#which is not that much but it is maybe four loves of bread's worth

[phantaasmic]

what does one do with a pound of garlic

[lovejosephquinn]

Imagine it’s like your third/fourth date with Joe and he decides to have the date at his so he can show off his mega cooking skills. Everything is so cute and fluffy and saccharine and then it’s the first time the two of you have sex. But it’s all adorable and sweet rather than the (wonderful) filth that you usually do!! I feel like I don’t see enough first time fics anymore :(

I GOT YOU. One fluffy fluffed up imagine just for you bestie 🥰

Under 18's DNI. Word Count: 3.5k

There was something different about Joe, the absolute charmer of a man that you had never witnessed before in anybody else. It was something you couldn't quite pin point and if you had one guess it would be that you had never been treated quite like the queen that others had told you that you oh so truly deserved.

It hadn't took long for Joe to break down the walls in which you had held up as much as you could from previous relationships, but he had it all, not just the looks that were an extreme bonus and you felt like you could jump him every time you saw him but also the persona he only really kept for people that was worth it, the whit and the chaotically beautiful and quite frankly funny yet brutally sweet and caring nature of him had shined through by the time your second date had come around.

Basically, to put it bluntly, he was your definition of perfect and it was something you couldn't possibly refuse to let go.

It was proving an impossible task to not fall in love with this human so quickly. It was cringeworthy to admit, but he was the first thing you thought about in a morning and the very last thing you dreamt about at night, it was a puzzle piece in your heart that was missing and he somehow completed it by walking into your life at the time he did.

Not to say you didn't meet the way most courting adults do nowadays, through the wonders of dreaded hooking up dating apps. You had felt like a teenager with a massive crush staying up until 4am the first time that you ever exchanged messages, talking for hours in pointless conversation, sharing memories and exchanging pleasantries and the general chit chat to get to know one another. You just clicked. What seemed too good to be true turned into texting every single day, calling each other when you both had a spare minute, sharing the occasional face time just to be able to say hello at the closest face to face you could finally get a chance to meet; and then it happened.

Date one: a simplistic meal at an authentic Italian restaurant, suited and booted, a grand first impression of a gentleman if any. Your first kiss. Sensual, slow and heartfelt.

Date two: Driving out to a lake which was situated around the lovely grounds of a valley, you held hands pretty much all the way around, giggling, sharing ice cream, feeding the ducks with over priced bread and laughing at Joe nearly falling in the water when he leaned to actually hand feed the duckling, resulting in him almost looking like a drowned rat and being branded an accidental murderer forever.

Date three: Another meal at a fancy five star French restaurant in the heart of London, followed by drinks in bars that Joe insisted he needed to take you to as they did the best martini's you'd ever tasted. He wasn't wrong, you fucking hated martinis until that night, maybe it was just a placebo due to the fact he enjoyed them, so you made yourself like them too, you had to impress him to right? You'd made out in the taxi all the way back to your flat, Joe dropped you off not insinuating that he wanted to take it any further as it was clear you both didn't want to rush something that was going so well and risk it failing over sleeping together too quickly.

Date four was tonight. You had arranged a quieter more casual meet this evening. Joe had shown great determination in getting you to his home to cook for you, vowing to you over and over that he was a way better chef than those of the restaurants you had eaten at together on dates in the past. Even though it was less formal affair, you still made yourself look presentable, sporting an oversized jumper dress with a more relaxed approach to stick to wearing trainers, it wasn't like you would have them on long anyway. Minimal make up and a nice up do, packing your over night bag as you had the bright idea that you would stay over the night so that you didn't have to rush through the time you had together; you could take your time.

You packed pyjamas, why? Because you didn't know how comfortable you would be to sleep in your underwear next to a male who you weren't sure would want to see such a thing. He's a man, of course he fucking would; but you didn't want to come across eager.

It was about a 25 minute drive to where you needed to be, you were still nervous to see Joe after already seeing so much of each other in the last few weeks, it was still fresh to you but you knew as soon as you were together, the comfortability would kick in pretty much when you arrived and shared your first glances.

When you got to the front door, it opened before your fist had even touched the object. You stood there with it mid air, a small wolf whistle followed by the sweetest smile, his sweetest smile, teeth and all. Joe of course was dressed to the nines, shirt and trousers but as you looked down to check the full variety of what you had to stare it, you noticed the cute pink socks sticking out like a sore thumb underneath the foot of his trousers. You couldn't help but snigger a giggle.

"Real men wear pink." Were his first words.

"And you're looking sincerely sexy in those pink socks Joe." You both chortled out a bark of laughter as Joe gestured for you to come through before closing the door behind you.

Once you were no longer in view of the public, you were met by Joe's hand clutching around your waist, bringing you in to close the space between your bodies. You leaned upward to receive a content little peck on the lips, your hands placed on his chest to keep you steady as you brought your feet back down fully to ground level.

"You look beautiful, darling." Joe cooed.

"Oh stop it." You patted his chest as he hummed a chuckle.

"Thank you would be a better answer." He tilted his head to one side, unknowingly surprised with you reaching to share a more intimate kiss this time. As you pulled back, Joe sighed almost peacefully, the way you did when you had butterflies flipping around your stomach. The feeling was definitely most mutual.

"Okay you win, that was a perfect response." Joe took your hand once you had rested them back to your side and brought you into the kitchen/dining area where he pulled out your seat for you. You thanked him as you looked around to see how classy he had set out the cutlery, a small plate, a dinner plate and a wine glass. A jug of water in the middle of the table in case you needed it at any point throughout the meal.

"Smells divine in here." You gazed around the messy kitchen, the sign of a good hearty meal being cooked as well as it could be showed that he was pulling out all of the stops.

"I hope you're hungry, I made a little too much pasta." Joe pressed his lips into a thin line, furrowing his brow and shrugging his shoulders slightly at you.

"I meant you, the food smells good too."

"Oh stop it." Joe mimicked you, covering his hand over his mouth in a pathetic and quite frankly over dramatic attempt to pretend he was embarrassed over your compliment.

Joe poured the wine into your glass, insisting that you taste it to make sure it was the one that you had said you liked beforehand. Great memory. Perfect for the pasta dish that you were about to consume. The indeed heavenly smell of prawn tagliatelle with various vegetables was dished out in front of you. You ate everything, even went in for seconds, it was a good job you didn't eat much today and you had to all intents and purposes starved yourself so that you would be ravenous by the time you had your dinner date.

Was this man ever wrong in his assumptions? Nope. He was a sensational cook, his mum had clearly taught him a lot and he was well trained in the kitchen, perfect as you were up for a dinner date like this every night for the rest of your life if this was the quality of food you would receive.

To top it all off, he had also prepared dessert, an affogato served with home made pistachio ice cream, an eye rolling, taste bud tingling way to finish off your meal indeed. You had polished off the wine too quickly for your liking, the combination of wine heated your cheeks along with the warmth of the house and also being sat across from Joe probably didn't help the matter.

You had retired to the living room after helping him clean up. Joe had insisted that you were his guest and wouldn't lift a finger but after a playful and most valid argument between you, Joe accepted your point of it would get done faster if you did it together. Putting on a movie seemed like the best option to end a solid ten out of ten evening together, a romantic comedy that you had seen at least thirty times in your life. You downed the last of your wine in your glass and set it in front of you on the coffee table, snuggling into Joe's side, he caught the hint pretty quickly and lifted his arm to let you sink into him further. His hand stroked the bare skin of your shoulder where your jumper had faltered a little, sending goose bumps raging their way through your skin.

It wasn't long until the movie was forgotten about, a deeply passionate kiss provoked by Joe himself. He had smoothly managed to push his finger tip toward your jaw, putting enough pressure to make you look up toward him where his free hand came to cup your cheek, bringing you forward to softly connect your lips together. You lifted yourself up with the help of Joe to sit yourself directly on his lap, tongues now involved as begged at your bottom lip for entrance. The kiss became intense, your fingers ran through his untamed curls which were soft and a little frizzy from the humidity of cooking whilst your other hand was wrapped in the chains around his neck, pulling him to be as close to you as possible. The dimmed lighting added to the voluptuousness and your whole body was screaming with desire to be touched in anyway he would dare to.

The kiss broke intermittently as you both panted for just that little bit to regain the oxygen your lungs had lost in the last few minutes.

"Shall we go get a little more comfortable, love?" Joe offered, stroking his thumb over your cheek giving you a smile that could heal the world.

"I'd love to." Joe kept you in his grasp, lifting himself up off of the sofa and you instantly obliged to wrap your legs around his waist. He carried you upstairs and into his bedroom, using his elbow to switch on the light before he slowly set you down on your back onto the foam mattress that you immediately thought was going to be a great nights sleep from the instant comfort you felt. Joe rested himself by the side of you, propped up on one elbow as his hand magnetised itself straight back to your cheek. He examined your features for a moment, staring through into your soul, your eyes following every muscle that worked in the doe eyes that sparkled towards you.

"Just to be clear you do want-" Joe whispered shyly, but before he could finish it was a response you didn't even have to think about.

"I do, I really do." He knew you were on the same page, his lips coming back to join yours in the most gratifying and pleasurable kiss. Electricity was shooting it's way down to your core, followed by anxiety that he may not like what he saw underneath your clothing.

You broke the kiss this time, pushing all doubts out of your mind as you sat up to remove your jumper dress, leaving yourself in your matching underwear, slowly looking up to witness his reaction.

It was very much worth it.

Joe's eyes had grown lustful, extremely excited to see you looking so vulnerable for him. Joe pushed his hands towards the back of your bra, stopping for a second to look at you for reassurance.

"May I?"

You giggled. "You may."

Joe touched you delicately like you were made of porcelain, not wanting to break you but at the same time really wanting to feel every ounce of you. He massaged your breasts in the palm of his hands, lightly pinching your nipples and gaining a whimper from the sensitivity that it caused.

"You like that, baby?" Baby. That was the first time he had called you that and you hoped it would not be the last.

A stifling yes was all you could manage, his touch riling you up good and proper as he laid you down back into an easier position to access so that his mouth could taste where his fingers had just influenced.

Soft moans were making the erection in Joe's trousers twitch as he worked his way down with unhurried yet deliberate little embracing kisses down your body. His hands following where his lips had just caressed until he was knelt down before you, placing your feet at the edge of the bed, reaching upward to slide your panties down and fully off. You were stark naked and his bush baby eyes had never shimmered brighter than they were, his jaw could of fell to the floor the way his mouth gaped open looking down at you.

"You're so fucking beautiful, I am so lucky." There was that sigh again, oh so delightful to observe.

Joe planted more kisses along your thighs before working his way towards your slit, guiding his hands to open it up so that he could start by licking a small stripe down to the base of you with the tip of his tongue. A louder moan escaped you this time.

"Relax darling, I want to make you feel so good."

When he got into a more focussed position, his hands reached for yours, intertwining your fingers together as you both gave a little reassuring squeeze to let each other know it was okay. His muscle massaged against your clit, making the muscles in your legs twinge each time he slipped it over a particular spot. He pressed succulent kisses against you with each taste, humming and breathing in the scent of you.

"That feels so good." You mewled.

"Mmm." Joe answered, he was in too deep for a truly more accurate reply.

His movements got a little faster and heavier against your bud, your body squirming around the sheets, your fingers pressing harder into his knuckles before he let one of your hands go, your instant reaction was to massage your boob and play with yourself a little. Joe surprised you by pushing a finger inside of you, the cold metal of his ring touching your entrance when the entirety of his digit made it's way up. He added another shortly, curling them upwards but keeping the pace gently measured to really make you feel even better than you could have ever imagined.

It all ended too quickly as Joe pushed himself away from you, ridding the contact from his fingers and wiping the back of his hand over his mouth to dry himself off.

"Why did you stop?"

"I can't take it anymore, I need to feel myself inside of you, you feel too good like this, god knows how you'll feel like that." Joe undressed himself and you watched his defined figure unravel before you, gawking from his neck down, not too toned but just right. His cock stood to attention, leaking pre-cum from being so heavily turned on from his time during his little cunninglingus fun. You were impressed with everything he had to offer, why wouldn't you be impressed with the sheer just above average size he was packing.

"You are perfect Quinn." You bit down onto your bottom lip, hypnotising him immediately with the way your eyes clung to his.

"No baby, that's you." BABY. BABY. B A B Y.

Joe lined himself up over you, not letting you move from your previous state, silently insisting that you relax whilst he continued to make you both feel incredible. He rubbed his cock between your slit, gaining some of his own spit and your slick to lube him up for easier access.

"Are you sure-"

"I'm sure, baby." It was your turn to mock him whimsically but he seemed to drink it in as you did, the pet name in particular. Joe pushed himself inside of you slowly, inch by inch filling you, your walls instantaneously clenching around him sending a ferocious groan straight from Joe's mouth.

"Just as I thought." He said.

You giggled a little too suddenly. "What?"

"Heavenly."

Joe began to rock his hips back and fourth into you, the girth alone sent your back arching as he leant down, the muscles in his arms flexing to keep him hovering above you, his chains dangling around your chin as he thrusted back and fourth. Sharp breathes and the heat of passion were strong between the two of you, a rush of new found energy had you both singing each other's names like a prayer. The movements were sloppy yet so eager, fiery yet heartfelt. You looked into each others eyes with promise and sensibility. If you weren't mistaken, the look of love. Too lost in your thoughts, you were brought back down to the present to see Joe's lips moving, your hearing came back into play once you had stopped being so caught in your brain.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Never better."

"Did you hear what I said?" Joe pushed into you a little harder this time making you gasp.

"Evidently not." You breathed out a distorted moan followed by a chuckle.

"Be mine." Joe repeated himself hoping that you heard him loud and clear this time.

"I already am." You smiled as soon as he did, his lips crashed against yours, your heavily beautiful kiss moving in time with that of his hips, stopping sporadically to take a breath or to get out the breathless whimpers you needed to let escape.

The knot snapped inside your stomach when he hit one final thrust, sending you both over the edge together. Your bodies tingling from head to toe, the sensation you wished would last a lifetime and more from the stimulation and pure feeling you were eating up at this very moment.

"That was-" Joe was left stuttering so much that he had to pause.

"Amazing?" You finished.

"Exactly." Joe leaned down to kiss you one last time before pulling out, your orgasms rid to their full potential, it had made it all the more zealous to have reached your peaks together.

You ran to the bathroom to flush out what you needed to, cleaning yourselves up before returning to Joe's bed, the pyjamas long forgotten about that you had packed, a comforting thought that you now would be able to sleep skin to skin, happy and tranquil. Joe rushed downstairs to turn the tv off, not long after returning and making a huge leap towards the bed to which you jumped out of your skin when you realised he was almost about to crush you the same way he could have done the duckling on your second date.

It was all laughter and mind numbing chatter for the rest of the night, you laid in Joe's arms, your ear just resting above his heart which beat steady and relaxed.

"You meant it?" Joe mentioned and you looked up at him dazed and confused in your exhausted state.

"Meant what?" You asked.

"That you were mine." Joe looked deeply into your eyes, looking for the answers before you spoke them.

"Always."

"Perfect." Joe planted a kiss onto your forehead, his fingers making light work stroking up and down the top of your back.

"That's you." You nestled your face into his chest.

"Sweet dreams then, my darling girl."

You laid in the same position until the sun rose and the light dimmed it's way through the corners of Joe's curtains. A new day had never felt so good, especially beginning it in the arms of your man. Perfect.

[tobiasdrake]

That's everyone. Time to check out the Favor Tree, then we're on to the Clocktower meetup.

So how's this work? Do I just tell the tree what I want? Do I yank off a leaf and then write my request on it?

I dunno. Given that the rules are lax enough that a Favor Tree is as simple as "the biggest tree nearby" I think there's probably some leeway here. There may not be any particular rules for how we're supposed to pray to it.

Then again, that is the kind of logic that leads to the Bystander Effect. If everybody thinks like that and then nobody wishes for Vaugarde's salvation, that's a whoopsy-doodle. So it's better to inconvenience myself, at the risk of redundancy, for the sake of locking in aid for people in crisis.

Of course, it's not impossible to have your cake and eat it when it comes to wish-granting. All of these potential wishes are things that my team wants to do once the King has been defeated. Granting a wish for these things necessarily requires that Vaugarde be saved.

Therefore, I can wish for something for myself that nonetheless adds the strength of my wish to whatever existing pool of wishes towards Vaugarde's salvation already exists! This is what we call "gaming the system".

And while I wish the best for everyone, there is one person whose desires matter more than anybody else's.

Odile, Maribelle, and Isabeau all have dreams and ambitions for the future. That's great. I'm happy for them. But Bonnie doesn't. Bonnie has trauma. If I'm going to spend a wish on anyone, it's going to be for Bonnie to be healed.

If only one of us can have what they want, it should be them. A lost child's wish to save their family is worth more than gold.

Okay PARTY TIME

Alright y'all, come clean. Who ripped the bread in half and just left it on the table like that?

Or. Wait. Is that the bread, of "breaking bread"? Did we literally break bread? And then not eat it?

Are... are you supposed to eat it? Is it rude to break the bread and then not eat it? Or is it sacrilegious to eat broken bread? I feel like the bread's just going to waste if you don't eat it. But maybe it's a holy gesture? Maybe the act of letting the bread go stale... symbolizes its Change from a state of freshness to a state of badness.

Or maybe one of us here is just a dipshit who doesn't understand the phrase. Looking at you, Isa. On the "Risk of Dipshit" Scale, you're Suspect #2.

Suspect #1 is me but I'm, like, 65% sure I didn't do it.

You made the entire feast all by yourself? I am simultaneously very impressed with you and also tremendously disappointed in the rest of us. Four grown-ass adults and not one of us pitched in to assist the child in the kitchen. I am ashamed of every single one of us.

SPEECH SPEECH SPEECH SPEECH

Uh. No. Appreciate the sentiment but you're wrong. I don't know if you have Pocket Notes on the stakes of this thing but "Everyone dies tomorrow" isn't something people get to opt out of.

I know you don't want to think of membership in this crew as compulsory but... it kind of is. Our options are "Roll the dice tomorrow" or "Find a nice place to die". The latter of which is something most of the town is actively preparing for.

People are capable of tremendous acts of selfless courage when they have no hope of survival. With that in mind, I intend to be very brave tomorrow. There's only one place to do that.

You know, I'm used to rousing campfire speeches having a lot more swearing, raging narcissism, and thematically inappropriate criminality. But this is nice too. All-a y'all are swell. I'm happy to be a part of this.

My dude, I was wide awake. I slept all day today. I was just trying to be politely still so everyone else can sleep, while quietly going over Rock Paper Scissors strategies in my head.

The trick is to not throw the wrong symbol. But to make them think you're going to throw the wrong symbol, so they play into your hands when you throw the right symbol. *sage wisdom*

I love you too, man. Still making sense of things too much to decide if that's romantic or platonic but one way or another we're tight.

Mm. Pillow beats Rock. Good to know. See, that is why I've been silently reviewing Rock Paper Scissors strategies.

Good night, Isa. We'll continue this talk on the day after tomorrow, so long as it comes to pass.

[sasquapossum]

Awesome Chowder Recipe

Here’s a recipe for what I rather immodestly call my Awesome Chicken Corn Chowder. It’s not quick, either in hands-on time or total time, but it’s so good. Amounts are approximate, because this is just not the kind of recipe where precision matters all that much.

First, make the stock. I like to do this by buying a rotisserie chicken at the store, carving it up normally for one meal, then using the rest to make stock. First, remove all the usable meat - yield is usually a couple of cups’ worth for us - and save it for later. Then toss the rest in a Dutch oven, cover with salted water, and let it simmer for a couple of hours. I like to add a lot of thyme and a little marjoram too. Or you can skip this part and buy stock at the store ... but then you won’t have the meat as well. You’re on your own for that part.

For the soup itself, the first part is to peel, cube, and boil four large(ish) potatoes just like you would for mashed, but using the stock. You might need a little extra water to cover, and that’s OK but it should be mostly stock. While that’s happening - about twenty minutes - you can prepare the rest.

Cut up about half a pound of bacon and fry it up. The smokier the better. Kayem makes a great double-smoked bacon that’s too strong for most uses but perfect for this.

While you’re cooking the bacon, cut up a large sweet (e.g. Vidalia) onion, then take out the bacon and cook the onion in the fat. It’s a chowder. More fat is good.

While you’re cooking the onions (I love how this all fits together), cut up the chicken you saved earlier.

By this time the spuds should be done. Drain the water into a bowl - not the sink!- because you’ll be using it in a moment. Save half the spuds whole (well cubed), then mash the rest. This is the essential step, thickening up the final result to just the right chowder-y consistency. Now put everything in your Dutch oven.

Whole spud cubes

Mashed spuds

Bacon

Onion

Chicken

One can of creamed corn

One cup (or more) of thawed frozen corn

My final ingredient is a generous amount of Trader Joe’s umami powder - mostly various kinds of dried mushroom, but also a bunch of other spices so I don’t have to add those separately. I sprinkle on enough to cover the whole surface, maybe a couple of tablespoons. Hard to go wrong, really.

Next, let it simmer for a couple of hours. Most people would do this on the stove top, but I like to toss the whole thing in the oven for better temperature control. Just give it a stir once in a while. When time’s up, finish by adding heavy cream until the color and taste suit your preference - usually about a cup or so for me.

As I said, it’s not quick, but at the end you’ll have a big batch of super rich, hearty soup. All you need to go with that is a good robust bread - a local bakery makes anadama which is perfect for this - and that’s a meal to remember.

[inventors-fair]

Going Up - Elevator Pitch Winners

An uplifting round of applause for our winners this week: @bergdg, @bread-into-toast, and @izzet-always-r-versus-u!

Marchesa, Queen of Paliano - @bergdg

The other mods were quite enamored with this one, and as a fan of venturing into the dungeon, I can definitely see why. Plans, conceptually, are very good as a sort of more linear execution on the aforementioned dungeons. Your sample plan, Maintain Order, I think does things mostly right, namely starting off with a low-board-impact ability, so that your opponent doesn't have to worry quite so much about the exact contents of every scheme you could possibly go on. That said, I do wish it was at least a step longer to complete, if only to tone down Marchesa's last ability, which feels potentially very overwhelming given that the tokens it can make can themselves generate more tokens. I also do kind of wish that abandoning the plan was perhaps more of a discreet step? Just so that switching gears is just a smidge more difficult, and maybe give players some scaling payoff for when they complete or leave whatever plan they were on, so that seeing things through closer to the end is more heavily incentivised, but I think that's more me exploring this cool space you've created than an actual criticism of how you've done things. At the end of the day the plan mechanic is clever and endearing and that's a hard combination to not speak highly of.

