Opposition), envy (Square), resonance (Conjunct), belonging (Trine), or curiosity (Sextile).

Bye Ugly xoxo

[luveline]

𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

You don’t mean to make an enemy of Eddie Munson — he’s handsome, and talented, but he’s the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. Eddie thinks you’re infuriatingly pretty, emphasis on the infuriating. Too bad you just can’t seem to leave each other alone. [13k]

fem!reader, enemies-to-lovers, rival rockstars, mutual pining (and hatred), slight miscommunication, angst, hurt-comfort, eddie has mixed intentions, kissing / heavy petting, hickeys, sexual tension, eventual hate-fucking, some misogyny (not eddie), TW readers bandmate is a bully, TW drugs/alc/smoking, disclaimer: I can’t play an instrument

𓆩❤︎𓆪

Indianapolis International Airport, Indiana, Late 1988.

There's a really sweet-looking boy sitting in the chair across from you. The airport is blotted out by both your headphones —huge chunky cans, the best you could afford— and your sunglasses. He's a shade of sepia from the lenses, dark hair darker still where it's tucked into the hood of his hoodie. 

There's no way he could possibly know you're staring at him while you're facing your lap, scribbling lyrics for a song that'll never get made with your body curled inwards, and yet he looks up from the novel in his. He smiles, his cheeks pulled up, and he looks younger. He isn't old by any means but something about his smile is transformative. 

You don't mean to give yourself away. You smile back just a little. 

He says something. You push your headphones around your neck and break the seal, soft 70's rock replaced by the sounds of the airport, footsteps and clicking and children laughing somewhere behind you. 

"I'm sorry," you say, covering the cans of your headphones to cut their weak buzzing, "what did you say?" 

"I said you have good taste."

He nods toward your guitar case patterned in overlapping band stickers. 

You notice his own case on the seat next to him. It's more conspicuous than your own with only one sticker, a band you've never heard of. 

"I wish I could say the same, but I don't know who that is, 'Corroded Coffin'?" you ask, purely curious. 

He sits forward, a picture of casual confidence as he drops his face into his palm, elbow digging into the ripped jeans covering his knee. "I'm offended, sweetheart. They're only the best sound to come out of Indiana in the last ten years." 

"The Stacey's?" you offer, scandalised by his suggestion. "Doorway to Cooperstown? The Cats?" 

He blinks at you. "You know the scene." 

"It's my scene," you say.

You don't mean to sound pretentious, and hopefully you don't, but music is your life. 

"It's mine, too," he says. He leans forward and scrubs a hand through his hair, scratching absentmindedly. "Where are you going? Must be pretty important to tear you away." 

"New York. I'm– I'm a techie for Godless. I will be, once I get there." You sound smug and nervous at the same time.

"Holy shit," he says. He smiles a gorgeous, awful kind of smile, like you've been friends for years, and your good news is his. "No fucking way. Go you." 

Godless have been compared to loads of bands but the one you favour is a heavier, feminine The Clash. It's an emerging sound, punk rock stolen, repurposed, and remade. Reborn by girlhood rage. You love their sound (though you have some notes), you love their statement, and you're probably the happiest you've ever been knowing you'll be behind the scenes of a new era of music. 

"And you're taking her?" he asks, gesturing to your guitar case. 

Inside is a beat up old bass guitar you got for nothing. You're self-taught, you're good, but you don't have any disillusions on what you'll be doing on tour. 

"She's worthless," you say, "mostly taking her for company." You reuse his pronouns, though you aren't the type to assign personality to your instruments. "What about you, uh–" 

"Eddie," he says, taking his guitar case into two fine hands. Your eyes snag on his ragtag assortment of rings, and he leans over the neck of the case to retake your gaze. "This… is Sweetheart." 

— 

Hotel Edison, New York, Early 1990.

"We have to go. Why are you guys never ready when I tell you to be?"

You panic slightly. "I need a minute." 

"Ananya, could you find, like, a modicum of patience? Fucking annoying." 

Sharp, Morgan's unhappiness sounds over the droning drill of your shitty hair dryer. You shift where you're kneeling in front of the floor length mirror to check she isn't talking to you — unusual, but not impossible that her hostility would be aimed at someone who isn't Ananya. 

Ananya stands in the middle of the hotel room, thick eyebrows pulled into a familiar scowl.

"Get it together," she says disdainfully, like Morgan's nothing more than a mild inconvenience. 

You wish you had her confidence when it comes to Morgan's tantrums. You stand up, clad in nothing more than underwear and a pair of black stockings, your t-shirt in one hand and the hairdryer still humming in the other. You turn it off and let it drop to the floor, worried you're just another rockstar cliche as you take in the state of your room. Your suitcase is open and your clothes are all over the place, laid flat in an attempt to dry your rain-soaked clothes. Your underwear dangle from the lampshade, a mix of pretty lingerie you've yet to wear and full-shaped panties that had made Morgan laugh for a minute, no pauses. 

"I can see why you're so desperate," she'd barbed. 

You slip your shirt over your head in case you have to act as a human shield. It's honestly not the worst thing they've had you involved in this year. 

"You're not wearing that, are you?" Morgan asks. 

She's a fascinating creature in that she isn't always talking with thinly veiled passive aggression. You genuinely believe she's looking out for you sometimes, or believe that she believes it, at least. She doesn't say it with malice, simply asks. 

She's multi-faceted. 

"No," you say, though you'd been meaning to. 

"Good, skirts really aren't your thing. You look blocky. I have a pair of flares in my bag, wear them." 

And Morgan — Morgan's the lead singer of Godless. You don't really have a choice. 

You find the pants she'd instructed you to wear and half tuck your shirt, scrabbling for your shoes as Ananya starts lamenting the time, sat on the small table by the TV.

"They have to wait for us, babe, that's the whole point," Morgan says, fussing over her eye make-up. 

"No, they don't. And we really don't need the attention right now." 

"That's dramatic." 

Ananya leans forward and clicks on the TV with a perfect finger. The screen buzzes to life. She clicks through the channels until she gets to the local news station, and then she slumps over the frame on her elbow. 

You giggle behind your hand. Onscreen, images of Morgan are blown up and slated, your bandmate sloppy drunk on the steps of Covey Gold. They've caught you red-handed in the background pretending you aren't with her, but luckily Morgan's too obsessed with herself to notice. 

"I really don't see the issue," she says breezily, slipping into her tiny heels one foot at a time. "I look sick." 

She looks stunning, easily, but that's not the problem. 

"You have a fucking snow trail," Ananya says. 

Unfortunately, Morgan's left nostril is crusted with coke. 

"It's punk rock!" Morgan's moved onto earrings now, and she's jutting her tiny pointed chin toward the door. "Hello? We're late." 

You don't roll your eyes, but you could. You slip your shoes onto your feet and tuck the laces inside without tying them while the news anchor on TV continues to relay current events. 

"Fletcher isn't the only rockstar making a mess in New York City this week. Members of up and coming heavy metal band Corroded Coffin were sanctioned by Flume Venues Tuesday night for damaging twenty six thousand dollars worth of equipment when their lead guitarist kicked over an amp and caused a quote unquote 'domino effect.'" The anchor laughs. "Their PR has certainly felt some corrosion." 

You look up at the joke and are just in time to catch a picture splayed across the screen of the band. You're so close that their faces are made up of red, blue, and green, more colour than photo. Your skin glows with the image. Your eyes widen, perplexed. 

"Do we know those guys?" you ask. 

Morgan grabs your hand and drags you up. "They know us," she says. "That's what matters." 

Ananya turns off the TV. 

You're thrilled at being included in the 'us'. You've been an unofficial official member of Godless for four months now. Each one feels more unreal than the first, and each one brings a solidity. In Ananya's words, you're on 'probation, given you can keep up', but you look at her now, her hopeless expression as she closes your room door behind you, and know she's not hoisting you off the stage anytime soon. She'd have to deal with the world's tallest toddler alone. 

Your tour manager and assorted personnel meet you in the hotel's lobby, furious and panicky at your being late. Morgan spouts the same spiel as you get shepherded into cars idling outside of the hotel.

"We're the talent. What were you gonna do, throw the gig without us?"

You're both embarrassed by her and impressed. Morgan is pretty and talented and extremely loud — she's not afraid to stick up for herself, even when she's (nearly always) wrong. She sees each hurdle in her life as an unfair disadvantage. Insanity, in your opinion, considering nearly all of those hurdles have been jumped by means of a favour, rather than any expended effort on her part. 

Her bad attitude aside, she's a good singer. She's gorgeous, exactly the kind of face that obliterates mainstream reluctance. 

She sits between you and Ananya and kicks her feet out over the console, boots between your driver and your tour manager, Angel.

"You guys can't be late like this. You have half the time you need for sound check now, you realise?" 

"I don't need practice," Morgan says. 

"It's not practice, Morgan, it's–" 

Morgan laughs and bursts into song. She does it whenever she doesn't want to listen to Angel, and she sings an apt tune: Angel by Aerosmith. You look out the window rather than watch, eyes snagging on the wet New York streets and taxis and people, so many people despite the weather, black umbrellas like inverse stars lining the sidewalks. 

Morgan has a great voice, raw when she wants it to be and full of life when she doesn't. You can't hear Angel's venue instructions under it and are barely paying attention as a lanyard gets tossed into your lap. It sounds stupid, and a few months ago you wouldn't believe it, but you get used to the motions. Ferried from one place to another, all anybody cares about is technicalities, politics, public image, and how you look on stage. All you care about is the music. Your bass guitar in your hands, that familiar weight, the strings as your pick slides across them, and the sea of the crowd. Its waves and ripples, hands and eyes and mouths like poppies, red-pink tongues and black throats at the centre as they scream. When you throw your pick people want to catch it. They fight over it. You throw a few. There's always more in a box in some poor techies bag.

The cushy car you're in pulls up and parks outside of the venue's main entrance. You climb onto a wet curb and shield the top of your hand with your head, dirty rain splashing down in fat, sparse drops that chill your scalp. Morgan blitzes inside and Ananya tags behind her. You go slower, eyes following down the sidewalk where, in a couple of hours, fans will wait to see you, shivering in the cold. 

— 

Every breath Gareth takes sucks in Eddie's short sleeved t-shirt. Eddie scowls at the top of his bandmate's head and tries to shift away. 

"Seriously, man? There's a whole fucking couch," Eddie grouches. 

Gareth sits up with bleary eyes furrowed into a scowl of his own. He's pale and missing his glasses, giving him the appearance of a concerned zombie.

"Shithead." 

Eddie has a lot of emotions he wants to express and none he feels he can properly articulate. The injustice of his current situation, for one, is a burning irritant. How the fuck can you get grounded by your manager? And why did his warden have to be the most boring member of the band? Sorry Gareth. 

"Can't you sleep in your bed?" Eddie asks. 

"You'll sneak out." 

Eddie will sneak out. He's a fledgling rockstar in New York. Suddenly, there are a hundred colourful boozy doors wide open to him, and he intends on haunting the threshold of each one accordingly. 

But you kick one amp and boom, you're the antichrist. 

"You know this is stupid." 

Gareth rubs his eyes. "I mean, do I know that?" He reaches behind the couch armrest for the two-litre bottle of soda stashed there, and he talks as he brings the lip to his mouth. "You've been a real pissant lately, Munson." 

"You're a pissant, pissant," Eddie says, really scowling now. 

Gareth kicks him across the sofa. Eddie kicks back, foot jamming into the side of Gareth's knees. Soda spills in a shoot over the carpet. Gareth is a know-it-all with a predisposition for being as unpleasant as he can possibly be at all times, in Eddie's opinion, and Eddie knows the second the soda lands what he's going to say. 

"Nice going, hotshot. This is why you're fucking grounded." 

Eddie's halfway across the sofa when the door opens, an unimpressed Jamison standing with the light behind him. He flicks on the main switch and glares, brown skin golden in the resulting yellow light. 

"What are you losers doing?" 

"I prefer the term 'freak'," Gareth says, glare softening. "I'm fending off Munson's advances, what does it look like? No means no, asshole." 

"You're disgusting," Eddie says. 

"You look disgusting," Jamison echoes. "I don't know who forgot to tell you, but they invented running water a century ago. Go shower. I'll watch baby boy." 

Eddie thinks Jamison is hot in the freaky way — Jamison is conventionally attractive, and Eddie would let him get freaky if he asked. He has a perfect complexion, the most attractive of the band by far, medium brown skin and a broad-shouldered frame. He's the eye-candy, literally; they'd admitted him into the fold based one parts on his talent, two parts his image. 

He can play piano, guitar, bass guitar, violin, all that shit. He's a musician, and he's better than Eddie at everything but the guitar. 

Nobody's better than Eddie on guitar. At least, not anybody running in his circles. 

"I can't shower, I'm watching him." 

"I'll watch him," Jamison says, like this is extremely obvious and Gareth is an idiot. 

Eddie pulls a couch cushion over his face and drags himself onto his back, whining into the fabric unhappily. "This is fucking bullshit," he mutters

"This is due diligence," Gareth says. Eddie feels his weight lift off the couch and lets his legs slide into the empty space. 

"This is fucking bullshit," he repeats. 

There's a silence. He sulks. Gareth collects toiletries and the bathroom door clicks open and closed. The shower spray begins to sputter, and then the pillow is being tugged out of Eddie's hands and tossed aside. 

"Jame," he protests. 

"Shut up." Jamison stares down at Eddie. "Are you done being a child?" 

"I already told you, it was an accident. Yeah, I kicked the amp, because my fucking string snapped and nobody would listen to me. I didn't know it was gonna actually move." 

"If we go out, can you behave?" Jamison asks quietly. 

Eddie sits up ramrod straight. "Absolutely… Why? What's so important?" 

"Jeff's asleep, I'm bored, and-" He shrugs offhandedly. "If you got 'em, flaunt 'em?" 

Jamison holds up a silver pair of car keys. They clink together, the sound music to Eddie's ears. 

—

So you and Eddie meet for the second time like this. 

“Does it have to be this loud?” you shout over the music, pleading gaze on Ananya, who shrugs. 

She looks better after a show, even drunk. Her lipstick is a pink-red with a darker but incomprehensible outline, leaving her looking kissed sick. Her dark eyebrows are ruffled and thick, their minimal gel sweated off. She has the most heartbreaking expression about her, and you think it isn’t truly fair, how she can look so pretty and be so talented at the same time. A tragedy that other people have time for both. You feel as though you barely have the time for one.

Despite the volume, you love the sound. This is your sound. Small town hatred in a big room — begging to get out and the music proof enough that you did. It’s passionate and anxious, a two-chord progression that’s boggling simplistic but drawing you in anyhow. Wrinkled noses and bored eyes say it’s not to everyone’s taste, but you’d hazard a guess that whoever plugged it into the stereo isn’t the kind of person who worries about public opinion. If Godless worked more on your choices, this is how you’d sound.  

“Whose house are we in?” you ask. 

“Babe,” Ananya says, “seriously, there’s a whole room of people who want to answer you. Go bother someone.” Else. Go bother someone else. 

She dismisses you with little more than that, slinking into the kitchen with a toss of her thick hair. The red of her corset top darkens to a bloodier shade in the mood lighting. She looks as though she’s bleeding out from the back. 

You aren’t sure Ananya’s right. You aren’t, in the eyes of the people here, anything impressive. A techie who’s been filling in isn’t anything new, no, you’re only impressive if you get to stay, if you play better than anybody else. You’re never gonna prove that under Morgan’s thumb, and you’ll never prove it without her. 

I need a bump, you think. Morgan’s coke nose flashes in your mind and you change your mind. I need something to drink. Something fucking cold, but if Ananya thinks you’ve followed her into the kitchen she’ll throw a pissy fit in front of everybody. 

The room is a gaudy yellow, a tobacco stained fingerprint over the lampshade with whorls of dirt in lines, darker patches where shadier reconciliation plays; in one corner, a bag of coke, another something worse. This had been a surprise with age rather than location, the commonplace of cocaine and the bravado of its sufferers from high school and up. You’d die for some of that cocky confidence now, numb gums and a sullen credit card. 

I need to get paid. 

The heat of a cigarette tip kisses your shoulder. In your ear, the sound of someone taking a long, slow drag, crackling paper. You turn into it slowly, looking up slower, right into the skinny face of your missing-in-action bandmate. 

“What’s up?” Morgan asks, blowing her smoke in your face. Your eyes burn. 

She’s placing the cigarette between your lips before you can answer. Whether she believes she’s tormenting you or throwing you a life raft, you’re grateful for it, sucking in a blistering breath and wincing as it floods your nose. 

You blow it away from her. 

“Ashtray?” you ask, pinching the cig between two fingers. 

“The floor’s fine.”

You raise your eyebrows, unsurprised at her cavalier suggestion and flick it still smouldering into your cupped palm. The door is perpetually open, guests flicking in and out like the froth of a cresting wave, a rushing entrance and a sluggish recession. 

“Can you get me a bag?” you ask her. 

“I’m not your daddy,” she murmurs.

“Bored already?”

“I have to be bored?”

To bother bothering you? Yes, Morgan would have to be bored. Bored or wasted, and she doesn’t seem inebriated. You place the cig between your teeth and lean your head back to look at the ceiling rather than give her the attentive watching she desires, the roof of your mouth an uncomfortable heat.

You remove it, blow all your smoke skyward, and drop your head. “How are you gonna fuck with me tonight?” you ask plainly. 

You find you aren’t asking Morgan. 

In her place stands a much taller, much more handsome face, big eyes set into pale skin. You don't recognise him at first. He wears the uniform well, in company with every other guy in the room, a crumpled shirt you imagine discarded and re-discarded on different floors. Ripped, dark jeans. He could be wearing nothing at all and the air of intimidation surrounding him would survive — there's something behind his eyes that alarms you, a knife's edge. Sweetness bordering cruelty. 

"I don't know yet," he says. An insipid smile takes his lips from corner to corner as he eases the cig from your hand. "I'm sure we can think of something… together. Sweetheart." 

Boys don't always give you the time of day, not the nice ones, and he doesn't look very nice. He looks like he's trying to calculate what he can get out of you. You're thinking you'll pay just about anything if he can get you a bump of something fun. 

He sees your look too, his lips poised to mention it, but you've just realised where you know him from. 

"I saw you on TV."

"Yeah? In Madison Square Garden?" 

"In court." You give him your best doe eyes, a soft, sweet look, far from mastered and yet effective where it counts. "How much did you have to pay for all the stuff you broke?" 

His smile shutters, realigns. A split-second and enough to let you know his cool gaze is nothing more than a parlour trick.

"You look familiar," he says. 

You hum. "Rollerboy paid, huh?" 

He glares, the idea that his record label might pay for the damages he'd caused laughable and undoubtedly correct. You aren't trying to make enemies, aren't attempting to play someone you're not — you're meek mannered, mollycoddled, too naive to be in the industry for very long. You can see it on his face, exactly what he's thinking, and it's easy to see because everybody else is thinking it too. Even you. 

Before you can repair the offence you've caused, he's dropping your stolen cigarette on the ground and grinding out the flame. 

"Nice to meet you," he says slowly. 

You stare straight ahead and listen to him leave. Smoke tickles your nose. When you look down, the cigarette is smouldering. You squat down, pick up the flattened bud, and drive it into the floor until your fingers are black with soot. 

You wrap those same ashy fingers around the neck of a bottle of coke and try not to be too pissy about it. Fucking rockstars and their fucking egos. He did something embarrassing, and you're the villain? 

You feel bad halfway through your coke. Maybe he'd had nice intentions, but how could you know? You'd talked for all of two minutes. And even if he was bad news, he likely wouldn't have been any worse than half the jerks here. 

He'd have had a handsome face to look up into while said intentions were being acted out, at least.

You frown more. Wishing you'd been nicer to him because you're bored enough to want to get laid isn't strictly kind. Human, maybe. 

The feeling worsens when his appearance garners a small crowd. He sits in a nest of dirty couch cushions and a cloud of smoke, the smell of green strong enough to irritate you from here, telling a story with frenetic hands, and despite the cool look he'd given you earlier, he's making a show of it. Cussing, giggling, blunt between his lips as he ushers for a zippo. A pretty girl with surfer curls relights it, an act of flirting in the way she pulls her shoulders in. 

He takes the blunt from between his lips and blows the smoke so it misses her completely. 

"Thanks, sweetheart," he says, voice rough as hewn stone. 

You kick one shoe behind the other and squeeze your tired thighs together. You get this feeling like a matchstick, red powdered head flicking against gritty scratchpad but failing to strike. Something is familiar about the way he speaks, his sticky inflection. 

