#this has been on loop in my skull for like two weeks

[idreamofneonsheep]

This took like two hours and I have perished

Was most of that time my own incompetence? Yea

But now I ✨️know✨️

Also this does have audio but I think it's pretty loud so be warned

Pov u pull a hoppip out of ur garden

[bonniepop]

title: of rumors & wrong assumptions parts: 1 / 2 / 3 character: iwaizumi hajime words: 1,800+ warnings: more violence towards oikawa's person. notes: i totally forgot to fill this up lmao

—

the following days at school were hell.

well, not really. but they felt like it.

“he keeps glaring at me,” you whimper, sitting across oikawa, trying to hide yourself by curling inward and having him shield you.

you were both hunched over your shared library desk, completing your partner lab report on your iodine clock experiment, two tables away from iwaizumi’s as his class settled on the other side of the library. oikawa had mentioned that they were working on their research for english.

truth be told, iwaizumi had been glaring at you since last week whenever you were with your lab partner in any capacity. whether you returned a greeting, asked a question, passed by him in the hallway, or simply just as looked in oikawa’s direction, iwaizumi’s glare was soon to follow. it was hard to miss the way his eyeballs practically singed the back of your skull in their endeavor.

“who?” oikawa looks over his shoulder. “oh, he’s not glaring. that’s just his normal face.” he wiggles his fingers at his best friend, who is clearly unamused. 

"you mean looking like he wants to kill me is normal?"

oikawa turns back to you. "i think the crease in between his eyebrows is genetic; his dad has it, too. but it looks good on him, doesn't it?"

gay, the voice in your head pipes up. instead of responding, iwaizumi simply narrows his eyes at oikawa for a second before looking back down at his own notes and proceeding with his work.

“so when he looks like he wants to kill me, that’s normal?” you ask, picking up the experiment manual and dragging it closer.

“yeah, but don’t take it personally.” oikawa smiles. “he looks at me that way all the time!” he returns to your work, peering over the experiment manual and copying the text unto a sheet of paper.

“you have really nice handwriting,” you comment after a few beats of silence, watching him neatly loop and cross and curve his characters.

“thanks,” he says with a smile. “when i was in middle school, my mom made it a point to train me and my sister in penmanship.”

“sounds like torture.”

“helps with volleyball,” he shrugs. “steady hands and all that.”

“you sound like you're making this up.”

"why on earth would i do that?" the volleyball player rolls his eyes. "anyway, real or no, it’s better than that thing you call handwriting,” he disparages, shooting your notes a pointed look. "what's worse than chicken scratch?"

“hey!” you snap, bundling your notes in your arms. “it is not that bad, and also, mind your own business. i make decent grades with this chicken scratch, you know!”

“i’m surprised our teachers can even read that.”

“oh, fuck off,” you say, giving him the finger. 

he laughs and changes the subject. “anyway, did you hear?” he leans in closer, raising an eyebrow. “people think we’re dating.”

you flush, but you can’t help the look of disgust that mars your features. “i know. it’s so gross.”

the teasing expression on his face falls and he straightens. “hey!” he cries, and some students around you turn their heads to look. “i’ll have you know that i am prime real estate!”

“shut up,” you hiss, yanking him down to divert attention. “first of all, you're not my type. second of all, you play volleyball, not baseball. baseball is clearly superior!"

"says you! i'd rather shine in a sport thanks to my sheer physical prowess, not because i'm good at hitting balls with sticks."

you shake your head. "you know, girls don’t like it when the guy’s ego is as big as the moon.”

“i’m just being honest,” he defends. “volleyball is the superior sport."

"i read somewhere that volleyball is just an extreme version of don't let the balloon touch the floor."

"then baseball is just hitting a piñata that's a moving target.”

“a more impressive set of conditions.”

“we're going nowhere," oikawa declares, waving the conversation away. what is your type, then?”

“not you,” you answer with a straight face.

“be serious!” he leans in conspiratorially. “i bet i know who your type is.”

you roll your eyes. “sure you do.”

he smirks. “it’s iwa-chan, isn’t it?”

your heart thunders in your chest and your belly flip flips around. “maybe,” you say, trying to play it cool. “or hanamaki. or matsukawa. anyone but you, really.”

he gapes then huffs, offended. he folds his arms over his chest. “you’re just saying that to get a rise out of me, and i won't fall for it.”

“i like guys who at least pretend to be humble about being good-looking.”

that makes him smirk. “so you think i’m good-looking?” he says a little louder, and you take your manual and smack his arm when you notice the students around you obviously trying to eavesdrop. “ow!”

“shut the fuck up,” you hiss.

oikawa scoffs as he rubs his arm, and you can feel the heat of iwaizumi’s familiar glare on the side of your head 

you chew on your bottom lip. “how’d you know, by the way?” 

“know what? that iwa-chan was your type?”

“no,” you insist, intent on changing the subject, because the embarrassment that you might’ve been obvious would’ve killed you. “that people think we’re—eugh—dating.”

he frowns. “hey. i’m not that bad a boyfriend.”

“didn’t your last girlfriend dump you?”

“i don't see why that's relevant,” he says stiffly, ignoring your jibe. “anyway, some of the lower year girls asked me if it was true,” he says, uncrossing his arms and pondering.

“oh my god, it spread.” you run a hand over your face. “what did you tell them?”

“i didn’t get a chance to answer. iwa-chan hit me in the head with a volleyball before i could.”

“what?” you nearly slam your hands on the table. “so people actually think we’re dating? why didn’t you answer?!”

“because they were bothering us during practice,” iwaizumi answers, suddenly standing next to your table, and you nearly launch yourself out of your seat in shock.

“iwa-chan!” oikawa greets, motioning for him to sit. the chair scrapes against the floor as the vice captain of the volleyball team takes a seat next to you, of all places. “have you met my lab partner?”

you’re too terrified and nervous to speak, but iwaizumi answers for you. “yeah," he grunts in agreement, then grunts out your name. “you’re a friend of tomo’s.”

you nod, words delayed. “yep. i’m a friend of tomo’s.”

“oooh, common friends,” oikawa teases, then jerks and smacks his knee beneath the table. people swivel their heads and chortle when they find the volleyball captain rubbing his leg beneath the desk, face scrunched up in pain. “ow! don’t hit me!”

“don’t be stupid,” iwaizumi grunts. he props his research materials on the table opens his notebook, silently getting to work.

you tap oikawa’s wrist with the pen in your hand as soon as his tears subside. “hey, keep writing!”

“would it kill you to say ‘please’?” he grumbles, pulling the report close and continuing. you work in relative silence, dictating notes for him to include in the report and answering any questions about values and measurements.

you completely forget that iwaizumi's even there, until he sighs and puts down his pen. he cracks his neck and stretches.

“you okay, iwa-chan?” oikawa asks.

“yeah,” he responds, voice low and raspy and it sounds so good that you bite back a whimper. “english is hard.”

you purse your lips in thought. would it be presumptuous of you to help? but maybe you could be useful, and if he really needed help… it might also make him like you more, and lessen all the glaring whenever you were within five feet of his best friend…

“um, can i see?” you decide to ask, and with a nod he slides his notes over to you. “what’s this?”

“translation,” iwaizumi responds gruffly. “can’t figure out what this word means in this sentence. doesn’t it mean the direction, as in 'turn left'?”

after a few scans, you nod, finally understanding. “ah, yes, but here,, ‘left’ is the past tense of ‘leave.’ like, when someone forgets something or leaves something behind.” with your pen, you point out words. "see here? 'she left her phone.'"

iwaizumi looks sort of scandalized. “what?”

“yeah, here, look—”

unbeknownst to you, oikawa’s watching as you explain it, taking in the way his friend leans forward and the extra attention he’s devoting to you as you speak. 

iwaizumi shakes his head. “so ‘left’ means the direction," he motions with his hand, "but also the past tense of 'leave'?” he flips back on his notes. "past tense, past tense... ah, verbs that have already happened?"

“yeah,” you explain. “most english words have their past tenses end in 'd', but irregular verbs—like this one here—they don't follow that rule.”

the captain lights up. “you speak english? you’re not in the english class.”

“um, yeah.” you blush, pulling back and straightening. “my, uh, my grandparents lived in america for a time, so i kinda learned from them.”

a disturbing smile spreads across oikawa's face. “fascinating," he says, sounding not unlike a snake with a plan. "maybe you can help iwa-chan here,” he says with that weird, slimy smile, reaching across the table to pat his friend’s arm. “he’s studying to take a the college entrance exams in the states! he’s not that smart at english, so you should help him!”

said friend was looking at the hand with disgust, which made your lip twitch. “don’t touch me,” he spits.

“aww, iwa, it’s okay. she knows you can be nice to me! you don’t have to hide your true self.” oikawa suddenly jumps away in fear when the wing spiker flexes for a punch, and you hide your snort behind your hands. 

oikawa whimpers, pathetically collecting the papers in front of him. “you two are mean! you deserve each other.”

iwaizumi flushes and glares. “hey. don’t be like that.” he turns to you. “sorry, he’s really inconsiderate about people’s feelings.”

you blink in surprise and raise your hands up in surrender. “no, it’s okay! no, ah, no feelings hurt here. he’s been annoying me all afternoon, so. yeah.” 

confusion makes itself known on iwaizumi's face. “annoying you? aren’t you… you know... um—”

your belly twists unpleasantly, and you force a laugh to hide your embarrassment. “oh, the, uh. the rumor.” you shake your head. “no, we’re not… that.”

when the laugh isn’t returned, you blush and clear your throat, looking down at your chicken scratch in embarrassment.

"oh. but i thought..." he trails off, and you shake your head without looking at him.

a few seconds later, he clears his throat to cut the awkward silence. "okawa, may i speak to you for a moment?” iwaizumi goes, already getting up.

oikawa's tongue is poking out the corner of his mouth as he concentrates on his notes. “wait, i'll just finish—”

“now,” iwaizumi bites out, grabbing his captain by the collar. he looks at you and bows. “give us one second.”

your lab partner is dragged away, and you can hear the mumbles of the students around you. you slump over in your seat. not again.

[fallinginvictus]

I may be a day or two early for wip wednesday but I absolutely need to know what happens next in ur time loop fic of Andrew

WIP Wednesday Andrew and Aaron Time Loop AU [part 2/4]

Part 1

on ao3 I would tag this as "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" so if you need to know more because you think there might be something that could trigger you, let me know and I'll let you know

He feels frantic as he drives on now familiar roads, his thoughts swirling in his brain and bouncing inside his skulls, unable to tell where one begins and the other ends, unable to make sense of the nightmare that he has found himself trapped in. Cars race past him as his thoughts race in his brain, images of Aaron's cold and pale body flashing behind his eyelids every time he blinks, the coldness of his brother's hand and the stillness of his chest something that will never stop haunting him for as long as he lives.

“What? Is something wrong?” Aaron asks as soon as he picks up the phone, worry clear in his tired voice.

Andrew's breaths get lost in his lungs, unable to find their way out. 

Aaron is alive. 

Aaron is alive again.

“Andrew?”

“I'm going to stay with you for a while,” is everything that he manages to say, his voice quieter than he intends it to be, his hands squeezing the steering wheel until they turn white.

“What? Why? Did something happen?” Aaron asks and Andrew wants to scream at him. 

“No,” he says. “I'm already on my way.”

“Andrew,” Aaron sighs. “For how long? Don't you have games and practice?”

“I hurt my wrist so I can't play for two weeks.”

“You can't stay with me. I have plans.”

“What plans?” he asks, wondering how many times Aaron has lied to them before, how many other times has he pretended to be busy while his only plan was that of getting high.

“With my friends.”

“You don't have friends. I'll be there in a few hours. Bye.”

He doesn't give Aaron any time to reply, any time to protest, before hanging up, Aaron's voice making his head spin, his blood boil. 

He wants to hug his brother, he wants to feel his chest move, his heart beat, his blood flowing through his veins. He wants to touch Aaron's skin and feel nothing but warmth. He wants to look him in the eyes and see them shine. 

He wants his brother to never be dead again.

♤♤

He sits outside of Aaron's locked door, the clock inside of his head ticking and ticking, each second that passes feeling like a lifetime spent in hell, wondering if the call is going to come anyways, wondering if Aaron is already dead. More than once he wants to drive back to the hospital where Aaron died, where Aaron will die. More than once he takes his phone out of his pocket and dials Aaron's number without ever calling him.

It's ten minutes past three in the afternoon when Andrew's phone rings where it's sitting on the floor by his side. Andrew's breath gets caught in his throat, his whole body tensing at the sound until his every muscle aches and screams, begging to be released, his heart pounding against his ribcage.

But when his eyes finally find the courage to look down at the bright screen by his side, it is Aaron's name that meets his eyes and not the hospital's number (a number that had now been printed inside of Andrew's brain and that he would never be able to forget.)

“What,” he says flatly as soon as he picks up the phone, his muscles still tense, his heart still racing.

“Are you really waiting for me?” Aaron asks in a tentative tone that Andrew can't decipher. Finally Andrew starts to relax, Aaron's quiet voice like sweet honey washing over him.

He hums in reply.

“I'm- I'm almost there. Wait for me,” Aaron says as the words rush out of his mouth and stumble all over each other.

“I've been waiting for almost two hours so you better be quick,” Andrew replies, unable to deny to himself just how much he longs to finally see his brother alive. 

Andrew had long since learnt to keep his emotions trapped inside of his ribcage. Some would oftentimes run away from him, slip through the cracks, escape from their perfectly built prison: in the morning with Neil's peaceful face resting by his side, the brighg sun shining on him, his hair messy, his face puffy, a soft smile on his lips; in the night with Neil's flushed body under his, his warm hands gently placed on his shoulders, his soft moans filling the quiet room.

But it had been a long time since his emotions had come crashing against his chest, threatening to split his ribcage open, uncovering his most safely guarded secrets. He had forgotten how much it hurt, how raw and vulnerable it made him feel.

“Hey,” Aaron says breathlessly, breaking the silence and coming to stand in front of a motionless Andrew.

Andrew just stares at him blankly, taking notice of every single thing that is Aaron, of every aspect of him, every detail. Aaron looks tired, Andrew notices, his skin is pale, ink spilled under his bloodshot eyes but his pupils are normal, he looks rail-thin, his collar bones heavily pronounced. 

Andrew says nothing as his brain reminds him of the list of “Common Physical Signs of Drug Usage” that he had read once on the library's computer when he was fifteen.

“You ambush me like this and you are not even going to say hi?” Aaron asks as he opens the door, but there is no strength in his voice, no malice in his words.

“Hi,” he says as he walks inside the now familiar house, his eyes falling back on the family picture displayed in the living room.

“Give me a second,” Aaron says before running inside his room and closing the door behind himself, probably trying to tidy up the mess that Andrew had already seen.

He sits on the couch, unable to come up with a plan of action, with a strategy. He had already asked Aaron before if he had relapsed and Aaron had denied it. Would he ever tell Andrew the truth if he asked? 

“So,” Aaron says as he walks out of his room with a black trash bag. Andrew just looks at him. “Are you going to tell me why you decided to crash at my house for who knows how long?”

“Am I not allowed to want to spend some time with my dearest brother?” he asks with a sweet and ostensibly fake smile on his lips, trying not to think just how much truth was actually hidden in those words.

Aaron scoffs at him, “Sure, because you totally just wanted to spend some time with me,” he says and something in his voice makes Andrew pause. He just stares at him, his brows furrowed, trying to figure out something that he knows is standing right in front of him and yet he cannot seem to be able grasp.

There's a tense silence for a few seconds as Andrew just stares at his brother, at the way air fills his lungs, as the way his chest moves.

“Fine,” Aaron breaks first. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes, as if he's dealing with a troublesome kid. “Fine. You don't have to tell me now. Just- Are you okay? It's nothing bad, right?”

Andrew is taken aback by the concern in his voice before anger fills his vision. No nothing too bad, he wants to say. My own fucking brother died. No biggie.

“No, nothing too bad,” he says between clenched teeth.

♤♤

They spend the rest of the afternoon playing on Aaron's old PS2, the same one that he has owned longer than Andrew has known him. It was quiet and comfortable and Andrew could tell there was something else going on inside of his brother's mind, something that was clouding his brain, making his moves sloppy, his attention fragmented.

“Do you feel like you are going to relapse?” Andrew asks. “Don't lie to me.”

“Where does that even coming from? Fuck-” Aarons scoffs as he misses a jumps and falls down a cliff.

“Do you?”

“No? Not more than usual,” he says distractedly, his whole attention on the game in front of him. 

You used today and you died, Andrew almost says. Stop fucking lying.

“If you feel like using again, just tell me,” is all that comes out of his mouth, his eyes landing on Aaron's focused face. “Promise.”

“Sure,” Aaron says, his eyes never leaving the TV screen.

“Promise,” he repeats loudly.

“I- I promise,” Aaron says, his eyes finally meeting Andrew's.

Andrew knows it won't be enough. Aaron had lied before and he would have no qualms in lying again, in breaking a promise. But he found it difficult to worry when Aaron was sitting right by his side, their shoulders brushing against each other, Aaron's warmth washing over him.

It's 7 pm when Andrew silently gets up from the couch and heads towards the kitchen with the intention of preparing them dinner.

“What the fuck Aaron.”

“What?” Aaron says from the living room, the sound of the game almost drowning his quiet voice.

“Why the fuck is you fridge completely empty?”

“Oh,” Aaron says, turning off the game.

Andrew waits for a second, then two, expecting to receive an actual reply from his brother but getting only silence in return.

“We can go grocery shopping tomorrow,” Andrew says, sitting back down on the couch, his hand grazing Aaron's shoulder. “Let's just order take out for today.”

Aaron nods as Andrew takes his phone out of his pocket to order take-out but notices a couple of unread messages from Neil.

To: 0 Neil:

I'm going to stay with Aaron for a while

From: 0 Neil:

is everything okay?

To: 0 Neil:

I'm here to figure it out

Dinner is quiet, just like the rest of the afternoon had been quiet. Aaron's gaze never leaves his food, his eyes unfocused, his mind full of thoughts that Andrew isn't able to read. 

If only he could jump inside of Aaron's head and search through his brain, Andrew thinks, maybe then he would find the answers he's looking for, maybe then he would find the right questions.

He used to think of Aaron as someone easy to read, his goals and ambitions prosaic. He always thought he knew what Aaron wanted, what he longed for. Every action Aaron took and every comment he made used to be something Andrew could decipher and understand. And yet, now that he's standing in front of him, he wonders if he ever really knew Aaron at all, if this whole time he had been reading Aaron's signals all wrong.

“Why don't you have any friends?” he asks, his eyes scanning Aaron's face for a reaction, for a sign.

Aaron's pauses for a second, his eyes focused on his food, “Of course I have friends,” he says, his eyes meeting Andrew's. “Why would you think that I don't have any friends?”

Aaron's face doesn't betray him, his eyes seem truthful and his voice doesn't shake. If Andrew hadn't known better, he would've believed him, he would've fallen for his lie. How many times, he wonders, has Aaron lied straight to his face? How many times has he tricked Andrew before?

I can tell when you're lying to me, he used to tell Aaron. Now he wonders if he ever really could.

“Don't lie to me,” Andrew says, his voice cold, his gaze unforgiving.

“I'm not-”

“Don't lie to me,” he says again, his gaze just a little softer.

“How would you even know,” Aaron muebles as he puts more food in his mouth with his brows furrowed and an uncharacteristic pout on his lips.

In the past, Andrew would've pushed. In the past, Aaron would've been colder. 

“What's going on with you,” the words leave Andrew's mouth without his permission.

“I just-” Aaron says before shaking his head, something that Andrew can't read flashing in his eyes. “I'm tired. I'm going to bed now.”

Andrew can't do anything but watch as Aaron retreats back to his room and closes the door behind himself with a soft click. He sighs as he drops his head on the couch and stares at the white ceiling feeling lost and confused. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do. 

He doesn't know how to save Aaron from himself.

♧♧

The first week passes quickly, Aaron spending most of his days at the hospital and his evenings locked in his room studying while Andrew is left alone with his own thoughts and fears, images of his dead brother spinning like a carousel inside of his brain. 

Every night he wakes up from nightmares, his body numb and damp with sweat, Aaron's cold body flashing behind his eyes. 

Every night, he sofly opens Aaron's bedroom door and stares at his brother as he sleeps, at the way his chest rises and falls, at his pink skin and slightly flushed cheeks.

He's alive, he tells himself, over and over again. And yet he can still remember when Aaron hadn't been alive.

♧♧

“We should do things together,” Andrew tells Aaron one morning while he's still lying on the couch after having spent a whole night googling “How to make sure your brother doesn't relapse again”. 

“What?”

“Make a list of things that you want to do and we'll do them.”

“Why?” Aaron asks, walking out of the kitchen.

“You don't want to?” Andrew replies, tilting his head.

“You always have a reason for things.”

“If you don't want to-”

“I do,” Aaron interrupts him, his eyes wide.

“Then make the list and give it to me when you get home this evening.”

“I just don’t- Fine,” Aaron says with a sigh as he heads for the door. He stops there for a second, his hand on the handle and his bag over his shoulder. 

“What,” Andrew says as he takes his phone from the coffee table.

Aaron just furrows his brows and shakes his head, “Bye,” is all that comes out of his mouth before leaving the apartment.

Androw looks at the closed door, his heart racing like it does every time Aaron leaves his sight. He can feel little ants crawling under his skin and he knows that's where they'll stay until he'll see Aaron, alive and breathing, again.

♤♤

That evening Aaron comes back later than usual. Fourteen minutes later, to be exact.

Andrew is pacing the length of the living room when he hears the jingle of Aaron's keys as he pushes them in the lock. A few seconds later, Aaron walks inside the house and throws his coat on the hanger as if nothing is wrong.

“You're late,” Andrew says between gritted teeth as he stalks towards Aaron.

“What?” Aaron asks in confusion and bends down to untie his shoes.

“If you come home late you have to text and let me know.”

“I'm not even that late, just a few minutes and-”

“Fourteen.”

“What?”

“Not a few minutes. Fourteen minutes.”

Aaron sighs as he stands back up, confusion written all over his face. 

Fourteen minutes of Andrew picturing Aaron's cold body in a back alley, on a white hospital bed, in a closet, in the middle of an empty street. 

Fourteen minutes of Andrew picturing Aaron's vacant eyes staring at the sky, his pale skin tinted blue with death, his chest unmoving, his heart still.

Fourteen minutes of Andrew recalling Aaron's cold fingers in his hand, his icy forehead under his lips.

Fourteen minutes of waiting for his phone to ring, for the Doctor’s voice to inform him that his brother had died.

“I'm sorry,” Aaron says but it comes out as a question.

“Whatever,” Andrew replies before leaving a confused Aaron at the door and locking himself in the bathroom.

“Tell me something,” he says on the phone, his arms tightly wrapped around his legs as he sits in the corner between the sink and the wall.

