#where I knew what the heck was wrong with me

[sashasluggo]

Sometimes I wonder how much better my life would be if doctors took my chronic pain seriously.

[messylustt]

౨ৎ ‧˚

𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨 (𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥) — 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬

miguel o’hara x fem!reader. 3.2k words

fic masterlist previous part pt seven next part

angst but kinda fluffy? straight after; mention of past violence (minor) — you wanted to know what those spanish sentences miguel made you say meant, him having kept that to himself. and when you do, having scouted miles, you’re left…well…shocked. your friends are also left shocked wondering who asked you to say those things. when you go to question miguel about it you find him in a state you’ve never seen him in before.

You had desperately wanted to translate the Spanish Miguel had chosen not to tell you. So much so, that you had began to scout HQ for a Spanish native speaker. You were too prideful to use your phone for translation, plus Miguel said nothing on not asking someone.

You remember Miles saying his mum was Hispanic. Even if his Spanish wasn’t top notch you’re sure he’ll understand at least a few words. Understand the sentences Miguel made you say.

You spot Pav talking with some other spider variants, using large hand gestures. "Pav!" You call, walking up to him.

He shifts his gaze to you, a smile soon following. “Y/n. How are you?”

You smile. “Good…yeah, no I’m good. I was just wondering if you knew where Miles was?”

“Oh.” He spins. “I swear I saw him over there.” He points in a random direction. “…now he’s gone. Maybe with Gwen.” He nudges you, raising his brows. You chuckle, understanding the meaning of those raised brows.

“Well, this will only take a moment. I just need translation for something.”

“Translation? To what language?” Pav asks.

“From Spanish to English. And I heard Miles knows a bit.”

“Ah…wait, but doesn’t Miguel fully speak it?” Pav pauses. “Yeah, he’d know a lot more than Miles.”

You nod. “He just won’t tell me.” You mutter under your breath.

“What was that?” Pav asks, brows furrowed.

You look back up. “Miguel’s just kind of busy right now.” You had no idea if he was or not. “And so I thought Miles might be free.”

“I see.” Pav nods. “Come on, I’ll help you find him.” Pav begins to head down one of the paths in the communal area where bunches of spider variants sat and stood talking.

“Miles!” Pav called out to nowhere in particular. “Miles!?”

“Is yelling his name really gonna help?” Your brows furrow.

“I like to think yelling will conjure up the whole ‘spider-sense’ thing.” Pav says, still gazing around. “Wait, maybe I need to sound more in distress.”

You chuckle, looking around. And that’s when you spot Miles and Gwen. “Miles!” You walk over with a smile. Pav is hot on your heels.

Miles turns, and copies your smile. “Y/n, hey.”

“Okay look, I’m sorry to ask this but can you translate something for me?” You ask, hopeful.

Miles tilts his head slightly. “Yeah, sure. As long as it isn’t French, or Dutch, or Russian. Or practically any language I don’t know.”

Your smile widens. “No, no. None of those. It’s just Spanish.”

“Oh.” Miles stands straighter. “I’ll warn you I don’t know a heck of amount. But I can give it go.”

“Thank you.” You grow more excited in way. All of last night you had been thinking about what you had said, really trying not to just roll over and grab your phone.

“Okay, so it’s two sentences.” You begin. Miles nods. “The first one is…’Me encantaría usar…tu cama para otras…cosas’.” You say it somewhat slowly, making sure you got it right.

When you look back to Miles, he’s staring at you blinking. You stare back. “What?” You ask.

“Um.” He scratches the back of his head. “I’m probably hearing it wrong.” He mutters to himself before he’s looking back to an expectant you.

“What was the second one?” He asks, a little more curious this time.

“Uh…’¿No crees que…me vería bonita atrapada entre…tus sábanas?’”

Now miles is staring at you. You eye him, brows furrowed. “What does it mean?”

He coughs. “Who said that to you?”

“Oh, no I said it to someone.” You answer. “Well, they asked me to say it…”

“You said it someone…” he drifts off, slightly gulping.

“What? Is it…bad?” Your brows are further furrowed. “Come on, Miles, please. I’ve been dying to know what it means all of last night.”

“Well, the first one…it means ‘I’d love to use your bed for other things’.” He mutters it out extremely quickly. That you think you don’t catch it right.

“What?”

“And the second one means ‘don’t you think I’d look pretty trapped in your sheets?’.” Miles’ has looked away, scratching the back of his neck again, clearly a fraction flustered.

This time you’re staring at him, or more so through him. Then you blink. “What?” You repeat stupidly. That can’t be right. Why did miguel ask you to say something about his bed…

Now you weren’t dumb you were just…in shock. Because how does that make sense. And as the words settle in your mind a little more, you begin to feel the familiar burn in your stomach.

Recently your skin had begun to feel hot. In specific scenarios, around a specific someone. Every moment that he had touched you in some way you had either been injured, or fainting, so you hadn’t realised the reactions in the moment. But now, having your mind clear and your body healthy enough your skin grows prickly.

Then there was the touches on your chin…

At first you thought that they were a form of showing his superiority. It seemed like something he’d do. But when you really thought about it, you realised that he wasn’t grabbing Peter’s face like that, he wasn’t leaning over a chair that Gwen was sitting at.

Now you’ve grown hot. And your cheeks are probably bright red, considering how Pav is eyeing you. “Um.” You nod. You don’t know why you’re nodding. You just need to do something that isn’t stare off into space.

“Who, um, asked you to say that?” Gwen asks.

You shift your gaze to her, still slightly stuck in your own head. You felt the urge to fan yourself, but realised how implicating that would seem. Miguel got you to say that stuff? That seemed to be a repeating question in your head.

“Oh, uh, nobody.” You didn’t really want to tell them that it was Miguel. You felt it would put pressure on something that you were sure wasn’t even something. It wasn’t…right?

But now as you quickly thank miles and skim past them, your mind is whirring. Did Miguel…? You press your lips together at the thought, unbuttoning the first button of your dress shirt. You were sure you were reading into it. Though…part of you was actually hoping the underlying meaning you were thinking of was the truth.

You were even slightly shocked at yourself at this revelation. It’s as if it had always been on the tip of your tongue. Not falling off because Miguel is well…Miguel.

;;

“What was that about?” Pav asks, watching your leaving form. Gwen watches you go as well, eyes narrowing in her own inspection.

Miles was still going over the sentences in his head, really double checking he got them right. “Yeah…nah, that’s right.” He mutters. “My translations right.”

“Who asked her—“

“Asked who what?” Hobie appeared, clearly just back from a mission, as he leaned against Miles, resting his arm on his shoulder.

“Y/n.” Gwen says. “She asked Miles to translate something for her.”

“See, I knew this guy would be helpful.” Hobie slightly shakes Miles’ shoulders.

“I think someone has a crush on y/n.” Pav says, making Hobie shift his gaze to him.

“Who?” Miles asks, suddenly interested in the small ordeal.

Pav shrugs, but Hobie shakes his head, scoffing. Pav hadn’t seen you and Miguel interact a hell of a lot. Gwen didn’t pay that much attention to people’s gazes, and Miles was well…new. So, maybe Hobie could give them a break, but he still couldn’t believe how oblivious they were.

Hobie began to figure out Miguel’s little crush on you when Miguel had called him in for a last minute mission that Miguel could have easily done himself. He hadn’t needed Hobie.

And when Miguel’s jaw clenched at the mention of how he was supposed to be hanging out with you, Hobie began to clock on.

“Come on, you lot.” Hobie says staring at them. “Tell me, who speaks Spanish here? Fluently?”

Gwen looks down, thinking. “Miguel.”

Hobie nods. “Uh huh.” He presses, seeing their slightly furrowed brows. “Oh bloody hell, you lot are thick.”

“Oh…” Pav mutters. “Oh!” He realises, and Hobie gestures to him, sighing in relief.

“Thank anarchy.” He mutters, thankful one person caught on.

“Miguel likes y/n?!” Pav practically exclaims, earning a few side glances from other spider variants.

“It’d seem so.” Hobie smirks.

;;

Later that evening, you stood, not meaning to feel as flushed as you were. Standing in front of Miguel's bedroom door, you felt hot, your breathing quickening. After having found out what he got you to say—and having gone through the stages of confusion, denial and then shock—you've arrived back to sweaty palms.

You take a breath, knocking, but instead of the solid feel of the door, your hand falls through, the door having been cracked open a fraction—your nervous state must have forced you not to notice. It swings wider and your breath hitches.

Miguel's room is a mess, and not just his bed this time. Things are smashed, and his chair is thrown, lying lifeless on the floor. You then shift your gaze up to a heaving Miguel. He finally notices your presence, meeting your wide eyes.

Miguel had always been someone who was controlled. Sure, he got agitated easy, and clearly had some anger issues to deal with, but 'messy' was never a word you associated with him. And here he was hair ruffled, wet from the outside rain, and covering part of his eyes. His chest heaved to a mismatched beat, as his nose twitched in a snarl, his fangs very visible in the dim light. He looked like the definition of ‘a mess’.

"What are you doing here?" His low tone breaks you from your silent stance, your lips coming closed to rub against each other in...thought? You weren't entirely sure.

You gulp. "Did something...happen?" You scan his body for injuries, but find none. You glance at his open window. "Did you go on a mission?"

"Did you need something?" Miguel doesn't mean for his tone to come out so harshly. And watching your face twitch a fraction made him grind his teeth in annoyance at himself.

"I was going to ask you something, but..." Now you weren't so sure that this moment was the right one.

Miguel gulps, turning slightly away from you. "If you have nothing to say…go."

Yes, Miguel was acting clip and rude with you. And yes...maybe he did turn away so he wouldn't see your expressions. But then he hears your steps slowly draw closer. He shifts his gaze back to you.

Right now was the worst time to see you, he didn't want you to see him, he wanted you to go.

"I thought you had nothing to say?" Miguel briskly asks, but you caught the slight crack in his harsh tone. A crack that displayed a mix of emotions—stress, anxiety,...fear?

Before you know it you're moving closer, your feet, the rain and his breathing filling the other wise silent room. "Now's not a good time." His tone cracked even more. This time with anger.

You stop, a decent distance away. And maybe you should leave, leave him to this. But what is this? You voice that. "What is this?" 'This' as in the mess. 'This' as in Miguel's body language. He looked like he was not even a minute away from exploding.

"Are you...okay?"

Part of Miguel's facade broke at that. "I'm perfectly fine. Do I not look it?" He spits this, fully turning to you. Some droplets of water, that had drenched his hair slides down his cheek.

You know not to be taken aback by Miguel's words. But you'd never seen the word 'crazed' written in his eyes before...'frantic'. "No...you don't look it." You say, eyeing him. "You look...you don't look like yourself."

Miguel mockingly nods, his tongue dragging across one of his fangs, and actually drawing blood. "Right." He forcibly chuckles. "I forgot, I'm supposed to look...what? Composed? On task? In control?" He's stepped closer to you, each word coming out like a snarl.

"Not everything stays the same." Miguel is saying. "Not everything goes the way we plan." He grits out 'plan' like he despises the word altogether.

And as you glance from his hair to the window, to then his too clean of a suit, you realise something. It wasn't a mission, but he had gone somewhere.

"Miguel, where did you go?"

"I didn't go anywhere." He scoffs out.

"Yes you did." You say, narrowing your eyes in thought. And maybe now would be a good time to leave, leave him be. But of course you wouldn't, 'worry' now tieing you up tight. Then you pause. "Why are talking about things that don't go to plan? What hasn't gone to plan?"

"You know, you can be real nosy sometimes." Miguel wanted to punch himself. Why did he say that? You had never been nosy, only observant. Maybe too much for your own good, but it was surely a talent of yours. And here he was shaming you.

But in this moment you weren't fazed. Something was wrong. "Miguel, you've clearly just come in here angry. You're hair's wet from the rain, so obviously recently. Your room is a mess. It's never a mess. You're...never a mess."

"Oh, plenty of things can become a mess, y/n."

"Yeah, but never you. Sure, you've gotten angry before, but you've never trashed a room. There's glass on the floor...you broke that mirror." You gesture to the one hanging on the wall, a prominent fist imbedded in the middle.

"Don't tell me you're gonna deduce where I've fucking been by the glass?!" He was yelling. Not at you. Never at you. At himself. But he's always been very good at projecting. Especially when you're around.

"No." You breathe. "I'm asking you." You say, letting a hint of your concern shine through. You were concerned. Very concerned. Maybe Miguel would have noticed your concern, if he wasn't slowly loosing it. If the messed up room wasn't enough of a tell, he's hit his peak.

"What happened?" You ask again, and this time you finally get a response.

"I fucked up, okay?!" He exclaims, his heart pounding a mile a minute. "I can't take it back. And I've tried. I've really tried. But you know what? Maybe this is meant to happen. Maybe I'm meant to screw everything up."

You stare at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I..." Miguel drifts off, fisting his already disheveled hair. "I let them take it..." Hs voice has softened. But not to a nice kind of softened—a broken one.

You step a fraction closer. "Who? And take what?"

You can visibly see Miguel's strength ebbing away. He looks exhausted, and all in all done. Done with everything. You didn't like that look, you didn't like the inclination of it. "Miguel." You say slowly.

But he's going farther and farther back into his mind, getting tangled up in thoughts you could tell had begun to haunt him. Screwed up? What had he supposedly screwed up?

Then before your mind could work on overdrive, millions of questions wanting to surface, and before Miguel could step further back from reality, you stepped much, much closer, reaching up on your tip toes. And then you wrapped your arms around his neck...hugging him.

Miguel is frozen. Entirely frozen. His mind stops trying to murder him and the drowning sounds in his ears fade away. Now he can hear your breathing, a nervous beat clear. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know if he should do what he’s thinking.

But then you’re slowly drawing back, arms leaving his body. And he can’t have that. He swiftly wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you back to him, as his hands clench around your shirt.

Your breathing hitches as Miguel’s breath hits your collarbone, his head choosing to rest in the crook of your neck, his lips grazing part of your skin.

No. He had told himself he wouldn’t think like that anymore. It was exhausting, and he was tired enough as is. His grip tightened around you. To all the doubtful voices in his head, he was using you to say ‘shut the hell up’.

You could feel Miguel’s entire body practically slump against yours. And though your cheeks were red hot, and your heart was screaming you wrapped your arms back around his neck, your wrists meeting together by his hair.

For once Miguel heard silence. He had always had too many voices in his head telling him this and that. And that ‘this was what has to be done’ and that ‘no, you can’t get distracted’.

Now he felt a much relieving calmness engulfing him. You. His breathing slightly shuddered against your neck, the open of his mouth leading his fangs to lightly brush across your skin.

You shivered at this, earning Miguel to lean his head back. But he didn’t let your waist go. You stopped those voices and he’d be damned if he let you step away from his body now.

Your breathes met, as did your gaze. You were close, the seeming millimetre making you seem even more so. You could feel Miguel’s fingers fiddle slowly with the back of your shirt, your front still pressed against his.

“I’m…” You gulp, your voice coming out much shakier than you intended. “Sorry…I probably shouldn’t have hugged you.” You could practically taste his breath.

“Yeah…you probably shouldn’t have.” His tone is breathy, sounding out of body, as his gaze flickers to your lips.

They’re dry—of course. And now at the close proximity licking them made you feel ten times hotter. You prayed he couldn’t see your blushing cheeks.

“I’m sorry that I just…sorta came in.” You felt you had to fill in the silence. Miguel didn’t seem to mind it though, cause it meant that he could listen to your voice. And replacing your voice with the one’s in his head is probably the smartest choice he could ever make.

Well maybe the second smartest choice… He stared at your freshly wet lips, breathing harder. His thoughts had changed from ‘how much more could he take’ to ‘how much more…more…more’. He wanted more. More of your closeness, this seemed to not be enough.

In response to his thoughts his hands glided up your back, making your body lean more against him. Chest to chest.

“A-and I probably shouldn’t have assumed all that stuff…” you breathe out, as Miguel tilts his head, looking down at you. It’s safe to say your were flustered.

“I think you did alright.” He partially whispered.

“Well…you’re not throwing a chair..so..” Stupid, stupid, stupid—you think to yourself. “I mean…”

And to your shock you notice his lips begin to curve up. And not just to stop at a certain point. No. His lips continued to widen until he was smiling. An actual, genuine smile, that oozed amusement, and it made him look…happy?

“Careful.” You say. “You look like you’re expressing a ‘sparkly emotion’.”

“Oh no.” His grin doesn’t fall, and it only makes your heart beat faster. “We wouldn’t want that…would we?”

You quickly shake your head, and Miguel presses his lips together with further amusement, his eyes darting. “…cute.”

You freeze. And Miguel seems to realise his small slip up, as his eyes grow a fraction wider. He had slipped up in English. Goddamn English. You understood.

But what he didn’t know was that you understood a lot more than just that word. And as the reason for your arrival to his room came back to you, the simple word ‘cute’ seemed to mean a whole lot, lot more.

I’m sorry this one’s kinda short, and not too much is going on. but I wanted them to have a close moment like this before they…well…y’know.

at this point I’ve decided to do nine parts (it fits better) so next part…mhm…FINALLY we can get some closer HaPpIniNgS

plus next part im gonna go onto a deeper dive of where Miguel went and who the masked men are — i just needed a bit of tension filled fluff

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[7ken3]

tw. MINORS DNI, fem/afab! reader, quite the buildup n plot, reader found out she has a thing for choking, bit of voyeurism, breast play, possibly ooc gallagher, oral (fem receiving), scratching, implied impact play, smut grows into fluff but with tiny bit of angst, protected sex, no proofreading cuz all done in one sitting teehee

notes. the things i want gallagher to do to me after that trailblazer quest... like the new update just made me go full on feral thoughts for him

—;;

Gallagher reminds me of that neighbour that has been living beside you for years, that neighbour who he, kinda unfortunate for you, has seen everything, from your past lover storming out of your house, to your coos echoing in your house directed to your pet, to you walking out to pick up your order, and yada yada, you get it.

He has seen it all, heard it all.

And what he has heard from you ranges on a lot of contexts... let's say your laughter, your complaints, your cries, and also your cries — of pleasure.

What shocked you the most after living beside him, acknowledging each other's presence for more than half a decade, was the thought of him popping up in your mind while you were going at it. At first, you thought:

"Hey... this is... wrong! I shouldn't be thinking about my neighbour like that..."

But once he appears, then disappears, and when you thought that'd be final, there's the image again, but with him pressing you up against the wall, a hand carrying your leg while the other hand presses gently around your throat- Woah! Around... my throat?

It was all too good, all too... exciting, yet it's still bad.

Maybe just this once... it wouldn't hurt, right?

And just when Gallagher thought that this be the last time he'll hear your moans and begs through the wall separating your houses, your rooms, he finds himself in the same position again like the other night, his back leaning against the wall with a hand cupping his length as he strokes himself. He doesn't know why and not precisely when did he begin becoming aroused to the thought of you engulfed around his cock. Becoming so... accustomed to whatever this is.

He doesn't know when had he begin to start imagining your body bouncing on his member, or have you whine and cry as he pounds himself into you while having you spread open with your hands gripping the sheets above your head, telling him to don't stop.

He blames you that's for sure, and he blames himself too, mostly, for being attracted to you in the first place. At some point in time he wasn't sure if all this was just lust on your part, since this new stage where he finds your frequent moans and cries arousing was just a bonus point on his perspective.