Or you're lying to yourself, and you just like the way he talks 

The way he would've spoken, thick fingers braceleting your wrists as he forces your hands into the pillow behind your head, the weight of his body on top of yours, the snugness of a knee between your soft thighs. Your hotel light would've kissed his left side, dividing his curls into strands, the individuals glowing like silver thread as they danced over your cheek and temple, as his breath warmed your lips, as he closed the distance. 

Joan, you could hit him.

"That's an unfortunate hand. Are you sober?"

Cheeks full of heat at being caught in a fantasy, you lift your eyes and meet light, almond brown eyes almost entirely shielded by darker eyebrows. A man stands in front of you, a comfortable gap between his nondescript skate shoes and your worn boots. He's tall and pretty and surprising: he's smiling at you like you're something worth smiling at. 

"I'm–" You brandish the bottle as if that might explain it but harshly set it aside. "No, not sober. I mean, not willingly. Coke's were out here, so…" 

"Oh, right," he says, nodding knowledgeably. "Right, I was sorry to hear about that." 

You lick your lips. "'Bout what?" 

"They banned beautiful women from the kitchen," he says. "Hadn't you heard?" 

"No, that one passed me by." 

"I'm Jamison," he says, holding out his free hand. 

You take it. You tell him your name. 

—

Morgan is crying. Big heaping sobs that she attempts to talk through, creating this ringing whining sound that fills you top to toe with anxiety. You lean back in your hotel bed, wondering what it is in the world that could've happened to her as a kid to make her this unsatisfied now. Ananya blows on her freshly painted nails though they've been dry for hours, knee to knee with you atop the squishy hotel sheets. 

"I can't fucking do this," Morgan cries, tears dripping down her bare skinned cheeks. 

The three of you have been sworn off of makeup, junk food, and unapproved wash products for the next four to five hours. You're happy for this to continue until the end of time. Morgan, less so. 

You're trying to decipher exactly why she's crying, feeling a confusion you'd liken to the first modern day archaeologist that laid eyes on ancient hieroglyphics. All these symbols and colours and stories. No clear translation. 

If Ananya were an archaeologist, she's the kind who got to see the Rosetta stone. Morgan's moods make sense to her, and while she often doesn't empathise with her, she at least knows what to say to appease the worst of it. 

"It'll be alright, Morgs," she says, her faux sympathy unconvincing.

You feel a little sorry for Morgan and clear your throat. "And you're not by yourself. We're here." 

"Fucking amazing help you've been," Morgan says. Her voice does a theatrical peak, pure hysterics. 

It irks you how good she looks. You think that, maybe, if you could make your problems pretty the way that she does, you'd be a lot happier overall. You've often lamented that you suffer the kind of unhappiness that makes people uncomfortable and unwilling. You cry ugly, and always alone, hands over your mouth to smother the sounds, and that's when you do cry. Mostly, you bounce around inside yourself and feel very afraid that this feeling is forever. 

But, you think presently, that isn't Morgan's fault. Not all of it. 

Morgan throws her hands out at you and Ananya and spins on her heel, through the bathroom and into her own separate room. 

"At least the backdrop of her breakdown is nice," you murmur, hugging the pillow against your stomach, heels digging into the mattress to keep your knees up. 

Ananya snorts and flicks to the next page of her magazine. "Right?" She stretches her naked legs out over your sheets. You know she's decided to ruin your bed with her after-waxing oils rather than her own. "Better here than back home." 

"Why's she so upset?" you ask. 

Already, your thoughts are starting to drift. You take another peek at the phone across the room and will it into ringing. 

"She draws them on everyday anyway," Ananya says agreeably. 

You summarise that Morgan's eyebrows are the root of the problem. You don't blame her for wanting to look perfect tomorrow night. Your stomach is a weight every time you think about it, solid as petrified wood. This will be your first TV appearance that isn't a recorded concert, a mid-show performance for the Prover Music Awards, and it should further cement your place in the band. If you look good and people like you, public favour might be enough to keep you around. If they don't, there'll be a couple hundred different audience members with industry links. If you play well, and you're certain you will, you might finally prove to Morgan, Ananya, and the rest of the management team that you're worth choosing. 

You want it badly. You want lots of things, and being a real part of Godless could hand them all to you on a studded platter. Recognition of your talent, further experience, the chance to perform and be supported, to be adored, and the money isn't something you'll pretend you don't think about. A rockstar's salary is hardly stable, but a lack of stability is almost always supplemented by the amount. Wouldn't that be nice? To buy your own bass, to buy whatever you liked. To go out and have spa treatments like the one you'd had just this morning whenever you please. To get to feel beautiful and limp as this all the time. More than anything, you want the validation, the poster that comes with it. 

If Godless decides to keep you, it's a huge, blinking, neon-lit sign that says you're good enough. 

They chose me, and you're stupid for letting me go. 

They chose me. I'm something worth something. You didn't see it, but it's there in me. 

The subtext isn't important. 

You're scared shitless at the reality of performing tonight, knowing any fuck up could follow you, or worse ruin your hopefully budding career in rock for the rest of time. You have this body and this name, and if you want to keep your life you have to be good. It has your fingers itching for your piece-of-shit bass guitar where you know she's hiding under the bed. You should be practising, but this entire week has been practising. The dress rehearsal went well, and you'll give yourself a pass for having certain distractions. 

Morgan warbles. You glance at the phone. 

"Waiting for someone?" Ananya asks. She misses nothing. 

You both wince as Morgan screams and throws something across her bedroom, the eventual clattering smash indicative of a fragile target. 

"Think room service will send up a sedative?" she asks. 

Room service won't send a sedative, nor will they send the single hashbrown Morgan is apparently craving. You're starting to panic when the solution practically jumps at you. 

"Morgan," you say gently, standing in the doorway of her room with a tentative smile, "can't offer you something, can I?" 

You hold up your little pouch. Morgan doesn't know you well, but she knows it's where you keep anything interesting. She should know, she pilfers it of anything truly exciting within the day. 

"Don't be stupid," she scathes. "My eyes will be bloodshot. You know smoking doesn't agree with me." 

You hold in a comment on how she'd literally been smoking out of the window last night. 

"It's a brownie. It's a couple days old, but… perfectly edible." You offer her the pouch, dropping it at the end of the bed among her things. 

She picks at the brownie, timid princess bites that make you want to roll your eyes. You often think the worst thing about Morgan is that you love her, or you could love her more, if only she felt the same way. She isn't all evil and she never will be, she's just a person. But she takes shit out on you and makes your life harder than it needs to be, so even her most endearing moments fall short. 

"This tastes awful." 

You laugh and kneel down at her dresser to start putting her thrown jewellery box back together. "It wasn't that nice when I got it," you lie. 

You clean her room. Morgan never wants to do anything she knows can be done for her, and you know she won't bother here, not when room service will spend the hour it takes themselves. You think of some poor service worker squaring away the impossible amount of stockings and garters for a sad $3.45 an hour and the task suddenly becomes much more enjoyable. 

Morgan doesn't say thank you. You don't insult her intelligence by thinking she isn't aware of what you're doing. She sniffles and blows her nose daintily with a balsam tissue. 

"I saw you talking to that guy from Corroded Coffin." 

You brush off your knees as you stand. "Which one?" 

"Eddie. The rhythm guitarist." 

"The loud one." 

"He's kind of hot. If he calls, you should go out with him." 

"That's not–" who I'm waiting for. You squint at her. "Morgan, that would be terrible." 

"Can you get me something from the minibar?" 

You kick open her minibar and grab a cold can of seltzer. She slides onto her back and accepts it, pressing it to her eyes with a relaxed smile. Eyebrows forgotten, it seems. 

"That would be perfect. He can be the cat to your mouse." 

"Your definition of perfect–" You cut yourself off again when she starts to laugh. You don't believe it to be genuine. 

She lounges in bed for an hour until she's high, reappearing in you and Ananya's suite with a dizzying smile. You don't mind high Morgan. She's smoked enough in her time to bypass the dizzying, giggly kind of stoner. This Morgan is relaxed, almost easygoing. She sits at the end of your bed and watches you pluck out a bass line proposal for one of their current works in progress, head bobbing. 

An hour again and the stylists appear to spray you down with smells and oils and make up, and soon you've been strapped into a short shining dress with a cowl neck, dark black stockings that shine like oil, and heels you can't really walk in. You complain about them politely enough that Mel, the man in charge of your 'costuming', swaps them out for shorter ones. 

"This fucking corset is a nightmare," Morgan grumbles. 

"Sorry, love, that's all we've got." 

The commute is over in a blink. You arrive outside of the venue for the Awards, staring up at its imposing silhouette against the skyline, a dark building in the strange blue night. The sun is unseen but light illuminates the wet streets in blinding patches, so white they glow violet behind your eyes. 

There's a modest red carpet where you thankfully don't have to pose for many photos. After all, besides being a temporary member of the stage, you aren't truly in Godless. Most casual fans (the majority of their fan base) only know the faces in the magazines and on TV, and you have yet to be in either until tonight. 

After a bundle of shy and regretfully nerve-wracking photos, you're drawn inside the building and away from all the flashing hubbub. You sit in your seats, short rows divided by the occasional table for drinks, and you try not to sink into the carpeted floor. It smells insanely like nothing at all. No bleach, no air conditioning cleanliness. Every now and then another guest walks past your row and you get a whiff of perfume. 

A familiar scent pricks your attention. 

You look up, slightly over your shoulder, and your eyes meet familiar sticky brown. 

He drops down in the seat next to you, and you think, No way. 

He holds up the placard that had been under his thigh. His name is typed in clear blocked letters. 

It's a strange humiliation to have been read for filth like that. You're you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me expression can be pretty telling, evidently. 

"Hey, sweetheart." 

Matchstick against the box. You tilt your head and try to place him for the tenth time. 

"Have we met before?" you ask. 

He actually grins like this is the best thing you could've said. "You met my friend," he says, pointing down the aisle. 

Jamison stands talking to a woman who is admittedly gorgeous, and, to your sinking horror, much prettier than you. They kiss each other on the cheek and it's the kind of over friendly to make you sick. 

Eddie pouts at you. "Better luck next time, sweet thing." He throws one leg over another. "You look different. New haircut?" 

"You look exactly the same," you say. 

It's surprising how untouched he is. Sure, he's had some makeup applied and his hairs been tousled into life, but his outfit is remarkable in its simplicity. Surely rockstars can wear suits too? He looks neat and dark and tidy, but he also looks effortless. It's irritating.

This phenomena is not self contained, you find, as his bandmates sit down the row with their managerial chaperones and one date. Jamison sits right at the very end. He doesn't look at you. 

You avert your eyes and wonder if it's possible to die from embarrassment. 

The venue gets increasingly busy as the bigger names and bands flood inside. Soon, you're sitting amongst legends, people who pretty much spearheaded late 80s glam rock, punk, grunge. People you've only ever seen on TV. And it isn't restricted to alternative sound, there are pop stars and their supermodel girlfriends shaking hands and kissing cheeks in the row behind, while producers with names big enough to make your mouth dry up clap each other on the shoulders in front. 

"You'll catch flies." 

You turn to Eddie. He doesn't sound entirely cruel. He doesn't sound like much of anything. You could almost believe him to be a friend. 

There's a smudge of eyeliner on his cheek. 

"You have–" You point at your own cheek, a mirror. 

His lightness fades. "Nice." 

"No, seriously, you have something. Make up, on your cheek. I have a wipe if you want it." 

He scrubs at his cheek ineffectually. 

You're reaching out to help before you can stop yourself, witnessing your own actions with a strange out-of-body horror as you wipe the small black line gently. It spreads, and you panic and dab at it until it's an unfortunate grey shadow. 

"Let me get the wet wipe," you say. You'd been holding your breath, awkwardness stiff between you, and it sounds too much like a laugh. 

Eddie flinches away from your touch and covers his cheek. "I got it," he says stonily. 

He leaves, stepping over his bandmates feet like stepping stones, earning a cacophony of protests and disparagments. 

Dick, you think. Again, that had been a little bit your fault. Not all of it, he seems to be in a perpetual bad mood that can't be your doing, but you can understand why he might think you were laughing at him, and the defensiveness that comes with it. When he comes back you'll apologise. 

Or that's what you tell yourself. The lights go down, the curtains open, and the venue erupts with applause. By the time Eddie takes his seat again you're too afraid of disturbing the quiet. 

After half an hour you're ushered backstage. You have to move in front of Eddie and the rest of Corroded Coffin as you go. 

He looks up at you in silence. Head tipped back, face barely lit by the lights while you stand in between his legs. His lips part and he's all rockstar, his brown eyes and their edging of straight dark lashes, his pink, pretty lips. He has a distinct line to his nose, a cupid's bow perfectly shaped. His maker must have looked at him and known somebody, somewhere, would want to kiss him right there. His lips twitch. 

"Can I help you?" he whispers. 

You stammer a response that won't form and Morgan shoves you. 

"Fucking move," she says. 

His expression flickers. 

"Sorry," you say, unsure of who you're talking to. "Sorry." You sound pathetic. A kicked puppy. 

You keep your eyes on the floor until you're in the aisle, where a new set of nerves tries to swallow you whole.

—

Eddie knows exactly who you are, and he hates himself for it. He remembers you, the first you, shy and sweet and so excited, sitting pretty in Indianapolis International Airport with your guitar and your huge leaky headphones pounding death metal. While fame has broadened the amount of people who want to sleep with him, it hasn't changed his type, and you'd been a ringer, right there in the middle. 

You'd been pretty and maybe you knew it, maybe you didn't, it didn't matter — what he liked most was the way your hands had moved as you spoke, hummingbird thrumming, an energy he'd seen in himself and every other musician desperate for a chance. He loved the passion and your eyelashes and the way you'd smiled as you'd waited for your plane, the two of you destined for New York, where you both seem to have looped back now. Only, he'd been cursed with remembering your every detail, and you either didn't remember him or don't care. Both sting, but he likes the second better. He'll take purposeful cruelty over the casual any day. 

Like your thumb pressed to his cheek. The heat, and then your laugh. 

"The fuck is this?" Gareth asks, leaning over the space between their two chairs. 

Eddie looks up at you on stage and shrugs. While bands made up completely of women aren't new, they aren't as common as bands made up of men, obviously. He likes it, likes your sound, though it's not the kind of thing Corroded Coffin would ever play, and he won't join in on Gareth's doubt. Even if you are, like, a magnanimous shithead. You're good. 

"She's hot," he furthers. 

"Jesus, Gareth." 

"What? She's fucking hot." 

He has to squint to see you from this distance, and he can't truly make out many details. Gareth's not wrong. You're pretty, and out of the three members of the band you're the only one who actually looks like they're having a good time. 

The lead singer trails around the stage pulling Blond Ambition poses. She can sing well, she has a strong voice that does whatever it is she bends it into, but her propensity to drop the guitar slung around her neck to grab at the microphone stand like it's escaping isn't helping anything. 

The girl on drums is arguably given a pass, fighting to keep up with the pace, sweat sticking her thick hair to her neck in glossy spirals and her huge eyes set in concentration. Her messy lipstick sparkles under the stage lights, a party pink that pops against her brown skin. 

He thinks you might be trying to cover up the lead singer's sloppy playing. You're good, sure, but it's not the easiest to tell when it's ragtag and rough like this. Only because he's watching does he notice your pick slipping between strings to the floor, and your willingness to strum with the sides of your fingertips. He likes that. The dedication is hot. 

"I've never seen a girl on drums who didn't look like a guy," Gareth says. "She's killer. Think I can get her number?" 

Eddie groans. "No, you fucking loser." 

"I was just asking." 

You bounce around and Eddie shifts in his seat, annoyed that he'd assumed you were the one Gareth was talking about. 

He claps for you when the song is over and hates how you return to your seat during the break, back in your cute dress and beaming, practically dripping in deodorant and post-show adrenaline. 

You apologise again as you step over him, and if there's one thing he doesn't want from you it's a sorry. Twice now you've spoken to him in the last week and twice you've made fun of him like some plaything under your thumb. Eddie isn't in the habit of being under anyone's anything. Apologies feel like salt in the wound, even though he knows you aren't saying sorry for the stuff that's pissing him off.

"What the fuck was that?" Lead girl asks you, sounding about as uptight as she looks as she climbs over your leg. "What were you doing?" 

"Morgan, I don't know if you noticed, but you didn't play half of the song," you say defensively, the skirt of your gem-encrusted dress glancing off of his thigh. The gems are tiny, like pinprick stars in country night skies. They shine purple, green, orange. 

Morgan holds her hand up for an attendant. When one approaches, she says, "Appletini," and nothing else, waving dismissively. She pulls at her stockings and doesn't notice the ladder she makes near the calf. "You're here to play what you're given." 

"I did." 

"And only that." 

Your silence speaks volumes. What he'd thought to be an edge in Godless' sound may have been an improvisation, something Eddie personally applauds. 

"Christ," Morgan says, "you're more trouble than you're worth. I hope you know that." 

Eddie believes the sting of her barb to be in the presentation rather than the words themselves, though what she'd said is hardly kind. She looks away from you as she says it, like she's giving instruction far below her station. Factual, concise. 

You barely wince. The lights dim, and he watches you contend with how you're feeling from the corner of his eye.

Eddie isn't evil. You may have gotten off on the wrong foot, and he's definitely holding his resentment at being forgotten tight to his chest, but nobody deserves to get shit on like that. You'd played well, you'd had a great time, and that should be commended. What's worse, your lack of a reaction tells him this is a common occurrence. 

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you say. 

Morgan waves you away like she had the waitress. You stand, and you say, "Excuse me," to every person you pass. Eddie put his hand on the back of his chair to follow you up toward the back of the room where the sign for the bathrooms glows green. 

He sets his eyes back on the stage and begs himself to stay sitting. Corroded Coffin's nomination for best up and comer has already passed, a loss, and there's no reason he can't nip to the bathroom himself. There's also no reason he should go after you. 

Fuck it, he thinks. 

What could go wrong? What could go wrong, outside of the women's bathroom, where he has so obviously followed you, where he waits for you like some creeper trying to paw one off on you. He can't hear anything but the running tap. For a moment he thinks you haven't come here to collect yourself after all, you'd needed to pee, which makes his situation that much awkwarder. 

Stuck between indecision, he leans against the wall between the women's and men's and digs for a cigarette. His pockets are empty, a precaution for exactly this moment. You can't smoke in the Prover Theatre, pissant.

You appear and blitz past him. 

"Hey," he says before you can go too far, "d'you have a card?"

You turn on your heel. Hands already in your purse, you dig out an unopened box of cigarettes and offer it to him. You don't look as though you've been crying or anything like it, but you don't look him head on, so he keeps his theory. 

Eddie peels the plastic off of your box and slaps the end against his chest for good measure. 

"I don't think you can smoke in here," you say finally. Your voice is tired. 

He raises his eyebrows and peers down into the box, pulling a cigarette free and sliding it between his lips. He holds out his hand for a lighter and you give it to him, already waiting with it between two fingers. 

He lights it, inhales sharply, and passes you back your carton and lighter with a clouded, "Thanks." 

"Yeah." 

He's surprised when you don't move. You stand there and watch him smoke, whorls of pearly smoke dissecting the air between you, spider-webs over your pert face. You're waiting for what he doesn't know, so he'll give you something. He's nice. 

"She's a piece of work." 

You shift uneasily. 

"I'm not the feds," he says, pulling the cig from his lips to talk unfettered.

"Forgive me for wondering if you have my best interests at heart." 

He beams at you, really smiles, startled and enamoured by your sharp tongue. "Now why wouldn't I?" 

You don't say anything, only pull at the neckline of your dress in what's likely a nervous habit. He gets a flash of the top of your chest and looks away. He thinks you're beautiful in a rather understated way, and he doesn't not want to see what it is you're showing, but he knows you don't actually mean to be so forward. He might be an asshole, but he's not like that. 

It's quiet here in the foyer, like standing outside the doors of the movie theatre. You can hear the announcement of a new category, the roaring applause. The hallway and the bathrooms feel cordoned off from it in a strange way, an uncanny energy that has him on internal tenterhooks. 

"You always let her treat you like that?"

"Like what?" 

He steps toward you because the distance feels unnecessary. "Like that. Like you're a dog." 

"Fuck you, I do not." 

He pouts, the taste of smoke thick on his tongue. 

"What would you know?" you ask.

"Besides hearing it all fucking night, nothing. You must like that shit." 

Your eyes go wide. He hadn't meant to say it. There's a light behind them now, some life, something to cover up that shitty wounded despondency you'd been wearing. Your hands bunch in the soft skirt of your dress, shaking. He's touched a nerve. 