He doesn't listen as Neil talks about his day, about practice, about anything and everything that comes to his mind. He lets Neil's calm and soothing voice wash over him, until it seeps into his brain, into his bones. Until breathing doesn't hurt anymore and the ants have left his body.

“Why won't you tell me what's wrong?” Neil asks on the other line, his voice full of worry.

“Aaron,” he says, his brother's name burning his lips as it leaves his mouth.

“Is he sick?”

“I just need to make sure he doesn't do something stupid and accidentally kills himself in the process.”

“You think he's going to?”

“I know he is.”

“Alright,” Neil says with a sigh. “But you have to promise me something.”

Andrew humms.

“Don't hurt yourself while trying to help him.”

Andrew stays silent for a second. There is nothing that he wouldn't be willing to do if it means saving Aaron from his fate, “I can't promise that.”

“Andrew-”

“He's my brother, Neil.”

“Does he even want to be? He just left you and Nicky and never looked back. Why would you put your mental well being at risk after all of your hard work for someone who wouldn't do the same for you?”

“That's not how it works.”

“What?” Neil asks.

“This is not a deal or a transaction. I'm helping him because I don't want him to be dead, not because I want him to do the same for me, not because I want him to give me something back,” he takes a deep breath and shakes his head even if Neil can't see him. “I just don't want him to be dead.”

“Fine just- just be careful and call me when you need to.”

“I will.”

A knock on the door interrupts Neil in the middle of a sentence, “I made dinner,” Aaron's soft voice comes from the other side when Ansrew doesn't reply. 

“I have to go,” he says.

“Call me,” Neil replies before hanging up.

They eat dinner quietly on the couch, the sound of Aaron chewing something crunchy loud in the silent room.

"If you still want I have the list” Aaron says with downcast eyes.

“Then get it,” he replies after another long silence.

Andrew watches as Aaron rushes towards his bedroom, his bowl hastily placed on the coffee table.

Why are you so different, he wants to ask but doesn't.

“Here,” Aaron says a few seconds later as he hands him a wrinkled piece of lined paper, Aaron's elegant handwriting filling the page.

Andrew just nods at the paper and places it on the sofa by his side.

“You're not going to look at it?”

“I'm eating,” Andrew replies.

Aaron nods, his lower lip trapped between his teeth, a dot of blood staining his skin.

“Stop that and eat,” Andrew says, tapping Aaron's chin with his finger.

For a second it looks like Aaron is going to say something but before anything can come spilling out of his mouth, Aaron shakes his head and goes back to his dinner.

♧♧

“We're going for a picnic,” he tells Aaron on Wednesday, a week and a day after Aaron's death.

“What?” Aaron asks as he looks away from the open book on his lap.

“It's in your list, isn't it?” 

“I mean, yeah but-”

“You have an hour to get ready. Chop chop.”

The sun is high in the sky by the time they reach the park. It's still a little cold outside, the air a little chilly, the sun a little weak.

“This is so nice,” Aaron says as he fiddles with the hem of the table cloth that Andrew had placed on the ground. There is a smile that Aaron is trying to hide on lips and it makes the ants under Andrew's skin disappear for a second.

“I always saw families having picnics when I was in primary school,” he tells Andrew as he bites the tuna, mayo and lettuce sandwich they had bought at the café near that park. “It would be better if Nicky were here too.”

Andrew just hums in reply.

“What's your favourite sandwich?” Aaron asks, trying to fill the silence.

“Probably-”

“Wait,” Aaron interrupts him. “I'll try to guess.”

Andrew looks at him a little puzzled as Aaron furrows his brows, a look of deep concentration painted on his face.

“I've got it,” he says after a few seconds, a crumb of white bread falling from the corner of his mouth. “Pulled pork with BBQ sauce.”

Andrew just nods.

“Now you,” Aaron says as he takes another bite from his sandwich.

“Me what?”

“Guess my favourite,” Aaron says, sounding a little too excited, his smile too bright.

“It's not that hard to guess. It's the same as mine. It's what we always got from highschool to college.”

“Mine is meatballs,” Aaron says quietly as he takes another bite of his sandwich.

“Since when?” Andrew asks. It had been years since the two of them had last eaten a sandwich together. Andrew can't help but to wonder what more he missed in Aaron's life.

“Since I was seven and a guy from school gave me a piece of his because I didn't have anything to eat,” Aaron says calmly without looking at Andrew. “I hate BBQ sauce.”

“But we always for pulled pork and BBQ,” Andrew says. It was their favourite, they would always eat it together for dinner after school.

Aaron just shrugs, “It was your favourite,” he says.

“But you-” Andrew begins but is interrupted by a ball landing on his leg.

“I'm so sorry,” a kid shouts as he runs towards them with his brother behind him. “We are so sorry. It was an accident.”

“It's fine, no one got hurt,” Aaron says, picking up the red ball and giving it back to the kid. “Just be more careful next time.”

“Oh my god it's clones,” the smaller child says while hiding behind his brother. “Like in star wars.”

“It's twins you idiot,” the older brother reprimands him as they run away. 

♧♧

When Aaron gets back home on Thursday's evening at 9:45, he looks tired and upset. His shoulders are hunched, his movements slow, his eyes never once lift from the floor.

“What's wrong?” Andrew asks from where he's sitting on the couch.

“Just a bad day at work,” Aaron replies, his voice so low Andrew has to strain to hear him.

“Come,” he says, patting the couch.

“I just want to-”

“Come,” Andrew says again.

Aaron trudges towards the couch and Andrew can see a little tremor in his hands. He looks for signs of drug use but comes up empty.

“Speak,” he says as soon as Aaron is sitting on the couch by his side, his chin resting on his knees as he hugs his legs to his chest, his dirty shoes on the couch.

Aaron opens his mouth but no words leave his lips, just a shaky breath.

“It's okay,” he says as he watches the tremble in Aaron's lips. “Take a deep breath.”

Aaron shakes his head, his eyes wet, “I told his brother it was going to be fine but I-” a dry sob breaks Aaron’s sentence right in the middle. “It was just a little kid and it wasn't even- it really wasn't-”

“It's okay, Aaron,” he says even if he knows it's not.

“And his brother was just there alone and I told him- Andrew I told him that it would- that it would be fine,” there are tears running down his reddened cheeks.

“Can I touch you?” Andrew asks and waits for Aaron to nod his permission before taking Aaron's hand into his own. “You did what you could.”

Aaron closes his eyes for a second, “Can you-” he shakes his head.

“Can I what?”

“Nothing. It was silly.”

“Tell me,” Andrew says. “I'll decide if it's silly.”

A pause and then, “Can you sleep in my bed tonight?”

There is a longer pause, silence fills the room as Andrew thinks it over.

“I told you it was silly,” Aaron says, his eyes now open. “Forget about it.”

Andrew stays quiet for another second, “We can,” he says.

He waits for Aaron's breathing to go back to normal, for the tears to stop flowing down his cheeks, for the tremor in his hands to subside, and then he helps his brother back on his feet and towards his room. Aaron's legs are still shaky, his hold on Andrew's hand tight.

“I'll go wash up,” Aaron says, taking his pyjamas from where he had thrown it that morning and heading for the bathroom.

Andrew sits on the side of Aaron's bed as he waits, scanning the room. He finds it to be more tidy than it had been when Aaron had died, but still disorganised and messy.

“Why is it so messy?” he asks when Aaron walks back into the room. “You always used to keep everything tidy and in perfect order.”

“I just-” Aaron shakes his head and lets the sentence die. Andrew looks at him.

“Come on then,” he pulls down the covers and lies under them. He had missed sleeping in a real bed.

“You don't have to,” Aaron says standing in front of the bed.

“I know,” Ansrew replies. “It's my choice. Just don't touch me.”

“I won't,” his brother reassures him before climbing on the bed.

They lie in silence for a while, Andrew on his back, Aaron on his side, his eyes trained on Andrew.

“You're staring at me,” he says as he looks at Aaron from the corner of his eye.

“When I was a kid,” Aaron whispers as if he were sharing a secret. “I always wanted a brother to share everything with.”

Andrew hums in reply.

“I wanted to build a fort with covers and cushions that only me and my brother could enter. Our secret place where we would always be safe and never lonely.”

Andrew turns on his side and looks at his brother in the quiet dark.

“Goodnight Aaron,” he says, placing his hand on top of Aaron's.

“Goodnight Andrew.”

♧♧

“We are going to the market,” he tells Aaron Friday morning as soon as Aaron leaves his room

“I need to be at the hospital at 1 pm,” Aaron replies.

Andrew nods, “We're leaving in an hour.”

Andrew had never been to a farmers market before nor had he ever wanted to go to a farmers market.

“This is so fun,” Aaron is saying as Andrew tries to dodge the crowd of people that is flowing around him. “Look.”

Andrew isn't sure what Aaron is pointing at, nor does he care that much. The crowd is overwhelming, people constantly bumping into him and touching his body.

They walk around for a while, Aaron pointing to flowers and plants, fruits and vegetables as if he were in a museum instead of a street market.

“Did you know that to make just one pound of honey it takes 2 million flowers?” Aaron asks as they walk past a stand of honey. “Do you like honey?”

“What?” Andrew asks, distracted by a woman who bumped into him.

“You like sweets, so I was wondering if you like honey.”

“I don't know. Never tried.”

“Oh then I should totally buy you some. Come on,” Aaron says walking towards the honey vendor.

“Do you like honey?” Andrew asks as they wait for their turn.

“It's not really something you can eat spoonfuls of or you'll get sick, but I like it.”

They sit on a bench away from the crowd as soon as they buy the honey.

“Here, taste,” Aaron says, scooping some honey on the wooden spoon the vendor had given them.

Honey is sticky and sweet and it makes Andrew's throat burn a little because of the overwhelming sweetness.

“You don't like it?” Aaron asks with a little frown on his face.

Andrew shakes his head.

“Sorry,” Aaron mutters while closing the honey lid.

“What are you apologising for?”

“I thought you would have liked it,” Aaron shrugs.

Andrew just stares at him confused, his face blank.

“It's whatever,” Aaron says as he gets back up on his feet. “We should go home.”

Andrew watches as Aaron throws the jar of honey in the first street bin they find while they head towards Andrew's car.

♧♧

“Neil's playing today,” Aaron says on Sunday as Andrew is cooking dinner.

“Yeah,” Andrew replies because he noticed Aaron hates not receiving a reply.

“Do you want to watch the game?” he asks but then immediately turns on the TV without waiting for Andrew's reply.

When he goes into the living room with their dinner (Aaron's favourite italian pasta), the game has already started and Aaron is comfortably sitting on the couch with his legs crossed, a fluffy blue blanket around his shoulders.

“Thank you,” Aaron says with a smile, taking one of the plates from Andrew's outstretched hand and placing it on his legs. “It just started so you didn't miss much.”

It surprises Andrew how much Aaron talks during the game, how much he notices about the players and their plays, how much he knows about Andrew's team.

“Yeah, he's been doing that the whole season. He really needs to work on that.”

“You've been keeping up with the championship?” Andrew asks.

“Not really, I just watch the games where you, Kevin or Matt play.”

Andrew purses his lips as a mix of emotions explode in his chest. He wants to dig deeper, to ask why. Aaron never showed up for the foxes reunions at Wymack’s place, he cut all contact with everyone, he never once showed any interest in anyone, any will to be their friend. 

Andrew wonders when had Aaron stopped making sense. He wonders if Aaron had ever made sense in the first place at all or if Andrew had made up a version of his brother in his head that had never once been real.

They spend the rest of the evening watching the game, a little smile on Aaron's lips as his hands flail around when he tries to explain sometimes to Andrew.

Could it have always been this easy? He wonders. Did Aaron have to die twice for them to finally spend time together like normal people?

Maybe, Andrew thinks, maybe everything can be fixed.

♧♧

“We are going to the zoo,” he tells Aaron on Monday morning while Aaron is still lying in his bed.

“What?” he asks, his voice low and full of sleep.

“Get ready, we're leaving in an hour.”

Andrew hates the zoo. It's boring and uninteresting. He doesn't care about where any of the animals came from nor from what they had been saved. It's cold and cloudy and the tips of his fingers are frozen. But the zoo was on Aaron's list and it seems to be working perfectly as a distraction: Aaron keeps speed-walking from one enclosure to the next, reading out facts that he seems to find interesting and cool. 

“And this one was saved after hunters shot him down and he lost his ability to fly,” Aaron says after three long and excruciating hours of walking around the zoo surrounded by screaming children and annoying adults. “Isn't that so heartwarming?”

“Heartwarming?” he asks, focusing on the sad little bird sitting in the middle of a huge green field.

“Someone found him when he was just about to die and decided that he was worthy of being saved. They took care of him and gave him a new home.”

“He's a bird who can't fly. Alone in a huge field. It would've been more merciful to just let him die. What kind of life is this?” 

He can feel Aaron's gaze on him as he looks at the bird but when he turns towards him, Aaron's eyes are back on the bird. He doesn't look excited anymore, his gaze soft and sad, something that Andrew can't decipher in his expression.

“It's almost lunch time,” Aaron says, looking away from the bird. “We should go home.”

♧♧

“Next time you are the one who has to visit,” Andrew says on Tuesday morning as he packs his bag. “We should also invite Nicky,” he adds.

“Sure,” Aaron says but there is something strange behind his eyes.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, just- I'm just very very tired,” Aaron says, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“You are not feeling like you're going to relapse, right?” Andrew asks, staring right into Aaron's eyes.

“What? No. No I don't,” Aaron replies, his eyebrows knitted together. 

“Promise.”

“I promise,” Aaron says lightly.

“This is very serious Aaron. Promise me you won't touch any type of drug for any reason.”

“Andrew. I promise I won't touch any type of drug. Unless I'm administering it to a patient. Good?”

“Good.”

“Can I- Nothing,” Aaron says with a shake of his head.

“Tell me.”

“It's silly. Forget about it.”

“I'll decide if it's silly,” Andrew says.

“Can I hug you goodbye?”

Andrew is silent for a second. He can't remember ever hugging Aaron in his life. Not once.

“Yes,” he says.

Aaron moves slowly towards him, as if walking towards an easily spooked animal, afraid that I'll run away. When he's finally standing in front of Andrew, he carefully lifts his arms and places them around Andrew's neck, his cheek resting on his brother's shoulder. Andrew can feel Aaron’s warm breaths on his neck, his brother's heartbeat pounding on his body where their chests are touching. 

Aaron is alive. His brother is still alive.

He tightens his hold around Aaron's waist. He had never hugged his brother before, he thinks again. In two other lives Aaron had died without ever getting to hug his brother. 

Andrew could've gone his whole life without ever getting to share something as trivial and mundane as a hug between brothers.

♧♧

It's Tuesday, the twenty-second of May at six in the afternoon when Andrew's phone rings, the soft voice of a doctor on the other side, the words coming out of her mouth venomous and wrong, lies that Andrew can't comprehend, can't accept.

“That's impossible,” he says getting up from his couch. “Aaron promised he wouldn't touch any drugs. He promised me.”

Aaron promised. He had promised.

“Drugs?” the Doctor asks. “I'm really sorry for the misunderstanding Mr. Minyard but Doctor Minyard's cause of death isn't drug related.”

“What? He didn't overdose?”

“No, Sir. Your brother he- he I'm so sorry. He jumped off a bridge. I'm so sorry.”

Aaron had always claimed that he didn't feel like he was going to relapse. Why hadn't Andrew believed him.

He had been asking the wrong question the whole time. He had tried to solve the wrong problem.

Can I hug you goodbye? Aaron had asked a few hours ago.

Yes, Andrew had replied.

[nico-di-genova]

In My Mind, You are Safe

A/N: What was meant to be a one chapter drabble has spiraled out of my control and now become a fic that requires timelines and setting. Anyway, enjoy part 2 from Lawrence's POV. Registered AO3 Users can read here, if they want! :)

Lawrence thought the worst sound he could hear was that of his son’s tears – the frightened sobs when he called after his bike accident and apologized first before even explaining what had happened. He thought it would be the hitch in Lance’s breath when he asked what to do, what he should do. In reality, the worst sound is the absence of it.

He finds himself missing the simplicity of two broken wrists. Now, Lance has broken ribs, a fractured skull, a jagged line of angry red stitching that runs from lower sternum to his hip. It all makes a broken toe look juvenile. Lawrence feels stupid for even panicking over hairline fractures and a two-week recovery time. He feel stupid for putting a six year old in an unpredictable machine in the first place and letting him grow an appetite for it.

Lance’s mother pushed for golfing, tennis, swimming even at one point. Lawrence should have listened.

Lance still cannot breathe on his own, and Lawrence is already forgetting the natural sound of it – instead he has grown familiar with the steady beep of a heart monitor and the snoring habits of Fernando Alonso.

The man is curled over in a chair he is two days away from establishing residency in, head resting alongside Lance’s bruised thigh, finger looped through his son’s limp pinkie. It is a sight that Lawrence wishes wasn’t familiar. A sight that forces him to confront the truth of their relationship, not that they were doing a phenomenal job at hiding it in the first place.

Lance only smiles, genuinely smiles, at things he cares about – that he’s deemed worthy of expending the energy on. Chloe’s dog, Chloe, his mother, good food, the first snow fall in Montreal that promises decent skiing and now apparently Formula 1 veteran, Fernando Alonso. Lawrence knows his son, knows he is a bad liar because his tell is written in the very core of him. He’s spent too many years and too many billions trying to make Lance smile the way Fernando has so easily managed it.

But now Lance smiles at nothing, and Lawrence finds he doesn’t mind if Fernando beats him to it. He just wants his son back.

“His, um, his eyebrows. I think they twitched today,” he tells the nurse when he comes to check Lance’s vitals.

“They could have,” the nurse says, not dismissive, but not validating to Lawrence’s optimism either. He lifts Lance’s sheets to inspect the healing along Lance’s stomach and disturbs Fernando from his sleep in the process. Bandages and gauze are peeled away with careful fingers and then there is the sight of Lance’s mutilated abdomen, just as gruesome as the night they first wheeled him out of surgery. Pink skin, still raw and angry and raised against the stitching holding him together. Skin yellowing around the cut, only marginally better than the dark bruising that was once there. It is the visible reminder that the steering column of Lance’s car, a car Lawrence had given him and deemed safe, nearly took him away for good.

“His neurological activity has been improving since we took him off the sedatives,” the nurse says, when he glances at Lawrence and seems to see the guilt. It is meant as a piece of good fortune, instead it reminds Lawrence of the medically induced coma they are working to ease Lance out of. The coma he was in to prevent seizures caused by the swelling on his brain. Because he’d hit the wall at a top speed of nearly 200 KPH and his helmet had done an admirable job of keeping him together but could only manage so much.  

“So when can the tube be removed?” Fernando asks, wiping at the sleep crusted at the corners of his eyes. He looks annoyed to be woken, like he was having a particularly wonderful dream. Lawrence envies his ability to sleep at all.

“We’re not there yet.”

Fernando grumbles something in Spanish. The nurse, unfortunately, is fluent, “If you want him to keep breathing, then yes.”

“Is choking him. He would hate it.”

“Well, he’s not really in a position to make requests.”

A strange position for both Lance and Lawrence to be in. The first instance where money does not hold sway, other than affording Lance the luxury of a private suite and all the comforts that can be provided while he remains unconscious and unmoving. It also secures a lounge that neither Fernando nor Lawrence have made much use of. Other than to make cheap cups of coffee from the Keurig and complain about the taste.

“Breakfast?” Fernando asks, once the nurse deems Lance safe and unchanged, leaving both men to sit awkwardly with Lance being the divide between them.

Lawrence shrugs, “Sure.”

“Shit coffee?”

“Is there anything else?

“Shit tea I think.”

Lawrence laughs, dry and humorless, “Coffee’s fine.”

If you put enough milk in it, it’s almost drinkable. But Lawrence doesn’t actually care about the taste, it’s more the caffeine he needs – or, more accurately, the sleep he is fighting. There is a fear in him that if he closes his eyes Lance will somehow stop breathing for good in his absence. Like he’s only still here because Lawrence’s unwavering control is willing him to be, and not the ventilator.

“You sleep yet?” Fernando asks when he returns with two steaming styrofoam cups of joe, offering one to Lawrence with the milk already added. Fourteen days is a long time to get to know someone when you’re both tied to an unconscious twenty-five year old.

Lawrence shakes his head and sips from the coffee gratefully, it’s clear he’s been here too long because the sludge has begun to go down easier. “No, not yet. Didn’t want him to wake up alone.”

It’s clear from Lance’s condition that he will not be alert anytime soon, but Lawrence doesn’t want to risk it. He hadn’t been there after Spain, had only gotten to the hospital two days later when Lance was already post-op and loopy from the pain meds.

“Hi dad,” he’d slurred, “I’m all good now.” He’d proceeded to try to give Lawrence two thumbs up, but the casts they’d cemented his wrists in were clunky and his body uncoordinated. Lawrence had spent the flight speaking with Lance’s doctor, discussing everything from cost to recovery plan. Everything had been clinical and controlled until he was faced with the sight of Lance, disheveled and clad in a hospital gown half hanging off one shoulder, that made it all hit him like a freight truck.

He can’t miss being here when Lance wakes up, not again. He had his assistant bring him his laptop and any pressing work, has Fernando bring him coffee, has his wife bring him changes of clothes and the occasional cup of decent espresso, and he sometimes dozes off in the straight-backed chair, but waking up with a crick in his neck and pain in his back is enough to keep him fighting against it. He knows it’s all starting to take a toll though. When he goes to the bathroom he is faced with the sight of a man who sits just outside of death’s door, hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked. Sometimes he thinks Lance might be waiting there with him, it’s not always easy to chalk that up to sleep deprivation.  

“I will watch him,” Fernando says, sipping from his coffee, “Wake you up if anything changes.”

“No, no. I’m okay.”

“You will end up in a hospital bed beside him soon,” Fernando shrugs, like he’s unbothered by the thought, “If you do not rest.”

He’s right, Lawrence knows it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Besides, he is not the only one who has found it impossible to leave Lance’s side. It’s race day in Hungary and Fernando isn’t in a car. Both of the Aston drivers have been replaced by their reserves, morale in the garage has reached an all-time low. Fernando isn’t in the headspace to race though, so Lawrence doesn’t press it. He doesn’t need two drivers on life support.

“I’m okay for now.”

Fernando shrugs again, and then drops it. He is not the sort to hold someone’s hand and coax them into doing something. Lawrence thinks that’s maybe why Lance might like him. His son has always been stubborn, always pushed against those who try to guide him, or those who try to tell him he’s somewhere he does not belong. Lawrence has learned he performs best under pressure, when he has something to prove, which was why he had wanted Fernando as their second driver to begin with. The downside to Lance’s unwavering drive is that he often ignored the limit, pushed where he shouldn’t, took risks that were unneeded, and then ended up paying the price for his mistakes.