Heck, it has come to a point where he has to double check in the morning when all strings of control broke loose from your offer one evening.

"You wanna try my dessert? It's my special and just... thought of sharing them with you!" You chimed, hands both clasping on the fence. It only takes for him to lean further in like he always does, for you to hitch a breath, for him to stare into those beautiful, glossy orbs of yours, and for two sentences to be exchanged:

"Why not, y/n? Bring them over later so we can enjoy them while we chat."

"Sure!"

God none of you knew that the moment after he opens the gates for you, closes the door behind him, and after you've placed your dessert on the counter, that it would be this... quiet.

The two of you stared at each other, being a meter apart at the moment feels... daunting enough for the both of you. What if he steps closer? Would he scare you off and ruin the vibe? Or what if you stepped closer and close the distance, just to go along with your fantasies and fulfil your subconscious longing that has grown over time for him.

Then your bodies clashed, as if both minds were on the same wavelength about the same thing, your hands fumbled across your clothes, the two of you not sure where to begin. He was yearning and you were craving for each other's touch.

The room now fills with pants, your hands slid up to his chest and to his stubbled jaw, his hands squeezes your waist before venturing down to grope your ass. You swear that the further your bodies press against each other it might soon become one.

"Gallag-" your hand cradles his neck, "-gher", as your right leg lifts up, your lips molding together with his before he hoists you up to wrap your legs around him. It was all too fast, all too fast that you're both in his bedroom, clothes messily and not even completely torn off each other. He gazes dreamily at you, admiring your body under the warm evening light, how the sunset orange hue washed over your body, eccentuating the curves and dents of your perked mounds.

Was this even reality?

Now that you're beneath him and how he has his clothed member pressed against your clothed sex. A moan slips off your lips as his calloused hands graze past your belly and up to grab your tits. He squeezes and jiggles them, playing and toying your bud until you're a squirming mess beow. Too much, this feeling you've thought of countless times begins to feel too much!

You arched your back in response, and he toys them further, rolling his thumbs on your buds before coming down to kiss you. He never thought he'll hear your moans this clearly in his ears, especially when he goes further down to suckle on your nipple while the other hand ventures further down, tracing patterns on your stomach before going lower and lower, until he decides to flick his tongue at your swollen bud due to how wet you've become. At this point he couldn't care how messily you're gripping his hair, he lowers his head down to the wet spot between your legs.

"How long have you been waiting for this?" He asks, chuckling at the sight.

You waste no time in replying to his question, "So long. So, so long, Gallagher."

"Ya know, y/n... I... nevermind." He whispers towards the end, not wanting to dwell on a possibility that might never happen.

What was he to you anyway? He was merely a neighbour, a friend, nothing more.

Even though the chemistry is strong, what type of chemistry is this? Based on lust? Based on cravings?

It isn't love, right?

"What is it?" Carefully, as if he might pull away, you try to move your hands to cup his face, only for him to press his face firmly onto your sex, your hands now carefully pinned by your sides. You buck your hips when you felt his wet, warm tongue pressing against your entrance. "Please- just- just-"

He retracts and hums before poking at your entrance again. The slight sensation leaves you whining before he releases your hands to hold onto your hip, the other pushing the fabric aside for him to swallow you whole in his mouth. He licks, sucks, nibble the side of your thighs. You taste even better than he had imagined, and he becomes more eager at each beg and cry he gets to pull out of your panting wet lips. He pauses for a moment, perhaps fearing he might go mindless into eating your wet pussy out.

"Tell me if you need me to stop," he pauses, hoping that he wouldn't make you uncomfortable, "I don't wanna make you uncomfortable-"

"Gallagher." This time not caring to be gentle, you pull his face up, all he can do is to blink at you, wondering if he has ruined the mood, wondering the reason behind the firm tone of your voice. "I..."

Your pause only leaves him more nervous than he anticipated, he doesn't show it, yet his mind is running around the places right now. You? You what?

Watching as you grow hesitant, his voice now soft, asks out to you. "You...?"

"I want you."

His heart stops. I... want you?

"Y/n, really... Are you sure?"

"Yes, I want you. I need you."

Immediately he buries himself into the taste of your pussy, licking and sucking any liquid off your entrance. Your moans grow from begs and gasps to cries of gibberish, cries of how good he's making you feel.

The two of you went on and on, condom after condom, scratches after scratches. Hours went by, and rounds after rounds were done. By the time the two of you come for the umpteenth time, his bedsheets now become a mess as the both of you lay there, panting, heaving. The stings on your bodies now barely felt as a fog of satisfaction clouds your minds.

"I want you."

The words echo in his mind again, guess he might need to check again with you in the morning if you ever decide to stay over for the night tonight.

Though, he's now sure he doesn't have to when he realizes he has fallen all over again for you in the dark of his room tonight, turning his head at your call to find you gazing up at him, as if the stars were now a part of your irises. Your arms now loosely wrapped around his waist, your laid body snuggled much closer to his seated figure as a soft murmur slips out, now becoming a memento of tonight.

"Stay, Gallagher."

—;;

©  2024 at 7ken3, do not repost or plagiarize.

[vampzity]

spidey senses | J.YH

"when nothing adds up i’ll be your number, you’re 106 and i’m 94." — 200, mark

—✫ pairing: spider-man! yunho x gn! reader

—✫ genre: ateez, drabble, spider-man au, fluff, jeong yunho

—✫ synopsis: you were always very close with yunho, but you never quite knew who he really was whenever he made excuses to leave or cancel plans with you. as close as you felt with yunho, you didn’t realize you were close with someone else in the process.

—✫ wc: 923

[warnings]: cursing, really no other warnings but that

—✫ a/n: i love spiderman. i needed a spidey yunho idea to be written so here we are ! mark’s new mv just urged my will to do it. not my favorite piece, but I really wanted to write it and keep it short! *not proofread*

“Where the heck is he?”

You sat on your bed, annoyed as you continued to check your phone. He should’ve been here by now, but of course, he was late as usual.

You and Yunho were supposed to go out to a new cafe that opened in town. It closed at eight and the plan was to leave at five, but when you had checked the time, it was now pushing 7:30.

It didn’t help that today was the day you were planning to admit your feelings to him, determined to take the weight that’s sat on top of your shoulders for so long. You two have been close for some time, so what could go wrong? There was a chance he had felt the same, no?

You sighed heavily, taking off your shoes and jacket as disappointment filled your heart. This was the 4th time this week he had been late, or even a “no-show,” and you were tired. Just as you were going to lay down, a tall man flew in through your window, wearing red and blue.

“What the fuck?!!” you yelled, throwing your shoe at the figure in your room.

The shoe flew at his head, earning a groan out of him as he grabbed the back in pain. Your eyes widened at his suit, realizing the similar spider webbed pattern layered across it.

Did Spider-man really just fly through your window?!

The man sighed heavily and began to turn to you., rubbing the back of his head softly as he held his mask in his other hand.

“Dude, you know I come in through your window all the time.. why would you hit me???”

Your eyes widened as you two stood face to face. Your face in utter shock as he came into view. Did he even realize his mask was off? Surely, right? Maybe he wasn’t the smartest superhero everyone made him out to be.

“Yunho?!” you spoke, your eyes practically popping out of your head as his own did with you.

He quickly looked down, seeing the mask scrunched in his hands. It was at this point that Yunho knew there was no going back, and now he had to come clean. What excuse could he possibly make to you? Especially in such a quick amount of time? It was inevitable.

“Shit.” he brought his free hand up to his face, shaking his head softly as he realized his stupidity. “Well.. uh, let me explain myself.”

You rolled your eyes, shifting to the side in bed as you made room for him to sit down. He took a seat, sighing as he tired to explain the ordeal to you; from how he was bit, to when. How he had gotten used to his powers and ultimately decided to use it for good. It also brought answers to the billions of questions you’d have over his whereabouts, as to why he was always so late to hang out with you or even why he ditched you at times.

You punched him in the arm, crossing your hands as you sat there in disbelief. Yunho looked at you with a shy smile, unsure of how you may take the news.

“You idiot. You should’ve told me.” you mumbled, holding onto his hand.

He shrugged and squeezed your hand softly. “I didn’t want you to worry about me. It’s a big responsibility, you know?”

You nodded, standing up as you pulled him with you. You took the mask from his hand, placing it over his eyes. His face turned red as he felt your hands rest in his, still unable to see where you were.

“I was still worried about your whereabouts, Yunho. I hope you can learn to trust me.”

You both exchanged a smile as you rested your hand against his cheek. Pulling his face to yours, you rested your lips on his softly. Your lips intertwined as his hands wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to his body. His lips were warm against yours, making your heart beat out of your chest.

You pulled away from him, keeping your eyes low as he pulled his mask up from his own. He smiled at you softly, his hand coming up to your chin. He lifted your head slowly to look at him, kissing you one more time before beginning to speak.

“I don’t think you understand how long I’ve waited to do that.” he chuckled softly, his cheeks as red as blood.

You blushed, feeling your heart rest as he calmed your nerves with his confession. The weight you once felt living on your shoulders, was now gone. He did feel the same, felt the exact same as you. Your bond was too strong, not even a mere superhero confession could break that apart. It only made you stronger, and you were grateful for that.

“Does this mean I’m your sidekick?” you smiled cheekly, a laugh escaping you as he rolled his eyes.

“Hmm… I’m not sure..”

Yunho wrapped his arm around your waist, placing his mask back on and bringing you toward the window. He opened it, bringing you both out onto the fire escape.

“How about we go for a ride and find out, hm?”

You looked up at him, your eyes lighting up. You wrapped your arms around his chest and neck, holding on tightly as he prepared to take off. He tilted his head at you, signaling to you that he was smiling under his mask.

“Alrighty spidey sidekick, hold on tight.”

taglist: @skzline @evidive @xoxkii @vrtualsins @sanslovesblog

@dvrktvnnel @scarfac3 @honeyhwaaa @sundaybossanova @kittykat-25

@losrpark @yyaurii @aestheticjoonie @roomsofangel @mingtinysworld

@minghaoslatina @rvereri

*comment to be added to the taglist!*

—divider creds to owner—

[racinggirl]

furthest from truth

Lando Norris fic - requested

My inbox for requests

a/n: I'm baaack! It's been a while, I have to admit. But after having 3 new requests today, I got motivated again and I decided to write the ones that were yet to be posted on my page. I hope you like it! I've added some spice to the end of the chapter 👀 Don't forget to follow me so you won't miss my other stories! 🫶🏼

Sun. Beach. Sand. Friends.

It might look cliché, but it’s what filled your hearts with joy.

‘’Norris! Give me a hand, will ya?’’ Your lips pulled away from those of your boyfriend the moment he got up to help one of your friends with preparing the jet skis.  

‘’Finally,’’ your best friend, Ava, laughed as she took a seat next to you. ‘’Now that your lips are no longer glued to his, what do you think of grabbing a drink, I’m in a desperate need for a Frozen Daiquiri.’’

She pulled you up on your feet after you agreed on getting drinks. It was your holiday, after all, and even though it was just your first day of the 3-week holiday here in Dubai, you were planning on making it the best holiday yet.

You and Lando had been together for a little over 5 months now, the two of you bumping into each other at last year’s Christmas Market in London. You spilled your bottle of water over your shirt, and he was determined to win you a teddy bear so he could make it up to you.

After that Christmas Market, you went on a ton of dates. In London, but also in Monaco, as that was where he lived. You attended 3 races before he finally asked you to be his last summer, and obviously you said yes, otherwise this story is kind of weird, isn’t it?

Anyways, you knew who he was when you met him, having watched a few races here and there, along with your friends.

The moment you told your friends Lando had asked you out on a date, they couldn’t contain their excitement and practically forced you to go out with him. So, you did. And here we are, almost a year later.

‘’Two Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri, please.’’ Ava ordered the drinks for the two of you and once you felt the cold glass in your hand, you immediately took a sip.

‘’Urgh,’’ you groaned, your eyes closed. ‘’Best drink ever.’’ You giggled.

‘’Lando! Oh my god watch out!’’ Your grip on his life jacket was tight as he was riding the jet ski with you on the back. ‘’You idiot!’’ You laughed, hands gripping his shoulders firmly when you felt him go even faster – if that was even possible.

‘’You’re riding a jet ski with an F1 driver, love. Did you really think I was gonna go slow?’’ You groaned at his reply, and you simply held onto him like you could fall off any moment, which was probably the case.

Everything sport related was a game to him, and he was very, very competitive. He hated losing, which is why he tried his hardest to make you his, with success.

‘’Okay, okay, enough speed for me, let’s go back to the shore and have dinner, I’m starving.’’ You breathe, Lando’s hand moving over your leg slowly. He lifted his hand till it rested on your outer thigh, whilst still steering the jet ski with one hand. Slower, though, thankfully.

‘’We will, love, we will.’’ He said, but you could hear the amusement in his voice, his tone, teasingly with a smirk.

‘’Lan-…’’ You couldn’t even finish your sentence before your boyfriend pulled the right handle towards him, the two of you flying over the water. He made sure to keep an eye on you, but he knew you enjoyed this, and he wasn’t wrong.

You might tell him to stop going fast, heck, even in the bedroom you’d tell him to stop, but it was always with that flirty and teasing tone. He knew that tone, and he knew it meant you did not want him to, in fact, stop. So, he kept going.

‘’I should have thought better before signing that contract about us.’’

You were fully drenched, Lando obviously pushing the strings too hard which caused you to fall off the jet ski. Nothing harsh, it was all playful, and the two of you were laughing when it happened.

‘’You’re an idiot.’’ You smirked, rolling your eyes playfully as you squeezed the salty water out of your hair.

‘’I know, but you like it.’’ He teased, slapping your ass lightly as his hand moved its way towards your hip, his lips pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. ‘’I love you.’’

Dinner, which was absolutely insane – mostly because you were starving, but definitely because it was one of the best restaurants here in Dubai.

‘’Ehm..’’ Ava shoved you her phone, and you immediately let your eyes wander over the tweets, the Instagram posts, and the articles.

Lando saw the worried look on your face, so he cut off the conversation with his friends and pointed his attention to you, causing his friends to do the same.

‘’What’s wrong, love?’’ He asked, his thumb drawing small circles on your knee as his gaze went from you to the phone, back to you.

You showed him the articles, and a heavy sigh escaped his lips. You could see his jaw clench, the apple in his throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly. ‘’They really need to make rumours about everything, don’t they?’’ He sighed and pressed a kiss to your temple.

‘’Don’t worry, Y/N, I’ll fix it, we’ll post a statement on Insta, alright?’’ He said, his arms wrapping around you which caused you to relax.

You felt guilty, because you were aware of the eyes that were on him now that his contract with McLaren was coming to an end. You knew his contract was getting renewed, but the world didn’t, and you didn’t want to cause issues.

People blaming McLaren for not renewing his contract, and how this. People blaming McLaren for forcing Lando to be in a relationship with you, a PR relationship, which was the furthest from the truth. You loved each other so much, and McLaren had absolutely nothing to do with the two of you.

‘’Come here.’’ Lando’s arms made his way around your shoulders, his strong arms pulling you even closer to his chest. The bed was comfy, soft, but the tension in your face was apparent, especially to Lando.

‘’I just, I feel so stupid for saying that.’’ You sighed but Lando reassured you immediately.

‘’Babe, it’s not the first time we say this, it’s our joke, and people don’t get it, apparently. You know how the media is, they exaggerate everything to get those views and clicks, so they probably overheard you saying that, but did not see the look on your face, or your beautiful smile when you said that.’’ His voice was soft and calm, like he was not stressed at all about this.

‘’But the image McLa-..’’

‘’No, baby, no. That’s not your fault, okay? They should have probably announced the contract extension sooner, yeah, but that has absolutely nothing to do with whatever you said at the beach, okay?’’ He said, stern, but gentle. And you believed him. Of course you did, you believed everything he would tell you because you knew he was right.

‘’Now let’s make that post so people will stop complaining about things that are the furthest from the truth. That, and so I can take you tonight because I really, really want to.’’ He whispered the last thing with a voice so deep, you felt chills all over your body.

landonorris added to his story

landonorris & yourusername

liked by user1, user2, user3 and 1,273,710 others

I love you more than anyone imagine. Nothing can stop us, I promise you. Best decision I've ever made 🧡

view all 39,264 comments

user1 I feel ashamed

user5 as you should user3 we all should. how could we think it was just a PR. they are in love in love.

user2 You are so so so cute together!

‘’Lando, fuck, stop!’’ You breathe, hands pushing against his chest as he looked into your eyes, his bright ones a few shades darker than usually. He smirked, wetted his lips before thrusting even harder… Just how you asked.

[mykoreanlove]

conditional

„Baby? I’m home.“

Hyunjin came back from practice, beaten and tired, but eager to see you again. He threw his new Versace bag in the corner and scouted the area for you. “Baby?”

But his baby was nowhere to be found. He looked for you in every room – the living room was empty even though there were still some vanilla scented candles burning. Your bedroom was empty too, it still looked the same way it did when Hyunjin left you this morning. Now he was getting worried. “Y/Nnie?” He opened the door to your office but that was empty, too. Silently, he muttered to himself. “Damn, y/n, where are you?”

It wasn’t until he opened the door to the bathroom that he found you – passed out on the cold marble tiles.

Hyunjin was startled but quickly regained composure as he noticed your journal right next to you. He smirked amused. “Did you fall asleep while journaling again? What are you manifesting this time, baby?”

He crouched down and took a look at your journal, his handsome features suddenly turned ice-cold. Privacy was important in every relationship, especially this one, but he couldn’t help himself. He scanned the pages roughly – words of self-abuse were written all over those white pages. Hyunjin turned around and took a good look at you. Your face, even though you were asleep, looked in distress. Your cheeks were reddened, eyes puffy with your mascara smeared, turning you into a panda. “My baby cried herself to exhaustion”, he muttered in disbelief.

Your boyfriend decided to let you sleep for a while and invaded your privacy instead, he needed to know what made you upset like this. Was it wrong? Yes. Did he care? No.

He sat right next to you and took your journal into his hands. He once gifted you this brown leather book, in the hopes of you filling it with the most beautiful words. But what was written in here was far from beautiful.

I had a talk with Chan today. His daddy sensors were tingling, and he somehow knew that I felt off. I swear to God, he sees me as another kid of his. But I admit, it feels nice. I don’t like talking about my insecurities but with him it’s kinda easy. I never talk about them with anyone, not even Jinnie. I just can’t. I don’t want to.

Hyunjin stopped reading and let out a deep sigh. He looked at you again, wondering why you kept secrets from him. It hurt him tremendously, the love of his life couldn’t communicate her deepest pain with him. Instead, she talked to his hyung? He would confront Chan later, now was not the time for more drama.

How did I end up talking to Chan in the first place? Well, I ran into him when I was on the way back home. I had a very important doctor’s appointment today.

Hyunjin’s whole body shuddered, anxiety taking over. An important doctor’s appointment? How did he not know this? Were you sick? Was something wrong? He panicked, internally debating if he should wake you this instant. He chose to continue reading instead.

I have very bad period cramps and decided to check them out, so I went to the doctor. And he did some tests and what do you know? I might not be fertile. Can you believe that? Me, a young woman in the prime of her life, may not be fertile. I might never become a mom. Jinnie might never become a dad. At least, not with me.

Hyunjin choked.