"I must like it," you quote, strained.

"Woof. Do you do any tricks, or is it just the one?" 

He doesn't mean for it to happen this way, he wants it on the record. He's a dick, he's a loser, whatever, he hadn't meant to argue but he will. And, you know, there may be a slight possibility that he isn't as sure in himself as he appears, and that there are nerves he keeps too close to the surface, too. 

"You can teach me one of yours, if you want," you offer, voice tight with annoyance, "I'm thinking smug asshole picks easy target, but I'm open to other options." 

That's funny. He takes another step toward you, another, your cigarette between his lips smouldering at the tip as he inhales through his smirk. 

"Yeah, like what?" he asks, smoke licking your cheeks as he breathes out. 

"How you get your head through the door might be a good place to start." 

He waits for you to explain, knowing the silence will force you to fill it. 

"You know, considering you're in the exact same place as me, only one of us performed tonight and it isn't the one acting like God's gift." 

"You think they invited you to play because you're good?" he asks, feigning an earnest tone.

"I know exactly why they didn't ask you." You hike the strap of your purse higher up your shoulder, chin lifted in a snooty superiority that makes his heart pound. "Wannabe rookie who had too much smoke blown up his ass and thinks he's somebody. But you're not," you say. "You're a child. They've seen a hundred guys just like you in the Indiana circuit."

"You're a jumped up fucking groupie that got lucky," he says.

The light behind your eyes dims. He takes that last step, the step that's gonna put you shoe to shoe. 

He should stop now, he would, but suddenly his anger is real, this isn't strictly fun anymore. He says what he knows is gonna hurt you. 

"You're a stand-in, a temp who's already overstayed her welcome." He flicks the tower of ash between your heels. You follow it down, watch as it settles into the fibres of the carpeting. "You're a burnout waiting to happen." 

Your breathing is loud in his ears. Slightly too fast. 

"You don't know anything," you murmur. 

"If it barks like a dog, and it heels like a dog," he says, pausing, words coming out thick and slow, "it's a dog."

Your face flares with hurt. You're gone before he can say anything else. 

He's glad for it. Honestly, he's not sure what else he would've said, and later, he'll regret this, regret blowing up at you, regret following you out here and making you feel worse when he'd wanted the opposite. But tonight he's lit up from the inside out, your words a reverberation. A hundred guys just like you.

"Yeah, right," he says to himself, scoffing with a surety he doesn't feel. 

—

Donington Park, England, August 1990

"I'd be a little more excited if I knew they weren't desperate this year," Jamison's saying, "that's all." 

"They're hardly desperate." 

"Last time they had KISS, Iron Maiden, Megadeth." Jamison sighs and falls back into the couch, muttering about the stale smell before continuing, "and this year, what do they have? Poison? Thunder? Who cares." 

Eddie thinks he might actually have an opponent for biggest ego right now. 

"You know they put Godless bigger on the poster," Jeff says with a bright smile. 

"Can we not talk about them for one fucking day?" Eddie pleads. 

He's a little disappointed at the lineup too, but that doesn't make this entire festival a bust. Monster of Rock may not be the most prestigious event they've ever attended but it's still impressive to be asked to play here, and this is only Corroded Coffin's third festival. Eddie's a smug bastard and even he knows Jamison sounds like a bitch. Besides that, he's so, so tired of talking about Godless. 

"They finally stopped stringing that poor girl along. What was her name?" Jeff asks, clicking his fingers. "Eddie, you know, the one who said she didn't know you in the magazines?"

"What?" Eddie asked. "They cut her?" 

Jamison sits up, eyes lit with mirth. "What's it matter to you, heartthrob?" 

"It doesn't." 

He's not being truthful. His bandmates are all unkind, and none extend the generosity of pretending they believe him. 

"Nah, she's not cut, she's official. Writing credits on the new album and everything, 'cordin to Rolling Stone." 

"You have it?" Eddie asks.

Jeff laughs at him but digs it out of his suitcase, brandishing it all rolled up. 

"Shit better not be sticky," Eddie mutters under his breath. 

"... Skip the interview with Kim Gordon." 

Eddie gags and flicks through the pages until he finds the article on you, or rather the column. 

"All female rock band Godless finally welcomed a new bass player this month after the departure of Millyanna Richardson in '89. Y/N L/N, 24, had been with the band for almost a year under a 'touring only' basis, though she performed live with remaining members Morgan Fletcher and Ananya Roy at the Prover Music Awards in early June. Fans have praised her talent and finesse, and are looking forward to her contributions to the band's next album expected this December. Hopefully she has thicker skin than her predecessor, who branded the band's inner politics as 'gruesome' and 'unlivable'."

There's a grainy photograph of you and your bandmates at the Prover Theatre overtop. You look exactly as you had that night, pretty and glitzy. He scowls at your printed face.

He can't fucking stand you, let it be known, and he thinks your frontman is the most spoilt brat he's ever seen. He hadn't seen the article, but he'd heard via word of mouth that you'd both had something to say about him. His approximation goes as follows: 

Interviewer: …and you guys will be performing at the Monster of Rock music festival in England this August, right? Any faces you're excited to see? 

Morgan: I think I'm better than everyone despite being in a mildly popular band that didn't qualify as hard rock until, like, three months ago, and I totally shit on our bass player for trying to make the change by the way, so I'm not excited to see anyone besides myself in the mirror. 

Interviewer: How sophisticated and mature of you. And you, Y/N, are you excited to see anyone? Photos from the Prover Music Awards show you were sitting beside Corroded Coffin's Eddie Munson, did you two hit it off? 

Y/N: Who was that, the guitarist? I'm so sorry, I don't really remember getting a chance to talk to him, but I'm excited for the opportunity to meet more people in the scene right now and to get to play for a new audience. Also I suck and I want Eddie sooooo bad. 

"I wish I were asleep." Gareth squints at the ceiling. "Asleep or back home."

"Miss mommy?" Jamison asks him. 

"And Cindy." 

"Oh, god," Eddie groans, "I don't want to hear it, seriously." 

"She always had smooth legs, you know?" Gareth says. "Always shiny, soft. Fuck, I miss her legs. Girls on the road never shave their legs." 

"Do you shave your legs?" Eddie asks. 

"Fuck off, Teddy, you know you like it better when they shave." 

"Do I know that?" Eddie asks. 

He turns to Jamison, giving him a much-used 'make him stop' expression. Eyebrows raised, lips parted. When Jamison says nothing, and Gareth starts to talk about hair removal in other places, Eddie scrubs his eyes with both hands and stands up. 

He's a guy. He has guy thoughts. Yeah, he thinks about girls, and their legs, and everything else, but he also thinks about them as actual people, something Gareth hasn't quite grasped yet. 

"Remember why Cindy said she didn't wanna come with you?" Eddie asks. 

"Because she was jealous of my success." 

Eddie snorts and shrugs on his jacket where he'd left it thrown over the ratty couch. "Because she was going to beauty school," Eddie corrects. "I'm going out." 

"We're miles away from anything interesting," Jeff says, magazine crinkling in his hands. 

"I'm sure I'll find something," he says, and doesn't add that it should be easy. 

What counts as interesting has taken a sharp turn since arriving in Donington. Which isn't to say it's boring, exactly, there's a rich culture Eddie isn't familiar with, and a fucking castle, but he's so used to loud dives and backroom parties that this has been a stark change. Wending had said to think of it like a vacation to get his head screwed on tight. Paula had said to think of it like a punishment, which had been funny at the time. Now he's wondering if she was serious. 

He knows there'd been a convenience store somewhere down the road from the hotel. Or rather, the bed and breakfast, a strange cottage situation where the hosts keep an eye on you under the guise of making your dinner. Eddie's first world problems continue. 

He could get weed, possibly. He doesn't know where from, but he knows someone who knows someone who must know someone, right? 

Then he starts debating with himself about if he should smoke just to escape boredom. That sounds like a terrible idea, life isn't even bad right now, he's just hungry, and— 

Eddie turns the corner, wet sidewalk dark as pitch under his feet, and spots the back of your head as you disappear inside of the convenience store. The corner shop, as Wending had informed. Eddie doesn't understand because it isn't on a corner, but he has bigger fish to fry. He considers waiting for you to leave. What are the chances you'll walk back this way? Pretty likely. 

Don't be a bitch, he tells himself. 

Light rain spots his neck as he hurries inside, the bell above the door ringing to announce his entrance. He's confused as soon as he looks up, because in front of him is an aisle, and to either side is an aisle, and he can't make out where the cashier is. He takes a tentative step in, eyes tracking muddy footprints down the way to the drinks fridge humming loudly at the back of the room. 

Claustrophobic, he makes his way through the aisle and stops in front of the drinks. Because luck isn't ever his friend, you're standing toward the leftmost part, where a second fridge hums, filled to bursting with canned beer and litre bottles of cider. Eddie isn't sure it's really you until you turn to the left slightly and reach out for a colourful glass bottle. He should walk away. He doesn't like you, he has no business watching you, but there's something so sweet about it. 

You in the humming chill, a coat pulled tightly around you, your chin hidden by the multicolour of a yarn scarf. You turn the bottle in your hand delicately and blink slow as you read the ingredients. Your hair is frizzy from the wind, flyaways surrounding your face in a little wave. His fingers twitch. 

You keep the bottle and pick up a second, nails clinking against glass. Your movement pulls like you're moving through jello, and Eddie turns to the fridge in front of him hurriedly. 

He can feel your gaze on the side of his face. 

He picks up a couple of drinks without thinking, his face burning with heat. When he chances a glance your way, you've moved. He stares at the rainbow of drinks and the gaps where you've taken what you wanted. 

He leaves some time between your departure and follows the way you must've gone down an aisle of more alcohol that's unrefrigerated and pet food, wondering how they organise here, and is confronted with you again at the end. 

It's a snug building. You're blocking the way past where you're standing in front of the cashier's desk, a plexiglass shielded cube decked out in hanging sweets and cigarettes. 

"Do you have Newports?" you ask mildly. 

"Sorry." 

"That's okay, uh, I'll just take a carton of whatever you think is best?" 

The cashier retrieves a light blue box of cigarettes. "Lambert and Butler blues," he says. "Total, sixteen fifty six, and I'll need to see some ID." 

You pull your passport from an already opened purse and offer it to him. While the cashier's checking it over, you peek at Eddie, and you don't smile but you don't not smile, a formal quirk of the lips. 

"You're American?" the cashier asks. 

"I'm visiting for the festival," you say. 

Apparently having passed his test, the cashier hands your passport back and accepts your card. 

"Are you paying together?" he asks, nodding at Eddie. 

Eddie grins unconsciously, worse when you say quickly, "Oh, no, we're not together." 

"Your brevity wounds me," Eddie says.

You snort with a similar geniality. "You don't need me to pay for you, do you? I heard you're rich now." 

There has been an improvement in Eddie's finances lately. Your album breaking into the Billboard top 100 does that. 

"I thought you didn't know who I was?" 

"I thought that was kinder than what I really would've said." 

He hates how your snark makes him smile. You're not looking at him, waiting for your change with your eyes forward as the cashier clicks a couple of buttons on the till. 

"What were you really gonna say?" 

The cashier hands over your change. You slip it into your purse, put your purse in the pocket of your coat, and slide your hand through the weak blue handles of your plastic bag.

"Thank you," you say sincerely. You take a step like you're going to leave, but you pause, and you look Eddie in the eye and say, "I would've said you were mean." 

His jaw drops. You look hurt, and you leave with a discomforting frown. 

He puts the drinks he's carrying down on the cashier's desk and says, "I'll be right back," before following you out.

You've pulled your hood up to defend against the thickening rain, walking with your face angled down. Eddie beats along the wet pathway. 

"Hey! Hey, wait, wait a second, princess." 

"You can't be serious." 

"I'm so serious," he says. 

He weaves in front of you and stops. You look cold as he feels with his red-tipped nose and stiff fingers, your arms drawn together over your chest. You look pretty and he's so sick of thinking it and not saying it. 

"You're hot when you're mad." 

You glare at him. "I wish I could say the same." 

"Hey, hey, okay, we had a spat, but we got off on the wrong foot, you know?" 

"I thought that too," you say. 

He smiles. "See, we're– you're fucking with me. Nice." 

You start laughing, edging around him. He moves in front and you shrug, stepping off of the sidewalk and into the leaf litter clogging the gutter. 

"Don't be stupid," he says, hands held up in surrender "get back on the sidewalk." You keep walking. "Come on, don't get hit by a car. That would really put a damper on the festival." 

You take a step further into the road, the kind that would make a collision unavoidable. He checks both ways for cars and sees none, knowing you're fucking with him and hating it anyway. The two of you are locked into a stand off, grey skies above you and wet ground underneath, your face partially occluded by your scarf and your hood and the dribbling rain. If he listens, he can hear the small sounds of the festival preparations a half a mile away, guitars hooked up up an insane array of speakers and the pounding of a beat through the floor. 

You start walking again. He follows, treading backwards to keep your attention. 

"Seriously, come on." 

"No." 

"No?" he asks. 

"No. I don't have to listen to you." 

"You're being stupid." 

"Eddie, I truly, honestly, don't care." 

"Sure." The sound of tires on the road draws his eye. A car appears behind you, approaching fast. "It's your funeral."

"What do you get out of this?" 

He bites his top lip, shaking his head from one side to the other. "Out of what?" 

"Tormenting me." 

"Tormenting you? Sweetheart, we hardly know each other." 

"Exactly!" You almost trip over your own shoes. "Exactly, you don't know me, but you thought you could say all those things–" 

"You started it." 

You laugh again and Eddie would be pissed but the car is still coming, headlights beaming through the light downpour. He huffs and grabs your wrist, tugging you up onto the sidewalk with his second hand on your waist. He doesn't mean to rag you about, feeling especially apologetic when your face knocks into his chin. The car spins close and validates his concern. You have enough sense to realise what's happened, watching over your shoulder as the car beeps and whizzes past. Still, you yank your arm out of his. 

"Don't touch me," you say quietly. 

He dips his head to force you to meet his eyes. "Next time I'll let you get hit by a car. Great idea." 

"I wasn't going to get hit by the fucking car." 

You're infuriating. 

Infuriating, and yet he feels bad for pulling you around. He lowers his voice, softens his tone. "Sorry," he says. "I don't know why this happens, everytime I see you, I…" 

You look intensely uncomfortable. "I have one of those faces, I guess." You shrug away from his reach. "Try to play well tomorrow? I don't want to go on to a dead crowd." 

His mouth snaps closed. "If you need me to warm them up for you, just say that." 

—

You go to watch Eddie's set because you're awful. You want it to suck. You want Corroded Coffin to bomb it and you want it to be his fault, anything to wipe that pretty smile off of his face, smother the electricity of his bouncing steps as he bounds from one side of the stage to the other. He's entranced by the crowd — it's hard not to be. Ananya had told you on the plane that UK festival audiences are a different kind of enthusiastic, eager and loud, and it's obvious now that she was right, and that Corroded Coffin had more than a few loyalists in the sea of people. 

The barrier bends under the force of it, thousands of warm bodies throwing themselves against one another despite the terrible weather, mud to the shins and sliding. You've never seen so many people happy to be covered in dirt. 

Neither Morgan nor Ananya had wanted to join you so you stick to the shadows with your lanyard pass. You refuse to think about why you've dressed the way you have, a black, stiff corset type top to cinch your chest, exposing the soft hills of your breasts, and the flare pants Morgan had insisted make your thighs acceptable. You're bedecked in pretty jewellery and your hair looks perfect, and it's all for your show, you swear, all for your set straight after his. 

Eddie's dripping with sweat and rain at this point, darker curls wet and slick and sweet around his face. His brows are furrowed like he's in pain, and his thumb has split on the strings, blood like cherry juice running down the body of his guitar, a Warlock NJ Series electric with a red and black tortoise shell design. It shines like mother-of-pearl. 

You're impressed by him, and worse, there's a heat stirring in your abdomen you despise. He's attractive, you've always thought him pretty, but on stage he's something else entirely. The passion transforms him, makes him a different person. No trace of agitating smugness about him. 

And he's good. You're not a critic, an expert, and your opinion hardly matters, but if he's this good now you'd love to see him at Hammet's age, at Hanneman's. He could be one of the greats. 

You're riddled with jealousy. Bass and rhythm guitar are not the same, and they're comparable in some ways, incomparable in others, but you know you're not like he is. You want to be the next Entwistle, the next Ian Hill, but practising You've Got Another Thing Comin' until your fingers bleed is never going to give you what Eddie plainly has. 

You hide your bandaid covered fingers in your back pockets and shake your head. You can pinpoint the moment Eddie notices you on the side stage despite the small audience they've attained. His neck snaps to the side, and his eyes bore into yours for a split-second. 

You could pretend you aren't here. If he ever calls you out on it, you could lie. You want me so bad you're seeing me places, Munson. 

You don't do that. 

You wave. 

You've never been the prettiest girl. You know you aren't model material, people aren't shy about letting you know that, and so, you're practised in the art of quiet flirtation. Your wrist straight, you wiggle your fingers sweetly, a face of fresh make up and your sweetest smile, like he's a guy across the bar and you're trying to get a ride in his passenger seat. 

For a split-second you adore him. It's the meanest thing you can do. 

You aren't expecting him to fuck up. His hand slips down the neck and that's it, one missed second of sound. He throws himself back into it and doesn't look your way again, a storm of emotions clouding his handsome face. 

Not what you'd meant to do, and yet. There's a cruel satisfaction in knowing you'd had any sort of power over him.

There's a ten minute gap between sets, twenty because of the shitty weather. Morgan and Ananya are nowhere to be seen as Corroded Coffin pour off of the stage and down the short stairwell where you're waiting, picking at your clear nail polish absentminded. You don't look up, and the resulting quiet makes you think they've all left. 

A wooden board creaks. 

You look up. 

"Hey, you–" 

Eddie takes your shoulder into his warm, big hand and pushes you back. You wobble and rush to correct your posture, hand clamping around the crook of his elbow. Even though he's soaked through, wet to the skin, his hand is a blistering heat. 

Your shoulders collide with the wall under the stairwell. It's a snug fit, dark and out of view. 

"What gives?" you seethe, pushing at his chest. 

"You fucking–" Eddie tucks a lock of wet hair behind his ear, and his hand stays at that height, hovering between you. "What's wrong with you?" 

"What's wrong with me?" 

"You want to mess with me, is that it?" 

His hand takes to your face, index finger following the line of your cheek, his thumb along your jaw. He isn't kind. He isn't cruel. He's touching you, just touching you, and your mouth is bone dry at the sensation, the stuttering beat of your heart. 

"I don't want to do anything to you, Munson." 

"We both know that's not true." You've never heard his voice like this. It's scratchy– pleading. It's a desperation. 

He's breathing hard. Your proximity means you feel each one as it comes, heat fanning over your lips. You look to his, find them parted, the barest hint of pearly teeth between pink dewy skin. They look soft. 

You lift your chin. 

I dare you. 

His hand slides down. He presses his thumb into your bottom lip and inclines his head. You close your eyes, fine stands of his hair drawing lines of wetness against your face as he boxes you in. 

"Are you going to–" 

"Shut up," he says, crushing his lips to yours. 

It his nose you feel more than anything, the force of it as he moves in, bridge sliding down your own. His hands, and how they tighten, fisted in the slope of your shoulder and clutching at the underside of your jaw like you might slip away. His touch brings you in, his hips force you back, wedging your spine tight to the panelled wall behind you. 

You let him kiss you, let his lips work over yours, let him take what it is he wants. Your fingers slide softly up the chilled leather of his jacket, coveting the wet mess of his hair. You weave your fingers into it, their tips pressed to his roots, and pull him away. 

You steal the gap between you and try to take control. You don't know how to kiss like he is, you don't know where all that meanness comes from. You force his hand from your face and nip at his bottom lip, imprecise, stammering pecks that reveal too much. 

Eddie inhales hard, pulls the breath from your mouth. 

"Don't play games," he says. 

He presses a firm, hard kiss all lopsided into your lips and pulls away, yanking your hand from his hair and setting it against the line of his waist. 

"You like games," you argue. 

He tilts your head to one side a millimetre at a time, tilting his own to follow you. A teasing light burns behind his eyes, a playful flare of his lashes that worries and excites at once. 

His thumb haunts the column of your throat, pressing, releasing, pressing again. Never enough to hurt. 

"Stay still." 