Silverstone wasn’t Lance’s first crash, it was just the first where he hadn’t managed to get out on his own. At first Lawrence hadn’t been all too worried. In the small span of time where he’d known Lance had gone off, but the cameras hadn’t found him yet, he’d been disappointed, frustrated because they both, Lance and Fernando, had been doing so well. Fernando was pushing, ignoring team orders, but Lance was responding, defending, winning. It had felt, at first, like a confirmation of all that Lawrence knew to be true. That Lance was good, great even, he just needed a fire lit under his ass and something to work for.

And then the cameras found him.

‘Stroll is in the wall!’

‘Lance? Lance are you alright? Lance. Respond. Confirm you’re alright.’

The silence had stretched on, the crackle in Lawrence’s headphones sending a chill down his spine. Lance’s race engineer had radioed him again and again, but each time the empty crackle only seemed to grow in length.

‘Lance, confirm you are alright. Confirm.’ It stopped becoming a question, but a hopeful demand.

Lawrence had watched as Fernando stumbled out of his own car, barely waiting until the vehicle had stopped moving before he was sprinting across the gravel toward where Lance’s car was crumpled against the wall. There was smoke, flames breaking out at the rear end. He turned away when Fernando pulled Lance from the wreckage, had seen the flash of blood spreading rapidly across the green of Lance’s suit and knew there would be no response.

He hasn’t thanked Fernando for saving his son, hasn’t forgiven him for the crash either. They speak around it in the same way they speak around Fernando’s finger around Lance’s pinkie. It is becoming harder as the days stretch on, harder to ignore the desperate way Fernando looks at Lance sometimes, like he is willing him back into consciousness with the same force he pulled him from the car with.

“His mother is coming by today,” he says instead, pointedly ignoring how Fernando is sipping from his coffee with one hand and holding Lance with the other.

“How long?”

“She hasn’t said, probably no more than an hour.”

Claire can’t stand to see Lance like this. Singapore had been bad enough for her, this has been her worst nightmare. She visits Lance in short bursts, where she can ensure he is still breathing, even if it’s not of his own will yet. They don’t speak, in the same way he and Fernando hardly do, too much tension that threatens to boil over and they don’t want any of it to land on Lance. People in comas can sometimes hear what’s going on around them, at least that is what Lawrence has been told, so they all play nice in hopes it will mean the kid will come back to them faster.

Claire visits, Fernando leaves. Claire leaves, Fernando returns. Lawrence sits immovable through it all and Lance remains unchanged. A system.

“I will go, text me when I can come back?”

Lawrence nods. He ignores the way Fernando casts one last look at Lance, the longing, the worry, the guilt that is imbedded there. He is mad at Fernando in the same way he is mad at himself, he blames Fernando for causing the crash, blames himself for putting Lance in the car, like they were both responsible for Lance being here in the first place. But Lance has broken two wrists biking, ruptured his eardrum wakeboarding, sprained his ankle snowboarding, and he’d returned to all of those sports without pause afterward. If time could be reversed, neither he nor Fernando could have kept Lance out of that car. Because Lance is stubborn, it’s who he is. He doesn’t give up, even when the odds are stacked against him, and that’s how Lawrence knows he will wake up. He has unwavering faith.

———————————-

“We should have cards,” Fernando says, two days later, when they’re both sitting in silence watching the third rerun of Jumanji on the tv. “Or that game, the hippo one, something to do.”

“Hungry hippos?” “That one, yes.”

Lawrence knows it, knows Lance and Chloe used to play it because he can still remember the chaotic noise of it – Lance’s frustrated yells when he lost. It used to give him a headache.

The sparsely used lounge, it turns out, has a deck of cards stored in a cabinet. Lawrence finds it when he’s searching for spare sugar for his third cup of coffee that day, since they’d exhausted the packets stocked at the coffee bar.

“Do you have a 2?” Fernando asks, leaning forward in his chair, propping his chin on one hand and his large collection of cards in the other.

“Go fish.”  

Fernando groans, reaches out to grab a card from where they’ve balanced them on Lance’s knee. There’s four threes spread across his thigh and four sixes along his calf, both of them are Lawrence’s wins.

“You have a four?”

Annoyed, Fernando resignedly passes the card over Lance’s body.

—————————

On day seventeen, Lawrence sleeps. It is not entirely his choice, but rather his body’s refusal to operate any further without rest. He stands to go to the bathroom, and when he does the room spins. Fernando catches him, guides him to the couch in the lounge.

When he wakes up there’s a blanket thrown over him and a stiff pillow beneath his head. It is dark out, Lawrence is thrown by the lack of light because it had been distinctly morning when he had gone to pee. It takes him a moment to get his bearings, to wipe the sleep from his eyes and blink until the room comes into focus.

Distantly, he can still hear the steady beep of the heart monitor, the hiss of the ventilator, the sounds that reassure him Lance did not give up while Lawrence slept soundly. It is only comforting for a moment, until he remembers the dream he had in which Lance was screaming for help and Lawrence could not reach him. The way he kept trying to claw his way through debris and rubble to reach his son, but the screams only seemed to grow further and further away until they tapered off into whimpers and then into the crushing sound of silence.

He stumbles from the couch, pulling the twisted blanket from his body as he goes, and only breathes when Lance is in his sight once more.

In the dark, the shadows of his face seems more prominent, the paleness of his skin more ghostly. Lance doesn’t tan, he goes from white to burned in the span of a few hours, but he is not normally the color of a piece of paper either. It’s eerie, discomforting, makes Lawrence think of his choked off screams from the dream.  

Fernando seems to have also lost his battle with sleep, the man is passed out once more with his head pillowed on Lance’s bed. His hand rests around Lance’s wrist, an upgrade from the pinkie, fingers resting along the kid’s pulse point.

Lawrence, for the first time, truly tries to take stock of his son’s injuries. He studies the bruising on his face, the swelling that has gone down and been replaced with bruised eyes and tender skin. The yellowing marks around his neck that continue below the line of his hospital gown. The two splinted fingers of his right hand that Fernando has been so careful to avoid. It’s better than it had been, easier to look at, but still makes Lawrence taste bile at the back of his throat.

‘He’s lucky to have survived at all,’ he’d overheard one of the nurses say while Lance was still confined to the ICU. He’d been on the phone with Claire and had to physically hold himself back from saying something nasty. But he supposes, now that he really looks at Lance, they hadn’t been wrong. A skull fracture, major blunt force trauma, the g-forces he’d sustained to his body in the crash, it is a miracle he’s even still here.

Lawrence feels suddenly grateful, to God, or to Fernando, he isn’t sure which.

“Lance?” he whispers, like the boy will suddenly open his eyes. Like he’s a child asleep in his bed and Lawrence can rouse him with a gentle shake to his shoulder and a kiss to his temple. Like it’s an early morning where he can pull a groggy Lance from his bed and bring him to the track before the dew has even dried from the grass, watch him do laps in a kart that still sits on the side of too big for him.

Lance doesn’t wake up, but Lawrence is almost positive he sees his finger’s twitch, curling instinctively in his sleep. He doesn’t miss that it’s fingers from the hand Fernando is clinging to, the same pinkie the Spaniard had made his lifeline.

———————————

The next morning he proposes Fernando return to racing. Media day starts in Belgium tomorrow and they could have Fernando there in time if he left within the hour.

“No,” Fernando states, not even considering, not even bothering to have emotion in his voice.

Lawrence grinds his teeth, “We can’t keep making excuses, Fernando. There’s money tied-up in this, my money. You have a contract-.”

“And? Fuck your money. I do not care about your money, or the sponsors. Have Felipe race the rest of the season. I will not go.”

Lawrence is standing at the foot of Lance’s bed, arms crossed, anger beginning to course through him. Fernando, relaxed in his chair, with his hand around his son’s wrist looks right at home. Lawrence thinks of those same hands pulling Lance from his burning car, those hands pressing forcefully to Lance’s wound, blood coating his gloves and soaking through to his fingers. He thinks of Lance holding those hands, kissing them, knowing them because Lance has idolized Fernando since he was a child and Lawrence knows the look he gives Fernando now is not that of an awed fan but that of someone who has grown into something more.

“What are you,” Lawrence finds himself blurting out, asking not because he really wants to know, but because he needs to, “to him, what are you?”

Fernando looks at him, blinks, shrugs, “I do not know.”

The resigned honesty of it makes him even angrier.

“But more than teammates?” He demands, “More than a mentor? I know my son, Fernando, do not lie to me.” Lance once dated a girl who he was convinced he was going to marry. Took her to races, to dinners, to birthdays and parties and every family event he could conceivably sneak her into. He’d looked at her with the same wide-eyed wonder Lawrence sometimes caught him looking at Fernando with, like he couldn’t believe they would settle for someone like him. Like he was only worth settling for.  

“More, yes,” Fernando concedes, but doesn’t expand.

“He loves you, I think,” Lawrence says, because he has never seen Lance look at anyone, since that girl, the way he looks at the man.  

Fernando finally looks sad then, face falling, eyes filling with that familiar guilt.

“I know.”

“He’s almost half your age.”

“I know,” the guilt deepens. He finally drops Lance’s wrist, pulls away and keeps his hands curled in his lap, like he realizes this is finally the moment Lawrence stops ignoring the truth of them.

Lawrence thinks about asking him to leave, knows he could force him to go to Belgium if he wanted, bring out terms like ‘breach of contract’ and ‘lawsuit’, but Lawrence is not a cruel man, especially not where Lance is concerned. He allowed that girl into their lives, into his own birthday party that was meant only to be for close family, all because Lance had asked. And when they’d broken up, he’d put Lance back together – let him cry and scream and throw the belongings of his room around until there was no more energy left in the kid and then he’d sat Lance down and told him it would all be okay. He kept saying that. Through Formula 3 when Lance would win and still not feel like it was enough because the other boys would say he bought the trophy. When he hit Formula 1 and would go to his driver’s room instead of the media pen after a race because the tears wouldn’t stop flowing and his own frustration at himself became too much. Lawrence would be there, he would always be there. But Fernando was here now too, and he guessed that counted for something.

He uncrosses his arms, drops the fight because he’s tired and the room is too small for such arguments, “You stay now, and you better mean it.”

Fernando swallows, nods, “Okay.”

Felipe and Stoffel race in Spa on Sunday.

——————————

By week four, Lawrence is beginning to lose it. He’s become immune to the antiseptic smell of the hospital, the bland taste of the cafeteria food, the beeping of machinery that keeps Lance alive. It all becomes background noise, until he’s numb to it all, just existing. The coffee doesn’t taste bad anymore, it tastes like nothing at all.

He watches Jumanji for the sixth time and finds that the film is growing on him.

Fernando has not left.

“So how did it start?” Lawrence asks one night. He’s twirling hospital spaghetti on a fork, picking at hamburger meat listlessly with the metal prongs.

Fernando slurps one of the noodles, “Me and him?” he asks, pointing to Lance with his own silverware.

Lawrence nods. He has gone past avoiding the topic to wanting to understand it.

“Um,” Fernando starts, “Bahrain, I think.”

“This year?”

“No, uh, last.”

So when Fernando had sang Lance’s praises to the cameras. Lawrence had assumed that was all for show. He’d been warned of the drivers poor sportsmanship, his un-teammate-like behavior.

“So you weren’t trying to impress me?”

“No I was,” Fernando admits, “wanted you to think you had gotten your money’s worth at first.”

Fernando had not come cheap, but he still wasn’t as much as Newey was shaping up to be. He’d taken a good chunk from Lawrence, but not enough that he would seem like a bad investment so early on. He maybe had been laying the groundwork for a contract extension, if the car proved to be a challenger.

“So when did it-?”

“Become serious? Summer break.”

Lawrence thinks he remembers that, Lance mentioning something about a yacht, his voice lilting with obvious joy over the phone. You could hear when Lance smiled, his voice changing with the shape of it. They’d had lunch a few days later and there was an obvious mark on Lance’s neck, something he kept trying to hide with a hand when he would lean an elbow on the table and rest his neck against his palm. Lawrence didn’t care to know about his son’s sex life, in the same way he cared little about Chloe’s, he cared only that both of his kids were happy. And at the time, Lance had seemed to be. He hadn’t questioned it past that, even when he'd seen Fernando’s name pop up as a text notification on Lance’s phone and seen the way Lance blushed over his salmon and orzo.

“And you’ve talked about it, you and him? About the future? He’s young, Fernando. He can make his own choices, yes, but I don’t know if he’s thinking in the long-term yet, not really.”

He doesn’t meant to imply Fernando is old, but they’ve both been twenty-five, both known how it seems like you are weathered and just beginning all at once. Like you have the answers, you just haven’t figured out where to apply them yet.

Fernando bites at another noodle, “Yes, we have talked. Some. But it’s not- we are not- I don’t know.”

“Serious?”

“Maybe.”

“But you’re here. You don’t have to be.”

“It’s serious enough for this. I need to be here, when he wakes up, not racing circles. I would be no good in the car right now. My head is-“ he motions vaguely in the air with his fork, a piece of tomato soaked hamburger falls off of it and plops onto the white linens of Lance’s sheets. Lawrence understands that. Can respect it even. He also maybe isn’t the one to judge a relationship. Not with a divorce under his belt and his own wife younger than him. He just has the inherent need to make sure Lance is safe, cared for. He’s had the same need since he first held Chloe in his arms and realized what it was to be a father.

Fernando picks up the hamburger, drops if back onto his own plate, but the red stain it leaves behind stays.

————————

Twenty-nine days after Lance’s crash Lawrence is returning from making his daily Keurig coffee, stirring the milk into the sludge with a stir stick when he looks up to see Lance blinking back at him.

The cup falls from his hands, splatters against the linoleum and spreads in a puddle across the floor. Specks of it land on his dress pants, some of it on his hands, he hardly notices the burn of it. Lance, bleary-eyed and groggy stares at him, blinks slowly.

“Lance,” Lawrence sobs. Lance’s eyebrows furrow, the movement so startling because he has been without any for so long that Lawrence cannot help the strangled sound that escapes him. The noise pulls Fernando from his sleep, he lifts his head from the bed and looks from Lawrence to Lance before letting out a cry of his own.

Lance lifts a lethargic hand to the tubing at his mouth, tries to pull it out with muddled fingers.

“Aye, no,” Fernando panics, pulling Lance’s finger away and trapping them in his own grip, “We’ll get someone, we take it out now, yes?”

Lance nods, makes a choked sound around the polyvinyl. His fingers curl around Fernando’s hand, gripping, responding to the touch. Lawrence can’t stop looking at the movement as he stumbles for the call button beside Lance’s bed. He can’t stop shaking. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” Fernando soothes, brushing Lance’s hair back from his forehead in an intimately calming gesture.

Lance’s panicked breathing through his nose worsens. He looks from Fernando to Lawrence with ever-widening eyes.

“You’re okay, son,” Lawrence tries, kneeling beside Lance’s bed and pressing a firm hand to his shoulder when Lance tries to rise against the wires and tubing keeping him down.

The coffee soaks into the knee of his pants. Lance chokes again.

“You’re okay,” they both repeat, hoping that it will be true.  

[factual-fantasy]

24 ASKS!! AAA THANK YALL SO MUCH THIS ONE WAS VERY FUN :}} ✨💖✨

Ah no worries about not understanding! I would prefer no fanart was drawn of my cookie ocs.. thank you for asking to double check though! :}}

(Post this ask is referencing)

I explain it all in this post! :00

:DD Thank you so much!! And yeah, I just didn't have the heart to keep Papyrus suffering 😭😭 as much as it really seems like I don't-- I do love Papyrus as a character. And I felt like he really deserved some kind of salvation after everything I put him through.. Also it'll make for some interesting dynamics in the group! Looking at Seam and Jevil.. 👀👀

Oh yeah, and poor Coconut. If I hadn't drawn angst of Octo already she wouldn't have been the subject this time! <XDD And thank you!! :DD I'm glad to hear that she's your favorite!! :}}

And yes! I always saw the other koopa kids- especially Ludwig- to be older than JR. Maybe its the bib-- and who knows! I tend to loop back around to old fandoms from time to time so I can see myself drawing the koopa kids again XDD

As for the Mario Movie,, shockingly enough I still haven't seen it. What can I say? I have some kind of problem upstairs I'm sure of it--

Though its interesting to hear that the movie blue shells are similar to mine! :0 And I'm honored to hear that you like my version more than the movies! :DD 💖💖

XD Its been a while since I've seen those movies. So I cant really remember much of Jack Sparrow.. but I trust that you are right! XD

@foxythefox11

XD If I do that Jangles will probably super bounce her into the sun-

And thank you! And hey, I'm sorry that you're not very confident in your artwork right now.. Just keep in mind, all it took for me was time. Your art will improve with time. Try your best to cut yourself some slack. Understand that you're still learning. We all are! Remember that your art will continue to improve if you just keep drawing!

I don't play it or know anything about it either <XDD but I'm glad you like them!! :}} ✨💖✨

(Post in question)

AWW! THAT SOUNDS ADORABLE!! 😭😭🥺💖

@solst1ce-sketches

@komikudikentalendo

Its actually the 3rd option. Usually when I'm in some kind of fandom I prefer my own AUs as opposed to others AUs or even canon. :00

That's probably becuase most of my AUs consist of removing things from canon I don't like and adding in random things that I do like-

@abaroo (Post in question)

AWWW THAT WOULD'A WORKED TOO THOUGH :(

I guess I was thinking that Frisk fully trusted Papyrus instantly. And so did not hesitate to give her cape to him 🥺💖

@natewithacake

ASKSAKSFDJ THANK YOU!! :DD MEGA HIGH FIVE VIBES FRFR!!

@skulls-and-cypresses (Post in question)

WHW- WAHG??? THAK YOU?? THANK YOU SO MUCH!! THAT'S SO KIND!! PROBABLY THE KINDEST THING ANYONE HAS EVER SAID ABOUT THE WAY I DRAW PAPYRUS!! ME?? REPRESENT HIM PERFECTLY??? WAAAA THANK OU!!! 😭😭💖���💖💖

THANK YOU!! THANK THANK THANK YOU!! FOR EVERYTHING!! 😭😭💖💙😭😭😭

@dementia27

Aww! How cute! That might work! :000 Why do I want one now- XDD

@khoiazo

Aw, I'm sorry! <XDD I don't mean to make you sad :(((

AND YOOO!!! Its Friday when I'm answering this but the Wednesday dude is welcome any day of the week! :DD

Yeah, both canon Jevil and Spamton would be pretty dangerous to have around XDD But out of the two I think original Spamton would be interesting.. 👀

Not really for the personality, because my Spamton's personality is actually a bit similar.. but more for the visual aspect. I headcannon that canon Spamton's body shrunk when he fell into an acid pool. My Spamton fell into an acid pool as well, but it didn't shrink him. It destroyed the structure of his body and elongated him. Making him much taller and extremely deformed..

Imagine the two of them standing side by side. Original Spam would be up to my Spams knee! <XD

@minnesotamedic186

Evil voice: ehhehghehe... noted... hehehghehee

@pythecyberguy

Me when someone compliments me on the characters design that I was least confident about:

(fr tho THANK YOU!! THAT MEANS A LOT TO MEEEE😭😭💖💖😭💖 )

@nunyabusiness459 (Post in question)

Whoopsies! <XDD (jk jk light hearted--)

SHE WOULD THO XDD

I wouldn't say near-death.. Spade King didn't want to kill Jevil. So any injuries he inflicted upon him were injuries he could recover from..

@beryl-shade

Yeah :( their value to him was that of a grain of sand..

@neo-metalscottic

AAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I'M SO GLAD YOU LIKE THEM!! :DDD

As for what kind of monsters they'd face,, I'm actually unsure- I haven't played either game and I don't know any of the lore or characters.. so I'm not sure what kinds of dangers the real cookie run pirates face.. :( But what I DO know is that Blue Beauty is their main form of protection.

She's not exactly threatening to a lot of creatures I'd imagine.. She is just a Mer-whale. No teeth or stingers to make her more intimidating.. But what she is, is huge. And incredibly strong. She's a real power house and uses tools and weapons the crew taught her how to use to defend herself. And I imagine with her thick blubber, it takes a really deep wound to actually hurt her. So she doesn't fear getting a couple scratches here and there.

When it comes to the other cookies, most everyone stands up and fights. Only a select few retreat to the lower decks to protect their goods or hide. Those likely being Ellie, she's too old for this crap- and Coco and Red, though don't be fooled! Coco can fight! She's just retreating with Red in order to protect him. Everyone else though is up there duking it out with who ever dares cross their ship! ⚔⚔

@lildiaperboyjake

Ah! Sorry for the late reply, this ask got buried--

I'd like to think Funtime Freddy would have a really hard time deciding on a favorite song. California girls, call me maybe,, wannabe?? But after a loooot of careful thinking, he'd pick all star by smash mouth XD

Hello hi yes this ask was sent weeks ago but then it got lost and buried but then revived in a way that I cant explain but my intended response was--

Awwww.. imagine her in tears after drawing a picture of a little girl she remembers. She holds the drawing up to the night sky, trembling.

"S-She dreamed of seeing the stars one day.." 💔

[imdoingawesome]

I have many major life decisions to make this week, and not only do I have a migraine of epic proportions, I also had to skip therapy. So, I’m torturing the doctor and the master in a time loop as compensation. 😎👍

There’s a frantic banging sound coming from somewhere behind his head. The Master cracks open an eyelid and immediately regrets it when a spike of pain sears through his skull. Everything hurts. His side feels like it’s on fire. The back of his head is tender and aching, and his limbs might be disconnected from the rest of his body, for all he knows.

The banging gets louder, sending shockwaves through his head, and the Master groans, tries to heave himself up to a sitting position. He manages to unglue his hand from his side, where it seems to have been stuck, and a warm gush of liquid seeps between his fingers. Blood, he realizes faintly, as his abdomen seizes, an icy pain ripping through it.

Well, he’s apparently not going to be moving anytime soon.

He pinches his eyes shut, and the tension in his head distracts him momentarily from the agony tearing through his body. The banging has stopped, and he only has a second to appreciate the silence before the door swings open.

The door. The TARDIS. The Doctor.

Ah, fuck. He remembers now.

Footsteps vibrate through the floor and a cool hand presses on his throat momentarily.

“Master?” The Doctor’s voice is hoarse, breathless. Two fingers feel for the pulse in his neck. “You’re… you’re alive. That’s… good.”

The Master opens his mouth to say something, but his mouth is bone-dry and all he manages is an embarrassing half-groan, half-wheeze.

“Do you know—do you remember… the timelines…”

It’s so rare that the Doctor is lost for words. The Master rather likes him like this.

“Actually. Never mind that. Can you get up?”

The Master huffs, and the Doctor sighs. His hand slides under the Master’s head and lifts gently. It’s disorienting and very painful, but he manages to help the Master into a sitting position.

“Okay,” says the Doctor. “Right. We need to get you out of here, into my TARDIS.”