Panicked, he turned around and faced you again. “Baby. My baby, I am so sorry. I am so so sorry that you had to handle this on your own. Oh my god, y/nnie.” He caressed your cheek with his hand and watched you sleep. He felt guilty, as if he missed out on important parts of your life. Why didn’t you trust him with this?

He noticed the tear strains on the next pages, tearing up as well.

It’s not fair.

Life is not fair. Why is something like this happening to me? I always took care of my body. I eat healthy, I work out, I take my vitamins but somehow, I’m not able to become a mom? Heck, I don’t even know if I want kids, but now I probably will never have the choice to decide.

Why me?

Hyunjin stopped reading for a second. He felt your pain in every written word and it shook him to the core. He couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to be in your skin right now.

And after this appointment I ran into Chan in the park. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I guess I needed to let off some steam. I told him about the test results, and I told him that I felt like a giant failure, and I told him that I had no idea how I should tell Jinnie. Or rather if I should tell him at all or simply break up with him.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes at your dramatic ass. “As if you just could break up with me y/n. You’re stuck with me forever.” He continued reading.

Chan just listened and asked me one single question. Just one.

Do you believe you’re worthy of being loved?

Isn’t it funny how one question can catch you off guard? Because that is exactly what happened. And now I’m sitting here on the cold bathroom floor trying to make sense of it.

Do I believe I’m worthy of being loved?

“Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes”, Hyunjin muttered under his breath.

I guess?

I mean I have a wonderful boyfriend who clearly loves me very much, so the answer kind of has to be yes.

But do -I- believe I am worthy of being loved?

Hyunjin paused one last time and looked at you. He wondered if he should stop reading, he wondered if he was armed for whatever was about to come. Did you really not believe you were worthy of being loved? He felt the pit in his stomach, realizing he had to be the shittiest boyfriend on the planet. Not only did you keep secrets from him, but you also questioned something so banal. Wasn’t it his job to show you the exact opposite?

He let out a sigh and continued reading.

If I’m totally honest? No.

I never felt like that. I always felt like I had to be perfect in order to be worthy of love. But I never was perfect. And I never will be. My tits are too small. My tummy is too fat. My hair is too flat. My lips are too thin. I’m not cool enough. Now I’m not healthy enough. And soon I won’t be young enough. So no, I never felt like I was good enough to be loved.

Hyunjin cried silently, reading every word with care.

How the fuck am I supposed to tell Jinnie? He is going to leave me; he should leave me. I’m not normal, I’m flawed. I don’t deserve to be with him. He deserves someone better, someone on his level. Someone that is just as beautiful and popular as him. Someone with big tits and a flat tummy and super big hair and plush lips that he can kiss all night long. Someone that is healthy and might gift him a child someday. That can never be me.

Hyunjin tossed your journal aside and started bawling, his sobs distracting the silence of the night. He couldn’t believe this; he couldn’t believe you. Were you serious? That's what you thought of yourself? Why did you hate yourself so much?

His crying woke you up, alerting you in seconds. You got up on your feet and hugged him, holding him as tight as you could. “Jinnie, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

He hugged you back and sobbed into your shirt, you were barely understanding a word.

“You, y/n, you’re what’s wrong!”

You paused, scanning the room for your journal. It was lying on the floor next to your crying boyfriend.

“Did you…?”

He nodded, wiping away his tears. Anger masked the shame you were feeling as you wanted to get up, but he was quicker and hugged you in the tightest embrace known to mankind.

“I had no right to, I’m sorry y/nnie. I am so, so sorry.”

Even though you felt ashamed you were relieved, too. Finally, the cat was out of the bag, and you didn’t have to carry this big burden on your own. You hugged for a while, both of you crying silently.

“Can we talk about what you wrote?”

“Do we need to?” You looked down.

His index finger tilted your chin carefully, looking at you with the utmost care. “Yes, my love. We need to.”

You sighed and gave in.

“Do you really feel that way?”

“Hm.”

“Do you think I’m perfect?”

“Of course. You are perfect, Jinnie.”

He rolled his eyes at you. “Sometimes you remind me of a fourteen-year-old girl, y/n.”

You got offended: “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You do realize that nobody is perfect? Not even me?”

You scoffed. “Did you tell your face that?”

He let out a laugh. “You’re so silly, baby. What did you write about your tits being too small and your tummy too fat? I could say the same thing about me being too skinny and not ripped enough. You do realize that we all are beautiful in our own way? And that everybody got a different taste? What if I liked your tits this size? What if I loved your curves exactly like that? Has that ever occurred to you?”

It had not.

“And let’s talk about you being not normal. I understand that the fertility thing is a grave prophecy but that doesn’t make you less normal than anybody else. It doesn’t diminish your worth baby. Nothing could ever do that. Do you get that?”

You grabbed the hem of his shirt tighter and started sobbing again. “Jinnie, what if I can never conceive? What then?” He placed a soft kiss on the top of your head. “Then we’ll figure out a way, my love. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”

You looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

He chuckled, flashing you his warmest smile. “Yes, I am sure. I love you, y/n. I love you for who you are. I fell for your soul baby, not your body or what you could do for me. To me you are absolutely perfect.” He kissed the tears away, holding you even more closely. “Y/Nnie? Don’t ever think that my love for you is-“

“Conditional?”

[rowretro]

𝐍𝐎 𝐆𝐔𝐓𝐒 𝐍𝐎 𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘

✧warnings: illegal activities, robbing a back, guns, blood, bomb blasts.

♡synopsis: Y/n and Nishimura Riki, are quite like Bonnie and Clyde, partners in crime with morals. The 2 are the youngest in Heeseung's gang, and had been assigned to rob a rather rich, immoral man's bank. Robbing the black money that he had robbed the country of, exposing his true colours. (Clearly inspired by Thunivu.)

✧♡✧♡𝕹𝕺 𝕲𝖀𝕿𝕾 𝕹𝕺 𝕲𝕷𝕺𝕽𝖄♡✧♡✧

Y/n smirked as Riki's gun pointed the air, bullets shoot at absolutely nothing as the bank workers and those who visited, cowered, finding safety where they could, all laying low. "THIS FUCKING HIEST IS MINE." Riki simply screamed as He chucked a gun at y/n who caught it, the girl immediately got to work, threatening the people, as she took their phones, purses etc.

"If you don't want to be harmed during this heists I advise you all lay low, let me take what I need and then I'll let you free." Riki simply advised as he played some music. Y/n checked all the restrooms and other areas, making sure no one was hiding before sitting on one of the desks, preventing any bankers from pressing the emergency red button.

"You guys... so fucking selfish, you think you'll be free with all the money you take from us?! of course you will you're kids after all." a 40 year old man complained as Riki and y/n turned to each other, the 2 bursting out into laughter. "Ah of course, you'd believe we're going to take the money and blow it on something useless?" The male asked as he turned to y/n. "You see sir... you'll see where this money'll go." she simply said as she pressed the big red emergency button herself.

Within minutes, police cars surrounded the bank building, as they remain cautious. There were bombs on the doors, heck they could even see that some bank workers were tied by the window, with bomb vests. "I take back what I said sir... please take this vest off of me!" the 40 year old begged as Riki snickerred. He pat the man's back with his gun "If you behave, I'll consider freeing you ".

All the while, y/n sat by the phone waiting on a call. "Wow these cops are really slow huh... So entitled they want us to call them instead. alright fine- we'll let them have it their way." she shrugged, dialling the number. "Hello? is this the police station?! there seems to be a heist taking place in XXX bank." The girl said, waiting upon a reply "What you don't think a woman can rob a bank? it's no wonder so many crimes happen in this country." She added, sounding a little annoyed.

Riki took the phone from her hold as she frowned at him, the male simply placed a soft kiss on her lips as he placed the phone by his ear. The police on the other line were just not having it. "Us robbing a bank? You see sir we aren't robbing the bank. we're simply taking back the amount this bank robbed from us." Riki said as the police officer was in disbelief. "All your doubts will be cleared.... can you put officer Jungwon on the line?" Riki said with an innocent smile.

Officer Jungwon, the said, innocent, brand new cop on the team, he was just a PC, the fear in his eyes evident as the Inspector glared at him handing the phone to him. "Officer Yang, we invite you through the backdoor to the bank. but.... you must bring 4 people..." Riki added as y/n nodded, hacking into as many news channels as possible, smirking as her eyes land on a certain news reporter. "Reporter Park" She simply said as Riki nodded.

"4 people. The bank owner. His father. The Manager and of course Reporter Park. The charming reporter with multiple cameras, trying to get the juicy drama, while charming a bunch of girls? his name card says Park Sunghoon? yeah that one." he described hanging up. The police new they were messing with the wrong gang, anyone knew Riki's voice. No one dared to mess with the Nishimura Riki, the only known gang mate in the ENHYPEN gang.

When the 4 were allowed in, Sunghoon set up the cameras as y/n tied the 3 men to 3 chairs, handing Jungwon a bat. Riki stood behind the camera with y/n. His focus on the people within the bank. "See here fellow bank workers and visitors... you're going to find out the real truth behind where your money, and my money went." Riki simply said as y/n shrugged, handing a contract to the three.

"what is this?!" The bank owner, Yeonjun asked as y/n smiled "It's simply a contract, a contract you will sign in front of this camera to allow us to interview you live~" the girl said, as Yeonjun signed it, not bothering to read it, he passed it onto his father, Mr Choi, the the Manager, Choi Soobin. After signing the contract, y/n took a seat. "Reporter Park, this is live right?" she asked as Sunghoon nodded.

With Jungwon in the back holding a bat, and Y/n sat right opposite the three men. "First question. Choi Yeonjun, the owner of this beautiful bank. Mind telling me how much you stole from us all together?" y/n asked as the man smiled at the camera "See darling I don't see what you're talking about... Why would I steal money when I'm already rich." He asked as y/n tutted "Officer Yang... if someone stole 100 million from your hard earned money, how would you feel?..." y/n asked.

"I'd break his hands for touching my money..." he answerred as the girl nodded. "Okay... well lets tone it down just a little, you may use the bat to hit Yeonjun everytime he lies." "WHAT? HIT ME??? SINCE WHEN WAS THAT ALLOWED?!" he asked as Riki chuckled. "In the contract Owner Choi." "What the fuck- but- the writting is so small i could barely read it!" he complained as Riki shrugged "It's the same font you used in your contracts." he simply said.

Jungwon started beating the man with the bat, as Riki then told him to stop. "This is ridiculous. I will not let you abuse my son like this!" Mr Choi complained as y/n nodded. "Okay sir then why don't you answer us? where did you store all the money you stole???" She asked as the man glared at her "I'm telling you we didn't steal any money!" The man lied as Soobin, the manager interrupted them. "Sir just tell them where the 500 million is or they...." Soobin stopped mid sentence noticing the Chois glare at him.

"500 million?.... wow you hear that world? XXX bank stole 500, million fucking dollars. Only 100 million from the infamous gang you all know... then that 400 million?... why don't I answer that for you?..." Y/n said, glaring at Yeonjun. "You stole that hard-earned money from all those civillians who worked their blood, sweat and tears, for that money, to pay off bills, school fees, hospital fucking bills. The so-called black money is actually red money. you have way more fucking blood on your hands than any gang ever had." She seethed.

The news airing abruptly came to an end, when Yeonjun managed to break out and stab a few wires, he immediately kicked y/n in the stomach, grabbing her by her hair and smashing her face into a glass table. However, Riki was quick to act, pulling her away, and hitting Yeonjun around the head with a gun. The Choi now knocked out called. "You alright princess?" Riki asked, his eyes widening at the little trickles of blood on your face. "M good sweetheart... it was nothing" she reassured as the man kissed her.

"Cork it love birds. only a matter of time before Yeonjun wakes up. Let's just take our 100 million and leave, the heli's here, the police can sort out that lot." Sunghoon said, throwing off the lanyard and unbuttoning the top, revealing the undershirt he wore beneath. "Fucking reporter uniform making me sweat like fuck." he groaned as Jungwon scoffed, throwing the bat aside as he dragged Yeonjun back to his chair, tying him down. "I actually look kinda fire in a cop's uniform to be honest." the man smirked as he followed y/n and Riki.

Y/n smirked, as she bombed the vault open, taking only the amount that the bank owed the gang, placing the money inside the helicopter. Riki dragged her cautiously, as they started to run until they were out of sight, the boys following behind. As they reached a safe spot, Heeseung picked them up. "huh, the police are at the bank now, and they're looking into the case.... and you're making out-" Sunghoon rolled his eyes, as Heeseung honked the car horn, in an attempt to stop them from eating eachothers' faces.

"Fuck it. they won't listen...." Heeseung groaned "they handled that bank issue without a lot of smooching, pet names, hugs, romance and all that bull crap... they'll be out of breath soon-" Sunghoon pointed out as Jungwon covered his ears.

✧♡✧♡𝕹𝕺 𝕲𝖀𝕿𝕾 𝕹𝕺 𝕲𝕷𝕺𝕽𝖄♡✧♡✧

[alphacentaurinebula]

I Forgive You: Queerness in Oppressive Systems

"How much trouble can I get into just for asking a few questions?"

There are a million ways to read Aziraphale's and Crowley's relationship and choices and I love them all, but one that struck me forcefully was the idea of different reactions to being queer in an oppressive (religious) system.  The two of them are such different people (not people) from the start, and their different experiences of Heaven and Hell are entirely the consequences of their different personalities.

First let's look at Crowley. A happier angel you never did meet. His joy and absolute adorableness in Before the Beginning was one of the sweetest moment in the whole season for me, out of so many sweet moments. He is utterly himself, and can't imagine the idea that he should hide any part of his identity. He is odd, unusual, asks damn fool questions - and he can't see what's wrong with that. Just like a queer kid who grows up in a religious system and  behaves outside of gender norms before realising that was something they weren't supposed to do, he can't imagine getting into trouble for his difference. And just like too many queer kids who can't/don't hide their difference, he gets kicked out of his home and abandoned.

Now, Aziraphale. He is a lot closer to Angel Behaviour TM, but it's clear that's because he understands there IS an expected behaviour, there IS a way he's supposed to act and think. He falls for Crowley, and is made to think about the questions Crowley is asking in a way that steps outside Angel Behaviour TM. But he instinctively understands how dangerous that is. He tries to pass that knowledge onto Crowley, to protect him. As he smushes himself into the Angel box, he ties himself into knots ensuring that he fits perfectly into the system around him, which he has identified as Good and Right and therefore anything different about himself would be Bad and Wrong. Much like a queer person trying to exist under an oppressive religious system, he has repressed those parts of himself that don't fit, and tried to sand off the corners and fit himself into the prescribed shape. 

Carrying this analogy through time, the Crowley we meet in the present day has already been abandoned, which allows him to see the system that left him more clearly. But he has never understood Aziraphale's perspective, because he never tried to change who he was for any system - not Heaven and not Hell. Though he does now understand that he has to hide certain parts of himself to survive - thus his constant refrain of “I’m not kind”. Clearly a necessary concealment, given what happens at the end of the Edinburgh minisode.

Throughout most of the flashbacks and even most of season 1, Aziraphale is still trying to smush himself into the shape of an Angel TM, and is terrified of stepping outside of it. He does learn that he can push the borders, that he can maybe stick a toe out here and there, that he can even fully step outside it for a moment as long as he doesn’t get caught (ie Job). But what he never really learns or at least never really believes, despite a mountain of evidence, is that Heaven is not synonymous with Good and Right. 

We can see it with Job, where Aziraphale is jumping through a million mental hoops to pretend to himself he is still doing the will of God even though he has been expressly told and seen evidence that God’s actual will is something Aziraphale would consider ‘wrong’. In Edinburgh he drops a heck of a lot of "ineffable"s trying to convince himself and Crowley that the heavenly system as it exists is just and right. 

And throughout season 2 but especially at the end, he clearly still feels that some Angels might not be Right and Good, but Heaven is Right and Good, and if only the right Angel is in charge of it, it can return to its core essence.

He still believes that Heaven is inherently Good, and so he is still trying to fit himself into a system that would reject him if it really knew him.

And all that is where “I forgive you” comes from for me - or at least that is one of the interpretations that makes sense to me. That basically because he's still so determined to fit into that Angel Shape TM, still so determined to be what Heaven says is right, that he is forgiving Crowley for challenging that, for making him want something else for a moment, for making it harder for him to repress those parts of himself that are different and, in his/Heaven's view, wrong.

And that is why Season 3 must end with Aziraphale realising that Heaven is not Good TM and with the takedown of the Celestial system itself. Yes apparently I end all of my metas with this now.

[twstjam]

First Years Shenanigans at a Malleyuu Wedding

As much as I have Malleyuu Thoughts I'm also constantly thinking about First Years Gang so there's frequent overlap between the two, so have some Typical Wedding Goes Wrong Trope thoughts I had featuring the beloved First Years and many shenanigans.

Malleyuu wedding centered around the First Years making sure the wedding is going to go smoothly. So much shit is going wrong and they're trying desperately to fix them all without Malleus or Yuu finding out.

Sebek is freaking out the whole time, Ace and Deuce are mixing up each other's jobs, Jack is the only sane one, and Epel who is helping Yuu get ready is trying his best to focus on distracting them instead of running out there (he's still a tough farm boy through and through but a lot of things have gotta stuck after all those years at Pomefiore and under Vil's tutelage). Ortho is the only one who is even marginally helpful (as long as his gear somehow doesn't break that is)

I've got this image of Malleus summoning Sebek in the middle of all the chaos to have a bit of a heart-to-heart with him, thanking him for his years of service and friendship with Yuu, but meanwhile, Sebek is trying desperately to keep his composure because the entire time Malleus is speaking all kinds of nonsense and shenanigans is happening behind him.

I can also see Epel working with the other hairdressers, makeup artists, etc. (Maybe Crewel is there too because heck yeah father figure!Crewel helping Yuu get dressed for their wedding) on Yuu and Ace suddenly smacking into the window.

Yuu: Did you hear something? Epel: *making sure Yuu doesn't turn around and see Ortho trying to unstick Ace from the window* Prob'ly just the wind.

There's also a subplot going on that makes keeping everything a secret exponentially harder where Malleus keeps trying to run off to go see Yuu because his Dragon Clinginess is acting up and Lilia if he's still alive along with Silver and other servants are doing their best to keep him in his room and also make sure he gets ready in time for the wedding (and also bcs of the bad luck abt seeing each other before the wedding thing)

Sort of like the Tangled wedding short, by the time all the problems are solved Yuu and Malleus look at their friends and are shocked by their various disheveled states.

I also think it'd be funny if Maleficia is also there and she's completely Aware of all the nonsense going on and is mildly amused by it. Though she's not exactly working together with the boys she's calmly helping them fix certain things with a wave of her hand behind her back and also helping distract Malleus.

None of them knew she was in on it until the end of the actual wedding where she casually mentions to the newlyweds about the "issues" with the preparations and the two of them exchange confused looks while Yuu's friends freeze and break out into a sweat.

Ngl I kind of forgot about Grim agshdgdj. I imagine that he's getting ready WITH Yuu, getting his coat all groomed and stuff, but it takes less time and he walks in on the others and the messes they're trying to fix and he's like "MYAH!! If Yuu and Tusnotarou find out about this they're gonna FREAK!!" "We KNOW! Instead of standing there and complaining why don't you help us out instead?!" (-Ace, probably)

Helps distract Malleus and Yuu by clinging to them, making demands, lying about things like his outfit feeling uncomfortable or his coat needing a better brushing. I've got this image of Ace picking him up and rubbing him all over the betrotheds' wedding outfits to get cat hair all over them.