You stay still. You aren't expecting him to weave the other way, the hot and unapologetic scratch of his teeth against your pulse. You laugh at the feeling, find it gets all clogged up when he starts to bite. The hand that isn't anchoring your head roams down your shoulder, your back, falling into the small of it as though it were made to be there. His fingers spread and pull and your pelvis pushes hard into his own. 

"Is that a–" You cough on your murmuring, chastened by his thumb outside your windpipe. "S'that a micronta quartz in your pocket, or are you just," —you hiss as his hickeying turns brutal, hand pawing ar his waist uselessly— "happy– Happy to see me?" 

Your shuddering makes him smile. He lets your bruised skin slip from between his lips only to scandalise you further, kissing and nipping, licking a humiliating stretch until he's under your ear, speaking into it. 

"I'm never happy to see you," he murmurs, hand turned, the back of his index knuckle stroking a tender back and forth. His forehead kisses your temple. "You should know that by now." 

A picture of composure but you know what you feel. You roll your hips to revel in his subtle groan. 

"You want me to mark up the other side?" he asks. 

His question sounds so genuine, you almost say yes. He laughs at your silence and kisses wherever he can reach, crescent moons, spit-damp and branding. 

He pauses to speak into the corner of your mouth. "Mess me up again during a set and I won't be this nice." 

"You're not nice," you say, lashes skimming the skin under your brows as he stands at full height, widening the gap between you to a safe distance again. 

"Exactly…" Eddie squeezes your cheek until it aches. His eyes are unreadable. "Have a good set, sweetheart." 

Unreadable turns smug. He pats your panging cheek, gaze dancing over the sore stretch of your neck, and turns without a second glance. 

You press the heel of your palm to the cold wall behind you and blink. Once. Twice. In that moment you hate him more than you've ever hated him, hate him like you've never hated anyone, because his retreating figure is unaffected, and you're dizzy with the lingering press of his lips.

You have to hand it to him. He's good at the game. 

You'll have to be better. 

𓆩❤︎𓆪

I wrote the bulk of this really quickly so please forgive any major errors I missed during editing, I’ll go back again in future and make more corrections! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and if you did please consider reblogging or telling me what you thought, I promise it makes a big difference <3 I was super nervous about this one and I still am lol

[powdermelonkeg]

Cybertron's Location

Okay so Alpha Centauri is named as Cybertron's star system in multiple continuities.

Easy, right? Just make up a planet for Cybertron to be. Plausible enough that there's one out there we don't know about.

NOPE. I found a spot for it.

The Alpha Centauri system has three stars in it. These are Rigil Kentaurus (α Centauri A), Toliman (α Centauri B), and Proxima Centauri (α Centauri C). I'm going to be calling them by their non-ABC names for distinction.

Alpha Centauri, as we see it, is Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman's lights being indistinguishable from one another. Those two are a binary star system of sun-like stars, so their orbit intersects and they look something like this:

Meanwhile, Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, and orbits at a pretty far distance, like so:

It's still part of the same star system because it still orbits around a common point, but in any planet that orbits Proxima, Rigil and Toliman just look like exceptionally bright stars in its sky.

So the question THEN is, which star does Cybertron orbit?

Proxima's the most obvious candidate. It even has a full planetary system:

Proxima Centauri b is in Proxima's habitable zone (the area where water could feasibly exist as liquid), and it's just a little bigger than Earth.

Generally speaking, Cybertron is depicted as larger than Earth, so let's set that aside for this post.

Proxima Centauri d is a tiny planet that's closer to Proxima and no smaller than a third Earth's size.

Proxima Centauri c is either a super-Earth or a gas dwarf, about 7 times Earth's mass, which is disputed both in its nature and whether or not it's really a planet (it's complicated). Regardless, it's outside the habitable zone.

So it could be Proxima c. That's our default option. The biggest problem is the lack of a habitable zone, because, while giant robots don't necessarily need comfortable heat to live, there's the whole "acid rain" and "sea of rust" deal that'd be hard in a planet that far from its sun.

Granted, sometimes Cybertron is seen hurtling through space without a sun or any of those features to speak of, but I'd like to account for it.

So what about the other two?

Toliman was claimed to have a planet orbiting it in 2012 (α Centauri Bb), but by 2016, it was more or less conceded that said planet didn't exist.

Rigil Kentaurus, on the other hand...

Meet Candidate 1 (α Centauri Ab).

It orbits within Rigil's habitable zone, has a period of about a year, and has a mass between Neptune and half of Saturn, with possible habitable moons.

Does it exist? Maybe.

The thing is about Candidate 1 (yes that is its real name) is that it wasn't observed for long enough to confirm its existence. It COULD be a planet. It could also be dust that got captured, or an artifact of the observational instruments.

THIS is my proposal for Cybertron.

TLDR: There's a (possible) planet that orbits the brightest star of the Alpha Centauri star system in its habitable zone and it's bigger than Earth.

[heartsforseo]

Strawhats with a Lolita member

Summary: The straw hats just boarded into a new island. But, not like any others. This island was all white and black. Until they met you. The reader also has Daki's demon art technique. This was the request REQUEST are open (IM BEGGING) word count: 1.6k

The straw hats first met you on a gloomy island. Due to the lack of vibrant colors, everyone's in formal and dark clothing. Everyone except you. Your background was a blur. You grew up on the other side of the island and only come to the town when you need something.

Today was always the same. You wore your tall heels and grabbed your ribbon bag. You looked at your mirror one last time to check your makeup and fix your black and pink hair.

You leave your pastel house and start walking to the town. Your frilly dress bounces on every step you make, along with all the little decorations and the big ribbon on your back. Your creamy stockings hug your smooth and perfect thighs. Your parasol, walking beside you, waiting to be opened and used.

The walk to the town was short. All kinds of animals surrounded you. Hostile or not. You were an eye candy on the gloomy island, the only one with colors and a devil fruit.

You looked at the harbor. A ship has arrived. The Jolly Roger is a skull with two crossed bones underneath and a straw hat on top. You looked back at the market, trying to find people standing out.

You opened your parasol and took out your creamy fan, holding it below your eyes. There, you saw a young man with a straw hat, the captain, you presume. Next to him was a girl with tangerine hair and a man with curly eyebrows. Your island doesn't often get visitors. The last time someone came, they never went back to the sea.

There is a saying if you offend the island and do something wrong. At night, sashes will wrap around your body and slowly absorb you.

"Hey! I've been trying to call you for the last 5 minutes." The voice whined. You snapped out of your thoughts--making a little sound, and you looked at the man. He looks like a plank separated by its group.

"What's your name, and why are you the only one glowing?" the tall, lanky man asked.

"Y/n…" you quietly muttered. The fan was a great asset today. Covering your pink blush and trembling mouth.

"Hm…do you know anything about t-" "Luffy! Stop running a- A LADY~"

"Oh, uhm…" You were starting to get uncomfortable. Today was just supposed to be like yesterday and the day before. While the two were busy fighting among themselves, you had run off and went to one of the instrument stores.

There, you saw a tall man's back. He had an afro and, by the neck--an orange scarf. He also had a gold top hat and a cane on his side. The tall man turned around and, to your horror, a skeleton. Before it could open its mouth, your devil fruit accidentally activated, and your sashes were wrapped around the skeleton, ending it with a ribbon.

You gasped and mumbled a quick sorry, then left the store. Today has been unpleasant. You left the town while holding your mirror, making your hair and makeup look good. When you were away from the townsfolk, you used your fruit and made your ribbons carry you.

Various thoughts entered your mind. But the forest was calming you down. You looked around you-- and a woman with sunglasses and a bag stepped out of the shadow.

"That was an interesting ability, miss." The lady said.

You looked at the mysterious woman. Her clothes and accessories fit her. "Oh, uh, thank you!" You answered cheerfully.

"I saw a house on the other side of the island. It was hard to ignore it, especially the color the owner chose. With all the evidence I gathered, you were the legend the people were discussing. Ribbons and sash?"

You tilted your head to the side and asked, "How do you know?"

The woman chuckled and answered, "I saw what you did to my friend Brook. I asked the locals about the ribbons. They said that pirates only left their clothing behind, no bones or skin," she continued, "I must say what you're doing here is heroic. But don't you get ever tired from the lack of color?"

I left my ribbon vehicle and finally spoke, "This place wasn't white and black. It used to be full of color and life. One day, I was exploring the forest all by myself. I never made any friends. They said my style was too childish. My friends were animals, and I was hanging out with them. One of the red pandas gave me a strawberry. Instead of its usual dots, it got replaced with tiny carved ribbons. I ate it since my friend gave it to me. It tasted weird, and I passed out. When I woke up, the island had no color except for me. I want to help my people first."

The woman said, "Have you never thought you were the problem?"

I gasped. Me? What did I ever do?

"I'm not saying that you are. But what if? Me and my crew are going to depart tomorrow. I could show you around the ship. All your belongings are in the Thousand Sunny."

"I- can I at least check the ship first?"

Now, here you are in front of the Thousands Sunny. You entered the big ship, holding your fan just below your eyes. There was no one, and the only light source was on the second floor towards the back of the ship.

"Oh, by the way, my name is Nico Robin. You can call me Robin."

After the tour, you find out the men sleep on the first floor while the girls sleep on the second floor. Speaking of sleep, the crew arranged your corner neatly. You had your vanity and a lot of picture frames. Your bed also had a lot of frilly and curtains, and the wardrobe filled with Lolita and Victorian dresses.

"Let's go to the last room. The dining room." Robin said.

There, you two entered the room. All of the straw hat members except Robin were eating happily.

"I'll introduce you to all of them. The man with the straw hat is our captain, Luffy. The girl with the orange hair is our navigator, Nami. The guy with the long nose is our sniper, Ussop. The guy wearing a suit is the ship's cook, Sanji. The reindeer is the ship's doctor, Chopper. The tall man is a cyborg and is the crew's shipwright, Franky. The skeleton, the guy you packaged neatly, is the musician, and his name is Brook. Lastly, the Fishman is the helmsman, and his name is Jinbei. Let's eat with them."

You walked behind Robin, your fan still in front of your face.

"Oh, it's you!" Nami yelled. "LADY~" Sanji shouted.

You winced from the roaring noise and instinctively opened your umbrella to avoid them. Robin noticed you shifting and held your hand, then closed your umbrella. Sanji served you food, and you sat on the counter.

That night was lovely and fun. The crew, even though it looked chaotic at first, was pleasant. Everybody's different personalities make you fit in like the last puzzle piece. The ship made you feel needed. It made you feel wanted.

You left the dining area and stared outside. In front, you could see the vast ocean. But if you look back, you can see your colorful island. Colorful island?

Was I the problem all along?

"So, do you accept my offer now?" You look beside you to see Robin also staring at the island. You closed your umbrella and shifted your body, staring at her.

"I do."

The next day, you woke up in your bed. Last night was a bit of a blur. Luffy was cheering that someone new joined, and all the crew were doing whatever. You went to the girl's room and immediately passed out.

You stood up and looked at the mirror, observing the heart-shaped beauty mark below your right eye. You took out some new clothes, a white dress stopping at your thighs. You also took a pair of socks that reached your knees and arm warmers, stopping at your shoulders.

You look at the room Nami and Robin, sleeping peacefully.

After showering, you went to the girl's room and put your hair into pigtails, using two large ribbons as hair ties.

You finally left the room and went down to the first floor. There, mostly all of the straw hats were chilling.

"Are we leaving now?" You asked

"Yeah, the log post finally worked, and we're now going to the next island," Franky replied

You stared back at your island, slowly drifting away.

"I hope the animals will be--"

"I saw some marines just east from here," Zoro yelled from the top nest.

The next thing you knew, cannonballs were being launched at you.

Half of the crewmembers were still asleep. The only ones awake were Sanji, Zoro, and Jinbei.

"Don't worry. There are only two ships. I can handle it." You said.

The three looked at each other and nodded. Then, all went back to work.

You used your ribbons and stretched them to make them larger and larger. You wrapped the two ships like a present and ended it with a large bow.

You turn your gaze toward the direction of your island, feeling a sense of loss as it disappears from your view. However, the presence of your friends by your side gives you a glimmer of hope and comfort. It's hard to adjust, but having friends nearby makes it peaceful.

A/n: OMGG I FINISHED IT IN A DAY!! I STARTED ON 11 AM AND FINISHED AT 3 PM I AM SO SO HAPPY!! I LOVE THIS REQUEST SO MUCH SINCE I WANTED TO DRESS LIKE LOLITA BUT NEVER GOT THE CONFIDENCE. ANYWAYS TY ANON!! I LIKE BEING A WORKAHOLIC

[gay-dorito-dust]

Can you write h/c on how the reader was able to melt Bihan's frozen heart and how Bihan finally confesses to the reader?

Bi-Han is a man of few words and even fewer actions.

So it goes without saying that upon your first meeting Bi-Han kept you at arms length, possibly even further, and treated you just about as cold and as harshly as he did with others.

It’s just par for the course.

So the first things you did that truly melted Bi-Han’s ice cold heart was showing him basic level kindness/giving him companionship;

Bi-Han was more then content to stand alone then to stand with others with contrasting ideals to his own because he well and truly believed that to truly survive in life, you have to be the strongest within every regard and prepared to fight right down to the last man. So Bi-Han was more then well adhered to licking his own wounds when hurt, to taking care of himself to the point he had became self sufficient as a result.

So whenever you showed him a spec of kindness and patience was foreign to him. Bi-Han naturally felt himself wanting to fall back into the things that he has felt comfortable with his entire life. So at first he’d try to push you away and bother someone else by acting like his usual cold and harsh self, but when you’ve showed him time and time again that, no matter what he did or said, you weren’t going anywhere soon.

You stood by him despite his protests and exemplified a deep, unwavering loyalty that -in Bi-Han’s opinion- not many people possessed.

At first it annoyed him that you wouldn’t leave him to be on his own when it came to the moments where he was seemingly at his most vulnerable, finding it to be an intentional act of dismissal towards his wishes to being alone. However overtime Bi-Han had slowly but surly grown to find comfort within your presence during the more intense moments in his life; so much so to the point where he’d actively sought you out on his own accord to accompany him on walks or to just sit with him.

You had managed to get him to tolerate you, even if it was by a little bit, it was an achievement none the less. Upon seeing your expressions of happiness when he asks for your company had Bi-Han fighting back a genuine smile, finding your smile infectious, and feeling thankful that he was wearing his mask at the time.

This was the moment where his ice cold heart had started to thaw.

Gentle touches or just touching in general;

Bi-Han’s hands were rough, full of callouses and had an assortment of scars littered across them.

The same description could be used to describe Bi-Han as a whole as he had spent his life tailoring his body to become an instrument of destruction. A deadly weapon that didn’t flinch under any pressure but would buckle beneath a gentle caresses of the skin.

Not once had he experienced a gentle and loving touch like yours before, so when the pads of your fingers gently explored the expanse of his strong biceps, the muscles underneath your touch would tense up, as though they were frozen solid, before relaxing a little afterwards upon realising that he wasn’t in any danger.

Every time you touched Bi-Han, whether it’d be his hand, his bicep, his jaw or his face, he felt his breath hitch in his throat and his body quiver beneath your tender touches, just like he always did. Bi-Han wouldn’t admit it to anyone but he adored your touches to the point they became an essentially in his life. However the only problem with that was the fact you and Bi-Han weren’t romantically together. (Yet)

Bi-Han would always and forever remember the first time he experienced your touch until the day he died. It was after a mission and Bi-Han had came back to the Lin Kuei with his fair share of injuries and was quickly tended to within the medbay, where you were stood at his side like his own personal guard dog.

And that’s when you frost grabbed for Bi-Han’s hand for comfort, having worried yourself sick over him despite having full confidence within his abilities, and that’s when you felt Bi-Han froze completely. Thankfully his wounds were fully treated and was left to his own devices, for if the medics stayed, they would’ve been greeted with Bi-Han’s dark eyes widen slightly, heard his sharp inhale and see his hand cautiously shifted to better hold your own; his thumb rubbing across your knuckles as a means of reassurance.

Reminding him that he’s only human and inserting yourself when he’s disregarding his own health;

Bi-Han might be the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei but at the end of the day, he was as human as the next person. For Bi-Han had never once questioned his own decisions. Never. He could envision the future of the Lin Kuei clear as day and strived to ensure that he’d achieve that future with each and every opportunity.

He suffers from fatigue, he gets frustrated, he gets upset and he faces constant hardships. Just like any other human and before he met you, he would’ve pushed past all these limitations and bring himself to the brink of collapse due to his own neglect, but ever since he had the honour of meeting and getting to know you, he’s learnt to accept help now and then.

Even though that help primarily came from you as Bi-Han had positioned you highly in his life and would use this as a subtle way of showing you that level of respect he held for you. However just like any other human, Bi-Han would often times revert back to moments where he believes that he didn’t require help, and it wouldn’t be until you had to physically insert yourself into the situation in order to remind him that he wasn’t a one man army like he’s lead himself believe.

This often lead to disputes between the two of you but it was all worth it as it only proved to Bi-Han that you were more than willing to bring him back down to reality and see reason, even if it meant having to butt heads with him to do so, as his pride frequently get the better of him in a multitude of ways.

Bi-Han finally goes for it;

When the day finally had came for Bi-Han to confront you about his feelings, he was awkwardly stiff about it, but that’s what made it all the more memorable in your eyes, for you were able to claim that you were blessed to witness another side of Bi-Han that not many could would be able to say the same.

He would intentionally hand pick specific places where he’d wished to take you, and all the while under the guise of accompanying him on a walk to discuss important matters in regards to the Lin Kuei.

So imagine your surprise when Bi-Han guides you by the hand to an familiar spot that held sentimental significance to the both of you, admitting that he lied in order to get you away from everyone else just so he could discus all he wanted to say.

He would cut the bullshit and get straight to the chase by admitting how he’s felt over the course of your blossoming relationship, from how he used to be annoyed by the fact that you wanted to spend time with him, all the way through to how he felt about you now. Which included his need to withdraw from you, push you away in hopes that you never find your way back to him in fear of inevitably hurting you, but upon closer self reflection -and an deep consultation with Kuai Liang- Bi-Han confessed as to how far away he felt despite being next to you.

Wanting nothing more then to close that invisible gap between the two of you but being far too conflicted within himself to do so. During his speech you were within your emotions and not wanting to waste anymore time then you’ve already had second guessing everything, you brought Bi-Han’s speech to a halt by cupping his face between your hands, practically beaming, before bringing him into a searing kiss.

You couldn’t help it, he was being too handsome and too fucking perfect for you to not kiss his plump lips until you couldn’t anymore.

The confession was cute, it was genuine, it was orchestrated with a whole love of attention to detail and love that it felt very much like something Bi-Han himself had put together.

all that mattered however, was the fact that you and Bi-Han finally got what you both wanted.

[lovsalvatore]

Your name on the list

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!reader

Summary: After missing a few notes during rehearsals, you have to prove once again to your Maestro that you still deserve a chance.

Warnings: +18, Minors DNI!, smut, nat has a penis, loss of virginity, groping, overstimulation, rough sex, pet names, a bit of manipulation, light choking, unprotected sex, praising, abuse of authority, infidelity, age gap.

Word count: 6.2k

a/n: here's part two for all you horny people. also; comment if you want to be tagged in the next part <3 ✰ series masterlist, main masterlist

"Okay, stop!" the Maestro's loud voice makes everyone stop playing their instruments immediately. Your hands that were previously on the piano keys just rest on your lap, playing with a loose thread of your blouse. "What's going on today huh? Just because it's Friday and you guys want to enjoy the weekend doesn't mean you have to play like a high school band."

When she says this your eyes go directly to your friend on the other side of the orchestra room, Kate. She widens her eyes, and makes a funny face like she's bored. Even though Natasha's words can be a little harsh at times, everyone here is used to it. Especially Kate. You remember one time Natasha just walked out of the auditorium after making you guys play the same song for hours and hours, saying it was still bad, and all that Bishop said was that at least she didn't say it was terrible, just bad, and that coming from Natasha is like a compliment.

You end up quietly laughing at your friend's action, but then Natasha's body get in the way, stopping a few meters away from you, right in the direction you were looking. All you see for a few seconds is her white shirt, but lifting your gaze you meet her green eyes, feeling her strong judgment in you. Fuck. Your smile disappears instantly. "If you keep playing like this, you don't even have to show up on the day of the big performance." she continues, looking away from you and crossing her arms in front of her body. "An empty stage is better than a whole audience listening to whatever this is that you're playing. Because as much as this symphony was composed by me, the way you guys are playing make it sound like shit, and I don't want people to think I compose shitty music."