The Master licks his cracked lips. “I… died,” he rasps. “We did this, and I died.”

[foxgloveinspace]

@thoseeyeslikefire @absentviolet @kyloreno-911

It's another LONG w.i.p. Wednesday! Explanation for why I haven't been making these, I guess:

took a week off in October cause I didn't feel like taking pics, then we had company and I didn't have time to do it, and then I got sick, ugh. But now I'm back and I'm gonna try to do these when I can again, possibly not every week, maybe every other week, cause I want to spend more time reading and writing this month if I can. (it's gonna be my first 'real' NaNoWriMo. Where I have a goal and such).

first off, the confession. I frogged the cardigan part of the og skulls cardigan. I kept looking at it, and looking at it, and I went 'I'm never going to wear this, I'm just doing it, to do it'. It's gone through like, three other iterations that I haven't been talking about cause I was really just trying to figure it out. I've finally found something I'm excited about making, which is a pieced together cardigan of double crochets, where on the right side rows I crochet through the back loop only. I'm feeling very inspired by this, especially since I could work on this even when I was super foggy from having a cold. Sadly, it did not get done in time for Halloween, but also I didn't intend for it to be just for Halloween. Hopefully this is something I'll wear all winter. It's my main w.i.p. rn and I hope to get it finished this week, so I'll post finished pics when I get it done.

and another 'wellllll there was a goof' project, lol. I messed up the left sock of my hocus pocus socks. so I decided to frog it, since then it would be easier to make the heel flap and gusset of the right sock! so! i then paused the first sock until I can catch up on the second sock, and when they are both ready to knit the foot, I'll pick them both up to knit two at a time again. I just haven't been able to knit very much cause of the foggy head from my cold. But! I am really happy with these and hopefully I'll have them done before the end of the year.

I picked back up the pass the honey cardigan! mostly cause it was easy knitting while I was, again, foggy from the cold..... wow. Any way, I know it probably doesn't look like it, but I did get some progress done on it, I think like two or three pattern repeats? I wasn't sure I wanted to continue it, but then I had the thought of 'it looks like dragon scales, not just honey comb' and now I love it lol. It's my dragon scale armor now.

and now! my birthday shawl!! (The Gaia Shawl) I only did the first bit on my birthday cause I was DETERMINED to get it started on the right day. I am loving this yarn and how it's working up, and I am really liking the little bit of the pattern I've worked at well. I'm not worried about how long it takes me cause my birthday shawl last year was being worked well into January. It'll be there when I feel good enough to work on it again. The only problem is that the pattern website keeps freezing.....

small yarn haul time!

the multi colored yarn is from one of my mom's friends actually, she has sheep and she goes through the entire process with it, and I got it from her 'booth' at the Heritage Days festival in Warsaw (which is no where near where I live). I have no idea what I want to make with it?? I'm thinking a hat and some socks maybe? it is a fingering weight yarn. Definitely the hat first, and then if I have enough yarn left over the socks. It's so soft and squishy, and I really love it.

and then the blues are for a project for my sister in law.... she kinda volunteered me for it, but it'll only take me a couple days at most. It's for a pixie from Harry Potter. The yarn is nice and soft, and I guess I'm looking forward to the challenge, but also she's just...... It's complicated.

And that's it from me! Thanks for reading <3

[mlobsters]

supernatural s13e12 various & sundry villains (w. steve yockey)

oh, that's where cas was. with lucifer and ... captured by asmodeus. 100% (obviously) forgot. being i mentioned it during two other eps that i couldn't remember where he was and why no one was talking about him. this show really brings out the caricature in a lot of people. and i'm sure it's the writing that does it, but even like. alastair, i thought was.... well. cartoonish. so it's not just a later season problem. but anyway. asmodeus/his actor sure are afflicted

DEAN Okay, so we’ll just come up with a plan B, okay? You said it yourself. We just keep our heads down and we’ll do the work. SAM You said that. DEAN And I was right. Yeah. So you read, do your Sam thing, I’m gonna go for a beer run.

i dunno about all that but cute i guess

DEAN We should probably loop Cas in at some point. SAM We’ll fill him in when he calls. He checks in every day. DEAN Yeah, with a bunch of questions and no leads.

ok so cas hasn't been in an episode since 13x07, which their time is like.. i have no clue. most of those episodes in the wiki don't have a timeline thing. other than ep10 is two days after ep9, and ep11 is a few weeks after 10. so i guess asmodeus!cas?? has been offscreen calling from the cell with updates so they don't go looking for him? convenient

CASTIEL You don’t have that power, and they know it. LUCIFER Okay, well if somebody would be a pal and let me eat a little of his grace, I would have enough strength to get out of here and butcher that son of a bitch! [yelling into the distance] CASTIEL Well, that’s a nice, horrifying plan. Little cannibalism. LUCIFER Really? I seem to remember a somebody snacking on angel grace once upon a time.

i mean, seriously. what a weird thing to have cas say

well. it is a pretty effect if nothing else

i guess the marginal upside is that this is slightly less gross than becky since these witches aren't interested in the men. downside, the murdering and maiming

children. i like rowena but feels all the cheaper how they axed crowley but everyone else comes back (mark sheppard didn't want to go or come back so obviously that's a whole other thing)

ROWENA Fergus is dead? SAM Yep. DEAN Killed himself for us. ROWENA That doesn’t sound like him.

say it, steve/rowena

ROWENA Before he crushed my skull, Lucifer showed me his face. His true face. I’m scared, Sam. All the time. SAM I’ve seen it too. What he really looks like behind – behind whatever vessel. It… Yeah, still keeps me up at night. ROWENA How do you deal with it? SAM I guess I don’t deal with it. Not really. I mean, I pushed it down and, um, the world kept almost ending, so I keep pushing it down, and I don’t know. [stammering] I really don’t talk about it, not even with Dean. I mean, I could. You know, he’d listen, but… That’s not something I really know how to share.

so are we really having some bonding moment over shared lucifer trauma? because they've trained us to not believe anything she ever says at face value. and i guess tossing us a bone that they haven't forgotten about the excessive trauma sam's carrying around. and just make it hurt a little more that he doesn't know how to talk to dean about it so he's just festering. but opening up to rowena? well lol now i'm getting upset. dean had all that time in hell. ah, whatever. the show has always shown us that there's things that they're likely to dump on strangers/acquaintances instead of talking to each other.

(found myself eyerolling at some music earlier, give you one guess who the composer is. apparently jay has some sort of talent for inducing eyerolls for me)

SAM I know what Rowena is dealing with. And she’s not the only one who… feels helpless. DEAN What do you mean? SAM I mean, I had a plan, you know. I, uh… Help Jack, bring Mom back. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It – it kept me from spinning off the rails. And now… Jack is gone, Mom is still in hell, basically, and I-I-I- just… DEAN We’ll figure it out. SAM Dean, we don’t have a plan. We don’t know what to do. So – so how? DEAN I don’t know. But we will, you and me. SAM Yeah. Night.

well now i'm more sad. but compared to brotherly angst of seasons past, this is nothing so i should probably be grateful. this all feels kind of arbitrary to me because they're in these type of situations constantly. but, whatever. sam's turn to be unmoored

[echobx]

Timeloop - JJ Maybank × fem!reader

summary: JJ is stuck in a timeloop and has been falling in love with y/n but he doesn't know how to escape the loop

warnings: mention of death, smut, oral (fem receiving), face sitting, handjob, p in v (protected), no happy ending, light angst, JJ PoV

word count: 3.5k

author's note: I've been working on this for a few months bc I couldn't finish it and now I did, but I also don't like it as much as I wish I did. I hope you guys like the idea I had here. it's also not edited or formatted.

masterlist

“You love me? Real or not real?” Y/n asks, and I nod, the smile painfully quivering on my lips.

“Real.”

It's been 528 days in this time loop. She has asked me this for the last 145 days. I feel like something is changing, but maybe I've just been here for too long and know it too well. That's probably it. There are no surprises in this. It's become eerily comfortable over time, and I can't even remember why I was so scared at the start.

“And you're stuck?” she furrows her brows and her nose scrunches up a bit. She looks so damn cute like that, when she thinks too hard about something. Her hair is down in perfect beach waves, framing her gorgeous face.

“Yes, I am,” I reply softly. I know not to freak her out by speaking her words out before she can utter them. I had done it a few times before, and it never ended well. She had pushed me away and the ending had come quicker.

“I'm the key?” she questioned.

“Pretty sure yeah. It's the one thing I haven't managed to change yet to try to get out,” I explain as vaguely as I can. Yesterday I had told her, she had run off and tried to prevent it, but inadvertently it just came along faster.

“Is it a you go to bed and wake up the same day kinda thing, or are you ripped out with an event?”

“Event,” I gulp. Images flood my brain. Images of her dead body lying on the street, so many of them.

“How do we prevent this from happening?” y/n asks and rips me out of my mind.

“Haven't figured that out yet,” I shake my head and she nods.

“What does happen?”

“Someone dies.” My eyes are fixed on her, begging to stay. I have to be careful, yesterday can't happen again.

“What if we save the person's life?”

“That's the plan.”

“We just have to figure out who it is,” she mumbles, rummaging through her bag and pulling out a small green notebook. This is my favorite part, getting to see her mind work. How she taps the pen against her full lips and runs her hand through her hair.

She takes a few notes, xes them out again, scribbles something else, muttering inconsistent words to herself before looking up just slightly. She's staring at my hands, specifically the fact that I can't stop fidgeting with my rings while she tries to figure out how to not die on me. I know it's distracting, but I can't help it, I hate it all. The whole game of it.

It's been 528 days. I found her on day 279, saw the car crash into her bicycle. And then I woke up again. I realized I was falling in love with her on day 326.

I wish I knew how to make it go away, if not the time loop. Then the fact that I love her because the pain of knowing and then having to see it again, is overwhelming me from the moment I wake up again.

“JJ?” y/n reaches her hand over the table and holds onto my hand. Her touch is as soft as it had been two weeks ago when she had first done it.

“Hm?” I lift my head to look at her better, but my mind is stuck and projects the image of her split skull onto the reality.

“You can tell me. I know you know,” her soothing voice almost makes me cave.

“If I tell you, you have to promise to not leave.”

“Why?”

“Because you did yesterday,” I whisper, and she nods her head slowly.

“I promise.”

“There will be a car crash,” I start, and her eyes go wide. “And I can't do anything about it. I don't know how to prevent it. I stopped the driver who does it once, and it still happened, was just a different driver then. I tried to sabotage it, but then-” I can't even look at her, I can't continue explaining, but my eyes get stuck on her bicycle that stands just two feet from us leaning against a fence.

“I'm the key…” she stammered, her eyes racing over the page she had scribbled on, her hand squeezing mine.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered, feeling a single tear run down my cheek.

“How- I mean, how did you find out? We don't even know each other.” I can see her mind going 60 mph with thoughts too big to be spelled out to me.

“The first day I didn't notice I was stuck until people kept saying the same shit to me as the day before, then it kept happening. I showed up to work thinking it was Friday, but it was still Wednesday, and they told me to go home. I spent most of my days surfing and shit, then doing some more illegal things. I can't die here either, tried that one already.”

She looks at me in complete shock, and I decide that I'm not gonna mention it next time.

“Wasn't on my account, I just did something stupid and was taken out by some guy. Then I started wandering around, and I saw it happen, and then I woke up again. Back in my own bed.”

“Okay, that's- okay,” y/n nods and shakes her head at the same time. “The closest time you come to it, to fixing it?”

“Ran us both over, hurts like hell,” I say, but I shake my head to try to remove the memory from my inner eye.

“What if we just never go to where it happens? What if we wait until the next morning and the clocks have changed and no one is dead?” she sounds hopeful, I don't want to tell her that it doesn't work. We had tried it a month ago, but she hadn't even known about it.

“We can try,” I smile. Even if I have to do it all again tomorrow, I'll still take every single moment she gives me.

“Have you ever tried to find out what could've happened to make this happen?”

“I don't know.”

“I mean, what happened yesterday? My yesterday, not yours,” she giggles, and I feel the butterflies in my stomach.

“It was a normal day. Work and going home to smoke, that's all,” I shrug, there was really nothing out of the ordinary with how that day had gone by.

“What about the first time you experienced today?”

“I slept in, went to get some food, went surfing, smoked and fell asleep.”

“You smoke a lot,” she nods repeatedly while my thumb draws gentle circles on the back of her hand.

“Normal amount,” I smile and she laughs.

“My normal amount is zero.”

“I know, princess.” She blushes at the nickname, she does so every time, and it completely enamors me every time I see it.

“Show me where you live, maybe there's a clue there,” she lets go of my hand and jumps up. “What?”

“You've just never done that before, is all,” I admit, and she smiles wider.

“I'm learning,” she jokes and takes my hand back in hers as soon as I get up.

“I've lived my whole life on this island, how come I've never seen you before?” I ask what I had been wondering for months, but had never gotten around to asking.

“Just moved here. My mom's from here, my dad's from Cleveland, that's where I grew up,” she explains quickly.

“When did you move?”

“Two days ago.”

“Fuck,” I sigh and she nods.

“Yeah, probably.”

We let the silence settle as I walk her towards the Cut. My heart is racing because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if she's gonna run, and I'll lose her again, or worse if she stays and- I don't know what I should want to happen.

“Do you think the other people's lives just keep on going while you're stuck? Like, is there a version of you out there that got out and is living his best life?” y/n rips me out of my head and I for once don't know how to answer.

“I don't know, I never thought of it.”

“You should think about it. And if it doesn't work out today, you can just tell me tomorrow,” she smiles up at me, so pretty and innocent and not broken, yet.

“You don't think it's weird that some random guy just came up to you and told you he loved you and all of that bullshit?” I ask.

“It's weird, yes, but I think I wouldn't do it differently if roles were reversed. I mean, you've known me for way longer than I have, and you're not as bad as you might think,” she nudges my side and chuckles.

“If I get out, you won't know if I was telling the truth or not,” I reply, and she shrugs.

“When you get out, I'm gonna have to expect an actual date, though,” she flashes her eyebrows at me and I laugh.

“Deal.”

She's walking around the house and yard, inspecting it carefully. I don't know what she is trying to find, so I just stand there watching her in silence.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she mumbles and moves on, down the hallway and towards my old bedroom.

“It's not very clean, you don't wanna go in there,” I note, but she just looks at me with a cocked eyebrow and opens the door anyway.

“Dusty,” she waves her hand in front of her face and moves on. “Typical teenage boy room.”

“Is that something bad?” I ask and instead guide her to my new bedroom, technically my dad's, but he left.

“Not at all. Just expected it in a way,” she grins.

“This is my actual bedroom,” I say as I open the door to reveal the somewhat clean room with the king-sized bed in it.

“What happened to your parents?”

“My mom left when I was a kid, and my dad about a year ago in your time,” I sigh and watch her sit down on my bed.

“Cozy,” y/n smiles.

“I wouldn't call it-” I stop my rambles when I see the look she's giving me, she's nervous and it's making my heart race. “Maybe it's a little cozy.”

“JJ, be honest with me, have we ever, you know?” she gestures with her hands and I walk over and sit down by her side.

“No.”

“Okay,” she nods, and I place my hand on top of hers that is resting on her thigh. Her breathing is going heavier and her eyes are closed, bottom lip tucked between her teeth.

“Why'd you ask?” I rasp, brushing a few hairs behind her ear to expose her delicate neck.

“I don't know,” she hushes, and I let my fingertips trail down her spine. “Just curious.”

“Haven't even gotten to kiss you yet, princess,” I whisper in her ear, and she lets out a choked gasp.

“If you haven't tried that before, how do you know it's not the solution?” Y/n slowly turns her head to look at me. Her eyes are nearly black, and her lips look softer than anything I've ever seen.

“It's your life,” I whisper, and she nods.

“If I die, we can try again tomorrow.”

She tastes like lemons and honey, and it fills me up. There's nothing else I wanna taste until I die, nothing more I wish to hear but her soft moans when she kisses me back. There's an urgency in the way she clasps my shirt, pulling and pushing at the same time. My fingers are entangled in her hair, softly pulling, and she lets me in; lets me devour her in the same way I had dreamed of, for months.

I move back on the bed, pulling her on top of me, not breaking the kiss because I'm too scared she'll vanish if I do. It feels surreal, and I'm sure she's just as nervous as me.

She pulls away, but I keep chasing her lips with small kisses until she turns her head and my mouth finds her neck. She smells even better there, like lime and ginger, and I'm so focused on how much I love her that I don't hear her words the first time she calls out to me.

“JJ, can you please,” she asks again, and I look up at her. Y/n is like an angel, glowing and radiant and the prettiest girl I had ever gotten to lay my eyes on.

“Yes?”

“Can we take this off?” She pulls on my shirt, and I don't take another second before pulling it over my head. Her eyes go wide, and she starts running her soft hands all over my chest. “Not bad.”

“I can take my pants off too,” I suggest with a smirk, and she blushes but nods. She's still in her dress, and I don't want to pressure her. It's a beautiful white summer dress, not too short but not too long either. It's perfect and she looks ethereal in it.

But the way she looks up at me as I stand in front of her with nothing but my boxer briefs on- No one has ever looked at me like she does, and I wish this to be the end of it, no more loop, no more pain. Just me and her forever. And if I had the choice between her death and making her be stuck in the loop with me, I know what I'd go for.

“You can still say no,” I remind her, but she shakes her head rapidly, pulling me back onto the bed.

“Sit, please,” she smiles shyly and gets up instead, placing herself between my legs and my hands automatically finding their way to her thighs. Soft and squishy and to die in between. Hesitantly she pushes one of the straps down, freeing her arm, then the other. The dress slips down to her hips, revealing the rose colored lace bra. My eyes jump from her tits back up to her face, she's gnawing at her lip but nods.

Her body is like a holy grail that I get to besmudge. Kissing and sucking on her tits while her moans send jolts to my dick. It's so much, but it's not enough, and the more I kiss and lick, the more I need her to be fully mine.

She lets out a gasp when I pull the dress down and kiss her stomach and farther down, letting my lips hover over her wet slip.

“Are you sure?” I ask, looking up at her, and she nods, pushing me to lie down and a moment later she's on top of me. Rolling her wet cunt over my dick and I nearly lose myself already.

“You're incredibly pretty, you know that?” she smirks and boops my nose while my hands are rubbing over her ass.

“You wanna sit on it?”

“Just might,” y/n smiles while sitting up and lets me pull her closer.

I don't care that she hovers, not yet. Not as long as I can kiss her through her slip, getting a faint taste of her until she begs me for more.

The flimsy material is pushed to the side as I plant the first kiss on her pussy. And she tastes like heaven, making me moan into her before I pull her down.

My eyes are fixed on her face, beautifully contorted with pleasure when my lips close around her clit, sucking harshly, even worse so when I plunge my tongue into her. She starts rolling her hips, pressing my nose against her clit with every stride she takes. My hands grope at her thighs, and I feel like life suddenly has a meaning again. Her eyes lock with mine and I moan into her.

“Gonna cum, JJ,” she screams, and I keep going, slurping every little bit of her cum out of her pussy before I let go of her, and she falls down by my side.

“Never had someone offer that,” she's panting, and I can only grin.

“They were all pretty fuckin’ stupid then.” I turn and start kissing her neck, leaving a mark won't matter either way.

“J, please,” she begs, and I can feel the tiny butterflies in my stomach flutter.

“Tell me what you need, baby,” I whisper, or nearly growl into her ear, and she mewls.

“Fuck me, JJ, please,” she says and pulls me into a kiss, her hand reaching for my dick and stroking it through the confinement of my boxers. It's a guttural groan I emit from my throat.

“If you don't stop, I'm gonna cum,” I warn her, but she just smirks and slips her hand up just enough to pull at the waistband of my underwear.

“You love me?” she asks and grabs hold of my cock, lightly squeezing as she pumps it and my head falls to her shoulder.

“Fuck, yes, I do. Love you so much, princess. Don't stop.” The words spill out of me, and she laughs softly until my lips find the sweet spot on her neck again, sucking harshly while her hand brings me closer to my release.

“You wanna fuck me so bad, don't you, pretty boy,” she whispers in my ear and I sigh, my teeth grazing over her soft skin.

“Need you, my love. Need you so fucking much,” I moan, and she quickens her movements, jerking me off harsher, and I can't do anything but mutter some curses until I feel my balls go tense, and I cum all over her stomach.

Panting, I lie by her side and watch her clean herself off with my shirt. The proud smile on her lips is simply gorgeous, and it makes me forget all about the predicament we find ourselves in.

“You're so beautiful,” I breathe, and her cheeks turn a dark pink before she bets her lashes at me.

“Thank you. You wanna fuck me now?”

“You're so direct,” I laugh lightly, and she shrugs, watches me get up and pick a condom from the drawer in the nightstand.

“I don't have much time to not be, do I?” y/n says, and I can't argue.

Her kisses are needy, and her hands claw at my back as I fuck her slow and deliciously. I feel like I might be in heaven from the way her soft, warm walls are hugging me tightly, and from the way her lips stay parted in between kisses to let out a plethora of noises, just for me.

It's more intimate than any sex I ever had, but it's good like that. Our fingers intertwined as I press her into the mattress; her legs hooked around my waist, not letting me go; how deeply she's letting me fuck her, nearly rearranging her guts in the process.

“Faster, JJ,” she whimpers and I comply. Pacing myself while giving her what she needs. I could've cum the moment I had entered her, but I don't want this to end. I don't want to leave her ever again now that I know what she feels like, what she sounds like, what she tastes like.

“Being so good to me, princess,” I praised her, attaching my lips to her neck and sucking hickeys into her skin.

“Make me cum,” she mewled, and I pulled a hand down to her clit. Drawing harsh circles while the palm of my hand pushes into her stomach, making me feel how deep I'm fucking her.

“Be my good girl and cum for me,” I rasp in her ear before biting down on her earlobe. That's all it takes to tip her over the edge.

She squeezes me so hard I have issues fucking her through it, but she knows and whispers in my ear, “let go for me.”

It's an easy fix, to get hard and cum, but to lose yourself in someone else, is something entirely different from that. It's thrilling and addictive.

So, when I have to pull out, I can't stop thinking about just doing it all again. Fucking her senseless until we both forgot about reality.

But y/n is quicker than I. She's up and starts to put her clothes back on.

“What are you doing?” I ask quietly, and she runs a hand through her messy hair.

“Getting ready to go home,” she smiles.

“I thought we could do something else later. Hang out or something,” I mumble, and she sighs while putting her shoes back on.

I can only pull up my boxers and follow her as she makes her way outside.

“This was good and all, but I can't stay. My mom is waiting for me at home, I really can't stay. I want to, but I can't. Besides, if you weren't so good in bed, I might be mad at how stupidly good that tactic was,” she laughs and takes another step towards the street.

“It's not a tactic, y/n. Don't go, please,” I beg, but she's taking another step, and another.