Grim: UNHAND ME!!! Sebek: TRAPPOLA?! Wh-What are you doing?! Ace: Trust me, this is gonna buy us tons of time!

In the end, the wedding goes smoothly. Sebek cries ofc, so does Deuce, Jack denies getting emotional, Epel too but less insistently, Ortho is being all sweet and soft and mushy about it, and Ace is making fun of them all but very lightheartedly :)

[sehnsuchts-trunken]

Blondie Fancy-Pants

Jake Seresin x reader 6k words

summary: You meet Jake at the Hard Deck for the very first time. Or maybe not the very first time after all. But who says first impressions can’t be disproven? 

allusions to smut, as always

top gun masterlist

This Friday evening was no different than any other Friday evening. At least nothing had been different up until now. 

The bar was crowded but not overcrowded, loud but not too loud, full but not too full of navy officers. Penny was busy behind the bar and your best friend - who was supposed to be helping her out - was standing opposite you, downing her second shot of the night. Penny didn’t mind. Usually she would even join you for one, later on, but still. Your friend was a good waitress, especially good with the people here, and she did good work. She was always tipsy, yes, but if anything, that made her an even better barmaid. 

“You see that guy at the dart board?”

You turned on your little stool, a hand wrapped tightly around your shot glass, as you tried to make out just who she was pointing at. It took you a few seconds. Two guys were standing there, throwing darts effortlessly back and forth, undoubtedly military, undoubtedly navy. Heck, still in their goddamn uniforms. You fought the urge to roll your eyes.

“Which one? Blondie fancy-pants or Hawaiian shirt?” 

She leaned closer to you as if to let you in on some big secret, eyes transfixed on the navy guys. 

“Hawaiian shirt”, she said and you did roll your eyes then. You knew that look. She’d found her victim of the night. “His name’s Rooster. He’s a real sweetheart. Told me I looked stunning when he ordered his friends a few beers.” 

“His callsign is Rooster”, you corrected. “God, if his name was Rooster I’d be sorry for him.” 

She chuckled and left you for a moment to tend to a patron while Penny was busy. It gave you the time to check out these two navy guys. 

Okay, so they were attractive, at least from where you were sitting. Broad shoulders, nice arms - you were sure they were ripped, but then again, the whole navy was. If they would just turn so that you could actually see their faces... After all, you wouldn’t let your friend hook up with just anyone. 

One of them - the blond one, fancy-pants - took a sip of his beer at one point, at least offering up his sideprofile (which, to your dismay, looked just as good as the rest of him). You sighed and turned to the bar when your friend was done and slid back up to you, two cocktail glasses in her hands. 

This was one of the advantages of knowing the barmaid: free drinks. You could spend every evening here, drinking and drinking and drinking until you blacked out without paying a penny.  

“So?”, she grinned, nodding in the general direction of the dartboard. “What do you think?” 

You took a sip of your cocktail.

“Hawaiian shirt is different, I’d say”, you shrugged. “Whether that’s good or bad will be up to you to say tomorrow morning.” 

She rolled her eyes as you grinned - you felt that you were allowed to tease her at least a little. She’d had her fair share of fun with navy guys, alright. You deserved your fair share of teasing her for it. Especially because you knew that unless Hawaiian shirt was gay, they would absolutely be leaving together once her shift was over. 

“Shut up”, she laughed, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she watched him. You turned back as well, your fingertips skimming over the rim of your glass. Okay, so maybe they were quite easy on the eyes. Sadly you doubted that they’d be as easy listening to. Usually that was the way it went with the navy men here.

“He’s...” She bit her lip, pondering what to say. “Cute. Don’t get me wrong, he’s hot as hell, but he’s real cute too. I mean, have you seen that little dance when he makes a good throw?” 

You let out a laugh, shaking your head even though you knew she was too transfixed to see that. 

“He dances?”

“He shimmies”, she corrected, and you glanced at her to spot her smirk. 

“Ah”, you said, hiding a grin of your own as you turned back. “And his friend?” 

Blondie fancy-pants was winning, it seemed, and he was being real smug about it too. He had his sunglasses hooked into the collar of his uniform (which, even though you hated to say it, looked really good on him) and he was gripping the neck of his bottle of beer in a way that really shouldn’t have annoyed you as much as it did. 

You could feel your friend’s eyes burning into the back of your head and with a sigh, you shifted to face her. You already knew what she was going to say, especially with that grin on her lips, almost sadistic. You should’ve just kept your mouth shut. 

“You like a navy guy!”, she screeched, pulling back from the bar top to point her hand at you dramatically and jump up and down. “This hasn’t happened in...” 

She narrowed her eyes and pretended to count on her fingers. 

“Two and a half years!” 

You huffed. 

“I just don’t like their menality. Most of them are pretty faces with no thoughts inside their head. Sorry that I like to be intellectually challenged at least a little.” 

“That sounds like a dig at me personally.” 

You snorted and took a sip of your drink. 

“Honestly I admire you for being able to just ignore everything about a guy except for his appearance. Would certainly help me at times.” 

“Well”, she grinned. “Blondie fancy-pants can count himself lucky, hm?” 

You chuckled and shook your head, risking a glance at the dartboard again. A woman had joined them, also in uniform, also with a beer bottle in her hand, a grin playing on her lips, and you got the distinct impression that she was looking over Hawaiian shirt’s shoulder straight at you. But that couldn’t be.

“You know her?”, you asked your friend over your shoulder. She shrugged. 

“Nope. Don’t know any of them to be honest. Their whole group must be new.”

You watched as the woman’s grin widened, as she raised her beer and pointed it right at the bar. Both of the navy guys turned around and before you could react, Blondie fancy-pants was looking at you. You almost fell off of your chair. 

Instead you pulled yourself together and wheeled around, grabbing your glass until your knuckles turned white and staring wide-eyed at your friend behind the bar. She - much unlike you - had not panicked and turned, but instead was still staring, her grin replaced by a coy smile, tilting her head to the side and giving them a little wave.

“What the fuck are you doing?”, you hissed. 

She looked at you like you were insane. 

“Not being absolutely socially inept like you?”

You huffed and brought your glass up to your lips instead of answering, gulping down the rest of your cocktail in one to help calm your nerves. Okay, so Blondie fancy-pants not only looked outrageously attractive, but had also most definitely caught you staring at him. This might just be the most embarrassing thing to happen to you ever since that time you’d landed face-first in your mashed potatoes in eighth grade. You wondered if you’d gone just as red right now. 

“They’re coming over.” 

Your head snapped up like someone had pulled on it. 

“They’re what?” 

“They’re coming over right now”, she repeated, a grin tugging at her lips again. 

“Both of them?”, you asked, panic surging through you. Oh, god, your friend was right, it had been too long, way too long since you’d done something like this. Swiping on an app, sure, texting a bit, sure, but just chatting up some random navy officer at a bar? No, thank you. 

“Both of them.”  

She’d hardly spoken the words when they were sliding up next to you, one on your right and one on your left, close but not close enough to make you feel caged in, which was a miracle in itself. Your friend grabbed your empty glass and you pried your fingers away despite not wanting to let go. It was the one thing keeping you grounded and she was taking it away from you just like that.

“We couldn’t help but notice”, Blondie fancy-pants said, and you realised there was a Southern drawl to his voice (which didn’t make him any less attractive whatsoever and you hated that), “You two lovely ladies watching me win at darts.”

You took one deep breath and looked up at him - and in hindsight you just should’ve kept staring at the bar top because shit, he had stunning green eyes, and they were already boring into yours. 

“Don’t flatter yourself”, Hawaiian shirt snorted, and you turned your head to him only to see him smiling at your friend. She was clutching the glasses in her hand, halfway down the bar to put them away and serve some other patrons. You knew the expression on her face. Hawaiian shirt had a target on his back and he didn’t even know it - not yet. “It was a close call, Bagman.” 

You turned back to Blondie fancy-pants and suddenly felt sorry for your neck. 

“Bagman?”, you repeated with a laugh, surprised that your voice came out quite steadily. “Well I’ve heard a lot of callsigns in my life, but Bagman may just be at the top of the ‘dumbest I’ve heard yet’ list.” 

He narrowed his eyes as if he was hurt, but that grin was still apparent enough on his lips that you knew he wasn’t. Interesting. Most navy guys were screaming bloody murder the second anyone dared to insult their callsign.

“Well actually”, he chuckled, leaning in a bit closer (and you’d deny this to anyone who asked but your breath hitched in your throat like you were a teenage girl again and you glanced down at his lips for just a split second, horribly inviting like the rest of him and his goddamn charm). “It’s Hangman.” 

You raised your eyebrows. Hangman. Hangman, Hangman, Hangman... You’d heard that somewhere. You knew that callsign. Somehow, you knew that. You just couldn’t remember where you got it from. 

“Hangman”, you repeated, slowly, swirling the word around on your tongue for a moment. Sounded kind of nice, that word laced with your own tone, your own voice... And then it hit you and you gasped almost comically, pulling back, sitting up straight, fingers tightening around the edge of the bar top. 

“Shit, I know you! You’re the asshole from that fundraising event I organised for the navy! The one who was ‘too busy’ to talk to ‘some chick from marketing’.” 

“Wait.” Your friend was sliding back up to you, four bottles of beer in her hands that she set down on the bar just a little too firmly. “Blondie fancy-pants is Mr. Better-than-you?” 

You didn’t know whether to cringe or grin and just ended up laughing, grabbing for your beer and taking a sip as you nodded, her expression stuck somewhere between shock and amusement. 

“I don’t know what I should find funnier - Blondie fancy-pants or Mr. Better-than-you”, the other navy guy chuckled, also grabbing a bottle but unlike you getting out his wallet - to pay for it? Your friend put her hand on the back of his in one swift motion, holding it down on the bar top as she smiled up at him. 

“On the house”, she winked, pulling back to place a bottle in front of Hangman, as you’d learned, as well. Hawaiian shirt thanked her with a chuckle, pocketing his wallet again and grinning at her, and you had the distinct impression that he’d forgotten what he’d said about his friend or that he was part of any conversation at all anymore. 

“Blondie fancy-pants?”, Hangman asked, the corners of his lips tugging upwards even as he frowned. It sounded wrong coming from him, like he’d never been meant to say anything like it, the slight accent and the tone all messed up and you had to laugh again, realising that perhaps this was the icebreaker you’d needed. 

Usually, you would’ve been a little more resentful. That fundraising event had, after all, taken a lot of planning - he’d been supposed to give a speech, but he’d only been fluttering about the room and after you’d unsuccessfully tried to talk to him for the third time, he’d basically told you to fuck off without even looking at you twice and you’d had enough of him, so you’d gone over his head to talk to his superiors and had allowed yourself just a small condescending smirk as you’d seen his face fall, imagining the punishment he’d surely get the next day. 

But you already had enough alcohol in your bloodstream to make it seem just a little funnier and make you a little less mad and anyway, he’d been the subject of one too many jokes about navy guys on girl’s nights out, so whatever. 

“In my defense”, you grinned, holding up your hands. “I didn’t know your names - come to think of it, I still don’t - and well, you’re blond, and he” - you pointed at his friend, “he’s wearing that shirt.” 

“Oh, he’s got a nickname as well?”

“Hawaiian shirt. Because, you know. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt.” 

You shrugged with a grin planted firmly on your face, watching as he raised his eyebrows and put the bottle to his lips. 

“Very creative”, he chuckled. 

“I did my best!”, you argued, pushing him away from you by the shoulder and pouting, turning to his friend instead. “Is he always like that?” 

“Most of the time.” 

You examined him for a moment. He was tall, a little taller than Blondie fancy-pants and yeah, you could see where your friend was coming from. Sadly, you seemed to have a taste for guys much too full of themselves who had already disappointed you once before. 

“Rooster, right?”, you asked, and he gave you a small smile as he nodded. You broke out into a grin again. “I don’t want to ask, do I?” 

Your friend let out a laugh and you turned to look at her, raising your eyebrows, already guessing what rabbit hole her thoughts were going down right now. 

“Even if it’s not what I’m thinking, I don’t want to know the truth”, she laughed, backing away to serve another patron. “It’s nice to picture.” 

She winked at him again and you gagged, turning back to Blondie fancy-pants instead. You did not whatsoever feel the need to be stuck in the middle of that flirt. Hangman was sipping his beer with a grin on his lips that you couldn’t quite place. He was still looking at you - you didn’t know if he’d ever looked away from you. Before you could get too nervous because of that, you swallowed and glanced down at the bottle in his hands (another mistake because that had your imagination running in circles). 

“How ‘bout you, Bagman?”, you asked, your voice just a little breathless around the edges, which you prayed wasn’t noticeable. “What’s the story behind your callsign?” 

For a second, his jaw clenched, but then he was grinning again and leaning closer to you and you brushed it off as some illusion of the light or your tipsy mind playing a joke on you. You couldn’t help but grin right back. There was something infuriatingly intriguing about him, and you guessed that exactly that was his charm - the fact that even though he was so obviously smug, much too confident, much too full of himself, he was still so very charismatic, so infatuating. With his eyes focused just on you, the attentive way he flirted, his accent... and, sure, his appearance certainly didn’t make him any less attractive. Actually that was probably the main reason he was attractive in the first place and the rest was just additional charm. 

“That would be a story for a second date, darlin’“, he chuckled. 

You swallowed. You could feel your skin growing hot. It may have been the pet name or maybe the mention of a second date, but either way you had to look away from him. 

“So this is a first date?”, you asked. “Because that would sure be a terrible first date.”

“Darling”, he said, in a tone that was definitely not normal. He leaned against the bar top, arm resting on the wood, the bottle between his fingers dangling just before the edge and you could feel his eyes boring into the side of your head. He paused, waiting, you realised, for you to react. You bit into your bottom lip as you followed his wish and looked up, pushing the hair from your face and meeting his eyes, if a little carefully. 

“This sure ain’t a first date. I know how to treat a lady.” 

You couldn’t stop your mind from wandering off at his words once again today. He’d probably intended that. No, he’d definitely intended that. 

“You say that now”, you chuckled, emptying your beer and putting it down. “Just wait until you’re too busy for me again.” 

“You can’t hold that against me forever. I’m sure it was a very stressful night for the both of us.” 

“You’re sure?”, you gasped. “You don’t even remember what I’m talking about?” 

He grimaced as if caught - which you kind of had done to be honest - at least pretending to feel guilty. You huffed. Well, he was just ups and downs, wasn’t he? You didn’t know what to do with him. All you knew was that you were feeling impossibly attracted to him and you couldn’t explain why. 

“Let me make it up to you”, he smiled, putting his bottle down as well and offering you a hand. You glanced at it and then up at him and then back down at it again. 

“Sorry?” 

“I said-” He leaned in closer, so close that you could smell his aftershave - woodsy somehow and just as intriguing as the rest of him. “Let me make it up to you.”

You swallowed, hesitating as you slowly placed your hand in his, fingers intertwining - his skin was warm and soft and sent a wave of electricity through you that made your breath hitch in your throat. 

“What?”, you croaxed, trying to grin at him without losing your mind. “You’re just gonna take me home now?” 

He pulled you towards him, off of your chair, and you were tipsy enough to stumble a bit, your hand coming up to steady yourself, bracing against his chest. Well, here came the next mistake of the night: being so close to him, because you didn’t think you would ever be able to recover from that. 

“I thought we’d start with a dance”, he chuckled. You were sure your eyes were blown wide as you looked at him (the urge to pull him in and kiss him grew with each passing second and you weren’t a fan of that). 

“Oh”, you let out, and maybe you should’ve cringed at yourself, but you were way past that point already. He just kept grinning down at you. 

“I mean, I won’t say no to a pretty lady like you”, he drawled. “But you’ve had a few drinks and I won’t take advantage of that.” 

So he was sweet as well, wonderful. You just rolled your eyes. 

“I’ve drunk a bit, sure”, you said, almost dismissively. “But not enough to do anything I don’t want to. Besides, I thought we were going dancing?”

“We are.” 

His laugh was infectious, warmth spreading through your body and you didn’t know if it was at the sound or the feeling of him so close to you, of the grip he had on your hand as he led you onto the dancefloor, of the hold on your waist and the way his hair felt when you crossed your arms behind his neck and brushed your fingers through it, of the way he smiled - almost... no, was that sweet? You were sure the alcohol was affecting you a little more than usual after all because a navy guy like him certainly didn’t smile anything close to sweetly.

“You look gorgeous by the way”, he muttered, dipping his head down low so that his lips were just short of grazing the shell of your ear, his breath making you shiver. 

“Thanks”, you whispered, perhaps a little too breathless and a little too obvious if his answering chuckle was any indication. You were way too flustered already. He’d barely done anything yet somehow, you were putty in his hands. You’d known this man for the better part of fifteen minutes maybe and were prepared to cut the night short and leave with him. What the fuck had he done to you? This had never happened before. And you weren’t particularly comfortable with it happening now. 

But he smelled just a little too good, looked just a little too perfect, spoke just a bit too charmingly and held you just a little too close for you to do anything but melt into him and let him take the lead, to do anything but go with the flow, follow him. 

“You haven’t told me your name yet”, he said, a grin on his lips that you could hear. Your arms tightened around his neck. 

“I haven’t?”, you asked, fighting the urge to let your eyes fall shut and pull him closer. His touch, his scent were making it hard, way too hard. 

“No”, he chuckled. “You haven’t.”

You couldn’t help but smile. For what may have been the first time this whole evening, you had the whip hand. 

“Gee”, you drawled, hardly able to keep from grinning when he leaned back a bit to be able to look at you, eyebrows raised. “What a coincidence, Hangman. It’s almost like names are real important to you, hm?” 

His laugh reverberated in your chest with how close you stood. 

“You don’t have the best impression of me, do you, darling?” 

“Well”, you shrugged, meeting his eye and seeing the same twinkle in them that you were sure he could see in yours. “You’ve done a way better job tonight than you did at that fundraiser.” 

His expression softened and before you could react, he pulled you close - so close that your nose bumped into the fabric of his collar, your cheek squashed against his uniform, a small oomph falling from your lips. His face nestled into your hair, the side of your head. You stiffened for a second, but the moment you breathed in his scent you relaxed again. Even if you couldn’t tell why, his presence was soothing - you weren’t opposed to falling asleep in his arms, right here right now. 

“You won’t let that go, will you?”, he asked, his voice low, sending a shiver down your spine. Involuntarily, your fingers tangled in his hair, messing up at least some of that perfect appearance that he was so smug about (and should be, if you were honest). 

“No, I will”, you whispered. “If you prove it’s worth it.”

He was quiet for a while, just swaying you to the beat, and your eyes fell close at some point as you snuggled into him, listening to his heart beating in his chest and the feeling of his hands on your waist, of his face pressed into your hair, of the sound of his breath. 

“Jake”, he murmured eventually and you blinked, needing a second to adjust to the light of the bar again. 

“What?”, you mumbled. You felt his smile against your ear this time. 

“Jake”, he repeated. “My name’s Jake.” 

“Jake... Jake.” You rolled it around on your tongue. It was a pretty name, somehow fit him, and then again it seemed much too casual. Much too average. “I like that.”

“You won’t tell me yours?” 

“I don’t know”, you grinned, propping your chin up on his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll let you work for it.”