Quintorius, Digsite Delver - @bread-into-toast

Planeswalkers are the sorts of things that are generally both difficult to design and difficult to evaluate, so it's a bite rare that they find themselves this high on the podium. That said, we're here, so let's talk about why, starting with the two words that make this card an eligible contestant. Backup planeswalker feels so natural you'd think they'd've already done it, and the particular loyalty abilities you've chosen to grant this card simultaneously feel very appropriate for the character, while still being generally useful on just about anyone else. That said, I am not without concerns. Getting to abruptly generate four loyalty counters and a 3/2 blocker certainly seems safe on the Elephant in the room, but I am a little worried about how well it might play alongside planeswalkers with somewhat more dramatic loyalty abilities. Strixhaven Kasmina certainly never broke anything, and this is two more mana than that, but generating blockers on a positive loyalty ability has historically led to very strong planeswalkers, so I do feel some concern is warranted. All that said, I don't think I'd really change anything about what this guy is doing, aside from maybe dropping the +2's to +1s, just to be safe. Lovely execution regardless.

Awaken from Slumber - @izzet-always-r-versus-u

Straight to the point: Pray is an inspired attempt at fixing conspire. I love how, by removing the payoff inherent to the ability, by adjusting the ceiling, you've made it so that the floor can kind of rise to meet it. Three mana to dredge back two creatures from your graveyard is far from a bad rate, and getting to turn that into an actual full reanimation spell is just delightful. This also just feels like a very clever design to show off this mechanic on, as the off-mode very cleanly gives you precisely enough creatures to allow you to pray for something else. Certainly not flashiest thing submitted this week but I have full faith that this will play quite well and honestly that's worth a lot in my opinion.

[moodywyrm]

oh my god that sounds so cute !! and doc charms !!! omg !! i actually just got my first ever pair of original docs on friday and they are so comfy ?? like ?? i have some doc sandals but never really wear them cus they are platforms and i have a tendency to absolutely shatter bones if im more then two inches off the ground LMAO

i totally understand the overstimulated part ,, i genuinely don't think i could live w out a portable fan and a change of clothes or two because sometimes fabric is too much :(

and yes </3 medical stuff </3 ive been doing a lot better though !! a lot less chronic pain and i took a few acetaminophens so the cramping has gone down (yippee) , im kinda bummed about the whole allergy thing cus essentially im allergic to every kind of meat and bread, dairy, soy, and eggs </3 so like,,, i am being forced into veganism (is that a word? it is now.) and it sucks because a lot of my home dishes are meat !! or bread !! and im a whore for naan bread im so upset i cant eat it anymore :( fortunately i had all these allergies as a kid so its not really new to me, but its still sucky:(

-🧸

the doc charms were one of my favorite parts!! I love docs so much, I got my pair like four years ago and they're still kicking </3 which is a testament bc I walk so much and they're still alive <3 with some bumps and bruises, but alive <3 breaking in docs is Hell but they're very worth it in my opinion! and I want platform shoes so bad, hence the platform converse I was crying about </3

and no seriously, I only survived bc my friend brought a fan that I ended up snatching for the entire day bc heat + full fit + period would've made me pass out otherwise </3 I wish I'd brought a change of clothes, bc I was stuck in the corset top all day and my tummy was so squished :(

I'm glad you're feeling a little bit better!! it sucks that you have to give up a bunch of your food :( maybe you can find recipes for your traditional food, just with modifications for the allergies? I'm sorry honey, that sucks so bad </3 I would be so sad if I had to give up cultural food :( I hope you can find some alternatives so you can still enjoy the yummy food!!

[juicywritinghoard]

emoji prompts

🥺you sleep with the stuffed animal I won you??

🤏 truly I am this close to kissing you or biting you and I haven't decided which

🥖 I would do anything to get you to bake me more bread, was that straight up mind control oh my god

🥚babe we cannot raise a dragon egg babe please we live in an apartment 

🧨stop asking me to do crimes with you I am falling in love too hard 

🏆okay I know the two of us are crazy stupid competive and are very close to getting kicked out for our bs but trying to beat you makes my blood pump like it never has before

🌮I'm the celebrity guest on your cooking show trying not to show the whole world I can't make anything more complicated than grilled cheese but I'd do anything to make you keep laughing

🎟did not actually expect to win the lottery with you and now we have to split the cash, but at least I can afford time off work now to run from your insane family that's after the money? 

🎈you're a single parent at this birthday party at my work and I cannot believe I have to keep up the shtick when I'd much rather be wooing you 

🩰we are rivals and I hate your guts stop being so pretty and kind about me getting the lead or I'm gonna have a feeling about it

🔌androids aren't supposed to have souls but we sure are falling in love like you have one 

📚you are my favorite author and you haven't published anything for so long can I help you please please please

🔎my life long dream of inspecting a murder mystery super might get me killed but like, worth it

📬penpals to lovers I'm willing it into existence I know you live so far away but I can't help falling ass over teakettle in love with you, I mean. you seal your letters and doodle and add washi tape how could I Not

🔒I broke into your car to impress you when you locked your keys in and now I have to construct an elaborate lie to explain myself 

🛏this mattress store is gonna kick us out. yep

👑stop kissing me so right I have to assassinate you

🗡four minutes after you, my sworn rival, tilted my chin up with your sword

🎻you keep asking if your practicing is bothering me but honestly I'm so swept away. play something for me. haha I mean freebird not a like, romantic song, that would be, wild

🎩your costume is stupid but just you wait until you see mine

🔇you haven't been online in two days would it be insane for me to drive to your place and make sure you haven't like, died. because I am omw

💍good morning will you marry me

🛒every little moment with you is a sweet adventure, even going to the grocery store, which I hate to bastard death

🥧 I am so sad but this pie you brought me is helping a little. let me get two spoons 

🎂am I the first person to wish you happy birthday today? it's so late :( I'm dropping everything rn let's celebrate you

🦖and don't get me started on jurassic Park as a concept if they had just had some ENRICHMENT, sorry, sorry, you don't need to listen to me go on. I know it's annoy- why are you looking at me like that

🦄so like. Magic is real huh. and you're magic? cool cool cool. I'm gonna be sooo normal about this just. just give me a sec

👽no you crashlanded your spaceship in my backyard I think I'm owed an explanation actually 

😻I'm so sorry my cat keeps escaping to go to your place, Beans is just obsessed with you. haha and who could blame him, honestly

❤️‍🔥may or may not be burning my exes things in the park and sobbing be cool maybe

[searidings]

hi, i just love you and your writing

can i suggest something - you are in love (taylor swift) and supercorp

i cannot listen to that song without going yeah, that's them

(also on ao3 if you prefer)

Five years from now, Kara is going to reach across the table at Noonan's and take her hand. She's going to look deep into Lena's eyes, biting her lip as her thumb rubs gentle circles into Lena's palm, and her voice will barely rise above a whisper when she asks, “When did you know?”

And when she does, five years from now, Lena will think back to this moment.

This moment, which is as close as Lena's come to happiness since she'd woken up ziptied to a chair in her brother's office. This moment which, despite the fuzzy feeling of her unbrushed teeth and the pungent aroma of burnt toast filling the air, is perfect.

Kara, bed-warm and sleep-heavy, is gazing beseechingly down at the charred remains of a slice of a bread as though if she only pouts hard enough, its edges will un-blacken and its corners will stop smoking.

“I'm so sorry,” she says as Lena rounds the screen separating Kara's bedroom from the rest of the apartment and perches herself on a barstool, tugging her borrowed sleep shorts a little lower down her thighs.

Kara's tone is mournful, her face so forlorn she looks to be one deep breath away from tears. “I wanted breakfast to be perfect, since it's your first time staying over and if it's terrible you might not want to stay again and I, I really want you to stay again, but I don't know why you would since you probably have a private chef waiting for you at home and I can’t even manage toast—”

“Kara,” Lena interrupts, biting at the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing as Kara's bottom lip trembles. “It's fine, really. I once set fire to my dorm kitchen trying to boil an egg. And besides,” she winks as blue eyes meet hers. “I like to give my personal chef the weekends off.”

Kara huffs out a relieved chuckle, her face brightening. “Oh, well, in that case,” she grins, a sparkle returning to her eyes. “I'd better feed you up before you go home. Never let it be said that I don't look after you.”

Lena can't help the smile that pulls at her as the warm bright feeling in her chest grows and grows. She tugs the sleeves of Kara's sweatshirt over her hands, fighting the urge to fidget as the blonde orders a frankly obscene amount of food from the brunch place on the corner.

She feels exposed like this, face bare and hair sleep-mussed, unshowered with unbrushed teeth, huddled inside borrowed clothes after the impromptu invitation to stay over when last night's movie marathon ran late. It's a far cry from the regimented composure she fights so hard every day to project, and something in her chest twists anxiously.

Kara is a reporter, after all, and National City really doesn't need any more reasons to hate Lena right now. The darkest corner of her mind – the one which has been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for everything to come crashing down ever since the whirlwind of Kara's too-good-to-be-true friendship had come blazing into her life – still worries that this may all be an elaborate ruse. A trap, a way to get close to her in order to assess her weaknesses, to bring her down with an inside scoop.

But in their six months of friendship, Kara's never given her any reason to believe she has any kind of ulterior motive. And despite the suspicions and anxieties hammered into her by a lifetime of hurt, Lena knows now that even if this is a trap, she'll take the bait willingly. Especially if it means Kara will keep looking at her like there might just be something in Lena that's worth her time.

"Hey,” the blonde says gently, leaning back against the counter opposite and pinning Lena with a searching look. “You okay? You kind of zoned out on me there.”

Lena jumps, blinking back into herself with a start. “Yes, sorry. I was miles away.”

The blonde only smiles, flicking on the coffee machine at her elbow. “You sleep okay?”

“Very well, thank you,” Lena answers, fighting to lessen the formality of her tone, to soften the edges her harsh childhood had sharpened into a fortress to keep the world at bay. “Your bed is surprisingly comfortable. I had a great night's sleep.”

"Perhaps the company had something to do with it,” Kara winks as she turns to pull two mugs down from the hooks at her shoulder. Lena thinks back to the smell of Kara's sheets and the soft pulls of her breathing, to the warmth of Kara's ankle against her calf and the strong fingers that had wrapped themselves in the sleeve of Lena's sweatshirt in sleep, anchoring them together. She blushes.

Kara only smirks, pouring their drinks and grabbing the milk from the fridge. “Well, the food's all ordered, it should be here soon,” she says over her shoulder, the waterfall of her golden ponytail mesmerising in the bright rays of morning light filtering in through the vaulted windows. “And you don't need to head off in a hurry, unless you have plans—?”

She glances back at Lena, who shakes her head. “Great!” she grins. “’Cause I was thinking, maybe we could check out the botanical gardens, since it's such a nice day? Oh, and there's a new bakery right across the street that I've been dying to try—”

Lena listens to the blonde's excited rambling with an endeared smile plastered to her face, feeling happy and warm and wanted with every fibre of her being. The feeling is new but so welcome she could cry, and Lena wonders – not for the first time – how she ever got so lucky.

Kara's presence in her life is like sugar in her coffee; meant only to sweeten that which has always been bitter.

Lena's always taken her coffee black. Softening the blow was never much her style.

But here, now, perched at Kara's breakfast bar with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug the blonde has brewed to perfection, sunlight streaming in and highlighting the angles and planes of Kara's face, the way she’s smiling at Lena like there's nowhere else in the world she'd rather be, she realises her reasoning is twofold.

Sugar isn't just appetising. It's addictive. And now that Lena's had a taste of sweetness, she's hooked.

In this moment, Lena knows. She's in love.

-

Four years from now, Kara is going to reach across the table at Noonan's and take her hand. She's going to look deep into Lena's eyes, biting her lip as her thumb rubs gentle circles into Lena's palm, and her voice will barely rise above a whisper when she asks, “When did you know?”

And when she does, four years from now, Lena will also think back to this moment.

This moment, which may well be one of the lowest of Lena's life. And she's had some doozies.

The two bottles of wine she'd managed to mainline between Sam leaving to orchestrate damage control at L-Corp and Kara arriving and attempting to confiscate her glass have well and truly caught up to her now. She sways heavily on her stool, the room spinning. Tears sting her vision and guilt scorches her throat as she presses a hand over her eyes so she won't have to look at Kara's face anymore.

“Please, just— just, stop believing in me, okay?” she slurs, heart full to shattering with the faces of lead-poisoned children. “I am not worth it.”

She hears Kara sigh, and the room falls silent for a long long time. Lena drops her head fully into her hands, fighting the nausea that's taken root in the pit of her stomach. It could be the booze that's causing it, of course, but it could also be the incessant headlines baying for her blood, the bullet James had taken for her that she'd fully deserved, the curse of her family finally fulfilling itself.

The guilt, the worry, the crushing disappointment of the knowledge that despite her very best efforts, she'll never be anything but a monster— it's too much to feel. It's too much to bear.

So, Lena drinks.

She drains her glass. She pours another. Kara watches, silent and disapproving, fingers twitching against the granite countertop between them.

Lena finishes her glass. Splashes the last dregs of the bottle into it, blood on ice. Still Kara watches, motionless and mute. It's only when Lena's swallowed the last of the red and is lurching unsteadily to her feet to source another that she moves, a hand reaching out to encircle her wrist.

Shame ignites beneath her skin and she pushes Kara away. Snaps at her to go home, to learn to recognise a lost cause when she sees one and just give up already. Kara refuses with a stoic shake of her head, and Lena sighs.

They repeat the same routine three times en route to Sam's wine rack, the blonde shadowing her every step. Each time, Lena wobbles, head fuzzy and room spinning. Each time, Kara steadies her, and Lena flinches from her touch like her palm is a brand, snarls at her to leave, to cut her losses, to just fuck off. Each time, Kara refuses.

She eventually retrieves the wine after a number of unsuccessful attempts but overbalances on her toes, bottle slipping from her grip as she sways dangerously. And then Kara is there, glass bottle caught a split second before it can shatter, a firm arm at her waist that will not be rebuffed.

Lena struggles, shoving and protesting, but this time Kara does not give in. “Enough,” she says quietly, firmly, blue eyes burning a mere inch from Lena's own. “Lena, enough.”

Lena's unsteady legs buckle further and Kara’s basically holding her up now, walking her slowly over to the couch and she shouldn't be this strong, surely, shouldn't be lifting Lena onto the cushions quite this easily. But it's such a minor concern when weighted against the fact that Lena is personally responsible for the hospitalisation of children that her mind brushes over it, forgets it immediately.

"Please go home,” she slurs as the blonde arranges her on the couch, as she stashes the unopened wine far out of reach and sets about finding blankets and pillows in various cupboards. “Please, just— leave me alone.”

“No,” Kara says, almost snaps, glancing back over her shoulder. Partially hidden in the linen cupboard, her face is cast deep in shadow, a splinter of half-concealed truth. “I made you a promise, I gave you my word. I'm your friend, and I will protect you. Always.”

She crosses back to the couch, soft blankets and pillows held out in invitation. When Lena refuses the offering Kara sighs, draping a knitted throw over her anyway and perching on the cushions beside Lena's hip. “I'm not going to leave you, so you might as well stop asking,” she hums, softer now, a hand reaching toward her that Lena no longer possesses the strength or coordination to bat away.

Long fingers make contact with her cheek, with the mussed curls tangling in her eyelashes, and Kara sighs. “You are not your brother,” she murmurs, fingertips grazing Lena's cheekbone, sliding back to thread into the fine hair at her temple. “And you never will be. There's too much light in you to allow for that kind of darkness, so put that fear down, Lena. Let it go. Be free of it.”

Tears spring unbidden to her eyes. “I poisoned children.”

Kara tilts forward and Lena wonders if it's just that her vision has upped its spinning, but then warm lips are pressing against her forehead, soft and delicate as gossamer wings. Kara's mouth moves against her skin, breath damp and sweet and unmistakeably her. “You saved the world.”

Neither one of them moves. When Lena speaks again, the words hit the elegant hollow of Kara's throat. “I don't deserve your kindness. I don't deserve you.”

Kara's lips are still on her forehead. “I don't care.”

Lena feels as if her throat is splitting open, every last fear and hatred and worry and insecurity gushing out of her in an unstoppable stream. “I'm scared.”

“I know.” Kara's lips press once more, and then withdraw. They watch each other in the dim light from the kitchen. Lena's vision is beginning to blur at the edges. Kara's hand is still in her hair.

“You will get through this,” the blonde whispers, so earnest Lena almost manages to believe her. “We'll figure it out. Together.”

Heart in her mouth, tongue sticking behind her teeth, Lena's eyes slide closed.

The sweetness of Kara's words, her gentle touches, seep inside her like honey. She doesn't deserve it but God, she wants it. She wants to be worthy of Kara's faith in her more than she's ever wanted anything in her life. She wants Kara more than she's ever wanted anything in her life.

And it's telling, she knows, that she's just lost the trust of all of National City, that she has no way of easing those children's suffering and no way to prove that she isn't the cause of it, that she's finally living up to the Luthor name she's been running from ever since she'd learned what it truly meant and yet in this moment, with Kara's hand in her hair and the ghostly imprint of her lips on Lena's skin, none of it seems to matter.

In this moment, Lena knows. She's in love.

-

Three years from now, Kara is going to reach across the table at Noonan's and take her hand. She's going to look deep into Lena's eyes, biting her lip as her thumb rubs gentle circles into Lena's palm, and her voice will barely rise above a whisper when she asks, “When did you know?”

And when she does, three years from now, Lena will also think back to this moment.

This moment, which stands alone as an oasis of calm in the turbulent tumult of the past days, weeks, months of chaos. Lex's escape from custody, Eve Teschmacher's betrayal, James’ shooting, the Harun-El serum, the whole shitty totality of it all has been weighing Lena down like an nth metal chain around her neck.

And Kara, Kara hasn't been around. The one person who has always managed to ease Lena's suffering has deserted her when she needs her the most and it feels like she's been sliced open, cracked in two.

She tells her as much, when Kara at last comes to see her. Tells her she's missed her, tells her she needs her, all but begs her to stay. And what does Kara do? She leaves.

And when she leaves, Lena is gripped by a panic so intense she fears she may never breathe freely again. So terrified is she that Kara is gone for good, that she's forced away the best thing that's ever happened to her, that almost before she knows what's happening she finds herself at Catco with apologies dripping from her own tongue.

Anything to get Kara back. Anything to keep her.

Lena apologises. Kara apologises. Lena cries, and Kara holds her, and tells her that the decision to help her brother when he was dying of cancer doesn't make her the monster she now believes herself to be. And standing on her office balcony with Kara's fingers wrapped around her biceps, with her own tears spotting dark on Kara's blazer, Lena manages to believe her.

When she's collected herself, smoothed away the wetness coursing down her cheeks, she speaks. “I really want to help you with your investigation on Lex.”

Kara's face lights up; Lena's whole world along with it.

“I'd love that,” Kara says, voice quiet and still a little tentative in the wake of their new truce. “But first— would you, um. Would you like to have lunch with me?”

Lena blinks. “Don't you want to get started on the exposé?”

“I do. But—” Kara's face is still painted that earnest shade from earlier, when she'd smoothed her hands over Lena's shoulders and whispered you are a brilliant, kind-hearted, beautiful soul against the sensitive skin of her neck. Lena feels her cheeks heat up at the memory, at the intensity in the blue eyes still roving her face.

Kara shuffles her feet but her gaze is clear, unwavering. “But you were right. I've spent too much time recently prioritising the wrong things. So, I want to work on this exposé with you, and I want to bring your brother down. But first, I'd really just like to have lunch with my best friend.”

Lena's heart trips in her chest. “I'd like that too.”

So, that's what they do. Kara asks her to wait, which she does, idly tapping out a few emails on her phone. And then the blonde is back, far quicker than should have been possible, with her arms full of takeout bags from the café on the third floor and she's taking Lena by the hand and leading her to Cat Grant's private elevator. She presses the button for the roof and Lena's gaze jumps to her face but Kara only smiles, and squeezes her fingers. “Trust me, it'll be worth it,” she hums, her excitement infectious. “You'll be safe with me.”

And Lena believes her.

That's how she ends up sitting at the edge of Catco's roof on a clean sheet Kara had borrowed from the builders on the second floor, heels kicked off, Kara's red blazer draped around her shoulders. It is worth it, she'll admit; the view from this high is phenomenal. The sun burns bright in a cloudless sky, glinting off the glass-sided skyscrapers of the business district, the glittering waters of the bay beyond.

Kara had picked up Lena's favourite salad, some flatbreads and dips, and they drink kombucha and eat strawberries in the sunshine. They talk and they laugh and they catch up and there's no more fighting, no animosity, no megalomaniac brothers or backstabbing secretaries or worlds needing to be saved. There's only them, she and Kara, and it feels like all she will ever need.

The blonde's hands are braced behind her on the rooftop and she looks happy and carefree as she regales Lena with stories of her upstairs neighbour's antics, and Lena feels the tight knot of tension that had taken up residence in her chest begin to unfurl.

"Hey,” Kara hums, pushing up straighter as Lena licks strawberry juice from her fingertips. The motion brings them closer, their shoulders brushing. “Look up.”

Lena does. High above them, a huge murmuration of starlings whirls and swoops through the air. Thousands of birds move together as one, a vast wave cresting but never breaking against the blue canvass of sky.

“Wow,” Lena gasps, awed.

Against her side, Kara hums. “Yeah.”

They watch the birds for a long moment, captivated by the ceaseless swirling and diving. When Lena at last tears her gaze away from the sky, Kara's eyes rest intently on her face. "Here,” the blonde murmurs, reaching out. The pad of one finger makes feather-light contact with her cheek. Lena's breath catches in her chest.

Kara holds out her finger, proffering the stray eyelash she'd captured with a smile. "Make a wish,” she whispers, her fingertip an inch from Lena's mouth. Her eyes never leave Lena’s.

Lena looks from Kara's face to the eyelash, and back again. From somewhere deep inside her heart, the truth bubbles its way to the surface. “I don't need to.”

Kara smiles, a brilliant, beautiful smile, and Lena knows. The stresses and anxieties of their current crisis feel far away here, harmless as birdsong. She's meted out forgiveness, received it in return. For the first time in her adult life Lena has communicated an issue with a loved one and been heard, understood. She has admitted her own mistake without having it spell out the end of her relationship.

Lena smiles back. The weight of the world sublimates into nothing beneath the bliss of a simple picnic in the sun.

In this moment, Lena knows. She's in love.

-

Two years from now, Kara is going to reach across the table at Noonan's and take her hand. She's going to look deep into Lena's eyes, biting her lip as her thumb rubs gentle circles into Lena's palm, and her voice will barely rise above a whisper when she asks, “When did you know?”

And when she does, two years from now, Lena will think back to this moment.

This moment, which has sapped the both of them to the bone. Another fight, another screaming match, another quick-fire back and forth of accusations and recriminations. Another night of cursing and crying and choking on all the things they never said before this, on all the things they can't now that Kara's secret has detonated in the shrinking space between them like a nuclear bomb.

Another round of bloodshed, and for what?

Lena sags against the arm of the couch, exhausted. Her face is hot, scratchy with salt from the tears still drying on her skin. She's dehydrated, probably, and half hoarse from shouting, tongue blistered with the bitter sting of betrayal.

Across the no man's land of her living room, Kara slumps against the floor-length windows, drops her temple to the cool glass. She's breathing heavily, cheeks wet, posture battered and eyes dark-bruised beneath the force of Lena's wrath. As Lena watches, her eyes slide closed.