“I guess we'll never know,” she shrugs and turns around, walking away from me for good. And when I close my eyes I hear the screeching tires and the thud and a moment later I'm back in bed.

Wednesday, 09:43am.

And it all starts anew.

please don't copy and/or post my work onto other platforms! ~e©ho

taglist: @redhead1180 @spideysimpossiblegirl @drwstarkeyy @princessmaybank @ijustwantttoread @kys4-20 @immyowndefender @julczimocarz

[nightcall99]

Notes from 13.1.23

I still feel unsteady, like I'm on a boat and the world is the sea.

This morning I woke up to a text message, sent at 1:04am. I wrote, "Lately I have this sensation like I'm leaving my skull soon" and they replied, "You're unplugging the remaining cords?".

The other day, the pendant had fallen off but I was still wearing the necklace. The pendant loop where the necklace gets threaded into is a solid, continuous loop so how can that be? When I took off the necklace and tried to thread the pendant back on, it was impossible. Both the clasp and the fastening piece were too large to fit through the pendant loop. Reality glitch.

Everything keeps breaking down at work. We've had a power blackout, two fridge meltdowns, various machines not working, important software not getting fixed etc. A higher-up complained about our happy polaroid photos on the wall so I took them all down. A new doctor down the road is writing scripts trying to kill people. Many people rely on our automated medication re-fill service and we probably fill at least 30-40 orders daily in this way. So that’s like 200 people a week. The service has been down for a month but only a handful of people have come to order their medicines in person. Is everyone else just going cold-turkey? Where are all these people? They don't exist.

My memory has become awful. I look at things and people, confused. My mother looks too thin. My dad looks so fucking old all of a sudden. The two friends I still talk to are depressed and hopeless and want to exit the matrix. I begin to get sad but stop myself, I don't want to play anymore.

Anyway, none of it matters. Everything I just wrote is just another game I play and I'm bored. The dreams I record, boring. Another game. I'm in a dream and there's no separation between the dream and I. Reality is a fish bowl, which is God's eyeball. Everything is turning to dust because I made it so. I no longer want to act surprised.

And all these dreams about being late and not knowing what to wear, they're so pitiful. So mundane. So.... nothing. Can you imagine going to an alien planet and recounting that? “Hey A-dawg, yeah so toward the end of my human life I kept having dreams about not knowing what outfit to wear. I notice you're nude, do you perchance know what clothes are?". I’m literally so embarrassed. I’m laughing because that’s been the pinnacle of my dream life for months on end. This supposed stewing in the emotion of 'not being ready'. Wtf? I'm absolutely bored to tears. Yeah, I'll stop that now.

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2004): Community Chest 2

Step right up! Step right up, kids! Uncle Doomworld will give you a chance to show off your work in the second Community Chest!

...

Wait a minute-moment...

SECOND?

G9: Community Chest 2

Main author(s): Various (Project led by Dale Harris)

Release date: December 6th, 2004 (database upload)

Version played: ???

Required port compatibility: Boom

Levels: 32 (classic roster)

Well, this is an odd one. What we have here is another WAD that I played before due to Dean of Doom spoiler tagging one of the maps and another one where we ignore the first installment and go straight into the following one.

If we want to talk about this compilation, we need to first talk about the series it comes from: Community Chests.

The concept was born on August 14th, 2002, when one of the members of TeamTNT, Dale Harris (Cadman), came out with an idea of a project that would help some of the less popular WAD makers give their time in the spotlight.

TLDR, the first Community Chest, released on June 13th, 2003, was a rather successful but also controversial WAD, due to one of the project’s members being found dead around over three weeks before the WADs release.

A personal note here but maybe it ended up good that that WAD didn’t end up on the Top 100 WADs of All Time list since knowing the infamy of Citadel at the Edge of Eternity, I would probably lose whatever marbles I have right now if I’ll ever play it.

As for today's installment, its rules were that the maps had to be compatible with Boom. Features of this source port were allowed, just as custom textures and muzak. Also, this WAD was released twice due to being unfinished the first time it happened.

As usual, when it comes to projects featuring many maps from many authors, it can spiral into a mixed-bag. CC2 is definitely this kind of a WAD so it will all come down to how much fun I ended up having.

Let’s take a look at Community Chest 2 and see if we found gold in a pile of copper.

From looking at the maps’ visuals I’ll say that it could’ve been worse. Yes, some maps look like your typical, stock Doom map, but there are moments when you come out at something that looks incredible, even if the map uses nothing but stock textures. Even the ugliest maps looked better than some of the maps from Hell Revealed II. Maps like Death Mountain, Gethsemane, and Event Horizon are some of the more eye-appealing ones in my opinion.

Seventeen maps use custom music, ranging from music from Doom I to the MIDIfied versions of tracks from other games/media. There is even one map that has the original music track made especially for it.

It definitely felt better when I played a map that doesn’t have Classic Doom music. Let me tell you though, that after the first map, you will be forced to play up to Shadow of Evil until you start hearing something that isn’t from Classic Doom. Which kind of brings us to how Kitchen Ace (And Taking Names) doesn’t loop properly in The View. Like, the fact this glitch happens with the Classic Doom music astonishes me. Then again, this feels unsurprising with this when I’m playing WADs using GZDoom.

While I feel like this compilation wasn’t as tedious to play as Hell Revealed II, it still had maps that overestimated their welcome, with stuff like egregious backtracking, crate mazes, multiple instances of timed switches in a row, and much more annoying stuff that Mock 2 made fun off. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t any gems in CC2.

The first two maps, for instance, were excellent to hook people in. Erik Alm’s The Furnace felt like a really good warm-up, while Coolant Platform was great at introducing Boom’s features to the player; to show them what might happen in the future maps.

There are also three more maps that I want to talk about:

To Hell and Back basically explains its concept with its title alone: You start out in the base, and you grab keys to access the teleporter to Hell to grab the red skull. Shame, however, that it ends on another Dead Simple clone.

City Heat makes you explore nine buildings to find a switch in each one to finish it, both with normal and secret exits. It also summons an army of demons every ten minutes (it happens three times). Fuck building #8 though.

The previously mentioned Death Mountain uses tricks with fast teleporters simulating entering/exiting caves (not counting one command building).

Also, the last map, In Threes, ends on your below efforts Icon of Sin boss (or should I say, Crosses of Sin). At least this time you have to press three switches with a set of six keys instead of standing like an idiot and shooting that one tiny spot to hurt John Romero.

Changing the subject, this compilation was, of course, easier than Hell Revealed II. But be aware that there are still some really hard maps, either for right or wrong reasons.

The perfect example of the worst kind of cheap difficulty is the ending of No Room. It was overall a very pretty level with questionable fights but the very last part is a complete spit on your face: Ending up surrounded by Hoovies with no cover after reaching the fake exit! AND IT HAPPENS FIVE TIMES!!!

WHAT IS THE REASON BEHIND THIS BULLSHIT?! TO MAKE THE MAP HARDER?! WELL GUESS WHAT?! IT DIDN’T MAKE THE MAP HARDER! IT ONLY MADE LINGUICA LOOK LIKE AN ASSWIPE!!

Hey... Hey! Wanna know a fair way to beat this part?! Activate God Mode, and punch the living shit out of Hoovies (if you found the Berserk Pack that is)!

sigh

Fuck this moment.

The bugs that I encountered were more enjoyable than what I just described to you. No game-breakers, just your typical holes into the void among other stuff described in the text file and Doomwiki.

Also, ironic that you need a Boom-compatible source port and yet Boom itself couldn’t play Sodding Death because it’s too big for that port and The Mucus Flow because Boom breaks one of the switches.

And now that I finally mentioned B.P.R.D.’s The Mucus Flow you might be wondering, why I didn’t talk about this map before? Simple... Because it almost feels like a masterpiece that should be played before even thinking about watching videos/reading stuff related to this map. It might probably be the biggest reason why you should even bother to download CC2.

But there is also one author that needs to be talked about but unlike The Mucus Flow, this guy is here for the wrong reasons (probably) – Gene. Big. Bird.

Scare Chord

Ah yes! Gene Bird! That one map maker that will make MtPain27 start foaming from his mouth and turn into MDK mode to singlehandedly slaughter him for mere breathing (especially if Gene Bird looks like Big Yellow Bird from Sesame Street).

But there is a legitimate reason why MtPain would give Gene Bird an F just for existing – His maps are pure, 1994 chaos!

The maps’ style is chaotic! The way of playing them is chaotic! The enemy placement is chaotic! The secrets are chaotic! All of his maps scream complete and utter mess! Even his final map, Desecration, feels like that despite being the only one that was created for this compilation! You heard it right folks! His first FOUR maps were created before Community Chest 2 was released, making me think that these were added as filler maps because not enough people were interested in this project!

But... BUT... Let me tell you something people, as I’m going to play Gene Bird’s devil's advocate for a moment: His maps aren’t the worst maps I’ve played.

Yeah, despite his maps being one giant mess, at least I could understand where to go! I could understand what to do! I could understand what was going on! At least I felt like Gene Bird’s maps didn’t waste my time like some of the ZDoom-focused WADs or other moon-logic filth!!

...

So uhm... now that I stopped talking about Gene Bird and his maps, is it worth downloading Community Chest 2?

...

Kind of? If only for The Mucus Flow and other maps that I covered in a positive light.

And as for my overall experience with this compilation – it was fine. I played worse.

This megaWAD suffers from a typical compilation syndrome – its best moments are sandwiched between maps that can be considered mediocre at best.

And now that I think about it, CC2 feels just as tiring to play as Hell Revealed II. it may not be as hard as the latter, but considering how the maps were created with being standalone in mind, it felt longer to finish them.

Thankfully, the last map of the 2004 roster sounds interesting enough to take only one day break after posting this review.

I’ll see you next time.

Bye.

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Day 127: Fake Dating

"It's just annoying," Draco continued as he and Harry packed up for the night. "Literally every single party or brunch, I am hounded about when I'll start dating someone." He slammed his desk drawer closed, "I'm a bloody auror! I haven't got time to date anyone," he groaned. "And now I have this party tonight and I just know-"

"I'll go with you," Harry offered.

He broke off and stared at the other man. "What?"

"Yeah," Harry said with a shrug, "I'll go and be your pretend boyfriend, it would be easy to fake that we're dating since we already know everything about each other."

"But," he started, tilting his head at the other man, "Then people will think we're dating."

"I thought that was the point?"

He stared at Harry, waiting for it to click. When no click was forthcoming he said "but then people would think you're dating me."

"Am I missing something here?"

He rolled his eyes, "I don't think you quite understand what dating me entails."

"Ah, need to be pampered, darling? Wined and dined? Roses on Tuesday and dinner on Friday nights? I could bring you coffee in the morning-"

"I- What?" Draco spluttered. "No! No. Merlin, that's not what I'm saying, although, yes if we're being honest I want to be absolutely doted upon," he added.

"Obviously."

"Wait," he said, shaking his head to clear it, "You're missing the fucking point."

(Read more below the cut)

"Sorry," Harry said, smirking at him and not looking sorry at all, "What's the point?"

"The point," Draco said, poking him in the chest, "Is that dating me is not a pleasant experience."

"Oh come on," Harry teased, "You're not that bad."

"I am a fucking delight," he replied, exasperated, "I am saying that the press will make your life hell."

"Ah," he said, nodding, "I have no idea what dealing with the press is like."

"The press has been kind to you for at least the past decade because of the whole saving the world nonsense," Draco replied as he opened the door and held it open for Harry.

"Except for the lurid months after I came out and all sorts of lies were spread about me," Harry replied wryly.

He shook his head and headed toward the floos, "Even those were mostly flattering," he added with a lewd glance.

Harry laughed, "Whatever. My point," he said, poking him in the shoulder, "is that I'm not afraid of the press." He bumped his shoulder against Draco's, "Come on. What have you got to lose?"

"Fine," he huffed but his stomach was silently doing back flips while his heart did a complicated tap routine in his chest. "Meet me at the Screaming Goblin at 7:00pm sharp." He stepped toward the floo and turned, "Don't dress like a homeless person," he added before stepping into the floo.

---------------

Harry did not dress like a homeless person. In fact it was quite the opposite.

Harry looked fucking hot.

He was wearing tight dark-wash jeans and a lightweight jumper that hugged his body, making his strong, broad shoulders look even broader and his trim waist even narrowed. He'd done his hair, putting enough product in his curls to make them look artfully tousled and not a mess. And he'd arrived before Draco but instead of waiting, he'd gone in and bought Draco's friends a round and was sitting and yammering away at them.

As Draco approached, Harry turned his head and gave him a wide grin, "Hey, babe," he said, standing up and pulling out Draco's chair for him.

"Hi," he said weakly.

Harry pressed a kiss to his temple and a thrill shot through Draco's body as his brain went pleasantly fuzzy.

And thank Merlin for Harry because Draco hardly answered a question all night, hardly even heard a question all night because he was too busy focusing on the way it felt to have Harry's fingers trailing through the hair at the base of his skull. Harry talked and laughed with Draco's friends like they'd all been friends for ages as he sat with his arm resting on the back of Draco's chair.

When it was time to go, Harry helped Draco into his coat and bid all of the former Slytherins goodbye as he wrapped his arm through Draco's.

The bar wasn't far from Draco's but still Harry murmured, "Can I walk you?"

And Draco found himself charmed into saying yes.

Harry hummed, quiet now that all of Draco's friends were gone, but he still kept his arm looped through Draco's as they walked. When they arrived at Draco's front door Harry asked, "Everything alright?"

Draco's eyes snapped to his and he nodded, "I just can't believe how well they took to you."

He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and grinned up at Draco from the bottom step, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Well, I can be very charming, what can I say?"

"It's a little strange-" Draco started but Harry leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Draco's mouth and every word that Draco knew disappeared.

"Don't overthink it," he said with a wink. Then he turned and started off down the sidewalk calling, "See you tomorrow," over his shoulder.

Draco was half way to bed before he realized that there was no one watching when Harry kissed him on his door step.

------------

They spent the next two weeks fake dating and it was the best dating experience Draco had ever had. Harry was sweet and doting, just like Draco had said he wanted and Draco enjoyed that thoroughly.

But what he hadn't expected enjoying as much as he did was being good to Harry in return. While Draco loved to be praised and brought little treats, Harry loved to be touched. He melted when Draco ran his fingers through his hair; when Draco held his hand, he got a huge dopey grin on his face that took hours to disappear; and even a casual touch, fingers trailing over the small of his back when Draco walked by, made his lips twitch up as he leaned into the touch.

Draco was quickly, and disconcertingly, becoming addicted to those smiles.

Smiles were in short supply that day, though. The case they'd worked had been tough. Harry was scowling at the folder splayed out in front of him, his jaw clenched as he filled in paperwork.

"Hey," Draco murmured as he slipped behind him and slowly rubbed Harry's shoulders.

Harry dropped his quill and leaned back into the touch, "Hey," he murmured, closing his eyes.

"Alright?" Draco asked.

He nodded, "I just hate the ones with kids."

"They're going to be alright, though," he said.

"Yeah," he agreed, "But it just brings up bad memories." He shook his head and covered Draco's hand with his own. "Want to get out of here?"

"What did you have in mind?" he asked as he combed his fingers through Harry's soft curls.

Harry tipped his head back to look up at Draco, "this is nice," he said softly. "Want to go back to mine and I'll make you dinner? Then I'll lay with my head on your lap and you can stroke my hair?" he asked wistfully and Draco's heart stuttered in his chest.

"That sounds an awful lot like dating."

"Yeah," Harry affirmed.

"But there's no one there-"

Harry pulled away, breaking Draco's contact with him, "You're right," he said, nodding as he stood up and started shoving files into his bag. "Forget it."

"Harry-"

"No, it's fine," he said, giving him a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You're right. I'm just," he shrugged helplessly. "Forget it," he repeated as he grabbed his bag and headed to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"But-" Draco started before realizing it was useless because Harry was gone. He packed up his things and headed home, this was what he should have been worried about; pretending to be dating had been a terrible idea.

When he got home he flooed Pansy and told her everything. "And now I don't know what to do," he finished, imaging Harry at home all alone make dinner.

"You're such an idiot," Pansy groaned.

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes. "You do know that we all knew you thought it was fake, don't you."

"What?"

"We all knew. Potter told us that first night when we met up for drinks," she said.

He frowned, "Why? Why would he say that? And why haven't you said anything?"

"Because he asked us not to. He said he was really into you, or whatever," she said flippantly, "And that he thought he could win you over by showing you how great dating him could be. He begged us to play along."

He stared at her, mouth open, "He feels the same?" he breathed.

"Yeah," she said. "Obviously."

"I've got to go," he said, abruptly ending the call so he could floo to Harry's flat.

He stumbled out of the floo and immediately called for the other man, "Harry!" he shouted, heading toward the kitchen. "Harry!"

The other man's head appeared outside of the kitchen doorway, "Draco?" he asked as though he couldn't believe his ears.

Draco took one look at him and then closed the gap between them in three steps before wrapping his arms around him and kissing him.

Harry dropped whatever he'd been holding and it shattered at their feet but Draco didn't care because he was kissing Harry Potter and that was all that mattered at the moment. He poured his heart and soul into the kiss and Harry met him with the same.

"Me too," he gasped when he pulled back.

"What?" Harry asked, looking a bit dazed and Draco could hardly blame him.

"I'm into you too," he said. "Or whatever you said to Pansy that first night."

"I told them I was in love with you," he confessed. "You still want to own that?"

He nodded and threw himself at Harry again, kissing him and wrapping his arms tight around his neck.

The next time they parted Harry asked hopefully, "So, do you want to stay for dinner?"

"How about I stay forever?" he asked, grinning wide at the other man.

He nodded, "Even better."

--------------------

Day 126: Arranged Marriage | Day 128: Snake

[veritable-trash]

Golden Boy pt. 2

Pairing: Ben Miller x F!Reader

Words: 3.9k(bro this was a fucking JOURNEY)

Warning: SMUT smutty smut smut heheheh so 18+ just a little fingering action and Benny talking dirty which that combo was a doozy to my mental well being this evening wheeeeew

A/N: alright bitches i did it. i finally wrote part 2 for golden boy like i said i would and that was HARD AS HELL. god writing isn't as easy as they make it out to be(no one says it's easy this is just my brain telling me if i'm not good at something immediately i suck, it's hell round these parts) Anywaysssss i'm trying to keep a positive light on this because i'm still getting into all this and this was my first like sorta long piece with a lot more dialogue and world building and character building so i'm giving myself some grace. i tried and i can't look at this anymore and i just want to throw this out and close my eyes. so i hope yall enjoy this and find comfort in benny just being the most lovely dude. i want benny to finger fuck me into next week, every week. sorry that might have been tmi but i'm so tired my brain has melted officially. ok i'm going to bed now enjoy sending you hugs and kisses and well wishes alwayssssss <33333333333

~~~

It had been six years. Six years of the same old town with the same painful memories that seemed to be crystallized in its very foundation. You don’t know if it was the masochist in you or what but you just couldn’t seem to bring yourself to leave. Because the pain was familiar, something you knew how to move through. The new was scary, with edges you could cut and bleed on. Something you had done enough of, no thanks to this town.

Though your pain was layered, there was one that truly never left you. One you saw on every street corner, etched into the cracks in the sidewalk. Benny still tortured your thoughts. Every year the sting started to ebb into something less gut wrenching. But only just.

You seemed to be on a never ending cycle of shoving everything so far down you thought it disappeared, to having it claw it’s way across the glass in your throat till all you could do was cry and wallow on random Sundays. But those Sundays were finally starting to get less frequent.

Benny hadn’t come back and with the distance slowly you started started to mend. The patches weren’t the strongest and your resolve didn’t fare much better but it was happening. You didn’t have to see him riding around in his pick up blasting some country tune while his eyes sparkled like something magical. You were totally over him you swear.

~~~

The diner you had been working at since you graduated high school was your personal hell. A contraption made up of all the things that made you want to crawl out of your skin. The awful, purple vinyl seats. The yellowing tables with chipping paint. The menus that stayed sticky no matter how many times you wiped them. Everyone swears that it’s charming and “vintage” but you just thought it smelt like week old frying oil and murdered dreams. Yours to be exact.

This hadn’t been your plan obviously. You had strived for more, wanted for escape, but your mom had been sick. For years. And that cut off a lot of options when money wasn’t exactly free flowing. So you stayed and worked and it was fine because honestly college was probably never meant for you. School had been torture and work had been secure and you had lacked security your whole life.

It was only a year after that fateful graduation that your mom passed. It had been quiet and gut-wrenchingly painful but it was just the two of you and that’s how you both had wanted it to be. You still cried in secret adding to the tears you already drowned in, but there was peace in having her pass the way she had wanted and when she was ready. Your life seemed to be never ending lose but at least now there wasn’t anything left to loose. It was just you.

And all of that was all looping it’s way around your skull when that grating entry bell rang reminding you that you still worked here, and your dreams were yellowing just like the menus.

A chatter filled the diner as you tried to assemble yourself with a plastic smile. It wasn’t too busy thankfully but it was late, 10 PM on a Friday, and you had just caught your breath after the high school football game crowd blew through here like the beaches of fucking Normandy.

It had been a night and every single customer, no matter how sweet, made you grit your teeth.

And as you turn towards the counter your chest caves.

It’s Benny. And Will. And some two other random guys, but it’s Benny. Sitting down at the corner booth about to see you and you’re wearing an itchy, polyester diner dress most likely from the 50’s.

You wish the world would drop out from under you but your luck had run out years ago and those torturous blue eyes land on you before you could duck under the counter. And now it’s like there is no air left in the room.

Confusion, and shock, maybe even a little regret flit over his features before he’s up almost as fast as he sat down. Crossing the room in long strides with a level of determination that had seldom been directed at you.

You’re gripping the menus so tight they squeak under your nails. He’s right here. Standing right across the counter from you and it’s like there’s been a time lapse. Like some parallel dimension has crossed over and you’re somehow looking at Benny from two universes away, not your Benny.

But you know it’s not true because as soon as that tiny, sheepish smile crosses his lips, and his eyes flicker down to his busted converse, it couldn’t be anyone other than your Benny.

“I like the outfit. Really suites you and that whole 50’s housewife vibe you’ve always had going on.”

“Benny is that seriously the first thing you’re gonna say to me? After six years? I swear to god I want to smack you with my shoe, I-“

“God I’ve missed you.” It’s said on a sigh. So soft, sweet like something made out of warm air and sunflowers, like the honey days of summer. It seems to run down your throat, stuttering your breath and making you lose words.

“Huh still the same sweet talker, why am I not surprised?”

“No, I’m serious. I’ve been thinking about you. Honestly don’t think I’ve ever stopped thinking about you-“

“Ben, I-Ben I need you to be serious. I can’t do all of this sweetness when you left. Remember? And though you might have been thinking about me, I haven’t heard from you in years. A lot has changed and those blue eyes and pout never worked on me in the first place.” His eyes flicker hurt. He huffs a laugh that seems almost painful.

