#submitted something to a publisher like last week and my eye was twitching as i wrote the submission email | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bubmyg · 5 years

Text

wonder - jjk

pairing: jeongguk x reader

genre/warnings: pool boy/waiter/kind-of-baker/first-aid-extraordinaire/aspiring singer!jeongguk(ft. cherry!guk), writer/journalist!reader, the CHEESIEST fluff, tiny amounts of angst, a bad attempt at original poetry, there is a tiny blood mention

word count: 14,906

summary: romance novels lie about finding some deep epiphany in the ocean because you find your inspiration in some chlorine tainted red locks or where jeongguk isn’t smooth with a pool net.

a/n: this is. the longest fic i’ve ever written. also the longest i’ve ever worked on a fic (...a month ajfdks) and im really proud of it :-( i hope u like it :-(

There’s a certain breaking point for an advice columnist, one that isn’t supposed to come three years into the job and over a handwritten letter from a nine year old who has just had her dream of becoming a vet shattered by this sudden discovery that she, in fact, passes out when she sees any type of blood. Or if that breaking point comes, the draft of the response isn’t supposed to make it past an unsaved document, (Dreams are a scam, anyway. Learn that.) scrapped and used as emotional support to formulate the real answer.

There’s a nine year old little girl who rushes to the paper for a week after sending her letter, hoping to find some sort of solace in the advice column she finds fascinating, generally filled with advice on things she doesn’t have the capacity to understand: cheating husbands, the capitalist nature of the makeup industry, why “business casual” isn’t a reward for women, and taxes. She’s memorized her opening line enough to have her heart racing into her throat when she catches sight of it on its usual page, her letter transcribed and italicized just above the tiny portrait of the columnist and the bold font that would be her response.

Her mother finds her sobbing on her bed fifteen minutes after she called for her to come to dinner and consoles her enough to acknowledge that being a Disney princess is just as good of an aspiration as a vet, not before writing a strongly worded letter addressed to the editor of the paper and canceling the family’s subscription.

There’s a different document you should have scrapped completely, the sixty-seventh page of your never ending novel, never ending in the sense that it would never end because you were going to give up on everything with the exception of the column for the next day: an obscure sex toy shop escapade that isn’t fit for the nine year old and her canceled subscription in the first place.

You’d been glaring at the grainy lines across your monitor, ones that cut through the middle of the words on the sixty-sixth page, when Hoseok’s figure glided past the glass wall of your office to enter without knocking.

He cleared his throat and you turned slowly from the monitor, as if your gradual spiral cascading to a head had brought an end to your cordiality as well. There was a paper in his hand, the day prior’s edition, ink thick on the outside where a picture of a local elementary school’s service project was displayed. He opened it silently, turning to a page, your page, outlined heavily in red ink pen.

The gold links of Hoseok’s watch reflected off your monitor as the paper smacked and slid its way across your desk, forcing you to wince for two separate reasons.

“I’m sorry—”

Hoseok withdrew his latter hand from the pocket of his black slack and your fingers itched to close out of your novel but his gaze was steady on the blinking cursor next to a piece of grammar you’d fiddled with six separate times.

“Any progress?” You blinked at him and he jerked his head in the direction of your desktop, black fringe parting against his eyelashes so his dark eyes dropped a deeper shade of black.

There was a raw spot ready for you on the inside of your cheek and the taste of stale metallic flooded your tongue. Your legs unfurled from where they’d been folded up underneath you in your desk chair, gaze sweeping to the wilting ficus underneath your desk, “Not exactly…”

Papers fluttered together and you caught sight of the dogeared letter from the little girl as Hoseok brushed a bare spot on the corner of your desk to take a seat. There was a smiling cartoon character patterned to the surface of his short-sleeved button up and it’s smiling muzzle appeared to mirror that flit of an upturn on the edge of Hoseok’s dimpled lips. The subtle cock of his chin was anything but of praise, sympathy more so bleeding out the strict in his dark irises as he sighed.

“I understand this job and this column are not your first love,” He mirrored the snarky response that swallowed on the back of your tongue, “Hell, this probably isn’t even your third or fourth love.”

“But I do expect you to uphold a certain level of professionalism in your column. I’ve never had an issue with you in the past. In fact, I nearly stopped looking over your submissions before sending things to print,” Hoseok leaned forward, elbow on his thigh, chin on curled, ring clad knuckles, “However, as of recent…”

“It won’t happen again, Hoseok. I swear, I was just—”

You quieted when his fingers curled outward from underneath his chin. “...this was not the first column as of recent that hasn’t exactly been up to par.”

Quieter, barely a breath, you nodded, “I’m sorry.”

Hoseok’s index finger straightened, leaning from his lips to press into the side of your monitor, tapping his nail against the screen, “I know how much this means to you. I know how little progress comes when inspiration comes. I know that inspiration doesn’t just strike when we ask it to. I get it, I really do.”

“...and I think some time away from here, from this place, from your column, would do you wonders.”

There was something defensive in your next inquiry, “What are you saying?”

“I’m giving you the summer off—” His finger wagged in your direction when you choked, “—no I’m making you take the summer off.”

“The whole—”

“Two months. Away from here, as in, I’m sending you to the coast for two months. Beach house, all to yourself, all-expense paid. Except for your food, I know you like—”

You squinted at him, “What?”

“Namjoon,” Hoseok provided and you tensed at the name of his friend, a high-powered executive at a publishing company you’d failed three times over to score an internship at, “He really understands the plight you’re going through. It’s his house.”

“There has to be a catch.”

“Yes, I’m giving Jimin your column while you’re gone.”

You grit your teeth at the mention of Hoseok’s blonde headed assistant and Hoseok chuckled at the reaction he desired, “I’m kidding. I mean, I am giving him your paper space. But, Namjoon said, providing that you make some sort of sizable progress on your manuscript, he’ll review it.”

“What?”

“You’re my friend. He’s my friend,” He plucked your turtle shaped paper weight into his palm, tracing it with the same index finger, “I want the best for you and I want my employee’s to be working at their utmost capacity. Namjoon can never have too many clients—” He made eye contact with you when he set the turtle down, “—and he probably owes me some sort of favor.”

Your gaze wandered out the window, eyeing a taxi as it sped away from the curb and forced its way into the flow of traffic. “All because I told a nine year old that Disney princesses’ aren’t real, huh?”

“No,” Hoseok’s hand covered one of yours, patting gently, “Because you’re better than this version of you. And I miss her, frankly. Old you used to bring me coffee in the mornings, so—”

“That’s when I was in Park Jimin’s position.”

“Jealous?”

“No,” Your jaw clenched but the smile on your lips was tiny and genuine regardless, “Thank you, Hobi.”

He hummed, pushing himself up off your desk to trail around toward the door, “Put your novel away, you have two months at the beach to work on that. Submit tomorrow’s column and then get your ass out of here. You have a flight to pack for.”

You weren’t sure if it were the wet tropical air that clung to your hair follicles or the grains of sand already wedged underneath the platform of your sandal but stepping off the plane gave you at least the vague sense that your inspiration was back. You itched for the keys on your laptop, letters worn and granules of salt from potato chips lodged in between, the space bar with two glossed circles from the unconscious tap of the side of your thumbs.

But the device was lodged in your backpack which was lodged between your shoulder blades as you tried to balance the lopsided baggage while maneuvering the cheap wheels of your suitcase over cobblestone sidewalks.

The keypad granted you entry when you’d barely pressed down on the last number of the combination you were given and your suitcase thanked you when sand rippled stepping stones became smooth, white tile. You nudged the luggage aside, dropping your backpack from your shoulders in the process of the long exhale you released from tense muscles, sand splaying messily over sleek flooring as you peeled your sandals from your ankles.

The house was open concept, white tile outlined in golden, sand like consistency, flooring that disappeared from the entryway to the wide room in the middle and down a short hallway that pointed into a wide, sliding glass door. Stainless steel appliances encased by black cabinets and white marble countertops, blue accent pieces and a fruit bowl filled with plastic treats completed the kitchen while compact leather furniture in the same hues boxed in a towering entertainment center on the opposite end of the room.

Your bare feet welcomed the shag grey rug that resided under the living room furniture, carrying you toward the various DVDs peeking out of the glass case underneath the TV. Nature documents sandwiched a singular copy of The Notebook, the cover worn and tattered underneath plastic from being parted so many times.

He’ll like her then and your fingertips twitched at your thighs in search of your laptop keys.

You turned a collection of faux grapes in your palms, pressing into the waxy material, eyes squinted for the typed letter lodged underneath the wire basket.

Welcome! I trust that you’ll find your accommodations satisfactory for a few months, yes? I’m eagerly awaiting your progress, Hoseok speaks very highly of you and your skills. Happy writing!

Underneath was a bulleted list of contact numbers and a FAQOTH (Frequently Asked Questions of the House), trash days, the number of the nearest pizza delivery, the code to the shed outside that contained noodles and an inflatable flamingo for the pool. It was skimming that provided you with that information and your brain short circuited on the mention of a pool, abandoning memorization in favor of your bare feet scuffing across the warmed concrete of the pool deck.

If the pesky sand rubbing raw at the arches of your feet or the palm trees you’d spotted out the windows of the plane weren’t enough to immerse you in the mindset, the clear blue of chlorine tainted water twitched at your knuckles just a fraction more, especially as engulfed by a privacy fence and vining vegetation cut neatly through the rungs of thick white.

Your stomach argued for lunch from one of the pizza places Namjoon had suggested and your heaping luggage argued for organizing the white wicker drawers in your bedroom but your gut said your laptop and your swimsuit. You were pressed onto a candy-striped towel in a lounge chair with the sun trickling at the sweat on your hairline before any other option could out weight, your clothes half strewn in the entryway of the house where you’d dug for the spandex material but forgotten as you furiously hacked away at editing your outline.

You bolded the newest addition to your outline inside your outline, the one that held all the tropes you wished to tackle in the sensical nonsensical manner that was a novel centered around the beauty of clichés. If other authors avoided clichés at all cost, the adverse relationship of shoving any and all that you could correlate between the confines of two plastic ends and a spine could produce a similar effect, pique the interest if marketed as the cliché of all clichés, work against and for itself between worlds of bubblegum high school romance and stale mint flavored coworkers, strangers, and enemies to lovers.

Besides, eliminating stereotypes within clichés counted for something in itself. A commentary on something much larger, at least, you liked to think it was.

SEND THEM TO A BEACH HOUSE appeared directly beneath THE SPAGHETTI SCENE FROM LADY AND THE TRAMP BUT WITH EXCESS CHEESE FROM A PIECE OF PIZZA and the giddiness from typing it out had you overloading the software with how quickly you switched documents to your outline outline, swiping your index finger until the setting appeared and you deleted it in one long, blue highlight.

You thought back to the young adult romance you’d read in high school that had taken place in a beachside town, then to the very same romantic thriller you adored as an adult, to the whimsical short story you’d written in an undergraduate, elective creative writing class, to the first time you’d dug your toes into slightly damp sand and let the soothe of the waves lap at your ankles and the fall of your eyelids to be as dark as the never ending water disappearing over the horizon.

Nothing is more cliché than a beachside town, you thought and spoke the words all the same, shoulders hunching over your keyboard as you clacked the same sentence across the screen and quickly deleted it to amend more specifically. It was the most you’d typed, switched tabs for research, and had the curled feeling of anticipation for what would flow from your fingers in the last year and you briefly wondered if Namjoon had pumped something into the seashell shaped air fresheners stuck in every outlet in the house.

Your trusty search engine provided little response for “beachside towns with little to no tourism” and you instead found yourself typing in the name of the city you’d directed your cab to from the airport, a homage to the sudden rush of inspiration. More details flowed than necessary but you allowed them in the haze of humidity and sun, the name and country and zip code following out next to the bolded location bullet point until your cursor dropped down to the third line and you cut yourself on the words Sunny Drive, where the speed limit signs end in threes?

You cracked your knuckles first, then your toes, then rolled your ankle to pop it, too, crooked fingers still sat on the middle row of the keyboard, asdf-jkl;, tapping in tune with the hum that slipped through your sealed lips.

The high top of a golf cart cruised over the links of the white fence encasing you in your writing utopia, the whir dying as the vehicle rounded the corner. Your fingers were back in action, deleting the modest, white four door sedan assigned to your main character in favor of a high-powered golf cart that you’d research later if realistically existed.

Somewhere in the distance was the call of a bird, traveling over the thrash of the waves onto the shore just in reach beyond the tops of houses suspended on frames around the boardwalk. It was the call of a sea gull or something of the same variety, but you considered giving your main character a parrot and added an entire new section of your outline for the very plot piece.

Something bubbled in the depth of the pool stretched at the end of your pointed ankles, something that had curled into the filter and elicited a burst of air. In your head, you extended the pool by significance on either side and gave your protagonist the trait of an accomplished swimmer in high school.

Nothing more cliché that dropping some characters into a seaside town, one with a parrot, a tricked-out golf cart, and an affinity for swimming rather than surfing like her love interest, antagonistic counterpart and his four door sedan with a dent in the side and caked sand on the rims.

Three documents over was your actual manuscript, one you marked with various highlights to change major plot points later. A major rehaul of location but worth it for the electricity snagging and pushing your joints to click across the keys. Your brain left a footnote to revamp the scene you’d left your characters at, previously at a crossroads of figuring out the vibe in their acquaintance, stuck in a grocery store with the love interest clutching a bouquet of flowers and squinting at your protagonist.

It was quickly changed to a late night scene at a beach, the bouquet of flowers instead a ghost crab and the line of dialog a do you want to hold him? rather than the, awkward albeit, I could buy these for you? To give to your mom, of course—

And then the artificial blue of the water behind you seemed to engulf your laptop screen, draining it into a lower quality of pixels and blurred lines that categorized your work computer, the giant stone turtle hidden behind a bush of thick vegetation shrinking into your paper weight, the line of documents open across your screen erasing into your next column that, for some reason, included every curse word you could imagine in angry red font.

A tiny emoticon reminiscent of the talking paperclip from early Microsoft word processing appeared in the corner, but in the shape of Park Jimin.

In short, you were stuck, the fire of inspiration eager to boil in the pit of your stomach evaporating like the footprint on the pool peck after you’d dipped a singular foot in. You’d transported back to your office in the uncomfortable desk chair stolen from the insurance office a story down with Park Jimin breathing down your neck for your position by bringing Hoseok coffee every morning but in a slightly better quality than you had, because it was handmade with love in the longue, with a novel that was no closer to being finished than it had been when you’d fell in love with the concept and got paid to outline the entire thing not a week into your position at the newspaper (and in between running Hoseok coffee and trying to hide your work in the limited privacy of your cubicle).

A massive control + Z was in order and the fingers on one hand stretched to do just that on the first of three documents, latter cuticles shoved in between your teeth to nibble miserably on. You’d erased any mention of a beachside town and ripped away the sticky note on the inside of your conscious that suggested touching a ghost crab for romance when something rough and cold dripped against the outside of your thigh.

Confusion caused you to place your laptop to the concrete below your chair and terror caused the startled gasp to bubble out of your throat at the sheepish looking figure stood knee deep on the pool stairs.

“Uh, hello,” The figure had obnoxious red hair to match the obnoxious yellow shirt hanging off his shoulders, a similar hue that colored the apples of his cheeks, shading embarrassment over sunburn and traveling to the peek of his teeth and the twinkle in gentle brown eyes that much resembled that of a deer pinned by some oncoming headlights. “I’m...here to clean the pool.”

It was a pool net that had hit you, misjudged from the sopping pile in the mulch of leaves and bugs and neon colored specks of unidentified objects. Your eyes trailed upward from the damp pleats of rope at your side to the holder of the pole, one who hadn’t tried to jerk the net away from you but instead kept in place, as if he didn’t move a muscle maybe you’d disappear.

“I clean the pool twice a week?” He tried again but you were too focused on the rosy shade of his lips matching the moussed fringe that curled into his eyelashes. “It should have been on the note Namjoon left—”

“It probably is,” You dismissed and he finally pulled the net away from your side, the wide sweeping circle he took to plop it back into the pool not succeeding without dripping some onto the top of your head. Unconsciously eager to amend the endearing pout that graced the stranger’s lips as he stirred the net into the center of the water, you added, “I just got in this morning. I haven’t had time to read everything yet.”

“Oh. Oh,” The man straightened from where he’d been crouched trying to snag a red thread at the far end of the pool, the ends of blue pool shorts darker than the rest and trickling against toned thighs, “Well, I’m Jeongguk. The neighborhood pool guy. And groundskeeper. And...whatever else you need me to be, I guess.”

You quirked an eyebrow and Jeongguk faltered, “I mean, like, I can fix shit. If you need me to. Like, if the cable goes out. But don’t ask me about the Wifi. No clue how to improve that.”

“Do any of us?”

He laughed and there was a peek of a dimple at the corner of his lips, turning away from you, “Fair point.”