It's been three months since Lena found out. Three weeks since Kara found out that Lena had found out.

Every night since, they've done this. Every night, Kara has shown up on her balcony and begged, pleaded, apologised, cajoled, defended, rebuffed, and sobbed. Every night, Lena has unleashed the hollow agony of Kara's deception masquerading as anger in her chest, incinerating the both of them in the fires of her desolation.

She would have expected the wounds to have cauterised by now. To feel some kind of release, the relief of catharsis. Or at least, to have expended some of her fury after all this time.

She hasn't.

They've been at this for three hours already this evening, and gotten nowhere. Kara's skin is pale above that fucking supersuit, face drawn and complexion sallow.

Lena knows how she feels. The singular exhaustion that is her rift with Kara has sapped her in every way imaginable. She can't sleep. She barely eats. She's no longer interested in work, research, friends. There's nothing in her life that isn't tainted by the shadow of the lies her best friend told and kept telling, every day for four years. Lena doesn't know how any amount of screaming and crying is ever going to get them past that.

Across the room, Kara sighs. It might be the saddest sound Lena has ever heard.

“Should we keep doing this?” she asks after an interminable silence, voice rough with tears still building. Her eyes are still closed.

Lena manages, with exorbitant effort, to raise her drooping head. “What?”

“Is there a point to all this?” Kara asks quietly, hunched body sliding a little further down the glass. "The explanations, the fighting?”

Blue eyes blink open. The weight of the sadness in them is unbearable. Lena struggles to find it within herself to care.

“Lying to you about who I am is the single biggest mistake I have ever made, and if it will make even one single shred of difference I will apologise to you every day for as long as I live,” Kara says into the aching chasm between them. “But I can't keep doing this. Not if it won't change anything. I can't— I don't want to keep hurting you.”

An hour ago, Lena would have scoffed at a sentiment like that. Would have parried back with some piercingly dry comment about how the blonde should have thought about that before she decided to betray Lena's trust as soundly as she possibly could.

Now, though— now, she's just too tired.

“So, should we keep doing this?” Kara whispers, throat working. “Or— God, Lena. Should we just— should we give up?”

Green eyes meet blue, two shattered hearts haemorrhaging between them. “Is that what you want?”

“No.” Kara's voice is loud, fiercely determined in the face of Lena's hesitant whisper. “God, no. Never. I don't ever want to give up on you, Lena. I don't ever want to give you up.”

Kara straightens then, with a strength Lena cannot imagine mustering herself. Perks of being a superhero, she supposes. Perks of being Kryptonian. The thought stakes another shard of ice through her bleeding heart.

“But I know that I've spent four years calling the shots for both of us by keeping you in the dark,” Kara continues. “I've taken away your agency. I've taken away your choice. I won't do that again.”

She sucks in a deep breath, a little of Supergirl's regality seeping back into the defeated slump of her shoulders. “So, I'm doing what I should have done from the start. I'm being honest with you, and hoping that you'll be honest back. I'm asking what you want.”

Kara's fingers twist anxiously before her, bottom lip bleaching white beneath the nervous pressure of her teeth. “Do you think we should keep doing this? Or do you— fuck.” Her voice cracks, the tears brimming in her eyes once again breaking free. “Do you want to give up?”

Jesus Christ. Lena never knew that the prospect of doing the right thing could hurt so much.

“Fuck,” she mutters as she kneads her knuckles over her closed eyelids, digging in until white lights starburst across her vision. “Fuck, Kara.”

“I know,” the blonde whispers from across the room, brittle and broken. “I know. I'm sorry.”

Lena slows her assault on her own eyelids, pinching thumb and forefinger hard at the bridge of her nose instead. “I want to give up,” she mutters, and in the taut silence between them she hears the blonde gasp, watery and thick.

Lena blinks open her eyes to find Kara's face crumpling, every facet of her seeming to fold in on itself even as she visibly fights to keep herself upright.

Lena sighs, and hates Kara, and hates herself even more. “I want to, but— I can't.” She sucks in a ragged breath, hating the truth that's just fallen from her lips, hating the lies that had necessitated it. Hating everything and everyone and most of all, hating just how much she's hurting. “I can't give this up.”

The tiniest spark of hope flares to life in Kara's eyes. Lena hates that she notices, hates that she cares, hates that the sight eases the tight knot of devastation clawing at her ribcage just the tiniest bit.

She also knows that this was inevitable. She knows that, though she hates Kara, though she's nowhere close to forgiving her, though she has no idea how they can rebuild from here or even if she truly wants to try, a question like Kara's could only ever have one answer.

In this moment, Lena knows. She's in love.

-

One year from now, Kara is going to reach across the table at Noonan's and take her hand. She's going to look deep into Lena's eyes, biting her lip as her thumb rubs gentle circles into Lena's palm, and her voice will barely rise above a whisper when she asks, “When did you know?”

And when she does, one year from now, Lena will also think back to this moment.

This moment, which is barely even a moment at all. It's more like a dream, warm and faded and fogged in darkness, seconds stolen when sleep should have long since claimed them.

Kara's nightmare had woken them both. In the month since they'd pulled her out of the Phantom Zone, she hadn't slept alone once. Often, she stays with Alex, curling into her sister's side the way she would when they were just kids after one too many late-night horror movies. Once, she stays with Nia, tucked up snug in a borrowed pair of puppy print pyjamas.

Mostly, she stays with Lena. It's natural and unspoken and easy as breathing, the way Kara will show up at her place after a Supergirl save or Lena will let herself into the blonde's apartment after a late night in the lab. They cook dinner and watch Celebrity Masterchef and brush their teeth elbow to elbow at the bathroom sink and when Kara is inevitably tugged screaming and sobbing from her night terrors, the way she presses her face to Lena's neck and her hand over Lena's heart is natural and unspoken and easy as breathing, too.

Kara's racing pulse has calmed a little, her grip on Lena's body beneath her losing some of its urgent desperation. After a long moment of Lena's hand stroking her hair, of gentle reassurances and lips pressed to her temple the blonde pulls back, just enough to rest her head on the pillow facing her.

In the dim light filtering in through the bedroom window Kara's pupils are blown, her face solemn. There's something in her heavy gaze that Lena can't identify; something weighted and potent that prickles goosebumps up the length of her spine.

"Feeling better?” she whispers into the inch of warm air between them, reaching out to tuck a sweat-matted curl reverently behind the blonde's ear.

Kara catches her retreating hand and holds tight, twining their fingers together on the narrow swathe of pillow between them. If either of them were to move so much as a millimetre, their clasped hands would press against their lips.

The blonde nods and sure enough, the soft heat of her mouth brushes the back of Lena's knuckles. She shivers.

Kara is still watching her, the intensity of her gaze causing Lena's heart to thud hard in her throat. She squeezes lightly at the fingers threaded through her own. “What?”

A pause, heavy and sweet as overripe fruit. Kara blinks once, slow. “You're my best friend.”

Lena swallows down a sudden swell of emotion. The blonde nudges closer and when she speaks, the wet seam of her lips catches on the angle of Lena's bent knuckles, painting her skin with the words.

“You're the most important person in the world to me,” Kara whispers, breaths skating fire-flashes across Lena's fingers, voice muffling out past the mouth pressed to her skin. “You know that, right?”

Lena's voice deserts her in the wake of the quiet words. She leans forward instead, presses her lips to Kara's fingertips where they rest against the back of her own hand. It's answer enough.

She hears Kara's breath catch, feels the disruption mirrored in her own chest. Both their mouths are pressed to the joined hands clasped between them. If they were to move their fingers down even just a fraction, there would be nothing separating their lips but a promise, a prayer.

Kara's eyelashes flutter in the semi-darkness. The tip of her nose brushes Lena's own. Neither one of them moves their hands.

They only gaze at one another a long moment, and Lena wonders if the blonde is memorising the planes of her face the way she's memorising Kara's. She could look at her forever, be happy here with her forever, and in this moment, Lena knows. She's in love.

For the first time, she wonders if she might not be the only one.

-

Right now, Kara is reaching across the table at Noonan's and taking Lena's hand.

It's been three weeks since they'd taken down Lex for the last time. Three weeks since Kara had stormed into the Tower's med bay to cup Lena's bloody, bruised face in her hands; since she'd brushed her thumbs feather-light over Lena's split eyebrow and purpling jaw and growled don't you ever scare me like that again. Three weeks since she'd leaned in and pressed her lips to Lena's.

It's been two weeks and six days since Lena, confined to a gurney but utterly uncaring thanks to the warm Kryptonian curled against her side, had pressed her aching face to Kara's shoulder and first whispered that she loved her. Two weeks and six days since Kara had first said it back.

It's been two weeks and five and a half days since Nia had walked in on Lena in Kara's arms, lips pressed to her neck and hands wandering beneath her sweatshirt, and promptly shrieked the place down. Since their friends had exchanged pointed glances and relieved sighs and congratulated them on finally making it official, their expressions ranging from overjoyed to exasperated to plain exhausted.

It's been two weeks and four days of she and Kara dating; of morning kisses and shared showers and the perfect partner at game night and all of Lena's wildest dreams coming true.

It's been less than a minute since Kara had admitted, hushed and wondering, that she'd known she was in love with Lena ever since she'd found herself suddenly prepared to poison National City's entire water supply rather than let Lena fall. That she hadn't been able to fully it admit it to herself until she'd found herself suddenly prepared to alter the course of all of history in order to get Lena back.

And right now, Kara is reaching across the table at Noonan's and taking her hand. She's looking deep into Lena's eyes, biting her lip as her thumb rubs gentle circles into Lena's palm, and her voice barely rises above a whisper when she asks, “When did you know?”

And now that she has, Lena is sure of her answer.

The highlight reel of her relationship with Kara lays itself at Lena's feet, each precious memory between them stretching out like a roadmap of her growing affection, with every hard-won step leading her right to this moment.

And in this moment, Lena knows. She's in love with Kara. Really, she always has been.

[lubdubsworld]

The Devil’s Own.

Jungkook x OC

Mafia Au!

Warnings : Non-Con ! Manipulation, Degradation, Shitty hero with no redeeming Qualities you have been warned. ( i mean he does get better but not much.) 

Summary : Just Mob Boss Jungkook doing mob boss things. 

Chapter 1

“ Sign it. ”

I glared at him, feeling sick at the tone. The entitlement.

“No.” I said sharply and I could feel his anger swelling, morphing into something dangerous and deadly but I couldn’t care anymore. I was tired. Exhausted. This cat and mouse game had gone on , long enough. It wasn’t an even playing field, in any sense of the qword.

If today was the day I died, so be it. I would accept it. I would even welcome it.

I was done.

He had everything : an empire at his beck and call , enough money to pave the streets of Seoul in gold and an army of loyal associates behind him. His face was plastered on Billboards across the country , the President posted pictures of him on his fucking SNS and delegates from other countries had to wait weeks , just to get an appointment with the youngest billionaire South Korea had ever seen.

And yet none of those white collared dignitaries saw this side of him. The dirty, violent ruthless man who had more blood on his hands than anyone else in the country. My father’s. My brothers’.

Jeon Jungkook was both the most revered business man in the country and the undisputed king of Seoul’s criminal underbelly.

“You defiance only makes me want to break you in other ways Elena.” He said warningly and I felt my throat go dry. I stared at him, wondering how someone could look so expensively gorgeous and yet, like a hardened criminal.

The expensive silk shirt, the fitted slacks and the handmade shoes ought to clash with the dark ink that covered his entire arm and neck, the piercing on his eyebrow and the glint of metal on his tongue but it didn’t.

It just all came together to make him the most attractive man in existence.

I took a deep breath. Perhaps begging was the way to go?

“ You have my father’s company. You have my brother’s Hospital and you have the family mansion. It’s all yours. This bakery belongs to my mother. It’s all I have left of her. My sister in law is pregnant , due any day. She needs a place to stay and I don’t… I don’t have money to rent anywhere else.” I said desperately, thinking of the paltry wage I earned waiting tables. I could barely afford food for myself let alone for Jisoo and the baby on the way.

The bakery was abandoned but it had a roof. The furniture was crumbling but I could fix that. If I didn’t have to worry about rent, I could save up enough to make it livable. At least till I got a better job.

“I’ve offered you solutions for all of that.” He reminded me softly, eyes trained unblinkingly on me and I stared at him.

“I’m not going to be your whore.” I felt my voice shake.

He grimaced.

“You aren’t qualified to be my whore. And I don’t need one either. Whores are not my thing. I have a beautiful fiancée, don’t you remember? ” He grinned. I felt my heart ache because that fiancée was once my best friend. The only person I had trusted with my entire life. Lisa had betrayed my trust, had spied on my father’s operations and brought him down and I had the horrible, horrible inkling that she had also had something to do with my father and brother’s untimely death in a car crash.

But I couldn’t think about that. Every time I thought about her my heart broke and head spun, and I had to be at my maximum mental capacity if I was going to deal with her heartless fiancée.

“ If you ask me, you’re not fit for anything more than a back alley blowjob for a couple bucks. But Hoseok thinks you have potential. Join his agency, there are a lot of very wealthy men who have a bone to pick with your father. He made a shit ton of enemies. Most of them would love to fuck the defiance out of you. ”

His words felt like worms crawling all over my skin and I could feel the nausea churn inside me.

“I’m not signing the bakery over. You can call the creditors. I still have another year and half to pay the one remaining loan and they won’t come for me till then.” I felt my head begin to throb and Jungkook sighed.

“Suit yourself.” He stood up and I stayed still, watching his tall frame tower over me with ease. He gave me a small bitter smile. It was fraught with hatred and I stared back at him, knowing the emotion was probably mirrored in my gaze.

“Beautiful Elena. As pretty as the day you left me at the altar.” He smirked and I flushed.

“Your vengeance is petty and pointless and unfair…just like you.” I said angrily, frustration building u at his words. The way he talked about our broken engagement like it even mattered. It hadn’t even been real. We had hardly spoken and my father had called the wedding off at the last moment. But apparently, that had been the last straw for the Jeons. They had come after my father’s entire existence with a single minded intent to destroy him and they had succeeded. The man was dead . His two sons were dead.

But apparently it wasn’t enough.

Jungkook stared at me, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“Maybe. But it’s also deadly and potent. And it won’t rest until I see you reduced to nothing but a whore on the streets, spreading your legs for every man who can afford you.” He laughed. “ Saying no is a luxury , one that you’ll soon be unable to afford.”

I refused to be cowed, refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that his words scared me. Because they did.

They scared me so damn much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This bed is so lumpy… I’m so sorry, unnie..” I said apologetically but Jisoo shook her head quickly, palms cupping my face as I held her elbows, gently lowering her to the bed. I stared at her feet, feeling my heart race at how swollen they looked. That can’t be normal, a voice whispered and

I didn’t know if that was normal and I had no money to take her to a clinic. The social center we usually went to only allowed three visits per month and we had used it all up. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and spend the thirty thousand won it would take but that would mean no groceries for a week and surely bread and eggs wouldn’t stretch that long, even if I could sneak meals in the restaurant for myself.

“I’ve been feeling a little dizzy…I’ll just sleep.” She said tiredly. She was thirty six weeks along, not due for another four weeks but her blood pressure was erratic. Her lab numbers were oscillating and there had been talks of an emergency c section. Even with insurance it was way more than I could afford but I had my own jewelry, a few expensive trinkets from my teenage years. I’d been obsessed with diamonds and my father had indulged me and I had a pair of earrings left. I’d already sold the rest but this would take care of the medical bills for the birth itself.

“My shift starts in ten minutes. I have to go. Give me a call if you need anything…” I said softly and I saw the familiar blank and listless look come into her eyes. I knew she was depressed, dealing with grief and pregnancy and loss but there was nothing I could do for her. Nothing. I had applied for a bunch of other jobs but they never wrote back. It wasn’t easy, being rejected over and over again but it wasn’t like there was much else I could do. And the truth was I was resigned to this, accepted that at some point I would have to take more loans and be stuck in an endless cycle of debt for the rest of my life.

And I had made peace with that.

There was no future for me. And I was okay with just surviving.

If only Jungkook would let me.

Apparently, watching me wipe down greasy tables and mop up floors and toilets trying to earn just enough to get a few square meals didn’t soothe his anger. It only fueled it. Jungkook couldn’t fathom that it had been six whole months of me on the streets of Seoul and I wasn’t completely destitute yet. I’d kept myself and my sister in law alive, safe and it pissed him off.

He wanted to see me broken and on my knees, begging him for help. The idea of me somehow surviving despite him taking everything away from me, it just didn’t sit well with him.

I couldn’t afford to have him as an enemy so all I could really hope was that one day he would wake up and give up. One day he would just wake up and decide that I wasn’t worth it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I walked into my shift and noticed a familiar pair of high heeled Louboutins , completely out of place in my seedy place of employment, I knew I was in trouble. Lisa sat against one of the booths and her gaze was fixated on the door which meant she was waiting for someone. And when her eyes narrowed at the sight of me, I just knew I was the someone.

She wants to get me fired.

It wasn’t rocket science and I felt the urge to turn right back around and leave.  But I tamped down on it. I could get through this. I would get through this. Lisa and Jungkook got off on invoking reactions and I wouldn’t give them that.

Except it wasn’t that easy.

It was a nightmare, watching her demand and reject and walk all over me but the sleeplessness from the past few days made spacing out easier and I just stared away at the wall as she yelled and complained and made a scene.

“You’ve stopped fighting? Finally giving up? Good…” She hissed when the manager apologized to her and told me to meet him after my shift and I felt myself tremble in indignation.

“I won’t fight you or Jungkook, you and I both know I can’t afford to.” I said quietly and she went still, something flashing in her eyes for a second. It was gone before I could fully process it but it had been there. Guilt.

Lisa wasn’t a terrible human. She had been a dear friend. We had grown up together and she had even hugged and teased me when I’d been betrothed to Jungkook, all those years ago. I had been twenty back then, naïve and spoiled. While Jungkook had taken my father’s entire legacy apart, piece by piece, Lisa had been nothing more than a pawn. I remembered all the times I had let her home, how she would disappear for lengths of time.

Planting bugs all over the house. All over his office. Jungkook had been smart. Someone like Lisa, so fascinated by thr wealth she had grown up around would naturally jump at the idea of more. It wasn’t greed. It was human nature. And with her help he had destroyed everything my father had built over decades.

I shuddered. My father hadn’t been a good man. He had been greedy, yes. But he hadn’t deserved to die. And Jungkook would have to pay for that sin, someday.

“There’s a job waiting for you in Hoseok’s club.” She smiled cruelly , “ you don’t need this one.”

“The fact that you want to take it away from me, tells me that maybe there’s nothing left in you save.” I said blankly and she turned her nose up at me.

“I have Jungkook. I don’t need to be saved.”

I shook my head. She was so naïve. Men like Jungkook cared for nothing but themselves. But I wondered if women like her didn’t care for anything but the money that came with being his. Money was precious, I thought bitterly. I’d never realized how privileged I had been until I’d had it all ripped away.

“He’s the one you need saving from. And one day you’ll realize that.” I shrugged, not in the mood to offer her anymore life advice.  If she was alright with being a trophy wife in exchange for a few pretty shoes that was her prerogative.

Before she could reply,  my phone rang.

“Hello?” I asked nervously and I felt my heart drop to my knees when I heard who it was.

I turned on my heel rushing inside and my manager gave me a look of surprise.

“ My sister..she’s… she’s sick. I need to go.” I said desperately and his eyes narrowed. It was the worst timing. He was already annoyed because of Lisa and I stared in disbelief as he quickly shook his head.

“No. I’m sorry Elena…I just can’t let you leave like that…” He said sharply.

It was so unfair.

“I haven’t taken a single day off in five months…” I said desperately..” Please, she’s pregnant..She needs me, she-“

“If you leave, you won’t have a job to come back to. I can’t do this.. First you make trouble with a customer and now you just want to walk out in the middle of your shift without any notice…”

“Fine. Fire me.” I snapped, because I’d just had enough of it. I was exhausted, and tomorrow I’d go knocking on some other tore and I’d get a job. I lived in Seoul …How hard could it be? For now, I had to get to Jisoo. I had to get the hospital and things would be okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t okay.

“I… You want to keep her in? So soon?”

“Her blood pressure is through the roof. There are signs of severe pre eclampsia and we want to get her started on a magnesium drip. Steroids to help the baby’s lungs incase we need to deliver…”

“Deliver..?” I couldn’t breathe.

“Yes, I’m sorry…. If her blood pressure doesn’t come down we’re going to have to deliver.”

I nodded, glancing at the bed where Jisoo was sleeping, her face swollen and I knew that she was sick. Really sick. She looked pallid and ill.

“Is she going to be okay?” I asked hoarsely.

“We’re going to do what we can… But I’m going to be honest, we’re looking at a c section, a lot of meds and also some time in the NICU for the baby…. Can you afford it? Your sister’s insurance only covers 80% .”

I blinked, completely thrown. White noise rushed through my ears,  a dull throb settling right at the base of my skull and beginning to spread all the way to my arms and back. It was panic mixed wth anxiety mixed with despair and I couldn’t quite cope. The earrings wouldn’t cover all that.

“Oh… Oh..yeah.” I said dully, “ Of course I can… Let me just…. Can I have a moment? There’s somethings I need to do.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I carefully slipped the cash into the envelope, swallowing as I sat on the pavement. I’d got another call from the hospital, they had administered the steroids but Jisoo’s condition seemed to be worsening. They wanted to try inducing labour soon but they wanted me to pay for the room and for the medicines, and apparently, the earrings weren’t as valuable as I thought they were.

I fought nausea wrapping arms around myself as I stared at the cars whizzing by, the putrid city air clogging my lungs as I tried to come to terms with what was happening. Jisoo needed help. She was the only one left and she carried my brother’s son. I felt my throat clog when I thought of Daehwan. He had been a good guy. I had loved him. It wasn’t fair, what Jungkook had done to my family, I thought miserably .

And the only reason I wasn’t driven by vengeance or anger was because I was nothing like Jungkook. I hated him. I didn’t want him to live in my head, didn’t want to waste any part of myself on him , not even my anger. But it was hard when he wouldn’t let me breathe, always at my heels like a wolf : jaws snapping and blood thirsty eyes trained on me at all times. I couldn’t fathom his obsession sometimes. Surely, his hatred was uncalled for now? He’d taken everything from me anyway.  

There was a dull roaring in my ears, one that said that this was not really a surprise. I’d thought about it way too often, had considered it countless times. Had even spent one absolutely horrifying evening scouring the streets of Seoul’s red light district just to see how sex workers behaved.

I’d also realized that in the face of desperation, dignity didn’t hold much value.

You are going to pay your debts on your back and on your knees.

The first time Jungkook had thrown it at my face, eyes glinting with glee, my stomach had rebelled so hard. I’d been absolutely infuriated, had thrown a vase at him. And it had been awful,  watching him catch it out of the air with ease, his mocking laughter making my bones rattle as he shook his head, “ That’s how this ends, Elena. Mark my words.”