“You know that I wrote you. I kept writing to you even after you stopped writing back. And even then I hoped you understood why I left. Understood that I needed to go even if I was dying, dying, to stay.”

Now you grew sheepish. You had stopped writing. For your own mental health, but there was no way to tell him that. You had just ghosted his letters until he finally stopped. There was no easy way for you to tell him that these letters were shredding your heart to pieces. That one more honey coated word from him would probably send you into cardiac arrest.

Your heart was too weak for him, and you couldn’t handle the aches anymore.

But now looking at him and hearing his voice for the first time in so many years, you were filled with strange regret. Regret that those letters were hidden. That you never wrote back, hide from your best friend, from someone you loved. Not that he would ever get to know those secrets. Those murmured dreams.

“I’m sorry, Benny, I really am. I ju-I just got busy and in my own head about it. I thought you didn’t even want to hear from me.”

“But I wrote you. I didn’t write to anyone else. Other than my mom, but I mean, you know how that goes.” His smile barely hit his eyes, the usual crows feet staying hidden.

You place the menus on the counter, your hands now moving to grip the edge of the your apron.

“We can’t do this here Benny. I want to talk but I’m at work and I can see your friends and brother already starting to ask one too many questions in their own heads that even we don’t know the answers to, so I am going to send you back to your table. Come back after 11:30 if you really wanna talk, ok?”

The way he looked at you was like watching a tornado up close. There was so much going on, but all you were trying to do was lock in on one thing. Your fingers twitched with how much you wanted to touch him.