You watched as he navigated the net with a finesse that suggested he didn’t just smack your thigh with it, depositing the red string in a sad heap near the filter. The calculated wander of your gaze drew your mouth to dry, following the jump of his calf muscles as he stepped from the pool, dragging the net with him over his shoulder.

“Seriously though,” Jeongguk’s voice snapped you out of your trance and you wet your lips and longed for your chapstick lodged somewhere in the depths of your backpack. He stood by a plastic looking brown shed, the net out of his hands, arms instead folded to his chest. “If you need anything, just call the front desk. The number is pasted on the fridge.”

“Noted, thanks.”

“My pleasure—” He paused halfway through the sliding glass door, fingers poised in an awkward pointing motion, “—what was your name again?”

You uttered it and Jeongguk winked, fingers shaking as his latter foot joined him inside. “Well, then I’ll see you later.”

“Perfect,” You breathed to yourself and you realized after the roar of his blue maintenance truck pulling from your drive that your collection of tattered bras and panties were scattered in the only entrance to the house.

Romance novels lied and movies an even bigger scam about wearing sandals for long periods of time without developing stupidly coarse blisters on the surface of the faux leather straps. You were heaving and limping and confused by the time you found the main office at the far end of the neighborhood.

In retrospect, it was hard to miss, an obnoxious aqua shade of paneling, outlined in a thick white trim led to by an equally bright staircase. Bikes accented in the same white but a clearer shade of blue lined the racks outside, complete with wicker baskets on the front and shiny metal bells that glinted just right to make you shield your eyes and trip up a single stair in your ascend. Inside the barn like doors came a refreshing burst of air conditioning, eliminating the humidity from outside and immediately calming some of the sweat curling into the hair at the nape of your neck.

A man sat behind a glass top counter in the middle of the room, legs delicately crossed on the stool he perched to, sunglasses nudged in the darkest part of dyed blonde roots, thumbing through a tourist style magazine that advertised May, the current month, as it’s date of publication. When the doors rattled shut behind you, he looked up, sunglasses bouncing to the bridge of his nose as he let out a tiny, startled noise.

“Hello!” He greeted after a moment, broad shoulders setting as you approached the counter. The magazine was flipped shut and slid closer to you, eyebrows wiggling at you beyond the frames of his fallen glasses, “Can I interested you in an entire article on the shrimp business in town?”

You giggled then, gently nudging the magazine back to him. The gold on his nametag fastened to the pocket of a blue surf shop t-shirt read Seokjin.

“No, not today.”

Seokjin balled the gloss into a roll and with a shrug, pitched it over his shoulder. “You know what, me either,” He winked, folding his hands on the counter and leaning toward you, plump lips curled back to let out an endearing wheeze of a laugh, “What can I do for you today?”

“Do you rent the bikes outside?”

“I’ll rent you two of them,” He laughed again at the expression on your face, turning to fish a clipboard off the tiny table behind him. “Kidding. I’ll rent you three.”

“I love it, but I think I only need one for right now.”

“If I weren’t on shift, I’d accompany you,” Seokjin scribbled something on the clipboard, “What house number are you in?”

You recited the number to him and he nodded with his tongue between his back molars. The clipboard was returned to the table in exchange for a set of tiny keys, ones he held out to you by the dangle of their miniature, metal hook. “These work on the first bike on the rack,” He smiled again, all full lips and an endearing red tinge to the tips of his ears, “Bring them back to me to check the bike back in or I may have to hunt you down.”

Your eyes widened and he cackled again, slapping a palm down on the glass countertop, “Kidding. But there is a fine if it’s not returned in twenty-four hours so—”

“Noted. I’ll have it back,” You pressed the keys into your palm and offered a halfhearted wave, “Thank you!”

“Always! Happy riding!”

The keys were deposited safely into the pocket of your shorts after you’d managed to wiggle the bicycle away from the rack, clacking against your phone screen as you clambered aboard the leather seat and pushed off in the direction you’d came.

You pedaled first in search of the house, finding it easier on the retrace and mapping it to memory as you dared a new trail, the one that looped and met a dead end when asphalt curled into white sand. The house whirred by again and then the main office, the air cooler in a breeze and with an easier travel than walking with a dozen blisters. You cycled slowly, taking in the unruly wind of cobblestone sidewalks and curiously planted palm trees near the planned planted flowers and each house in their own entirety in comparison to your own and the license plates of each car in each driveway as they advertised various regions and places and worlds aside from the one you were living in.

The blue maintenance truck elicited bile in the back of your throat from the incident earlier in the week as it sat parked on the street corner where sprinklers poked out of the turf and sprayed onto the green and yellow logo pasted to the side. The cab was empty but the yard it was parked in front of wasn’t, the knee height gate surrounding the shrubbery open with Jeongguk’s feet planted just on the other side of it.

You whipped your gaze from the slice of hedge trimmers through an exotic looking tree, instead looping your bike onto the opposite sidewalk and in the opposite direction. To no avail, the cul de sac throwing you back around like an out of control speed skater and suddenly the distance in front of you was filled only with the image of Jeongguk’s bare shoulders.

The bike coasted underneath you, leather relaxing its strain on your blisters as you concentration instead fell to the defined ridges between his shoulder blades, ones that rippled under a thin sheen of sweat each time he drew the trimmers open and shut, fluttering confetti like green to the grass below. The gardening tool fell as you watched, one arm staying above his head as he wiped a glove covered hand across his forehead, pasting more of the faded red fringe to the sweat already glistening there than clearing it. In the same moment did he pivot, trimmers dangling at his thigh, but this time you weren’t focused on the short black clinging desperately to his lean hips or the bunched white shirt sticking out from the waistband, rather the defined lines of his trimmed stomach starting underneath his ribs and disappearing underneath the elastic.

Jeongguk calling your name wasn’t part of the mirage and your rounded mouth jerked up just in time to notice the rapidly approaching edge of the curb.

Your dry mouth didn’t need water when it instead got the sprinkled of gravel, your bike tire colliding with the blocked concrete below and throwing you off to the side. A pain registered as a skid down your elbow but nothing quite matched the shamed embarrassment that flushed at your cheeks as a distant shit, hey! echoed in your ears and gravel crunched under approaching footsteps.

“Hey, woah, are you okay?—” You felt like you were underwater, like the ocean had suddenly decided it could eat the human race and was choosing you as its first victim, “—shit, you’re bleeding.”

A sting to your arm drew you above water and fingers that weren’t your own wiggled in front of your blurry vision, coating in a glob of dark red. The dots in your vision worsened when there was a pressure around your arm, Jeongguk’s t-shirt yanked from his shorts to act as a makeshift bandage and you couldn’t even appreciate the feeling of his hands touching you when you felt like you could vomit all over them any second.

“Hey, hey, babe can you hear me? Don’t pass out on me, it’s just a little scrape. C’mon, hey, I have some water in my truck, give me a second—”

The grass was a welcome pillow to the throb in your head, clearing the specks of black and white in your vision just enough for you to welcome the overhead blue curling around the landscape. You focused your attention on a cloud, one shaped like a disfigured dolphin, until it slipped in front of the sun, the rays spilling out in thick shards from between the transparent water vapor chilling the new layer of sweat that had slipped over your skin in your near faint.

You shuddered as more of the dots in your vision transferred to a seeming chill in your veins, goosebumps crawling across your arms and leaving a dry, cotton taste in your cheeks. Scrambling footsteps in the gravel returned as quickly as they had retreated and a gentle hand slipped behind your shoulders, aiding you in sitting up enough to bring your lips to a cool splash of water.

“I’ve been telling Seokjin to replace the brakes on these for months,” Jeongguk passed the water bottle into your still twitching fingertips, instead taking a seat next to you in the grass.

You were shaky in taking another gulp of the lukewarm water, letting it slide thickly down your throat. Various retorts snagged in the back of your throat and you suppressed them like the urge to glance over at him. Instead, a soft hum came out, one emitted through another cheek full of water.

“Well, when you’re ready, I’ll drive you back to the house and take the bike back—”

“I’m fine,” You croaked but you punctuated the sentiment by gathering your feet underneath you. A dull pain throbbed in your forearm and you swayed slightly in your crouched position, but you managed to stand with no more than a few stars decorating the back of your eyelids.

Jeongguk stuttered behind you, scrambling to his feet as you hunched over the fallen bike, dragging it to an upright position by one of the protruding handles. He slipped a warm hand to the small of your back, stalling you. “You’re not going to try to ride back, are you?”

“Yes?”

“You nearly fainted just now. Do you really think that’s...the best idea?”

Your knee caught on the seat in your first attempt to straddle the bike but you were successful the second time, standing with shaky palms clenched on the handles. “Not really. But it’s not very far…”

You thought you’d shaken him, the bike wobbling as you pushed off, getting two tire rolls away before his figure was jogging up beside you, placing an insistent hand on the bars. “At least let me walk back with you,” Jeongguk insisted, red fringe not obscuring his wide-eyed concern.

You begrudgingly ignored the veins in his forearm, slowing the speed of your pedaling to let him guide you through the desolate roads of the quiet neighborhood. It was a quick but silent trip, Jeongguk turning to balance the bike with two hands as you clambered off on shaky legs. He’d barely pivoted from depositing it back into its empty space on the rack when you’d pushed the tiny set of keys against the center of chest, too engrossed in a range of mortification.

“Here,” You bit out, “Thanks again.”

You took off in a rumpled mess of gravel, sunburn, and a bloody t-shirt as Jeongguk called after you some variation of be careful! that almost sounded like he was laughing.

The blood caked off his t-shirt on the third wash (when you managed to understand the complex mess of dials lining the top of the machine) and you hung it on a wire hanger on the tiny awning that extended outward from the house onto the concrete. He’d have to duck underneath it to do his job as you hid faithfully in your bedroom and pretended to nap for the duration of his visit.

There was a distinct clattering outside as the morning hours drew into the afternoon and you buried your head underneath the puffy duvet, taking comfort in the flash of colors across your phone screen even if you were mute to the video you’d played. But then the clutter outside transferred to the slide of the patio door and the video disappeared as your phone fell face down against your waist and you froze.

Jeongguk was calling your name, fluctuating in volume as he moved about the main part of the house. You winced each time the scuff of his bare feet moved closer, relaxed when it was farther away, and sighed when he tried, “I know you’re in here. Seokjin didn’t see you leave today. Or yesterday. Or the day before.”

You swallowed your pride and the unattractive scab growing on the flat of your forearm as you stalked out of your room. You found him mostly clothed this time, hands braced on the lip of the bar in the center of the kitchen with his phone pressed toward his nose in one hand.

“What, have you been watching me?”

There was a fond smile that crept to Jeongguk’s lips as he turned to look at you, “Making sure you didn’t bleed out, actually, but if you want to look at it that way.”

You paused in the hallway, feet as wide as your shoulders and arms folded tight to your chest. Only then did you realize you still had flannel pajama shorts and a flimsy white shirt on. “Well. Here I am. With only minor injuries. So uh…”

There was a glass plate in the flat of his palm before you could blink, a pyramid of chocolate chip cookies wrapped with plastic presented before you. “I, uh, made you some cookies,” He blinked, tossing his head toward the refrigerator. The red in his hair had faded to a harsh pink, “and there’s fresh lemonade in the fridge.”

“Your t-shirt is hanging outside,” You blurted in response, “free of blood.”

Jeongguk’s nose wrinkled, turning to deposit the cookies to the countertop again, “Didn’t want it back. I have fifty of the same thing. But thank you…”

You stared at the back of his head, where dark brown roots had begun to weave through the sharp red. After a moment, you blinked, “...so you can bake?”

He shrugged without looking at you, peeling the plastic away from the plate to pluck a cookie into his palm. He glanced over his shoulder, endearing smile dimpled into his cheeks and you melted like the bits of chocolate that brushed against his digits when he stretched the treat out to you, “Eh. Try one?”

Jeongguk’s gaze followed you as you shuffled around the kitchen, sliding out one of the bar stools with the crook of your foot to slip onto the round leather. You reached over the countertop, snatching a napkin from a pile near the sink to spread out in front of you, lips pressing into a geometric shape in your cheeks.

“C’mon, hand it over.”

He bypassed your wriggling fingers to place the cookie down on your napkin, watching you with a bated breath and round eyes. Soft irises followed the path of the piece you broke off the cookie to where you nudged it into your mouth by the curve of your thumb. The cookie crumbled across your tongue, melting in a mess of sugar and chocolate that gurgled a pleasured moan from your throat as you dived in for two, four more nibbles on the soft corners.

An amused expression wrinkled at his cocked eyebrows and the small sliver of his teeth when your eyelids fluttered open from devouring half the treat, “Good?”

“You can bake,” You affirmed, breaking off another bite sized corner. “Maybe I should wreck bikes more often.”

“No,” Jeongguk assured, replacing the cookie with a fresh one before turning to your fridge to yank out the pitcher of lemonade, “You definitely should not.”

His stature went fishing about the kitchen area, yanking open cabinet after cabinet until he found something suitable, glass pieces smudged from years of use. He pulled down two, placing them in front of the pitcher.

“You know, your food selection here is pretty sad,” He handed over a full glass, watching as you took a languid gulp.

“I don’t exactly know where the grocery store is,” You argued of the boxes of leftover pizza stacked inside your fridge and the singular bag of pretzels you’d smuggled onto the airplane. “Nor do I have a car, and biking is certainly out of the question—”

Jeongguk ignored you, opening and closing drawers until he found the packet of paper Namjoon had left for you, the FAQOTH. His thumb lodged between the pages, squinting at the ink as his voice muffled around the rim of his own glass.

His tongue swiped at the lemonade clinging to his upper lip, sighing, “You really didn’t read this, did you? There’s, like, seven cab services to choose from. And at least six of them know where the Walmart is.”

You dismissed him with a wave of your hand, snatching the packet of paper from his grasp to flatten it over the napkin you’d been snacking from. “All Namjoon has listed are pizza places…” You trailed off, “I need restaurant recommendations. Throw some at me.”

“That’s a pretty broad question. I have a lot.”

“You’ll have to show me a few before I leave.”

You stared at each other in a passing silence that heightened your mortification like bile on the crux of your throat, especially when Jeongguk cocked an eyebrow, the slightest of smirks slanting his lips as his chin unhinged, falling to his chest as he fished aside for another napkin.

“Maybe…” He trailed off, snatching a pen from the same drawer the FAQOTH had came from. “But for now—” He scribbled some more on the surface pebbled in design, scratching out a name and an address before presenting the drooping napkin to you, “—try this place. I think the cab drivers can find it...”

The Dusty Dolphin bordered the line between the natural white sands of the beach and the main strip of highway that cascaded down the coastline. It was as if sitting on the border in territories, the inside seating of the restaurant on soft grasses sticking through sand like soil with an asphalt parking lot lined in chipped neon parking spaces just a walking distance away, while the outside seating was perched on the beach, a patio raised on wooden platforms with brightly colored umbrellas stuck through the center of wooden tables.

Your fingers paled your knuckles with how tightly you clenched your fists, flip flops slapping against the wooden surface as you climbed up a rickety staircase to tell an uninterested looking hostess that it would be just you.

“Outside?” It wasn’t really a question of yes or no, more of a confirmation of what she was expecting you to say as she hopped down from her stool and began to collect silverware and a glossy menu.

Your sure was lost under your breath as she took your curt nod as the answer, weaving through the close knit tables in the indoor seating to lead you through a single set of double doors and to an empty table on the far corner. Again, her, “Is this okay?” was a confirmation, not an affirmation, and your nod had her saying your server will be right with you when she’d already slipped back inside.

The sun peaked out from behind the lapping waves on the horizon, the blackness engulfing the farthest waves a taste of the sun’s sleep for a few hours, leaving the world with a brilliant mesh of pastel hues, colored together like oil crayons as brushes of wispy clouds rushed by to the melody of the water rushing to the shore. A breeze rolled with the motion of the water and you tugged your thin cardigan closer to your torso, not helped with the fans bolted to the overhead framing that continued to rotate softly, a cooldown from their midafternoon duties where they whirred fatefully.

“Hey, told you the cab driver could find this place.”

Jeongguk stood in front of you with the dopiest of grins on his lips, a tiny and audible giggle stumbling out from the shocked expression that met your features. He was adorned in all black, tight black jeans, a black belt cinching a black t-shirt into his waist, a black apron snug just a beat above the belt buckle. His bright locks were styled, parted away from his forehead in a calculated fashion that made one swoop a tad bigger than the latter side. Pens and straws and a tiny notepad were tucked into the pouches of the apron and he held a notepad of a similar fashion up, pen clicking rapidly as he continued to giggle at you.

“You work here?” You blinked, and then added with flat palms slapping against the front of your menu, “Is there anything you don’t do?”

“Can’t quite train the dolphins at the wildlife reserve yet, but we’re getting there,” His nose wrinkled in another laugh, pen clicking out finally as he rested it against the paper, “What can I get you to drink?”

“Uh. Water, I guess.”

“Boring,” Jeongguk scribbled shorthand to the pad, “Are you going to get something a bit more exciting than chicken strips for your meal?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be heckling the paying customer.”