And it was pitiful ,  that he went through life so consumed with hatred and vindictive cruelty that he couldn’t leave me alone . He was pathetic. That’s how I saw him. A pathetic child who refused to stop tormenting the helpless ant on the floor although it was no match for his cruelty.

At some point Jungkook was going to win. And his idea of winning was seeing me stripped bare of the one thing that kept me alive : my freedom.

It had just happened sooner than I’d thought.

Because I knew what it would mean, to go to Hoseok. He would own me. Hoseok’s whores were all slaves, tangled in his web so badly that there was no hope of escape. He wasn’t cruel but he was smart. No one left the his ‘ agency’ once they went in. I would be lost, forever. And I couldn’t stomach it.

I stared at my knees, fists clenched on the fabric of my skirt. I grabbed my phone, scrolling through the contacts. I considered it carefully. I had to do this on my terms. Had to make sure I retained some sort of control here.

And I knew just how to do it.

Hoseok picked up on the third ring.

“Hello.”

“I need help.” I croaked out.

The deep chuckle made my skin crawl.

“Elena Gong. What a wonderful, wonderful surprise. What can I do you for?” He drawled.

“Well sweetheart, I’m all out of charity so you’re going to have to make it worth my while.”

I took a deep breath.

“I’m a virgin.” I whispered.

The line went completely silent.

“What?” The amusement in his voice died.

“You heard me and I’ll let you cash in on it. I’ll let you auction it off…” I tamped down on the burning protest in my lung, the screaming inside my head that said it was horrifying, that I was considering this. “ But only if you keep my terms.”

“What makes you think you have a say in that.” He said sharply and I laughed.

“I belong to your world, Hoseok. Did you forget that we were friends, once.” I whispered and he didn’t reply.

Laughter, kindness, a big brother I could always count on, hobi oppa, nine year old me with my fingers curled around his wrist as we ran all around the gardens , a smile so wide that he could spread sunshine on the gloomiest days. Different from Jungkook and Namjoon and Yoongi and the others. Willing to include a ‘ girl’ in his playtime. Lisa and I the only girls, not even fazed watching as the rest of them wielded toy guns and mock interrogation scenes, pretending to kill and maim and torture because that was the world we were born into.

“We’re not friends, Elena. Let’s get that straight. The only part of you that holds any value to me is th part between your legs. So tell me, what do you want.”

“When was the last time you auctioned off someone’s virginity? You know how much money you can make off something like that. Not just from the sale itself but from the entire night. Your club… Your gaming hell…. All of it.”

“You expect me to believe you’re a virgin. At twenty seven.” He scoffed.

“Put the word out, everywhere. If you find one man who says he’s slept with me , I’ll back off.”

“That would require me to tarnish your  family name. And you’re alright with that?”

I smiled biotterly.

“Isn’t that what you and your precious Jungkookie want? To see the last living Gong, be labeled as a whore and a slut.”

He didn’t reply.

“I’ll give you that. You can do it… You know that will only interest more people. As Jungkook so eloquently put it, most of them would love to fuck the defiance out of me.”

“What’s the catch. What do you want. ”

“2 billion won.”  I said firmly “It will be one night. One night only and I want enough money to pay off every one of my father’s debts, to get me an apartment for my sister in law and to support her and her baby for a year at least.”

“Done.” He said without missing a beat and I went still. What must it be like, to throw around money like that without a care in the world. And it sickened me that Jungkook was probably ten times as rich as Hoseok , the money my father owed him and his associates not even pocket change in comparison to his gargantuan wealth and yet, he stayed on my heels, snapping his jaws like a dog with a bone.

“And Jungkook doesn’t get to watch.” I said softly, knowing exactly what Jungkook would get off on.

That made Hoseok laugh.

“You know him too well. I keep forgetting he was madly in love with you once.”

I resisted the urge to vomit. Jungkook didn’t know love. He knew ownership. He didn’t love me, he thought he owned me. That I was his to play with…. For the rest of his life. And when my father had denied him that, just like a toddler in a toy store being denied a shiny toy to break and trample on, he had thrown a temper tantrum.

Except his tantrums always ended in death and destruction.

“That’s the deal. He doesn’t turn up there to gloat.”

“He’s heading out to Switzerland for a week , two days from now.” Hoseok said evenly.

“Good then. My sister in law…she “ I swallowed. “ She’s in a hospital in Yongsan. I’ll send you the address.”  

“I’ll take care of it. But I want you here tonight. I’m not going to drop a couple billion won on your head without making sure I’m getting my money’s worth. And I can’t have you changing your mind and bolting either. My reputation is on the line here. If I put out the word that I’m serving something so fucking delicious and then back out, they’re not going to want to buy Hobi’s wares anymore. You understand what I’m saying darling?” Hoseok drawled and I knew exactly what he was saying. If I agreed to this, it was blanket consent for him to whatever he wanted.

“I won’t back out. I can’t. But this is one night. One night with whichever bastard you choose and that’s it. I want out.  I don’t want you or Jungkook hounding me again. Ever.” My voice shook as I dug my fingers into my knees.  

“My men will be there in ten minutes. Sit tight, princess.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stared at Hoseok as he carefully poured me a finger of whiskey, neat. He gave me a smirk and I shrugged.

“you remember.” I said casually, throat itching because it had been way too long since I’d had quality alcohol. I missed the burn,  the warmth , the numbness that followed.

“Of course I do. You could drink all of us under the table with little effort. It was spectacular.” He laughed and I leaned back against the couch, letting my head fall back.

“I was half certain that you would have a doctor around to make sure I’m a virgin.” I stared at him and he shrugged. “ Pointless. You’re twenty seven, you’ve probably had stuff up there anyway… Not like your hymen’s still going to be intact.”

I thought it was rather horrifying, that I didn’t feel nearly as mortified as I should. This was how Hoseok talked, matter of fact and open and that was why he was so popular. Anytime an important person came into the country, Hobi was the one who offered entertainment for the night. Hobi’s girls were always the prettiest, most well behaved and perfect. They were educated, knew what they were talking about and he didn’t force them into the life. They loved it, enjoyed it and it showed.

Not to say he was a saint.

Far from it.

Hoseok knew how to dine with kings in castles  but also how to wrestle with  swine in the gutter. The seedy brothels in Seoul’s back alleys were his as well, and he ruled his kingdom with an iron hand. The prostitutes there feared him, one look or word enough to silence any rebellion, any thought of escape.

He was called Hope. And yet somehow that was exactly what he denied the women under him. There was no hope here. There was only lust and power and money. You came to Hobi…. You never left .

I took the glass he offered, taking a small sip, savoring the taste.

“But you believe me. I wonder why.” I watched him closely and he scoffed.

“Between your father and Jungkook, no one ever really had the pluck to come anywhere near you  did they?”

Undisputable.

I sighed, leaning back to stare at him.

“Do you think dying hurts?” I asked softly.

It was frightening, how his entire body went stiff, eyes wide and jaw dropping.

“Elena, what the fuck-“

“Its just a question. You’ve killed people. You’ve watched them die… how do you think they feel?” I asked , curious.

“None of them wanted to die. If that’s what you’re asking.” The look in his eyes made me nervous.

I stared at him and the question was obvious. None of them wanted to die, but do you?

I didn’t.

“I’m not thinking of killing myself , oppa.  Stop looking so horrified.” I laughed. He shook his head.

“ Don’t joke about that. It’s not fucking funny.”

I sobered up, remembering with a jolt. Ah, of course.

“I’m sorry. I forgot.” I said quietly.

Hoseok’s little sister had killed herself when I was seventeen. She was a year older than me and her father had lost her in a wager to a seventy year old man, known for torturing his bedmates. She had heard the news, taken a deep breath and taken a deep dive off the seventeeth floor of the condo where she lived with her mother.

I’d been engaged to Jungkook by then. And I had almost wanted it. Jungkook wasn’t old at least… twenty one to my seventeen.

“Just so you know, he’s going to find out. And he’s not going to like it.”

I shrugged. Three years is a long time to be preyed upon and now my mind was resigned to a life of being hunted. Hoseok was right. Jungkook would find out and he wouldn’t like it.

Good.

“I don’t care what he does anymore. All I care is that Jisoo and the baby are left out of whatever plans he has…. If you promise me you’ll keep them safe , I’ll cooperate.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a baby boy.

I stared, fingers itching to hold the baby but it was impossible, the little one whisked away to the NICU right after with respiratory distress and Jisoo had gone into a seizure, eyes rolling back into her eyes.

She as alright now, resting in a VIP room with the best care money could buy. Hoseok had asked me if I was happy with the arrangements, and if I would name the boy after him.

I stared at the room, large and breezy and filled with flowers and gifts, toys and baby stuff and I knew right then that I had sealed my fate. I was going to have to go through with this. I could imagine how much Jisoo would protest when she came to her senses. The only relief was that it would take her a few days to be good enough to fight or protest. But then this would all be over and done with.

Jungkook would leave this afternoon. His flight was at three.

I would reach the club at five. The patrons would arrive at seven.

One night, I reminded myself , staring at the gentle rise and fall of Jisoo’s chest as she slept, my fingers playing with the soft skin on her wrist. The IV line went through her veins and I watched the gentle drip of it.

One night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn’t know how auctions happened and while I’d been prepared for the worst kind of humiliation,  Hoseok assured me that he wasn’t going to make me stand naked on some podium or something.

“Generally, I would do something like that simply for the flair of it but consider this a favor ….a respite because you were, as you said, once a friend.” He gave me an even smile and I could only nod in mute relief.

I was grateful. Beyond grateful.

And what was more, he hadn’t told anyone, who I was.

That stunned me. Because wasn’t that the selling point? The murderous, greedy mob rat Gong Hyo Suk’s only daughter forced to spread her legs for one lucky stranger? If Hoseok had cashed in on that he would have made a fortune. But he hadn’t. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Would , whoever it was be upset if he recognized me?

I was led to a bedroom, large and tastefully decorated with silky satin sheets and dark curtains and dim lighting that lit up parts of the room and left other parts plunged in darkness. Hoseok had told me to wear whatever I wanted and I realized with a pang that he really didn’t see this as some sort of transaction. He was trying to make it as easy as possible without making any decisions for me. Offering me choices and options and some illusion of being in control.

I didn’t have anything fancy so it was just a dress shirt that I borrowed from Hoseok. I’d left the underwear off, eager to merely get the whole thing over with. I felt a sudden overwhelming urge to laugh out loud.

If Jungkook were here he really would have lost his damn mind, simply because of how little this whole thing affected me. And that was it, really. He was always desperate for a reaction.

Earlier when this whole thing had started, I’d obliged him with that. I would scream, rant and yell….launch myself at him like a wildcat, scratching at him , fists flying  and it was obscene, how much he seemed to enjoy that. He would press me up against walls and tables , fingers choking the breath out of my lung, just so he could see me struggle and push back.

He fed off from every negative reaction I offered him and it had taken me a long long time that the way to beat him was to become passive, unresponsive. I would go limp in his arms, stare at him blankly as he tried to manhandle me and that…that had pissed him off. Because that meant I wasn’t playing his game anymore.

If the prey wasn’t playing, the game wasn’t fun anymore. It was drab.

Boring.

And I knew that Jungkook kept raising the stakes, kept tightening the noose around my neck….just to bring that girl out again. The one that had wanted to put up a fight . The one that wanted to mouth off even with the muzzle of a gun pressed against her head. The one who would spit in his face in front of all his associates, even if it earned her a vicious strike of his hand across her face.

I shuddered. They weren’t memories I liked reliving.

Well, if that was who he wanted, I’d make sure he would never see her again.

The door opening made me jump and Hoseok came in , with a wide grin on his face.

“Baby…. Your guest for the night.” He said softly and I peered over his shoulders, my heart and mind grinding to a halt when I caught sight of what had to be the most breathtakingly beautiful man on the face of the planet.

I felt my heart begin to pound, fear taking over because this wasn’t okay. Not really. I was okay with old, creepy and disgusting , not able to get it up for more than ten minutes.

I wasn’t okay with someone who looked like they stepped right out of the latest issue of GQ.

Hoseok left quickly, closing the door behind him and the man stepped into the light, the brightness lighting up his perfect features even more. I felt my throat go dry, and fought the urge to get up and run. Growing up as the daughter of a mobster , I’d learned how to trust my instincts over appearances.

And right now, every single one of those instincts screamed at me that this man was absolutely dangerous.

“Well, you are beautiful. I’ll give you that. “ He said casually.

“Thank you.” I said stiltedly, watching as he tugged on his tie, pulling it off his neck deftly . Instead of tossing it aside , he wrapped it a bunch of times around his wrist over and over as he smiled at me.

“Don’t thank me yet. The only reason I like beautiful things is because of how easily they break.” He smiled.  “ I haven’t been with a virgin in a while…. I miss the screams.”

And there it was the full blown panic that came with stark terror. I crawled back on the bed, staring as he moved closer and there was no mistaking the look on his face, the harsh grip of his hand on my ankle telling me that I was going to regret every one of the choices that led me here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hoseok wasn’t at the airport.” Jungkook observed casually, glancing at Yoongi as the latter finished cleaning his gun carefully, eyes fixed on his weapon with utmost concentration.

“He’s holding some sort of auction tonight. Some chick …” Yoongi said casually and Jungkook hummed. It was not the kind of thing he was interested in. Anonymous bids were often boring : actresses or female idols past their prime, desperate to make some money to survive. He had no interest in those but he was a little peeved that Hoseok hadn’t told him anything about it.

Hoseok was one of Jungkook’s most trusted friends. He was almost as powerfully rich as Jungkook and the only reason Jungkook reigned supreme was because Hoseok had no interest in challenging him for the throne. Hoseok was dangerous and cunning and loyal and Jungkook was grateful to have him on his side and he had hoped to see him before leaving. Just to ask him to keep an eye on Elena.

He grimaced, hating himself.

God, he couldn’t go two hours without thinking of her. It fucked with his head, the amount of space she took up inside him. Jungkook , for all his wealth and power, was driven solely by his need to prove himself. He wanted to be powerful and terrifying yes, but more than that , he wanted people to know.

He wanted people to look him in the eye and acknowledge him for what he was : the most dangerous man in the country. He liked seeing that fear, that worship, that admiration. He got off on it. He wanted it , craved it and for some reason he craved it more from her , than anyone else.

And instead of giving him what he wanted, instead of begging on her knees for mercy, instead of licking his shoes and begging for him to let her live….she ignored him. She looked at him with defiance and pride, her chin straight and her back unbending, her gaze locked right on him like she was his fucking equal….

And Jungkook, he’d taken a lot of insults. Taken more than his fair share of hits in life …..

But when she looked at him like that , like he was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe….

Fuck it drove him wild with fury.

It made him want to teach her a fucking lesson, to remind her that he owned her because he owned everything. To break her down, snuff out the flames of defiance that burned so bright in those ember eyes… Take her into his bed and brand her with his body. Till she was on the floor, on her knees covered in his spit and cum begging for mercy….

Because no one looked at Jeon Jungkook like that and lived to tell the tale..

“Seokjin’s here. Landed in Korea a couple of hours ago. ” Yoongi said casually and Jungkook smiled a bit at that. He loved his older brother, technically a step brother and growing up he had only saw him when he visited his mother in China. That meant a couple of months a year and now as adults,  a bit more often because Seokjin loved Jungkook and liked to visit him often.

Seokjin was a celebrity trainer, working with actors and athletes and he did a good amount of modeling as well. He was rich,  handsome and well liked and the only thing that gave away the Jeon blood in him was the fact that he was a sexual sadist.

The face of an angel with a devilish streak, he had a penchant for sadism and inflicting pain on his partners and while Jungkook didn’t particularly enjoy indulging him, he knew there were women who were into that and usually had them arranged for when Seokjin dropped by in Korea. His hyung’s visit seldom lasted more than a few weeks at a time and it was a pity that he would miss out one whole week of it .

But the issue in Switzerland was a little pressing and Jungkook had to be there in person to sort it out.

He leaned back against the seat, staring out of the window, sighing.

“An unsullied dove ….What the fuck is this shit..” Yoongi muttered and Jungkook turned, curious.

“What?”

“Hoseok’s been hyping up some new girl for the auction and Seokjin hyung’s bidding on her.”

Jungkook laughed at that.

“Jungkook…..” Yoongi’s voice is completely stunned, his eyes confused as he looks up at Jungkook.”  Its Elena.”

Jungkook’s thought process came to a grinding halt.

There’s a sound between his ears, a dull rushing sound like the wind in a storm and he can’t quite comprehend what he just heard. Even Namjoon who had been buried in his laptop , looked up then, tugging an airpod out of his ear.

“Wait…did you say Elena?” His eyes were wide , lips parted in shock. Yoongi and Namjoon exchanged glances, no doubt bracing themselves for the explosion that was to follow.

Jungkook took a deep breath.

“Turn the fucking plane around.”

That jolted Namjoon out of his stunned stupor..

“Turn-? Jungkook what…. We’re on a fourteen hour flight-“ Namjoon began but the look on Jungkook’s face made him stop.

“DID I FUCKING STUTTER?”

Namjoon swore.

“Fucking hell… alright just calm the fuck down, Jesus…just put a fucking bullet in that girl’s head and spare us all the headache fuck…” He growled, unbuckling his seat belt and rushing to the cockpit and Yoongi groaned.

“ Let me guess you want me to get in touch with someone in Seoul and ask Hoseok to hold off on letting Seokjin near her…”

Jungkook glared at him.

“If you already know that why the fuck are you still here…” He growled and Yoongi gave him a look.

“Just tell her you’re in love with her and let us live, Jeon Jungkook.”

In love….. what the fuck….

He glared at Yoongi’s back, his asinine words making him madder. God he wanted to crush someone’s skull into dust with his bare hands.

And right now, in his head , that skull belonged to Jung fucking Hoseok.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 “What just happened?” I asked, frantic staring at the door as Hoseok’s men casually led a fuming Seokjin away while the man himself stared at me, looking pale as parchment.

“ Jungkook found out.” He said shortly and I felt my heart drop although I was half relieved because there had been something insane in Kim Seokjin’s gaze when he’d reached for me , a cruel glint of hunger that told me he would have hurt me really badly if Hoseok hadn’t barged into the room , frantic and worried.

He had given Seokjin a wide smile and then, “ I’m so sorry. We were waiting on her blood results and turns out she has a…. well, certain occupational disease that is very infectious.”

Seokjin’s mouth had dropped open even wider than mine.

“I thought she was a fucking virgin.” He had snapped, and I flinched at how cold and furious he had sounded.

But apparently there was a reason this whole thing had happened.

“What do you mean Jungkook knows? What does that mean?” I asked frantically, fear taking over.

“ He’s heading back here… He wants to see you.”

I felt my entire body go ice cold as I shook my head…

“No…fucking no bring Seokjin back here , he can fuck me that was the fucking deal, Hobi, please don’t../…”

“Elena , I’m so fucking sorry.. Seokjin…he’s fucked in the head…. He likes hurting his whores, likes making them bleed and he would have fucking destroyed you…”

I gaped at him horrified.

“What?!” I hissed shaking my head in disbelief.

“He’s Jungkook’ stepbrother. I’ve arranged whores for him before, I knew he was a little crazy but I’d never seen him before and I didn’t know he was the Kim Seokjin…fuck he outbid everyone and fucker looks like a fucking angel, how the fuck was I supposed to know he’s unhinged? Thankfully, I messaged Yoongi and …. Fuck… Listen… I know I paid for your sister’s surgery but you’re going to have to pay me back….”

I felt my body convulse in rebellion.

“I can’t.. You know I fucking can’t…”

“I can’t make an enemy out of Jungkook…. I can’t.” Hoseok shook his head. “ You can get out of here now if you want but I’d advise you to stay. If you run it’s only going to make Jungkook angrier.”

“WHAT DID I FUCKING DO TO HIM?!!!” I screamed, feeling my composure crumble into smithereens. “WHAT THE FUCK DOES HE WANT FROM ME?!!”

Hoseok flinched, stepping back and holding his hands up.

“Whether I want to or not, I answer to Jungkook.  I shouldn’t have done this in the first place , I’m sorry Elena.” He shook his head and stepped back like the coward that he was and I wanted to hurt him. To shake him and ask him to fucking remember who I was. That I had nothing to do with my father’s sins . That I had been a fucking marionette in his hands, had wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

I stared at him in disbelief.

“So much for being a friend…” I whispered.

His jaw tightened. But he didn’t look guilty. None of them ever did. It was like guilt didn’t exist in their world. They did what they wanted to whoever they wanted , whenever they wanted and they got away with it because that bastard’s word was law. What Jeon Jungkook wanted, he got.

“I’ll get your clothes sent in.”

I watched him leave, the door slamming shut behind him and sagged against the bed, staring at myself. What had just happened?

Was I born to endless misery and misfortune?

Couldn’t I catch a fucking break?

I’d agreed to sell myself hadn’t I? Would have even let Seokjin hurt me if that was what he wanted. Because it was one night. It was one night of this…whatever the hell this was and then freedom. That was the deal.

The door opened again and I stared as a young girl brought me a pile of my clothes neatly folded.

“Do you work here?” I said sharply.

She blinked before bowing her head.

“Yes, mistress.”

I scoffed.

“Don’t call me mistress , I’m here to get fucked, just like you. Tell me does Jungkook ever use the women here.” I demanded.

She looked trapped, glancing at the door, clearly wanting to run .

“Tell me.” I snapped and she flinched.

“I..uh..yes. Sometimes.” She said softly.

“Can you tell whoever fucks him next to kick him in the fucking balls?”

The girl bowed deeply and all but ran out and I sighed, feeling myself shaking. Jungkook was on the way here and I wanted to yell and scream and rave at him but I knew that was exactly what he wanted. I wanted to deny him the satisfaction …wanted to act all cool and composed in front of him but it was impossible…

Because I hadn’t realized just how tired I was of this whole thing, till right this moment, when the end had been in sight. I was supposed to get my two billion won pay off all the debt , give Jisoo the rest of the money and disappear. I was so tired, so tired of this life I’d gotten trapped into, slaving over for hours on end just to afford a couple of meals a day. No friends, no boyfriends, no hope of a future …..

The door banged open and I jumped, crawling back when I recognized the man who had just entered.

“Yoongi-“

“Jungkook wants to see you.” He ground out and I swallowed.

“I need to get dressed. Please just wait outside.” I said shakily.

And then the door opened further and a tall looming shadow stepped in familiar and vomit inducing.

Jungkook looked livid, piercing glinting through the dimply lit room and I stared at him. He was dressed in a tight black t shirt, he sleeves stretched thin over his biceps and the tattoos stark against his skin.

“Leave us.” He said softly and Yoongi moved away to the door leaving me alone with the devil himself. I cursed myself for not putting at least my panties on, I was naked underneath this shirt and although it was big it left nothing to the imagination.

Jungkook’s eyes raked over my form before resting on my face.

“You think you’re smart enough to outsmart me, Elena?” He whispered softly.

I swallowed.