“Ok, 11:30. But I’m gonna be here, and we are talking.” There was that certainty level of determination back again, laced through his words. As you watched him walk back to his booth, your mind stutter stepped.

~~~

You got to close that night by yourself. Thank God. You had been dying the past hour and half, fidgeting and glancing up at Benny’s table till they finally left, and now you had a few quiet moments to breath as you cleaned up.

Tables got wiped down. Breath in. Menus stacked. Breath out. Locking up the front. Breath in-

Through the glass of the door you could see Benny leaning against his car. Waiting for you.

He simply waves and your breath is now trapped in your lungs. You can see your reflection in the glass and you look the picture of a deer in headlights. Wide eyes, mouth slightly parted, you feel yourself heat up all over.

You try to school your features, a simple wave your response, but the second you turn your brain goes into overdrive.

Why is he here? What does he want to talk about? Is he seeing someon- Nope, nope you were not going down that path. Your hands scrub at your face as you try to settle. You flip the light switch, the diner descends into darkness, and you step out into the cool night air.

“Sorry, closing took a bit longer than expected. It was just me tonight” He straightens up as you approach and you’re now realizing how big he his. He’s filled out since high school and the planes of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders makes you almost trip over your feet.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a perfect night, I wouldn’t want to be inside anyways.” You’re expecting him to continue but he just watches you. His arms crossed over his broad chest, golden hair disheveled like he’d been pulling at it, but blue eyes swimming with mirth.

The silence stretched and your hands started to twist on themselves. You hated silence, always made you nervous and chatty, and you knew Benny was well aware of that fact.

“Benny are you seriously gonna just stand there and say nothing? I mean-“

“Can’t I just look at you for a second? I haven’t gotten to see you in six years and I’m trying to soak it all in, alright?” His head cocks to the side, eyes taking you in head to toe, and you have to fight tooth and nail not to shiver. You can feel a thickness filling the air, a tension you didn’t understand.

“Ben you said you wanted to talk, so talk. How long are you here? Where are you staying? How was being overseas? I mean seriously anything it has been six years.” Nerves start clawing at your throat, needing to understand the situation. Know what is going on and where this is all going because Benny always sent your gears spinning.

“I’m here however long I feel like it. I’m staying with my mom for now, but if things work out I’ll end up getting my own place somewhere around here. And overseas fucking sucked and I never want to go back, but none of those things are what I really wanted to talk about.”

Somehow you didn’t realize that the air between you two was disappearing. Distracting you with his words as he inched in on his prey. And now there was less than a foot between you. It all felt dangerously intimate. Soft eyes gazing down at you, small smile curling the corners of his lips, teeth peaking out as they nibbled at it. He was drawing you in, moth to flame, just like he always had.

“I thought about you a lot while I was overseas. Those letters really kept my head above water.” He pulls at his fingers, eyes dropping from yours, a certain sadness and grief so evident in his gaze. “It just made me realize once you stopped writing how much I relied on you. How I’ve always relied on you. And I let you slip away.”

Your hand reaches out and wraps around his anxious fingers before your brain can stop you. And the look on his face as he takes in your laced fingers makes it worth it, stomach flipping, heart fluttering.

“You always know exactly what I need.” A smile colors his words, paints the darkness in all the shades of your heart. You thought you were over Benjamin Miller. You fucking wish. His eyes drift to yours and you want to drown in the emotions pouring out of them.

“I’m sorry. For leaving. For hurting you. For choosing Heather over you. For not trying to fix things earlier. You’re my best friend, and I should have never let anything get between us.”

The words best friend slashes at your chest. Of course. Reality kicking your teeth in, forcing you to reckon with the pain behind your first fight.

You try to pull away, body retracting in on itself, but Benny isn’t having any of it. His hand only tugs your closer to him, now almost chest to chest, both of his hands cupping yours. The touch so gentle, yet firm it feels almost reverent.

“I won’t let you pull away again. Never again you hear me. I need you here. With me. By my side-“

It’s happening again. Getting all too much. Too many feelings but not the ones you want. Yearning for him like those six years never happened, and you’re still 18, and he’s still the golden boy. Words are bubbling up your throat, threatening to spill all over the pavement, and let Benny bear witness to the mess you’ve been hiding away deep inside. You’ve pushed and stomped and shoved away these feelings for so long, you thought you had a handle on it, but now it’s all too much.

“Benny I love you and I can’t do this. I can’t sit here and listen to you talk about how important I am and how we’re best friends, and how we’ll never be apart again when I’m in love with you and you don’t feel the same. It’s why I stopped writing. It hurt so much. And it still hurts because somehow I’m still in love with you and you still have no-“

His lips touch yours and time wrinkles. Your brain seems to short circuit and as soon as it starts its over. Gently pulling back to gaze at you with adoration that seems oceans deep.

“I had a sneaking suspicion, but I wasn’t completely sure you felt the same. I was going to tell you I love you first, but you have a tendency to ramble and I no one can stop that train once it starts rolling.” His eyes crinkle, a hand now tentatively wrapping around your neck, your waist. “I love you too, by the way. Now I would loveee to kiss you proper if you’ll let me milady?”

You’re grinning, and he’s grinning, and then its fireworks. He licks into your mouth with conviction, telling the world he loves you out loud for anyone to see. And the sounds he makes make you want to scream “He’s mine!” off the rooftops. His breath coming in sighs and groans, pouring down your throat till you feel like you’re going to burst.

Whispers of I love you, I’ve dreamed of kissing you like this, I will never let you go. So many years yearning and pining, dreaming of this moment and now it’s finally all happening.

It turns frantic the second you nibble at his bottom lip. Fingertips digging into the back of your neck, while his thumb angles your head so he can lick deeper. Taste more of you. Your back hits the drivers side window, and now you can finally arch into him, fingers skating into his hair, scratching at his scalp.

His moans turn you molten. “Fuck, your lips taste so sweet.” His thumb catching on your bottom lip, pulling it down, his eyes never leaving your lips. “I want to see them wrapped around my cock. Fuck I hope that’s not too crass, but Jesus woman you drive me crazy.”

It’s all spinning out but you don’t want it to stop. The neediness, finally knowing he’s wanted you as badly as you’ve wanted him. Knowing he’s just as ready to drop to his knees and devour you sends stars across your vision.

“Benny…” Your lips wrap around his thumb, kitten licking the tip, aching for him to push you just a little harder against the car. His eyes darken, tongue peaking out to wet his lips.

“Ya baby? What do you need?” Your teeth graze up his thumb as you release him with a light pop that sounds almost deafen. His fingers skim up your neck, tighten in your hair, pulling a wanton moan from somewhere deep and needy. Your pussy throbs, slick pooling low and hot, and you’ve never craved someone the way you crave him. “Come on you can tell me. Do you want my thumb back in your mouth? Or maybe you’d like it better on your clit. Already got it nice and wet though I think you might already be dripping for me.”

His smile turns a bit feral at the edges as his other hand crawls up the inside of your thigh. You can feel how your panties cling to you where you’ve soaked through. Your whole body shivers, knees knocking against his, as his hand trails up your thighs.

And then he’s pressing down. Pressing against your clit and your legs melt, your toes curl. Head lolling back against the car, Benny following quickly behind with lips and teeth and tongue laving at your neck. And now it’s confirmed. You have never wanted someone the way you want Benjamin Miller.

“God you’re so wet. Fuck I knew it. I knew you were the girl of my dreams. I can’t wait to taste you, I gotta taste you.” And before you can take another breath, he has your panties pushed aside, index finger running through the wet seam of you, and bring it up so he can wrap his pretty mouth around and taste. It’s obscene the way he stares you down while his jaw works at getting every last drop of you.

Your hips buck involuntarily. He grins like he’s won a fucking gold metal.

“You taste fucking perfect.” And then it’s lips and teeth and his thumb pressing against your clit, while his finger starts to push into you. It’s so many sensations at once your brain can’t seem to decide where to focus first.

His finger curls in you, thumb circling. Your hips riding his hand with how well he’s playing you. Making you sing for the whole empty parking lot to hear. The sound of your wet heat sucking his fingers deeper seeming to echo around you. You can feel the heat building deep, starting to expand from your core into your chest.

And then another finger slips inside you and you almost double over. “Oh fu-fuck, Benny, shit that feels so good. Please don’t stop. Please, please, please.”

The way your pussy clamped down on his two fingers makes Benny imagine your pussy wrapped around his cock, and he’s almost embarrassed by how close to the edge that thought sent him. He can’t help himself with the noises you make, how your hips are grinding down on his hand, the lingering taste of you coating his mouth.

“So good for me, God so good for me. Are you gonna cum like this? Fucking yourself on my fingers against my car? You have no idea how fucking sexy you are. I would do anything for you.” Every word wrenches you higher, pushes you closer. He mouths at your neck, your jaw, your ear. Nibbles at your collarbone whispering more filth into the flesh there.

You feel him everywhere, pressed against every part of you he can reach. Your nails dig into his back and he ruts against your thigh. Groans out for you and it makes you see stars.

You yank at his hair, pulling his mouth back to yours craving his lips, the taste of him. The stretch of his fingers making the kisses sloppy, tongues lapping into open mouths, teeth pulling and biting. You almost forget you’re in the parking lot of the diner with how high in the clouds he’s sending you.

He bites at your lip, earning a whine from the back of your throat. His fingers slow their tempo, starting to drag slower. In and out. In and out. You can’t tell if he’s pushing you even closer to the edge or bringing you down so he can ramp you up all over again. Your hips cant forward trying to find more sensation but he holds you steady, eyes locking.

“Baby can you take another finger? I think you can take it, let me stretch you open. Let me make you feel so good.”

You almost shatter at the words, your cunt rippling. He smirks at you as he feels your answer.

“Yeah, let’s do one more.”

And then you’re trembling. His third, thick finger spears into you, sensations skittering across your skin with how full you feel. His eyes are glued to his hand. Watching his fingers sink into you, his jaw slack. He nestles his fingers as deep as they’ll go and then his thumb presses into your clit, and your eyes roll back.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Benny! Yes, yes, yes, you’re gonna make me cum. I’m gonna cum.” You’re babbling at this point, the stretch of it blanking out your brain. Turning your whole body to jello. All of a sudden that peak you were chasing is staring you straight in the face and you have no power to stop it.

He ruts his fingers into you one, two, three times and then it all comes crashing down around you. You curl into him, the pleasure throwing you off balance, as your eyes snap shut and you moan high pitched and breathy into his neck.

You can only feel his words, you’re hearing shorting out with the pleasure overwhelming your system. His fingers rocking into you slowly, easing you off this high you just crashed through. Senses slowly coming back. His lips on your temple. Your slick at the tops of your thighs. His fingers massaging your scalp. His cock stiff against your hip.

A giggle bubbles from your chest, a smile spreading against his neck. You can feel his chest rumble with laughter.

“Well… that was fun.” You huff out a laugh. Face still hidden against the collar of his shirt but you can’t help melting into him.

“Come home with me. Please?” He whispers it into your hairline. Like he’s nervous you’ll say no. Nervous he might still loose you.

But there are no doubts left. No shadows haunting your thoughts. Because the answer is so simple now.

“Always.

lol thank you for making it this far hopefully fingers crossed who knows maybe no one makes it this far. honestly that would also be fine. ok i really need to shut up now. xoxoxoxoxoxo <3333

[uniquevocashark]

Tea and Ice Lattes Part 3

hnnnng part 4 coming soon

Its Saturday morning, and though it had been storming for most of the week, it seemed as if Alcina’s sheer desire for a good day for your date had pulled the sun out from behind the clouds.

The café was busy in the morning but the kind of busy that was all take out and no stay ins. The doors had been wedged open, and the breeze that blew in was welcome.

You checked the clock.

Eleven minutes to ten.

You drummed your fingers on the table. The noise was pleasant at least, familiar. Grounding, as you stared at nothing in particular to avoid blushing when Alcina looked at you.

The shop tables were all but abandoned that morning, but for you, her and her ducks, who waddled about your table inquisitively. She was wearing a long orange dress, ankle length, with a high neckline decorated in three yellow roses. Her ducks wore little capes of a matching colour, the family crest on the bottom left corner.

Conversation had been dry; on her side a preoccupation with the time, and on yours from the crushing realisation that this was, most technically, a date. And only the start of a date at that.

You had been nervous all week, spiking up to a new high on Tuesday, and it turned into something uniquely hell inspiring when she sat in front of you.

…

It had started on Tuesday night. You had just gotten home, a bone deep tiredness settling in your bones and a light coffee induced headache rattling in your skull, when you were approached by the oddest dressed woman you had ever seen. She was on the reedy side of tall, muscled but with little else, and covered in scars that looked like bitemarks, bearing the crest of the Countess on her breast pocket.

She licked her teeth anxiously as you approached, a cream box underneath her arm, “Do you live here?”

She had gestured at your door.

“Who are you?”

You watched her visibly relax and then hand the box to you like it was a cursed, burning object, “This is from you. From the heiress.”

“Um.” You didn’t grab the box.

“From Miss Dimitrescu,” She repeated, her voice going into an even shriller whistle, “I must be going, so take it.”

And then she was gone, like a phantom on the wind, and you stood at the door of your apartment holding a box that looked like it cost more than your entire wardrobe. You unlocked the door and went in. You really had to talk to her about the gifts.

There was a huge letter attached, lilac in colour, and it seemed to radiate a certain kind of malice only present from intense apprehension. It, and the box which was equally suspicious, sat unopened on the opposite side of your tiny couch for three days before you finally felt compelled enough to open it.

You didn’t know the difference between grades of paper, but just the feel of the envelope felt disgustingly expensive. The lettering was golden filigree, or maybe even golden ink?, and when you ripped it open you felt intensely lower class that was probably unintentional.

Probably.

There were two papers in the envelope: a small crème card, your name in bold red letters, a formal invitation out underneath it in looping black lettering. A small I’m so excited to see you this Saturday was scribbled in the corner, with a little smiling duck next to it that made you smile. And behind it was a handwritten note, on paper blotched in different kinds of ink, with a different loopier handwriting. There was no address line, or even a simple hello, but you could guess who sent it.

Rest assured that this gift given in good faith, and from Alcina alone, and that I merely wished to impart my congratulations to my dear daughter’s girlfriend (you noted that the word was indented into the paper deeply, like the person had been pressing too hard with their pen) of whom I have not be appropriately introduced.

I am so looking forward to our second introduction, for my daughter has been quite tight lipped about you.

Till this evening and with my fullest, warmest regards,

Countess Dimitrescu

You read it over, then looked at the box.

You almost threw it away. Almost.

And then you remembered that if you did, the Countess would almost certainly destroy your life.

You opened it.

Inside was a frock and you could barely believe you were holding anything when you picked it up.

The fabric was impossibly light and soft, a dark and luxurious peach colour, and it was your size. You turned it around in your hands, and checked over the measurements, and you had the strongest urge to just lay down and not move for the next day. You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

It was fine, this was just a kind gesture, you were sure. A bit of an assumption, true, but you were positive it was just a gift from one friend to another. You weren’t that bad with your clothes, you had good clothes to wear, you didn’t really need this, she just wanted you to have something good to wear.

You rubbed the fabric between two fingers, barely able make out the individual threads of the expertly woven garment.

Oh god, it was a total fuck me frock.

Was she coming on to you?

You set it down carefully in the box, it was your goddamn size, and then grabbed your empty mug. Another coffee would have made you manic, and you were in no mood for a stomach-ache, so you filled it with water and sipped through it slowly while staring vaguely into the distance. You would have to wear the coat, wouldn’t you?

…

Here you were, Saturday morning, wearing the frock.

It was a really good dress, and you normally didn’t have any time to wear something so nice. It might have seemed a bit shallow but, it was made for you, and it did look good. You were certainly going to bring it up with her, it was concerning that she knew your size for fucks sake. The little duck buttons on the cuff were cute but goddamn did it make a statement you weren’t too comfortable with.

If you were her girlfriend, and had she asked beforehand, maybe you would have accepted it. it was an almost sweet gesture but for the little addition that how the fuck did she know your size and who the fuck told her where you lived. It might have even been friendly other than those details.

You really were going to bring it up to her. Soon. Definitely soon.

How would you even explain this gift? How would you even phrase it? Oh yes, my sort of friend who might have a crush on me and is taking me to a rich person place for a date and who gave me the frock I’m wearing. Yes, it was a gift. No, I’m not a sugar baby, why do you ask?

Maybe it was also because it was a sign that someone cared about you and that you were happy for that, hence wearing the frock. Or maybe you were overthinking because you were going on a confirmed date with Alcina Dimitrescu and were going to have a formal, awkward introduction to the mother that gave you some sort of plague sore. Overthinking was more like you.

“Are you sure you don’t want a coffee before we go?” Alcina asked, and you realised you had been staring straight at her unblinkingly.

You cleared your throat, “I’m alright, I’ve already had two today.”

“I see.” She recrossed her legs, Archibald laying on her hand like a villainous cat.

She stared back at you and drummed your fingers on your leg, “Hey, about the dress.”

“It looks very good on you.”

You sucked in a breath to stop from stuttering, “Thank you, but I was more thinking about how it was sort of out of the blue.”

“oh,” she even had the sense to look embarrassed as she said it, “I jumped the gun a bit, didn’t I?”

You thanked your lucky stars she understood, “Yeah. It was really uncomfortable to find some random woman outside my house with a dress my size.”

“A woman?”

“A maid, I think?”

“That isn’t right.”

“That’s how it happened.”

“It was supposed to come to the store,” Alcina muttered, one hand covering yours gently, “I swear, she was only supposed to come here and nowhere else. I don’t even know where you live.”

From the way her whole face seemed to ooze sincerity, you believed her, “Your mother left a note with it.”

She hissed and you laughed nervously. You curled your shoulders in more, the back of your neck prickling.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Alcina said gently, “My mother has been doing this since I was younger.”

“That sucks.”

She winked at you, but it didn’t make you feel any better, “You get used to it.”

Her watched beeped before you could answer, and she offered you her hand while her ducks filed into her purse. “You don’t have to come, if you’re not comfortable.”

You looked at her and sighed, “Of course I’m coming.” You said and took her hand. Her fingers closed over yours gently, and warmly.

It felt surreal to hold her hand. It was so much larger than yours, all encompassing, and warm as a blazing hearth too. God. You were so gay. She helped you stand and then your hands fell away from each others, and you caught a glimpse of Maxwell and Rosalyn exchanging worried glances from behind the counter. That was super reassuring.

You followed Alcina to the car that fishtailed through the busy morning traffic, sliding up to the curve with nary a care to the way the quick stop made the tires screech. Alcina opened the door for you and you slid in, and wow, the car was spacious. Alcina slid in beside you, her hip bumping into yours even when you went to the other side, and you realised you’d be that close to her for the entire car trip.

“So,” She started as she shut the door, stretching out her legs and resting them on the empty seats opposite you both, “We’re going to a restaurant not to far from here, Beneviento’s, that I thought you might like.”

“The insanely expensive one that will bankrupt me for one meal?”

She looked at you oddly, “It’s not that expensive, surely?”

How could you have forgotten that she was filthy fucking rich. “It’s 600 to book a place if you’re,” You gestured vaguely, “more human than not.”

“Oh, I had no idea,” She said flippantly, “I know the owner, she promised a free spot for you.”

You gaped, “You know the owner?”

“Yes? We grew up together.”

“The current head Beneviento. The one that’s travelled the world over and is renowned for a palate so exact she could accurately age a cauliflower by taste down to the hour?”

“Yes?” She raised her brow and then her purse quacked in protest.

“I forget that you’re rich, often.”

She frowned, and looked at you from the corner of her eye with a soft pout on her lips while she riffled through her purse, “I’m sure it’s not that different to how you live?”

You almost called her completely out of touch. Instead, you grabbed her other hand as she whispered admonishments into her purse. You sort of leaned into her, and she leaned back, just a touch.

“Not really.” You answered after ten minutes, after she had fully seated her ducks into their little chairs, and the car was speeding down the road, and your head rested on her bicep lightly, her cheeks a soft shade of pink.

[homoose]

Teach Me Something I Don’t Know: Part I

Summary: When Will asks him to pick Michael up from school, Spencer may or may not develop a schoolboy crush on the kindergarten teacher.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: fluff

Warnings/Includes: none

Word count: 2.5k

a/n: Here she is! I’m not sure exactly what it is about Spencer Reid x teacher!reader, but it is my most requested fic topic, and I am happy to oblige! This is the first in a multi-part series. Weird is Good also takes place in this verse. Any teacher!reader requests will be folded into this verse as well, so feel free to continue sending me those!

Series Masterlist

Click here for the story mentioned, read by everybody’s fave Michelle Obama.

———

“A strong geographical profile is one of the most important pieces of the overall behavioral profile; it significantly narrows the area the team has to cover, allows for law enforcement teams to prioritize and maximize limited resources, and helps focus the investigation in conjunction with the other elements of the profile. And that wraps our section on building geographical profiles!” Spencer smiled at the faces in front of him, gesturing to the board. “The information we covered today will make up a significant portion of your midterm, so make sure to review it before next week. See you all next Thursday!”

As his students began packing up their things, Spencer’s phone rang from inside his bag. When he retrieved the phone and saw Will’s name on the caller ID, his brow furrowed in concern. “Will— everything ok?”

“Hey, yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” he assured him. “I’m sorry to ask, but JJ’s on a case, and my partner and I just finished our last call clear on the other side of the city. Henry’s got soccer practice, but Michael’s gotta be picked up in about— well, shit, right about now. Would you mind picking him up and bringing him ‘round to the house?”

Spencer looped the strap of his bag over his shoulder and started up the aisle out of the lecture hall. “Yeah, of course! It’s over by the Naval Observatory, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. If you pull ‘round the parking lot, they usually come out the side door. His teacher’s real sweet, Ms. Y/L/N. I’ll let her know you’re picking him up.”

“Okay, sounds good.” Spencer pushed open the door and made his way down the hall.

“You’re the best,” Will drawled. “I’ll only be about half an hour.”

…

When Spencer pulled the baby blue Volvo into the parking lot of the school, he saw Michael and Ms. Y/L/N sitting on the steps of school. Their heads were so close they were almost touching, looking down at a book laying across their laps. Her legs were stretched out straight and she pointed down to the page, saying something that made Michael throw his little head back in a laugh that floated in through the open window of the car. Spencer grinned at the familiar sound as he pulled around the carpool loop.

When he recovered from the giggles, Michael caught sight of the car and waved his hand excitedly at Spencer. Ms. Y/L/N looked up and gave a wave as well, albeit a little less vigorous. She closed the book and turned her torso slightly to unzip Michael’s backpack and drop the book into it.

Spencer put the car in park, stepped out, and walked around the car to meet the two of them. Michael was already up and running, throwing himself at Spencer’s legs and hugging them tightly. He leaned down to return the hug. “Hey, buddy! How was school?”

“It was amazing,” Michael gushed, pulling out of the hug to gesture wildly. “We learned how to write the zzz sound, and now we know all the sounds! Oh, and then we used blocks in math, and that was so fun, because Ms. Y/L/N let us build with them when we were done counting. Oh, and then we learned about frogs, and they are so cool. Did you know that frogs have night vision? Oh, and Ms. Y/L/N said I could borrow my favorite book from the classroom library! She read it to me already while we were waiting for you, but maybe you could read it to me, too? I can read some of the words but not all of them yet, so I still need some help.”

Spencer smiled widely at him. “Wow, that does sound like an amazing day. I did know that about frogs, actually! And of course, I’d love to read with you.”

“The book’s called Giraffe Problems, and it’s about this giraffe named Edward who doesn’t like his neck.” Michael looked at Ms. Y/L/N. “What’s the turtle’s name again?”

“Cyrus,” Ms. Y/L/N reminded him.

“Right, Cyrus.” He looked at Spencer. “See, that one is tricky because c’s don’t usually make the sss sound, but sometimes they do. Ms. Y/L/N’s teaching me about it, even though she said it’s kinda hard for kindergarten.”

“Because you’ve got a big, powerful brain, right?” she said, tapping her temple and winking at Michael. “I’m Ms. Y/L/N, by the way. You must be the infamous uncle Spencer. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Then she smiled at him and his big, powerful brain melted inside of his skull.

Michael continued talking, and Spencer briefly wondered if this is how people felt when he rambled. Michael lost his attention immediately, because all he could do was stare at Ms. Y/L/N. Her eyes glinted with humor as he chattered on. She followed his expressive motions with well-timed nods and mhmms, a skill she’d no doubt honed through years of indulging kindergarten babbling. She met Spencer’s eyes every so often, only a slight eyebrow raise indicating her amusement. Her hair had been tied back, but soft pieces had come loose throughout the day, falling into her face and around her shoulders. Up close, he could see that the print of her collared a-line dress was hundreds of green frogs. On her feet were a pair of beat up, low top converse, and Spencer thought he could physically feel the crush branding the chambers of his heart. He was jolted out of his thoughts by Michael’s hand tugging on his pant leg, and he looked down to see him looking up expectantly.

“Sorry, what?” Spencer asked him.

“I said,” Michael repeated with a sigh, “can we look up the author and see if he has any other books?”

“Oh, um, yeah. Of course, buddy.”

“Jory John has lots of amazing books,” Ms. Y/L/N confirmed. “You’ll love the series he wrote with Pete Oswald.” She smiled at the pair of them before checking her watch. “I’ve gotta go pack up, but I’ll see you tomorrow, Michael.” She winked at Spencer, and he almost swallowed his tongue. “It was nice meeting you, uncle Spencer.” She waved again and then turned up the stairs to disappear into the building.

Spencer let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, and then turned to Michael. “Well. All right, are you ready to go home?”

…

They were settled into the car and halfway home before Michael finally needed to take a breath. Spencer capitalized on the break in conversation.

“So, Ms. Y/L/N seems pretty cool,” Spencer hedged.

“Yeah, she’s the best,” Michael confirmed with a nod. “On Fridays she lets us put on the smocks and paint. And she has really good story voices. Oh, and she also has these really cool blocks that stick together—magnet blocks. And when I fell off the jungle gym and got a big scrape, she gave me a Paw Patrol bandaid! And she gives great hugs.”

“Good story voices, huh?” Spencer met Michael’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Better than mine?”

Michael tilted his head in deep thought. “Hmmmm. It’s pretty close. Your wizard voice is good, but she does accents.”

Spencer blew out a dramatic breath. “Guess I’m going to have to up my game.”

“You’re gonna have to practice a lot, because Ms. Y/L/N reads to us every day.” Michael raised his eyebrows in a challenge.

“Hey!” Spencer looked incredulous. “I read every day, too!”

“Yeah, but do you read with story voices every day?” Michael clarified.

Spencer sighed. “Well, I guess not.”

“It’s okay, uncle Spencer,” Michael soothed. “You can’t be the best at everything.”

“So they are better than mine?”

Michael pressed his lips together, and Spencer almost laughed at how much he looked like JJ. “... maybe.”

…

A trail of shoes and school supplies led to the couch, where Spencer and Michael sat shoulder to shoulder. They were on their second read of Giraffe Problems. Spencer took a long, dramatic breath before launching into Cyrus’ banana speech, and Michael burst into a fit of giggles. With his best theatrical voice, Spencer read down the page. “Yet, day after day, I’ve felt like such a fool as I stretched my neck toward those greedy branches, only to be limited by my own physical shortcomings.” He flipped the page and changed his tone. “You… want a banana from a tree?” He looked at Michael and said, quickly and in a low voice, “That’s what I said, yes.” Michael wheezed out another laugh.

Spencer finished the story, Michael mouthing the words along with him. When they reached the last page, Spencer softly closed the book and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “That’s a pretty great story.”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Ms. Y/L/N said she likes it because it reminds us that we gotta love ourselves and our bodies for how they are.”

Spencer nodded. “Absolutely. We’re all different, and that’s what makes us special.”

“Yeah. I just really like when he’s wearing all the scarves.” Michael burst into another fit of laughter, and Spencer couldn’t help but laugh with him.

The front door opened, and Will was smiling as he stepped over the threshold. “I could hear y’all laughing all the way down the sidewalk.”

“Daddy!” Michael jumped up from the couch, and Will bent to scoop him up, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Hey, kiddo. Sorry I couldn’t pick you up. It sure sounds like you and uncle Spencer had fun, though.” He shot Spencer a wide smile.

“We read Giraffe Problems. Can we read it again later?” Michael asked.

“Sure thing. We can read it before bedtime.” Will set him down, furrowing his brow. “Wait, Giraffe Problems? Is that a new one?”

Michael shook his head. “Ms. Y/L/N let me borrow it from the library. I have to give it back in two weeks.”

“Man, Michael, you really lucked out, huh?” Will posited. “Ms. Y/L/N is so good to you.”

“Jeez, everybody’s saying that today,” Michael sighed. “Yes, Ms. Y/L/N is amazing, we all know this.”

“All right, sass monster. I didn’t know uncle Spencer thought she was amazing, too.” Will grinned. “We gotta go pick up Henry in a few minutes. I’ll get you a snack, and you can pick up your things?” He gestured to the mess of shoes and school supplies in the foyer.

Spencer smiled sheepishly. “That’s probably my fault. We were just so excited to read the book.”

“Ah yeah, I know how he gets.” Will crossed to the kitchen. “A one track mind, that one. Thanks again for picking him up today.”

Spencer stood from the couch and followed, hands stuffed in his pockets. “It’s no problem at all! I can do it any time.”

“Well, I don’t want to bother y—”

“It’s not a bother!” Spencer schooled his voice back into a normal register at Will’s raised eyebrow. “It—It’s not a bother at all. I, um— I have a lot of free time when I’m on sabbatical. Especially since I’m only teaching one course this semester. Plus, I love seeing the boys.”

“I’ll remember that.” Will smiled. “So… Ms. Y/L/N’s amazing, huh?”

Spencer just knew that his cheeks were as red as the apple Will was cutting up. He tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Yeah, she was— she was really nice.”

“She’s not bad looking, either,” Will supplied. When Spencer’s mouth fell open, Will continued, “What? JJ thinks so, too. Don’t tell me you didn’t even look, because I know that’s a lie.”

Spencer sputtered, “I— well, I—”

“Daddy, can we get an ice-cream on the way home?” Michael interrupted, completely unfazed.

Will laughed. “Saved by the bell, uncle Spencer. Yeah, buddy, we can get ice-cream.”

…

“It’s not weird to look her up. I just want to know more about the person who’s educating my godson,” Spencer tried to reassure himself as he pulled up the school’s website. He scrolled to find the teacher pages, a little smile crossing his face when he saw Ms. Y/L/N’s picture— white ruffled shirt, red bow, and black hat. A perfect tribute to Mary Poppins.

He dropped his smile. “She barely said five sentences to you, and you didn’t say anything back.” His eyes wandered over the links on the side, landing on the About Me section. “But she did say she’d heard a lot about you, so it’s only fair that you get to know a little about her.” Against his better judgment, he clicked the page link. A photo of Ms. Y/L/N— grinning and holding a very distraught-looking black cat— popped up on the screen, and Spencer laughed aloud.

I grew up on a farm outside of Fayetteville, NC before moving to Boston to complete my undergraduate degree. I moved to DC to earn my Master’s in Early Childhood Education, and I have been teaching here for 8 years! I love working with young learners, because children grow so much in their foundational years. Watching a child have a lightbulb moment is one of my greatest joys. When I'm not in the classroom, I love to read, travel, play scrabble, and spend time with my cat Roald (pronounced Roo-all)!

Spencer scrolled through the pictures of Ms. Y/L/N and her students. There were pictures in their “smocks,” which Spencer discovered were really just old t-shirts. There was one of her in the middle of some very animated story telling, and another of a field trip to the zoo. In each one, the smiles beamed out through the computer screen in a digital portrait of unbridled joy, contagious even over the waves of the internet. Smiling to himself, he clicked on the tab labeled Teaching Philosophy.

I believe that every child is an extraordinary and essential piece of our classroom puzzle. In order to nurture the unique individuality of each of my students, I work hard to make our classroom a safe, positive, and supportive community where students are given the space to express themselves. Our classroom culture is also one of kindness and creativity, where each individual is valued and celebrated for who they are!

Spencer swallowed the unexpected lump in his throat as he thought back on his own school career. While his teachers had always appreciated his intelligence, he honestly couldn’t recall a moment where he had felt valued for just… being himself. The majority of his time in school had been spent unsuccessfully fending off bullies, completing other students’ homework, or being gawked at like some sort of alien. He was grateful that Michael would hopefully never go through anything like what he’d experienced; at least not while Ms. Y/L/N was around.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he leaned back in the desk chair to pull it out. He swiped it open to read the incoming text.

JJ: So......... you like Ms. Y/L/N, huh? 😉😉😉

Spencer: What?! Did Will tell you that? I didn’t say that.

JJ: Some things you don’t have to say out loud, Spence.

———

Tags: @spacedikut

[junghelioseok]

clandestine. | 02

↳ forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.

◇ jungkook x reader ◇ smut | fluff | brother’s best friend!au ◇ 7k [2/6]