“Seriously,” He eyed you again, “Do you know what you want?”

You opened the menu for the first time, the array of seafood and pastas and salads and various other dishes overwhelming you with him hunching over you, shuffling to read over your shoulders.

“What do you recommend?”

“Well, we’re pretty known for seafood—” You shot him a look, “—obviously. But like, all the shrimp is pretty good—”

“Because of the shrimp business in town?”

Jeongguk laughed, “Seokjin?”

“A little bit.”

He hummed, chin hovering dangerously close to your shoulder before he straightened, shuffling between the railing around the porch area. “I’ll bring you a couple things,” He decided, mostly to himself and absently over his shoulder,

A couple things meant a platter of shrimp, cooked, seasoned, piled, and ripped in different variations, piled high like the pyramid of cookies you’d nearly devoured after he’d left your house. His manager complained twice upon finding him sitting with you, judging your expression as you sucked some butter contraption off the ridges of a steamed shrimp and teasing you of the flakes of garlic clinging to the corner of your mouth. He returned to refill your water when you’d only taken a few sips from the candy striped straw and ignored you three times when you asked for the bill as the sun completely disappeared beyond the water, leaving the sea to one giant stretch you could not see but could hear the threat of.

“Here, I guess,” Jeongguk settled the black fold down on your table, leaving with a wink that illuminated in the artificial porch lights hanging from the center of the still turning fans. It was enough lighting to read that he’d paid for your bill, scrawling a giant smiley face underneath the amount.

You sighed, prepared to reprimand him as you carefully folded the receipt to slide into your pocket but two colored notes underneath caught your attention. The pink one read wait on me, I’ll drive you home. You placed it aside with a check to your phone, finding it five minutes from closing time of the restaurant as a majority of the other patrons who had long fled the premises.

The second note was yellow, the handwriting a bit more loopy, calculated in a sense.

A mirage is the peace the night time sea suggests; a reality is the beauty your soul creates.

Jeongguk was free of the apron when he returned, shirt untucked, and a large blue jacket shrugged across his shoulders. The same giddy smile from before remained plastered to his features as he dug in his pocket, pulling out a set of keys that he tossed and caught in the same palm.

“Ready to go?”

You folded the sticky note carefully, slipping it with the collection of bills in your back pocket.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

He left notes while you were asleep and he had another schedule to get to, choosing your pool as the first to clean and assess and correct the chemical balance of, leaving the bright blue paper with tacky glue stripped on the top to the patio door.

You caught it when you shrugged outside with a piece of toast in hand and your laptop folded under your arm, crumbs decorating your knuckles as you slipped the paper off the sizable smudge on the glass to bring it to your nose.

Think of dream, sleep of you.

He left notes on the hedge just outside your door on his way to the neighbors to fix a faulty outlet in the upstairs bedroom for a family who’d just arrived and had decided to cram three children with twelve electronic devices between them into that very room.

It was bright pink and sealed to the petal of a flower you debated picking, a petal that dislodged anyway when you plucked the note instead, decorating the stone walkway with a single question of soft red hues.

Bloom in my heart like the question of my soul.

He left notes on the inside of your refrigerator, right on top of a family sized bottle of orange juice he’d watched you haul through the front gates of the neighborhood while Seokjin assumed he was paying attention to his instructions for the disposal of some lawn chairs at the community pool near the beach.

You found it after he left in a flurry of more cookies, the smell of chlorine, and an off handed comment about you needing more variety in your life than water and orange juice, a yellow note that rivaled the unnatural coloring of the juice when you’d purchased a brand name rather than the more expensive, family brand.

Orange juice sucks, that much I do know.

You scattered them across the screen of your open laptop like an investigator piecing together the details of a crime while your neglected novel watched on, the cursor mocking you from beyond a note that said procrastinating my destiny with a useless metal fence. Color coding failed when Jeongguk switched from pinks, blues, and yellows to purples, oranges, and greens. His handwriting didn’t falter, suggest a trend with a certain harder press of his pen. The medium in which he wrote varied, lead or red pen or what appeared to be a blue colored pencil. Some told a story, only to be ruined with orange juice or elbow scabs or half eaten shrimp.

Your laptop screen was coated in a thin layer of film from placing and plucking the notes into various orders, one that hazed over your novel as you began to stack the notes into a neat pile in your cupped palm. It mirrored the midday haze that had curled across the neighborhood, the sun eliciting the mirage of steam curling off the pool water that seemed to hinder your conscious unable to understand the growing tree of poetry in your grasp.

The contents of the last paragraph, even without a layer of tacky glue and humidity stained air, made little sense, only one of five you’d written in three weeks. It was thick and expositional, a writing exercise within the draft, a rambling discussion of your surroundings when you’d decided to have your characters visit a beach rather than force their stories into some sand and sun.

Your outline answered your rhetorical question.

Why are they going to the beach? TBD.

You deleted the fifth paragraph and shut your laptop. Four paragraphs in three weeks.

Soft fluttering of the notes between your fingertips kept the distracted state of your conscious occupied long enough to seek out an unnatural sound of nature. It was a scurrying from around the side of the house, scattering through dry pine needles and gravel poured between the concrete stepping stones. The cloud of your thoughts cleared enough to panic in confusion, leaving the notes underneath a corner of your laptop as you crept into your flip flops.

The wire gate was left open, swinging gently against the side of the house. Clear footsteps rut deep into the coarse brown needles, smudging into the mud below still damp from the morning rain shower.

Your first rational thought of it being a squirrel erased as you reached for the gate, pulling and latching it. Someone was walking a dog across the street, a tiny white poodle with a ridiculous haircut and a cat bell on its collar. A childlike scream traveled upward from the beach. The breeze clattered against the leaves of a towering tree planted entirely too close to the house.

The same gentle breeze fluttered a strip of pink against the side of the house.

“Dammit, Jeongguk,” You cursed, needles lodging between the rubber of your flip flops and your bare feet as you moved off the stepping stone path. It was pasted high, too, barely in reaching of your pinching fingertips as you leaned into the house and stretched as high on the balls of your feet as you could go.

Your back slumped against the house as you glared at your prize for thin scratches and a strain in your shoulders. A number. A phone number.

With a shitty smiley face, a curve and two dots, beneath it.

You cursed through another layer of pine needles, deserting your flip flops on the far end of the pool deck as you hopped across seething hot concrete to retrieve your phone from underneath your towel. Pointed thumbs jabbed in the number to a new text thread, equally as prominent in clicking out a message.

What the hell are you trying to tell me with these notes, Jeongguk?

For thirty-seven agonizing seconds, you thought your only answer was the smiling emoticon with tiny red hearts dotted around the surface. And then three little dots appeared in the bottom left corner.

Everything. Meet me at the beach tonight?

You followed the sound of music, passing only a family with two tiny girls, headlamps strapped to their foreheads and plastic sand castle buckets clutched in their fingers as they chatted eagerly about what they’d seen underneath their feet, and a colony of the very crabs they’d been trying to capture. Your flip flops followed the beat of the guitar melody, pattering against the flex of your thigh where you clutched them in loose fingers at your hip, bare feet sliding through the cool sand, occasionally catching on snags of sea shells and scurrying sea creatures.

The sounds grew louder, dimming the thrash of night time waves, and you found him, seated not far down the coast line on a ratty looking, red lawn chair.

Jeongguk glanced up from furrowed eyebrows when you cleared his throat, hunched over a guitar balanced neatly on short clad thighs. Confusion erased into elation as he grinned, tossing his head toward the empty lawn chair next to him, blue and with less frayed edges.

“Hey! Have a seat. I brought beer in the cooler behind you. And water. I can go get you anything—”

You ducked for the red plastic container, drawing out a dripping water bottle and cracking the lid, “It’s okay. Thank you.”

He visibly relaxed, the lingering stare on your lips wrapping around the bottle diverting back to his work on the instrument in his lap, fiddling with some of the tuners at the top. You watched as he worked, thumb coming out to strum at the bottom few strings before he sat back with a satisfied hum.

And then Jeongguk began to sing. Softly at first, a testing glance in your direction as soft pink lips seemed hesitant in parting. When intrigue lit your features, body visibly tensing, his mouth curled into a smile, voice a higher volume but a soft octave nonetheless, gentle and soothing like a retreating wave that lipped gently across the shells it was leaving behind. His gaze faltered from yours to hit a note, a scrunch to his nose, a vein down the length of his neck, a passion that you longed for as his voice fishtailed into an easy run. It was an unfamiliar tune to you, one that ended in a handful of endearing head bops and cheesy hums from Jeongguk as he strummed once, hard, down the strings of his guitar.

The smile on his lips wobbled, trying to contain his teeth but still dimpling in his cheeks as he blinked at you. He lost the battle with his smile when he spoke, testing “Good?”, with a slight giggle.

“The notes,” You said dumbly, “They’re your lyrics?”

“Some of them…” He sat the guitar in the sand with a shy hand wrapped around the back of his neck, “Some are just, I don’t know, poetry.”

“So you sing.”

“I sing,” Jeongguk nodded, “I like to think I’m a better singer than pool cleaner. Or cookie baker.”

You followed his gaze from your eyes to his clasped hands on his knees. “Have you tried to pursue anything in it?”

“No point,” His gaze moved onward from his hands to the ocean, squinting and closing, “Just a hobby.”

“For now—”

“For always,” He was staring at you again, curt in his sharp correction. After a moment, a tiny smile slanted his lips, “It’s okay, really. I enjoy doing it in my free time.”

You tilted your head, “Why are you sharing this with me?”

Jeongguk was standing above you, hand outstretched, shy smile flushing his cheeks even in the darkness. “Walk with me.”

He took the initiative the thread your fingers together, leading you down to the edge of where the water reached. The water still warm from the heat of the season lapped around your ankles as you trudged down the coast, hand in hand, silence welcome to the soundtrack of the ocean. After a sizable distance, Jeongguk sighed, footsteps stalling to yank your unsuspecting figure to a stop.

“I’m showing you because lately, they’re all about you.”

You blinked at him, hands still clasped but pulled at an unnatural distance between your statures. “Jeongguk, what—”

“Look, I’m extremely lame and not as good with actual words as I am with the notes I left you but…” He stepped closer, dropping your intertwined hands to swing between your bodies, “I like you. Basically.”

“Basically?”

A disgruntled whine left his lips and his gaze trailed over your shoulder, upward toward the sky, “I know you’re only here for another month and I know I barely know you but. I don’t know. I like you. And I felt weird envisioning a future where I didn’t at least try.”

Your skin warmed through the thin flannel draped across your sun irritated skin. Another step closer, this one initiated by you, followed by a soft squeeze and tug on his palm. “Like you said, I’m only here for another month,” Soft eyes darkened into the stars dancing around you wandered back down to your gaze, hopeful even as you sighed, “I’m supposed to be writing, anyway. That’s the entire point of my trip and I’ve barely got anything done…”

“I won’t be a distraction.”

“You already are.”

Another shy smile graced Jeongguk’s features, mumbling, “Sorry.”

“But a good distraction…” One more step and there was but a fingertips length distance between your torsos, your thumb running along his knuckles, “You’re a good distraction.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

You held up your free hand, pinky presented. “I’m willing to try, Jeongguk but—” You punctuated the word before he could hook the digit in yours, “—no obligations. Not really, anyway.”

“Do the obligations include or exclude kissing?” He braved leaning closer to you, even as the rosy hue on his cheeks spread, “Pleasesayinclude, pleasesayinclude, pleasesay—”

You tugged down on his hand, loose fist with your pinky presented falling against his shoulder as you connected your lips. He hummed happily into the seam of your lips, arm snaking around your waist to eliminate the distance between your torsos. “One month,” You punctuated between a breath of air, one he ignored with another languid kiss into your mouth.

“So I can’t tell Taehyung you’re my girlfriend?”

“Who’s Taehyung?”

“My roommate,” Jeongguk linked your pinkies while you were distracted, kissing your jaw, “I’ll introduce you to him.”

“Jeongguk,” You squeezed his hand and pinky in tandem, “One month.”

“Stop, you’re making your not-really-your-boyfriend sad.”

Kim Taehyung was all surfer, the stereotypical bleached blonde hair with dark peeking out of the roots, baggy black shorts with the white strings untied, a thin white undershirt hugging his lean figure underneath a blue shirt with some intricate design of flames and waves and a surfboard ironed on the front. His bare feet slapped through the corridor, grumbling something to Jeongguk’s greeting call, hair tossed back with a thick white headband around the middle of his forehead that pronounced his harsh eyebrows, ones that furrowed to inspect you.

“Hi!” He was loud, like an over excited golden retriever, especially when he beamed to tease his roommate, “So you’re the beautiful lady Gukkie here courted by flashing his stellar abs and less than comparable thighs.”

You gawked, cheeks heating because well, kind of, but the hand on the small of your back fist into the material of your shirt, pushing you forward and past his broad figure.

“Don’t you have a wave to almost drown in?”

“C’mon, I was just kidding, love!” Taehyung’s footsteps were heavy behind you, following your figures through a narrow hallway, “No part of Jeon is impressive enough to get you. Did he bribe you? I’ll pay the ransom.”

You giggled as Jeongguk paused around you, sucking in a breath through his teeth that materialized into a whispered, “If you ignore him, he goes away. Eventually.”

Your nose wrinkled, turning to look at the red-faced man pressed against your back, “But he’s funny.”

You’d paused in front of a doorway, one Jeongguk pushed open and glared pointedly at you. “Don’t encourage him. Go.”

Jeongguk’s room was wide, a contrast to the narrow hallway lined in creaking hardwood and paneled walls. It was open concept, not much furniture aside from a few dressers and the bed. Blacks, whites, and greys told the story with color sprinkled in from accented belongings, like a collection of keychains hanging off a billboard in the corner, the cork material of the wall hanging filed with various photographs pinned up by neon colored tacks. A string of lights hung above his headboard, polaroids dangling from the wires, similar ones pasted in a haphazard pattern on the same wall.

“You like photography?”

He watched you step to his corkboard, delicately sliding your fingers underneath a photograph so as not to touch the ink on the front. It was a picture he’d taken of Taehyung at a surfing competition, purposefully edited to look straight from a vintage yearbook.

“A little. Filming too....”

You nodded, letting the photograph flutter back against its board. Pivoting, slow steps carried you toward his slumped figure standing rigid in the center of his room, sliding your palms over his shoulders when you got close enough.

“All of these talents and you can’t dye your hair by yourself?”

Jeongguk’s fingers fell into the fringe hanging over his eyes, now blonde with hints of pink clinging to the ends of certain strands. A pout materialized but he didn’t whine, just leaning closer to you with tendrils of hair still secured between a hand behind his head.

“Just because it’s your first visit doesn’t mean I won’t subject you to Taehyung’s three hour lecture of proper surfboard waxing techniques.”

“Stop threatening me with a good time and lead me to the hair dye.”

His bathroom was as small as the hallway and you found yourself seated on the edge of the vanity with Jeongguk crushed between your legs. He didn’t seem to mind, fingers twitching from their place beside you to creep up to your thighs as you squinted at his head, plastic covered fingers globing harsh red through his hair.

“What’s your natural hair color?”

“Brown.”

You tapped at his roots, taking a glob with the crook of your fingers. “Why don’t you leave it at that?”

“Because red is cool.”

“Who told you that?—” You pulled your hands into your lap, careful to hold the stain away, “—Your girlfriend?”

“Don’t know,” Jeongguk leaned close enough to smear red on your forehead with his bangs if they weren’t pasted to his forehead, “Is my hair color cool?”

A playful look of disgust wrinkled at your nose, “Only half of your hair is dyed right now.”

He glanced behind you in the mirror, eyeing the glob of dye on one half of his head to the straight blonde on the latter. “So?” He blinked back to you, “Is it cool?”

“I don’t know,” You began to peel the gloves off, “Wash it out and we’ll see.”

You sat cross legged in the center of Jeongguk’s bed when he returned, half of his hair back to the vibrant red it had been when he nearly impaled you with a pool net, half the blonde it had been trending toward when he asked you to entertain his affections for a month more. He didn’t give you an option of a yes or no, flopping at the foot of the bed to press his cheek against your ankles, arms stretched out across your thighs.

“Hey,” He said after a moment, muffled against your jeans.

You tested the waters of placing a hand against his scalp and when he cuddled into your affection, you softly ran your nails through his hair. “Hey, what?”

“I let you read my things—” Jeongguk shifted to place his chin on your naval, blinking owlishly up at you, “—my things about you. When do I get to read part of your novel?”

“Hmm, when it’s finished and published and available in bookstores.”

“Is that soon?”

You shot him a look but he didn’t seem to be kidding. “No. Probably not. Especially since I’ve made virtually no progress.”

“Well,” He pecked your belly button over your shirt, snuggling back against you again, “I’d love to read an advanced screening version.”

You’d deleted the four paragraphs you’d completed in three weeks. Zero paragraphs in five weeks.