“Send you brother back in. He can fuck me and I’ll pay you back.”

Jungkook hummed, stepping closer and grabbing my clothes from the bed, he grabbed the plain white bra and the pastel pink underwear and then to my complete and utter mortification he brought the clothing up to his face, breathing in .

“Fucking pervert!!!” I screamed, feeling the action like a physical touch and wanting to claw his eyes out and the smirk on his face told me that this was exactly what he wanted but I was too fucking gone to care.

“If you want me to be a whore, fine. I’ll be a whore. But on my terms…” I spat out and he shook his head, laughing.

“I don’t just want you to be a whore, Elena. I want everyone to know that you are one…” He dropped my clothes and moved closer, holding a hand out. “ Come here.”

I stared at the inked fingers, adorned with sterling silver rings and bracelets with the motifs of his gang. I shook my head.

“No. I’m not playing this game with you.” I turned my face away.

His hand shot out gripping my upper arm with enough strength to bruise and I screamed, agony shooting up my arm and shoulders as he dragged me off the bed and onto the floor. I landed hard, hips and elbows bruising from impact and I stared at him in disbelief.

“I’ve been to gentle with you. You’ve forgotten your fucking place.” He bent over and grabbed me by my hair, yanking me to my feet so hard that it felt like my scalp had been ripped away from my skull.

“Okay…okay…Okay Jungkook..just…!!” I said softly, flinching because my pain tolerance was almost zero and Jungkook’s grip was so hard that my eyes were beginning to water now. He let me go, grabbing my panties off the floor and tossing them at me.

“I’m going to count to five. Put those on and get out.”

He walked out of the door and I stumbled a little fumbling with the fabric before quickly, slipping my legs in and yanking it up to my waist. I made to put on something else but his voice came, loud and impatient.

“Get the fuck out here.”

I walked out of the door and he was standing there next to Hoseok. I couldn’t meet either of their gazes , hating how they had so much power over my life. I stared at the floor. It was tempting to yell at them and scream but that never led anywhere.

“ I’ve asked them to stop the payment on the Hospital bill. Seeing as Elena hasn’t kept her end of the bargain.”

I felt my breath hitch at that, willing down the tears as I glared at him.

“What do you want?” I snapped. “ Tell me who you want me to fuck…. I’ll do it. Let’s get this over with so you can go back to whatever sewer you fucking climbed out of. ….”

Hoseok’s breath caught like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said and the look in his eye was a warning but I was sick of this. Sick of them all.

Jungkook turned to Hoseok with a laugh.

“You see hyung? See why I can’t let her go? If I let her scot free, everyone’s going to think I’m a pushover….that any worthless bitch can talk to me any way she wants and get away with it….” He shook his head, staring at me with a glint in his eye. “ I’m not going to choose. They are. You think you can charm your way into Hoseok’s heart and get special treatment? You think you’re ready to be a whore, Elena? Let me show you how a real whore gets treated in Hoseok’s club.”

He gripped my wrist, yanking me behind him as he stalked off down the narrow corridor that opened up into the club. I let myself get dragged out into the club dismally aware of the fact that I was wearing nothing but Hoseok’s shirt. I could feel eyes on me but I kept mine on the back of Jungkook’s head as he dragged me all the way to the front. I knew what he was going to do and at this point I was just numb.

There was no point reasoning with the devil.

I glared at him as he pointed at the stage. “ Get up there.” He whispered harshly.

I stared back at him, not moving. I saw Jungkook’s jaw clench.

“Either you go up there by yourself, with your clothes on. Or I carry you up there, after stripping you naked. What’s it going to be? ”

I glared at him, pursing my lips before climbing up using the small stair in the side. I moved to the center, right in front of the stage lights, so the rest of the room would disappear. I had no wish to see any of the bastards in the room.

“I think all of you recognize this little beauty here, don’t you?” Jungkook’s voice was cheerful, friendly even and I bit my lips, fists clenched. “ Well, if you don’t let me tell you . This is Gong Hyo Suk’s daughter. Remember that bastard? He put a hit out on my father. Killed him and my mom on the night I was supposed to be marrying his fucking daughter. A daughter who later called off the wedding, because I was too poor now, to give her the life she deserved. ”

I felt the familiar ice cold guilt in my vein. I was seventeen, I wanted to scream. I was seventeen and all I did was say what my father asked me to say, do what my father asked me to do.

“ That was nine fucking years ago… and you know what I told myself…. I told myself, that a greedy little bitch like this, doesn’t deserve shit.” He laughed. “ If money’s what she values the most, then the only thing she deserves is to be treated like the whore she is.”

“Why don’t you guys tell me, how much money you’d be willing to spend, to fuck her? Come on, Hobi’s been treating you guys so well lets help him make some money tonight… be generous. ”

I could barely hear what they were calling out but when Jungkook climbed onto the stage next to me, I jumped. Moving back instinctively, I winced when brought a forearm around my throat nearly choking me as he dragged up against his body.

“90 million won….That’s a lot.” He grinned. “ Jihan hyung….. that was you right? You’re gonna pay 90 million won for her?”

I felt my heart race, it was a lot. More than enough for the Hospital Bills, would even leave extra to get a decent apartment somewhere... I grabbed his wrist as it pressed into my throat, trying to pull his hand off me but he just wrapped his free hand around my waist, wrapping his entire body around mine and chuckling into my hair.

Jungkook pressed his head against mine and I froze, hating the close contact.

“Okay…but since I’m feeling a bit left out here…Why don’t I pitch in… 500 Won.” Jungkook said loud and clear.

I froze. An eerie silence fell over the club, laughter stilling and the clink of glasses slowing down.

What.

I struggled to get away from his but his hold tightened.

“Anyone else?” He called out. “ Come on… Not even thousand? Surely you think this one here’s worth a thousand won? Aren’t you going to outbid me?”

No one responded of course they didn’t. Jungkook’s anger was palpable and no one was going to get on his wrong side …..

“Ahh… is that it then? Bid’s going to close for 500 won then…. Hear that baby?” He whispered against my ears and I swallowed. “ 90, million won to five hundred won in a few seconds… What does that tell you?”

“It tells me you’re a fucking psychopath in love with your own voice… Get off me.” I hissed.

“No. What it tells you is that only I get to decide how much that body of yours is worth, not you. . You don’t get to go sell your fucking body behind my back for two billion won and then pay off all your debts and ride off into the sunset, that is not how this works….”

I went limp in his arms fighting tears because he never played fair. Never.

“Hear that Hoseok-ah… I win her for the night for 500 won…fair and square…. Is that alright?” He called out into the darkness and I felt the first inkling of dread begin to seep in.

“No.. No… get off me.” I hissed and he laughed, dragging me off the stage with ease. I screamed, kicking out in disbelief.

Jungkook grinned at me, before grabbing both my arms and yanking them behind me, and I whimpered, unable to move as he easily pulled me along to the door that opened into the hallway. Behind us I heard Hoseok’s voice.

“Jungkook, don’t be impulsive. Think about whatever you’re going to do.”

I flinched at that, panic building.

“He’s not going to do anything. I’ll fucking kill him if he touches me , I-“

“Shut the fuck up, you little bitch.” He shook me hard till my teeth rattled and I sobbed out.

“Jungkook…” Hoseok warned but he merely snarled.

“I know what I’m doing hyung, just…. Don’t disturb us. And make sure everyone here knows that she’s open for business.” It was loud enough to carry through the club and I felt humiliation burn my throat, acrid like acid.

I froze in disbelief.

“Jungkook …” Hoseok’s voice held a tone of reproach.

“ And tell them that her body is amazing. Tell them she spent the night with me , the best fuck I’ve ever had , mouth made for cock.”

I stared straight ahead as he pulled me all the way to the room we had left earlier and I tripped when he shoved me inside, landing on my hands and knees . I quickly rolled back around to land on my ass, crawling back as he slammed the door shut and locked it from the inside.

He stared down at me, mouth grim.

“You do owe me a wedding night. I was so ready to fuck your tight cunt, nine years ago… I think I’ve waited long enough yeah.”

I stared at him in disbelief. I knew exactly what he wanted me to do, to yell and scream and protest and fight so he could get off and forcing me…. Fucking psychopath.

I took a deep breath and nodded.

“If you pay for my sister in laws bills, and give me an apartment sure. “ I shrugged. “You’re not any different from any of the bastards here. I don’t give a damn which one of you idiots wants to rut into me like the absolute animal that you are…. I don’t care…” I said softly.

“you don’t? Really? You want me to tell you what your brother said when one of my men put a gun into his mouth…. He begged for his life…said he had a kid on the way….” Jungkook laughed, shaking his head. “I told him it was better than what his father did…. My sister was six months pregnant when his lieutenant gunned her down on the streets.”

I shuddered, wrapping my arms around myself.

“Why are you telling me this…” I snapped.

“Because she didn’t deserve it did she, Elena? She didn’t fucking deserve to die like that , like a dog on the street when she had nothing to do with any of this…. She didn’t deserve it.” He growled, bending down and gripping my chin hard.

“Maybe she did deserve it.” I spat out. “ If I deserve to be here, maybe your sister deserved to die too. “

He snarled, hand flying to my hair and dragging me up off the floor in one sharp yank. I whimpered as he pushed me on the bed, before climbing on top of me. I felt like every bone in my body was about to snap in two, the weight of him unbearable on me.

“I won the bid tonight…. I won it fair and square… You signed the waiver didn’t you…that you agreed to the auction…I won and I’m going to fucking collect.” He growled, and I kicked out, trying to buck him off of my body.

“Get off me.” I hissed. “ I’m not letting you fuck me for 500 won.”

“How about for your Jisoo then?” He whispered and I went still.

“What?”

He chuckled, reaching down and I felt my pulse pound as he pulled his phone out, dialing quickly and turning on the speakers.

Yoongi’s voice made me go ice cold. Everyone knew what Yoongi did for Jungkook.

“Daehwan’s wife is in a hospital room in Yongsan. Hobi’s got the details. I think she’s served her purpose.”

“No!! JUNGKOOK NO!!” I  screamed , thrashing so hard my head began to spin but he grunted pressing down into me harder.

“Are you serious? I’m not home yet… I can take care of it tonight.” Yoongi said, voice casual and I sobbed, shaking my head in sheer terror.

“Okay… I’ll behave.. I promise.. please just don’t…”

Jungkook hummed.

“Well, that was easy… Yoongi-yah… why don’t you stay on the phone yeah…. Going to get that wedding night I’m owed and if my baby doesn’t co operate you know what to do, yeah?”  

I bit my lips, glaring into the sheets as he gripped my waist, pulling me up.

“Ass up like the bitch that you are, baby.” He whispered and I felt my entire body shudder in disgust. It was worse because I hadn’t done this before. Didn’t know what to expect. But I couldn’t let him know that. If Jungkook knew that I was a virgin, I could just imagine how much fun he’d have with that info.

Hands gripped my wrists, pinning them to the bed and I turned my face away when I felt the press of his lips on my cheeks. He gripped both my wrists with one hand, keeping them pinned over my head and I flinched when I felt his fingers pulling the fabric of my panties aside, just enough for the blunt head of his cock to press against my slit.

“Yoongi, you there?” Jungkook said softly and Yoongi grunted over the phone. I felt my face flame in embarrassment.

“You’re a sick bastard but I’m used to it. What’s up?” he said casually.

“Remember how we used to wonder just how tight Elena’s cunt was… back when we were in school.”

Fucking monster, I thought in disbelief. I hate him I hate him I hate him….

“Good times…” Yoongi chuckled lightly .

Jungkook pushed into me in one hard thrust and pain shot straight up my spine, my insides burning like he’d fucked me with a knife and not his body. I couldn’t stop the cry of agony that got torn of me, my eyes tearing up and tears spilling over onto my cheeks.

“Damn Jungkook, she okay?” Yoongi’s chuckle made me want to claw his face off, and just the urge to kill was growing inside me.

“Well, I can confirm that it is, in fact just as tight as we thought…” He grunted, thrusting into me at a pace that was inhumane, every push and drag of him rubbing my insides raw and I bit down on the sheets under me, afraid that I would do something absolutely humiliating, like beg him to stop.

“Good, you should let me take that tight ass for a ride someday then. With her permission of course…. I’m a gentleman after all. Big on consent.” He laughed and I swallowed the urge to tell him that I would puncture his balls with a switchblade if he came anywhere near me.  

“Oh, she’s going to do whatever I ask her to….aren’t you baby…” He grunted, “ Turn around so I can see you.”

He pulled out of me, his weight lifting off my body as he moved away. I couldn’t move, limbs numb and insides throbbing in pain . His palm landed on my thigh, hard and the sharp sting of it made me jump.

“I said turn around, I want to see your face when I fuck you.” Jungkook growled. I stayed limp, breathing hard and he grunted impatient, fingers sinking into my hair , yanking me to my knees and the movement made my legs scream in protest.

“How’s she so quiet? You fucked the voice out of her, kook-ah?” Yoongi asked amused and Jungkook pulled me by the hair, dragging me to the center and pushing me down till my head landed on the pillow.

“Hyung you should see her right now, all fucked out …. Like she’s never had a dick in her before.” He shook his head, “ Fucking slut. Take that off and hold yourself open for me.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending and he grabbed both my hands, placing them on my knees.

“Grab your knees and pull your legs back… So I can fuck that tight cunt the way I want to.” He said slowly, like I was a dog he was trying to train and I stared at him , defiantly.

“ Go to hell.” I whispered.

Yoongi’s laughter came from somewhere to the right.

“Your dirty talk needs work, Kook ah… Tell her she��s a precious little kitten and she makes you feel really good…. Bitches love that shit…”

Jungkook hovered over me, grabbing the back of my thighs and spreading them wide enough to make me whimper in pain.

“Is that so babygirl? You want me to tell you that? That you make daddy’s cock feel good?” He cooed, nudging the tip against me again and I had never hated anyone so much in my life. I stared up at his face, and he smiled at me, a cheeky little grin that made his bunny teeth stand out and for a second he looked so deceptively angelic and the glimmer of his piercing caught my eye.

I couldn’t help but swallow, gaze trained on the glint of metal on his tongue.

“You like that?” He grinned suddenly, sticking his tongue out for me to see, I felt my eyes widen at how sinfully good he looked .” Hyung she likes my tongue piercing.”

“Show her how it feels on her clit.” Yoongi laughed and I could barely fully process what I heard before Jungkook was crawling down my body, arms, curling on my thighs and yanking me onto his tongue .

I felt the press of his tongue on my slit, licking right into me and the jolt of pleasure was so unexpected, the pleasure so unwanted and yet so overwhelming and I couldn’t stop the way my body thrashed against the streets, lips parted as I practically mewled out in pleasure.

“Definitely a kitten…” Yoongi called out and I shuddered as Jungkook slipped two fingers into me , the ice cold press of his ring inside me making me jump. I wanted to pull away, grab his hair and yank him off but I couldn’t because it was

“Next time I’ll put the dick piercing in too, yeah? Fuck you with a bit of metal on my cock so you can feel that up there…. ” He laughed into my thighs and I screamed when he bit into the flesh there , hard.

“I’m getting bored… Either turn on facetime so I can at least jerk off to this , or I’m hanging up…” Yoongi called out .

“Hyung she clenches down on me every time she hears your voice… Just stay on for a few more minutes yeah, she tastes so fucking good, I’m gonna cum soon….” Jungkook added another finger, slipping in deep before spreading them apart inside me. I whimpered when he pushed his tongue in between the wet digits, licking into my walls and I could feel the ball of his piercing drag against my walls, ice cold and hard.

Was it fucked up that I did clench down on him again, my body apparently a slave to my base desires even as my mind screamed that he was the absolute worst bastard on the face of the planet.

“Elena, you owe me a blowjob at least for this…” Yoongi called out and I glared at the phone.

“I’ll bite your fucking dick off if you come anywhere near me.” I snapped.

“Fuck, I could get off just to that mouthy fuckhole of hers…..” Yoongi grunted.

Jungkook pulled away, climbing back up over me and lightly slapping my breasts.

“Now, how about you open that mouth and let me fuck it?”

Yoongi snorted from behind us and Jungkook glared at the phone before glaring at me again.

“Well?”

“You want to know how hard I can bite?” I said sharply, the pleasure ebbing away into nothing and resentment taking it place, the momentarily physicality of the situation fading and the reminder of who he was and who I was entering my sex addled brain.

“No.. You’re right…. But you know what, I’m not feeling it anymore. I was right.. you really aren’t qualified to be my whore. Your body…it’s frigid like a fucking popsicle…such a fucking turn off. ” He reached over and hung up on the phone.

“Now…”he whispered, leaning in closer and I yelped, when his fingers closed over my throat..” Shut your mouth and take what I give you like a grateful bitch.”

I swallowed when he pushed into me again, his pace steady as he fucked into me, eyes closed and I realized that he was almost fully dressed having just unbuttoned himself enough to get his cock out.

When he stiffened, spilling into me his eyes blew open and he locked eyes with me, wide eyed and for one horrible second he looked young and vulnerable and hurt.

I blinked as he pulled out, the sticky warm mess of his cum dripping down my inner thighs and onto the sheets.

“Well, that was much worse than I thought it would be.”  He said and I stayed on the bed as he grabbed his phone and buttoned himself back up.

He smirked at me and then reached into his pocket.

I quickly pulled myself together, ignoring the aches and pains and getting to my knees before reaching for my dress on the bed. it was kind of pointless because I still had Hoseok’s shirt on and I wasn’t going to take that off in front of Jungkook.

“Well, I’m a man of my word , Elena so…here you go..just as we discussed.” He tossed a coin on the bed and I stared at the engraved 500 on the shiny surface, feeling my rage swell inside me.

“If you still want to work out a payment plan for your sister’s bills …. Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow?” He tossed his card on the bed before  moving away to the door.

Fucking bastard.

Author’s note : My whole life is filled with regrets . 

[ijustwant2write]

Bad Boy-John Shelby x Reader

(GIF credit to @markshade​)

Requested by anonymous: ‘Hi do you think u can do a John Shelby imagine where they are dating and y/n is a good innocent girl but freaky with John and her parents want to Him over for dinner John wants to piss off her dad cause he’s not a fan of the blinders and does subtle things to annoy him like touching y/n at the end of the night when they are saying goodbye at his car they have a heated make out sesh and John knows her dad is looking through the window so spices it up a bit . ❤️’

Characters: John Shelby x Reader

Meanings: (Y/N)=Your name

(Y/L/N)=Your last name

Warnings: Smut from the start (unsafe sex!), dirty talk, swearing, arguing, mentions of violence and death, fluff

(A/N: Amelia and Henry are made up characters)

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

I clamped my hand over my mouth tightly, struggling to keep in the whimpers and moans as John continuously thrusted into me. However, the boxes I was perched on were full of bottles of beer, causing them to clang against each other.We were in the stock room of the Garrison, luckily having the music, singing and loud chatter drowning out the noise we were creating. John’s hands gripped at the skin around my hips, that cocky smirk on his face that I loved so much. For some reason, an idea popped into my head, and in the state of euphoria I was in just made me say it out loud.

“John...” was all I managed to breath out at first.

“Fuck, I love it when you say my name. Say it again.” he instructed.

“I want you to meet my parents.”

He suddenly stopped, making me realise it wasn’t the best time to bring that up.“You what?”

We were both heavily breathing.“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that just then.”

He scoffed, sighing as he slid out of me.“Well, that’s finished with.”

“I’m sorry! They want to meet you. They know who you are, but they want to try and treat this like they did with my sister.”

“You sure you want that? Remember what you told me when they first found out about us?”

I rolled my eyes, hitching up my stocking as he did up his trousers.“It was their idea, not mine.”

“You don’t want me meeting them?”

“Of course I do, I just-” I caught him trying to hide a laugh, he was winding me up.“You’re such a little shit.”

He stood in between my legs again, hands on my thighs before I could push my skirt down.“Well, if I have been summoned by the Lord (Y/L/N)-”

“Oh my god,” I threw my head back as I laughed in frustration,“would you stop calling him that! I’m the same class as you.”

“What have I always said?”

I shrugged my shoulders, but knew what he was referring to.

“You were always meant to be a fucking princess, Princess (Y/N) of Birmingham.”

I laughed at him.“Oh shut up! Are you coming to dinner or not?”

“If you ask me nicely.”

“And how do I do that?”

“By finishing what we started.”

John and I had been together for a few months now, much to my parents dismay. It had started as a drunk one night stand; we were both at the Garrison, and seemingly chose each other for the night. However, when you’re young, poor and living in Small Heath, there aren’t a lot of places to go out, so me and my friends went to the Garrison all the time. This meant I also saw John again....and again....and again, and again. We slept we each other maybe three more times before wondering if this could become a thing; from there onwards, we found out more about each other, and he brought out a side of me I had been hiding, also wanting to release.

On the day of the dinner, I wanted to see John before he arrived. I lied to my mum, saying we had no bread (which I had hidden away), and practically running out of the house to ‘buy’ some. I told John what time to be at mine, also lying to make him leave earlier so I could meet him halfway. In the bakery, I threw the money onto the counter after picking up a loaf of bread, speedily walking away as I prayed I would run into John. Luck was on my side as I spotted him, already heading in the direction of my home.

“John!” I shouted, the whole street now looking at me as I sprinted past them. 

He whipped around at the noise, hand hovering over where his gun would be. When he saw me, he didn’t relax, wondering why I was yelling his name and running like a mad man.

“I’m so glad I caught you.” I struggled to say, out of breath.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” he panicked.

“No, no I’m fine. I’m a terrible runner though.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Bread.” I said, holding up the loaf as evidence.“And also, to see you.”

“I was just leaving.”

“Yes, I can see that. I just wanted to go over some rules.”

“Rules? Oh come on (Y/N)-”

“No, listen to me.” I held up the bread instead of pointing my finger at him.“I love you. I always take your side for everything. We both know my parents don’t like this, but seeing as I am a grown woman, they don’t do anything to stop me. So just for today, we’re going to abide to their rules.”

He rolled his eyes.“Right, so I’ve got to be the uptight prat that your parents want you to be with?”

“They know what you’re like already, and even if they didn’t, they would be able to see through that act. Just let my dad be my dad.”

“If he says something fucking offensive, I’m not going to stay quiet!”

“Fine, then be political about it. Don’t shout at each other, try to make small talk, but no talking about guns, violence, killing-”

“Alright, are you going to go?”

“Sorry. I just want this to be easy. I hate seeing you stressed. I love you.”

He held my hand, starting to walk.“Yeah, yeah. Come on, I’ve got the car parked up in the garage.”

I hated that he hadn’t sent it back, but I understood why he was being like this. I was making him be someone he wasn’t. I loved John as a person, however, I couldn’t be dealing with a screaming match between him and my family.

“John, I do love you.” I said after a few minutes of walking.

“I know. I love you too.” he eventually smiled.“Just want you all to myself now, you know? We wouldn’t have to be dealing with this.”

“Soon darling. We’ll get that house soon enough. Oh, I’ve just remembered something else!”

“Rule number...I’ve lost count, maybe one hundred?”