He laughed, low and genuine, and this time you really felt it, like little electroshocks travelling through your bloodstream, your nerves on fire, your skin burning hot. God, this man had a chokehold on you. Usually by now you would have been spiralling, overthinking to a point that hurt, but somehow... You weren’t. And you were pretty sure that was on Jake. Jake. 

“Work for it, hm?”, he chuckled. “What would that look like?” 

You shrugged. 

“Do I get time to think about it?” 

“As much as you need, sweetheart.” 

He leaned back and you let him go with a bit of a pout, the cold air of the bar lonely and disappointing compared to where he’d been holding you pressed against him a moment ago. His expression was nothing short of smug again as he looked down at you, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. You had to fight the urge to roll your eyes, even with your skin burning up. 

He pulled his hands from your waist (again you totally didn’t feel disappointed for half a second) and grabbed your hands from his neck, raising your right up above your head - to twirl you, you realised, a grin spreading on your face again as you twirled for him, once, twice, thrice, laughter bubbling up and the music suddenly louder again before you fell back into his chest, bracing yourself with both your hands, dragging his right hand with you as well, your forehead falling onto his shoulder as giggles escaped you. 

You didn’t know why or how, but this man was a dream - your dream maybe, if only for today. You trusted him, him and his goddamn charm, him and his stupid grins, him and his pretty fucking service khakis. 

A navy guy. 

A fucking navy guy. 

You were falling for a navy guy in the middle of the dancefloor, in the middle of a bar, and you couldn’t even find it in yourself to be ashamed of that - or of the fact that this navy guy also just so happened to be Mr. Better-than-you. Or of the fact that you still hadn’t told him your name. 

Which you should probably do. 

“Jake”, you said, pulling back a bit to blink up at him, lips parting in mild surprise when you realised he’d already been looking at you. You stared up at him for quite a few embarrassing seconds - you had wanted to finally tell him your name, not ogle him for half an hour. But you just couldn’t help yourself. Especially not when he pulled his hand from yours, when instead he cupped your jaw and brushed a strand of hair behind your ear, when the light hit his eyes in such a stupidly romantic way that the green shone like fucking emeralds. God. 

“Can I?”, he muttered, his thumbs grazing your cheek. 

You didn’t trust yourself enough to actually say anything, not with how tight your throat felt, with how hard it was to keep looking at him. So you simply nodded. 

You caught his grin just before he leaned in. Then his lips were on yours and you were in heaven. 

He was firm but still gentle, decisive but not forceful, careful but not hesitant, attentive but not passive. Shit, what you were saying was that this man was a fucking marvelous kisser. You wouldn’t have minded one bit to keep kissing him for all of eternity, not in the slightest. Not with the soft movement of his lips, his tongue, of his hands on your jaw and yours hooking into the collar of his uniform. If you were to die now, you would do so happily. 

He pulled back only to breathe, to tilt his head to the other side and to kiss you again, more deeply than before, which in itself you’d thought impossible, once, twice, so long that you lost count and didn’t care, didn’t care about much anything but the feeling of him. 

Almost accidentally, your name fell from your lips. 

You couldn’t say much more than that, not with the urgency he was kissing you with, not with how he knocked your breath out of you when he smiled into the kiss - though smiled almost didn’t capture it. Grinned, smirked, that was more like it. Satisfied with himself, once more, that he had managed to coax your name from you after all. 

And, this time, he could be. He should be. 

Yes, he was that good and you wouldn’t deny it, at least not to yourself. To him, well, maybe, once you finally had enough breath in your lungs again to talk - though it didn’t seem like that would happen soon. No, Jake tugged you closer to him, let his hands fall down, down to your hips, leaving blazing fire wherever he touched you, his fingers digging into the fabric of your dress, sure to leave bruises on the skin underneath. You wondered if he’d get to see them tonight. Maybe he would. Honestly, at this point he probably would.

When his lips landed not on yours, but on your jaw, on your throat, your neck... Your fingers loosened on his collar and you whimpered, arching into him as he found your sweet spot instantly, chuckling against your skin at your reaction. 

“Well that’s a pretty name for a pretty lady”, he murmured, his voice just as smooth and cool as before and for some reason, it irked you that he seemed unaffected. Unaffected by all of this, this kiss, this closeness. So much unlike you. You were melting into a puddle of human limbs in his arms, only held up by him, sure to fall and plant yourself face-first onto the floor if he were to let go of you. 

“Jake”, you mewled, hardly more than a breath, your hands sneaking up to his hair, tugging at the strands and you didn’t know whether you were tugging him away or pulling him closer into you, but still he understood. He let out a laugh, one that you could feel down to your very bones.

“You sound so pretty saying my name too, honey”, he muttered. 

You scratched at his scalp, letting your head fall back a little to give him more access to your neck - he wasn’t leaving hickeys, at least you didn’t think so, but honestly at this point you wouldn’t have minded. 

Shit, you wouldn’t have minded if a navy guy who had once before completely neglected your existence was leaving hickeys on your neck in the middle of the dancefloor at the bar your friend was working at. 

“Jake”, you repeated, almost a prayer at this point. “Jake-” 

And you didn’t know if you were going to say “Let’s get out of here” or “We can’t do this here” or “Please kiss me again” because he’d just pretty much turned your mind off with a few kisses. You were worried what else he might do. 

He understood. Again. 

“I call an Uber, you tell your friend we’re leaving”, he said, pulling back to look at you with raised eyebrows. You felt yourself swallow at his blown irises. Shit. Maybe he was good enough to hide how affected he was when he was talking, but even he couldn’t hide his own bodily reactions. Now this made your chest swell with pride - yes, suddenly you could understand why he was so very smug. 

And even though it hadn’t been a question, you knew that it was. He was waiting for you to say something, to react, and because you did not whatsoever think you could speak right now - or ever again for that matter - you just nodded.

He let go of you with a grin, slowly, carefully, steadying you until he was sure you could stand on your own (if shakily) and the first thing you did as you watched him walk away and pull his phone from his pocket was breathe. Actually take a deep breath, in and out. The air here was stuffy and warm and your face was burning up and suddenly you felt very exposed after all, so you turned as quickly as you could and marched off the dancefloor with your eyes glued to the ground. 

The first time you looked up again, you’d nearly run into the bar top. Your friend was immediately sliding up opposite you, leaving behind Rooster, who looked rather amused, with her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline and her palms resting on the wood, leaning in as close as she could without outright flinging herself over the bar. 

“You just made out with a navy guy on the dancefloor”, she said, and even though it was just an observation you cringed at her tone, your eyes dropping to your hands. 

“I did, didn’t I?”, you asked. 

“Yeah, you did”, she said again, this time breaking out into a grin. “Damn straight you did! Tell me you’re here to let me know you’re leaving. Please. Don’t say he was such a bad kisser that you had to ditch him.” 

“Nope”, you laughed. “He isn’t a bad kisser. And I am here to let you know we’re leaving.” 

She let out a squeal, turning to Rooster to mouth ‘Told you so’ and watch him shrug with a grin before turning back. 

“You go get it. This is exactly what you need.” 

“And you go get Hawaiian shirt over there”, you teased, regaining some semblance of sanity. This was familiar territory - teasing her about the navy guys she went home with. Not going home with a navy guy yourself. But guess what you were doing? Who would’ve thought. 

Jake came up behind you then, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you close, looking down at you with that grin that just seemed to be etched into his features at any given moment. 

“Ready to go?”, he asked, somehow taking away your ability to speak again for just a moment as you spotted remains of your lipstick on his mouth. Instead you nodded, debating whether wiping it away would be the right thing to do - because you could very well just keep staring at it, even if you didn’t know just why. 

“Call me in the morning”, she said, pointing her finger at you. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

You snorted as she handed you your jacket and your purse. 

“Does that even exclude anything at all?”

She pretended to be shocked, hurt, but you couldn’t hear what she said anymore because Jake was tugging you away and his laughter filled your ears and his arm around you was just so distracting and because you were basically floating out of the bar, floating until he draped your jacket over your shoulders and hugged you close to keep your warm, floating until his hand brushed circles over your lower back, floating until he kissed down your jaw and floating until he finally ushered you into the uber with a chuckle. 

Floating until he woke up next to you the following morning, a grin on his lips as he combed his hands through your hair and kissed the corner of your mouth and said ‘Good morning’ in the most devastatingly attractive morning voice you’d ever heard. Floating until you knew that you couldn’t let him go again. And then perhaps floating some more. 

[linos-luna]

Our Doll ❣️🔪 (Pt. 5)

Yandere!Chan x Fem!Reader x Yandere!Changbin

(pt. 4)

Warnings: Yandere! , Smut, Obsession, Stalking

————————————————— 🌼

Our Doll (Pt. 5)

“Hey Binnie, Are you okay?”

Changbin blinked a few times when hearing your question; he didn’t even realize that he was staring off. 

“Y-yeah. I’m fine.” He chuckled nervously while rubbing the top of your hand with his thumb. He was feeling guilty. He broke the promise he made to you. Chan knew where you were and that he’s been seeing you. In fact, He was right outside, waiting in the car. And this man was patient. It’s almost been two hours and he hasn’t texted or complained once, completely trusting that his best friend will be coming out with his darling doll when ready. 

So far, You’ve had a simple breakfast and now was chatting with Changbin in the living room. It was about moving. You wanted to go apartment hunting soon and you would’t mind Changbin coming along. Actually, you grew to really like him. He gave you all his attention and showered you with love. He was also getting a little better with his obsessive behavior. It was still there and caused some issues but at least he was trying and you actually liked how protective he was. Perhaps you were falling in love… how crazy.

“Doll...?”

“Yes, Binnie?” You replied with a small smile.

Changbin felt your reply sting. You called him that nickname with endearment and he knew that.

“Y-you look very beautiful today.” 

“Oh thank you.” You said with a giggle and light blush.

“Um… there’s that new cafe that opened…” he looked down at your hand and squeezed it lightly. “I know we just ate… but maybe we could get some coffee and snack?”

“Oh sure!” 

He nodded and gently rubbed you cheek. “Y/n… You’re the most perfect woman in the world… practically a living doll.”

It was a sweet sentiment and you couldn’t help smiling. “Well… you’re not too bad yourself.”

Before he could say anything else, you leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Lets go to the cafe now.”

Changbin nodded and stood up, still holding your hand before sitting back down.

“Y/n... baby I…” he stuttered, unable to make eye contact with you. “I-I have something to tell you…”

“What’s wrong?”

“You know… I-I made a promise to you… to keep you safe…”

“Yeah…?” you grew suspicious, feeling uneasy by his tone and demeanor.

“A-And I love you!” He held both your hands tight. “B-but I… Please don’t be mad…”

“What did you do…?”

“Y/n, I love you! You know that b-but I had to!”

“Changbin…” you paused, biting you lip. “Y-you didn’t… tell—?”

“I did!” He interrupted.

“How could you?!”

“N-no! You see I had too!” He panicked as you pulled away from him. “Chan is may best friend! A-and he loves you too! He just wants—!”

“I don’t care what he wants!” You cried while standing up quickly. “Y-You betrayed me! I-I thought you loved me!”

“No no, Y/n!” He said while also standing, tears forming. “I do love you!”

“Then why did you do that?!”

“I just—… I-I—…” He stuttered. “He’ll be gentle! H-he won’t hurt you, I promise! We just wanna—!”

“He’s outside… isn’t he...?” You asked solemnly.

“Y/n…”

“And to think… I was starting to fall in love with you…” you sighed while looking down, tears rolling down your cheeks.

Changbin felt your words like a stab to the heart. You were right; How could he do this?

In this moment, he had to make an important decision… the most important one he’s ever made: His best friend or the love of his life. 

Chan has been his best friend for years! They were practically brothers. Heck, he only knew of you because Chan would show him pictures. But you… well he truely believes that you are his one and only love. His soulmate. His perfect little doll. 

After the internal argument, he made a decision… and someone wasn’t going to like it.

“Y/n—’ 

“No Changbin, I don’t wanna hear it…” you sighed while wiping tears.

“No, y/n.” He grabbed your hand. “I’m not taking you to Chan.”

“W-what?”

“I made a promise to protect you… and… I’m gonna do just that…”

You looked at him a bit confused. Why would he tell his friend where you were only to back out just now?  

“I-I love you… and I have to protect you… I have to protect my precious Doll…” He said while lightly squeezing your hand. “I won’t let him get you…”

“But if he’s outside… How are you supposed to of that…? We’re basically trapped here.” 

The man bit his tongue while thinking about it. You’re right. But he had to think of something. 

“Where’s the building’s parking garage?” He asked suddenly. 

“Basement level? The elevator and stairs to get there are down the hall, just 2 doors down.” 

“And how many exits and entrances are there?” 

“Two but either way you go, It’ll lead to the same main road…”

It was hard for Changbin to think clearly at the moment but he needed to have a plan. “How about—?’ 

A sudden knock at the door had you both jump in place; it was Chan, and he was getting impatient. 

“B-Binnie!” You yelped in a loud whisper only for him to cover your mouth before dragging you to the bedroom. 

“The window!” He said suddenly while opening and removing the screen from your window. He grabbed some cash from his wallet and stuffed it in your pocket before pushing you. “You need to leave now.”

“B-but we’re on the second floor!”

“Do your best to climb… hide at that gas station. Wait two hours and get on a bus to the next town.”

“B-binnie—”

“I’ll call you in a few hours. We’ll meeting up a-and I’ll take care of you forever!

“N-no Binnie I can’t!” Your heart was racing as you looked out the window and tears formed “P-please no”

The knocking at the front door only got louder.

 “O-okay… Hide in the closet. I-I’ll think of something.”

You nodded and hid as he went to the living room, letting his older friend in. 

“Binnie, you were taking too long.” Chan grunted. “Where is she?”

“Not here….” He replied bluntly.

“What? Don’t lie to me!”

“Hyung—”

“I’m sick of your selfishness! What kinda friend are you?!” Chan yelled, sounding quite hurt. “I shared with you a beautiful doll, and now you are keeping her to yourself!”

Now Changbin felt even worse, he betrayed his friend. How could he do that??

You could hear all this from the closet. It began to worry you that Chan was going to manipulate him into handing you over. 

Much to your surprise, he was actually quiet and you could tell just by his voice alone that Chan was getting irritated.

“Changbin, I swear to god… where is she?” He grunted. “So we could take her home….”

The younger man was silent, only looking down at the floor.

“Changbin!”

“No!” He yelled suddenly. “S-she’s mine! I-I have to protect her!”

Chan was surprised. Heck, Changbin was surprised himself. He’s never yelled back at his older friend before.

But Chan wasn’t amused, instead he pushed his friend out of the way and started looking around, going to the kitchen and the hallway closet. He made his way to your room and Changbin followed, very worried.

You held your breath as he got near the closet. This was really it. You knew in this moment, your freedom was about to be gone. Why fight it?

The door swung open and you were face to face with Chan. He let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you’re safe, babydoll. I was so worried!”