“We’ll see…”

You printed your outline in three separate copies, each one with their own unique set of markups of various color pens and pencils and highlighters, colors born out of your tiny sparks on inspiration that you tried to hold onto like a the end of a rope, one that would pull you to the surface for clarity, creativity, anything. But each time the trill of your red pen reached the end of the page, transferring over to your fingers on the keyboard, the half an ounce of rope had slipped through your fingertips, leaving you to tread underwater.

Those stapled pages were spread across a table on the patio area of The Dusty Dolphin, half sandwiched between your laptop that was attached to an extension cord. Jeongguk had hijacked both the Wifi password and an extra long cable, seating you in the far corner of the deck area and keeping you stocked with fresh water and samples of mozzarella sticks.

It was the third time you’d marked through and rewrote a certain bullet point, the result a smear of dying highlighter in neon yellow that you could barely read. You capped the highlighter and the open pen rolled to the center of your keyboard, turning your attention instead to the goosebumps that had appeared across your bare forearms and Jeongguk’s figure as he jogged out onto the patio deck.

“That my hoodie?” He questioned as he approached, your head halfway through the black fabric you’d had tied around your waist for the duration of the day.

“Could be Taehyung’s. I stole it from your laundry room.”

Jeongguk placed the new glass of ice water down, avoiding your papers and electronics to wrap a hand in the collar of the hoodie to tug your mouth to his.

“Nope,” He teased with a nip to your bottom lip in a whirling departure, “Mine.”

“Wait!”

He turned, nearly colliding with a high chair protruding out into the walkway.

“Come back, waiter.”

The pad of paper was drawn from his apron, just to appease the look the child’s mother shot him as he moved to stand next to you again. “Yes, paying customer?”

“Can you bring me real food, please?”

He began scribbling something before you could talk, mirroring your sentiment the same time you uttered it.

“The shrimp pasta?”

A bashful smile sunk your chin into your shoulders and you nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Course,” Another chaste peck on your lips that turned into two, then lingered on the third, only for heavy footsteps and a rough voice to have him jumping away.

“Jeongguk…” A figure was leaning out of the doorway dressed in an ironed white button up and black slacks, the tiny gold nameplate advertising manager first reading Yoongi. “Stop kissing customers, please.”

This time a horrified gasp from the mother in question, one that caused Yoongi’s eyes to widen as he moved for the table, shooting you a comforting wink as he began to explain the concept of a joke while Jeongguk disappeared back into the depths of the restaurant.

You managed to hack out two paragraphs while Jeongguk put your order in with a handful of dialog sprinkled within. His kiss was to the top of your head when he slipped the plate in front of you, careful to avoid your twitching fingers over the keys as he hummed.

“Any progress?”

Your response wasn’t a total lie. “A little bit…”

Two paragraphs and useless dialog tagged with edit later in six weeks.

You’d managed to catch a handful of the rope promising to pull you ashore, one you clung desperately to while your fingers, coiled equally as tight, wore the letters on your keyboard to nothing, backspace barely a factor as you left in typos and grammar issues and a myriad of useless punctuation. The lines from where your laptop sat in relation to the cover your swimsuit bottoms provided was of little concern, just as your hair tied messily on the nape of your neck and the lack of towel underneath the bare parts of your stature not covered by the swimsuit you’d stumbled into in route to reach the rope.

The paper outlines sat somewhere inside but you didn’t need them anyway, the digital copy enough to mark off pieces from as your word count skyrocketed, pages clicking over and over the hump you’d previously been stuck on, the rope dragging your belly first over but getting you there nonetheless. You typed until your mouth begged for the ice water you’d left inside and one of the two cookies of Jeongguk’s left, but you powered through into another page, giddy with the possibility but more focused on the emotion somewhere between determination and greed.

You heard the gate open but ignored it, you heard a call of your name but ignored it, and you felt the splash of water hit your ankles and glared at it.

“Hey!” Jeongguk resurfaced on the side of the pool. He’d fixed his hair, vibrant and red against where he brushed it out of his eyes. “Come in for a swim?”

You pursed your lips, determined to ignore him as your fingers started slow on the keys again. When you arrived at your previous speed, you huffed, “You aren’t supposed to clean today.”

He dunked his head under, resurfacing in a flurry of bubbles, “Does it look like I’m cleaning?”

“Jeongguk. I’m busy today.”

“You’re only here for another week.”

“Exactly!”

He sighed, forearms folding onto the concrete as he leaned forward, watching you, “Whatever you have is great. Better than great.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“I have a vague idea because you won’t let me read anything.”

You were glaring at him again, the playful expression previously on his features hardened into something you couldn’t quite understand, one that softened only marginally as the seconds passed.

Jeongguk uttered your name, a gentle request, “Take a break.”

Your laptop sat open on the bare lawn chair, battery zapped the longer the heat bore down on it but the pointed stalk of your footsteps across the pool area had shoved it aside. The water was cold upon first touch but the reactions of your body didn’t show it, carrying you down the staircase until you were submerged, body crouching so that your chin skimmed the surface of the water until you were treading directly in front of Jeongguk.

“I’m in the water,” You hissed, “Is this what you wanted?”

He didn’t have it in him to giggle, a sad smile instead not quite reaching the dimples in his cheeks.

“No. I want you to believe in yourself.”

The push of your mouth against Jeongguk’s was wet, tasting of the chlorine that splattered around you when you stood to grapple for purchase on his shoulders. Strong arms encased your waist, accepting you anyway as one liquid staining your lips was replaced with something warm and tinged in salt, dripping in unwarranted streams from the corners of your eyes.

You whimpered when your back was pressed to the side of the pool, legs coming to wrap around his waist while your fingernails scraped at his back. “I’m sorry,” You gasped, his lips mouthing at your neck while he held you.

“Don’t be,” He reprimanded you with teeth on your collarbone, arms sliding higher on your waist to press you flush to his chest, “I’ve got you.”

Another miserable apology fell from your lips and your chin was jerked upward by a soft palm cupping your cheek, latter hand pressing into the concrete behind you. “I said, I’ve got you, baby girl,” Jeongguk reiterated, forehead pressed to yours. Something sad rippled in his starry irises, something that dug the dagger deeper into the hammering organ in your chest, “What do you need me to do?”

“Just, I—”

Words failed but the bury of your face into his neck, securing your ankles around his back and holding to him like he’d disappear any second, didn’t.

Jeongguk’s arms threaded around your stature again, nosing into your damp hair with a shaky sigh. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got you. Shh, it’s okay, it’ll be okay…”

Fourteen pages in seven weeks.

The weight of his palm in yours had never quite reached home, a foreign weight laced through your fingers from the hesitancy echoing a mantra in the forefront of your conscious, eerie and daunting and to the tune of your rapidly beating heart.

No obligations. A distraction. A good distraction. No obligations. Broken laptop charger. Not enough complete. No obligations. Too much dialog. Too little progress. No obligations.

Fourteen pages. Seven weeks. No obligations.

You squeezed your fingers together just to watch the joints retract under your skin, the moonlight a ghost over your knuckles. Again and it was inevitable to catch Jeongguk’s attention, his hand flexing underneath yours, smooth and gentle and waiting, accepting of the home your lost heart would need.

If you’d just let yourself knock on the door. No obligations.

“Hey.” He’d stopped walking next to you, the sand cold on your toes, the plastic straps of your sandals rubbing a blister on the soft crease between your fingers on your free hand. “Hey, can we…”

“Look,” You overlapped him, sandals falling from your grasp when you pointed instead. A small group of crabs ruffled through the sand in front of you, bumping through languidly, over and under each other. Jeongguk’s eyebrows nearly met at the wrinkled bridge of his nose, the corner of his mouth slightly downturned when you glanced at him. Softly, you nodded, “Crabs.”

He let go of your hand, crouching. A cupped palm scooped through the sand, effectively excavating one of the crabs. It shook the sand from around itself, scurrying eagerly about the surface of Jeongguk’s hand as he straightened, stretching the creature out to you.

“Do you want to hold him?”

Thoughts of your novel and the overwhelming overhauls it’d endured in your eight weeks, the first a modest to a beachfront neighborhood, from a grocery store to a beach, from a bouquet of flowers the boy had been clutching onto for months while you worked on the details around him to a tiny crab who lasted long enough for you to hate the idea.

The tiniest of smiles made it to your lips, “Is there anything you can’t do, Jeon Jeongguk?”

He crouched again, releasing the crab in a flurry of sand dusted from his fingertips before returning to you. Curled fists made it into the pockets of his shorts, foot nudging into the ground below him as he shrugged. Wide eyes lifted from their spot at the tips of his toes to yours, the same sad smile lacing his features, “I can’t figure you out, apparently.”

“Can we...can we talk?”

He nodded, slowly at first and then all at once. A hand stretched in your direction again, fingers wiggling, the smile on his features a step closer to genuine. “C’mon, let’s go sit down.”

You followed Jeongguk up the beach, finding a space just in front of where the long grasses began, fluttering gently in the night time wind so much so that their soft ambiance almost outweighed the ripple of the ocean from farther up on the shore. Your hand retracted from his, sandwiched between your thighs but your shoulders still touched, sitting side by side as the moonlight crawled up the waves to be deposited onto the coast.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” You said after a moment. Features scrunched to the breeze, eyes shutting as you sighed, “I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

He hummed, “Do any of us?”

“You seem to,” Your cheek pressed to your shoulder, offering a smile when he glanced at you, “Mister gorgeous pool boy who can sing, play guitar, write poetry, bake, and catch ghost crabs without blinking.”

Jeongguk hummed once more, a lower sound this time, nose pointed toward the breeze. “If you think my ambitions in life stopped at tourist neighborhood groundskeeper and a waiter at a place named The Dusty Dolphin, I must have done a really shitty job at letting you get to know me over these couple of months.”

“I know that,” You nudged him, “but how are you content with your passions just staying passions? How can you not want more?”

“Let me ask you a question,” He nudged you back, chin meeting his upper arm to peer at you under vibrant bangs, “Why do you write?”

“Because I want to have a published novel.”

Jeongguk quirked an eyebrow, “Why do you want to have something published?”

“Because I’ve put years of work into the idea. I’ve drained my soul to invest it in this project.”

“Do you love it?”

You blinked, “My novel?”

“Your novel, your column, the newspaper, writing,” Jeongguk shrugged, “Any of it.”

“I did…”

“Did?”

“I’ve always been in love with the craft of writing—” Softly, you amended, “—my writing. My creations. And I’ve had slumps, I’ve endured writer’s block. I’ve gone past deadlines and I’ve scrapped entire plots, ideas, paragraphs, sentences. But never this bad. Not to the point where I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Why I even started writing the piece in the first place, what the end goal. What it was even supposed to be about, let alone anything about it.”

Jeongguk nodded, nose pointing toward the breeze again, cheek lulling to his arm, “Why did you come here, of all places?”

“I was sent here. Work leave.”

“What’d you do?”

“Told a nine year old that, not only are Disney princesses not real, but not a viable career option.”

He chuckled next to you, legs stretching out in front of him. “Harsh.”

“What about you?” You nudged him again, “Why do you write?”

“Because I love music and words are the language of music,” Jeongguk’s finger dug into the sand, absently drawing geometric shapes before brushing them away with the heel of his palm, “Even instrumental pieces can be described in words. Whimsical, haunting, pretty. That kind of thing.”

“I didn’t have to ask you if you loved it…” It was a rhetorical sentiment, trailed off as you stared at the nudge of his fingernail into a crooked rectangle.

“Can you do me a favor, when you go back home?”

“Please don’t tell me not to forget you. We live in the twenty-first century. I expect a picture of Seokjin with his shrimp magazine once a week.”

He was smiling when his hand slipped to your cheek, turning your gaze to his. “I’m serious,” His eyes flicked between yours, dizzying you in a mess of stars that never seemed to blur with the speed of his insistent gaze. “Scrap your entire novel. Start over.”

“What? Do you understand—”

Jeongguk’s lips felt like home. You hadn’t placed your guard around those. “I don’t understand. You won’t let me read it,” His forehead pressed to yours, “but just try it.”

“But Namjoon—”

Another kiss, gentle, a brush of your mouths together, just enough to swallow your insecurities. “The new one will be just as great. Better. More than enough to send to Namjoon.”

“How do you know?”

His thumb brushed against the apple of your cheek, eyes following the movement, “Would you allow him to read your current draft in its entirety? Not just what you’ve gotten finished while here.”

You hesitated long enough for Jeongguk to kiss you again, lingering enough to properly swallow what you were going to say. No, absolutely not.

“Might as well try—” His cheeks dimpled and it was the first genuine smile you’d allowed yourself in days, “—right?”

“Can you do me a favor?” You asked after several seconds of indulging in each other’s affections, lips swollen and brushing against his mouth.

“I won’t send you shirtless pictures every morning, no—” He shifted enough to shed himself of the pink checkered flannel on his shoulders, wrapping it to your shoulders to pull you against his side, “Taehyung already thinks I’m vain.”

You smacked Jeongguk’s shoulder and he giggled, leaning forward just enough to brush the tips of your noses together. Once. Twice. Four times.

“No,” You tilted to squish your noses together, locking his gaze to yours, “Try to pursue something with music. I don’t care if it’s DJing at that shitty club Taehyung was trying to get us to go to last week. Or maybe busking on the weekends. You can set up in front of the pond as you enter the neighborhood.”

“I don’t…”

“Try it,” You punctuated it with a hard kiss to his lips, “What can it hurt?”

You’d shifted to lay between his legs, cheek on his chest, kisses shifted to his chest over his shirt, his sprinkled to your forehead, cheeks, nose. He hummed into the ministrations, nosing over your hairline.

“Theoretically, if I were to become a famous musician, would you come to my first gig? It’ll never happen, but you’re a writer. Speaking in hypotheticals...”

You settled your chin between the hard planes of his chest, “Depends. Will you buy my novel?”

“Three copies. I’ll come to three separate book signings to get personalized notes from you.”

You giggled and Jeongguk couldn’t help but kiss your nose. Twice. “Then yes. I’ll come to your first gig. Maybe two of them, if you pay for my plane ticket.”

He seemed satisfied with the answer even as an insecurity seemed to linger on the tip of his tongue, one that festered when he glanced over your head to the ocean, still as dark and thrashing as before. “You really won’t forget about me, will you? Because truthfully, I don’t think I’ll ever forget about you.”

“You’re stuck with me, unfortunately. Give me your email and we can be penpals. You can remind me not to crush the dreams of elementary students while I’m at work…”

“...but no, Jeongguk,” You squeezed his waist, pressing your lips to the center of his chest, “I won’t forget you.”

“I’ll still send you my lyrics. They’ll probably be about you for a while, anyway.”

“I’ll let you read snippets of my novel, once I restart. Actually let you read something I’m proud of.”

“I’ll send you a picture of the first dollar I get from busking. It’ll probably be from Seokjin, but it’ll count.”

“I’ll miss you. And your cookies.”

“Miss implies forgetting,” His index finger lifted to prod at your pouted bottom lip, “We aren’t forgetting.”

Another sad smile, a different type of sad, one of the up most cliche smile because it happened, adorned your features as you raised a pinky finger. Slightly crooked, open, without your guard, “Pinky promise?”

Jeongguk’s lips distracted you from the feeling of home that came with the link of your pinky’s, squeezing onto your digit. “Pinky promise.”

Zero progress in eight weeks.

Park Jimin was standing in front of your desk with a copy of your novel in hand, a nervous smile pasted on his plump lips, feet shifting awkwardly beneath him as he waited on you to finish typing. He’d told you to keep working and who were you to deny him of that request.

“What can I do for you?” It wasn’t anything work related. You’d already passed the advice column and your office down to him in exchange for a feature column and a better office with a better computer monitor. He wasn’t getting that too.

The book hit your desk and he scurried to amend the flurry of papers that kicked up around it, speaking as he shuffled through the documents. “My girlfriend, she, uh, loves your novel and I was wondering if you could, uh, sign it for me? Maybe? It’d make her day, year probably, and—”

“Yeah, Jimin,” You reached for the book, dismissing his efforts to clean your desk with a flick of your wrist and a smile, a genuine one, “Of course I can sign it. What’s her name?”

The waxy cover contained the result of your efforts, the painstaking nights you’d stayed up sobbing over your manuscript, the early symptoms of carpal tunnel from hacking at your backspace too much, your familiarity with deleting and recovering entire documents. But most importantly, the return of your passion, your love, your fears the ultimate roadblock to the end of your novel and the beginning of a new, the one currently hidden behind a couple emails and your column for the following week.

The beauty of dual screens.

“Thank you so much,” The blonde gushed, clutching the novel against his chest when you were done scrawling on the cover with a ballpoint pen, “She’ll be so excited. Thank you!”

Your phone was prepared to text Hoseok, did you pay Jimin to do that?, when you noticed another notification, red and glaring at you from your messages application. It was a familiar contact name, a message written in a font generated by something, a three step process he must have taken to type, copy, and paste it. Even through the silly font did your heart swell.

They say lest we forget, but why forget when I can be there with you, if you’ll let me.

You kicked away from your desk, propping your foot onto the seat of your chair, phone onto your knee.