“No inappropriate stuff. No touching, kissing, being sneaky, nothing!”

“That’s going to be incredibly hard. Especially with that dress.” 

Once we made it to my house, I gave him a quick kiss on the lips before getting out of the car. Opening the front door. I called out to my parents, hearing them reply from the front room. I told John to remove his coat whilst I rushed into the kitchen with the bread, carelessly chucking it on the side before getting back to him. I saw a hint of nerves in his eyes, though his pride covered it. Taking his hand in mine, I guided us to my family, surprised to see who was sitting with them.

“Amelia? What are you doing here? And with Henry?” I asked.

“Well, Henry would happen to be here with me because he’s my husband. I’m sure you remember being at the wedding.” she quipped.

“I don’t remember the boring days of my life. Not worth it.”

“(Y/N).” mum warned.

“Anyway,” I looked up at John,“I would like you to all meet John Shelby. We’ve been seeing each other for quite some time and-”

“We know who he is.” dad sighed, not even bothering to stand from his seat. 

“You’re the ones who invited him over. It would be nice of you to greet him properly.”

Dad stood slowly, making his way towards us, making me think he was getting up to shake John’s hand. Instead he just stopped, not looking either of us in the eye.

“I need a drink.”

He broke us apart by walking through us, mum timidly following. I felt like swearing and screaming. It was their idea. They wanted to meet him but then they were being like this. I sent an apologetic smile to John as we sat down.

“So,” I thought I would try and make conversation,“John, this is my sister Amelia and her husband Henry. She used to live here but she moved away a few years ago.”

“Had to find a better area, you know? Safer for the children we were planning for.” Amelia smugly smiled.

“Such a saint is my sister.”

“It’s like Mary and Joseph.” John chuckled, causing me to laugh.

“Well that would make you Judas and...and whoever he was with then, wouldn’t it?” Amelia desperately tried.

“Nice one Amelia. Don’t think too hard next time, yeah?”

Before she could snap back, mum called us to the dinner table. I realised we would all be squashed around it, seeing as only four people could usually fit there. I made sure John was sat beside me, Amelia and Henry opposite us and my parents at either head of the table. Our knees were almost touching we were that close. Dinner started silent, everyone tucking into the small meal. We were poor, we never had a lot to eat; which was why I was surprised that Amelia was here, there were now three more mouths to feed, not just John. But I knew why she was really here. Amelia had done what our parents wanted, found a good man who could provide her with the bare necessities and keep her out of trouble. They wanted me to reflect on who I was in love with, try to change my mind. Wasn’t going to happen.

“So what is it you actually do?” Henry asked. I was unsure if it was supposed to be malicious or whether he was actually curious.

“Work in the betting shop.” John answered.

“Yeah, but, you know, on the side.”

“Henry, we don’t want to get involved.” Amelia scolded him.

“Just because you’ve graced me with your presence, that doesn’t mean you’re on some sort of hit list.”

“No, but my sister is.”

“Amelia, shut up.” I snapped.

“No, she’s right.” John said, causing me to whip my head round to him. He went against my instructions, placing his hand on my thigh.“But I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my girl. They would be dead before they even thought about it.”

Although I had told him to not talk of such things or stoop to my families level, my heart melted at the (somewhat morbid) statement.

“Am I hearing this right?” mum laughed, but their was no humour behind it.

“Mum, try to not get upset.” Amelia held her hand.

Now it was my turn to laugh.“Oh my god.” Everyone looked at me, John was smirking whilst the others were frowning.“You’re such a hypocrite.”

“What?”

“You were sneaking out all the time, seeing different boys every weekend. What makes you so much better than me?”

“I’m not with a criminal.”

“All of you stop it!” dad exclaimed, slamming his fist down on the table.“And get your fucking hand off my daughter.”

Amelia tutted.“Henry would never-”

“You and Henry were fucking upstairs before dinner when he came round the first time!” I butted in.

“Sounds like a good time to me.” John mumbled under his breath.

“How dare you?!” mum was shocked.

“I knew this was a stupid idea. Get out, now!”

“With pleasure.” John stood, grabbing my hand.

I quickly left with him, grabbing the key off the counter and locking the door behind me. It made me laugh hearing their shouts of protest and banging on the door. We rushed to the car, scared that they would somehow break down the door. John leaned me back against it, hands sliding down the side of my body and gripping my arse. He knew what he was doing, especially since my family now had their faces pressed against the window.

“Well, that was...quick.” I giggled.

“Yeah, you’re not used to that.” John joked.

“You have to make it all about sex, don’t you?”

“(Y/N), I don’t give a fuck about what they think, and neither do you. As soon as I get this bit of business sorted with Tom and Arthur, I’m buying that house and you are moving in with me. Then we’ll get married straight away-”

“I hope this isn’t your proposal.”

“Don’t you worry, I’ve got something big planned for that.”

He leaned down to kiss me, gripping onto my arse firmly. As he deepened the kiss, adding tongues, he forced his knee between my legs, and I subconsciously started rubbing against it, only subtly. I made sure he stayed close by pulling him in by his coat. The neighbours would surely be watching, it was a small street, which would drive my parents insane. This only fuelled something in me, and I wanted to keep going. 

“I suggest we take this somewhere more private. Like, right now.” John breathlessly said.

I frantically nodded, and we both headed for opposite sides of the car, until I saw I still had the key in my hand. Hurriedly making my way back to the door, I ignored my family who had now managed to open the windows, screaming at me as I posted the key through the letter box. Running as fast as I could back to the car, I felt the adrenaline rush through me, giggling like a maniac at the thought of my parents catching me. Slamming the door shut as I jumped in the car, John floored it, and we looked like we escaped from an insane asylum as we laughed.

I stuck my head out of the car and screamed,“I fucking love you John Shelby!”

He pulled me back in by my dress, squeezing my thigh once I sat down.“I love you too, you fucking maniac.”

“I don’t think I’ll be allowed back there, you know.”

“Good thing you’re staying with me then.”

“You sure you’re ready for all of this?”

“I’ve been ready since I laid eyes on your face...and those tits, and that arse-”

“You make it seem like you’re only in it for my body.”

“Nah, that’s the ultimate bonus though. I already said it, but once you’re with me, I protect you and love you. You’re mine.”

“And you’re mine. Make sure to do your coat up before you get out the car, it’s a bit obvious down there.”

[universallychaoticpan]

Chaos siblings

sasha, connie, jean x reader

hehe i love them so much- they're so fun lmao so now I give you this. asks and reuqests are welcome and very much appreciated <333

Jean thought he had his hands full with you; even as children he'd found himself scrambling after you over fences, through alley ways as you looked back every so often just to make sure he hadn't gotten caught by whichever shopkeeper was on your tails that day. Even then, your smile had been nothing short of devilish; just sweet enough that one who didn't know better would let you get away with anything. Before you could walk you were running down the streets, climbing walls and scaling the fine buildings of the districts as your mother yelled for you to get down. Still, he loved you like a sibling; even when you dragged him into your messes, your smile when you got away with your odd little schemes was worth it.

And then, like an omen, as if you needed any encouragement, you had met one Connie Springer and the always illustrious Sasha Braus.

Your second day in training, he'd caught the three of you sneaking off to god knows where, a handful of stolen food in your hands as your sheepish smile met his exasperated expression.

The day before the expedition to Shiganshina, you had danced on tables as the veterans, too tired or maybe too amused, had let it go on until Connie tumbled off and brought you down with him in a flurry of wild limbs and crazed laughter.

Only an hour later, Connie still nursing the sore spot on his head, the three of you sat awake in the darkness of your barrack, as the three of you tried to drag Jean out again.

"No way," he muttered. "You remember what happened last time we snuck out?"

"We'll ok," you nodded, "But we were amateurs then! We know what we're doing now." Beside you, Sasha nodded resolutely, offering you a piece of her bread which you accepted thankfully.

"Oh sure," Jean retorted, "and last time all we had to answer to was Shadis. Imagine if one of the vets find us? Or the captain?"

The thought of that sobered you all up in a second; no matter how bored, none of you were looking to be on his bad side.

Satisfied, Jean leaned back into his bed and closed his eyes; finally, it seemed like he had won. A sharp jab to the side of his face broke that illusion almost as quickly as it had begun though, eyes snapping open to reveal your face an inch away from his own. Your eyes were large and pleading, you lip in an exaggerated pout as the other two morons wheezed behind you.

"Please, Jean-boy?" He pushed you aside gently at the nickname, sending you to the floor with a muffle 'hmph'. "Ok then...we'll just go on our own and when we get caught we'll say it was your idea and that you ditched us before we could turn you in."

For a moment, it was quiet; the four of you stood and stared, Jean facing off against the three of you as your eyes flickered back and forth between the others trying not to burst out laughing. And then Connie lunged for the door.

Jean lunged after Connie; You took the moment and ran, barreling into Sasha and sending her crashing to the floor as he legs tangled into yours. At the same time, Jean was dragging Connie back through the door, the latter scraping his nails on the floor dramatically until you became a pile of failing body parts and shushed shrieks of laughter.

Eventually, though, you made it out and, one after the other, you went tearing down the halls as Jean chased you down and into the streets.

"How familiar," you called back. "But this time you're on the wrong side, eh Jean? I always got away remember!" With another gleeful peal of laughter, you began to hoist yourself up a house, the terracotta tiles of the roof offering handholds as Jean made his way up to find you-

panting, on your backs, smiling wider than he'd seen in years. He'd almost forgotten what those smiles looked like: The way Sasha's eyes would crinkle at the edges or how Connie's front teeth were just a little crooked. Most of all, he missed seeing how your body fluttered with laughter, the sound lifting you up just a little as if you could float.

"Oh shove over," he scoffed, a smile forming on his lips as he shimmied his way next to you. "You're gonna be the death of me, you know?"

"We know," Sasha chirped back.

"No seriously; this is the last time you do something like this-"

"Quite right, Mr. Kirstein. This is the last time you sneak off like that."

Three guilty pairs of eyes peeked off the edge of the roof, the fourth staring daggers at the three of you as you debated which was worse;

Jean, who'd just been proven right again

Or the less than pleased captain who now stood on the ground looking as though he was ready to murder you all.

"Alright men, who's ready to run?"

And before Jean could say another word, the three of you had begun your escape into the night.

The death him indeed.

And he loved you all for it.

[scarlettscribbles]

she used to be mine

- Anthony Bridgerton & TwinSister!Reader

Tags: 4k words - 3rd person POV, sibling fluff, family fluff, Anthony/Siena (not the main focus), Anthony is a soft boi when it comes to you (the softest, in fact), mourning

Warning/s: a bit spicy at the beginning, mild injury, mention of blood, major character death

Summary: A question from Siena about love sends Anthony into the past; making him recall his memories of a sister long loved, but never forgotten. A story told in moments. 

a/n: don’t mind me, just manifesting my angst and bridgerton needs >> titles from waitress the musical

i. it’s not simple to say

“What do you think about love?” 

“Love? What’s this all of a sudden?” Anthony laughed. He captured between his hands Siena’s own and kissed it playfully, making her giggle. “What do I think about it, well. I love kissing you, touching you-” he planted a soft kiss on her collarbone as his hands trailed down her abdomen. “I love--”

“Okay, no stop. That is not what I meant at all!” Siena stilled his wandering hands, laughing. She snuggled closer until they were chest to chest. “Love with your friends, family,...women.” she waggled her brows at the last word.

“Women, hah.” Anthony cast his eyes upward. “The only women I’ve ever loved are my mother and five sisters.”

“You mean four.”

“What?”

“You have four sisters: Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, and Hyacinth if memory serves correctly. Unless your mother’s pregnant, which I believe is unlikely. My lord, did you perhaps miscount?” Siena teased. 

“No, no.” he waved his hand, chuckling. “She…”

ii. i still remember that girl

She was born 9 minutes before him; the eldest Bridgerton. This was a fact she liked lording over him teasingly. She won many arguments by simply stating “I am the eldest Bridgerton and therefore…” 

Sometimes he could still hear her say it in his head. 

“Remind me why I’m accompanying you again?”

“Because I am your older sister and--”

“I should always agree to what you’re saying, blah blah. Oh this is so crowded! Why could you not just send a maid to fetch the book?”

“Well what’s the fun in that? Come on Tony, you’re being too slow! It will be nighttime when we arrive there and the book I wanted will be gone!” she moaned miserably, turning around and tugging on his hand to encourage him to make haste.

“You and your dramatics. Why is this book so important anyway?”

“It simply is. I need it for when I become the Viscountess.” she smiled at him, chin jutting out proudly. “I can’t wait to get Papa’s watch. I will get it right, as Viscountess? He will pass it onto me along with the title.”

“Uh no he won’t. I am the heir in case you have forgotten, sister.”

“But I am the oldest. We might be both 10 but I am 9 minutes older than you.” she argued, waving her pointer finger at him. 

“Yes, yes you’ve said that like a million times now! But you’re a girl, so you can’t. You shall marry some guy, not that there are any worth marrying. Why just the today I saw the son of that family I cannot remember for the life of me, doing something horrendous! I think it would be better for you to stay away from any and all men.” Anthony paused, realizing that he was - or is soon going to be - one of those men. “Except for me and Papa, of course.”

She merely looked at him in amusement. “Pish posh.” his twin huffed, eyes glinting in the sunlight. “I’m not going to exchange my ambitions for some mere man. You shall see Tony, I will have that watch. Now come on!” she dropped his hand and gathered her skirts, ducking and maneuvering between the throng of people. Anthony felt a tinge of panic, seeing his sister slowly becoming engulfed by the crowd. 

“Sister wait!” he started to chase after her. He saw the blue tail-end of her skirt when someone bumped into him. He whirled around to complain to whoever it was; however, he seemed to have miscalculated the strength of his spin and tripped, landing on his bottom. “Ow, hey watch it!” he shouted at the people who accidentally kicked him, not noticing his figure on the ground.

Anthony hissed as he dusted his pants. He examined the palm of his hand and noticed scratches from when he landed too roughly on the floor. There were spots of red slowly making its way down his hand, along with drops of water.

Oh. He was crying. 

“Where are you?” his voice warbled. “Sister…”

Has she left him, truly? Surely not. His twin is many things but never cruel. She was tenacious, smart, and…

“Tony! I let you out of my sight for a second and - goodness!” She ran over and knelt in front of him, glaring at the people who would come too close. They parted for her, giving them a wide berth. “Here, take my handkerchief. We should get home and wash your hands. We don’t want it to be infected. And your clothes are a mess, Mama is going to have a fit. Come now,”

“But your book?” he sniffed.

“Eh, I can get it some other time.” she smiled and patted his cheeks. “Don’t cry now, sister’s got you.”

...kind. She was kind.  

iii. reckless just enough

Anthony was sulking. Not that he’d let anyone know. Papa had gotten angry with him. It wasn’t even a big thing. He simply...borrowed his watch to look at it. Anthony thought maybe he could figure out what made his twin so interested in it. It was a plain thing, nothing special maybe besides the monogram. He didn’t mean to drop it from the stairs. He really didn’t. He heard his name being called for lunch and he jolted.

He got a dressing down from Papa with his siblings present; Benedict and Colin in particular snickering at his plight. It was embarrassing. As soon as Papa dismissed him, he ran for his room, ignoring the calls of his twin. 

Right now he was hidden beneath the curtains and behind his bookshelf. Did Papa really have to scold him at the lunch table? Anthony buried his face between his hands. 

“You didn’t eat.”

Anthony banged his head on the wall when he looked up too fast.

“Are you okay?” his twin asked him, smiling amusedly. She carried with her a plate with bread, cheese, ham and a slice of blueberry pie. 

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Laughing and smiling are worlds apart, Tony.” she shook her head and sat beside him, nudging him insistently until they were shoulder to shoulder. She slid the plate from her lap to his. “Eat.”

Anthony looked at her blankly. “Are you so distraught that you cannot eat? Do you want me to hand feed you like a child?” She made a motion as if she was going to grab the plate but Anthony shooed her hands away.

“I’m perfectly capable, thank you.” he stuffed a piece of bread in his mouth. “How’d you find me anyway?”

“Please swallow before you talk.” she said. “And, this is your room Tony. I’m simply using common sense.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

Anthony picked up the ham and cheese and continued eating. For a moment, they just sat there in comfortable silence.

“It’s unfair.” Anthony said, breaking the silence. 

“What is?”

“Papa.”

“How come?”

“He was way too angry. I didn’t mean to drop his watch! And it wasn’t even broken. If it was, he could’ve repaired it easily.” he pouted.

“You could’ve also just asked him to look at it. You know, in his room. Where you can’t drop it from a height and possibly damage it.” she replied with a bit of sarcasm.

“Fine, yes, I could have.” he conceded. “I just don’t know why he was so angry.”

“It’s important to him.”

“It’s just a watch.” Anthony rebutted, pouting. His twin gave him a look that he knew meant “you look adorable but also stupid.”

“Nah.”

“No?”

“Nope.” she answered. “For one, it’s an heirloom. Heirloom is defined as -”

“I know what it means.” Anthony waved his hand. “Do go on.”

She gave him a faintly annoyed look which merely made him smirk. “I shall, and not because you told me to.” she cleared her throat. “The watch being an heirloom is just its value as a thing. There’s also the sentimental value. The memories and emotions attached to the watch. For Papa, he treasures it because it - probably - reminds him of grandfather and grandmother. Grandfather especially. Because he was the one to give the Papa the rights and responsibility for our family.”

“Is that why?”

“Why what?”

“I wanted to know what makes it so special for you.” Anthony shrugged. “You always talk about it, about getting the watch when we become older. I didn’t see the big deal. Is that why it’s so important to you too?”

“Yes, quite.” she answered. “I want to take care of our family, Tony. I know I can, I just do. I don’t want me to just be a wife. I’m meant for greater things. Also,” she grinned at him. “I want it so I could count down the seconds until I see you again.” 

Anthony fake gagged, pretending to chuck the bread and cheese onto his twins’ lap. His twin scrambled away far from him and yelped. “You are disgusting! Mama! Anthony ruined the new dress that we just got!”

“I did not!”

“You were about to!”

iv. i was never attention’s sweet center

It was just a stupid, off-hand comment from Benedict. Anthony knew his brother meant no harm but still, the comment hurt.

“Maybe she truly should have your title, brother.”

Anthony was no stranger to her loud and obvious wanting to inherit the head of the house. In fact, he supported his twin. If Papa permitted it, he would gladly concede to you. However, it was unspoken between the twins the knowledge that Papa would never agree to such a thing; no matter how much he loved his eldest daughter. 

Anthony was no stranger to her excellence either. While the both of them worked hard to set an example for their younger siblings. He always thought she was great at everything a girl should be and more. Though the ‘more’ part would never reach the ears of their mother or anybody else. Nobody should know that Anthony taught her how to sucker punch anybody that vexed her except maybe Benedict and Colin...also Eloise. That girl was far too curious and also far too attached to Benedict. Anthony thinks in the privacy of his mind that if she were a boy, there would be no quarrel that she’d get the title.

Other people also thought the same. Though they expressed it in a much less pleasant way, in words Anthony does not care for. They speak condescendingly. They speak of her gender with pity in their voices, their admiration twisted. They mention that her excellence should be toned down, that she should focus instead on things better suited to her. They speak of how inadequate Anthony is, how poor that a boy be overshadowed by a girl. They theorize how Anthony must hate her for taking all the spotlight. He hears all this, and she does too, seeing as they’re almost always attached at the hip. If it bothers her, she does not speak of it. 

They speak of lies. Anthony thinks that her abilities suit her as they are and that no matter how bright she shines, it would never be something to be upset over. He basked in her light. They are wrong for thinking that she’s taking a piece of his life away when in truth, she completes it. Best friends, twins, soulmates; he loves her and she loves him. Still, their words leave a mark.

So when Benedict said that albeit in a teasing manner, Anthony just ran away. As he got older, he found it the preferable way to escape his problems. If he could not run to her then he must run away. 

Anthony hugged himself as a strong breeze blew and made the unoccupied swing beside him rock.

“Tony.” And there she was. His twin was holding a book. She sat at the swing beside him. 

There was silence. The only thing he could hear were the wind, the scuffling of his feet, and the soft sound of her flipping the pages.

“Sister,” she did not look up from the book but she hummed, signifying that he was heard. “Why did you come out here? It’s better to read inside, surely.”

“You’re upset. Of course I would come.” she said matter-of-factly.

“Did Ben tattle?”

“Ben? Tattle? His mouth is tighter than a woman’s corset when it comes to secrets.” she laughed lightly. “Surely you know better than that.”

“Yeah, I do.” he smiled. Since they were little, even if they were distances apart, both of them would always know - or at least had an inkling of - what the other was feeling. During their early years they chalked it up to magic but now they both just conceded it as a twin thing. “Actually, I don’t. Know better, I mean. Everybody seems to think so. Am I inadequate, sister? Dumb perhaps? I feel like I cannot do anything right sometimes! Compared to you I - “

His twin laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tony.” her brows were drawn and her lips pursed. “First of all, there is no comparison brother. I am me and you are your wonderful self. We are both excellent, please do not doubt yourself of that no matter what anyone says. And I know they say a lot. I’m just so used to tuning them out that I never considered that you might not do the same. I’m sorry.”

She stood up and drew him into a hug. Anthony’s arms stayed limp at his side. “People will flap their mouths because that’s what they do; say their opinions even though it’s unwelcome. If we tried to stop every single one of them, why I believe it’ll take all our lifetime and more!” she chuckled. “We cannot change them so we must change how much we’ll let their words affect us. Their words don’t matter at all! If I could, then I would shove those words back up their mouth and let them swallow it. Which I don’t know how to do. D’you suppose punching them would work just as well?” Anthony laughed wetly at her quip. It would work but it would also involve somebody calling Mama and Papa for her ‘inappropriate behavior’.

“What I know is this.” she grasped his shoulders and held them so she could stare at him in the eyes. Anthony met her determined gaze head-on. “You’re good enough Tony. Hell, you’re excellent.”

Anthony sobbed and quickly drew her into a fierce hug, his tears surely wetting her dress but he knew she didn't mind. “That is as sure as the sun that rises in the east. As sure as our family’s love, and ours for each other.”

v. bring back the fire in her eyes

It started with a cold. She had stayed up too long outside and now she’s bed-ridden. Anthony crossed his arms at the corner of the room as his younger siblings ran around. In his opinion there was too much ruckus for her to properly rest. However, Mama brought it up earlier and his twin just waved her concern away, stating that some liveliness will do her good. And who was Anthony to go against the wishes of his dear sister? It doesn’t mean that he has to like it though.

“No you’re the troll!” Eloise insisted.

“I was the troll last round!” Colin argued back.

“Now, now,” Benedict placated them both, then he glanced at Anthony in a way that promised mischief. “Why don’t we let Anthony be the troll then? He certainly looks the part with how grouchy he is.”

Daphne giggled. “And how he’s guarding his corner.”

“And how horrendous his face looks!” added Eloise. 

Now he’s had enough. “You all look far too happy for someone who’s going to be troll food soon.”