notes: looks like it’s a writing/editing kinda day, folks! hope you enjoy this installment, and let me know what you think! 

warnings: jk’s massive noona kink: a recurring yet warranted warning, jeon jungkook is a goddamn tease, smuuuut, oral (f receiving), jk’s got a big dick whoOPS, minimally edited bc i’m feeling lazy

⇢ 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 

Morning brings with it bright sunshine and fresh horror as the events of the previous evening come rushing back. You aren’t sure you’ll ever be able to look Jeon Jungkook in the eye again—or at least, not without being reminded of the way he’d plagued every single one of your dreams with devilish eyes and even more devilish fingers. Groaning, you scrub at your temples, as if that will help dispel the memories. After a few fruitless moments, you crawl out of bed and head for the bathroom, intent on washing everything away with a good, cold shower.

Try as you might, though, you simply cannot avoid your dark-haired neighbor. You’re in the kitchen sipping at your second coffee of the day and debating what you want for lunch when there’s a knock on the front door—a familiar rhythm that has your heart stuttering. “It’s open!” Jimin yells from the living room, and a moment later, the devil himself strolls in, wearing a plain black t-shirt with ripped jeans and well-worn Timberlands. Vaguely, you wonder when he made the switch from white tees to black, but your musings are cut short when he spots you in the kitchen, an impish grin settling across his face.

“Hey, Noona.”

“Hey.” You thank whatever god may be out there that your voice is steady. “Jimin’s in the living room.”

Jungkook tilts his head coyly and takes a step forward. “What makes you think I’m here for Jimin? Maybe I came to see you.”

Anxiously, you swallow down the memories of his warm hands that are trying to resurface. “I highly doubt that.”

“Really?” Jungkook takes another step forward and plucks the coffee mug from your hands. “What if I came over to finish what I started last night?”

Heat floods across your face. “That—that was… I mean, I don’t—”

“You don’t what?” Jungkook asks, raising a brow. “Want me? Because I’m pretty sure that’s a lie, Noona.” Quietly, he closes the last bit of distance between you, and when he speaks again you can feel his warm breath fanning across your cheeks with every word. “You see, I think you want me. Just as much as I want you. Am I wrong?”

“Jungkook, we—”

“Dude, what’s taking you so long?” Jimin’s head suddenly pops around the doorway, and you nearly jump out of your skin in your effort to put some distance between you and your dark-haired neighbor. “I’m about to start the game without you.”

“Just wanted to grab some coffee and say hi to {Name},” Jungkook replies, raising your half-empty mug to his lips and taking a sip. “Did you want to join us, Noona? It’d be fun to watch you kick Jimin’s ass at Mario Kart again.”

You swallow, hard. “I can’t. I’ve got homework to do.” Not strictly true, perhaps, but you’d been planning on looking over the details of your internship again at some point, and now seems as good a time as any. “Sorry,” you add quickly, seeing Jungkook’s disbelieving expression.

“Summer homework? Gross.” Jimin pulls a face. “You’re still coming to Tae’s party though, right?”

You nod, unwillingly catching Jungkook’s eye again. He’s still sipping at your coffee, and you don’t miss the flagrant wink he shoots you over the rim of the cup. “See you later then, Noona,” he says, his voice practically a purr.

“Right,” you respond dully, your heart skipping a beat at the dark promise in his stare. “Later.”

Jimin and Jungkook disappear down the hall, but you remain rooted in the kitchen for a few minutes longer, listening as the music of whatever video game they’ve decided on starts playing from the living room. Heaving a sigh, you fetch a new mug from the cupboard and pour yourself some more coffee, grabbing an apple and a bag of chips as well. Taking everything up to your bedroom, you pull out your laptop and make yourself comfortable on your bed, plugging in some headphones to drown out the noise from downstairs. With any luck, you won’t have to see Jungkook again until you have to leave for Taehyung’s party, and you’re pretty sure that it’ll be easy to avoid him once you’re there.

In fact, you’re certain of it.

So with that thought in mind, you settle down with your coffee and open up Netflix, sinking into the pillows and pushing your dark-haired neighbor into the deepest recesses of your mind. It isn’t until your phone starts vibrating insistently against your thigh that you are startled out of your binge-watching, the screen lit up with two new notifications. Surprised, you realize that hours have passed, the sky outside your window deepening into the hazy blue of nighttime.

[6:02pm] Jungkook: you hungry, noona?

[6:02pm] Jungkook: for pizza, i mean. we ordered dinner

[6:03pm] Jungkook: but i’ll be your dessert if you want me ;)

You drop your phone as if burned, his final message playing over and over in your mind. It takes you a full minute to gather your wits again, stowing your device in your pocket without responding and carefully picking your way downstairs. Already, you can smell the cheesy grease, your stomach growling in anticipation.

Just grab the pizza and go, you think to yourself, formulating your escape plan and double-checking it for any holes. Dine and dash.

You’re walking past the foyer when there’s suddenly a knock on the front door. Curiously, you answer it, swinging it open to see a familiar grinning face standing on the doorstep. Lee Taemin is a good friend of Jimin’s, and your brother pokes his head out from the kitchen at the sound of your greeting, clearly expecting the new guest.

“Taemin! Get in here and have some pizza,” Jimin says, his mouth full. “You too, Noona. We got plenty.”

Instead of immediately heading for the food, Taemin wraps you in a hug that has you wheezing for air. “Long time no see, huh? How’ve you been?”

You squirm in his tight embrace, raised to your tiptoes. “Put me down, you heathen. I’m fine right now, but I won’t be if you suffocate me.”

Taemin chortles good-naturedly and releases his grip, ruffling your hair. “Good to see you too, {Name}. Honestly, it hasn’t been the same around here without you. How long are you back for? The whole summer?”

You shake your head. “Just a couple weeks. I’ve got to get back for an internship.”

“Already a hotshot, huh?” Taemin grins. “What are you going to be doing?”

The topic of your summer job is a welcome distraction from the way Jungkook’s dark gaze trails after you as you tread into the kitchen alongside Taemin, slapping two slices of pizza onto a plate and glancing around for a napkin. You can feel his eyes boring into the back of your skull, prickling your skin with electricity, but continue your conversation with Taemin as if nothing is amiss.

“You gonna sit down or what?” Taemin gives you a quizzical glance as he pulls a chair out from the table, joining Jimin and Jungkook who are already seated. You do your best to ignore the way Jungkook’s jaw flexes with every chew, somehow managing to look infuriatingly handsome despite the mouth full of dough and pizza grease staining his chin.

“I—” Your mind whirs, searching for the excuse you had planned. “—I still have some work to do. Reading and whatnot.”

“Nerd,” Jimin snorts.

Taemin shrugs. “Okay, then. Suit yourself, I guess.”

Jungkook doesn’t say anything. But you feel his eyes burning into your skin as you head back upstairs, and it isn’t until you are safely back in your bedroom, sagging against the closed door, that you can finally breathe properly again.

///

You end up departing for the party nearly twenty minutes after the official start time of eight o’clock, caving to Jimin’s insistence on being fashionably late. Personally, you think he just wanted the extra time to work on his hair—making sure every strand is perfectly, effortlessly tousled—and call him out on it as he locks the front door behind you.

“I didn’t spend that long on my hair,” Jimin sniffs defensively. “Besides, you’re the one who needed to run back in and get your wallet. What do you even need your wallet for? We’re walking like, four blocks.”

“Better safe than sorry,” you retort. “What if I get murdered and they need to identify my body? What if I get mugged? You never know!”

Taemin falls into step beside you. “What if we need to tip a stripper?” he chimes in.

You nod and raise your hand for a high-five without taking your eyes off your brother. “Exactly! You have to tip your sex workers, Chim!”

Jimin waggles a suggestive eyebrow. “I think I’d rather give them a different ti—”

You push him off the sidewalk before he can finish speaking, pulling a face as he stumbles into the street in a fit of laughter. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence, you perv!”

The remainder of the short walk to Taehyung’s house passes uneventfully. Jimin doesn’t bother knocking, throwing open the door like he owns the place, and you trail after him with Taemin and Jungkook on your heels. Immediately, you’re assailed by a cacophonous sea of conversation and thumping music, people milling around in the dimly lit interior.

“There you are!” The voice comes from your left, and you barely have time to register the speaker’s face before she’s gasping and engulfing you in a hug. “{Name}, you made it! Hi!”

You laugh, squeezing her back. “Hi, Chaeyoung. It’s good to see you. Sorry I didn’t catch you at graduation.”

“Oh please,” she says, waving you off. “We have all the time in the world to catch up now. Let’s get you away from these boys and find you a drink, shall we?” Flipping a lock of strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder, she loops her arm through yours and begins steering you toward the kitchen. “So what are you in the mood for? The beer’s shit, so I’d stay away from anything in the cooler, but everything else is actually drinkable.”

“Shocking,” you remark, peering at the mess of bottles and cups lining the kitchen counter. There’s a massive bowl of a horrifyingly neon green concoction as well, and you take one whiff before backing away again, nose wrinkling in disgust. “I see Tae’s still making punch.”

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Chaeyoung advises. “He’s somehow managed to make it twice as sugary and three times more alcoholic than last year’s. Pretty sure it’s worse than moonshine at this point.”

You grin and locate an empty cup, raising it in her direction. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Chaeyoung refills her own drink, and you settle on a simple blend of cranberry juice and vodka. Together, you head back in the direction of the living room, where Jisoo and Lisa are chattering away on a couch in the corner. They look up at your arrival, greeting you with smiles and hugs, and quickly usher you into a seat beside them.

“So,” Jisoo begins, leaning forward. “How’s college?”

“Tell us everything,” Lisa adds, propping her chin in her palm. “Is it nice living away from home?”

Jisoo waggles her brows. “Forget that. Have you met any guys?”

Unbidden, Jungkook springs to the forefront of your mind, dark eyes staring at you from beneath equally dark hair as he leans down, down, down—

“Nope!” you blurt before your thoughts can progress any further. “I mean, I share a suite with a couple guys, but that doesn’t count.”

“Are they cute?” Lisa prods.

“They must be more mature than these high school boys,” Chaeyoung sighs.

“Hardly,” you snort. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

The gossip continues. More people arrive as the night wears on, the living room filling up with dancing bodies. A few girls you don’t know join in your conversation, perching on armrests and ottomans and the carpeted floor as a last resort. Across the hall in the dining room, you spot Taemin setting up a table for beer pong, a triumphant shout going up when Taehyung procures an unopened package of balls from somewhere in the hall closet.

“This is gonna be tournament style, got it?” he announces as he tears the package open. “Winner goes up against the undefeated champs—Jungkook and Yugyeom!”

Even from your comfy seat on the couch, you can see the arrogant twist of Jungkook’s mouth as he leans over to give Yugyeom a high-five. You can’t tear your eyes away from the way he tongues his cheek, lounging back into a chair to watch the first round of the game. Jimin steps forward alongside Taehyung, and you watch as your brother scrutinizes the pyramid of cups, poised to make a throw that lifts his shirt just enough to expose a flash of his admittedly toned abdomen.

“He wore that shirt on purpose,” Jisoo accuses, and you huff out a sound that’s more snort than laugh.

“Please, it’s just the only shirt he owns that isn’t dirty. Trust me.”

“I don’t even care,” another girl you don’t know the name of pipes up. “I’d still let him blow my back out.”

You grimace. “And on that note, I suddenly need another drink,” you announce, to giggles. Wrenching out of your cozy seat between Jisoo and Lisa, you wave your near empty cup in farewell and make your way toward the kitchen, carefully skirting around the dancers and beer pong spectators spilling out into the hallway.

The kitchen is deserted when you walk in, everyone having flocked to the dining room to watch the beer pong tournament. Humming along to the music, you open up the fridge and survey its contents, hoping to find something decent. Curiously, you pick your way past a few cans before turning a dark glass bottle around to read the label.

“Are you avoiding me, Noona?”

The voice comes from behind you, deep and sinfully resonant, and you don’t even have to turn around to know that he’s standing just inches away. His breath ruffles through the hair at the nape of your neck, sending gooseflesh prickling across your skin, and when strong hands curl gently around your hips you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“I missed you, y’know,” he continues, his mouth finding its way to your ear and nipping lightly at the lobe. “You didn’t talk to me all day, even though I was right there in your house. Ran like a scared little rabbit when you saw me in the kitchen, didn’t you?” Softly, his lips ghost along the column of your throat, pressing a kiss to the junction of your neck and shoulder. “So, now what? Are you gonna run from me again?”

You don’t think you could if you tried. Your feet are rooted firmly in place, your entire body frozen as you await whatever he’ll do next. And when he urges you to spin around and face him, you obey immediately, your hands coming up to splay against his chest as he presses even closer and rewards your compliance with a kiss.

“Jungkook,” you breathe against his parted lips. “Jungkook, god.”

Slowly, he trails down your neck, leaving soft nips in his wake. “Yes, Noona?”

“We can’t,” you whisper, even as your head falls back to allow him more access to your clavicle. “Jungkook, we can’t do this.”

Your companion raises his head then, his dark gaze meeting yours. “Tell me to stop,” he says quietly. His thumbs dip beneath the hem of your shirt, rubbing circles into the soft skin of your waist, and you inhale sharply at the feeling. “If that’s what you want, Noona, just tell me to stop and I will. I promise.”

He’s palming along your hips now. The warmth of his palms seeps into your body, rendering it increasingly difficult to concentrate. His mouth returns to your neck as he awaits your answer, and you don’t miss the way his lips curl into a smirk against the delicate skin of your collarbone when you hesitate a moment too long.

“Well, Noona?”

Fuck it. Your arms wind around his neck, pulling him closer until there’s no space left between your bodies. “Jungkook, kiss me,” you breathe, throwing all remaining remnants of caution to the wind.

Jungkook straightens up to his full height, his smirk widening. “Anything for you, princess,” he remarks before leaning down, winding one hand in your hair and finding purchase in the curve of your waist with the other. The newfound pet name ignites a tendril of heat in the pit of your belly, and when Jungkook finally closes the gap between your lips, you release a breathy moan that he eagerly swallows. The hand in your hair tightens its grip to pull you even closer, tongues and teeth clashing as he deepens the kiss.

It’s only when the need for air becomes critical that you break away from him with a gasp, your lungs aching. Jungkook isn’t faring much better, his chest heaving beneath the thin white material of his t-shirt. He releases his grip on your hair, his thumb grazing across your cheek gently instead, and when he leans in to plant another kiss on your mouth, you exhale shakily. “God, Jungkook.”

His arm tightens around your waist. “What do you need, princess?” he asks, and you can’t deny your delight at his continued use of the nickname. His teeth find the lobe of your ear again, and you release a breathy moan as he delivers a particularly sharp nip to the soft flesh before pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive spot just below it. “Tell me. Tell me, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you anything you want.”

You slide your hands along his broad shoulders and up to his nape, brushing the silver hoops in his ears before tangling your fingers in his silky hair. “You’re teasing me.”

Jungkook clicks his tongue and pulls away, your arms falling uselessly to your sides as he takes a step back. “I just need to hear you say it, Noona,” he chides, his voice leaving no room for disobedience. “I need to hear you say that you want this. That you want me.”

A shiver dances up your spine, and you aren’t sure whether it’s due to his wicked lilt or the sudden absence of his body heat. “I want you,” you whisper, reaching out to touch him. “Jungkook, please.”

The smirk that spreads across his face is absolutely devastating. “Then come with me,” he commands softly, taking your hand and lacing your fingers together. You leave behind the thumping music and the loud chatter of the party, allowing Jungkook to pull you into one of several rooms lining the hallway and squeaking when he shuts the door and immediately pins you against it. His mouth slants across yours, hot and urgent, and you moan into the kiss as your hands fly up to grip his shoulders.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?” Jungkook breathes, pulling away just enough to whisper the words against your lips. “Fuck, princess, look at this tiny little skirt you’re wearing. You’ve been killing me all night, you know that?”

He punctuates the words with another kiss, nipping harshly at your bottom lip. His hands slide down to the curve of your ass, and you gasp when he scoops you up effortlessly. “Legs around my waist,” he orders, readjusting his grip as he begins walking you further into the room.

It’s the laundry room, you realize upon closer inspection. Jungkook’s busy mouthing at your neck, but he breaks away with a smirk when he finally reaches his destination, plopping you down atop the cool metal of the washing machine. “Shame there’s nothing in here,” he remarks, kicking the side softly. “I really wanna fuck you with this thing running one day. But for now…” His smirk widens, his hands settling on your knees. “This’ll do.”

In an instant, he’s pushed up your skirt and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of your panties, tugging them down and off your legs. He drops to his knees, smoothing his hands along your inner thighs, and your cheeks flush when he urges you to spread them further. “Jungkook—“ you mumble, thoroughly embarrassed as he stares reverently at your exposed core, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip. “Quit staring at me like that.”

“I can’t help it,” he murmurs, leaning in and pressing a soft trail of kisses along your thigh. “You’re so beautiful, Noona.”

“You…”

You trail off, unsure of what to say. What do you say when your little brother’s best friend is staring at you like you’re a desert oasis and he’s been wandering, dehydrated, for days? What do you say when the scrawny neighbor kid you’d grown up with is caressing every inch of your legs, soothing the soft skin with his fingers and lips?

What do you say when you realize, once and for all, that Jeon Jungkook is undoubtedly—unabashedly—a man now?

You swallow, hard. Jungkook is nearing your core now, his hair tickling your thighs, and you gasp when he slides a finger up your slit experimentally. “You’re so wet,” he breathes. “So wet, and so—” He touches the pad of his finger to his tongue, grinning up at you as he laps up your essence. “—delicious. Fuck. You’re the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

And then he leans forward, boldly licking a stripe up the length of your entrance. Strong arms wind around your legs to hold you open, and when he shoves his face even deeper, his nose brushing against your clit, you let out a strangled whimper. “Fuck, Jungkook—”

The sound of his name draws a pleased hum from the young man nestled between your thighs, rumbling through his chest and straight to your core. Your walls clench, but Jungkook stubbornly refuses to dip his tongue inside. Instead, he teases at your folds, spreading them apart with two fingers and licking ardently at your leaking juices before kissing a short trail up to your clit. “Can you cum like this?” he asks curiously, thumbing across the sensitive bundle of nerves.

His answer comes in the form of a breathy gasp, your hips jerking upward to seek out more friction. Jungkook chuckles and obliges your silent request, dark eyes flickering up to meet yours as he begins rubbing slow circles around your bud. “Guess that’s a yes,” he murmurs, pressing yet another kiss to your thigh. His gaze remains locked on yours as he rubs a little harder, dragging your juices up from your slit and digging in deep until you are moaning aloud, your hands coming down to fist in his silky hair.

“I-I’m close,” you keen. “Please, Jungkook, please.”

Jungkook hums and leans back. At the same time, he slides two fingers inside you, curling them upward, and the sudden surge of fullness is more than enough to tip you over the edge. His name escapes your lips in a garbled moan, your walls spasming around his hand as he continues teasing your clit, drawing out your orgasm until you finally whine from oversensitivity and bat him away. Obediently, he withdraws, rising to his feet so that he towers over you once more.

“Holy fuck,” he murmurs, staring down at you with an expression caught somewhere between awestruck wonder and unbridled hunger. “You’re so pretty when you cum. So pretty and perfect and—” He swallows, his throat bobbing harshly. “God, I need to fuck you. Can I fuck you now, Noona? Will you let me stretch open this pretty little pussy and fill you up with my cock?”

Your breath hitches. Never in a million years could you have imagined that your brother’s mild-mannered best friend could have such a filthy mouth, but you cannot hide the way your core clenches at his words. Slowly, you raise your arms, winding them around his neck to pull him closer. “Yes,” you whisper, brushing your lips against his. “Fuck me, Jungkook.”

A groan escapes him, deep and cavernous in a way that sends heat spiking through your veins. Jungkook doesn’t waste any time, his mouth chasing after yours as one hand finds the back of your head, pulling you into a bruising kiss. The other slides down to the waistband of his jeans, freeing himself from the confines of the denim. He doesn’t break the kiss for a moment, even as he grabs your hips and pulls you closer. It isn’t until you’re seated on the very edge of the washing machine, wrapping your legs around his waist to steady yourself, that you pull away and let your gaze fall to his newly revealed cock. Jungkook is long and deliciously thick, and you let out a shaky breath when you see the pearlescent white drops beading at the swollen tip.

“Oh my god.” The words bubble up automatically, escaping you in an airy whisper. “How are you so big?”

Jungkook huffs out a hoarse chuckle, amusement glittering in his dark irises. “Think you can take all of me, princess?”

Your gaze falls down to his length again, your tongue darting out to wet your lips. “Put on a condom, and let’s find out.”

Jungkook grins and produces a little foil wrapper from somewhere in his back pocket, tearing into it with his teeth. You help him roll the condom over his cock, and as soon as it’s in place, he’s lining himself up and pushing inside you. A deep groan escapes him as he parts your walls inch by torturous inch, and you moan as your pussy is stretched to its limit, molding to his shape and sheer size. By the time he bottoms out, he’s almost prodding at your cervix, and you grab breathlessly at his bicep.

“I—I need a minute,” you gasp, your body spasming around him as you fight to adjust to the surge of fullness.

“Me too,” Jungkook rasps, his voice strained. His eyes flutter shut as he inhales deeply through his nose, cursing again when you clench around him unconsciously. “Fuck. You’re so tight.”

For a few moments, there’s only the sound of Jungkook’s labored breathing, his head falling forward to rest on your shoulder. His breath is hot against the exposed skin of your clavicle, and you sigh when you feel him mouthing at the delicate skin, nipping softly before soothing across it with his tongue.

At the sound, Jungkook raises his head, dark eyes meeting yours before dropping down to where the two of you are joined. “God, you look so good like this,” he murmurs, licking his lips. “So pretty, stuffed full of my cock.”

You clench around him again—this time more purposefully. Jungkook’s mouth falls open, a silent question on the tip of his tongue, and you answer it with a deliberate roll of your hips, wordlessly encouraging him to move. Gingerly, he obeys, retreating until only the head of his erection remains inside you. His hand drops down to your clit, and you keen out his name when he surges forward at the same time he flicks his thumb across the sensitive nub. Pleasure licks at your spine, replacing the discomfort. Jungkook lets out a pleased hum.

Slowly, he works up a rhythm, keeping his thrusts shallow as he begins rubbing circles around your clit again. With his other hand, he slides the straps of your top down your shoulders, tugging the bodice down just enough to free your breasts. Your nipples harden at the exposure, and a moan escapes you when he immediately takes one between his fingers, rolling and pinching at the peak. The additional stimulation, paired with the heavy drag of his cock along your walls and his insistent thumb on your clit, has you teetering dangerously close to the edge, your tummy tensing.

“Jungkook—” you whimper, your nails digging into his shoulders. He grunts in response and picks up the pace, rolling even more fervently up into your clenching heat, and you gasp when a particularly hard thrust sends you scooting backward atop the washing machine. “Fuck! I’m close, Jungkook.”

“Me too,” he grits out. “Come on, princess, cum for me. I know you can do it, just let go for me one more time—”

And with one final flick of his wrist and a thrust that’s so deep you can practically feel him in the back of your throat, you come completely undone, spasming wildly around his cock. It all proves too much for Jungkook, who’s groaning right alongside you as he reaches his high, spilling into the condom. He chants your name like a prayer as his hips gradually still, and his lips seek out yours almost instinctively as his cock softens inside you. The kiss is lazy and languid, contentment settling in your veins. Jungkook wraps you up in a warm embrace, his tongue dipping inside your mouth to explore.

It isn’t until a loud cheer rises up from the front of the house that you snap out of your blissful haze. “We should get back to the party,” you mumble into the kiss, pushing against Jungkook’s chest when he only pulls you closer. “Jungkook, come on. People are gonna get suspicious if we’re gone too long.”

“You know what else will make people suspicious? You, coming out like that.” He gestures at the skirt hiked up around your waist, a slow smirk playing at his lips as he gives you a once-over, his gaze lingering on the wet sheen streaking your inner thighs. “As much as I’m enjoying the view.”

You swat his arm. “Stop that!”

Jungkook snickers and bends down to pick up your discarded panties, swinging them around his index finger. “Stop what?”

“Oh my god, Jungkook.”

Cackling, he returns the lacy undergarment to you, watching as you pull the material up your legs. You adjust your shirt while he disposes of his condom, and when you hop off the washing machine, he offers you a hand that you gratefully accept, gripping his arm as you steady yourself on shaky legs.

“You should leave first,” you tell him, smoothing out the wrinkles in his t-shirt and relishing the way his muscles twitch beneath your fingertips. “It’ll look weird if we leave together, and I need to pee, anyway.”

Jungkook grins and catches your wrists, swooping down to plant a quick kiss on your mouth. “As you wish,” he says, offering you a playful wink.

Then he’s straightening back up to his full height, checking his pockets and running a hand through his mussed hair. You watch as he walks over to the door, putting his ear against it for a few seconds before determining that the coast is clear and slipping out into the hallway. As the door clicks shut behind him, you hear someone—you’re pretty sure it’s a drunk Yugyeom—greet him with a resounding clap on the back. “Dude, where have you been all night? We’re getting our asses handed to us. Minho and Taemin are winning.”

“Sorry, man,” Jungkook half-shouts, and you realize that he’s making sure you can hear him. “Come on. Let’s go get that crown.”

Leaning against the door, you listen as their voices recede down the hallway. You count to five, and then to ten when your thumping heart refuses to slow. At nineteen, it finally calms down—enough that you feel comfortable leaving the laundry room and slipping into the bathroom to clean yourself up.

There’s a massive crowd gathered in the dining room by the time you rejoin the party, and you easily slip unnoticed into the mass of people eagerly watching the final round of the beer pong tournament. Jungkook stands at the far end of the table beside Yugyeom, poised to throw.

He catches your eye at the same time he releases the ball with a flick of his wrist, a knowing smirk settling on his face as triumphant cheers break out all around you.

///

It’s well after midnight by the time the party begins to wind down. Chaeyoung and Lisa are nowhere to be found, and several other girls are lingering near the front door saying their goodbyes before heading out. You find yourself seated on the couch between Jimin and Minho, watching as the latter helps clean up by hurling beer cans at the wastebasket on the other end of the room.

“Man, no wonder you suck at pong.” Jungkook walks into the room and plops down on an end table, a faded cardboard Burger King crown sitting rakishly on his head. “Want me to show you how the champs do it?”

Minho snorts. “Fuck off, man, you barely won that second game. Besides, we totally would’ve won if Taemin hadn’t spent half the time staring at Lisa’s tits.”

Taemin, who’s perched on a corner of the coffee table, raises his hands innocently. “Hey, don’t look at me. I scored most of the points that round.”

Minho huffs irritably and tosses another can at the wastebasket, cursing when it bounces off the rim. Taehyung wanders in and picks it up, throwing it back at Minho before squeezing into the miniscule amount of space between you and Jimin on the couch.

“Jesus, Tae,” you grunt, shifting to give him more room. The movement tilts you toward Minho, smushing you against his side, and he shoots you a playful grin and a wink.

“Cozy?”

“Cozy,” you confirm with a laugh.

“Good,” he says, freeing his arm and throwing it across the back of the couch to give you a little more space. “It’s nice having you around again, Noona.”

Jungkook’s head whirls around so quickly you fear he might have given himself whiplash. His stare zeroes in on Minho’s arm, eyes narrowing at the proximity, but the other boy remains blissfully unaware as he leans back against the couch cushions. Subtly, you lean forward, trying to put some distance between your bodies.

“It’s nice to be back,” you tell him. “It feels like I missed so much, but at the same time, it’s like nothing’s changed.”

“Choi’s aim sure hasn’t changed,” Yugyeom remarks from the doorway with a handful of empty beer bottles. “Still can’t land a shot, even after all these years.” Raising a bottle, he hefts it toward the wastebasket, smirking in satisfaction when it sinks perfectly inside the can.

“And not just with pong,” Taemin goads. “How did things go with Sana again?”

Minho rolls his eyes. “Like you’re one to talk. Besides, we’d all probably stand a better chance if Jeon over there would leave some girls for the rest of us.”

“You’re just jealous because Sana likes him better than she likes you,” Taehyung says with a snicker. “Yo, Jeon! Didn’t you guys make it to third base at Jackson’s party?”

Your stomach sinks as all eyes in the room turn to Jungkook, whose eyes go wide at the sudden attention. “What?”

“Sa. Na,” Taehyung repeats, emphasizing each syllable. “Hottest girl in our year? Third base at Jackson’s? Or are you having a hard time remembering since you wound up leaving with Jihyo?”

Yugyeom chortles as he plops down onto the carpeted floor. “Fuck, man, I forgot about that. Jesus. Just last year you were still shitting yourself at the thought of talking to a girl. Who knew you secretly had so much game?”

The room is beginning to feel stifling. Every breath you take feels like you’re inhaling ash, like a volcano that has lain dormant for ages has suddenly and without warning erupted inside your chest.

He’s playing you. And even worse, it seems that this is a game he’s played before—many times, if his friends are to be believed. Your stomach turns at the thought.

From his perch on the end table, Jungkook scoffs out a stilted, staccato note. “Right. I guess any nonzero number would seem high to you guys, huh?”

Loud jeers break out from the surrounding boys, and you do your best to melt back into the couch cushions. The way you’re squished between Taehyung and Minho makes it impossible for you to find any leverage to stand, so you settle for leaning your head back and staring at the stucco ceiling, willing your heartbeat to slow. Gradually, the noise of the party fades into the background, as do the voices of your brother and his friends. It’s only when Jimin pokes your shoulder, singsonging your name, that you break out of your trance.

“What? Huh?”

“The lake house,” Jimin says, looking at you as if you’re stupid. “You down?”

You can only blink at him, repeating the words back to him dumbly. “The lake house?”

Jimin raises a brow. “Yeah, the lake house. You know, our lake house? The one we drive up to every summer? Where we’ve been vacationing since we were like, five?”

You scowl when he pinches your cheek like you’re a child again. “Yeah, I got that. What about it?”

A snort. “Jeez, have you been listening at all, Noona? We’re talking about going up there for a few days.”

“Oh,” you croak. Unwillingly, you find yourself glancing over at Jungkook, your face growing warm when you see him staring right back, his expression careful and composed. “Right.”

“You should come, Noona,” Taemin pipes up. “You’re here for the next few weeks, right? Might as well have some fun.”

“I don’t know—” you begin, but Jimin cuts you off with a raised finger and another pinch to your cheek.

“You can’t just do homework the whole time you’re here,” he says. “Come with us, Noona. Live a little.”

“It’ll help get your mind off your internship, too,” Jungkook remarks softly. “You deserve a break. Just a few days won’t hurt.”

The fact that he remembers your internship woes shouldn’t make your heart lurch. You know it shouldn’t, but you can’t help the way your chest swells dangerously. “Fine,” you concede, reaching over Taehyung to pinch Jimin’s cheek in retaliation. “I’ll come, I guess.”

Taehyung and Taemin cheer, and Minho wraps his arm around your shoulder and squeezes you tight. “We should invite the other girls,” he points out, chuckling when you splutter for air in his ironclad grasp and try in vain to shake him off. “Don’t want it to be a total sausage fest.”

“Penis party is a much better term,” Taehyung interjects helpfully. “It’s alliterative.”

“You want alliterative? How about a cock carnival?” Jimin supplies, before doubling over in giggles.

You huff, exasperated at the ludicrous turn in conversation. “I can’t believe I’m coming with you guys.”

Minho snickers. “Title of your sex tape,” he jokes, punctuating it with a suggestive eyebrow waggle that sobers your brother up immediately. Jimin straightens up and fixes Minho with a glare, and despite your brother’s smaller stature, the older boy still shrinks back slightly.

“Dude, that’s my sister.”

Minho raises his hands apologetically. “Sorry, sorry. Automatic response. My bad.”

You just roll your eyes. “Are you twelve? God. I don’t know how the girls put up with any of you.”

Gradually, the night draws to a close. The number of people milling about dwindles, and Taehyung fiddles with his phone, letting out a satisfied hum when he finds the playlist he wants. The music transforms into something low and smooth, the soft R&B beat filling the room. You feel your eyes begin to droop.

“We should probably head home,” Jimin says, stretching his arms lazily overhead. “Noona here has to get her beauty sleep, and I don’t feel like carrying her back if she falls asleep here.”

“Shut up, Chim,” you mumble, but there’s no real bite in your tone. Jimin just chuckles and stands up, tugging on your hand until you’re on your feet as well. Jungkook straightens up too, and together, you bid farewell to the others and head for the door.

“{Name}, wait a second.”

You turn at the sound of Jisoo’s voice, tilting your head curiously as she lays a gentle hand on your arm and ushers you off to the side. “Yeah?”

Jisoo casts a furtive glance around the hallway, lowering her voice to a murmur. “I see what’s going on with Jungkook,” she whispers once she’s sure the coast is clear.

You stiffen, your mouth opening and closing a few times before you manage to find your voice again. “You… you saw us?”

She nods. “He’s been watching you all night—it’d honestly be harder not to notice. I just…” She sighs and looks around again, missing the relief that must be etched across your expression as her gaze lingers on where Jungkook and Jimin are loitering by the door. “…just be careful, okay? Jungkook—he’s changed this past year. I mean, I don’t know if all the rumors are true, but… he’s not the same guy you probably remember. He went out with Chae for a few weeks, did she tell you that?”

At your look of horror, she sighs. “Figures. She hides it well, but I know she’s still torn up about how he ended it after they slept together. So watch out for him, okay? He’s a heartbreaker. And he never, ever stays until the morning.”

Every word that leaves her mouth stings, but you don’t let that show on your face. Instead, you force a smile and pat her hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry about me,” you tell her. “I’m not going to get involved with him.”

You repeat that to yourself the whole way home, trying not to focus on the young man a few paces away and the way you can still taste him on your tongue.