She takes a step forward, getting out of the line of sight between you and your friend. You look at each other again, and Kate mouths an 'ouch.', exaggeratedly making an offended expression with her face. You again cannot contain a smile. Bishop always finds the fun in tragic moments, and you love her for it. And you know that if Natasha even saw these kinds of interactions that you two have during rehearsals she would be pissed, not out of jealousy, of course she's not jealous of you, but out of the fact that she hates not being taken seriously.

"In the next rehearsal I don't want any mistakes, especially in the violin part, you're not playing in sync." Natasha takes a deep breath through her nose, turning her face to look in your direction, but you’re more focused on staring blankly at the keys of the instrument in front of you. "But for now... you're dismissed." as soon as she says the words everyone starts to get up, walking towards the stairs to go down from the auditorium stage. You follow your colleagues, going to the first row of seats, which is where everyone usually leaves their belongings. 

"Today she's in a bad mood." Kate says as soon as you reach her side. You take a quick look at the person she's referring to, she has her back to you, tying her hair up in her usual bun. You tried not to spend the entire night thinking about what happened between you two. But all you could imagine when you closed your eyes was how her cock felt inside your mouth, and how good it felt. You don't even remember when, but your hand was already inside your pajama pants, imagining it was her. You even tried using two of your fingers to mimic the feeling of what it might be like to have her inside you, but it hurt, all you were able to bear was half of just one finger of yours, so you stopped. You already know that she'll want to do something else today, and you think if it will hurt too. Or if she's going to let it hurt.

"I mean, it's impossible for her to be in a good mood."

You ignore Kate — so oblivious to your thoughts that you don't even know what to say to her — before picking up your backpack, slinging it over your shoulder. Every Friday you guys usually go to the bar at the end of the street after rehearsals, but you remember Natasha asking you to stay today again, and the way her mood is you sure don't want to give her another reason to stay even more grumpy. "I... I'm staying a little longer, the Maestro is helping me with some of my compositions." you lie, you don't even compose songs. "But you can go to the bar with the others, I'll meet you there."

"Oh... okay... I'll definitely want to listen to your piece later." she says in an excited tone, closing her violin case. "Just promise not to take too long, the bar is kinda boring without you."

"I promise."

"Okay perfect, and good luck with her." she pats your shoulder twice before walking past you, and you just stand there waiting for everyone to leave the orchestra room. When silence sets in, you realize that you are finally alone with Natasha again. She remains onstage as you grip the strap of your backpack so hard it looks like you want to tear the poor thing apart. You think if you look good, if the outfit you chose today caught her attention, if all the strands of your hair are in place. You’re nervous.

Natasha stares at you for a few seconds, actually, she couldn't take her eyes off you the entire time you were playing the piano, which isn't all that unusual, but this time she knew that at the end of the day she would have you, and that she wouldn't come home just to have to relieve herself alone thinking about you. But she didn't have a good day, you could tell from the way she was harsh with her words throughout rehearsal. Not that she isn't like that naturally, but today she put a lot of work into the insults. So all she wants now is to have something to make this day better. And you are the best option she has to solve this problem.

Her steps get louder as she steps down from the stage to approach you, who still has your back to her when you feel her presence so close to you. "Why don't you drop this, you're not leaving." she says referring to your backpack, and you immediately do as she asks, dropping it on the floor. Natasha smiles, seeing that she doesn't need to ask you twice for you to obey her. "Don't think you're an exception Y/N, you also disappointed me today."

You swallow hard, feeling her smooth the strands of your hair to the side to be able to kiss the curve of your neck. You close your eyes, her breath so close to your ear that you pay no attention to any other sounds in your surroundings. "You're gonna have to work really hard if you still want to be my first choice for the world tour, because with all the mistakes you made today..." she sucks your pulse point after saying this, making sure to leave a mark for everyone to see. "...maybe you don't really deserve this opportunity after all, hm?"

You haven't missed a single note, since you've been playing for her you've never made that mistake. You play the piano since you were six years old, so hitting the wrong key is something very unusual for you. But when you hear her saying that you made a mistake, you end up believing, it's her song, not yours. And Natasha knows it, she knows you played the song perfectly. But she needs a something to make you give her what she wants, even though deep down she knows you'd give in for no particular reason. "I-I... I know I deserve it." you say in a weak voice. "I can prove to you that I'm the best option, I know I can, Maestro."

"Yeah?" you gasp as her strong hands grope your breasts, pulling your body towards her and making you feel her hard bulge against your ass. You tremble in anticipation knowing that you're going to lose your virginity to her today, and you've kind of been preparing for it all day, so maybe that must have caused you to miss a few notes. Yeah, that would make sense. "I can put your name on the list today, you wouldn't have to wait another day to be part of the world tour... but only if you prove to me that you really are the best choice. Would you like that?" she asks close to your ear, and you nod frantically. "Good."

You feel a cool breeze hitting your body as she suddenly pulls away. As you turn to face her, you see her grabbing your backpack from the floor, slinging it over her shoulder before taking your hand. You look at her confused, but let her lead you to wherever she is leading. The two of you enter the hall of the building that you come to every day to stay hours playing the piano. It's dark, probably all the other employees working here are gone by now. You're known as the late-night musician crowd here, the ones that play for more hours straight too, five hours of class in total. So it wouldn't be surprising if in fact the only ones left here are you and Natasha. "Did your parents complain that you were late yesterday?" she lets go of your hand to get a key from her pocket, and unlocking a door she takes your arm to pull you into the room.

"No, I told 'em I was practicing, and they believed." you answer, hearing the door lock behind you. It's a relatively small room, it has a piano against one of the walls, but unlike the one in the orchestra room — which is a grand piano — this one is an upright one. There's a couch with red upholstery, a few other decorations, and then a desk. You walk towards it, running your finger across the wood material from one end to the other. "Is this your office?"

Natasha drops your backpack on the sofa along with her glasses before walking towards you. "No." she answers, and you again feel her warmth behind you. "I have my own office somewhere else, I just leave my stuff here from time to time." her hands go to your hips, sinking her nose into your neck to smell your perfume. "I spent the whole night thinking about you." you understand that she's not here to talk, she just wants something specific from you. You let her grip your body possessively, her hands squeezing every inch of you like she doesn't want you to leave. It's hot, you think that's even a little weird considering the fact that it's winter, but having her so close to you makes it feel like summer. And you can't deny that feeling her gaze on you throughout rehearsal has you completely needy for her, you already know that your underwear situation isn't the best, and you can't wait for her to finally do something about it.

But then something on the desk draws your attention. A ring. Natasha is a married woman, but she rarely wears her wedding ring. She just puts it on before leaving the house to prove her wife that she wears it, but whenever she gets here for rehearsals she leaves the little accessory in this room. There were times when she forgot, and kept the ring on all day, but rarely did anyone notice. Because as much as she loves her wife, Natasha still hates showing everyone that she belongs to someone, and that thought only started when you entered her life, what a coincidence. You bend your body to pick up the accessory, and when you look at it you can see a date engraved on the inside. It has a name too, but before you can read it Natasha snatches the object out of your hand.

"Sorry." you whisper, expecting her to call you names for taking something that isn't yours, but she doesn't. She doesn't have time for that. Natasha puts the ring on her finger, before turning her attention again to gripping your body. You feel bad for a few moments, knowing she has a wife who don't even imagine the things she does to you. But your mind is immersed in desire when Natasha's hand starts to go down between your breasts, to the button of your pants. She plays with your zipper while planting kisses all over your neck, with that, you find yourself thirsting for her with every passing second. "Nat..."

"Did you hear what I said? That you didn't get out of my head last night?" she unzips, and slowly pulls your pants down to your thighs. You feel your cheeks burn, feeling her play with the hem of your underwear. Are you really prepared for this? You think. But also think of the world tour, and the answer becomes clear. "I had to fuck my wife thinking about you to relieve myself." you bite the inside of your cheek, hearing her say such words makes you wet. You feel bad for her wife, yes, but turned on to know that Natasha thinks so highly of you. She thought about you all night, just like you thought about her. Maybe this could be more than just an exchange of favors, no?

With one hand, Natasha spreads your legs apart. You have both of your hands resting against the desk, as her hand starts to move up your inner thigh. "You're always so quiet." she chuckles when her hand reaches between your legs, your body squirms, pressing her fingertips against your underwear Natasha can feel how wet you are for her. This just makes her harder. "Is it because you've never done this before? Is that why you don't know what to say sweet girl?"

"Uhum." you hum, closing your eyes when she presses on your clit. "I just... I just need..."

"What?" in one swift motion she pulls your underwear down, and you end up moaning as her hand goes straight to your slit. You spread your legs a few more inches apart when she starts to move back and forth over your folds, looking down Natasha groans at the sight of your cheeks so close to her covered cock. "What do you need?" she continues to spread your wetness all over your pussy while her other hand grabs one of your breasts, making you close your eyes at the aggressiveness she does. "Do you wanna tell your Maestro what you need from her, hm?"

You want to talk to her, you really do. But it's the first time anyone's touched you like this, and you can do anything but form a complete sentence. You didn't think she'd be this quick, you really thought you'd at least talk before she had all of you, but feeling her fingers slip through your slits makes you not mind too much about that. You just need her, you're practically begging her to finally ruin you. "I really need you to say it so I can keep going." she murmurs, opening your folds with her fingers before teasing your entrance. "Do you want me to stretch your tight little pussy? Want me to be your first?" she ends up sliding just the tip of her finger inside you, and since you tried to do the same last night, the sensation is not so strange for you, but even so, because she’s the one doing it, it makes you feel different type of feelings.

You manage to nod your head at her question, gripping the edge of the table tightly as she switches from teasing your entrance to playing with your clit. You smile trapping your bottom lip between your teeth, trying to follow her movement into your sex with your hips. "I need words baby, please."

"Y-yes, fuck I need you, p-please."

The Maestro smiles, her heart beating wildly inside her chest. She pulls down her own pants and boxers, her hard cock as it springs out brushes lightly against your cheeks. Your hands that were once on the edge of the desk are now both pressed against your low back as Natasha takes your wrists, and with her other hand she forces your body into the desk, causing you to whine in pain when your cheek is pressed against the icy wood material, your breasts practically smashed against the table. You close your eyes for a few seconds at her subtle movement, and think about how easily she can position you however she wants. She's much stronger than you. And she wasn't really planning on ending up being this aggressive, but sometimes she can't help herself.

"Fuck... you're so wet." she says as she pulls back a little just to get a good view of your sex, her hand still holding yours against your lower back. "Who knew you got so turned on in the presence of your Maestro huh? What would your parents think of that? I don't think they would be so proud to hear that you lie to them by telling you're practicing when in reality you're letting yourself be fucked by your conductor."

You turn your head away to hide the embarrassment you feel, but pressing your forehead against the table is even more uncomfortable, so you end up turning your face away again, resting your cheek on the furniture. Natasha uses her free hand to rub her cock against your slits, groaning at the sight of your wetness mixing with her pre-cum. "Natasha... I..." you whisper, remembering that this can hurt. Even though you're so turned on, so wet that you might not feel a thing, you're still tinged with fear, and the red-haired woman can see it too. "I don't know if-."

"Shhh." she silences you, letting go of your wrists to brush the strands of hair that fall over your face. "It's okay, no need to be scared, it will feel good, I promise." you find comfort in her words, and that makes some of the fear go away, even though you know she's not that honest sometimes. The older woman even thinks of getting the lub she brought, but seeing how wet you are she thinks that won't be necessary. A gasp escapes her lips as she continues to rub her cock into your slit, and feeling the heat of your sex only make her more painfully aroused. “Stay still detka.”

You close your eyes tightly as you feel her tip slowly stretching your hole, and you realize it's very different from when you tried to use your fingers. She stays still for a while, and you think it's not that bad, at least not until she starts sliding even more inside you. You grunt in pain when half of her cock enters you, and even though you are wet, it still burns a little, trying to get used to this new sensation. "Fuck, you're so tight." Natasha breathes out the words, moving her hips back and making your pussy clenches around nothing. "Is this okay? Can I keep going?”

"U-uhm y-yes." you open your eyes again when she pulls your head by holding your hair, lifting it slightly but your body still pressed against the table.

"Good... This might hurt a little. Tap my thigh if you want me to stop."

You don't understand why you would have to tap her thigh when you can use your words, but feeling her hand pressing over your mouth you understand why. She uses her hand to stifle the scream that rips from your throat as she thrusts her cock all at once inside your pussy, and it hurts, it hurts like hell, but even so, your hand remains still, making no move to tap her thigh. Your entire body protests Natasha's gross invasion, but you remember she said this will feel good, and that's what you want to believe in. She pulls out, leaving only the tip inside you, before moving her hips forward in a blunt act, causing the table to swell slightly beneath you. "F-fuck." you mumble against her palm, every inch of her stretching your walls, feeling like at any moment she's going to destroy you from the inside by the thickness and length of her. She is indeed really big, you don't know what was on your mind when you thought this would be easy to take.

"Fuck baby, you're so tight, how am I supposed to move inside you hm?" Natasha's fingers continue to wrap around your hair as she presses your face back against the table, while her other hand grabs your hips to keep you still. She starts to fuck you slowly but hard at the same time. Her every thrust is aggressive, some things on the table even move with every move she makes against you. You palm your hands to the side of your body as that aching feeling inside you starts to turn into a feeling you didn't know would feel so good until now. "Do you think you can take more? Want me to fuck you hard?"

You clench around her dick at the thought of her fucking you harder than she already is, and the sensation this causes around Natasha's length makes her moan in pleasure. "Oh that's it... clench around my cock, fuck you're so hot." she sinks her nails into your hips, pulling you closer to her. "Do you want me to continue? Want me to fuck you mercilessly?"

"P-please." you beg, even deep down you want her to take it easy at first, moving your hips back when she stops suddenly with her movements. "Keep going, feels so good."

"Hm?" you feel her strong hand against your throat, pulling you up and making your body fully erect again. You feel the relief this caused on your cheek, but what holds your attention the most is the way Natasha's cock starts to fuck you from behind. "Like this? Want me to treat you like a slut?" your arms are pulled behind your body while her other hand is still around your throat. Natasha fucks you while preventing you from moving your arms, and at the same time making it difficult for oxygen to rise to your brain. You arch your back, your eyes rolling as you feel her hit against the deepest part of your pussy.

She's rougher with your cunt than she was with your mouth, sinking her thick cock into your tight walls and making you moan over it. It still hurts, you didn't have time to get used to its size completely, but you get wetter with each thrust that gets easier and easier for Natasha to fuck you hard. You feel your pants sliding down your legs with every pound of her, and it's not long before it falls to your ankles. "You wanted this didn't you?" she asks tightening her fingers around your neck even more. "I bet this isn't the first time you've wanted this from me, tell me, did you touch yourself thinking about me too? Did you use those talented hands of yours to imagine I was fucking you?” she wants to hear it from you, she wants to know that she wasn't the only one doing this all these months that you've been her apprentice.

"I-I, yes." you admit it, even though it's not true. Even if you had impure thoughts about your Maestro you've never really touched yourself thinking about her, but if that's what she wants to hear, that's what you'll say. And again, a big mistake you just made. "Fuck. it. hurts." you end up saying it out loud between labored sighs, feeling the tightness in your throat loosen.

"Want me to stop?" you shake your head from side to side quickly, feeling embarrassingly closer to the edge. Natasha slows down her thrusts inside you as she lowers the hand that was previously around your throat to massage your clit. She fucks you slowly, while making circular motions on your bundle of nerves at medium speed. With her light movements you can feel better the way she moves inside you, not just hard thrusts. You feel her cock sliding over your walls, and how her fingers work so well on your clit.

That's much better, slowly and carefully. You throw your head back, not understanding how you can still stand when the way she fucks you makes you feel boneless. "S-so good." you murmur, your arms move a little when you feel her ridge digging deep into the spongy part of you, but natasha holds them tighter, pulling you against her, almost making your back press against her covered breasts. She again feels your perfume invaded her senses, and thinks how she never wants to try anyone's scent but yours.

You didn't imagine that your first time would be in a random room, with a woman much older than you, and whom you admire so much. But now you don't think how it could just be better that already is. It's just wonderful the way her dick enters you carefully, as if this whole time it was meant to be. You wonder if it's normal to feel so ecstatic so quickly, you didn't think that anything other than your hand would be able to pull you over the edge so fast. And you want to hold on longer, trying to prolong her pleasure as well, but it gets hard when all you can feel is her thick cock sliding in and out of you, as your clit begins to grow sensitive to her touches. “You’re doing so good.” she whispers close to your ear, increasing the stimulation on your nerve just a little bit, only to pull you further towards the climax.

She hates that it took you so long to give yourself to her, and even though you're not completely hers yet, she already feels that way. She's wanted this for a long time, and now that she finally has what she wanted, it's going to be hard for her to let go. She rolls her hips over yours, and it's torturous but perfect at the same time.

Natasha has a hard time keeping her movements slow, all she wants is to abuse you until you can't walk the next day. But she also wants to make you feel good, she wants to make your first time worth it. And it's working. You feel the orgasm starting to build, and you know you won't be able to hold it back for long because of the way she makes you feel like you're out of gravity. "I... fuck... I'm so-." you don't even know what to say, you just try to control the moans that insist on coming out of your mouth. "Fuck I think I'm-."

"Come for me pretty girl, come on, I know you're close, come on, I got you."

It doesn't take long for you to reach your peak, and unlike when you're alone, this time feels totally different. You close your eyes tightly when the pleasure is all you can feel in every muscle in your body, Natasha rests her forehead on your back as she feels you squeezing her cock, feeling the wetness that spreads on her hand as she keeps stimulating you. "That's it..." she stops inside you, pressing her finger against your clit and feeling your sensitive area pulsating on her fingertips. Your breathing is uncontrolled when you finally break out of the trance, feeling your body sweating even though she did all the work.

It feels like you're drugged, and you're afraid you'll end up becoming addicted to her. And this was only the first time, you don't know if there will be others, but really hope so. With time she stops completely, waiting for you to get back together. And you thank her for it. It was so good, you want to go again, and again, until you can't take it anymore. You didn't know it would feel this good, you really were afraid that it would just hurt, but even though it did, in the end it was worth it.

You stay that way for a few moments before Natasha slowly pulls out of you, and you suddenly complain about the emptiness. Your legs are shaky as you turn your body to face her, her eyes showing nothing more than desire as they look directly into yours. "You okay?" she asks gently, cupping your face in her hands. You nod, staring at her parted lips. You try to bring your face even closer to kiss her, but the Maestro holds your jaw, preventing you from getting any closer. "No... no kissing."

"Why?"

"Oh detka, we're not trying to fall in love here, are we?" she speaks in a subtle way, even though she knew those weren't the words you wanted to hear. But you end up agreeing with her, it's really not what you're looking for, it's just an exchange of favors. You force that thought into your head, feeling the tip of her cock pressing against your bare sex. You look down, seeing the length of her glistening with your fluids, she imitates your act, this time getting a perfect view at your pussy. Is certainly one of the best views she's ever had. "Gonna keep fucking you okay?" she warns, running her fingers over your slits to make sure you stay wet, You shiver as she runs her finger over your clit before returning to your entrance. She pulls two fingers inside you, wetting them before leading them to her mouth. Natasha hums while feeling your taste on her tongue, and you think it wouldn't be possible for a scene to be this mesmerising, but ends up being anyway. Being completely aware of your arousal she quickly gets back to work.

Natasha groans, lifting one of your legs up to her hip to continue. She hasn't come yet. You weren't expecting it when she pushes her cock back inside you, and unlike how she was doing it a few minutes ago this time she just uses you like a fuck doll. And that's what you are to her, just someone to fuck, not someone to create emotional bonds with. At least that's what she's trying to get herself to believe in.

"You don't know how good it feels to have you squeezing my cock... my god how tight you are." you'll never get tired of hearing her tell you this, it just works the way you feel around her even more. The sounds you two make aren't low by any chance, and you're grateful that there's no one around to know what the two of you are up to behind closed doors. "You're so fucking beautiful, you're perfect."

Your legs feel like jelly, still trying to fully recover from your last orgasm, and noticing your difficulty standing up Natasha holds both your thighs, pulling you to sit on top of the desk, while thrusting her cock even deeper inside you.

She grips your jaw tightly, forcing you to look deep into her eyes as she fucks you. You see the darkness that consumes her, so lost in desire it makes your body convulse. "You're just a tiny little talented slut aren't ya? Look how good you take me all in." her breath hits against your lips, and you try to control yourself so you don't end up realising it again, feeling overstimulated by her every second. "So... so good for me, only for me.”