Alright, Guk, what’s the significance of this one?

There was several seconds of typing, deleting, typing again, silence, more typing. Finally, a message. A single emoticon, the side eyes, the ones that knew something with a slightly upturned mouth. You were halfway through another inquiry, an okay, what the hell does that emoji mean, Jeon? when you received a picture.

His hair was brown now. Dark and fluffy and disheveled across his forehead where a single pink note was pasted to his skin. The ink was dark, prominent, like he’d sat and scraped at it for hours.

I’LL SEE YOU SOON.

You called him.

“Jeongguk, what the fuck are you talking about—”

“I got an audition.”

You paused and he continued with a shaky breath, “I got an audition. In your town. For music. Singing.”

“...so what you’re saying is you’re going to become a big superstar and I’m going to have to pay my own way to your first concert—”

“Baby,” Jeongguk whined, “I haven’t got the spot yet.”

“Yeah, but you will.”

There was another pause, some rustling in the background and then he hummed, “I’m going to sing a song about you. For the audition.”

Your cheeks heated and you rolled toward the window, blankly staring at the towering building next to the office. “Yeah? What’s it called?”

“Wonder.”

“Yeah I wonder what you’ve titled the song about me, if it’s not my name—”

“The song is called Wonder…”

There was a pause and he was singing again, just as soft as you remembered, the same lyrics he’d serenaded you with on the beach holding a different weight now, both literally without the organic strum of a guitar and figuratively to what the polished poetry did to your healed heart, open and ready.

You murmured into his soft, teasing hums, hugging a knee to your chest, “That song, huh?”

“I told you already. I can’t seem to write anything that’s not about you,” You could hear Jeongguk’s smile, “That didn’t change in the months since you went home.”

Your cheeks heated all the way to the back of your neck, filtering to the shy roll of your shoulders as you hunched over your knee, squeezing it tighter, and you reveled in that he couldn’t see you to quip, “You know what has changed though? Your jokes. I think they’ve gotten dumber.”

There was still a smile in his voice, even as he threatened, “Alright, listen here you little—"

“Watch it or I’ll sue for you using ‘me’ without my consent.”

“You based an entire character in a bestselling novel after me. It’s only fair.”

You spluttered, “I did not—”

“And for the record? Washboard abs is a lame description of my godly physique. Even I know that and I’m but a mere lyricist.”

“I’m going to kick your ass when you get here.”

“...so you’ll want to see me?”

“Of course,” Your voice softened and you watched a bird climb altitude before fluttering to the windowsill, “I have to sign your three copies of my novel.”

Jeongguk laughed, sweet in your ears.

“I can’t wait…”

#bts #jeon jungkook #bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #jungkook scenario #jungkook scenarios #jungkook imagine #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook scenarios #jeon jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook fluff #bts fluff #bts x reader #i changed the summary from what i had on my wip ajfdklasjf #ANYWAY :'-)

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wordstrings · 6 years

Text

Of Maintenance Part 2: Physical Therapy

Written and submitted by @ask-flip-frost; a sequel to Of Maintenance. (Publisher’s notes can be found at the end of the work.) Words: 4,300

Things were changing. Whether they were more spooky or less spooky with the developing knowledge was difficult to say, though. Several everyday phenomena which Sam and Dean had taken to be the result of Castiel’s telekinetic abilities had been debunked as something far more simple. In the week since his medicinal bath, the grace-touch Cas had granted to the Winchester’s eyes had not faded out. His wings were still visible to them. As such, they began to notice all manner of peculiar things.

For starters, Castiel was not nearly as statuesque as they’d always perceived him to be. Even if the rest of his body seemed to be standing perfectly still, his wings gave away that he was, in fact, constantly fidgeting. Often it was only a gentle twitch or sway, but other times it would be the sort of swift flap one might see from a bird debating its position on a branch as the angel settled onto the living area’s couch. The first time that happened had scared the hell out of Dean and he’d fallen onto the floor with a loud curse. Out of courtesy, the brothers would give a wider berth now to accommodate the limbs, though the wings would always shift themselves to or fro as needed regardless as they always had ‘behind the scenes’.

“I am beginning to understand why Humans are uncomfortable with long stares.” Castiel commented as he picked a lore book from a high shelf in a pincer motion with the alula of either wing.

Dean started in place. He hadn’t realized that he’d been staring again. He grunted quietly and went back to fake-reading for a case. Well, ‘case’ in the sense that it wasn’t really their sort of thing, but they were bored out of their minds. Idle hands being tools of the devil, he could definitely understand how so many bad decisions came in moments where a person was left with nothing to drown out melancholy thoughts. Might as well research old serial killers and have debates on whether or not they were supernaturally inclined.

“I always thought you did that with your brain, I dunno. Some floaty angel shit.” Dean shrugged, dropping both the pretense and his book “Still getting used to it.”

“I use my brain to move my wings.” Castiel rolled his eyes, thumbing through his volume. “I could lift something by altering the molecular structure of the air around it, but it seems like wasted effort.”

With Cas’ attention divided by reading, the elder Winchester felt as if he could chance another appraising look at the wings. This time, he was moreso checking on their healing progress. Any time he’d gotten close enough to attempt to give them a once-over, they’d folded up protectively against the angel’s back. The skin certainly seemed healthier. Feathers were coming in nicely. A marked rise in Castiel’s mood might have been linked to their recovery.

“Dean.” Cas admonished.

“What?”

Cas turned to face him straight on, irritated as fully as a woman who didn’t want someone ogling her legs. He closed the distance and waited until Dean met his eyes. It took more than a few seconds.

“Alright, I get it, I get it. I wouldn’t have to be so damn sneaky about it if you’d let us actually check them. We said we wanted to help, and you promised you’d let us.” Dean fussed. “It’s been a week, and all you’re doing is just… misting them like house plants with that oil stuff. I wanted to make sure they’re getting better. Sue me.”

“…Oh,”

“Whaddaya mean oh?”

All this time, Castiel had felt that he was being viewed as somewhat of a side-show. The extra space given, the hidden peeks, and the badgering about keeping up on moisturizing the damaged skin had been giving him mixed signals on whether or not he was being treated as… well, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t like it. He dropped his eyes, embarrassed.

“I misunderstood the reason for your leering.” Cas admitted quietly.

“Leering? Who’s leering?” Dean demanded, slapping the table to get full attention when Cas glanced away. “No, you look at me. If you think for a minute that we’re just gawking for the sake of seeing something weird, then you really need to get your head out of your ass, Cas. We stare because we care.”

That didn’t sound creepy. Ah, shit, he’d rhymed as well.

Castiel gave a begrudged nod. While he didn’t particularly care for being scolded like a child, he would be remiss to ignore the small flutter of importance that had bloomed in his chest from it. Something he’d perceived to be bordering on hateful was actually just the Winchesters’ way of looking after him without being obvious about it.

Feeling that his point had been made, Dean pushed up from the table and pointed an accusing finger as he backed out of the library.

“Alright. I’m going to pick Sammy up and grab some grub. When I get back, you’re getting a full check-up. No buts.”

If Castiel had been properly miffed, it would have been as easy as leaving before Dean returned to avoid further possibility of ridicule. But he stayed. Heaven help him, he stayed.

–

When the door to the bunker swung open by way of an aggressive hip, Castiel looked up briefly from his book and gave both Winchesters an expression of acknowledgement. Sam had been out all day, but where he had no idea. Both Sam and Dean had their arms full of takeout and grocery bags, though it seemed unlikely that the younger brother had been shopping for the last seven hours.

Behind Cas, there was some sort of structured movement going on. It reminded Sam of some upper body calisthenics demonstrated in a documentary about Victorian housewives he’d watched in college; the kind of exercise that only worked a set group of muscles, as was appropriate for ladies at the time. Not that he’d say that out loud. It looked a bit silly, though.

“The hell are you doing?” Dean asked bluntly.

“Stretching.” Cas didn’t look up a second time.

“Are you sore?” Sam prompted.

“No more than usual.” the angel replied with a sigh.

“How usual is usual?” Sam pressed on.

Castiel closed his book and deposited it on a table.

“Your legs are long.” Cas stated, waiting for Sam to agree to this observation before continuing. “If you are in a car for a long period of time, they become cramped, correct? Imagine if you were over one thousand feet tall, and compressed to a vessel that does not even clear six feet. Sometimes it helps to stretch, if only a little.”

It was easy to forget how big Castiel was supposed to be in a natural state when he was forever looking up at them. They understood how dangerous it would be for the angel to leave the vessel empty for any amount of time, so taking a break somewhere to fully unleash himself was unlikely to work out well.

“Okay, well-“ Sam yanked Dean’s shirt to prevent him waltzing away from putting groceries up. “We’ve been thinking about that a little, actually. Dean’s been calling physical therapy clinics in the area to get advice on what we can do to make things better for you.”

“Sneaking.” Dean interjected.

“-And I went to the vet clinic to volunteer with a bird rehabilitation group today. So I think we’ll have a better idea on how to handle helping you along.” Sam continued. “Got a few things we can try, but we’ll see how it goes and kind of play it by ear.”

At a loss for words, Castiel blinked and looked from one brother to the other. His don’t bother worrying about me, I am not worth it train of thought was solidly arguing with his I am deeply humbled and thankful to be cared about train of thought.

“The therapists all told us to check range of motion and try to balance resistance exercises and stretches with massages to release tension in the muscles.” Dean explained, slapping Cas on the shoulder. “Who’s a lucky duck?”

Cas pulled a grumpled expression as Dean turned back to stack cans of sloppy joe sauce in the cabinet.

“I am not a duck.” he huffed.

“Ya might as well be. That’s all Sammy’s been practicing on all day.” Dean laughed. “You’ll be the first on his client list not to peck at him. Or maybe you will, I dunno. You were pretty twitchy last time we had hands on you, so~”

Eyes to the ceiling, Castiel asked his Father for whatever strength he needed not to stuff Dean into a garbage can. He was thankful that the teasing was not further pursued while the remaining groceries were sorted. The time was spent going over what each brother had learned in their separate endeavors. He learned that Sam had been followed by an entire flock of some forty-odd ducks when it was time for him to leave, and that Dean had been given love letters by three old women and one old man after a day of working in senior physical therapy earlier in the week. As a point of pride, he’d kept all of them like trophies.

“Here, these are for you.” Sam tugged a pack of jersey knit pajama pants out of the last bag and passed them over to Cas. “So you don’t have to borrow any. Go ahead and change. There’s a shirt, too, but we need it off for now so we can see what we’re doing.”

Castiel ran his hand over the plastic with a quiet thank you. It crinkled softly in his fingers. Technically speaking, he didn’t own a single article of clothing besides what was already on his person. Any that he’d worn during his period as a human had been discarded as a means to bury the memory of his many struggles. Those clothes had all been second-hand anyway, though. These were new, expressly for him. A touching gesture to say the least.

This time, he didn’t feel nearly as self-conscious changing out of his normal attire. For a long moment, he fiddled with the drawstrings of his trousers to ensure that they were perfectly fit before tying a messy knot. Something which looked only sort of like a bow, but it was good enough. Learning to tie his shoes during his humanity stint had been quite a journey, but a small child who’d wandered off from her mother in the mall had been kind enough to show him as best she could manage. The things you needed to know as an ‘adult’ were hardly ever clear until you were in the moment, he’d come to find.

When Cas returned, he saw that a table in the library had been fixed up with lots of folded blankets to create a padded surface. Not strictly necessary, but it was nice to see all the same. A groaning sigh dramatic enough to rival a Kansas twister whooshed from his lungs in pure disapproval as Dean sauntered in wearing a lab coat, carrying a clip board.

“What?” Dean scoffed. “Too much?”

“YEAH.” came the unison reply.

“Fine. Buncha killjoys.” Dean muttered, shrugging out of the coat and tossing it in a rumpled pile on a chair. “Up on the table, big guy. Stretch out the wings as far as they’ll go side to side. Don’t let them droop if you can help it. We need to see if any of your muscles have atrophied.”

One foot pressed to a chair, Castiel pushed up on the table and settled into a comfortable sitting position, legs dangled somewhat stiffly over the side. A few small pops worked in the joints as he slowly reached his wings out in a wide t-shape. He wasn’t all together sure if that was a problem in the vessel’s shoulders or in his actual wings. Later he would run a checklist of all of the organic components which didn’t strictly belong to him. Well. They did now, he supposed.

“Try making circles, then go up and down.” Sam frowned at the noise, flipping through a little field guide he’d been given that day. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Cas shook his head, complying with the request easily. “It’s a relief. Everything has felt a little-“

“Flabby?” Dean supplied brightly. “Since you haven’t been able to go out for a sky spin in forever?”

If looks could kill.

“…tight. I have been exercising them, but the stiffness remains.” Cas grumbled. “My wing muscles are not flabby.”

“Touched a nerve on that one.” Dean huffed under his breath, eyebrows jumped up.

Quick to diffuse, Sam cleared his throat.

“You need recovery days to let muscles rest. Even if you’ve never needed them before, you’ve also never really been in a vessel for this long, right? Celestial energy verses physically shrunk down has got to have differences in how your wings react to things, especially after trauma. You said it feels cramped and tight, so let’s work from there. I’ll apply pressure. Try to keep from lowering your wings.” Sam advised, taking up a position behind the brooding angel.

Slowly he pushed down, little by little adding more force. The wings didn’t move an inch. They were warm and solid. A far cry less ashy-looking than the last time he’d touched them as well. Resistance didn’t seem to be a problem. There was no tremble of fatigue, but the muscles were heavily bunched.

“Not flabby.” Sam confirmed, noting with amusement how Cas’ feathers puffed a little in pride.

“See?” Cas sniffed in a superior tone.

“Got it.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“It was easy.” Cas added.

“I got it.” Dean repeated.

“Like they were baby hands.”

“Got it, Cas. Not flabby.”

Sam looked down at his giant paws and mouthed baby hands before reaching into a small box on the table. He began carefully laying out a collection of wires and pads. When he caught Castiel looking curiously over his shoulder, he held up the box to show a picture. The edges of the cardboard were slightly dog-eared from age, but the contents had been kept in pristine condition.

“TENS unit,” Sam explained. “I do long distance runs, and sometimes when my muscles get overworked, this helps kill off the pain and kind of forces them to relax after you use it. It stimulates your nerves with electricity pulses.”

When he was met with a wary expression, Sam rolled up his own sleeve and stuck two of the leads to his forearm. He fiddled with the settings and clicked the machine to life. Small twitches in his muscles were apparent.

“See? It’s fine. Doesn’t hurt. It’s weird, but DeanDeanDeanDON’T- AH!”

Unable to help himself, Dean plucked up the unit and cranked the dial WAY up, chuckling deeply as Sam’s arm convulsed into weird positons.

“This thing is WILD, Cas. We used to play a drinking game with these where you try to balance a ping pong ball on a spoon while it’s buzzing you, and if you dropped it, you had to take a shot.” Dean smirked, shutting the machine off, to Sam’s relief. “So just so you’re prepared, if it jerks you around a little, it’s fine. Doesn’t hurt, there are just places it isn’t safe to go, like around your heart. If Sammy can take it, you can take it. If it gets too sore, let us know and we’ll shut it down. Sound good?”

Cas nodded, actually a little relieved at the show of absurdity. It made him feel less like a specimen. There were no further protests as Sam began attaching leads to the meatiest sections of his wings and one on each shoulder blade at the joint. Anywhere where the knots were especially tight. The stickiness of the pads felt strange, but not particularly uncomfortable.

“You good?” Dean asked.

“Yes,” the angel replied, bracing his hands on the edge of the table.

“I figure we’ll let this run for a little while, then we’ll massage out the rest of those tense spots manually. You can go for a soak after. It’ll be a good day.” Dean promised.

“I’ll go get some of the leftover oil.” Sam offered. “Unless you already got some lotion or something for today?”

Dean thought to the small bottle of Jergens in his room… in a box… with his questionable reading material. The only lotion he owned.

“Nope,” the older Winchester lied.

“Right. Uh. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

The last thing Dean wanted was to endure something overly floral for this very manly process, so he turned to follow at his brother’s heels to micromanage the scent choices.

“Dean-“ Castiel interrupted his departure. “I’m sorry.”

“…For what?” Dean squinted.

“Earlier today. I thought… I thought you were being condescending. I’m sorry for being upset.”

Dean’s face went a little slack with guilt. Cas shouldn’t have to apologize for feeling upset. He spent so much of his time self-loathing already. All members of Team Free Will had a certain lack of communication skills when it came to sensitive topics, and Dean wasn’t exactly the most emotionally mature person when his pride was stinging.

“Yeah, well. Forget it, okay? I wasn’t exactly being up front about stuff.” Dean shrugged, looking for immediate escape from a dissection of character. “Be right back. Stay put.”