“Troll wuh - AAH!” Eloise screamed as Anthony lunged at her. She took off with a sprint and soon the other Bridgertons followed as well, laughing boisterously. “Noo, Ben save me!”

“This is survival of the fittest -”

“Survival of the fittest your face!”

“Ehem.” Suddenly all motion stopped. Colin face-planted on the floor, caught by his momentum. All eyes went to the door where Violet Bridgerton stood along with a maid. She had a smile on her face coupled with a vaguely exasperated expression. “I’m glad you’re having fun but please take you playing outside. I need to tend to your sick sister.”

Various moans and complaints filled the room but only with a raise of their Mama’s brow, they filed outside the room, murmuring farewells and well wishes to the sole occupant of the bed. All except one. Anthony remained rooted at the side of his sister’s bed.

“Anthony, please.” Violet gently said. A complaint was on the tip of his tongue when a hand laid on his bicep. He looked at his sister, looking frail among the covers but she merely smiled and shook her head.

“I’ll be fine Tony.” she said. “Go and check that our siblings haven’t set the house ablaze or anything.”

For a moment, both of them just stared at each other. A silent conversation passing between them both. Anthony sighed. “Get well.” he bent over to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m not sure I alone will be enough to stop them from doing that.”

She laughed. “You will be.”

vi. sometimes life just slips

It was only supposed to be a cold. A cold. 

Someone almost barreled through Anthony as he, Benedict, Colin came through the door. “Whoa!” he exclaimed as the maid said a rushed apology. Everyone in the house seemed to be in a mad dash. He exchanged looks with his brothers, who were as clueless as he.

“Anthony!” came the panicked voice of Eloise. He held her shoulders and looked over her for any harm of some sort that caused her to panic.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Anthony was surprised to see her looking up at him with teary eyes. Eloise is looking at him like how she used to when she was much littler, pleading to Anthony. Believing with all her might that her older brother will make everything okay. He looked behind her to Daphne who was pursing her lips.

“Oh God, is someone dead?” Colin quipped, then promptly made a punched-out  noise as Benedict elbowed him.

“Sister, she - “

“She’s dead?!” Colin cried.

“No!” Daphne growled, irritated. “She’s just...in pain. Mama and Papa sent for doctors.”

“Goodness, how serious is this cold? - Anthony, wait!”

Anthony didn’t hear Benedict’s call. How could he over the thumping of his racing heartbeat? He ran upstairs like the devil was on his tail, and even then he felt like he was too slow. He paused at her door, psyching himself to open it. If he went in, what would he see? He raised his trembling hands, the complaints of his siblings nothing but a faint echo.

The doors burst open and out came two elderly men and one woman. The siblings crowded around them. Anthony could only hear snippets as he zeroed in on you. Mama was kneeling beside his twin’s bed, holding her daughter’s hand tight to her chest.

“The young miss will be fine -”

“We expect her fever to break -”

“Dear.” Anthony jumped, startled. The woman accompanying the doctors addressed him. “Are you okay?”

“My - my twin sister, will she be alright?”

“Twin, huh. That’s why you’re so distraught. Well all of you are but you in particular,” she shook her head and smiled. “Your sister is strong. She will be fine. You can go in. I’m sure she’ll be glad for your company.”

She need not say it twice. Anthony ran into the room.

“Sister.”

“Tony.”

He felt like he could breathe again.

vii. rewrite an ending or two

“Are you sure you don’t want to get up here? We shared a bed when we were little. And when we grew, sometimes.” she paused, thinking about her statement. “Often.” his twin amended.

Anthony hummed when she stopped running her hands through his hair. “No.”

“The ground is cold, Tony. You might get sick.”

“How could I? You already took all the sick with you.” Anthony grumbled. “I’m fine, sister.”

“If you say so.”

“How about you?” Anthony asked. 

“Hmm?” she smiled. Facing down and in the darkness, Anthony couldn’t have seen it but he felt it. “I believe I will be.”

viii. she is gone, but she used to be mine

 It was a miserable day in spring when the eldest Bridgerton was buried.

ix. most days i don’t recognize me 

“She…” Anthony clenched his jaw.

“Are you ever going to finish that sentence?” Siena asked, smiling until she noticed how tense he was. She reached out to touch his arm, inquiring, “My lord, are you alright?”

Anthony sniffed and quickly stood up, hastily picking up his clothes. “Yes, fine.” he answered, hopping on one foot to put his shoes on. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Siena asked. Anthony barely spared a glance at her, pausing shortly halfway out the door. He checked his watch, eyes glazing over for a moment.

“I need - I’m needed. At home.” With that, he briskly walked outside and into his carriage. It was today. He must’ve forgotten. How could he have forgotten? But he also ‘forgot’ the other years. The grief consumed him on this particular day. It was always a sore reminder that he was missing his other half. So instead of going to her grave, he went drinking. Instead of spending the day with her in his mind, he spent it with his cock inside somebody. Anthony spent so much time forgetting but now it’s as if her ghost had come to haunt him. Every memory had come rushing back, especially the day she died.

He remembered the night before. The doctors had told them she would be better. She told him she would be better. But he needed to stay close to her. Anthony fell asleep with her hand in his hair. Then he woke up to her eyes open but her breath was gone. He had never screamed so loud in his life.

Anthony remembered their parents barging into the room, Mama taking a step back looking as if she was seconds away from fainting. Then she saw her son on the floor and immediately enveloped him in her arms. He woke up in a bed sometime during the night. He woke up convinced it was all a dream but that promptly shattered when all his siblings (all except one) filed into the room in their sleepwear. Their eyes were swollen and wet. And it stayed that way until her funeral, and even some more after that.

The carriage stopped. Anthony got out and stopped at the gate. He knew Mama held some kind of family gathering during this day. What they did in the gathering, he had no idea. He never stayed long enough to attend. But today was different, somehow. 

He padded softly into the drawing room. A quick glance noted him of all his siblings’ presence. Francesca was playing a familiar tune. Colin was singing in a low tone. Benedict, Eloise, and Daphne were all sitting on one couch, leaning against each other. The youngest ones sat on the floor, trying to follow the lyrics Colin sang. Mama was sewing. The melancholy vibe was replaced with a startled one. Francesca stopped playing and Colin stopped singing. Mama dropped what she was holding and walked towards him, arms open.

Anthony crumbled. “Mama -”

x. for the girl that i knew

“Mama what do you think about love?” It was indeed a bleak day in spring. Everybody had left after the service but Anthony chose to stay, lingering.

“Anthony I -” Violet began.

“Why does it hurt so much?” he whirled around, uncaring as tears and snot fell messily down his tired face. “I feel as if someone carved an unfillable hole inside me. Like every breath I take is not right. Half of me is buried six feet underground, mama. How can I bear it?”

Anthony curled into himself as Mama enveloped him into her arms. “One day at a time, dearest. You have us still.” she whispered. “One day at a time.”

[fin.]

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (3)

(c!technoblade x fem!reader)

(some people liked chapter 2 so here’s chapter 3. whether or not there’s a chapter 4 is dependent on if this one gets any comments/reblogs.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You’re not exactly sure when your plans for a house shifted from ‘maybe a two story house’ into ‘some kinda roman temple/shrine type building’ instead. 

Probably after the third time you had to tear down what you were building because it just didn’t look right. You’d initially not been able to go anywhere with the white quartz (you’d made a base but it looked stupid so you’d tossed it) so you’d switched it with a birch wood. That was where the problems started. First you’d tried your hand at making a cute little cottagecore house, but it just didn’t look cute to you and instead came out kinda frumpy? So you scrapped it, even though it pained you. 

“Hours wasted.”

Then you tried making another house, this one taller and with dark wood. But it ended up looking like some kind of Viking home, no matter how much you tweaked it, which totally clashed with the vibrant floral scenery around you. It would work better in a snowy biome. So you’d scrapped that one too, none too happy either.

“Why do I suck?”

Then you’d tried your hand at making a cute mushroom house! But…. it was awful. No matter what you did it just didn’t look right?? You tried making the stem ‘natural’ like it would look in minecraft but then it looked too artificial to you. Then you tried making it look more normal but then it just ended up looking wonky. Long story short.. you hated it. You scrapped it, maybe a little more angry than the previous two times. That was when you’d gone back to the white quartz blocks.

And you started with a huge square, then that sorta morphed into a circle. Or as ‘circular’ as this world’s building blocks could get. Then it just sorta.. went from there? Before you knew it you had a circular white temple/shrine with a domed and tiered ceiling and four tall stained glass windows with star and sky designs. You’d gotten into the construction as it had begun to be more fun. You’d even hung lanterns by chains from the ceiling in symmetrical points and it gave the whole place a nice vibe you think. Especially when it started raining outside.

Once it was all done to your satisfaction you just sat in the middle of the quartz floor and gazed up at the gently swaying lanterns. You’re glad you’d ended up with this place, it looks pretty and has a calm vibe you can resonate with. 

It would be dawn soon so you decided since you were done you’d go to bed since you had nothing else to do at the moment. Or well that had been the plan until you placed down your bed and couldn’t help but notice how utterly ridiculous a single bed in the corner of this huge temple looked. It actually made you snort before deciding then and there you needed a bed that somewhat matched the temple aesthetic you guessed you were going for now.

-0-

You ended up making this huge canopy bed with curtains and a platform you had to walk up a step to get to the three beds you’d put on it to look right. Under normal circumstances you’d not like such an overly lavish bed but it certainly fit the almost regal aesthetic your new temple home had. Which was just fine you supposed, it’s not like you were opposed to it. Just not what you’d planned to do from the get go.

Only problem now was.. the place still looked weirdly empty of life. Like one of those barren ‘minimalism’ nightmare homes rich people get off to. So you went through the inventory and started looking for stuff to decorate with. On the wall to the left of the entrance you set up an area for a brewing stand and cauldron as well as an ender chest, mostly just because it looked cool with the purple particles. You also hung up some item frames on the wall by the quartz counters you set up and picked out a bunch of pretty colored potions to hang in them.

Then on the opposite wall you made a little library with an alcove in the middle for an enchantment table. With a lantern on top of the bookshelf next to the crafting table and clay pots of flowers on the uppermost bookshelves to give the area a nicer look. You even added some fluffy carpet in front of the area to enhance the comfiness. And when you went over to the front door and then turned to look at the whole space you smiled because it really did look good. Larger than you’d intended, sure, but also very comfy now too.

You think you’re done with the inside until you look up at the bare walls between the stained glass windows. They were a little… naked. So you tried hanging up some paintings but… they looked terrible. The ‘round’ angle of the windows kept the options for what paintings you could put up pretty narrow. So you forgot that idea and instead tried putting up item frames! But you put some up and disliked it almost immediately. It felt way too busy so you got rid of those too. 

You were getting tired of decorating so you just grabbed a random banner (purple because why not?) and then you grabbed a handful of different colored dyes before pulling out a loom. You tried a bunch of different designs, threw out most of them because they either ended up with ugly clashing colors or looking way too busy. But you finally settled on one that was a purple banner with an orange gradient coming up from the bottom and finally a gold sun right in the middle. It looked very pretty, like a sunset!

Once you were happy you hung a couple inside then on a whim you even hung a couple outside your door on either side. It made the outside look prettier in your opinion so once you were done (for real this time) you went and just flopped into bed, not feeling more than a touch tired but with nothing else to do at the moment. So you snuggled into your big cozy bed and drifted off to sleep~

-0-

Days passed since you built your home and you kept up work around the village, planting bamboo and berry bushes in a wall around it in a circle as a form of defense against the Illagers. They were kinda jerks and seemed to only want to kill villagers. Which wasn’t cool. And yeah you could have dug a moat or pit around it instead you guessed but you didn’t want any of the villagers falling in and you felt like they would… 

So a wall of bamboo and prickly berry bushes it was. And it works! And looks dope. So win/win.

And it was as you were on your way to put some lights at the bottoms of the ponds and rivers that you noticed it from the corner of your eye. One of your sunset banners! But it was hanging up outside of the weaponsmith’s place instead of on your temple home where you knew you left it. But then you noticed another one hanging up outside the stonemason’s workshop…

You look over at your home up on the hill and see your banners still in place. And you know none of them trudged all the way up there just to steal one from the inside so you decide to investigate more in the village. And the further you walk in the more banners with your pattern on them you see. Actually every building you pass has at least one hung up somewhere near the door. You blinked before chuckling a little and thinking to yourself,

‘Oh! They all must have seen the banner I made and liked it! So they made their own to hang up. That’s actually pretty cute. I’m glad they like it.’

You were blissfully ignorant to the fact that the villagers have started to see you as their saint of sorts. Their goddess of prosperity and kindness. Without whom they would still be lost and living in pathetic huts and with no drive to acquire a skill and better themselves. They honestly look back on those times as such a dark period of their lives. When they were ignorant of their own abilities without your blessing to guide them. They owed you their lives and they wanted to show their thanks to you.

So when they saw you put up your sunset banners on your temple they quickly went to the shepherd and asked him to make them some just like it! And the shepherd, with his skill being a master thanks to your wonderful trading help, was easily able to craft such banners. Every villager had at least one by the time the sun was going down, all of them proudly being hung on the outsides of their homes and work buildings to show their allegiance to you!

But it wouldn’t stop there. The villagers wanted to give back even a fraction of what you have given to them.

-0-

In the following weeks you definitely noticed the villagers acting… odd. It started small at first, with them each coming to you and giving you gifts. The shepherd gave you a pair of blankets that were beautifully crocheted with this fluffy wool yarn, one that’d been dyed a soft baby pink while the other was a soothing sea foam color. You thanked him with a smile three times over and he seemed endlessly happy you liked them. You took them home and laid them across your bed and liked the pop of color they provided your space.

Though after that the farmer and leatherworker both met you at the entrance to your temple and each gifted you some things they thought you’d like. The farmer happily handed over a full basket of freshly baked bread along with another basket containing a bushel of golden carrots and almost a full melon’s worth of glistering melon slices. While the leatherworker offered up a pair of dainty leather sandals that looked like they would lace up your legs to just below your knees. And also what looked like a prettily crafted leather utility belt! It had lotus details and golden studs and buckles on the front and back. And one large pocket, one medium zipper pocket, and two smaller pockets. You loved all of their gifts and thanked them both over and over while safely putting the food away (and maybe eating some bread right then) and putting the slippers and belt on. 

You were beyond grateful and thought that was the end of that.

You… were wrong.

-0-

As the days turned into weeks you were lavished with more and more offerings. It took you a while to realize that’s what they were; offerings. You got a little uncomfortable with all the gifts after a bit but when you started to refuse them the villagers looked so sad so you began to accept them again. Especially after they tried to make ‘better’ stuff for you after your initial refusal, under the impression the last ones weren’t good enough for you or something. It started to get hard to take in all the gifts, because sometimes you weren’t available in the village (you still liked to explore) or because you were working on something and they couldn’t reach you. So as a solution you set up a double chest outside your temple for them to put the gifts in. 

They eagerly adapted to that and each night you’d clean out the chest, putting away practical gifts and discreetly getting rid of ones you had WAY too many of. Like the food. You had a full double chest of food and you didn’t need anymore, but saying so would probably hurt their feelings. So this was the easiest way. Plus a lot of the gifts you actually DID like. Like the sandals, hip pocket belt, and the pretty white dress you were currently wearing. The under part of it was just a simple white sleeveless mini dress that went above your knees (you’re not sure it was that shirt when you first tried it on..) and the over part of the dress was a sheer white maxi dress with loose ruffled sleeved that hung off your shoulders, and a slit on each side that helped with ease of movement.

You’d taken to wearing the dress, the hip pocket belt, and sandals every day. They were all comfortable and looked pretty good on you now that you think about it. Not to mention the fabric was light and breathable too, which helped keep you from getting too hot. You’re not sure what kind of fabric it’s made of, but whatever it is it’s light enough to not make you sweat but it’s also heavy enough to keep you from getting cold when it’s windy. Regardless, it’s your go-to outfit these days.

But aside from the offerings and stuff, you had to sit down and really examine your current position. You really took the time to pay attention to how the villagers were treating you. And you eventually came to the conclusion that they were treating you like some kind of saint or deity. They gave you the best of their wares as offerings, they took on your banner as their own (presumably as a show of loyalty), and they almost seemed to worship the ground you walked on. This isn’t even mentioning the statues that they’d put up of you… Like, they were good! Very well done and made of polished white quartz but.. it was still strange. Though like everything else you can’t say you weren’t getting used to it all.

You sighed and rolled with it. 

-0-

You realized one day you’d never been to the Nether. And you wondered if the rules here (like mobs not bothering you) was also true there? You couldn’t deny you were sorta excited to go see, but also scared. You HATED the freaking Hoglins when you played Minecraft before this place. They were always so aggressive and you can’t count how many times they’d killed you, the bastards. But your curiosity won out over your anxiety so you grabbed the enchanted diamond pickaxe you’d been given and then paused while grabbing a stack of gold bars.

“Wait I need to wear gold right? Or the Piglins will be all mad,” you said as you grabbed a gold helmet from your inventory.

You thoughtlessly went to put it on but jerked the helmet back when it clanged against something hard. Something hard that made you wince as a small shock of pain went through your skull. A curse left your lips as you asked out loud what the fuck THAT was about. You were in the middle of trying to come up with an explanation when you reached up with your free hand and flinched when it came into contact with something on your head. Something that 200% was NOT your hair or skull. Panic bubbled inside you and your stomach sank into your feet as you whipped the gold helmet up to look into its polished surface to see yourself.

Horns? Little blunt horns… On your head. 

With a shaky hand you reached up, sort of hoping this was just a dream. But when your fingertips brushed against the soft velvety texture of the horns your breathing grew faster and you pulled your hand away like you’d been burned. You dropped the helmet, not even hearing it clatter against the floor as you stumbled back, nearly tripping over the step that led up to the platform your bed was on, but you somehow managed to get to the bed and sit down.

Before you knew it you’d burst into tears and buried your face into your hands, sobbing and unable to cope with this new fuckery. 

You’ve had to deal with so much weird insane shit since ending up here, wherever the fuck HERE was. You were honestly so tired. You’ve done your best to stay calm, stay sane, and just keep going. And for the most part you have! You focused on surviving, building, and dealing with the villagers. You’d probably feel silly for breaking down over some dumb horns later, especially after you’d barely batted an eye over your weird ears, teeth, and EYES. But the breakdown was probably more to do with life deciding to give you another slice of bullshit despite your overflowing plate. At least that’s what the logical part of your mind was thinking.

But the illogical part, the emotional part, was just so done. So you cried and cried and cried your very soul out until no sound was leaving you anymore. And then, once you were cried out and exhausted you weakly crawled onto the pillows and just passed out. 

You’d deal with this new shit later.

-0-

Far on the outskirts of the opposite side of the village from your temple a young boy with golden hair stumbled across the entrance to said village. 

He’d never seen this village before and was curious. He’d have gladly stormed in and started going through villager chests for loot but it was getting close to dusk and his older brother said he needed to get back asap. Now usually he’d shrug off his brother’s bossy nature but he’d sounded worried so he decided to hurry and get back before it got too late.

But before he turned and left he marked down this village’s coordinates so he could get back to it later..

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

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[oreoambitions]

Would love to see supercorp “I’ve never been festive”! Glad to see you back on my dashboard!

The thing about Lena, Kara thinks to herself as she strolls down Main Street with her hands shoved in her pockets, is that she wants to seem tough. That's the problem in a nutshell. And anyone else here in Midvale would tell you that it's just a city thing, that all the city kids want to seem tough, that Lena is no exception, but Kara doesn't think that's true. Well, okay, she knows it's true. But with Lena, it's something else. Something deeper. Something maybe related to the way that Lena has withdrawn into herself day by day as Midvale has begun to dress itself up for the holidays.

But Kara can do I'm-so-tough. She can do I-hate-Christmas, and she can do I-don't-believe-in-fun because at this time of the year she can do anything and get through to anyone. A little bit of light, a little bit of magic... maybe a little bit of love. That's how Christmas goes, right? Especially in a place like Midvale.

Kara likes to think of Midvale as a postcard town: the kind of town folks are only ever passing through on their way up and down the coast, a scenic detour, a cozy place to spend the night or just the afternoon before you move along. It's a place where time seems to have come to a standstill or at least a crawl, where it was a big deal when the first (and only) Starbucks opened, where nothing at all is open after 8pm, and you'd be hard pressed to run any errands on a Sunday, and you'd better not let Mrs. Nal catch you doing anything untoward or you can expect you'll be the topic of every conversation in or out of church for the next week or so at least. Kara would know; she's been the talk of the town on more than one occasion.

But these last several weeks the talk of the town has been the young woman who pulled up one evening in a car worth probably more than every vehicle on Main Street put together and strolled into the aforementioned Starbucks in a beat up hoodie sporting red rimmed eyes and trembling hands to ask the barista whether possibly anyone had a spare phone cable. She didn't want to bother anyone, only she'd left Metropolis in a hurry and forgotten hers and without GPS she didn't have any idea where she might stop to purchase one. She'd slid a hundred dollar bill across the counter as payment for the manager's beat up old charger and rolled right back out of town before anyone could tell her just how far from home she was.

Only then she'd rolled back into town some six hours later and booked herself into the bed and breakfast. And then she hadn't left.

The Danvers have assured Kara that in all the years Eliza and Jeremiah have run the bed and breakfast, and all the years Jeremiah's parents ran it before that, stretching back all the dusty decades since Midvale was founded, they have never had a longterm guest, no sir. It has simply never happened before. Kara doubts the veracity of such a statement but it has been delivered to her with all the solemn weight of sacred fact, and so she's taken it in stride - something which Alex seems to have found suspicious. And, true, on another occasion Kara might have been found elbow deep in records on a personal mission to prove that Jeremiah has pulled this particular historical "factoid" from some place the sun don't shine, but, well, she's been a little distracted these past weeks. Distracted by sad green eyes and coy smiles and the overwhelmingly mysterious circumstances that have delivered Lena directly into Kara's home.

Unfortunately Eliza has strictly forbidden Kara from asking the hundred and one questions perpetually on the tip of her tongue, and Kara's objections that she's twenty four now and she'll ask her questions if she so pleases haven't actually outweighed the sense that, at least where Eliza is concerned, she ought to do as she's told. So she's restrained herself. And as the weeks have gone by, she and Lena have fallen into an amicable, if not entirely comfortable, routine.

Kara serves Lena breakfast in the dining room with the other guests at precisely 8:15 every morning: two poached eggs with avocado on a thick slice of Winn's sourdough bread, a cup of coffee (black, diluted with hot water), and a side of roasted vegetables (no potatoes). Every morning Lena invites Kara to join her at the table, though Kara only does so when there are no other guests around to serve. They eat - together or not - in a silence broken only by small talk and the occasional lingering gaze when one catches the other looking until, at precisely 9:15, Lena excuses herself to seek out Eliza and enquire after the availability of another night's lodging. She pays in cash, one day at a time, without fail. She and Kara see one another again on the stairs, Kara on her way out to work a shift at the library and Lena on her way back up to her room. A small smile passes between them, affectionate and familiar, and Kara thinks perhaps... But no, the moment has passed and they've gone their separate ways for another day.