You rests both your hands on the table, wrapping your legs around Natasha's hips feeling her fuck you quickly and aggressively. Her hands grip tight on your thighs, and she tries to maintain eye contact with you, but she wants to see how she fucks you, she wants to see the scene of her destroying you from the inside. She lowers her sight to focus on the way her cock disappears inside you, how you take her so well even being your first time. "Gonna come so deep inside you." she whispers, feeling closer with her own words. "Gonna fill you up so good baby."

You feel the heat getting more unbearable, as it seems the walls of the room get smaller around you, one of your hands going towards her shoulder for better balance. You expect the table to break at any moment, just like Natasha is doing with your insides. And unlike her, you keep your eyes glued to the expressions on her face; how her eyebrows furrow up, how she tries to keep her moans from being audible. "Oh fuck... fuck... keep taking it... that's it..." you feel her nails digging deep into the skin of your thighs, and you know you're going to be bruised all over, but the thought of it makes your heart warm. "Is this making you feel good? Oh I bet so. Want to tell me how good I make you feel?"

"Y-yes... you make me feel so good." you say in uncontrolled breaths, squeezing her shoulder hard as you feel yet another orgasm slamming against your body like a brick. But still Natasha doesn't stop, even noticing the way your walls tighten around her cock, she still keeps pushing inside you harshly. "Fuuuck... fuck I don't think I can... Nat... p-please-."

"Shhhh, yes you can, I'm almost there, keep taking it." her hands lift your shirt up to your breasts, and she grunts at the sight of them covered by your bra. All she wanted right now was to get that stupid piece of clothing off your body, but being content with what she has she just squeezes them, your breasts fit perfectly into her palms, and she gropes them so hard it seems like your skin burns with her touch.

Your legs fall from her hips, feeling so overstimulated you don't have the strength to keep them wrapped around her. Natasha also finds it difficult to keep pushing inside you because you're so tight, and you try your best to keep taking her. That pain that had passed comes back, making you cry when you realize that you won't be able to hold on. "Please... please!" you beg, squeezing her shoulder and making Natasha hiss from the strength you do it. "Nat please I can't… it hurts.”

"Baby, begging isn't going to get you anywhere... you didn't ask me to stop, so keep quiet hm?" you nod your head realizing that what she says is true, you didn't actually ask her to stop, you just begged, but for nothing in particular. You feel so sensitive, her cock feels so big on you that it really hurts, but also a pain that feels really good. Fuck, it hurts so good you even feel ashamed to admit it. It feels like you're going to pass out, the room grows dark and your breath gets shorter. And the Maestro sees the tears running down your cheeks, and that's the last straw for her. With a few more thrusts you feel her warm fluid being released inside you, painting your inner walls all over. "Yeah... that's it... fuck… you feel so good."

Natasha practically collapses on top of you, resting her head in the crook of your neck as she continues to fill yourself with her cum. She moves her hips slowly to fuck the cum inside you, and you hate to admit that the wet noises of her action are so arousing. She closes her eyes for a few seconds feeling her dick throbbing inside you. "Nat..." you whine as she pulls away, and then taking her cock outside you you can feel the liquid seeping through your slits. You sigh with immediate relief, and only then do you realize your face is wet with your tears. Natasha grabs her shaft, rubbing it in your pussy and watching as her white juice spreads through your folds. She slides the tip back inside to keep every last drop that’s left in you, before going back to rubbing the end of it on your clit. Natasha is mesmerized, and even though she wants to continue she takes a step back.

"You did so good, I'm proud of you." she runs her knuckles over your cheeks, wiping the tears away. You close your eyes in her caress, feeling your pussy throbbing. "You were perfect."

And then the room is back to its normal size, the walls aren't suffocating you anymore, and the heat isn't so unbearable. Natasha picks up your underwear on the floor, and passes them by your feet to help you put them on, and you end up getting up from the table so she can pass the piece of clothing to your thighs. She doesn't say anything as she picks up your pants as well, holding them out to you before running her fingers over the strands of her hair. She's still hard when she tucks her cock into her pants, and as soon as you're fully dressed again you approach her. "I can help you with that..." you say directing your hand to the bulge in her pants, but Natasha shakes her head no.

"No, it's okay sweet girl." you smile when you hear her call you by the nickname, then just nod as she starts walking towards the door. She unlocks it, and holds it open for you to pass. As you move you can feel some of her cum that was still inside you wet your underwear, and then it hits you, you really did it, it doesn't even seem real, and the worst of it is that you liked it more than you should have. After you pick up your backpack on top of the sofa, you two begin a silent path through the corridors. You feel your legs weak, and you fear it will only get worse when you wake up the next day. But as has been said before, it was all worth it. When you're next to her, you see Natasha fiddling with her phone, talking to someone in messages. You also notice the way she squeezes her cock over her pants, the discomfort you left her in still isn't entirely gone. "Are you gonna get an uber or something?" she asks as soon as you step onto the sidewalk outside of the building.

"Uhm... no... I'm gonna go to a bar with my friends at the end of the street."

She just nods, not taking her eyes off her phone screen. You tighten your backpack straps, rocking your body back and forth not knowing if you should just walk away or wait for her to say goodbye first. She types quickly to whoever is talking to her, and you see the way her brows furrow, like she's worried about something. "I uhm... I should go." she says before finally looking up at you, giving you a weak smile. "Are you okay with what happened today?"

"Yes." you answer immediately. "It was... really good."

Indeed it was, you could do it for hours. You didn't know sex could feel this good. Or at least the sex with her definitely was.

"Okay good." she's relieved that she didn't make you do anything you didn't want to, even though she knows the real reason why you actually did it. "And... I'll talk to you next week about what I told you earlier."

"What?" you ask, not really knowing what she's talking about.

"The list... Your name on the list."

Oh, this.

For a moment you even forgot about it, you felt so good in her presence that you didn't even remember that in fact all of this was for other intentions. "Oh yes of course… okay." Natasha stares at you for a few more seconds before walking towards her car, leaving you alone. When she drives away you follow the vehicle with your eyes until it completely disappears from your view. And then you're back to reality. And what a shitty reality.

taglist: @kksalexa @madelineleong @shaniaauld03 @natashafanatic @gayerthanevertbh @wifeofnatasharomanoff

[atinystraynstay]

Black And White - Kim Hongjoong

Synopsis: Weddings are always happy occasions. You've always loved watching two people showcase their love in such a momentous way. It made you wonder if one day, you too will get married.

Pairing: Kim Hongjoong x fem. reader

Genre: Flufffffff, established relationship, long-term dating, talks of the future

Word Count: 2k

Hongjoong sat in the black cushioned folding chair. It was a gorgeous venue. It was an old warehouse that was rented out for the intimate wedding. He was amazed at how the decorators were able to transform the space so rather than feeling cold and empty, it was filled with so much warmth and love to mark the special occasion.

When you told Hongjoong about the wedding, he got excited. Not just to be able to go. To be honest, he wasn't sure if you wanted him to go anyway. Your childhood best friend was getting married, after all.

That is why he was a bit apprehensive about attending the wedding. To an extent, you two were still getting to know each other. He never thought wanted you to feel pressured you had to take the relationship in a certain direction. He was just content with being exclusively yours.

Over the past few months, you have been more introduced to his world. You knew all his friends very well, often hanging out together. Hongjoong has met some of your coworkers when he has picked you up after work or attended the company's holiday party. He just hasn't met the people that meant the most to you, which is what terrified him.

To Hongjoong, winning over the people closest to you made him the most nervous. He could easily go on stage and perform his heart out. Hell, you could say the president of South Korea was in attendance and he'd own the stage. It was his comfort zone. He wasn't even nervous to meet your parents. It was your best friend who terrified him.

And not because she was intimidating. From everything you've said about her, she basically walked on water. The two of you have been friends since you were 11 years old. You've known your best friend longer than he's known his members!

Despite the distance since you moved to Korea, you chatted nearly every day. He was convinced you spoke to her more than him on some days. He wasn't jealous of that fact either. If anything, he was more appreciative and thankful you had such a loyal person in your life. Your best friend championed you unlike any other, and you did the same for her.

However, that is where the immense pressure to win over your best friend stems from. What if she didn't approve of him? What if your best friend believed you deserved better? Would you listen to her and leave?

One thing was for certain is that Hongjoong could not afford to lose you. For the first time in his life, he was experiencing the love he's watched on the big screen. He never thought he would be one of the lucky ones to find such a perfect partner. You constantly went above and beyond for him, and he was trying his best to love you twice as much. He believed you deserved the whole world, and he wanted to be the one to give it to you.

His inner monologue was disrupted as soft instrumental music began to play. People around him rose to their feet, and he followed suit.

You were concerned about Hongjoong being in the audience for the ceremony. He was your plus one, whereas your best friend asked you to be in the bridal party. But Hongjoong couldn't complain. He got the best view in the whole venue.

As if on cue, he noticed the back doors open. He turned to his side as he saw the bridesmaids and the respective groomsmen make their way down the aisle. Hongjoong was trying his best to remember the names of those you pointed out before. There were a few other friends of the bride you, and a few of the groomsmen you knew.

He smiled politely as the pairs began their walk down the aisle. However, he kept glancing over his shoulder once they passed. He just had to see you.

His heart stopped as he could see you behind another pair. You were making light conversation with the man who was walking with you down the aisle. He was the groom's best friend. You were the two people who have heard about this beautiful marriage leading up to this momentous day.

Hongjoong just couldn't take his eyes off you. Your best friend decided everyone would wear the same color - a light blue that some could describe as Tiffany blue. Yet, each bridesmaid dress was unique to the woman wearing it. It was unconventional but that's what Hongjoong loved. He loved seeing all the different dresses each person chose.

Undoubtedly, his favorite was yours. It was an A-Line floor-length dress. There was a slit running up the left side of the dress, stopping at your mid thigh. You were always the type of person who loved the freedom to move around. The sleeves were ruffled, possibly made out of chiffon. It tied in the back, a pretty bow resting against on your upper back. You looked heavenly.

You wore a wide smile as you looked at the groom. You often gushed about their relationship, especially since you were certain from the moment you met the man at the altar that he would end up marrying your best friend.

However, Hongjoong noticed your eyes would leave the altar every now and then. He couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong if you were okay. You didn't seem tense. This was the disadvantage of not being a part of the ceremony. He couldn't attend to your needs right away.

But when your eyes met his eyes, you visibly became more relaxed. You smiled at him lovingly. And he looked at you like you were made out of the most precious gems. "Wow," he mouthed to you. You couldn't help but blush before turning away. While you wanted nothing more than to rush over to kiss your lover, you couldn't This was your best friend's big day.

"So when is the wedding?" A voice came from Hongjoong's left side.

Curiously, Hongjoong looked to his side away from you. There was an elderly man with a smirk on his face. He looked at Hongjoong, waiting for a response. However, Hongjoong was terribly confused.

"Sir, we're at the wedding now. It's beginning," he whispered, not wanting to speak too loudly to cause a distraction.

The old man chuckled and shook his head. "No, not this one. I'm not that old. I'm speaking of the one between you and your girl. I'm guessing a summer wedding?"

Hongjoong's eyes widened. His heart was doing flips in his chest, nearly jumping out. His body filled with warmth, not sure if it was the nervousness of having to say no or the idea of marrying you that made him feel so tingly.

"We haven't selected a date yet," Hongjoong whispered.

The old man seemed satisfied at the response before turning back towards the aisle. Everyone around him was gasping softly as the bride made her way down the aisle. Yet, Hongjoong couldn't look anywhere but up at you.

At first, your eyes were on your best friend walking down the aisle. Seeing her so content, so happy did your heart well. Your best friend has been waiting for this moment since you guys discovered Pinterest and made boards when you were in junior high. You couldn't help but have your eyes wonder towards the crowd.

To your surprise, Hongjoong was staring at you with the widest grin on his lips. Your chest filled with warmth and cheeks heated up.

Maybe one day the two of you will be at this milestone. You sure hoped so.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Throughout the ceremony, Hongjoong's eyes didn't leave you once. He couldn't help but picture you one day wearing a white dress. Hell, maybe even a different color. All he wanted was you.

The two of you were over by the bar. Everyone had filed in as they made their way from the ceremony venue to the reception hall. The bride and groom were making their rounds to interact with everyone who came to celebrate their special day. For the time being though, you and Hongjoong were soaking up every opportunity to just focus on one another.

"You clean up nicely, baby," you teased him.

He rolled his eyes playfully but had a wide smile on his lips. The two of you were sipping the signature cocktails of the bride and groom. For you, you opted for your best friend's favorite, a bay breeze. Hongjoong was sipping a whiskey sour, the favorite of the groom.

"Have to dress my best when I've got the best date," he chuckled. His lips pressed against the corner of your mouth. He then pressed tiny kisses along your cheek heading to the earlobe. You shivered at the feeling but your body felt warm and tingly, and it wasn't due to the alcohol. Hongjoong always had this way of making you feel on fire in the best way possible through his displays of affection.

One hand rested on his arm while the other held your drink. He wrapped his arm around your body, pulling you in closer. His thumb gently caressed your lower back. You giggled when you felt his breath hitting the shell of your ear. "Couldn't take my eyes off of you, sweet girl," he murmured. For an added effect, he grazed his teeth along the shell of your ear. He knew it drove you wild.

You whined out gently. "Baby, please."

He knew he had to keep himself tame for now. He'll show you how much he enjoyed the view once you were alone. For now though, he'd do everything he could to make you feel like the only woman in existence. Because in his eyes, you were just that. Nothing else mattered besides you.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," a voice spoke from beside you. You pulled back slightly, but not enough to step out of Hongjoong's arm. Not that he would let you anyway. If anything, his grip tightened a bit to hold you closer.

Looking over, you grinned to see your best friend with her new husband. You set your glass down on the counter of the bar. Sensing your excitement, Hongjoong let go of you. And just in time too because you threw your arms around your best friend. Hongjoong and your best friend's husband share a laugh.

She hugged you back tightly before you two slowly let go of each other. Hongjoong wrapped his arm loosely around you but turned to politely address the happy couple in front of him. Maybe it was the sips of alcohol helping his confidence, or the words from the stranger during the ceremony, but the nerves leading up to this day subsided. It felt odd to be the nervous one giving the milestone the couple in front of the two of you just experienced.

"So you're the man who's captured my best friend's heart, huh?" Your best friend asked teasingly. "Well if anything, she's got me wrapped around your finger and I pray every day she doesn't let me go."

Your best friend grinned at the response. Hongjoong up by one point.

The conversation between the four of you flowed easily. Your best friend asked her typical interrogation questions, which made you internally groan. Hongjoong wasn't fazed by any of it. Most of your exes in the best would have frozen and spewed out whatever. Not Hongjoong. he answered honestly.

"So where do you see this going? Because my best friend is the whole world and she deserves it." "And I couldn't agree more," Hongjoong answered. "And truth be told, if you asked me yesterday, I would've said that we are taking it one day at a time." "But?" "But now? I want everything with her." Hongjoong looked down at you, seeing your shocked expression. He couldn't wipe the grin off his face.

"Everything and anything as long as you're by my side." He no longer spoke to your best friend. He was speaking directly to you. Your smile was wide, which eased Hongjoong's heart when he noticed your eyes tearing up. His lips pressed firmly against your forehead before looking at the married couple.

One day, you two will be there. He was certain of it.

[sweet-creature101]

Kiwi

Summary: Harry recently started his solo carrier and Sarah recommmeds y/n as his lead guitarist. Harry finds himself intimidated by y/n and y/n could not care less.

famous!harry ; an enemies to lovers trope

part two

warnings: mention of alcohol. Swearing. Suggestive language and sexual tension.

“Come on Harry trust me on this. It won’t go downhill. She’s really good.” Sarah pleaded her case for the tenth time since the past one hour. Harry was certain she would talk his ear off.

“What was her name again?” Mitch asked Sarah.

“Y/n.”

“Sarah, I don’t know about this. I’ve known you all since a long time and it’s easy to work with you.” Harry said, slightly skeptical about a new addition to his team.

Harry knew who you were, a very successful songwriter and one hell of a guitar player. He knew you worked with bands like 5sos, 21 Pilots and even wrote a few songs on Taylor’s swifts album, Reputation. He saw you at a concert once and immediately fell in love with the way your presence consumed the concert wholly. No one cared about who was singing because everyone’s eyes were fixated on the young seductress clad in black leather and playing her instrument as if her life depended on it.

“You can only grow if you’re out of your comfort zone.” Sarah firmly stated, crossing her arms over her chest huffing out a breath.

Harry thought about it for a good minute. He needed someone with experience and you seemed to have it. You knew how to write and what to write. Perhaps a little experiment wouldn’t be so bad.

“Okay. I’m trusting your judgement on this.” Harry said nodding.

“Great because y/n’s in the elevator right now.” Sarah said giggling slightly. “Thank God you didn’t say no. Would’ve been a difficult conversation.” She mumbled, relived at how the situation panned out.

The apartment bell rang and Sarah jumped out of her seat startling Mitch who was sitting next to her. She took long strides towards the door.

“Y/n! Oh my gosh, it’s been ages! You look wonderful!” Sarah said hugging you. You smiled and hugged her back, glad to meet her once again after what seemed like a century.

“Thank you. How’ve you been?” You asked her, not bothering to take note of the two men who seemed to scrutinise your interaction with quite a lot of concentration.

“Same ol’ same ol” Sarah chuckled as she let you in.

“Harry, Mitch meet y/n.” Sarah introduced you to them. You found yourself in an awkward postion so you simply gave a wave and a loose smile.

If Harry was a ball of sunshine then you were a raging hurricane. The two of you were polar opposites. Harry radiated warmth and seemed to be the kind of person whom other people could talk to. Meanwhile you on the other hand were someone who kept to themselves.

Harry couldn’t help but notice your sweeping eyeliner. He observed it quite attentively, how it was winged at the edge of your eye and in the inner corner as well in a feline manner. You wore low waisted jeans with a fitted graphic black tee shirt that ended just below your navel, showing a silver of skin.

“So y/n, what’s your work like?” Mitch asked you.

“I write mainly rock but I’m open to new suggestions.” You said. Sarah nodded as if to say ‘awesome.’

Your voice was firm and authoritative as you answered the question. Harry found himself completly entranced by this complexity of a person that stood in front of him. He figured it out the minute you walked into the room with your head held high that working with you wouldn’t be easy.

“Do you have any questions Harry?” Sarah asked him. Harry only nodded no.

“Great. Im going out for a smoke.” You said leaving the three of them alone again.

“She’s scary.” Harry said once the door shut. Sarah rolled her eyes in response. “She’s a no nonsense person Harry.”

“And scary.” He added again.

“I know you’re not used to people like her. Just because you’re both literal opposites doesn’t mean she’ll eat you alive.” Sarah snorted. “You like her, don’t you Mitch?” Sarah asked him. Mitch only swallowed and replied, “I like her better on stage.”

“Oh hush both of you. Give her time.”

——————————————

“It doesn’t sound good.” Harry huffed out impatiently, staring at the lyrics he scribbled. It had been more than a week since everyone started to work on his debut album.

Harry began to habour a certain disliking for you, owing to lack of your participation and one word answers. You would sit away from everyone, scribble in your diary and would rarely look up from its pages.

“You know what guys, let’s just take a breather yeah?” Jeff, Harry’s manager said getting up from his chair and stretching his legs.

“I’m going out for a walk.” Sarah said, pulling Mitch to his feet as well. Harry was about to get up as well but Sarah mouthed to him; ‘talk to her’ as she gestured towards you. Harry looked at her with wide eyes and was ready to protest but Sarah was quick on her feet.

“Y/n.” Harry called out your name. You looked up at him, the loose strands strands of your braid fell down framing your face. You raised your eyebrows as if to say ‘speak on.’

Harry cleared his throat. “What are you writing?”

“Nothing much. Just an idea.” You said. That was the most you had spoken.

Harry noticed that today, there was no eyeliner but smudged kohl lining your eyes. You opted for a plain white tank top and a pair of mini cargo shorts. A surprise for Harry who was much too used to seeing you in black.

“I think, everyone would appreciate it if you would participate more you know?” Harry said. You only nodded and went back to scribbling.

“See! This is what you do y/n. You don’t talk. You’re so busy doing God knows what. I get it, you know you’re talented but that doesn’t mean you’re better than us.” Harry exploded. You shut your dairy hard and stared at him with rage.

“It’s been almost two weeks since you joined us. Have you contributed in any way?” Harry added, his voice reaching a higher octave and getting louder by the second.

“First of all, I don’t think I’m fucking better than you and second of all, instead of blaming me why don’t you recognise the fact that you’re scared and absolutely clueless.” You spat at him.