Now, the wisest course of action would have been for Castiel to wait patiently for the brothers to return, but frankly, he wanted to know what he was in for so that he would be able to adjust his reactions accordingly. If he could anticipate the jolts, then perhaps he could work against them to avoid looking quite as ridiculous as Sam had. Blue eyes kept sliding from the TENS unit to the door and back again. The oils were kept in the recovery room with all of the tubs, so he’d have at least two or three minutes to himself. Sam and Dean were strollers if there wasn’t a need for hurry. Ever so slowly, he reached out and closed a hand over the little machine.

–

“What’s wrong with lavender?” Sam groaned.

“It stinks, Sam. Use the sandalwood.”

“THAT stinks!”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

After much grumbling, they finally decided on eucalyptus, if only because Cas had mentioned that he’d liked the scent previously. This was about him after all. Before starting back to the library, they begrudgingly claimed a truce to avoid making the angel any more uncomfortable with sibling bickering. That was when both brothers were startled by flickering lights.

“Cas.” Dean stated, breaking into a run.

The door banged open.

Down on the floor, curled into a twitching ball against the table, was Castiel… doing something they’d only witnessed once before. The poor fellow was laughing, deep and rich and panicked. There was something else mixed with the sound; something almost musical and very, very strange. It made the humans go slightly cross-eyed for a second. They rubbed their faces hard to correct this. At least their ears weren’t screaming in pain.

“OFF!” Cas choked out.

Electricity was buzzing straight through his muscles down into his very grace. It wasn’t only that the unit gave off a tingling pulse over various sensitive points in his wings and shoulders. That would have been bad enough, especially the patches jolting into his wing pits. No, this was something altogether unbearable. Castiel hadn’t even been aware that his very essence of being was capable of falling subject to these sorts of sensations, but save him it tickled and tickled and tickled relentlessly. The entire world was blurred at the edges and all he knew was a crazed swirling of mirth and chaos exploding through his core. It was everywhere, inside and out.

“Hold on, hold on…” Dean tried, though it was doubtful that Cas could even hear him through the forced giggling and weird melodic notes.

Trying to get close enough to Castiel to snatch the machine up was like running a gauntlet. His wings were suffering from a combination of tickle shimmies and electric pulse muscle spasms. Any time Sam or Dean ducked in to make a grab, they were pummeled by a wall of feathers. Dean could taste blood after a clock to his nose, but adrenaline and amusement kept him from noticing more than a vague sting.

“Cas… Cas we can’t… you’ve gotta…” Dean weaved and batted.

“Work with us, Cas!” Sam grunted, hanging onto one wing for dear life as it thrashed him up and down as if he weighed nothing.

“T-t-t!!!” Cas tried to form words through his laughter, arms clutched tight around his middle.

Desperation incarnate, he reached out lightning quick with the miniscule amount of grace able to bend to his will and yanked the boys in close with it. This had the unfortunate side effect of spreading the sensation as the essence touched down on them, leaving both Winchesters doubled up in helpless wheezing cackles against their angelic friend. What the hell was this non-physical tickly feeling???

“CAS D-!!! CAN’T HE-HELP IF?!” Dean snorted.

They were screwed. Caught in the loop of laughter. What a way to go out.

Until…

It seemed that the reapers would not be coming for them on that particular day. Whether from divine intervention or dumb luck, the device shut off. A collective gasp for air sounded through the room.

“Shit… that tickled.” Dean heaved. “What happened?”

“It would seem that my grace is… vulnerable to electric stimulation.” Castiel rolled onto his back and put a hand over his face in a mixture of relief and embarrassment.

Nobody moved. There was a strange afterglow of sheer contentment from the shared-grace-giggling experience, though nobody was quick to admit how good they felt at the moment.

“Timer.” Sam stated finally. “I have a default timer of five minutes on it. That’s why it shut off.”

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna have to turn the settings WAY down on that thing because I don’t think I can handle that again right now if Wiggles over here gets grabby with his grace.” Dean rolled up into a sit and started aligning the intensity controls.

Cas made an instinctive reach for the device, which Dean deftly avoided.

“Not our fault you turned it on when it was set high. We’re still doing this, but we’re doing it right. Lower pulse ought to be fine. Back up on the table.”

Wide eyed and nervous, Castiel resumed his original position. He was still just a little too drunk on the endorphin spike to pull an annoyed expression, but still swiftly gripped a wrist on each brother.

“Don’t leave this time.” he insisted.

Sam and Dean shared a look, then jumped up to sit on either side of him. When he gave a small nod to signal his mental steel-up, the TENS unit once again buzzed to life, this time at a far more tolerable frequency. Only just, but tolerable all the same. His grace gave out pulsing shivers, almost as if nails were running over sensitized skin.

Hands balled in the padding blankets and legs lightly squirming for purchase over the side of the table, Castiel tried his best to bear through the time. He dug his chin down into his collar bone as breathy giggles clawed their way to the surface. Nope. A grown man-angel shouldn’t be allowed to be this adorable.

“This is supposed to be relaxing. Are you relaxed?” Dean grinned, giving a little poke to one of the wiggling wings.

“I AM NO-HOT!”

Sam held back a snort to avoid embarrassing the angel, but threw Dean a can you believe this expression when Cas tipped to his side and pressed muffled laughter into his jacket sleeve. Both brothers held a supportive hand to the angel’s back.

“Cas, we’d better not catch you alone like this again in your free time. If we need you for a case and you’re just holed up under the table having a tickle party for one-”

“Be quiet, De-hean!” Cas interrupted him with a giggly shove from the closest wing. “I’ll make you… I’ll make you feel…”

It was hardly an intimidating threat at the moment. The teasing verbal jabs seemed to up the intensity of whatever was happening with the celestial energy, and Castiel’s eyes were shining bright with tears by the time the machine beeped to signal the end of its cycle.

“Finished.” Sam announced in a sympathetic tone.

“Already?” Cas asked, wiping away the evidence of his mirth crying.

“Already?” Dean repeated, amused.

“It seemed to go by much faster. Perhaps, time being relative and also being that the potency of the treatment was at a marked decrease, my tolerance was raised for the challenge. It was pleasant. The effect on my grace was thoroughly enjoyable.” Castiel acknowledged, squinting at the Winchesters’ surprised expressions. “Did I not elucidate this well enough?”

Carefully, he stretched out his wings, noting with satisfaction that they felt remarkably limber as compared to the prickly tightness from the beginning of the day. He gave a soft yelp when fingers began picking at the TENS pads to unstick them from his skin. A bit over-sensitive from prolonged tingles, it was a struggle to wrench his wings up to allow the leads to be peeled away from the joints at his shoulder blades. They snapped down repeatedly and he shook his head with a scrunched nose of valiant failed effort. It wasn’t until Dean reached out a tickly grab to Cas’ knee to redirect sensation that he buckled in and became uncoordinated enough for Sam to strip everything free.

When everything had been boxed back up, it was difficult to ignore that Castiel’s expression remained bright and pleased. He looked happy. With any luck, maybe in the future that would not feel like such a foreign thing to see.

———

Publisher’s Notes: I absolutely LOVED getting to toss around ideas with you, some of which ended up straight here! This is so precious, and the line “...if Wiggles over here gets grabby with his grace” is a particular treasure. Thank you so much for blessing us with this continuation! <3

#wingfic #submission #author ask.flip.frost #ticklish!Cas #Team Free Will #Supernatural #Castiel #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #angel mojo #tickling #written for me!#Of Maintenance #Of Maintenance: Physical Therapy #series: Of Maintenance #tickle fic

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ladywinchester1967 · 6 years

Text

Hot For Teacher

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Kelly Frazier (OFC)

Warnings: This is porn. Filthy, dirty, nasty, smutty PORN with JUUUUUUUUST a smidgen of plot. Age gap (Kelly is 26 and Dean is 35; not too bad IMO), dry humping, oral (male/female giving AND receiving), Daddy!Kink, BabyGirl!Kink, Professor!Dean, fingering, dirty talk, unprotected sex (WRAP YOUR JUNK irl!), masturbation (briefly)......I believe that’s it.

A/N: This one can be blamed on @bringmesomepie56 @waywardbaby and @waywardnerd67 between ruined panties, mentions of Professor Winchester and Dean basically being the embodiment of Lust.....THIS was born! Unbeta’d, all mistakes belong to me, pictures and gifs do not though. I found them on Pinterest and tumblr.

Professor Dean Winchester was easily the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on. With spiky, dirty blonde almost brown hair; a tall muscular frame and green eyes, he was sex on bowed legs.

Too bad he was also taught one of the HARDEST classes on campus. I often wondered if he made his class so difficult to pass because he knew girls (and some guys) would take it just to stare at him for an hour and a half. While looking at him was certainly a welcomed bonus, I needed his insanely hard history and lore class to graduate.

“Miss. Frazier?” He asked as I stood up to leave with the rest of the students after we’d been dismissed. I looked up and he made eye contact with me and gave me the “come here” motion with two fingers.

“That sexy bastard.” I thought as I stuffed my laptop into my bag and stuck my pen in my hair. I waited until the lecture hall cleared and walked up to his desk.

“You summoned me?” I asked

“I wanted to talk to you about your paper that you submitted.” He said and held it up. I was shocked, one; to see that he had printed it out and two; it wasn’t covered in the familiar, red scrawl I’d grown accustomed to seeing on all of my papers.

“Something wrong with it?” I asked, cautious.

The corner of his mouth turned up into his signature, panty-melting smirk.

“No, I wanted to tell you that your work has significantly improved since your last paper. Well done.” He said

I shuttered, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Thank you!” I said and he laughed

“What were you expecting?” He asked as he set my paper down and walked in front of his desk where I was standing.

“You to laid into me, remember?” I asked him as I adjusted my bag on my shoulder.

“For the record, I didn’t lay into you,” He said as he sat on the corner of his desk “I see a lot of potential in you and it frustrating when I see that and it isn’t being utilized.”

“I get it,” I told him “and you were right. I was getting complacent with my work.”

He nodded and said

“Look, I’m proud of you for improving but you’re still falling behind.”

“Stupid college why did I have to wait three years before actually STARTING?!” I thought. “Stupid hard class, Stupid hot teacher that made it fucking impossible for me to concentrate.”

I cleared my throat and asked

“What can I do to make it up?”

He did that thinking, nose twitch thing that reminded me of a bunny and it made a pang of sweetness go through my chest.

“I don’t usually offer extra credit, but I’m desperate.” He said “I’m in the middle of this paper that’s going to be published and I need some help grading papers if you have some time.”

“No offense, but why me?” I asked “Don’t you have other fifth years that could help?”

He shook his head

“None that would do a good job,” he said “you’re smart and don’t require me to hover over you like a helicopter. You help me grade and I’ll give you extra credit.”

I thought for a second, alone? With him? For god only knew how long? He definitely didn’t seem interested in me “that way” but hey, extra credit is extra credit.

“Sure,” I said “I have my last class in twenty minutes, after it’s over, I’ll swing by your office and help you out. Deal?”

I stuck my hand out to him, which he took. His large, warm, calloused hand took mine and gently shook it.

“Deal.” He said and let go of my hand as his next class filed in.

“See you later Professor Winchester.” I told him and left.

After my last class; the sun had set as I walked toward Professor Winchester’s office. The cool, fall air rustled with a breeze as I climbed the stairs and went inside. Once I was at his door, I knocked and waited. The door opened and there he stood; his tie was missing, the top buttons of his shirt were undone and his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. I took note of his muscular arms and briefly wondered if they had ALWAYS looked like that.

“Hey Kelly,” he greeted me with a smile and stood aside to let me in “right on time.”

“As usual right?” I asked as I stepped inside.

I’d become familiar with his office, as he had hauled me in there to lecture me in private a week earlier. The handsome, dark shelves were lined with books, pictures and a few trinkets. The walls held his degrees and letters of recognition for his work. He shut the door behind me and said

“You can put your stuff anywhere,” he said “but first, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Yeah, me too.” I said as my stomach rumbled.

“Why don’t we eat first and then we’ll grade?” He asked and leaned against his desk as he pulled out his phone. “Like burgers?” He asked

“Like is an understatement.” I said and he smiled as I set my book bag by the couch that was near the door.

“There’s this great place around the corner.” He told me

“Lou’s?” I asked and he nodded “MHH, their sweet potato fries are made with crack or something because I can’t get enough of them.”

He laughed, making a tickle of desire run down my spine, his green eyes sparkling.

“Me too,” he said “how do you like your burger?” He asked

“No ketchup, no mayo and no onions.” I told him as he dialed the number. He placed our order as I fished my wallet out of my book bag. I could feel his eyes on me, either wondering what I was doing or checking out my ass, I couldn’t be sure. Once he was done, he hung up as I turned around.

“Food will be here in twenty,” He said as I grabbed ten dollars out of my wallet and handed it to him “what’s this for?”

“My food.” I told him, still holding the money.

He shook his head

“Your money is no good here,” he told me “hold on to that.”

“Come on Professor Winchester, let me pay for my food.” I complained.

“Call me Dean,” he insisted “and no.”

“Uhhggggg, come on Dean!” I practically begged.

“Kelly, no.” He said firmly.

I gave him a bitchy look, shoved the money into the pocket of his shirt and stuck my tongue out at him, making him laugh.

“You’ll take my fucking money and you’ll LIKE it.” I told him, suddenly aware of how close he was to me.

“Such language,” He said as I turned on my heel. I felt him grab the belt loop of my pants and stuff the money in my back pocket, his hand just grazing my ass. I turned to look at him, feeling my cheeks flush red, still in close proximity to him. At over six feet tall with broad shoulders, he easily towered over me. Neither of us moved for what felt like an eon, his fingers still holding my belt loop. The heat rolling off his body and the scent of his cologne was and intoxicating mix. I stepped a hair closer to him, both of our chests rising and falling rapidly. His hands slid around to grip my hips as I stood on the balls of my feet.

“Kelly?” He asked, his eyes searching my face, for what I couldn’t be sure.

“Dean?” I asked, placing my hands on his shoulders as my pulse thudded in my ears.

“Are you-?” He asked and bit his lower lip, seeming to steady himself “Are you sure?”

I nodded, sliding my hands up to the back of his neck and lacing my fingers together.

“I’m sure,” I told him “I want to.”

With that, he tilted his head to the side and pressed his lips to mine. My heart reached an almost painful pounding as our mouths moved together, he had the fullest lips I’d ever kissed. He pulled back when the kiss ended, his forehead against mine.

“Still okay?” He asked

“Yes.” I answered

He smirked at me and pulled me flush against him, our bodies molding together as we kissed again. His office was silent except for the sounds of us kissing and our exchange of soft moans as I ran my hands through his hair, holding him in place. He slid one hand to the small of my back while the other went between my shoulder blades, still holding me firmly against him. I could feel everything; his strong, defined chest pressed against mine and his growing erection pressing into my lower belly.

I pulled back and started unbuttoning my plaid shirt while he watched. He pushed the sleeves down and it fell to the floor. I did the same thing to him, under his dress shirt was an undershirt, which he quickly discarded, leaving him bare chested and me still in my bra.

“You sure you’re okay?” He asked as we kissed “We can stop.”

“No,” I insisted “please don’t stop Dean.”

He moaned, gripping my hair tightly.

“Oh fuck, say that again.” He said and pulled back to look at me.

“Don’t stop Dean.” I said, looking at him.

With that, he bent down and picked me up, wrapping my legs around his waist as he carried me over to the couch. He sat down, with me in his lap as I started grinding on him. The pounding between my legs was begging for some kind relief as he moaned into my mouth.

“Fuck,” he said softly “oh fuck.”

A knock came at her door and we immediately stopped, looking at the door wide eyed.

“The food!” I hissed at him and climbed off of him.

“Shit, I forgot all about that!” He exclaimed and stood up, tugging his undershirt back on as I grabbed my shirt and ducked behind his desk so that the delivery person wouldn’t see me in my bra. Dean looked back at me to make sure I was hidden before he opened the door.

“Evening Dean.” the voice of a guy said.

“Hey Cas,” Dean greeted him “you guys busy tonight?”

“A little,” she heard Cas say “gonna be twenty two eighty.”

I heard Dean rustling around in his back pocket and then said

“Here’s twenty eight, keep the change.”

“Thanks Dean, have a good night.” Cas said. Once the door had shut, I peeked our and saw him holding a bag of food. I stood and pulled my shirt on.

“Eat and then resume?” I asked as I buttoned up.

“Definitely.” He said

We made ourselves comfortable on the couch, Dean even brought out some beer he had stashed away in his mini fridge.

“You are of age right?” He asked, his eyebrow raised.

“Yes,” I answered as I opened my beer “I’m twenty six, I’m just a LITTLE of age.”

“Really?” He asked “I would’ve thought you were younger.”

“You wanna see my ID or something?” I asked

He shook his head

“No, I believe you.” He told me.

We ate and talked a little bit; it turned out we had similar tastes is music and sports, though he liked to play while I preferred to watch.

“Oh come on, you’ve never played a pick up game of ANYTHING?” He asked

“I have four older brothers,” I told him “so I TRIED, but I was always the smallest person on the court or field so I’d get stepped on or run over so I just prefer to stay out of the way.”

“Four?!” He exclaimed and I nodded

“James, John, Michael and Ian.” I told him “I’m the youngest and only girl.”