You were expecting him to harshly pull you out and yell but that didn’t happen. Yeah he pulled you out, but instead of yelling, he hugged you tight. And you could’ve sworn you heard some soft weeping. It was a little… heartwarming?

~~~~

Eventually you end up back at their house. Dinner was a bit awkward as you silently ate. You sat at the end of the table as the two men sat on each side of you.

Ever since you got back, Chan hasn't let you around Changbin much. The younger man could feel the tense passive aggression in the air. It's been a few hours since you got here and you didn't put up too much of a fight. Of course, that didn't mean you didn't put up any fight. It mostly came out in snarky responses and aversion to advances. You didn't wanna be here and it had you thinking about how to escape again.

Chan was once your friend but now he was just crazy and obsessive. He had no problem with pulling you around like a literal doll although he claimed to love you so much.

Oddly enough, you felt better being around Changbin. The younger man did promise to protect you so it made you wonder if he'd stop his friend from doing anything to crazy.

As Chan cooked, Changbin kept quietly apologizing to you and it made you feel a little bad.

"Im sorry... Im sorry... Im sorry..." he kept whispering. You did your best to comfort him as he continued whispering to himself.

"I'll keep you safe... I'll keep you safe... I promise... I promise..." he whispered, just loud enough for you to hear. It had you tearing up....

It was hard to deny that the food Chan made was actually pretty good, almost euphoric. Have you ever loved a dish this much? It was a bit odd. It wasn't anything fancy and with it you just had a glass of water. It tasted a little odd but Chan said it was just their tap.

“Y/n?”

“Hm?” You managed to get out before slowly raising your head to look at Chan. It was as if time were moving just a bit slower.

“I’m so glad you’re home…” he said while rubbing your hand. “I missed you…” His voice sounded like it had so much emotion in it.

You only stared at him. His smile was very sweet and… loving. Has he always had a wonderful smile?

Changbin touched your other hand as Chan then softly rubbed your cheek.

It was hard to not subconsciously lean into his hand and you were a bit tired. You gave in and seemed to be… relaxed.

“My doll… are you tired?”

‘Oh wow, it’s almost like he read your mind! How did he know?’ You thought to yourself, starting to feel more and more delirious.

“Y/n…? Are you feeling okay?” Changbin asked with a little concern.

“Yeah Binnie. ‘M just… a bit sleepy…” you said before yawning. It was getting hard to keep your eyes open as Chan continued rubbing your hand.

“Just a bit?” Chan teased. “You seem very sleepy.”

“Hmm… maybe I am…” you replied as he held your chin and slowly nodded your head.

“Well then. Would you like to sleep with me tonight?” Chan asked.

You had a small smile as he made you nod again. It felt like you had no control of your muscles.

“But hyung—”

“I think! It’s only fair, right Binnie?” Chan interrupted in a more passive aggressive tone.

“Right…” the younger man sighed.

Chan took you to his bedroom and helped you change, which you allowed because you were tired. You started wondering why you felt so weak, but Chan's sparatic compliments quickly distracted you.

“You’re as beautiful as ever.” He said with a smile. “I missed you so much.”

This only made you blush as he tucked you in, already dozing off.

All the while, Changbin was getting antsy. He already felt guilty for letting Chan get to you but he also wants you to himself. I mean, he was the one who found you and Chan knew just how much he needed you. Chan knew that he couldn’t live without you! But right now he felt punished. Chan was with you in the bedroom doing who knows what!

It bothered him a lot and he couldn’t stop tossing and turning in bed until finally getting up and going to the kitchen. Originally he came for water but then he saw something else. On the counter, disguised as a bottle of ibuprofen, was the mystery drug.

Changbin already knew that Chan had drugged you earlier. But the man always wondered where his older friend acquired such drugs. It was the type to make you drowsy and suggestible.

If this is what Chan was planning, to drug you everyday, well then that was crazy but it got him thinking. Thinking about something that put a smile on his face…

Chan needs drugs to get you to love him. Whereas, you already love Changbin. No drugs required.

That definitely boosted his ego and perhaps he could one day get you back for himself. He wants to love and care and protect you. Changbin believes you are his soulmate— no he knows that you’re his soulmate!

Changbin took some sips of water, smiling to himself as he thought about the beautiful life the two of you will have. He just had to ‘get rid’ of Chan…

Meanwhile, you found yourself asleep in Chan’s arms. You weren’t sure if he put you there or you snuggled close to him but whatever the case, he held you tight, kissing your cheek and whispering praises in your ear. It went from complimenting your beauty to positive affirmations. All leading up to small whispering that had you make small groans in response.

“You’re never leaving me, right?”

“Mm…” you moaned softly.

“There she is… that’s our sweet doll.”

[ckret2]

On chapter 38 of human Bill Cipher is still the Mystery Shack's prisoner, the most exciting, gripping, action-packed, page-turning chapter so far:

Bill gets locked in the bathroom.

He handles it super well.

####

Bill thought he heard a door slam somewhere far off in the shack—but every time he peeked around the shower curtain, there was no sign of anyone else would come into the bathroom any time soon. Good. Last thing he needed was a human coming upstairs to give him trouble for the crime of daring to be naked with a door open. (Of all the stupid things. He wasn't embarrassed, he was used to floating around in nothing but a top hat and bow tie, if he wasn't bothered why should they be bothered, was what he wanted to know...)

As Bill dried off and dressed, he considered what he'd do next. If someone else was back in the house—Dipper, probably—then Bill wouldn't be able to continue his planned mischief. Pity. He'd hardly had a chance to abuse his freedom. But then, Dipper loved to avoid Bill. Maybe Bill could chase him upstairs and have the living room to himself until Mabel got back.

He dressed, pulled the towels off the mirrors, quickly poked his wet hair into something approximating a triangular cloud, and turned toward the door.

Somewhere during the process of getting dressed, he must have bumped into the door, because it had swung halfway shut. Not a problem. He'd found that as long as a door was open at all, it was possible to get through the gap. Even if it was a narrow gap. If you tried to squeeze through it, it somehow widened for you. Such was the illusive trickery of doors.

But. But. Why should he try to squeeze through? His current 3D flesh body was not made for gliding through infinitesimally small gaps. And he wasn't about to let a door be the master of him. He knew how to handle them now. He'd done this in the living room. Time to show off a little.

Bill turned his back on the door, shut his eyes, simply visualized walking straight through an open doorway and out into the hallway, and confidently walked backwards.

The door made a click sound. It stopped moving. Bill froze, back pressed against the wood.

Something went wrong here.

Bill turned around. The door was very firmly closed. He leaned against it experimentally. It remained closed. It sure didn't seem like an illusion he could walk straight through. Had he done it wrong?

After several more failed attempts to walk through the doorway, Bill reluctantly conceded that for some reason this door wasn't about to yield to his mind tricks. He was quite firmly trapped in the bathroom.

Oh, how embarrassing.

No, no—no, it didn't have to be embarrassing. This would be funny. Somebody else would need the bathroom eventually, right? He could just wait here until the humans returned—maybe sit on the toilet, meditate a while—and when someone opened the door, he'd calmly say, "Hey." And after they jumped out of their skin, he'd stroll out the door. They'd never know how he got in there. It would haunt them.

He shut the toilet lid, sat, crossed his legs, shut his eyes, and settled in to wait.

####

He lasted three minutes.

Bill groaned and dragged his hands down his face. "Ugh, it's been hours. Where the heck is everyone!" He stood and angrily pounded on the door. "Okay, I'm sick of this! My lifespan's too finite to waste it in here!"

Who was here? Probably just Dipper, right? Somewhere downstairs? "HEY!" He stomped on the floorboards. "I'M TALKING TO YOU, UH—uhh, uhhhh—MABEL'S BROTHER?! Name?!" What was his name. He and Mabel had those cute matchy twin names—same length and same first two letters— "MARIO? MATTY? MAGNI? MABON? Isn't it Mabon? That sounds right, I'm sure it's Mabon." He stomped on the floor again. "It's really petty of you to ignore me until I get your name right, Mabon! No, wait, he went by a nickname, what was his nickname." Bill paced back and forth across the bathroom floor. "It was a constellation, right? ORION? No. TRIANGULUM? No, I'd remember if it was Triangulum. What's his sign—VIRGO? C'mon, kid!"

Bill glowered at the door. It showed no signs of opening any time in the near future. Where was that brat?

####

Dipper's lungs were heaving and his heart pounding as he pedaled toward the spot where Bill had cracked open the dimensional rift and started Weirdmageddon.

It was easy to find. He just had to locate the fault line that had opened in the ground and follow it until the view of the trees around him began bending oddly in the air, as though being refracted in water—the air was so thick with invisibly-sealed miniature dimensional rifts. He kept going until he found the sign they'd planted last summer:

Mabel's Fault

He still cringed every time he thought of the name they'd given the scar in the earth. He'd proposed it before realizing how it sounded; but Mabel had laughed hysterically and the name stuck.

He didn't see any sign of them around the fault. "MABEL! Can you hear me?! Bill, where are you!" There was no reply. Dipper screamed his frustration at the top of his lungs.

He was a terrible brother. He'd been one then and he was one today. He never should have left Mabel alone with Bill.

Where else could they have gone? Maybe Bill's corpse? Dipper abandoned his bike and ran off the trail, deeper into the woods. "I'm coming, Mabel!"

####

Bill frowned contemplatively at the mirror, finger tapping his chin.

He had painted his zodiac on the glass with tooth paste.

He pointed around the mirror one symbol at a time. "Okay, that one's Jesús," he said, "that's Wendy, that's Stanley—Pine Tree!" Bill smacked the sink triumphantly. "YOUR NAME'S PINE TREE! Stop ignoring me, where are you!"

There was no answer.

"Maybe he went out again," Bill muttered.

Mabel had to be back soon, right? Bill pressed his face to the bathroom window. He could see Stan's car and Waddles below; no Mabel.

"HEY SHOOTING STAR! Are you back yet?!" Bill listened for a reply. "Star girl? Mabel? Buddy? Pal? My hero? My only friend? Please?"

####

Mabel was biking back from the hardware store, her bike's basket stuffed full of spray paint cans. She'd brought along the flashlight with the height-altering crystal so she could shrink down the bags of spray paint cans to fit in the basket. It was a good choice. There had been a sale. She had sooo many colors now.

She passed the grocery store; weird, the parking lot had filled up with a crowd since the last time she passed by. Did she hear music?

She slowed to stare at the crowd—then hit the breaks. "Candy?! Grenda?!"

Across the parking lot, they turned and waved. "Mabel!"

Mabel pedaled up to them. "Hey guys! What are you doing hanging out in a parking lot!"

"Radio station live appearance," Candy said, pointing toward a red van parked next to the grocery store. A vinyl wrap around the van identified it as affiliated with Falls Radio. In front of it, Bodacious T was struggling to set up a tent over a white folding table. Candy went on, "We are here to win cheap prizes at the games. They have trivia, 'name that tune,' a prize wheel..."

Grenda pumped a fist in the air. "I'm gonna win a water bottle and a tiny backpack!"

"Oooh." Mabel craned her neck, trying to peek between the crowd to the front table. "What are the prizes?"

Candy said, "Radio station t-shirts, CDs, gift cards..."

"The grand prize is concert tickets for some old guy," Grenda said dismissively.

"The gift cards are a better value," Candy said.

"What old guy?" Mabel caught sight of a poster taped up to the side of the van. She gasped. "Phrancisco?! From Invisible Yellow Plastic?!"

"You know him?" Candy asked, surprised.

"Yes?! Invisible Yellow Plastic was this amazing 80's band! They were pioneers in the local new wave scene! I've got some of their albums!" Courtesy of Grunkle Ford, who had hyped them up to her in the first place and also told her everything she knew about them. "And based on the album covers, Phrancisco was so hot thirty years ago?"

Candy and Grenda absorbed this new information with thoughtful looks.

Mabel climbed off her bike, stuck the tiny bags of spray paint in one pocket, and used the height-altering flashlight to shrink her bike and stick it in the other pocket. "Ladies. We have got to get these tickets. I'm dropping everything for this quest." She put her hands on Candy and Grenda's shoulders. "With our powers put together, we can win all the gift cards, tiny backpacks, water bottles, and concert tickets we could ever want. Are you with me?!"

Candy and Grenda raised their fists. "Yeah!"

"It's time for radio station live appearance mini games."

####

Bill sat leaning against the bathroom cabinet, idly flipping the toilet lid up and down to entertain himself, staring at the door.

"I'm sure Mabel will be back any minute," he told himself.

####

Bill had constructed a sensory deprivation tank in the bathtub.

He'd filled the tub with about a foot of hot water, dumped in an entire bag of bath salts he'd found by prying a wooden board out of the side of the cabinet, plugged his ears with cotton balls held in place with bandaids, turned out the lights, and draped a towel over the tub.

He was going to meditate in that, and use the boost to his psychic capabilities to send a telepathic SOS to Mabel. Mabel or whoever was sensitive enough to receive it. He wasn't picky.

His nerves were too frazzled for him to drop straight into a trance. He tried to calm himself. Deep breath—wow, the bath salts reeked of lavender—deep breath through the mouth then. Calm down. Be still. Empty mind. Everything would be fine—everything would always be fine for him—there was no need to stress.

Slowly, he relaxed.

Bill's sleep schedule had been in a state of utter disarray since the moment he'd been dumped in a body that needed sleep. Over the past day, the sum total of sleep he'd gotten had been an unplanned nap last night before dinner, and a fretful nightmare-laden spell from 3 a.m. to dawn.

Bill fell asleep in the tub.

His head sank below the water. He spluttered and flailed his way back to sitting upright.

He took the towel off his head and threw it to the ground. "That didn't work." Kinda comfortable though. He lay back in the tub. What else could he try?

Maybe Wendy would come back. She said she liked hanging out here when she was avoiding people, and it sounded like she wasn't too keen on her friends—maybe she'd get sick of them and return? Yeah. Yeah! Sure, Bill was sure she'd do that. "Wendyyy! Hey! You didn't happen to come back, did you?!" He waited. "Come on! I know you're here!"

####

"No wait, this'll be sick," Nate said. He was laying down on the walkway around the top of the water tower, wriggling out under the safety railing so his face and shoulders hung out in open air.

Wendy laughed. "Dude. What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna spray paint something on the bottom of the floor. Everyone'll go, 'How did that get there?'" He waved a hand at Lee. "Gimme a spray can."

Lee handed Nate a can of purple paint, and he slid out a little bit farther. His belly button was level with the edge of the walkway.

Wendy stopped laughing. "Whoa," she said. "Careful. What are you, crazy?" She put one hand on the railing.

"Yeah. Crazy genius. It's cool, look." Nate slid out another couple of inches. "I can just—lift my legs and hang from the railing by my knees, like a monkey—" He lifted his feet off the walkway, and immediately lost balance and slid forward. "Hey—"

Time seemed to slow down. Wendy had trained for this, the water tower's wooden legs were basically thin tree trunks, if she slid under the railing she could grab Nate and swing into one of the tower legs, they could slide down that to the bottom—

Lee dropped flat on Nate's legs, using his weight to pin him in place. "HEY!"

Wendy grabbed Nate's shirt. Together, she and Lee dragged him back onto the walkway. Nate rolled onto his back and stared at the sky, eyes wide.

Lee sat beside him and laughed nervously. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Whoo. Gimme a sec."

"What the heck, Nate!" Wendy was gripping the railing hard enough her arms shook. She tried to sound calm. "You almost got yourself killed, you dummy!" Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.

"I'm fine," Nate said shakily. "I'm fine, just... lay off."

"Fine. Sor-ry. I'm just trying to make sure you don't literally die."

Lee gave Wendy an exasperated look. Nate closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, okay, mom."

The back of her neck went hot. Oh no, absolutely not. The mom friend was the opposite of the cool girl. That was the boring friend who drove everyone around and was too busy worrying to have fun. She'd never been mom-friended in her life.

"Hey, are you okay?" Lee asked Wendy. "I mean—this idiot's near death experience aside—" (Nate punched Lee's knee.) "—you've been kinda high-strung lately. Is everything cool?"

"Of course I'm cool," Wendy said automatically. Be cool, girl. "Sorry. Work junk's got me stressed. Soos keeps randomly closing at the last minute, and I'm losing hours, and... it's been getting to me, I guess. I just need to chill." She took in a deep breath. "Nate," she put a hand on his shoulder and said solemnly, "if you want to fall on your head and lose your last eight brain cells, I won't get in your way. I support your dreams, man."

"Pssh, shut up!" Nate shoved Wendy off and sat up, laughing. "Okay, new plan. What if I just—stay on the floor, but reach my arm under the side to paint it."

Lee asked, "How are you gonna see what you're drawing?"

Nate considered that. "You can reach under and use your phone like a mirror."

Wendy bit back the urge to tell them they were idiots. Were her friends not maturing fast enough, or was she just getting boring?

She leaned against the water tower and shut her eyes.

####

Laying on the bathroom floor, Bill said, "You know what, Cool Girl? I'm beginning to think you're ignoring me too." Everyone was here and everyone was ignoring him.

He heaved himself to his feet. How long had he been in here. Time lost all meaning in a sensory deprivation tank. It could have been days. He was beginning to get hungry. What would he do when his body needed food? Not to mention dehydration! Where was he going to get water in a bathroom?!

Bill did not, at that moment, possess the greatest clarity of mind.

He flinched in surprise at the sight of another human in the bathroom, and then his hopes went up—and then they went back down. Oh. Right. He'd taken the towels off the mirrors. Just him.

"Thanks for disappointing me," he snapped sarcastically at the human body in the reflection. "Again. As usual." He pointed at the reflection. "Hey—hey! What's that look on your face for? Don't you take that attitude with me, buster! It's your fault I'm in this mess!"

His reflection continued to glare wrathfully at him. It made him madder. The reflection's wrath deepened.

"WHAT?!" Bill demanded. "You keep your mouth shut, I'm the one shouting here! What do you have to be angry about?! I've never done anything to you! You owe me everything! I feed you, I clothe you, I wash you, and what do you give me in return?! Backaches and headaches! I could have been home partying with my friends by now, but do you know who's holding me back?! YOU!" He jabbed his finger against the mirror. The reflection jabbed a finger back. Voice cracking with rage, Bill squawked, "Don't you raise your hand at me, you little—!" He curled his hand in a fist, intending only to threaten the reflection; but when it shook a fist back at him, he reared back with a roar and punched the mirror. The glass crunched beneath his knuckles. His knuckles also crunched.

Bill stared at the broken glass, snapped out of his rage by the pain. Dozens of fragmented reflections stared back at him. He rubbed the stinging cuts on his knuckles.

"Of course," he said. "The solution's so obvious! Blood sacrifice!"

####

As Dipper passed the water tower, he spied an incomprehensible purple squiggle spray painted to the bottom of the walkway. How did that get there? Had Bill and Mabel been here? Maybe Mabel had done it with one of her spray cans to send a signal? Or maybe Bill had used his magic to float up and spray some magical alien rune from below.

He climbed up to look.

Nothing. No signs they'd been here, either. Dipper pulled out a town map he'd marked up with the locations Bill was most likely to hit, and peered toward them one by one from his vantage point; but he didn't see Bill or Mabel, nor any evidence of Bill's influence terrorizing the town. He was out of leads.

He climbed back down. He'd bike back to the shack, call Soos, maybe call the police, look for clues around the shack, chug some Mabel Juice for energy—desperate times—and join the hunt again...

As the Mystery Shack emerged from behind the trees, he saw, from another direction, Mabel biking up. His heart leaped into his throat.

Mabel waved. "Hey, Dipper!" She kicked down her kickstand and dismounted. "Did you find the wigglers?"

"Mabel!" Dipper almost tripped in his haste to get off his bike and pull her into a tight hug.

"Dipper? What is it?" Mabel awkwardly hugged him back. She whispered, "Why do you smell so bad."

"Are you okay?!" He held her out at arm's length, looking her up and down. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Wh—? No, I'm great! I might've kinda exploded a couple of tiny spray paint cans in my pocket, though." She pulled up her sweater, showing the purple and orange stains on one side of her skirt. "Buuut—" She held out four slips of colorful card stock. "Guess who won awesome concert tickets!"

"What about Bill," Dipper demanded, "did Bill kidnap you?"

"What? No." Mabel shook her head, bewildered. "I locked him in the shack while I went out for more spray paint."

"Well, he's not there now! I searched everywhere!" Dipper gasped, "Then—he must have escaped while you were out."

"What?! But—how—"

"I don't know, but I searched the whole shack a couple of hours ago—"

"A couple of hours?!"

"—and there's no sign of him—"

"Then he could be anywhere by now!" Mabel squeezed her hands together, crushing her tickets. "Oh, this is bad. It's all my fault if he causes trouble! We've gotta find him before Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford get home!"