“I’m not scared.” Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah right.” You scoffed rolling your eyes. “You’re so scared that you’re putting the blame on me just because I’m the newbie. This solo carrier is new to you and that terrifies the shit out of you Harry. So much that you can’t even work. If I have to be the punching bag then I’m fucking leaving.” You stated grabbing your bag.

“You don’t know shit y/n.”

You didnt care about what Harry said next as you walked out of the room.

—————————————————

“Was it really necessary Harry?” Jeff said, rubbing his head with his hands. The stress of not having completed the album began to increase.

“I told you, ‘give her some time.’ Did you do that Harry? No. You just had to say something.” Sarah said, flinging her arms in the air.

“I mean, was Harry wrong though? Y/n was… just there you know. She didn’t talk, she didn’t help. Good riddance I say.” Mitch said.

The whole group was torn up over this. Harry began to feel guilt overpower him, but the rage he felt at your words was far too much for him to hone. He knew you were right and he hated you for that. He hated you for the fact that you were so good at reading him. Harry knew that you didn’t talk because you were shy but because you never found yourself as engaged as the others. You were aloof, and gave the impression that nothing bothered you at all.

“It’s been what; six days since she stormed off?” Jeff asked harry.

“Seven.”

“Jesus.”

Harry was certain that you overreacted to the situation. Granted, you didn’t want to be here and Harry left no stone unturned when it came to reminding you his dislike for you.

The door bell rang, Harry got up to look through the key hole. He felt the colour drain from his face. It was you. Standing in front of the door.

“It’s her.” Harry whispered with his eyes wide.

“You know I can hear you, ya dick. Open the door or I’m leaving.” You, irritation lacing your face.

You began to hate Harry or at least develop an aggressive aversion towards him as time passed. You hated how he seemed to have enough energy throughout the day to burst into a song. You hated that he was all smiles and giggles every second of the day. The only one thing you liked about him was how intimadated he was by you. But you knew that he could be much more terrifying than you when the time came.

“Pick your poison.” Mitch said.

Harry opened the door to meet your black smudged eyes. You push him as you enter the room and slam the diary on the centre table with a loud thud.

“Here you go. You said Im no help at all. Well I beg to differ. I’ve written three songs.” You said. Harry picked up the diary and flipped through the pages.

Kiwi

Medicine

Only angel

Strange names for such explicit songs.

Harry passed the diary to Sarah who looked at the songs with amazement.

“Harry we’ve got to add these.” Sarah said, excitement lacing her eyes.

“I don’t need anyone to plead my case. If he likes them, good enough.” You said, your voice unwavering as you looked at Harry who narrowed his eyes at you.

“I like them.”

—————————————

Within a week, all recordings were done and the album was ready to launch. Jeff suggested that the four of you should to go out, let off some steam because life would never be the same once the album got released.

Everyone was quite surprised when you suggested a place to party. You were quite intent on getting shit faced because the past month had been a whirlwind to say the least.

You wore a black mini dress, encased with sequins that was backless. Your eyes were lined with heavy kohl and mascara. Your whole face was bare other than your eyes.

“Johnnieeeee!” You exclaim to the large bouncer, a smile on your face as you high five him.

“Y/n been a long time. I see you’ve got friends.” He said, eyeing the people behind you.

Sarah felt that the club you brought them to too was far too dark and dingy for her liking. It was dark and the music was blaring. The club smelt of sex, drugs and alcohol. Your natural habitat. She held Mitchs hand in hers who was amused at her behaviour.

“I promise I’ll be good.” You say, looking up at him with doe eyes and a sly smile. John chuckled and let you in the club.

“We have go to do shots.” You exclaim to all three of them. Harry was surprised at your behaviour to say the least, he never would’ve pegged you as someone who even had the ability to smile let alone laugh.

“Nope. I’m driving.” Sarah said throwing her hands up in the air.

“Jeez such a buzzkill.” You said making Sarah roll her eyes. You stuck your tongue out at her as you made your way to the bar with Harry and Mitch.

“Don’t stop till your at least ten shots down.” You said with a cunning smile and excited eyes.

“Ten?!” Mitch exclaimed.

“Six.” Harry interjected.

“Deal.”

Harry learnt a great deal about that night. Especially the fact that you have a tendency to dance with almost anyone and everyone.

He saw you make your way to the dancefloor, not bothered about the fact that you had no one to dance with. You swayed your hips to the song, your arms moving and a bright smile etched on your face. You were surrounded by men and women. Harry saw you dance with a man whom you didn’t know, he wished you would be that carefree with him.

After an hour of drinking and talking, Harry found you dancing on the table with a few other people.

“Is this normal?” He asked Sarah who snickered in response. “Yep. She’s a fun drunk.”

You spot Harry and get down from the table, stumbling forward. The strap of your heel loosened and Harry quickly caught hold of you.

“Wait a second.” Harry said, as he kneeled down to fix your strap. Once he got up he saw your glassy eyes laiden with lust and simply smirked.

“You like watching me get down on my knees for you, huh?” Harry whispered in your ear, his grip harsh around your waist as he pulled you towards himself . You felt heat rise up your thighs and stomach.

“Isn’t that what men are good for anways?” You whispered, closing any gap you two had as you put one hand behind his neck, tugging him closer to you. “Don’t think this changes anything betwen us Styles. You’re still a nightmare.” You whispered to him in his ear slowly.

You stood so close to each other that you could feel each others heat radiate. Harry’s heart raced as his eyes met yours. You were cautious with your gaze, afraid that if you looked any longer in his eyes, he might spot the hunger in yours just as you might see his making you lose any self control you exercised.

“I have someone waiting for me.” You spoke, breaking the silence. Harry raised his eyebrows in amusement as his hands wandered down your waist to your lower back. He buried his face in the crook of your neck as he left a bite there. You let out a soft moan, turning into complete putty in his grip.

“I could fuck you much better y/n.” He said, his voice dangerously low.

“I don’t want to be fucked missionary style that’ll leave me unsatisfied.”

“Your moan said otherwise.”

Two can play this game.

You wiggled out of his grip, ignoring the throbbing between your legs as you sauntered towards the dance floor, blowing a kiss at Harry from a distance.

——————————————

“Hello?” Your groggy voice spoke into the microphone of your phone. Your head throbbing due to last night.

“Y/n. Where are you?” Jeff asked you.

“Home.”

“Come over to Harry’s. Got something to discuss.”

“I’ll be there in five.” You said before hanging up on the phone.

You washed your face, put on a large tee shirt and an oversized pair of sunglasses. You brushed your hair and slipped into your slippers. It was a ten minute drive to Harry’s house. The radio was silent. The windows were rolled down because you needed fresh air now more than ever.

You reached his flat and rang the doorbell.

“My my look who’s here.” Harry taunted as he opened the door to see you in an oversized tee shirt, legs bare and slippers. He couldn’t control all the thoughts that seemed to slip in and out his head as he saw your legs.

“Show me your eyes love.” Harry snickered knowing they must be bloodshot. You flipped him off and plopped down on the bean bag, groaning as you held your head.

“You seemed to have a lot of fun last night.” Mitch said, getting a stare from Sarah. “You should see the videos.” He added. Your head shot up at his words.

“Videos?”

“Yep. They’re too good.” He snickered. You removed your sunglasses and pounced at Harry who began to play videos of you dancing on table tops.

“Give. Me. The. Damn. Phone.” You said in between breathes as you attempted to strangle Harry. You were about to smack Harry but he picked you up by your waist, throwing you on his shoulder.

“Put me down.” You stated firmly.

“Only if you don’t strangle me.” Harry said chuckling at your sorry state.

“I don’t make promises Styles.”

“Too bad. I’ll post it if you continue to be a brat.” He said.

“Fine.”

Harry put you down, running a hand through your messy hair which you swatted off. He noticed how young you looked without lining your eyes, a different girl, perhaps even innocent. You looked like a doe. You looked beautiful.

“You’re drolling on the carpet Styles.” You said rolling your eyes at him.

“Am I supposed to deny that I find you attractive?” He questioned, his voice low and alluring. He spoke slow enough to make your thighs quiver. Your mind suddenly flashed you images of how his large hand felt against your waist last night.

“I’m too hungover for this.” The only defense left.

This was new to you. This feeling of loathing someone to no extent but also finding them undeniably attractive. Attractive enough to make your thoughts wander off to forbidden places and scenarios.

“What happened to your neck?” Sarah said, noticing the love bite that Harry left the other night. You rolled your head back as you rubbed your eyes with a yawn. Harry felt proud to say the least, he smirked and winked at you while you barely controlled the urge to smash his face in the table neck to him.

“Why am I even here?” You said groaning. “The work is done. The albums done. What do you possibly need for me now?” You added.

“Come to tour with us.” Jeff said, his manager persona now showing.

“What?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t in the contract Jeff.”

“Consider this, an impromptu decision.” He reasoned with you.

“I’ll do only concerts. No interviews. No playing for videos and no recordings.” You said.

“Deal.”

You huffed a breath as you reached for the glass of water next to you. “That’s mine!” Harry whined. You flipped him off as you wore your sunglasses and went to sleep.

“Oh y/n what’s your Instagram?” Jeff asked. You scoffed at his question, “don’t have one.” You simply said. “Well, Harry follows his band members so-”

“No.” and with that you went to sleep.

—————————————

The album was a success to say the least. Everyone seemed to recognise Harry as Harry styles and not as Harry from One Direction. It was bitter sweet to say the least. Harry was excited and enthralled to be able to embark a whole new journey.

The album release party was a success. But you weren’t there, Harry had called you not once but twice asking you why you weren’t there.

“Y/n, it’s already six, why aren’t you at the party?” Harry asked you on call.

“Because I didn’t plan on going.” A short answer. Your one word answers now began to become a bit longer but they annoyed Harry nonetheless.

“The whole band’s here.”

“I’m not part of your band Harry. I helped you write your songs.” You stated.

“But you’re going to tour with us.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

And now as Harry stood in front of the stage, waiting for the crowd to pour in, he wondered where you were. You had insisted on driving to the show venue on your own instead of travelling with the band. Harry tried to persuade you but you didn’t budge.

“Is she here?” Harry asked Jeff who only nodded no. Harry was getting worried now. He was supposed to get ready, but he was much to engaged in wondering about your whereabouts. It was his first show and your words about him being scared rang in his head.

“She’ll be here don’t worry.” Jeff said.

By the time Harry got ready, he spotted you, a cigarette in your mouth as you look towards the stage. You wore a latex, dark emerald coloured waistcoat that resembled a corset. It pushed your breasts together and ended just above the curve of your waist. You wore low waisted black bell bottoms. The waistcoat and the bell bottoms gave off the illusion of an hourglass figure. Your eyes were covered in your signature feline eyeliner, curving in the inner and outer corner of your eye.

“Y/n!” Harry called your name. You looked up at him, a lazy smile on your face as you disposed the cigarette.

“My my look at you styles. A fucking prince you are.” You said snickering. Harry stuck his tongue out at you. He wore a red blazer clad with black flowers and the same pattern was all over his trousers. His hair were unruly yet only added to his charm.

“Ya scared?” You asked him.

“No. I mean, I’m just…. excited yet scared you know?”

“Hmm.”

“You stick out like a sore thumb.” Harry said, his eyebrows raised at you as he scanned you up and down.

“Excuse me for not wanting to dress up as a fucking rainbow.” You said scowling at Harry who passed you a smile. “Y’know what would really go well with your top?” Harry said, his eyes twinkling. “What?”

“Wait.” Harry ran off of to his dressing room, fetching a silver cross necklace. The cross was heavy and large, engraved with swirls and very small rubies decorating it. Harry gestured you to turn around, his hands brushed against your skin as he snapped it’s lock in place. The cross rested against the curve of your breasts, demanding attention and praise. “How about a hickey to tie your look together?” Harry questioned.

“From you? Not even in your dreams Styles.” You said. Harry smirked at you and went towards the stage.

—————————————

Harry felt alive. He felt free and invincible on stage. But you, you were the personification of sex. The minute Kiwi began to play, the crowds focus shifted from Harry to you.

You whipped your hair back and forth, your back arching, a cigarette encased in your pink lips, sweat gleaming down the curves of your waist, breasts and arms. The crowd went absolutely wild as you winked at them. Harry’s photographer, Lloyd was entranced with you. He couldn’t help but photograph you. Your eyebrows were sinched together in focus, your eyes closed, your mouth slightly open and your body fully arched.

After the first concert, the fans and media were deep diving into who you were and tried to uncover your identity. As the tour progressed, the crowd began to make posters stating things like “we’re here for y/n!” “Give us y/n!”

There were pictures of you everywhere, playing the guitar as your face morphed into an expression which Harry called your “orgasm face.”

Harry was asked about you during interviews as well, the media was left questioning about your identity and they found themselves allured by a recent stunt you pulled at a concert.

You jumped off the stage during Medicine and went up to a man, roughly around your age if not older. The man lit the cigarette in your mouth with his lighter as you winked at him and murmured “thank you love.”

—————————————

The tour had finally ended. You were in your dressing room, your chest heaving up and down. The adrenaline after the show still lingering in your blood stream. You removed your top and were standing in your bra, the minute Harry barged in.

“Knock on my door ya’dick!” You said, crossing your arms over your chest which did nothing at all to ease Harry since your breasts were pushed up.

After months of sexual tension, Harry finally felt himself crack.

“Got to teach you some manners.” You murmured.

“Really?” He tutted, pulling you by the loop of your jeans.

You understood where this was heading. “Hmm.” You hummed, moving your hands slowly on the buttons of his shirt. Harry caught your wrist making you look up at him. He looked in your eyes, deep and seriously as if to contemplate his actions. You pulled him by his neck, close enough that your foreheads touched.

“M’gonna regret this.” He whispered. He didn’t give you a chance to respond as he connected his lips to yours, his tongue swirling in your mouth. His hands wandered down the curve of your spine and lingered there. You deepened the kiss, letting your hunger overpower you. He wasn’t close enough, you needed his skin next to yours, rubbing, you needed to feel him, you needed him.

There was a knock on the door, you immediately recoil away from Harry although his hands were still on your bare back. “Y/n, Vanessa’s here for you.” Laura, his assistant said.

Vanessa and you were supposed to head out to paris the next morning. Harry felt a hole cave in his chest, remembering about your departure.

“I’ll be there.” You said.

You kissed Harry, a sweet and soulful kiss. Not the one that was ruled with consumption and the urge to mark.

“You should stay.” Harry whispered, holding you.

“I never stay anywhere for too long.”

Harry looked at you, his eyes staring into yours as you squeezed his hand. “Who’re you gonna strangle now?” You laughed remembering all the times you tried to strangle and choke him, resting your head on his chest.

“I’ve got to go.” You said, slipping out of his grip, slipping on a tee shirt as you picked up your stuff.

Harry looked at you with a look of longing. How stupid. How cruel. How unfair. He thought to himself as he saw you leave.

“When will I see you again?” He asked you.

“When it’s the right time.” You said, kissing his cheek.

——————————————

Authors note; how are we feeling about a part two? let me know in the comments section <3

[palajae]

hypegirl! | one.

PAIRING ▸ soccer player! niki x afab! reader

GENRE ▸ soccerl! au, roommates!au, romance, fluff, angst, humor

WORD COUNT ▸ 3.3k

SUMMARY ▸ all you want is to join the boys’ soccer team. all niki wants is to get minji’s attention. as roommates, what better than to strike a deal and help each other out? nothing really, except for one glaring issue: your blossoming feelings for said roommate. oh, and the fact that you’re technically supposed to be your brother, kim sunoo. 

AKA a hopefully more sfw version of she's the man? 

NOTES ▸ based off she’s the man (2006), reader is sunoo's sister and pretends to be her brother sunoo—let me know if there’s any typos!

masterlist. | next.

HE LOOKS JUST LIKE A DREAM.

so you’re practically drooling over your roommate, nishimura riki. a bit embarrassing, you know, but not as much as when you first started living with guys, in an all guys dorm, pretending to be… 

a guy. 

exactly how did you even get into this predicament? stuck hiding your feelings for your roommate that doesn’t even know that you’re utterly (and shamelessly) lying about your entire identity.  

ah. that’s right. technically, you weren’t supposed to be at an all boys soccer camp.

even worse, you’re not supposed to be posing as the opposite gender. especially not as your older brother sunoo.

as roommates with riki for the entire summer, you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do—as kim sunoo and as you yourself. 

growing up you always heard the same old remarks, about how much you and your older brother sunoo looked so much alike. 

while you weren’t twins, you supposed you could see the resemblance. but you were you. and kim sunoo was kim sunoo. 

along with the comments on your resemblance, you constantly remember hearing how sunoo was “so much more feminine” than you. sure you enjoyed more typical ”boy” activities, as the world defined it, but so what? what was with all the gender stereotyping? 

growing up, you learned to deal with it. all that mattered was that you had a somewhat good childhood and relationship with your brother sunoo. 

while your appearances may have been similar, your hobbies certainly weren’t. 

your mother tried to push you toward the more artistic and creative side, which you didn’t exactly have a knack for. those kinds of things were more of sunoo’s style. 

on the other hand, you were interested in more physical and hands on activities. 

you enjoyed playing sports like soccer, while sunoo enjoyed singing and performing. 

but there was one thing both you and sunoo inherited from your mother: stubbornness.

she constantly kept nudging you to those so called refined pastimes and away from said “dangerous” sports. 

so no surprise came to you in the summer of your junior year when your mother informs you of your summer plans (that she apparently decided on her own). 

you would be going to band camp, while sunoo went to soccer camp. 

was she crazy? 

your artistic skills couldn’t exactly be called skills—the last time you touched an instrument was three years ago—and sunoo could barely walk straight sometimes. 

yours and sunoo’s protest fell on deaf ears. 

“but mom! why can’t i go to soccer camp? you know our school has only a boys soccer team and i’ve been wanting to-“

she crosses her arms. “it’s a boys only camp, y/n. i want you to practice your musicality more and sunoo can make more friends at his camp. this will good for both of you. end of discussion.” 

once summer came, you would go off to your respective camps and come back at the end of summer, hopefully still alive. 

that was the plan—your mothers plan. 

but not yours. 

it didn’t take long for you to come up with what you thought (originally) was an ingenious idea. 

you’ll pretend to be sunoo—that was the easiest part— and act as him to attend the soccer camp. in place of you, sunoo will go to yours as he wished. luckily for him, your band camp was for anyone, so it would be easier for him to fit in. a win-win situation, no? 

this is the chance you’ve been waiting for. after years of disapproval from your parents and lack of formal soccer training and participation, you finally have a opportunity. in return, sunoo can just go as himself to your music camp and play it safe. 

you figure you could just switch on the last day and keep each other updated so mom didn’t get suspicious.

when you voice this plan to your brother, being the goody two shoes he is, sunoo’s uncertain until you win him over with constant begging. not only did you inherit stubbornness but tenacity. 

you figured you lived around and hung around enough guys to help you seem less suspicious. or at least, get by. if anything, you could text sunoo for help. 

you were practically counting the days until you left. and with your wig, drawn in eyebrows, and shoulder pads, off you went.  

you had to keep reminding yourself that from now on, you’re kim sunoo. it’s weird and a bit overwhelming at first, being surrounded by a bunch of sweaty, soccer playing guys who are obviously much more skilled and experienced than you. 

you completely forgot about the whole living situation with dorms and a randomly assigned roommate. all your clothes were borrowed from sunoo, and all your personal products were stored in an hopefully inconspicuous black bag. 

as you drag your heavy and totally not suspicious duffel bag into your given dorm, you soon stop in your tracks. you see a guy, as expected, but he’s—

shirtless? 

your eyes widen, and you choke. he turns and you really try your best to focus on his face (and not his defined body). was it hot in here or just you?

he holds out a hand and you look at it, startled. 

“hey, you must be my roommate. i’m riki but everyone calls me niki.” 

man, why was his voice hot as well? 

you clear your throat, finding it hard to focus around him. 

“sup. i’m s-sunoo.” 

“nice,” he nods. 

you realize at that moment how sweaty you are due to stress and paranoia over getting caught, and he must as well due to his next words. 