“And I thought having one brother was a pain in the ass.” He said with a fond smirk.

“Siblings right?” I asked and took a sip of my beer. Once we finished eating; we disposed of the food wrappers and sat on the couch. Feeling bold, I set my beer bottle to the side and crawled over to him.

“Can I help you?” He asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“No, I think I can help myself.” I said as I climbed into his lap. He set his beer aside as I started kissing his neck. He groaned, his fingers digging into my hips again. I kissed my way down his body until I was on my knees in front of him, the bulge in his pants practically called my name. I unbuckled his belt and he slid his fingers under my chin, making my eyes meet his.

“You don’t have to.” He told me and I shook my head.

“I know,” I said as I unbuttoned his pants “but MAY I?”

He nodded and released me. I pulled down his zipper and he lifted his hips so I could pull down his pants and underwear at the same time. I had guessed that he was packing, but what I saw far exceeded my expectations.

“Jesus fuck.” I thought as I took his hardened length into my hand and started to pump him. I licked up and down his shaft as he laid his head back, moaning. I took the head into my mouth and swirled my tongue around as he sighed. I took as much of him as I could in my mouth, my hand compensating for the rest as I hollowed out my cheeks and began to suck.

“Oh fuck,” he breathed “fuck!”

I chanced a glance up, realizing he was watching me, his lust blown eyes meeting mine. I gave him a small smile and resumed moving my hand and mouth in tandem.

“There you go,” he said encouragingly “oh fuck, that feels good.”

I hummed, my pussy soaking my underwear and begging to be touched. I slid my free hand down into my jeans and started to touch myself while I carried on sucking him off.

“What’re you doing?” He asked as I started to squirm.

“I had to,” I told him “I need it.”

He shook his head and pried my hands off of him. I sat back on my heels, worried I’d made him mad. He stood up, tilted my head up and said

“This isn’t all about me you know,” his thumb running over my mouth “as much as I’d love to fuck your mouth into oblivion, I want you to get off too.”

“I can do it while I take care of you.” I told him and he tutted at me.

“No baby girl,” he said “that’s MY job.”

He helped me stand up and backed me up to his desk. “I’M gonna take care of that tonight.” He in buttoned my pants as I kicked my shoes off. He pulled down my jeans as he got on his knees in front of me and then helped me step out of them. The crotch of my panties was totally soaked with my arousal as he pulled down the plain, gray panties and cast them aside.

“Mh,” he moaned in appreciation as he looked at me, he then looked up “take off your shirt.”

I did as he told me while he stood up and locked the door. He came back to stand in front of me and then unhooked my bra. He pulled the straps down and took me in.

“So, that’s what’s been hiding under those clothes,” he said “you have a beautiful body.”

I smiled as he grabbed a pillow off of the couch and resumed getting on to his knees.

“This can’t be happening,” I thought as he threw my leg over his shoulder “there is NO WAY that my insanely hot professor is on his knees, between my legs right now. My alarm is going to go off any second and I’m gonna be pissed.”

He kissed from my inner knee, and up the inside of my thigh, his beard scratching my sensitive flesh. I let out a moan, my hand running through his hair. He placed his hands on my hips and lifted me up slightly so that I could sit on the edge of his desk. With that, he opened my legs wide and looked up at me.

“Beautiful,” He said and dove in. I praised myself internally for shaving the day before so I was clean as a whistle down there. He licked a broad stripe from my soaking hole to my clit, making me cry out as I gripped his hair hard.

“Keep it down baby girl,” he said “don’t want anyone hearing your sweet sounds but me.”

“Oh fuck, Dean!” I struggled to say as he swirled his tongue inside me, his fingers parting me so he could lick through my soaking folds. My hips started to move on their own, liquid fire seeming to course through my veins. “Dean, ohhhhh Dean,” I moaned quietly “that feels so-oh god-so fucking good!”

“Mhhhh, is this what you like baby girl?” He asked, taking my pussy into his mouth and sucking on it. I gasped and arched my back

“JESUS!” I hissed out, the sensation was nearly enough to knock me backwards. Guys had gone down on me before, but none had been like this. He seemed to enjoy it, relish in it even, that he was getting me off with just his mouth. He parted me with his fingers again, them and his tongue licking and stroking through me as I struggled to stay coherent.

“Dean, oh god, god!” I cried “just like-oh fuck me-just like that!”

I could feel that fucker smirking.

“That’s it,” he encouraged as his tongue lapped over my clit, his fingers sliding easily inside of me “talk to me baby girl.”

“Oh my god, I want to come,” I told him “don’t stop. Don’t stop, please!”

“Ride my fingers.” He told me.

My hips started to move as he kept lapping his tongue over my sensitive bundle of nerves, his nose bumping into my pelvis.

“Oh god, Daddy!” I cried. I realized what I had said and clapped a hand over my mouth. I stopped moving and he looked up.

“What?” He asked as I wished the floor would open me up and swallow me whole.

“Oh god. I am SO SORRY!” I said, moving my hand away from my mouth thoroughly embarrassed as he stood up “It slipped out, oh dear god, I am-“

It was his turn to clamp a hand over my mouth, his heated gaze piercing my eyes.

“It’s okay,” He said “more than okay.” His eyebrows shot upward “Baby girl.”

It hit me like a freight train; he was into it. He moved his hand away and I was smiling.

“Daddy?” I asked “Will you finish me off?”

He moaned

“Would that make my baby girl happy?” He asked and I nodded.

“Please Daddy,” I begged him “I want to come all over your tongue.”

“Mh,” he said and kissed me, I could taste my juices on his lips “anything to make my baby girl happy.” He said as he got back on his knees. He gripped my hips hard and sucked on my clit, making me gasp as my fingers tangled in his hair again. He moaned as I tugged on his hair, one of his hands let go of my hips and he pushed a finger inside of me.

“Mh, you’re so tight baby girl,” he said as he pumped his finger in and out of me “so fucking tight.”

“Ohhhhhh Daddy, that feels so good!” I moaned out as he introduced a second finger.

“Are you gonna be able to take Daddy’s big cock sweetheart?” He asked

“Yes!” I cried “I can take it Daddy, I want it!”

“Come for me,” he said, his voice husky “come for Daddy.”

I let go; the pressure in my abdomen giving way as the orgasm crashed over me and I gripped him tightly, letting out a scream as I came. I shook as he stood up, a light sheen of my juices coating his lips and beard. He licked his lips and used a tissue to wipe his beard as I took deep breaths, reeling from my orgasm.

“You want more baby girl?” He asked as he threw the used tissue into a near by garbage can.

I nodded

“Please?” I asked, still sitting on his desk. I felt like I was drunk out of my mind from the high he’d just given me.

“Since you asked so politely.” He said with a smirk and stepped toward me.

“Wait,” I said and he stopped “will you take off your shirt for me?”

He nodded and did just that as I spread my legs, my fingers finding my still soaking hole.

“No, sweet girl,” he said “let Daddy take care of that.”

“I want to try something,” I told him as I dipped my fingers inside of myself “now your pants.”

He looked confused but he complied, his socks and shoes joining his pants and shirt on the floor. I moved my fingers in and out of myself, whining as I did so. Once I was satisfied, I took my arousal soaked fingers and glided them over my nipple, soaking it with my slick. He watched me the entire time, a low moan escaping his mouth.

“You wanna taste me now Daddy?” He asked innocently and he nodded

“Oh baby girl,” he said and stepped closer to me “you clever little minx.” He bent down and sucked my nipple clean as I let out a high pitched moan. He pulled back and asked “Will you do that again for your Daddy?”

I bit my lip and nodded as my fingers went back between my legs, I began pumping them in and out as he spoke “uhhggg, oh baby, you have no clue how fucking sexy you look.”

“You like this?” I asked him “Watching me touch myself?”

“Mhhh, soaking my desk with your sweet juices.” He said “I’m never gonna look at that spot the same way.”

I grinned and threw my head back as my fingers pushed in and out of me. Once they were good and wet, I repeated the motion of soaking my nipple in my juices before offering it to him. He sucked hard, making me whine as his tongue flicked over my nipple. His free hand gripped my other breast as he sucked. He came off my nipple with a wet POP and he took the hand I’d been masturbating with by the wrist. He held it up to my mouth and said

“Suck.”

I opened my mouth and he pressed my fingers to my tongue. I enveloped my lips around my fingers and sucked like he had told me to. The sharp tang of my juices filled my mouth and he groaned.

“Oh, that’s my good baby girl.” He said and pulled his underwear down “you ready for me?” He asked and I nodded “tell me.” He said.

“Daddy,” I said innocently “I’m ready for your big cock in my pussy.”

He smirked and lined himself up with my hole that begged to be full of him. He pressed the head into me his hips slowly trusting up so that I could adjust to his size.

“You okay baby?” He asked me “You want Daddy to go slower?”

I shook my head

“No sir, I can take it.” I told him

He looked down and watched his cock disappearing inside of me.

“Mhhhh, yes you can,” he said “look at that baby girl, look at how well you take Daddy’s cock.”

I did as he commanded and realized he was right. Once he was fully inside of me, he picked me up and carried me over to the couch. He sat down with me in his lap, his hands running up my back.

“You wanna ride baby?” He asked, kissing all over my chest.

“Please, may I?” I asked him, eager for some friction.

“You may.” He said.

I started to move my hips; he was long and wide, so I had to take it easy at first. He moaned below me as he planted open mouth kisses all over my chest and neck.

“That’s it baby,” he moaned against my skin “oh fuck, just like that.”

I picked up my pace a little bit, I was soaked enough to where I could move freely.

“Ohhhhhhhhhh Daddy,” I moaned “Daddy, you feel so good inside me.”

“Keep riding Daddy’s cock sweetheart.” he moaned and leaned back, enjoying the view. I slid my hands up my body, and through my hair as I moved on top of him. His mouth dropped open a little as he watched me. “Mhhhh, my sexy little girl,” He said “putting on a show just for me.” I bit my lip and nodded leaning back a little bit so he could see every inch of my body. He groaned “Oh baby, you’re gonna be the death of me.”

“May I try something else?” I asked “Please Daddy?”

He nodded and I pulled off of him. I made him sit on the edge of the couch as I turned around. I gripped his cock in my hand and lowered myself on to him, fully sheathing him inside me once again. Dean pressed his chest to my back as I began to move again, he kissed up my shoulder and neck before his lips met mine.

“Mhhh,” he moaned as we kissed and he wrapped his arms around me “oh god Kelly.”

Hearing him say my name like that was like adding rocket fuel to a bonfire, it reignited the slow burn in my belly and I cried out as I grabbed his hair.

“Ohhhhh, say-say that again.” I moaned

This time, I could feel his lips closer to my ear

“Kelly,” he moaned in my ear as he gave it a playful bite “mhhhhh, Kelly.” He used his legs to spread mine apart “we’re both gonna touch you.” He said, he took one of my breasts in his hand and the other went between my legs. “Take your other breast in your hand.” he told me

“Yes Daddy.” I answered and did as I was told. He started by gripping my breast and moving the nipple between his pointer and middle fingers while I massaged the other nipple into a hardened peak.

“Fuck,” he moaned as he watched over my shoulder “you always touch yourself like this sweet girl?”

I nodded

“And I use my vibrator.” I told him and I heard him growl.

“We may have to play with that later.” He said and he grabbed my hand that was between my legs “you keep playing with your nipples,” he told me “I want to play with this while you fuck me.” He said, his fingers pressing into my clit. I squirmed under both of our touches while my hips continued to move.

“Ohhhhhhh Dean,” I moaned, the building orgasm threatening to rip me to shreds “Dean, please, please!”

“What baby girl?” He asked “tell Daddy what you want.”

“Can I come?” I asked, I couldn’t hold out any longer.

“Hold on a little bit longer baby,” he told me “Daddy will make it worth your wait. You feel so good, so fucking good around my cock.”

I tried to think of something else, ANYTHING else to keep me from coming. “My sexy little baby wants all of Daddy, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, please!!” I begged him

“You want me to come inside you?” He asked “You want Daddy’s hot come to fill you up?”

“PLEASE!” I begged as I moved my hips faster “oh god, Daddy! Please! Fuck my sweet pussy Daddy!”

I felt his teeth scrape my shoulder as he pounded into me, fucking me into oblivion as he let out an primal cry; his load spilling deep into my belly. I rode out the orgasm, practically chanting his name before collapsing in his arms. We both breathed hard as we collected ourselves, neither of us moved though.

After a while, we got cleaned up and decided to leave the paper grading for the next day, as we were both spent. He locked up his office and walked me out to the door.

“Where do you live?” He asked

“The west apartments,” I told him “two blocks that way.” And pointed to the right.

“My car is right there, I can give you a lift.” He told her.

“Dean, I’m fine.” I insisted and he raised an eyebrow at me.

“Please?” He asked “I’ll sleep better knowing you made it home okay.”

I smiled and gave in.

“Okay.” I said and we walked to his car, an older model Chevy. He cranked the car and the engine roared to life as he put the car in gear. We didn’t say much, other than me giving him directions to my apartment. When we arrived at my building, he pulled into a space and parked.

“Tonight was,” he said and licked his lips, like he was choosing his words carefully.

“Unexpected?” I asked and he nodded

“Yeah, but I had a good time.” He said with a grin.

“Me too,” I told him “like, a REALLY good time.”

“Any chance we could do this again?” He asked, looking hopeful.

Honestly, I was torn. On the one hand, it was the best sex I’d ever had. On the other, he IS my professor.

But carpe diem right?

“Yeah,” I said “I’d like that, but think we can keep it professional at school? I don’t want to be one of THOSE girls that screws the professor for good grades.”

He laughed

“I promise, I’ll keep grading you just as hard as I always have been.” He said.

I smiled and kissed him. When it ended, I grabbed an old receipt out of my book bag and a pen. I scrawled my phone number and a smart ass note on the bottom of it and handed it to him. He read it over and rolled his eyes

“Call for a good time?” He asked and held it up between his two fingers “What is this? The seventies?!”

I laughed and kissed him again before climbing out of his car.

“Be safe,” he called after me

“You too.” I told him with a wink before shutting the door. He waited in the car until I unlocked the door and waved. I could see him smiling as he put the car in reverse and backed out of the spot. I closed and locked the door behind me.

“Oh man,” I said to myself “I am in DEEP trouble.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

SOOOOO??? Everyone still alive?! :P Hope you guys enjoyed this trash as much as I did writing it. As always, KIND feedback is welcomed. My inbox and ask box are always open; so if you have something you’d like me to write, drop your Lady a line and I’ll make it happen!

The Squad/ Tag Team Champions:

@waywardbaby @waywardbaby @wonderfulwinchestersmut @familybusinesswritingbro @ain-t-bovvered @girlborninstorms @mrswhozeewhatsis @dacleverfox @carryonmywaywardcaptain @carryonmytardisjohn @kittenofdoomage @theworldiscolorful

#dean winchester #dean winchester smut #lady winchester writes #professor!dean #Supernatural smut #18 plus #Daddy!Dean #Daddy!Dean Trash #daddy!kink #babygirl!kink

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inevitably-johnlocked · 7 years

Text

I find myself once more taking up the pen to record the extraordinary deeds of Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps this story shall never be published- I hope that there will be a time when it can be- but for reasons that will become abundantly clear as this strange tale unfolds, I cannot- and will not- release this story to the public in my lifetime. And yet, I feel that the tale of Sherlock Holmes is incomplete without this tale. I write it therefore, so that my own mind might be at peace, knowing that my life’s work, as chronicler of the life of Sherlock Holmes, will not go unfinished.

It was a Friday evening when the event here recorded, which were to inevitably change my life, though, I hope, for the better, begun. I had, as was my custom on a Friday, lingered longer on the way back to my home from my practice than was usual, in part due to the chaos my house would inevitably in, and Fridays were wash days, and in part due to my desire to contemplate the week in complete peace and isolation. Though I did, it is true, love my wife, i had never felt the extraordinary attachment to her which allowed me to feel completely at peace in her presence. Perhaps that was due to my military past, or maybe my long years spent as the chronicler of the greatest man I have ever met, Sherlock Holmes. At any rate, I was drawn to solitude, and at the end of the week I would wander through London as I made my way home, occasionally passing by the markets and purchasing a trinket for my wife or for my great friend, whose acquaintance I was still blessed with – though more distantly than perhaps either of us wished. Since my marriage to Mary Morstan – a crime I am sure Holmes looked upon as severely as murder- we had drifted apart, and I regret that I was no longer invited on wild chases through London every other Tuesday. On this particular Friday, a surprisingly warm evening in October that felt like the dying breath of summer before the bitter cold and damp of autumn set in once more, I was bone-tired, utterly exhausted by a hard week that had seen some particularly difficult injuries, illnesses and people pass through my practice. I was more than ready for the brief respite of the weekend, and walked, I must admit, in a stupor. This was why I did not notice anything strange or out of place, even though, looking back, I must have seen the slumped figure by my gate as I opened it and passed through to the front door. In the moment, however, I was so lost in thought that I did not register it in the slightest, and passed by the figure without any unease. Due to my delay on the way home, it was dark when I finally reached my own front door, and I fumbled with my keys on the doorstep. In this moment, the figure from the gate placed its hand on my shoulder, with a grip like a vice, and as I turned around, promptly collapsed.