"But where?" Dipper asked. "I've already looked everywhere he might go! The basement, the fault, his corpse, town hall, that street with all the katanas in the gutter for some reason..."

"You're thinking like Bill the evil overlord, I can think like Bill the party animal! We've talked about all kinds of fun places he'd go if he was free!" She got back on her bike. "Come on, I'll tell you on the way to town, we can split up to search!"

Dipper got on his bike to follow, but said, "Come on, do you really think he'd waste time doing something fun now that he's free to be evil again?"

"Fun and evil are the same thing to him! Dipper, I can guarantee you, if Bill summons his terrible friends back to town, the first place he's taking them is the Putt Hutt," she said. "Because he wants to force the townspeople to run through giant minigolf obstacles, and also teach the Lilliputtians to do war crimes."

"Okay, I believe you," Dipper said. "Lead the way."

####

As Mabel and Dipper biked away from the shack, Bill cried, "Wait wait, no! Come back!" He pounded both fists on the bathroom window and let out a prolonged, anguished, "NOOO!"

They didn't hear him.

Waddles did, though. He pulled his face out of the dirt and looked up at Bill, muddy snout twitching.

"Waddles," Bill gasped, relieved. "Good pig. Smart pig. You know, I'm—I'm really very impressed by your scientific work. Especially that jet pack, wow. Seriously. Just between you and me, I don't think Fordsy's quite the biggest genius in the house, you know what I mean?"

Waddles blinked.

"Listen. I need a little favor. Go get help." He pointed toward town. "Go get Mabel and tell her I'm— Or, or just free me yourself! Can you do that? Come on up here?" Could pigs open doors? Bill couldn't think of any reason why not. It wasn't like Waddles was cursed.

Waddles tilted his head slightly, contemplatively. He didn't look persuaded.

"It'll just take you a second," Bill pled. "And then I'll owe you one! Big time! Listen, if you help me, you'll go down in history! You think that stupid hog with the fancy spiderwebs was special? He's nothing! I'll rearrange the constellations to form your face! It'll say 'Greatest Pig In The Universe!' How's that?!"

Waddles stared at Bill.

"Have we got a deal?"

Waddles snorted, his nose twitching upward.

"More?! What more could you want! An infinite feeding trough! A hundred sows! A Nobel prize! The most luxurious mud puddle in the world, what?! Just—tell me what you want!"

Waddles lay down and shut his eyes.

"You're a lazy bum, Waddles!" Bill smacked his hand on the window. "You hear me?! You could've had a brilliant academic future in any field from bioengineering to quantum technology, and you squandered it all to mooch off a twelve-year-old! All potential but no work ethic! You're pathetic! You're nothing!"

Completely unashamed and satisfied with his life choices, Waddles fell asleep.

Bill groaned in frustration. "I'll never get out of here!" He kicked over a box, kicked a shampoo bottle, kicked one of the many ancient cursed sigils he'd inscribed on the walls in his own blood, and kicked a towel. "They've abandoned me in this shack. They're never coming back. They're gonna burn it down with me inside. Those brats just came by to taunt me! Mabel's probably been in on it all along! They all have. After all I've done for them! Those ungrateful—"

Bill stomped across the bathroom and hammered on the door. "Was this your idea, Stanford Pines?! I know it was you! You've had it out for me ever since we finished the portal and you decided you didn't need me anymore! It was your big plan to trap me in here! You're just waiting to see if the hunger or the boredom gets to me faster, aren't you?! Gonna record that in your journal, huh? A cute little experiment to see whether my body or my mind gives out first?" He gave the door another violent pound. "You're an evil, sadistic freak, Stanford! And not even the fun kind! I know you're laughing at me right now! I know that's what you're doing!"

####

Ford kept his gaze fixed firmly on the Dontium generator as he blindly groped across the card table for the deck. "Where's—?"

"Here, I've gotcha." Fiddleford pushed a playing card into his hand.

"Thanks." Ford groped around the table until he found the three cards that had already been placed down, flipped the new one over, and carefully set it next to the others. "What's this one?"

"Four of clubs."

"Remind me why I'm responsible for dealing the community cards when I can't look at them and you can?"

"Because it's real distractin'," Fiddleford said, "Which is just what you need to keep you from thinkin' about the... oh."

Oh. The Dontium.

Sitting at the generator's controls, Soos said, "Aw, dudes. Needle's back down at zero."

Ford shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out.

Sitting on a folding chair faced away from the Dontium generator, Stan groaned. "Seriously?! Again?"

Fiddleford said, "Sorry, sorry."

"Start from the top," Ford said tiredly. "Stan, you just focus on your part and I'll focus on mine. Or... not focus on mine, as the case may be."

Stan groaned again, but said, "Fine!" and crossed his arms irritably.

"Right," Ford said. "Where were we? Remind me what the current community cards are?"

"King of hearts, seven of hearts, two of diamonds, and four of clubs."

"Hmm." It wasn't an inspiring bunch of community cards. No chance for a straight, no chance for a flush, slim odds for four of a kind. He tried to mentally calculate the probability of a win. "And..." Ford waved the two cards he was holding. "What's my hand?"

"I'd tell ya, but last I checked, peekin' at yer opponent's poker cards is still considered cheating."

"Right," Ford sighed. That was going to make calculations harder.

"I could look," Stan said. "I'm allowed to look anywhere except the one place I'm not, right? If I tell you your cards—"

"You can't," Fiddleford said irritably, "because then you'll think about poker when you're s'posed to be thinkin' about—er..."

Soos laughed awkwardly. "Aw, dudes. You'll never guess what."

"Darn it!" Stan got to his feet and pointed at Ford. "You started thinking about the thing again!"

"You stopped thinking about the thing again!"

"How am I supposed to think about the thing when there's a game of Texas hold 'em five feet away?!"

"I knew we should have switched to a game Stan doesn't like." Ford looked at Fiddleford—it didn't matter, they weren't making any progress. "What if we try...?"

Firmly, Fiddleford said, "Stanford, I'll do many things for science. But you ain't getting me to play that diabolical hocus-pocusy wizard game."

Ford groaned. "We're going to be here all night."

Soos slowly raised a hand. "I have an idea," he said. "What if you both put on headphones. And Stan's plays a recording that just says 'think about the NowUSeeItNowUDontium generator' over and over. And Ford's plays—uh—I don't know, an audiobook with cool science facts or something?"

They considered that. Ford slowly nodded. Stan shrugged. "Eh, can't hurt."

####

Were shirts edible?

Nothing in this accursed bathroom qualified as human food. But if Bill could eke out just a few calories, maybe he could survive until the humans came by to pry the gold fillings from his starved corpse and turn the tables on them. Shirts were plants. They might accidentally contain a mineral or two. Right? Maybe? Bill knew a great many things about Earth, but he had never once needed to learn whether cotton yielded any nutritional benefit to human beings.

It was probably better for him than trying to chew up the wooden counter. He peeled off his shirt, steeled himself for the least appetizing meal of his life, and began distastefully chewing on the hem.

Several minutes in, it suddenly occurred to him to check the shirt's tag for nutrition info. He peered in the collar.

65% polyester, 35% cotton.

Well. He wasn't wasting his time on a shirt that was two-thirds plastic. He'd burn more energy chewing than he'd gain.

He pulled his shirt back on and lay on the bathroom floor. He could already feel his famished body metabolizing his own muscles for fuel.

If he returned to his true form when he died, the first thing he was doing was heating every ounce of polyester on the planet to five hundred degrees and melting it onto the skin of the humans stupid enough to wear it.

####

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid..." Mabel was muttering to herself in sync with pedaling the bike. She'd spent most of the ride along the road back to the shack alternating between this chant and berating herself in more detail: "I'm so stupid, augh! Why is it always me? Why am I always the one who lets Bill get out? Because I'm an idiot!"

"Whoa, hey. Don't say that," Dipper said. Granted, he did think leaving Bill home with no guards was kinda stupid, but Mabel was already punishing herself far in excess of what Dipper thought she deserved. And he'd left Bill home with one guard, so was he much better? "It's not all your fault—"

"Yes it is! I'm the one who decided to trust him at home alone! I'm the only one who's been trusting him at all! I knew he'd try something like this eventually!" Mabel tilted her head back and let out a long noise of frustration at the sky.

Dipper opened his mouth to try to offer more reassurance; but then he paused. "Wait. If you knew he'd do this, then why did you trust him?"

"Because...!" Mabel fell silent for a moment. "Because, I know he's a bad person... but I really, really do think he can get better." She had that little waver in her voice that she got whenever she was trying not to cry. "I'm figuring out how he thinks, I'm teaching him manners, I'm getting him to lie less... But, he can't prove he's getting better if he isn't given room to do the wrong thing, so he can choose the right thing instead. If he can't choose, then he's not good, he's just controlled. So I've... gotta give him chances."

Dipper stared at her, momentarily lost for words. "And—you're willing to risk the safety of the whole town—?"

"I mean I didn't think he'd escape entirely!" Her front tire wobbled; she slammed on the breaks. Dipper skidded to a stop just a few feet ahead.

Voice thicker, Mabel said, "I just—with Grunkle Ford so close to figuring out how to kill him, I really... really wanted him to prove he can be better."

All this time, watching her playing and goofing around with Bill, Dipper had assumed she was just ignoring how dangerous he was. But if anything, she was thinking about it more than anybody else. All the rest of the family had to worry about was Bill finding some way to destroy the world; while Mabel was worrying about Bill destroying the world, and Bill not making enough progress on some nebulous road to being "better," and whether he could prove himself to everyone else before it was too late.

Dipper didn't think Bill could do anything to prove himself. He thought Bill deserved to die. But that just made Mabel's position even worse.

"Oh, Mabel," Dipper murmured. "I'm sorry. I... didn't realize how much pressure you're under." All this time, Dipper had been seeing this as a battle where Bill won if he escaped to restart Weirdmageddon and the Pines won if they killed Bill. But for Mabel, she'd lose either way.

No wonder she'd learned so much about him, so fast. No wonder she was spending so much time around him. She didn't have any time to waste. And to think Dipper had been jealous of her bizarre new expertise. He didn't want to be doing what she was doing.

"S'fine. It's stupid." Mabel rubbed her nose on her arm, eyes downcast. "I'm the dumb-dumb who tried to be friends with an evil space criminal."

"You're not a dumb-dumb," Dipper said. "You're like, one dumb maximum."

Mabel snorted and laughed weakly. "Seriously, Dipper."

"You just want to help. Maybe too much."

She shrugged. "I guess." She rubbed her face again, then got back on her bike. "C'mon, it's almost dark. We should go."

"Yeah." Every second they wasted was one more second Bill could spend putting some devastating plot together.

They were headed back to the shack, but only long enough to regroup. They had already split the cereal bars and jerky that Dipper kept in his backpack for excursions, but they needed to get some proper food before they continued the hunt. And—as much as they dreaded it—they'd conceded they couldn't fix this themselves, and they had to call the adults to tell them they'd let Bill escape.

As they biked, Dipper said, "Hey. What did you mean, you're 'getting him to lie less'? Bill tells like four lies a minute."

"Oh. Right," Mabel said. "I guess I don't exactly see it as lying anymore because I understand what he really means."

"What, is he talking in some kind of code?"

"Sorta? I'm not sure if this is only a Bill thing, or if it's how people talked back on his planet? But he just doesn't have conversations like a human. When he says something, he doesn't really care about if it's true. He's telling you what he thinks should be true. So it's not like he's actually trying to lie, he's just... trying to use words to make a better reality." Mabel shrugged. "You've just gotta negotiate with him on the details of the new reality so you both like it."

Dipper blinked in bewilderment. "Mabel, that's objectively insane."

"It works, though!" Her proud smile wilted. "I thought it did, anyway."

Once they found Bill and had finally figured out how to kill him, Dipper would kill him twice for breaking Mabel's heart.

####

"Where haven't we looked for him yet?" Mabel asked, packing fresh provisions in Dipper's backpack. Waddles, who had come in with them and could tell something was wrong, had sat down reassuringly in the exact center of the kitchen.

"I didn't explore much of the forest." There was a lot of forest. "He's probably out there with a pair of scissors cutting open the dimensional rifts we glued shut last summer."

"Or taking over the radio station to broadcast a mind-control signal."

"Or breaking into the buried UFO to summon an alien invasion."

"Do you think we need to check the UFO?" Mabel asked. "I've never gotten to see it."

"Probably. If I was an evil triangle trying to restart an apocalypse, that's where I'd go." Either that, or hitch the first ride out of town—but that wasn't an option for Bill. Their one blessing was that they knew Bill still had to be nearby. He couldn't be farther than the weirdness barrier. "We'll need the magnet gun." Dipper headed for the stairs.

"And my grappling hook!" Mabel called. "Can you grab it for me?"

"You got it!"

As Dipper jogged past the bathroom, something rattled the door so thunderously that Dipper jumped sideways like a startled deer. The door howled, "Let me out, you monster! I'll kill you! I'll atomize you! I'll turn your intestines into a Klein bottle! I'll anti your matter—!"

Dipper stared. He opened the door. The bathroom belched forth a cloud of artificial lavender fragrance.

Behind it stood Bill Cipher, both hands on the doorframe, arms shaking, chest heaving, face contorted in rage. The moment the door was open, the rage melted away into a look of profound relief and his knees buckled under him. 

Dipper said, "What."

"You saved me!" He placed one hand reverently on the floor boards outside the bathroom. "You're my hero. I knew you wouldn't abandon—" He blinked, squinting up at Dipper's face. "Oh. It's just you. Eh."

Dipper said, "What."

"I was trapped!" His hair was disheveled; his hands were covered in scrapes and cuts; and his shirt's hem was shredded and tattered. There was a wild look in his dark-ringed eyes. He looked like a man who'd been crawling through the desert for a week, who'd then crawled into an active minefield. "I couldn't get out! I tried everything!"

Dipper gazed past Bill. The bathroom walls were coated in mysterious sigils drawn in toothpaste, makeup, and blood. One mirror was shattered, and the other had a smeared drawing of Bill's zodiac. There was a pile of wet cotton balls and used bandaids on the floor.He'd started writing his will on the shower curtain. He'd written an invocation to something called ⅃TO⅃OXA on the ceiling.

"I thought I was gonna die in here." Bill crawled across the hall, leaned back against the opposite wall, and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. "I had to eat shampoo to survive." He hiccuped up several soap bubbles.

Dipper stared at Bill, stared into the bathroom again, and stared at Bill. "How long have you been in here?"

Dragging his hands down his face, Bill declared, "All afternoon! And evening!"

"You resorted to drinking shampoo in one afternoon?"

"I was hungry! Do you know how much fuel human bodies need?! It's insane!"

And that was the moment Dipper realized that all along, Mabel had been half right: Bill probably wasn't becoming "better"; but even so, they no longer had anything to fear from Bill Cipher. He wasn't haunting their dreams, he wasn't opening rifts. This, this was all he could bring to the table. He was so harmless it was pathetic.

Dipper would never be afraid of him again.

"Welp," Dipper said. "Enjoy your freedom, man. Bye." He turned to leave.

A hand closed on the back of his neck. Bill snarled in his ear, "Ohhh, no. You're not going anywhere. We're going down to the kitchen, and you're opening the fridge for me."

Wow, right, Bill couldn't even open the fridge by himself. Wow. Wow. That was so sad.

They had to slow down at the stairs; Bill was stumbling down them with the weariness of a soldier who'd survived a week in the trenches. As they went, Bill said, "Hey. What's your first name?"

"Wha—?" Somewhat offended, he said, "It's Dipper."

"No. I know that, obviously. Why wouldn't I know that?" (He sounded defensive.) "I meant your—your baby name. Birth certificate."

"Why do you need to know?" Was this like a fae thing? Was telling Bill his real name dangerous?

"It's been driving me insane all day." With the eyes of a desperate man grasping at the last fraying threads of his sanity, Bill said, "Is it Mabon? I could swear it's Mabon. Tell me it's Mabon."

"What? No, that's stupid. Mabon isn't even a real name."

"Yes it is, it's Welsh."

"It's Mason."

"HA!" Bill screamed triumphantly in Dipper's face, "MASON!" He was way too loud and looked way too ecstatic.

Dipper opened his mouth, then decided he didn't want to know and shut it.

Mabel was in the living room on her phone. "Hey, Soos? Could you put Grunkle Ford on a second?" She paused, then took a shaky breath and said, "Grunkle Ford? Hey. I've... got some bad news... We, uh..."

"Psst," Dipper hissed from the doorway, "Mabel!" He pointed at Bill. Bill pointed at himself.

Mabel's eyes widened. "We... ate all the leftovers! Haha, yeah, sorry, thought you should know! Anyway, love you, bye!" She lowered the phone. Dipper faintly heard Ford say, "What leftovers?" before Mabel ended the call. "Bill! You came back!"

"He never left the shack," Dipper said.

"You didn't?!" Mabel bounded across the room and flung her arms around him. It nearly knocked him over. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."

"Yeah, of course not. You can count on me, kid." Bill glanced sideways at Dipper, brows raised questioningly. What?

Flatly, Dipper said, "He got locked in the bathroom."

"What?!" Mabel stepped back, looked Bill up and down, and said, "You look awful! What happened?"

"I was trapped," Bill said wretchedly. "I thought I was a goner." Dipper rolled his eyes.

"Oh my gosh, you poor thing!" Mabel hugged him again. "Tell me all about it."

"In the kitchen."

"Of course! You must be starving."

"I am," Bill said, hand on his heart, the most pitiful thing you ever did see. "That was the worst afternoon of my existence. You know—being stuck in a human body makes waiting for anything absolute torture. An energy being can wait indefinitely, but a flesh being can feel the passage of time via its own cycle of slowly decaying flesh. The flesh knows it's got less than a century til its expiration date. Compared to the length of my entire life, one afternoon to a human is proportionate to, like..." There was a pause as Bill did some mental math, "over nine million years of my life? So I was basically in there for nine million years!"

"That's awful! I'm so sorry, if I'd had any idea..."

Bill was enjoying this performance, Dipper was sure of it. If he were any hammier he'd be a pork chop.

Still—and Dipper never thought he'd be grateful for this—at least Bill was here.

He followed Mabel and Bill into the kitchen to get some proper dinner.

####

Dipper pulled a tray of dinosaur chicken nuggets out of the oven. "Okay, dinner's ready. You guys want any condiments? Ketchup? Barbecue sauce?" He looked at Bill. "Shampoo?" Mabel snorted.

The absolute picture of dignity, Bill said, "Shampoo's really more of a dressing than a condiment." Once he'd raided the cabinet for snacks, Bill had gotten bored with the woe-is-me act and was now acting like he was above any petty jabs about his bathroom adventure. "I'll take maple syrup."

Mabel looked at Bill like he'd just invented a brand new number. "I'll take maple syrup, too."

Dipper split the nuggets on three plates—they weren't quite divisible by three, so he gave Bill the plate with one fewer.

"By the way," Bill said conversationally. "How was dumpster diving?"

"Shut up." Dipper took one more nugget from Bill's plate.

Once they were all seated around the table, Bill said, "So! Let's talk alibis."

Dipper frowned. Mabel said, "Alibis for what?"

"I might have been safe at home all day, but you two didn't know that, because you both decided to leave the big scary triangle here alone. I mean, anything could have happened. What if I'd burned the house down?" Bill feigned a grimace. "I don't think you want the grunkles to know you left, do you?"

Mabel winced. Dipper said, "So, what—are you blackmailing us?"

"Nooo. I'm saying we need to get our stories straight in case they ask. After all, I'd hate for you kids to get in trouble."

"I think you're just embarrassed they might find out what you were doing all day."

Loftily, Bill said, "I don't see why I should be embarrassed by your negligence."

After half an hour of rigorous debate, they agreed that, if anybody asked, they'd never left the house and had spent all afternoon battling a ghost werewolf. It was the one thing they could think of that made them all feel sufficiently cool, but was mundane enough it wouldn't call for any follow-up questions.

They collectively decided they didn't know anything about the state of the bathroom.

####

(I hope y'all found that half as hilarious to read as I found it to write. If you enjoyed I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts! Next week: the complete emotional opposite of this week.)

[phoenix-bleh]

Oh I have an idea related to the sequel Shadow Milk Cookie HYPNOTISM

After you ran away, you hid in the woods so that Shadow Milk Cookie wouldn't find you

But Shadow Milk Cookie decides to find you.

Here's part 2 you guys!! Ik how much you were waiting for it

part 1 if you want to read it :p

You didn’t know how long you guys were running for, but until you guys knew it was safe you slowed down to take a break and talked about what had just happened. “How did this happen?!” You didn’t know what else to say. “y/n Cookie! Are you ok? When he grabbed you, did he hurt you at all?” Pure Vanilla ran up to you to check if you were injured or hurt in any way.  

“No no I'm ok he didn’t hurt me.” He gave a sigh in relief to know that you were ok. After everyone calmed down they all gathered to talk and plan on what to do with the whole Shadow Milk Cookie escaping situation. You heard rustling in the bushes behind you and decided to check it out. “Hey guys I think I heard something could be one of the creatures of this forest, I’m gonna go check it out.” you told them as you started heading to where the noise was coming from.