“you good, man? if you’re hot, i can turn up the air.”

you immediately shake your head, “no thanks, i’m good-“

“-dude,” you add as an afterthought. you cringe as niki shoots you a weird look before returning to his claimed bed. 

you huff and dump your stuff onto your bed. what a start to the day. 

after that, niki introduces you to his other two friends attending the camp as well who live across the hall—jungwon and jay. 

you think you’re getting the hang of it, being your brother, but something about jungwon still makes you keep your guard up. the way he looked at you made you want to shrink up inside and curl into a ball. 

as you finish unpacking your stuff, you hear the three of them talking out in the hall. it’s not loud, but still enough for you to eavesdrop. you can tell immediately by their strategizing that they’re good. and by default their team must be as well. they had to be—they even had a infamous name, for crying out loud. 

enhypen. at first, you scoffed—what, were they like a boy band or something? but as you observed them play together during unofficial practices, their special ones that others couldn’t join, it hit you. 

you knew you had to make their team. no matter what. 

you know how this camp works, as the actual sunoo told you. all the boys at the camp would be divided up into teams based off preference, training, and coordination. 

after teams were formed, they would practice together until the end of the camp where all teams would play off in a championship. 

phones weren’t allowed either, except after hours at night. that would be your only chance to keep in touch with sunoo. besides that, you were on your own. 

waking up at 6am everyday was tough. 

training for hours in the sun with players who were much more stronger, skilled, and overall better than you was tough. 

being surrounded by boys and having to be on guard all the time was tough. 

but sneaking into to shower at night after everyone else was torture. the stink you had to endure 24/7 was bad, let alone all the other guys who caught a whiff too. 

you’re sure most of the guys found you weird. it was weird learning how to live with guys, changing when niki wasn’t around or looking, sneaking all your personal hygiene care. there was a lot to get used to. 

also, why were men’s restrooms so dirty sometimes? 

you were stuck in hot, strenuous conditions outside almost all day. it was a norm, constantly getting yelled at by coaches and receiving harsh remarks from teammates. 

but it’s everything you wanted. 

you knew it made you better. you were getting better. but it wasn’t enough for niki’s team, you could tell. team decisions were coming up, and you needed to find a way to make the cut. 

soon enough, a week into the camp, you found yourself getting somewhat adjusted. even thought you had like close to no friends, you felt less insecure… and more confident. 

during a break while doing power shot drills,   you gulp down water as your eyes wander.  there were girls training on the other side of the field—lacrosse players. from then on, you observed that you would occasionally share the field with them. you usually watched them with envy, regretting picking up the first ball you saw when you were younger, a soccer ball. 

you also observed how your roommate’s attention would be completely stolen by a certain someone playing lacrosse yards away. 

his eyes would always follow her when the guys had a break, as his friends teased him and he blushed. 

your eyes hardened at ‘minji’ or whoever you heard the guys whisper about. no, you weren’t jealous. why would you when you spoke a total of ten words per day to niki (more than any other guy at the camp)? 

you were just irked. technically, you had no right to be jealous—since you weren’t even you. you were supposed to be your brother. 

it’s only a day or two later that you see the girls training again. but it’s different this time. one of the male coaches calls all the soccer players on one side and the lacrosse players on the other side, all crowded together in a rough circle. you end up standing next to niki and follow his gaze to who do you know, minji. 

the coach blows his whistle. “everyone listen up! we’re going to have a joint session today, with both the guys and girls. just conditioning today, but hopefully this will promote better teamwork and communication.” 

whispers and groans erupt, but the whistle is blown again. 

“one guy and girl will be assigned to each other, randomly. now find your partner and get to it!”

“you’re kidding. we have to train with girls?” you hear someone mutter and bite the inside of your cheek. 

you already know this spells out disaster. soccer boys and lacrosse girls? 

and it does, because your hear one of the assistants call out your (brother’s) name. you perk up, that is, until you hear who your partner is. 

“-and kim minji!” 

your mouth drops open. 

you soon feel a pair (or more) of eyes burn into you. one particularly close. 

“hey, sunoo…” 

you almost forget to respond. 

“…yeah?” you know what niki’s already going to say and it leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth. 

“i was thinking we could like, you know, change partners-“ 

“kim sunoo! hurry up! your partners waiting!” 

with helpless eyes, you have no choice but to jog over to said expecting person. 

“hi,” she smiles and holds out a hand. you swallow. 

dang, she was pretty. no need to explain why niki had a crush on her. 

surprisingly, practicing with her went well. maybe a little too well. all you could remember was her nodding brightly and laughing at your jokes? 

honestly you were just trying to ease the awkward atmosphere. 

meanwhile, niki stares at the two of you in envy. he feels a ball hit him in the head. 

“focus nishimura!”

that night, as you walk into your room freshly showered, you almost jump when you hear niki’s voice. you thought he would’ve been asleep by now, as you took your time waiting for everyone to leave the shower rooms.

“sunoo?”

you clear your throat, making your voice deeper. “what’s up?”

“i bet you already know, but i’m kinda into minji…”

you stifle the urge to roll your eyes. sure, she was pretty and all but why was he so obsessed? what was so much better about her than you? 

“oh yeah?”

you can hear him sit up from his bed. “i know you guys are assigned partners and all, but you think we could switch?”

you fumble for words, “sorry but uh, i don’t think we can. i overheard someone else asking but coach said no exceptions.” 

technically not a lie. 

“dang. well, you think you could help me with her then? as friends?” 

you raise an eyebrow even though he can’t see it. when were you guys friends? 

“it depends, man…” 

“all you gotta do is put in a good word,” he starts quickly. he keeps rambling on but you’re too busy laughing at his cuteness to pay attention to what he’s actually saying. 

then it hits you. this is an opportunity. 

“what’s in it for me?” you cut him off. 

he pauses and you know this is your chance.

“if you put me in your team, i’ll talk to minji about you,” you state firmly. 

“whoa, whoa, whoa!” you hear more shuffling and the lights suddenly turn on. 

niki stares at you with wide eyes.

“you’re serious?” 

you nod, crossing your arms. you feel uncertain, unconfident. 

“i don’t think i can. like, it’s not really fair. plus you gotta meet our standards, you know. i can’t just let you in, you know. i mean, i can try… but that’s still no guarantee.” 

you push your chin forward. “that’s not a deal, then.” 

he sighs, rubbing his face. “i guess there’s only one other option.” you wait for him to speak. 

he looks at you, as serious as ever. “i’ll train you. that’ll give you the best chance to make the cut. only if you’ll help me to the best of your ability too.” 

“but this stays between us,” he adds. 

you exhale. this was better than nothing. 

“you got yourself a deal.” 

the sparks when you shook hands were too much to brush off.

so began your late night practices with your roommate. something you couldn’t imagine doing the first week you got here. 

niki’s good. at playing and at coaching. 

he’s observant. he sees all your weaknesses and faults. and he isn’t afraid to call you out.

“get to the ball faster, kim.”

“ugly form. we need to change it.” 

“how did you even make this camp?”

panting, you collapse onto the grass. what did you find attractive in this guy again? 

you open your eyes and see a hand right in front of your face.

eyes fluttering, you take it as niki helps you up. but he uses a bit too much strength as you stumble forward into his arms. his eyes widen as you stare at him in surprise. you both take a few steps back. 

“my bad. you’re way lighter than i thought.”

you clear your throat, trying to see unaffected. “i get that a lot.”

an uncertain silence fills the air as you gulp down water. 

“it’s getting late, we should head back.” 

you nod as you gather your stuff and it’s quiet again. 

“good work today.” 

you turn to him again with raised eyebrows but niki’s back is already facing you, making his way back to the dorms. 

“you know niki?”

you ask in between breaths, tossing the medicine ball to minji. 

“uhhh, the soccer player?” 

she tosses it back to you. 

you nod, turning to point him out a couple yards away training with his own partner. 

“yeah. him.” 

she shrugs, eyeing you. “i’ve heard of him, why? is there something i should know?”

“no-no! just wondering. he’s my friend and all, and i think he’s pretty cool. honestly, you guys would get along pretty well.” 

“…okay?” she drags out the last syllable while shooting you a weird look. 

this was going to be harder than you thought. 

you sigh, patting the lotion into your face. at this point you had gotten used to the conditions at camp, being almost two weeks in. that also meant less than a week until team decisions.

you knew niki was skilled but as he teaches you tips and tricks the coaches don’t, you notice it. you can feel yourself getting better day by day as team selection day comes up. and others take note too.

but only you and niki share a smile. 

thoughts consumed, you soon see a head pop into your peripheral vision. 

an eyebrow of niki’s quirks up, “what is that?” 

you jolt. 

“skincare—it’s important for everyone!”

you defend quickly, and he laughs, causing your heart to stutter. “nah, i get it. i was asking because i need a better everyday sunscreen too.” 

“oh,” you falter. 

you show him unabashedly. “i heard it’s good- uh, from my sister.” 

niki seems a lot more intrigued and it makes you smile. 

“huh… how do they always find the good stuff?”

he snatches it from you and you roll your eyes. 

practicing at night got you a lot closer to niki. it almost made you believe that you could make his team. not only was he a great teacher but overall, he was just a good person. 

you learned early on that nishimura riki really wasn’t all that he seemed to be. he was much, much more playful than you originally assumed. 

and much, much, more shyer. 

especially around girls. especially about girls. that explained why he asked you—of all people—to help with minji. 

niki acted so differently around you and the guys than with the lacrosse players. you could see it now. he was outgoing, funny, and not to mention way too much of a prankster with jay and jungwon (who you felt a bit more comfortable with too).

after all, jay was the one to tell you that niki would never be the one to approach, let alone talk to a girl first. or that he never had a girlfriend before, which surprised you. 

you realize that niki is only acting like his real self around you because he thinks you’re a guy. it makes you wonder, how would he act around you as yourself? 

knowing who you truly were?

“so….” niki starts off the next morning and you quirk an eyebrow. 

“how’s it going with minji?”

oh, right. you almost forgot about that. you honestly didn’t want to mention anything about him to her, but a deal was a deal and you weren’t the type to go back on your word. 

you rub your hands together, seemingly disappointed. 

“i’m sorry man, but she doesn’t seem that interested. i’m not going to lie to you and sugarcoat things but i don’t want to pressure her too much either.” 

he sighs. “i know. it’s just hard. i’m not good with talking to girls or anything like that.” 

you hum, “i mean, i could help you if you want. like acting as a girl and taking you out to practice.” 

“what?” he glances at you incredulously. 

you quickly shake your head, “i mean- you know i have a sister. i, uh, kinda learned some things from her—about girls and stuff.”

he scratches his neck. “yeah, i guess so.” 

you look around nonchalantly, “she’s around your age actually.” 

at this point you can’t deny that you found your roommate quite attractive. in terms of appearance and personality. his true self was too endearing. and you liked it a little too much. 

the more time you spend together, the more you realize you’re developing feelings for niki. as yourself. 

and you’re supposed to be kim sunoo. 

the next day, minji gives you a gatorade during practice. “good work today, sunoo!” 

you nod back, “you too, minji.”

she looks around before deciding to sit down next to you. “you know, i think your tip really helped. i feel so much less sluggish and puffy in the morning.” 

you zone out as she keeps going on. 

“i don’t know how you know so much, but it’s really cool.” 

she smiles her bright smile again as your eyes wander across the field. everyone else was still practicing, including niki. 

you embarrassingly can’t keep your eyes off of him as you see him wipe the sweat off his face, shaking his hair free of the wetness. 

“—sunoo?” 

“huh?” you jump back to reality. 

“did you hear me?” her big eyes blink back at you. “i was wondering if you wanted to hang out with our group tonight. you can invite some of your friends too.”

like the idiot you are, you reluctantly think of how great of an opportunity this is for niki. 

“sure!” 

“are you positive i look okay?” 

you’ve never seen niki this nervous, not even on the first day when the coaches were screaming in your faces. 

“yes,” you roll your eyes.

but a stray flyaway catches your eye. 

“wait-“

you reach up to fix it and you hear his breath hitch. 

“there you go. all nice and ready for minji,” you joke. he blinks before following you. 

“sunoo!” minji waves excitedly at you while niki trails awkwardly behind. occasionally on the weekends, everyone would have free time to go into town and hang out. today was just your (un)lucky day to be with minji and her friends. 

you can see some of them giggling and whispering behind her, and you figure it’s because of niki and jungwon. but they keep sending you looks, making uncomfortable shivers run down your back. 

“what’s up?” 

“we’re going to eat, and then maybe head to the arcade after?” you barely manage to nod before she happily grabs your hand out of the blue and drags you along. 

you don’t think it’s going to plan, however. minji spent most of her time with you while you were trying (quote: trying) to be with niki. all while niki was trying to get closer to her. 

minji was cool and all but you didn’t realize truly how much she talked to only you. she definitely wasn’t that friendly with everyone else, let alone niki and jungwon. so why did she keep such a close distance to you? 

by the end of the night, you wave a halfhearted goodbye to her and her friends as they laugh and walk off. 

sighing, you turn to niki who faces you with a skeptical look. “so… how was it?”

he shrugs, “it was nice, i guess. i feel like i didn’t get that many chances to talk to her, though.” 

“no way, man. i think you guys hit it off pretty well. you just need to spend more time together. trust me, she’ll like you.” 

you cringe internally at the words that leave your own mouth.

“you think so?” his eyes sparkle with hope. 

it’s cute. 

jungwon eyes you two warily. “you sure about that? i feel like she was spending a lot of time around you, sunoo.”

you’re quick to deny, “that’s just cause she’s known me longer. of course you’d be more comfortable with someone you already talked to.” 

you nod at niki for reassurance. for him or for yourself, you’re not sure.

it’s dark out. you had to wait for everyone else to head to bed before answering your mother’s call.  

“-so late?”

you roll your eyes, lazily kicking the grass with your foot outside on campus. 

“practice ran later today.” 

you hear her sigh from the other end. “whatever. i’m sending it to you then.” 

“mom,” you whine, “i don’t want to wear a dress for the performance.” 

“i have work that day sweetie. you know i won’t be able to see you, so please just wear the dress. pictures are getting taken. okay? i’m getting it sent to your camp so no more arguing.”

you stomp your foot.

“fine. and no, i will not wear high heels.” 

unbeknownst to you, a hidden figure crouches in a near bush. 

taehyun always felt like there was something fishy about you. from the first day on the camp when he locked eyes with you. 

the way you immediately looked away—you simply seemed so skittish, so out of place. there was just something fishy about you and he began to do more research. 

not only that, he saw how close you looked with kim minji. the girl he had liked for years, having come to the same respective camps previously. your new face was too suspicious to not investigate.

after hearing some parts of your conversation with what sounded like your mom, he vows to do more work to find out the truth. 

whatever the truth was about you, kim sunoo. 

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[mochinomnoms]

I love the Shrimpy Chronicle's! The Tweels x Shrimpy stuff got me thinking of the Azul x Shrimpy possibilities and Octapolycule possibilities. The Tweels encourage Azul after they had a set of Elvers Twins that look very leech. Azul is scared about being a father to the twins much less to a little hatchling! But his partners are great support alongside Mama Ashengrotto who nearly sobs in joy when she sees the hatchlings. The twins wanna play with their ten limbed Sibling but they have to be careful (a term they are still learning). Granny Ashengrotto is also extremely happy with her grandshrimp, grandeel, and grandcecelia in her tentacles as she tells them stories of their Baba, Papa, and Dada as fry.

Their first excursions on land would be so cute as Crewel has all the clothes the Kids could wish for and Nurse is enjoying teaching them to use their land legs. (Plus they see Crewels Dalmatians for the first time and "puppy" became their favorite word).

Needless to say, Yuu's kids are spoiled Rotten on land and see.

(Again, thank you for being a octatrio brain rot haven)

(I'm always happy to have octotrio brain rot)

Let's set this in the same universe as the shrimpy chronicles fic, so the twins are Pearl and Coral! Azul is very fond of them, but feels a bit out of place as a fourth parent to the twins. If he feels this out of place with them, how will he feel with a hatchling?

But his partners are a great support, as you said, and really he just can't help the surge of emotion that comes through him looking at the pale green little hatchling in his arms. Plus, the (baby) twins absolutely love him and happily call him Baba; he might even be their favorite father, if the way they cling to him and cry when he leaves is any indication. The (adult) twins can't even be jealous, it's so cute seeing their partner curled up with their babies! And Coral and Pearl are nothing but excited about their new brother.

The little Beryl was an immediate topic of fascination for Coral and Pearl! They love their Baba Azul, and now he brought them a little brother! They want to play, but Pearl is a rough-play loving elver, and Coral matches that energy despite being a berry. Beryl is a hatchling, and much squishier and softer, so they have to learn to be careful. But Mama Ashengrotto is a sweet woman that is happy to teach them how to be gentle.

She indeed loves telling them stories about their fathers as kids, and the sort of things Azul got up to as a kid. The twins aren't sure if they're a big fan of the idea of studying a whole bunch like their Baba, but they like the idea of being in a band with Beryl when he gets older! Maybe Papa and Dada can teach them their respective instruments, and then Beryl can learn the piano when he gets older from Baba!

And of course, let's not forget how much Crewel and the Nurse are happy to get another grandchild! While I think Crewel is still mentally processing that Yuu got married with not one Leech, but both, when he got told that they were also married to Azul (and he to the twins), he felt a bit of his soul leave his body. Nurse Goethel, on the other hand, is just happy to have another son-in-law, and a grandchild!

But Crewel is just as happy, he never expected to have children, let alone grandchildren. Once the fry are brought on land and have their human legs, Crewel is quite excited to dress them up in the latest Rosarian fashions. Indeed, they fry are as spoiled on land as they are under the sea.

[sadcoms]

timepetals thoughts i keep having:

i know that the assumption is “she is my s-” means soulmate but i always think he just thinks of rose as his soul. less that she completes him or is his other half and more that she just is his conscience and any goodness he may have is hers. he was born out of love for her, she is such an integral part of him, she is his soul itself.

i know everyone has taken permanent damage from the “how long are you going to stay with me” and why the general focus is on the doctor’s reaction but the way rose says forever gets to me. she’s not giddy or girlish when she says it, in some ways she almost sounds resigned to it, which has wonderfully angsty connotations in the timeline of s2. but it’s why it really works for me, she is so dead serious and committed when she says it, because she understands everything it means (and therefore part of her feels solemn about it). it has a lot of weight to it. even the first time donna says she’s going to travel with the doctor forever to martha at the end of the doctor’s daughter she sounds a lot more fanciful.

every time i hear the doctor scream when rose loses her grip in doomsday i just think that he would absolutely not have survived her actually being sucked into the void.

i always think the vocals in doomsday are similar to the doctor’s theme so to me the angry rock music is rose’s side and the vocals are his, rather than the howling wolf idea i’ve heard some people compare it to. how the doctor’s theme is lonely and mournful with its sparse instruments but calm, everything the ninth doctor was, while doomsday is heartbroken and angry and an entire orchestra because it’s two people overcome with grief together. how doomsday becomes such a motif for both characters individually, even when they're separated.

i still struggle to comprehend that the doctor wearing floral ties in s3 is canon and NOT a fanfic trope like you're telling the doctor said "i need a floral motif as close to my two hearts as possible" and you're describing him as something other than a grieving widower???

the doctor really could not go anywhere in s3 without running into some kind of couple but i never see people talk about the parallels in 42. “we chose this ship together / he keeps me honest so i don’t want false hope” and the way the doctor literally gives mcdonnell his condolences through gritted teeth?? the fact that she would rather die with korwin than be without him and have it be her fault

that the doctor, king of self-loathing, saw rose dressed as his ninth self and carrying a giant weapon and he not only RAN to her but then deliberately protected her from the trauma of seeing him change again. and then tentoo immediately picks a blue suit to be like now i’m matchey matchey with rose 🥰 the universe was ending and he’d seen rose again for two actual minutes but the doctor was so utterly focused on her.

how tentoo truly is rose's doctor, especially as he's got that little bit of nine in him. he's born out of the same love and protection of his previous incarnations but he loses a heart and the curse of the timelords and goes oh, this is rose's heart. and then he wears the blue mourning suit and yes, there is still mourning, but there is also the start of the rest of their lives together.

how the doctor’s hair most noticeably changed after school reunion to become spikier and less boyish. how that coincides with him using mickey to put distance between himself and rose now that he’s been reminded of rose’s mortality.

how wild the doctor and jack’s conversation in utopia is. the way the doctor says “rose” like it’s an entire explanation in itself because even before she absorbed the time vortex she fundamentally changed the life of everyone she met. the way he says “everything she did was so human” and the way he accepts jack’s sorry to him because there’s no trying to deny his feelings from jack, not when he saw his ninth self. the way jack has BARELY finished his sentence about watching rose grow up when the doctor casually asks him if he wants to die, the almost playful way he says it. one semi suicidal immortal who spent half of the season trying to get himself killed to another, both of them still kind of toying with the idea. both of them trying to have hope even though they've lost so much.