I acted with the swiftness of one who has dealt with such incidents before, catching the man – for there could be no doubt that the figure was otherwise –before he hit the ground, and crouching beside him as I half-cradled him in my arms. I was shocked to find, as I looked down, that this was no assailant nor homeless vagabond, but instead my dear friend Holmes, who looked up at me with a slightly bemused smile upon his face as he clutched his abdomen in an attempt to hold back the blood seeping from whatever wound was there. I shudder to think what might have happened to him if I had entered the house more swiftly. Would he, perhaps, have died on my doorstep, with me none the wiser until the following morning? In all likelihood, I think so. At any rate, he was in no fit state to move further, and it was a miracle he had managed the distance from gate to door.

I could tell instantly that he was badly injured, but in my shock, made no attempt to leave him and fetch my medical kit, which I knew would be just beyond the threshold of the house, as it always was. I was afraid that if I were to desert him, even for a moment, that moment might have been his last, and that I would have, in some way, caused the death of this great man.

I was dumbstruck for a few seconds, staring at him in confusion as I attempted to comprehend how he had come to be in this position. When I finally spoke, I was confused, and even doubtful that this could really be my greatest friend, lying in such a low state.

“Holmes?” I asked. “Can it really be you?” He seemed to rouse himself at the sound of his name, the clouded look fading from his eyes, leaving them as clear and piercing as ever.

I have often prided myself on my closeness with Holmes, and that out of all the people in the city, I would have been the one to bear witness to this great man. I had not considered, until this case, that there would be any greater achievement in my life than the fact that Sherlock Holmes called me friend. It was, therefore, greatly upsetting to me that the first conscious emotion Holmes showed towards me on that evening seemed to be bitterness. His lip twitched into a sneer, though why, I could not discern.

“Of course, Watson,” said he, though I suspected it was more in response to some internal dialogue than any speech of mine. Swiftly, however, his expression changed to one of desperation, and he reached up to grasp at my coat collar, pulling me down to his face as if to whisper something of deathly importance into my ear. At the last moment, however, he appeared to change his mind, and released me, letting me resume my previous position, looking over him. As I continued to gaze with the deepest concern at his face, half thinking he was under the influence of some drug, or even delirious with pain, he reached up once more, this time with one hand, and placed it upon my cheek.

“My dear John.” He murmured, looking completely at peace, and sighed, before his eyes rolled backwards and he fell unconscious in my arms.

So this is the start of a fic I’m thinking of writing. It’s written from ACD Watson’s perspective, when he’s married to Mary. Hope you like it! -Jay

(submitted by @shipper-of-things)

HI JAY!

Okay, I know we were talking privately about this, but I hope it’s okay that I published this, because it’s really great, and nothing generates excitement for a story like posting up a snippet of it! (just let me know if you want me to take it down!). I also hope that you don’t mind I fixed some of the grammar errors as well, LOL.

THAT ALL SAID, this is really interesting, and I would love to see you complete it!! <3

#send me things #submission #johnlock ficlets #acd holmes #acd ficlets #stuff for me

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katnissdoesnotfollowback · 7 years

Text

WIP Week - Day Seven

February 3: Your Previously Unpublished WIP

And now for some cheating. Technically, part of this has been previously published, as part of the @everlarkficexchange spring 2017. But honestly, I rushed and submitted something that wasn’t my best work. I’ve been reworking it, piece by piece with the intent of posting for real sometime this year. September to Halloween would be a good time, yeah? We’ll see. Anyhow, there’s nothing new here, so if you read it on the exchange, don’t get excited. I’m literally posting this to round out my “hey, this is what you can expect to see from me this year” list. Seven WIPs. Oi. Why do I do this to myself?

In the Waiting Dark

Prompt: #5 Everlark fairytale au of Little Red Riding Hood, preferably similar in tone to the film “The Company of Wolves”. [submitted by Anonymous]

Rating: M (maybe E, uncertain yet)

Warnings: Mentions of blood, fantasy and horror thematic elements, violence, mentions of non-consensual, mentions of child abuse, disturbing imagery, and sexual content

A/N: There may be more as I am still working out a few details. Inspiration for this story was pulled from several different versions of the Red Riding Hood tale, to include the film mentioned in the prompt.

“You look beautiful,” Prim breathes from where she sits on the bed. I manage a smile and twirl so she can see better. As much as I am dying inside, I don’t want her to know how scared I am. How much it’s costing me to do this.

“I look nothing like myself and not nearly as beautiful as you, Little Duck,” I insist and grab her hands to tug her off the bed and into a hug. My mother reminds me about the shoes I am to wear and then heads downstairs to finish preparing for our guests.

“You didn’t have to do this for me, Katniss,” Prim whispers as soon as my mother is out of hearing range.

“Why wouldn’t I? You deserve the chance to choose who you love and who you marry,” I say, leaning back to look at her and tapping one finger on the tip of her nose. She giggles and shrugs. It bothers me that she’s being so nonchalant about her future.

“So do you. And it wouldn’t have been so bad. I could’ve done a lot worse as far as husbands go,” she says and I wrinkle my brow.

“You already knew who it was?”

“Well of course. His name was on the order. Didn’t you read it?” No, I didn’t. At least not all the way through.

I’m not given time to work through this news before voices reach us through the open window and Prim lets me go, a smile on her face as she rushes to peek outside. I’d rather not, so I remain rooted in place. I’m going to have to look at him for the rest of my life, whoever he is. The voices don’t sound too happy, though, and I wonder how they’re going to take the news of the bride swap.

“Are you coming?” Prim asks as she rushes to the door, pausing when she sees me motionless in the middle of the room.

“Yes. I need to put my shoes on and then I’ll be down. You go ahead,” I tell her. With one last cheerful smile, Prim hurries downstairs as our guests knock on the door. The black leather shoes my mother set out for me pinch my toes, so it takes me a moment to adjust them and I’m just reaching my bedroom door when voices reach me from downstairs.

“This is preposterous!”

Oh no. I know that shrewish voice. It belongs to the baker’s witch of a wife.

“Agatha, it’s not a problem. The contract is stamped and approved with the change.”

“That’s beside the point and you know it. He was supposed to be getting a lovely, fresh, young bride who could at least fit in with us, but now–”

Agatha Mellark stops talking when she notices my father and her son watching me. I spare him only a glance before walking sedately down the stairs, not long enough to figure out which one it is, wondering if he’s as disgusted with his Seam bride as his mother is. Instead, I focus on my father, whose lips twitch in a smile, pride glowing in his eyes as I tilt my chin a little higher. He gives me strength to face this ordeal with dignity.

I did not choose this path for my life. It was forced upon me, and I will not be cowed by it. I will not bend to the orders of this witch the way my kind and naive, not yet fourteen year old sister might have done had she been the one forced into this sham of a marriage. Maybe it is this knowledge that makes Mrs. Mellark so furious. The knowledge that I will not be so easily controlled.

When I’m close to the foot of the stairs, I finally face my groom to see which of her sons it is. I think the oldest would be ineligible based on his age, which leaves the middle or—

The youngest. Peeta Mellark.

#wip week day seven #thg fanfic #the hunger games fanfic #everlark #everlark fanfic #in the waiting dark #red riding hood au

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theonyxpath · 5 years

Link

Well, hello!

I’m back from both GenCon and then a week off on family vacation, and big thanks to the amazing Dixie for filling in with this blog last week!

I’m full of energy and rarin’ to go. Doing that thing where you bounce on your toes a bit – which is kind of hard to do typing away as I have been all day!

If my emails were physical mail, the letters would fill my office, so I’m taking a bit of time to get through all of them. Plus, this week’s Monday Meeting was a fair bit of catch-up for all of our crew (besides Eddy, who is still on his vacay visiting wrestling events), with a few reports from us on GenCon, and the meetings that came out of it.

Which I’ll share with you now:

First, the message we relayed at our various panels was that we’re continuing to change/evolve as we need to as a company. So if you think our Kickstarters are only about Deluxe books and we run them like we did in 2013, please check again, because we’re far more likely to run a KS in order to do a print run of books to get into retail stores.

Which is another continuing evolution as we continue to add projects that will mean books that get into distribution and stores via our sales partners at Studio2 and IPR– all while maintaining our availability on DriveThruRPG and our other venues.

Distant Worlds illustration by Sam Denmark

The big change at GenCon was our choice to not appear there with an Onyx Path booth in the Exhibitor Hall, so that was something brought up a fair bit at the convention.

So far, from talking things through today, we’re still thinking it was a good decision. Both Mighty Matt McElroy and I had much more time to talk with creators like Travis Legge, our friends in the business (either existing or prospective), translators, and I even made a walk-through of artist alley and got to chat with some of our favorites.

Meanwhile, as we anticipated, our panels were a great place to field questions from our regular attendees. Thanks to all of you who attended and put us through our paces with your questions! We’ll be getting a report on how our demo games went later from The Wrecking Crew, but I, at least, only heard good things about those.

If you were there, or had friends there, and heard anything otherwise about our presence at Gen Con, please let me know – either here in the comments or directly to [email protected]. We really do appreciate knowing how others saw things.

Book of Oblivion illustration by Drew Tucker

Another big set of questions were about White Wolf/Paradox and how Vampire, V5, WoD, 20th Anniversaries, CofD, and Exalted are going to be created, published, handled.

Part of the confusion was within that “not happening like it used to” theme we talked about. WW/Paradox is signing lots of licensees for all sorts of projects; mostly for V5, but also for other WoD projects. Seeing boardgames come out from four or five different companies, several card games from different companies including the rebirth of Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, and also several computer games is a lot happening that we should be thrilled about as fans.

What seems the most confusing for folks, though, is when they see different companies producing V5 TTRPGs, maybe because they’re concerned about V5 game books being created by multiple companies and that’s just not how it has been done, or they’re are concerned about rules and setting coherence, or overall quality. Or maybe because it’s not clear how the rest of the WoD game lines will be handled.

We at Onyx Path can only reply as we did at the con – with our understanding of the situation. Which is that it is not easy to reconfigure a business as WW/Paradox has been reconfigured and that currently their team is juggling a lot of existing licensed projects as the folks responsible for overseeing the V5 brand. That means, in answer to the concerns of coherence and quality, that WW/Paradox reviews and approves all the projects and follows through their creation with further approvals to maintain everything V5 the way they want it.

Which is another good reason they are working with the fine folks at Modiphius to get more V5 TTRPG material published, as Modiphius can take the biggest portion of the nuts and bolts of publishing and working with other licensees like Onyx Path off of WW/Paradox‘s busy hands and let them focus on brand management.

As for us, well, the wonderful accolades for V5 Chicago By Night‘s Backer PDF, the strong interest in the follow-up material for CbyN that came out of the Kickstarter Stretch goals, and the recent happy excitement over the V5 Cults of the Blood Gods press release, are all music to our ears and are great data-points when we discuss further projects.

(And hey, I know that sometimes it seems like we say stuff over and over on all our social media, including this MMN blog, about our upcoming projects, but we heard from so many surprised folks after that Cults press release who had no idea it was coming that you just gotta let us keep getting the word out in as many ways – and as often we have to in order to reach our far-flung fantastic fans!)

Beyond V5, and figuring that the time will come that other game lines get attention, it’s always going to start with what WW/Paradox wants to do, so they’re the folks you want to politely let know your thoughts and feelings about those WW game lines. We can, and do, submit pitches as a licensee, but they’re the owners and decide which things get the green light to move ahead.

Aeon Aexpansion illustration by Gong Studios

Back to overall Onyx Path changes, we noted at Gen Con that there was no new brochure debuted at Gen Con, as we want to do a full year one – Jan through Dec. So expect 2020 one to debut a month early at PAX Unplugged this year and then throughout 2020’s cons starting with MidWinter in Jan.

That also means that we didn’t spring any new projects at the con, as we usually build them into the brochure. Part of that is the brochure timing thing, and part of it is that we’re looking at announcements that roll out through the year rather than happening at a single event- unless tying it to the event makes the most sense.

You can expect some of those about new projects unannounced that are already in the works, as well as those we worked out in meetings at Gen Con, throughout the rest of this year and through 2020, as we keep on making:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Keep an eye out in this space as well as on our social media for the Deviant: The Renegades Kickstarter that will be launching after August wraps up!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features an interview the team conducted with Travis Legge, the man behind our Twitch endeavors and creative genius for the Scarred Lands!

The Onyx Path News was live today and can be found on our YouTube channel right here, along with Matthew’s Wraith: The Oblivion actual play, uploads from Twitch, and a request for you to submit Deviant questions: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOnyxPath

And mentioning Twitch, Travis has continued with our streams of actual plays, interviews, and more, and would love to have you join us live! Please tune in and subscribe to get notifications of upcoming content: https://www.twitch.tv/theonyxpath/ There’s Pugmire: Paws and Claws, Scion: Athens, Ohio, Pirates of Bloodwater, and more!

In other news, the Story Told Podcast just interviewed part of the team behind the Changeling: The Dreaming Player’s Guide! Please check out their show here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-33-c20-players-guide-round-table-interview

Do you love Exalted? Please please please check out Beamduck‘s show right here, as it’s excellent: https://www.twitch.tv/beanduck

Occultists Anonymous are hammering out new episodes of their Mage: The Awakening chronicle, and we’d love for you to check them out. Here are the details:

Episode 34: Broken Things – Mammon works with the Mysterium to determine what is going on with his memories of Beck. Elsewhere, Atratus searches for the reason behind her trouble with spells. Wyrd searches the city for her own answers. https://youtu.be/1mS2Cz8ymtQ

Episode 35: Watching Eyes – Mammon and Hiza flee a Grigori as they search for the reason for Mr. Graves’ intrusion on Mammon’s memories. Atratus travels into her own soul with Songbird and Wyrd on the advice of the Apeiron they named Hephaestus. https://youtu.be/b3RLfdK9vZM

Do you listen to Twin Cities by Night? If not, why not? This show puts out a whole host of different actual play content, and if you want a gritty Chronicles of Darkness game, they’re one of the best places to go: https://twincitiebynight.podbean.com/

Our good friends over at Caffeinated Conquests are continuing to run The Sacrifice from Chicago by Night using V20 rules! There are very few playthroughs of that story that involve a Gargoyle and a True Brujah, but theirs certainly does: https://www.youtube.com/user/CafConIsOn/videos

Devil’s Luck Gaming is always a fantastic place to go for your Scarred Lands hookup, too. One of the best actual play channels going today: https://www.twitch.tv/DevilsLuckGaming

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find most of Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’re putting the PDF and physical book PoD versions of Book of Oblivion for Wraith20th on sale!

The Book of Oblivion Includes:

New Shadow Archetypes, Thorns, and an array of horrifying new antagonists.

Chapters devoted to Spectres, their terrible cults, and the rare process of Spectre redemption.

Deep explorations of the Tempest; the Labyrinth; the Dark Kingdoms of Flint, Gold, Ivory, Obsidian, and Swar; the Mirrorlands; and several other bizarre and fascinating Necropoli.

Conventions!

Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd PAX Unplugged: December 6th – 8th

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

W20 Art Book (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Redlines

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Development

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Manuscript Approval

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

V5 Chicago Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Editing

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Post-Editing Development

Memento Mori (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e Companion)

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

VtR Spilled Blood – All the art that is in is approved. Felipe is working on stuff.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Waiting for Gregor and Darko to wrap up.

Trinity Continuum Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Contracted. Sketches already coming in.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers – Contracted. LeBlanc doing the splats.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

DR:E Jumpstart – Sam Denmark is doing this.

Deviant for KS – Contracted.

In Layout

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel

Dark Eras 2 – Files with Aileen

Proofing

Aeon Aexpansion

C20 Cup of Dreams

V5: Chicago – Backer PDF out, errata lock down Friday.

Geist 2e – XX’s and then Indexing.

Signs of Sorcery – Inputting errata.

M20 Book of the Fallen

At Press

Dragon Blooded – Deluxe at Studio2, shipping after Gen Con.

Dragon-Blooded Cloth Map – At Studio2, shipping after Gen Con.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – Shipped to Studio2, shipping after Gen Con.

Trinity Core Screen – At Studio2.

TC Aeon Screen – At Studio2.

Book of Oblivion – PDF/PoD versions ON SALE WEDNEDAY.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs coming.

Trinity Core – Printing.

Trinity Aeon – Printing.

DR: E – Backer PDF out to backers.

Shunned By the Moon – PoD files uploaded.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

On this date in 1990, Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota. Y’know, I sure love dinosaurs. As a kid, I corrected Miss Larmen, my Kindergarten teacher, when she misidentified and mispronounced their names. Lest you think I was just a little know-it-all, she encouraged me to do so, thus unknowingly setting me on a life-long path as a smart-ass.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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