“y/n Cookie please do be careful.” White Lily Cookie told you. You gave her a nod and headed into the bush. Going in deeper you didn’t find anything you thought it might have been a bird or something. It must have flown off when it heard you coming. You decided to head out and meet with the others again and tell them there was nothing there.

You made your way back as you pushed through the bushes. “Don’t worry guys there was nothing….there?” You stood there looking at the area your friends were supposed to be in, but no one was there. “Hello….” You took small steps around the place. They were all right here, you swear. Did they leave you? Why would they do that? Unless you took the wrong turn they should be nearby here somewhere.

It got uncomfortably quiet. There was no noise anywhere, not even the sounds of crickets during the night. The only noise that you could hear was the heavy breathing coming from your chest. You started panicking wondering where your friends were or even where you were. Did your friends get attacked when you were gone, that couldn’t be right you were only gone for a few minutes. Nothing could have happened to them that quickly.

You walked around a bit to see if you could find your friends. “Gingerbrave! White Lily Cookie!...anyone…” You called out for them but no one answered back. You were completely alone and you didn’t know where you were. You were scared out of your mind and you looked around. Was the forest always this blue? No time for asking stupid questions. You need to find your friends or at least figure out where the heck you were you thought to yourself. 

You were really lost weren't you?

You stopped in your tracks as you heard a distant laughter. Were those your friends? However you then heard a faint voice. “Where are you y/n~? Where have you run off too, hmm?” You knew that voice didn’t belong to any of your friends at all. That voice could only belong to Shadow Milk Cookie! What was he doing here? Why was he looking for you, did he take your friends and you were his last target?? You were not sticking around to find out so you ran in the opposite direction to where you heard the voice.

“Oh! I think I heard something over there!”

Shit he knew you were here and he was coming to find you. You ran as fast and as far as you could hoping he wouldn’t find you. You couldn’t imagine what he would do to you if he caught you, and you did not want to find out. You stopped running and hid behind this big tree. You backed up against the tree and put a hand over your mouth in an attempt to quiet down your heavy breathing. Your breathing slowed down and now you were just standing there trying to not move a single muscle. 

When your breathing quieted down you stood there for a few more minutes but you didn’t hear anything. The forest got quiet again, and you didn’t know if that was a good thing either. You wanted to move and get out of here. However you couldn’t even take one step as two large hands came crashing down on either side of you causing the ground to shake, and also causing you to fall and land on your bottom.

“FOUND YOUUU!”

That loud voice belongs to none other than Shadow Milk Cookie. You looked up to find him right in front of you staring right at you. No doubt that he knew you were there, you just wished he didn’t. He grabbed you and placed you on his hand again. “Hehehe you didn’t think you could get away that easily did you? You’re so silly!” He started laughing again. “What do you want from me? What did you do to my friends?” you yelled at him. His laughter died down and he tilted his head, smiling at you. 

“Hmm I don’t believe you have any place in giving ME orders.” He brought you up a bit more so you were almost at eye level with him “But it’s cute you think you can!” He gave you a closed eye grin as he patted your head with his other hand. “At least tell me what you want from me.” You told him. He looked at you for a bit “Well if you're sooo curious I’ve come to offer you what I had told you earlier!” He then placed the back of his hand against his head acting dramatically. 

“You were almost about to answer until you were rudely taken away from me!” He said in a dramatic voice. “You knew what you were doing, you crawled into my head and put lies in my thoughts!” You yelled at him. He laughed a bit “Oh but they weren’t lies oh no! I was simply trying to convince you.” He told you and then he forcefully grabbed your face and made you look at him. “And I still don’t have an answer.” He said in a low voice.

You knew what he was doing and you tried to get out of his grip but he was too strong for you. You looked into his eyes and you saw the swirls in his eyes. “Now how about you think about my offer again.” His offer? What was his offer again? Oh yeah to join him in his plans on world domination. Should you really accept it? If his plans did work he would be able to protect you and keep you safe.

You felt fuzzy when thinking that and you decided to just accept his offer. “Ok I’ll join.”

You continued looking at him and he smiled even wider at you. “Hehe, good choice! That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He took you with him and patted your head “You and I are gonna have so much fun together!”

[reashot]

We're Just Shower Buddies, that's all...

Jaune: *whistling in the shower* 🎶

Ruby: Hi there shower Bud! Room for one more?

Jaune: For you Ruby, of course. Come on in the water is warm.

Ruby: Yay! *Glomp*

Jaune: Hey, what's gotten into you? You being extra clingy right now.

Ruby: That's because something really good just happened to me.

Jaune: You do? That's great. Tell me all about it Rubes?

Ruby: Well guess what? I asked Weiss out on a date and she said yes!

Jaune: Oh My Oum!!! That is good! Heck it's Great even! We should go out and celebrate! *Tightly embrace Ruby*

Ruby: Yeah! Where do you think we should go?

Jaune: Well, where do you want to go?

Ruby: Wait you're asking me. Oh geez, I don't know where do you like to go?

Jaune: Oh, you want me to choose... Well how about we go to that firearms show you been wanting to go to?

Ruby: Really!.... Uh, I mean. Can we go somewhere else?

Jaune: But why. I thought you been dying to go there?

Ruby: Yeah... But that's where I want to go. I like guns but you don't. I want you to have fun too. I want for the both of us to have fun together.

Jaune: Ruby you don't have to force yourself not to have fun on my account. I'm happy with whatever you choose.

Ruby: And that's why I want us to go place we both can enjoy. Jaune you would be "happy" with anything I choose. But its not okay Jaune. You need to be selfish once in a while and put your happiness first. On this issue I'm putting my foot down.

Jaune: Really? Okay fine... Let me think. Well, There is an amusement park where I been wanting to go for some time. Do you want to go there with me?

Ruby: Oh! You mean the brand new Montyland amusement park. 🎡🎠🎢 Oh My Oum! That's the same place where Weiss is asking me out on a date too.

Jaune: Wow. What a coincidence... I guess it's true that great mind does think alike after all.

Ruby: *giggle* Why Jaune. I think all these hot shower is starting to get inside your head. Cause I'm pretty sure you're full of hot air right now.

Jaune: And I guess it's true that a genius is never appreciated in their lifetime... 💡Hey Ruby. I just had an idea. Why don't we treat our celebration as pre-date for your real date with Weiss?

Ruby: *gasp* You mean like a practice date?

Jaune: Yes. That way you will be prepared on your first date with Weiss.

Ruby: Ah. You really are a genius Jaune. *presses her soft chest on Jaune's hard one*

Hmmm?

Jaune: What's wrong?

Ruby: Jaune, have you been working out?

Jaune: I see you finally noticed it. I been working out with Pyrrha for a while now. And the result you can see for yourself.

Ruby: Wow. I can tell. Look at how fit you are right now.

Jaune: Let see Weiss call me a noodle boy now. 💪

Ruby: You still a dork you know. No matter how much of hunky beefcake you are right now nothing is ever gonna change that.

Jaune: Okay. That's it Ruby you've awaken the dragon. *nibble on Ruby's neck*

Ruby: N-no.... S-stop it... You big j-jerk... Aahhh! (Inaudible moan)

Jaune: So ready to apologize yet?

Ruby: *gasping for air* O-okay, okay I give. I apologize. Jeez, you jerk I was only kidding.

Jaune: I'm only kidding too Ruby. Learn to take a joke why don'tcha *giggle*

Ruby: *playfully punch Jaune in his hard chest* N-O-T F-U-N-N-Y.

Jaune: Okay I'm sorry too... *hug Ruby*

Ruby: *whisper in his ear* Jaune now that I finally asked Weiss out when are you going to ask Pyrrha out?

Jaune: M-me. A-asking Pyrrha out. I-I don't know whatchu talking about?

Ruby: Oh, for crying out loud. Jaune I know you have a crush on Pyrrha.

Jaune: You knew! A-anyway I can't just ask her out, okay. She's clearly way over my league. And if I do what if she said no?

Ruby: Jaune Arc! If I can ask Weiss out on a date. A girl that's clearly way-way out of my league. You can definitely ask Pyrrha out. And Jaune trust me on this she clearly have a crush on you too. She will definitely say yes if you ask her out.

Jaune: R-really? *shakes head* L-look we better get back on track, okay? We can deal with my dating life later. For now it's all about your date with Weiss.

Ruby: Speaking of Weiss... D-do you think she's gonna kiss me on the first date?

Jaune: A kiss with Weiss I don't know Ruby, but isn't it a good thing?

Ruby: But what if I messed up? I mean it's not unheard of that a great date can be ruined by a bad kiss... D-do you think we need to add a kissing practice on our not date?

Jaune: As much as I would like to help you. I have to say no on that... I mean the entire point of a first kiss is that you supposed to be bad at it. So don't worry too much about it Ruby. I bet you'll do "great" on your first kiss.

Ruby: I-I just want the entire thing to be perfect...

Jaune: That's what our practice date are for... And Ruby this might not count as a practice kiss... *tenderly kiss Ruby's forehead*

Ruby: *blush* You sly! Oh Jaune, you are so lucky that we're friend. If you kiss any other girl like this she might get the wrong idea.

Jaune: He, he... That's why I kiss you. And enough talking about date for now. I'll help you wash your body. Here, let me lather your body first. Now, turn around Ruby I'll do your back.

Ruby: Okay... *moan*

Jaune: C'mon Ruby why do you always making that sound every time I do this?

Ruby: I-I don't know why. It just felt so good that I automatically make that noise, when you touch me.

Jaune: Well thank you for the great review, Rubes. But it's distracting when you made noises like that. Now let me do your front...

The sound of soap slapping and rubbing accompanied by the sounds of Ruby's moaning starts to envelop and fill the shower room. Not realizing that someone has been there overhearing them this entire time.

Ren:

If anyone asking they're not doing what you think they are doing... They're just really good friend that's all.

[deliciousangelfestival]

Underworld Insomnia | 4 - B.Barnes

Character : Bucky × Psychiatrist Female!Reader

Summary: As a ruthless contract killer, Bucky is feared in the underworld of criminals. His opponents freeze when they see him, as he is feared among them. However, they don't know that he could be warm to only one person: his psychiatrist. The only person who could make him fall asleep.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 ,-

Main Masterlist || support: Ko-fi

Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Please let me know what your thoughts are. I'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you once again.

"Frosty longed for companionship, but no matter where he drifted, he found himself alone in the icy wilderness," the soothing voice of the story lulled Bucky into drowsiness. Just as he began to succumb to sleep, he heard your urgent cry, "Bucky!"

His body relaxed upon hearing your voice, but his eyelids felt heavy, weighed down by exhaustion. As he fought to keep them open, he sensed a peculiar sensation—something cool and tingling on his face. With a struggle, he managed to crack his eyes open, greeted by the sight of a small figure with oversized glasses hovering over him.

Bucky rubbed his eyes in confusion. "You... Ahh!!! What is this?" he exclaimed, noticing Conroy holding a tube of toothpaste.

Conroy, ever matter-of-fact, explained, "Because you're not awake. Seems like your body lack of iron."

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Conroy, feeling a mix of amusement and irritation at the kid's audacity. "Bah! I'm still in my prime," he retorted, trying to maintain his tough demeanor despite the situation's absurdity.

You were in another room when you heard an adult male voice, and you approached them, relieved to find that Bucky was no longer asleep. "You're awake," you remarked, noticing the toothpaste under Bucky's eyes. You knew it must be Conroy's doing.

Moving closer to Bucky, you reached for a cloth to wipe away Conroy's prank. "Conroy, you have to apologize to Bucky," you insisted firmly.

Bucky was taken aback by your actions. First, as the best contract killer in the industry, he could evade guns, knives, poisons, and other threats, but he never expected your voice to act as a lethal weapon. Second, he was surprised by the sudden tenderness in your gesture. He had never experienced such care before.

Conroy put his hands on his hips defiantly. "Why? If it's not because of me, he would still be asleep," he argued.

You clicked your tongue, feeling the need to maintain respect for the homeowner who could also protect you both from the group.

Bucky waved his hand dismissively. "It's fine," he assured, standing up to put some distance between himself and you. Perhaps it was your perfume that made his heart race. Clearing his throat, he asked, "How long was I asleep?"

You replied, "12 hours."

Bucky closed his mouth in disbelief. Twelve hours? That was a new record.

Concerned for his health, you suggested, "Bucky, do you need to go to the hospital? Perhaps something is wrong with your health?"

Bucky crossed his arms, feeling a bit irritated that both you and Conroy seemed to underestimate his health. He shook his head. "No. I've been there multiple times, and they found nothing wrong with me. Besides..." His conversation was cut short as he received a call.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Where the heck have you been?" the voice on the other end demanded.

"Sleeping," Bucky replied simply.

"What?! I don't even want to know. Just get your ass over here. Our situation is not good in the Caribbean Sea. Pirates tried to steal our client's ship."

Bucky's response was nonchalant, "Sure. Prepare the plane for me."

"But there's nowhere to land," came the urgent reply.

Bucky smirked, unfazed, "Who said the plane has to land?"

***********

At an altitude of 40,000 feet inside the cargo plane, Bucky surveyed the situation below. Miguel, one of his colleagues, filled him in on the mission details, "Our client hired us to rescue his son. Pirates are attempting to capture the vessel because they know our client is wealthy."

As Bucky prepared his parachute bag and checked his guns, Miguel asked him, "Are you sure you want to go alone?"

Bucky nodded confidently. "Yup. It'll be quick. See you later." With a salute, he jumped from the plane, disappearing into the night sky. Watching his fearless departure, Miguel chuckled and shook his head. "Crazy dude," he muttered to himself.

Once airborne, Bucky opened his parachute and descended gracefully toward the pirate-infested ship below. As he landed on the deck, he swiftly drew his weapons and sprang into action. With precise aim and lightning-fast reflexes, he took down each pirate one by one, dodging their gunfire with ease.

In a matter of seconds, the deck was cleared, and Bucky secured the area before moving to rescue the client's son. Amidst the chaos, he located the young man and ensured his safety, escorting him to a secure location on the ship.

The client's son, shaken but unharmed, looked up at Bucky with gratitude in his eyes. "Thank you," he said, his voice trembling with relief.

Bucky's work was clean and efficient, a testament to the positive effects of his recent restful sleep. He nodded in acknowledgment as he received praise from his agency's boss. "Great job."

However, when the boss mentioned wanting to introduce him to someone, Bucky politely declined. "No, I need to head back," he explained. He remembered that you and Conroy were relying on emergency food supplies back at the safe house. While Conroy might have a sharp tongue, Bucky couldn't forget that he was still just a 4-year-old kid.

With a sense of responsibility, Bucky prioritized your well-being and Conroy's comfort over any additional meetings or introductions. He needed to ensure that you both had enough to eat and were safe while he was away.

Bucky returned to the safe house to find you and Conroy engaged in making origami, a sight that amused him. It seemed that neither of you found entertainment in TV or movies.

Upon hearing the door open, you looked up and greeted him, "Welcome back."

"Hm," Bucky acknowledged, feeling a warm sensation at being welcomed home for the first time.

Conroy abandoned his Godzilla origami and rushed over to Bucky. "Is that the same chicken I had?" His hand reached out eagerly for the plastic bag, but Bucky raised it just out of reach, prompting Conroy to pause. "Hey."

Bucky raised an eyebrow playfully. "Don't 'hey' me. Ask me nicely."

Conroy's cheeks puffed up with a pout. "Can I have some of the food, please?"

Bucky chuckled, lowering the bag. "It's all yours."

Conroy dashed to the table, exclaiming, "Yes!"

Left alone with you, Bucky expressed his gratitude. "With 12 hours of sleep, I was able to finish my work quickly. Thanks."

You smiled warmly. "I'm glad I could help."

Bucky glanced around the safe house, noticing the origami creations scattered around. "What are you two making?"

You chuckled softly. "Conroy wanted to learn origami, so we've been practicing."

Bucky observed the colorful paper creations with a hint of admiration. "Looks like he's getting pretty good at it."

You nodded proudly. "He's a quick learner."

Just then, Conroy returned to the table, devouring his fried chicken with gusto. Between bites, he grinned at Bucky. "Thank you for the food!"

Bucky ruffled Conroy's hair affectionately. "You're welcome, kiddo."

As the three of you sat together, enjoying the simple pleasure of a shared meal, Bucky couldn't help but feel a sense of belonging he hadn't experienced in a long time. Despite the dangers lurking in the shadows, there was a sense of peace and camaraderie within the walls of the safe house.

Bucky leaned forward, his eyes focused on you with a seriousness that caught your attention. "Do you have a plan to put Conroy into kindergarten?"

You paused, a thoughtful expression crossing your face. "At the moment, no. With everything that's been happening, it hasn't really crossed my mind."

Bucky nodded, considering your words carefully. "If you want, I know of a safe kindergarten that's highly secretive. It's attended by children of parents in similar lines of work, like myself. To ensure Conroy's safety, we could even consider changing his name."

As you listened to Bucky's suggestion, you couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude for his concern. Despite his tough exterior, he genuinely cared about your well-being and Conroy's.

After you answered, Conroy interjected excitedly, "I want to go!!!" He hopped down from his chair and dashed over to Bucky, his eyes wide with enthusiasm. "I want to join the kindergarten. Please,~"

Bucky chuckled at Conroy's sudden burst of energy, finding his eagerness endearing. "You can, if you behave," he replied with a playful grin.

Conroy puffed out his chest proudly. "I am a good kid," he declared, his determination evident in his stance.

You couldn't help but smile at Conroy's excitement, feeling hopeful for his future despite the challenges you faced. With Bucky's support and the promise of a safe place for Conroy to learn and grow, you felt a sense of relief wash over you.

***********

The next day, Bucky continued his day with a brand new energy, grateful for the restful sleep he had gotten. This newfound routine eased his anxiety, allowing him to approach the day with a clearer mind.

He decided to visit the bar, a usual haunt where killers often gathered. As he entered, the dimly lit ambiance greeted him, familiar and somewhat comforting.

To his surprise, his boss approached him, accompanied by a figure clad in a custom suit that exuded an air of mystery and intelligence. The man's demeanor suggested he was no ordinary individual; perhaps a member of the CIA or a special undercover agent. His sharp gaze bore into Bucky, assessing him with keen interest as if dissecting his every move and thought.

The person introduced himself to Bucky with a firm handshake and a confident demeanor. "It's an honor to meet you, Barnes," he began in a voice with authority and a hint of intrigue. "I'm August Walker, and you have something that I want."

Author Note:

My dear readers and followers,

Could you please share your opinions about this series with me?

If you enjoyed it, I'd love to hear why it appealed to you.

If not, I would greatly appreciate your feedback and advice on improving the series.

Thank you!

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Author Note: Hey friends,

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[amphibiahawks321]

Can you do (separate) Momo and Kyoka x male siren reader (Can be HCs or imagines)? Maybe they walk in on the school pool, and see male reader swimming naked in mermaid form? Details up to you, thanks!

Bubbles popping out of the pool🫧

Jirou : Huh?

[Jirou walks towards the pool and stares through the bubbling water]

Jirou : what the? Is that a person–....!!?!?'

[Y/N immediately pops out of the pool making jirou trip backwards]

M!Reader : Hey jirou!

Jirou : What the heck Y/N!?

M!Reader : Oh! Sorry! Did I startled you?

Jirou : What are you doing in the school pool alone?

M!Reader : Chuckles school day is over today isn't it? I wanted to cool down!

Jirou : Your quirk seriously sometimes freaks me out.. not because of the tail but because you can jump out of water like a seal–.....!!!?!?

[Y/N ups himself showing his chest making Jirou immediately turns around]

M!Reader : Hm? What's wrong?

Jirou blushing : Y/N You're chest....

M!Reader : So? You've seen me without my shirt before

Jirou blushing : t-that's different... We're alone...

M!Reader : .....

[Y/N starts smirking]

M!Reader : Maybe I should up myself a little bit more~—

Jirou blushing : Y/N I SWEAR DON'T YOU DARE!–

Momo : Huh? Is that.... Is that a mermaid–

[Y/N pops out of the pool with a wide smile]

M!Reader : Why thank you Yaoyorozu! I consider myself a gorgeous and handsome one at that! ^v^

Momo : Y/N!? I-Is there where you usually go when the school day ends?

M!Reader : Pretty much!

[Momo Crouched down and examines Y/N's tail with her eyes starts glimmering]

M!Reader blushing : Umm... W-What are you doing?

Momo : You're tail... It's so gorgeous✨

M!Reader blushing : I....I Uhmm Ahem T-Thank you...

Momo : It looks so shiny✨ I never knew it looked so–.....

M!Reader : Hm?

[Momo immediately stands up and stares at the other way]

Momo blushing : S-Sorry I just forgot you were Ahem shirtless...

M!Reader : ......Chuckles No worries!