Kara has resolved that this pattern will not repeat itself again. Not now, not when Midvale is draped in heavy golds and greens, when the smell of Christmas pastry is wafting through the streets, when the trickle of seasonal tourists is threatening to become a thunder which will by necessity pry Kara's attention away. Not now when Lena is withdrawing further and further, when those lingering glances at breakfast seem to be few and far between, and it seems the onslaught of Christmas cheer is threatening to drive Lena out of Midvale altogether. If Kara is going to get through to her, today is the day.

She swings into J'onn's diner with a determined expression, sidestepping the younger Arias who has eyes these days only for her iphone and not so much for where she's going. J'onn is predictably behind the counter; Kara isn't sure he's taken a day away from the diner in all the time she's known him.

"I need two to go mugs of Bad Day Danvers Brew," she tells him. "It's urgent."

He plops two large paper cups down onto the counter almost before she's done asking. "I thought your sister was on duty tonight."

"She was. Is. It's not- It's for me."

"I don't suppose this has anything to do with a certain green eyed young lady from out of town."

It's not really a question the way J'onn says it but Kara somehow still feels pressured to answer. She flushes, turns away, scans the room. The dinner rush hasn't quite arrived. J'onn bustles about behind the counter without further comment, though he does arch an accusatory brow when Kara meets his eyes again.

"You do know," he says as he slides the drinks across the counter, "She's going to leave this place. She may not be ready yet, but the day is coming."

Kara frowns at him. "Leave is a four letter word."

"L - e - a -"

"You know what I mean."

"Maybe you should consider it too. Whole world out there waiting for you, Little Danvers. Seems a shame not to go out and see it."

Kara thinks for a moment of this world as she saw it first: a little marble hanging in a black sea, so fragile and small, so far away from home. Midvale is home now, and she'll be damned if she's going to leave it behind. She forces a smile for J'onn's sake.

"I'm right where I'm supposed to be," she says. She tries to pay him for the drinks. As he has a hundred times before, he turns her money away. Kara slips the cash into the tip jar on her way out the door.

When she gets home it's to the smell of apple pies bubbling in the oven and the sound of some old 50's Christmas record playing almost too loud for Jeremiah's battered old bluetooth speaker and hardly loud enough to compete with Jeremiah himself. Kara creeps up the stairs two at a time, one Bad Day Danvers Brew clutched in either hand, quiet quiet quiet. If Eliza catches her she'll try to put her to work and Kara isn't sure she can explain exactly what she means when she says she's too "busy" right now to help out.

She occupies herself with that thought, thinking up excuses for Eliza, each one more improbable than the last, and then she finds herself standing in front of Lena's door. She feels suddenly grimy, foolish, clumsy. What she hasn't considered in all her planning for this moment is that with both hands occupied she can hardly knock on Lena's door, and with her heart pounding an urgent rhythm in her chest and her body trembling with something that is distinctly not fatigue Kara doesn't trust herself to tuck one of the drinks into the crook of her arm.

So she does what any sane person would do: she kicks the door. Gently. As gently as she possibly can, but it still feels brutish and Kara winces as the sound of it tumbles down the hall to clash with Jeremiah's crooning and the roar of the vacuum cleaner in the foyer. Grimy, foolish, clumsy. But then the door swings open and all such thoughts fall from Kara's mind.

She has words picked out for this moment but they don't come to her. Lena stands in the doorway in jeans and a cardigan and socks that have bumble bees on them and Kara feels like she needs just a moment but the moment is already passing. Green eyes search hers, curious, bemused. Kara wants to reach out and tuck that stray lock of hair away, but-

The drinks. Right. "I brought refreshments," she says, proferring the paper cups. "For us," she adds, in case it isn't clear.

Lena reaches out for one of the cups, hesitant, then pries the lid off to take a whiff. "Hot chocolate?"

Kara wants to melt on the spot but she sticks to her guns. "It's special hot chocolate," she clarifies. This is not how this conversation was supposed to go. She had this exchange all planned out, there were contingencies, it was all perfect and here she is muddying it all up. "I was thinking maybe we could go out tonight."

"Like on a date?"

Oh, Rao. Kara's eyes drops to Lena's mouth without her say so and then they travel a little further south to the line of that cardigan and she swallows. "No," she forces out, "like on a walk?"

There's a long pause and then Lena laughs. "You're really very charming, Danvers," she says, and Kara feels an unexpected thrill at the sound of her last name in Lena's mouth. "Let me just get my sweater."

"You're already-" Kara starts, but the door clicks shut before she can finish. "Wearing a sweater," she mumbles to herself.

Lena emerges some minutes later, just when Kara is beginning to get fidgety. She's thrown on a hoodie which is perhaps a size too big and a pair of converse rather the worse for wear and Kara isn't sure what she was expecting but it wasn't this. Which is not to say that she doesn't like it. Lena licks her lips and fixes Kara with a pointed look.

"There is whisky in that hot chocolate," she says.

Kara shrugs. "I did say it was special."

They make it down the stairs and out of the bed and breakfast without Eliza noticing, though Kara is all but certain Jeremiah saw them leave together and will have Questions with a capital Q about it later. The sun is just now sinking below the horizon as the two of them turn down Main Street, ducking around Mr. Schott who is occupying most of the sidewalk with a rickety old ladder in an attempt to install another strand of lights above the toy store window. Already the street lamps bear oversized red bows and long, heavy pine garlands, and it will be only a matter of days now before every storefront from here to the edge of town is bright and warm and magical. Kara takes it all in with a growing smile. Lena takes it in with an expression that borders on an outright scowl.

"So are we going anywhere in particular?" Lena asks. They duck around a knot of visitors asking after a table at the brewery and for an instant Kara is almost certain she feels Lena's fingers brush hers.

"We are," Kara admits. And then, because she doesn't want to give away their destination, she adds, "You don't like Christmas."

Lena grimaces and takes a long sip of the Bad Day Danvers Brew. "I wouldn't say that I don't like Christmas."

"But?"

"But I've never been festive. And this year..."

Kara's mind fills in the words that Lena doesn't say: This year it's hard. Hard to see the joy and the magic and the laughter all around when you're alone and far from home. Well, Kara knows a thing or two about that. She takes a sip of her own drink and, resolutely, carefully, looking straight ahead, she reaches out to touch Lena's hand, so gentle it could have been an accident.

"This year you have me," Kara says. She's shocked the line comes out of her mouth as smoothly as it does. Her heart is so far up her throat she almost fears she'll choke on it.

Lena steps in closer until Kara swears she can feel the heat radiating between them even through both of Lena's sweaters and her own Christmas flannel. They walk in silence for a block or so, shoulders bumping once in a while, before Lena asks, "Do you have any favorite holiday traditions?"

Kara shrugs. "I like the carols. Jeremiah and I always go out caroling on Christmas eve. Oh! And the cookies. Pie for breakfast on Christmas morning."

Lena laughs at that. "Pie for breakfast? Lilian - my step mother - she'd have a fit."

"Well you can have pie with us this year if you want; I promise not to tell Lilian a thing. If you're still hanging around."

Lena looks at her sharply and then looks away, leaving Kara to feel silent and small and a little rejected. But Lena touches Kara's wrist as they move through the crowd and then, when Kara doesn't pull away, she takes her hand.

"Christmas is always an important social event for my family," Lena says. She glances at Kara as if to check that she's listening and then away again so quickly that Kara almost wonders if she imagined it. "Everything has to be perfect. The food, the decorations, the music. The family. And it's beautiful, really. Imagine a pine tree towering up to the very rafters, all the ornaments carefully curated and arranged, and a cellist flown in from Italy perches in the corner playing O Come Emmanuel while the city's elite pass through pretending to enjoy bite sized Christmas pastries prepared overnight by a team flown in from France. I suspect it would feel magical if it weren't so much work. It's hard to enjoy the magic when you're a part of it. Especially as a child."

Kara frowns. Her fingers tighten around Lena's, tugging her ever forward towards the Christmas tree in the center of town. She's thinking of Krpyton, of a perfect family, a perfect people, and a perfect world crumbling under the veneer. But she can't say that to Lena, so she flashes her a bright smile instead and says, "In Midvale, everyone who wants to gets to put an ornament on the town tree."

"Everyone? That doesn't seem practical. There have to be, what, at least a thousand people living here."

Kara nods. "Yeah. Not everyone participates, but most people. And of course that means the tree isn't curated like your family's, but it's got a special kind of magic to it. The kind you get when you aren't trying to make magic follow the rules."

It occurs to Kara that there is a sort of comedic timing to this, as this is the moment Kara steps over the low fence with the sign that reads "do not walk on the grass" and tugs a protesting Lena after into the shade - or, in this case, the light - of the Midvale tree.

"Rules," Lena is saying, "Generally exist for a reason, and when you break them willy nilly you don't get magic, you get chaos. It's important to- Wait, is this your Christmas tree?"

"Yep," Kara says. She reaches out to press a hand to the trunk and then stares up at the tiny golden lights wound among the branches with care, ornaments dangling here and there, some homemade and some not. She's definitely not supposed to get this close to it but, well, it's Alex on duty tonight and she doubts her sister is about to arrest her for trying to make a move on a pretty girl. "This is the one."

"But it's an oak tree," Lena observes. She steps up beside Kara to touch the trunk.

"Couple hundred years old, or so they told us in middle school," Kara says. "She's a gorgeous tree, isn't she? Not a pine and not perfect, but. Our own kind of magic." Then she grimaces. "Sorry; I'm being terribly cheesy right-"

"Did you know that mistletoe often grows in the California oak?" Lena interrupts.

Kara falters. She did know that, but this tree is carefully tended. No mistletoe here. She opens her mouth to say so when Lena holds up a finger to stop her again.

"To be perfectly clear I'm suggesting that we kiss here under this tree. Because you're charming and a little over the top and I hate that I love your Christmas flannel and I would very much like to have pie with you on Christmas morning. So if you'd like we can pretend there's mistletoe in the Midvale Christmas tree. It would be a very reasonable mistake; mistletoe really does grow on-"

Kara kisses her. The surprised gasp that falls from Lena's lips almost makes her laugh, but this is a serious moment so she tries to keep it in. She's got only one hand to work with - the other is still hold her Bad Day Danvers Brew - so she slides it around Lena's waist to pull her closer, and it's her turn to gasp when Lena tilts her head to slide her tongue along Kara's bottom lip.

Someone on the sidewalk cheers, and that is when Lena drops her drink. And then they do laugh together there under the tree, spiked hot chocolate splattered over the bottom of Lena's pants, Kara pressing her own drink into Lena's hands, and the sound of Mrs. Nal nearby screeching about public indecency while James tells her to go suck an egg. The two of them will be the talk of the town for weeks. Certainly through New Years. Kara doesn't think she minds.

///

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating; Happy Holidays and a lovely morning to everyone who is not! Thank you for this prompt! I expected to write a quick 800 words but it got away from me and took all month.

[wavesmp3]

[ksw] clouds

sunwoo x reader

wc. 5k warnings: medical inaccuracies, death, illness, hospitals, overall just a pretty heavy piece genre can only be described as an absolute mess inspired mainly by san junipero but also slightly by charlie kaufman and wong kar wai

a/n: this is supposed to be told nonlinearly but like the creation of it was very messy so i have no clue if it actually worked, so good luck trying to make this piece make sense of this :) 

act iii. scene iii.

Sunwoo sits and watches the sun shift from pink and blue to an impossible shade of green. And it’s then he knows that without a doubt Clara has ruined the color green for him. Because instead of marveling at the color of the sky, Sunwoo is reminded of the doors in her apartment building.

“Thought I might find you here.” The voice of a stranger who Sunwoo loved once upon a time says behind him. He tries like hell not to turn around. Not to lean back towards the voice and wait for your hand on his shoulder or your shin knocking familiarly against his back. He focuses on the waves crashing below instead. The roar of the water beneath him is deafening, but only if you let it be. He does, and he almost forgets that you’re behind him.

“Where’d you go?” You ask, now sitting next to him, tugging at the long grass. 

“I’m right here.”

“And what about in there?” You bring a finger up and poke at the side of his forehead. 

He turns to you, facing you in full. He takes in your features like it’s the first time all over again. And, oh, he wishes he knew before how many firsts you already had together. This is just another. This is just the first time he’s seen you in the past six months and remembered the thousands of times he’s seen your face before. 

He studied your cheeks. The one he now recalls running the back of his palm over after you left for the Cloud. 

He memorizes, for the millionth time, your eyes. He used to swear they were darker than they are, but then he saw them in the sun. He was dying back then; then he saw your eyes and you saved him. Just like that. 

Mr. Choi was right of course. As he always must be. You and him are like an old married couple. Not like. You are. Almost were. 

“I had lunch with Mr. Choi today.” He tells you. 

You squint at him. “I know. It’s Thursday.” You pull out a piece of the grass. “What’d he make?”

“Ramen.”

“Was it good?”

“It was okay.”

“Too spicy?”

Suwnoo answers with a sigh, looking away from you and back towards the water. The deafening waves crash against the cliffside. “I know you looked at your file.” He finally says. You stop pulling at the grass. You still. “Mr. Choi told me.”

After he says it, there’s a silence that isn’t actually silent at all. The waves rage below his feet. The seagulls are there too, beneath, above, somewhere, everywhere. And then, of course, there’s you and Sunwoo, trying to be silent over the static in your heads and the machines you’re hooked up to in a universe far far away. 

“Did he tell you about my file?”

He looks at you again. “No.”

“Oh.” You look away, brows furrowed, lick your lips, and then turn back to him. “So why are you upset?”

“After he told me, I went and I…”

“You didn’t.”

“I looked at mine.”

There’s another silence, except that this time it really is quiet. Sunwoo read once whilst in a rabbit hole of medical research that true silence only happens in a vacuum, where there is no medium for sound waves to travel through. This must be that. This place, the files, Mr. Choi and Mr. Chan, Clara and her apartment building full of green doors--it’s a vacuum. And they stick people in it then call it the Cloud. They call it extra time. But it isn’t. It’s nothing and he’s stuck in the middle of it. So Sunwo stares at you, straight through the vacuum of time and space you’re both lost in, waits for you to say something, and then waits for himself to hear it. 

“You looked?” You finally say, voice folding in on itself. 

“Yes.” Sunwoo’s own voice is barely there. You must be reading his lips which you’ve always been good at anyways. 

“So you know now?” 

“I always knew, and now, I remember.”

act i. scene iv.

There’s been an accident. 

That’s what they say when the sun falls out of the sky and the world starts spinning in the wrong direction. It’s how they show up at Sunwoo’s door painted in shades of blue and red, with authority in their arms and hands on their hips. How they prepare him for the looming moment where they rip past his skin, blood, bone to shoot a gun straight at his heart. I’m so sorry for your loss, they say leaving him with a bullet lodged somewhere between his left and right atrium. 

And those are the four words that play over and over and over in Sunwoo’s head as he gets to the hospital. Those are the words that crawl inside his open chest and turn him blue and black with infection. There’s been an accident, he remembers, staring at the extraordinary measures taken to keep your heart beating and lungs beating. This is it. Except that the accident isn’t that you’re dying, but that you’re dying. It’s always supposed to have been him. He’s supposed to be the one stuffed with tubes and hooked up to monitors, the one whose life is hanging on by a thread, and you’re supposed to be the one that saves him. It all feels like a play that’s gone horribly wrong because everyone switched parts after intermission without telling him. At what point did you steal the role of dying protagonist from him? 

We did everything we could, a stranger in a white coat says. Except that it’s not some stranger, it’s your colleague and co-worker because this is the hospital you work at and the hospital Sunwoo met you in. There was too much damage to the brain, they explain as the image of their tear-stricken face goes from your friend during intern year to the doctor who operated on you as your brain went dead. 

“We have two options, right?” Sunwoo is far too familiar with surgery and all this. He knows from his hospital days what’s supposed to happen next. But apparently, things have changed since then. 

“Actually, there’s a third option.”

Sunwoo doesn’t waste a second. He jumps out of the chair stained red from his bleeding heart and asks: “What is it?”

“We can upload them.”

act iii. scene ii.

In fifty days of living in the cloud, Sunwoo has learned all about the people that he shares a building with. There’s Mr. Chan who lives behind a vomit green on the same floor as him and who hasn’t left his room since last January. There’s also Mr. Choi, who lives behind the emerald door and invites Suwoo over for lunch every Thursday. Clara lives upstairs, where the walls are painted in various shades of green--olive, seaweed, moss, hunter, shamrock, sage, and others that Sunwoo tries not to think too deeply about. He’s only met Clara once in the past fifty days and has no particular wish to see her again. He hadn’t expected her to be a kid. Cancer, you told him after their introduction in the lobby, poor girl was only seven. As said before, Sunwoo tries not to think about it. 

And then of course there’s you behind the forest green door who has been slowly showing him all the good places. There’s the beach where you spent the day making seashell necklaces. The  cafe which serves its tea too sweet for him, but sweet enough to be considered your favorite. Sunwoo just gets the chocolate bread. You took him downtown. To a club. The tallest building. And to midtown where the amusement park is. 

But his favorite place you’ve taken him so far is the cliffside above the beach, where the waves crash against the rocks in a way that can only be described as violent. That day you and him laid in the grass and stared at the clouds with your heads dangling just over the edge and water spraying the backs of your necks. That day you turned to him and told him you’re sorry. For what, he asked. I’m so sorry you’re sick, you said, but it’s nice to have you around here. I think in a sense, we’ve both been waiting for this. Then, you smiled and stole all of the blood from his body. So yeah, that day, that place--it’s his favorite. 

Today, you take him on a hike up a mountain. 

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” You ask him after having spent thirty minutes silently staring at the view from the best peak. 

“One after this?”

“Yeah. I guess. Although, I’m not so convinced this counts.”

“I don’t know.” Sunwoo shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Do you think we’d be able to be with our loved ones in it?”

His chest lurches. “If there is one, yes.”

“Do you think it’ll be different than this?”

Sunwoo turns to you finally. “Why are you asking about this?”

You shake your head. “Nevermind. It’s a stupid question.”

He turns back towards the view. From here, he can make out Clara’s building. He thinks about her, about Mr. Choi and Mr. Chan, who he recently found out were once married but who haven’t spoken since Mr. Chan read his file in January, and he thinks about you and about him. 

“I think,” Sunwoo says, loud enough so that you can hear after wandering a little bit away from him, “that whatever the afterlife is, if it does exist, it’ll be worth it.”

You turn to him, but don’t make any move to come near him again. “And if it doesn’t exist?”

“Then life will have been worth it.”

The corner of your lip lifts. “I like that.”

Sunwoo only nods at the sentiment, and after a long while, he builds enough courage to ask, “you’ve been here a really long time, haven’t you?”

“Time doesn't work as linearly in the cloud as it does in the real world. Sometimes it feels like I got here and then you arrived the very next day.” You turn back towards the view and exhale heavily. 

“But yes. I’ve been here for an eternity.”

act ii. scene i.

Before he actually sees you, Sunwoo feels you. Not you, in particular, but something in the distance, a presence in the corner of the room and a pair of eyes watching him from somewhere far away. 

The scariest part is how much the feeling doesn’t actually scare him. 

--

Two days after that, he starts to see you in the flesh. He tells himself that his mind is playing tricks on him, that the person he saw in the produce aisle wasn’t actually you at all and was just a stranger with the same hair. 

He doesn’t go straight home from the store that day. Instead, he stops by the hospital and checks in on you, but even that doesn’t do anything about the fact that he sees a shadow of you behind the bed.

--

The day after that, you speak to him. Standing in the middle of his kitchen in broad daylight, you speak, you say hello, and the first thing Sunwoo thinks is that he’s dead. 

You aren’t, you reply. You’re a zombie, he reasons, here for my brain. I’m not. A ghost. No. Are you, here Sunwoo falters, fear flooding out of his body to make room for the briefest blotch of hope that’s crushed almost immediately by you saying: I’m not alive, Sunwoo. You saw me in the hospital yesterday. 

“So then,” he swallows, “what are you?”

I’m here. You look at him, stare at his face and without a sliver of doubt say, I’m here for you. 

Sunwoo knows it’s impossible. You can’t be here. You can’t. And yet, you are. 

Three years ago Sunwoo was told he had three months left to live, and he still remembers how impossibly you saved him from the brink of death. He remembers how impossible things happen all the time, and how impossibly possible it is that this is one of them. He steps towards you, touches your face, and feels the real, impossible thing against his hand. 

“You’re here.”

--

On the fifth day of your haunting, Sunwoo finally has the sense to ask why. 

Why what?

“Why are you here?”

I’m here for you.

“Stop saying that.”

But I am, you tell him. You asked, and that’s the answer. I’m a doctor, Sunwoo. I’m here for you. 

Then, finally, he hears what you’ve been saying for the past five days. You’re here for him. 

And the thing about doctors is that they’re there for you when you need them. 

“I’m sick.” 

Yes, you answer quietly, although it wasn’t a question. 

“Again.” 

I’m so sorry. 

“You’re a hallucination, aren’t you?” Sunwoo’s shocked by how sad that makes him, how disappointing it is. “I’ve been hallucinating.”

Find me in the Cloud, Sunwoo. There’s something I want to say. 

You’re gone by the time he gets to the hospital. 

act iii. scene i.

Sunwoo stares at the hall of green doors, eyes darting from door to door in an attempt to stare down the shades until they confess which one of them is tea green.

“Clara, the landlord, likes colors.” A voice says from behind him. “Every couple of months she repaints all of the doors in different shades of the same one. Before the green, it was yellow.” 

Sunwoo turns around to face you. When your eyes find him, they go blank for the smallest of moments. You give him a look that goes right through him, turning him inside out like you’ve seen the underside of his skin. It irks him. 

“I’m Sunwoo. I’m new.”

You gulp. “You’re here.” He doesn’t know what to make of the statement. Do all people in the cloud act like this? “Why?”

Sunwoo nods, maybe you’re not so weird as much as you just have a weird way of posing questions. “I was told I’m sick.”

“I’m sorry.” You say, frowning like you actually might feel back for him. 

“Have you been here a while then?” You nod. “Can I ask how long?” You shake your head. Sunwoo doesn’t think too much about it. Instead, he returns your earlier question “Why are you here?”

“Brain dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

You ignore it and point to a door down the hall. “I’m forest green. You?”

“Tea green. But I can’t find-” 

You tap the door in front of him. “This one, genius.”

“Oh.” He laughs awkwardly. “Thanks.”

Your mouth parts as if to say something, and your face goes blank again. He feels his skin turning itself inside out because of it. “Have you read your file yet?”

He shakes his head. “I just got here.”

You inhale, softening, and mutter an ‘okay’. You continue down the hall towards your door. Sunwoo is stuck in place. “I can show you around here, if you like. Take you to all the cool places.”

Sunwoo takes you up on it.

A forest green door slams shut down the hallway. 

act i. scene ii.

“Thank you for taking me out of the hospital.” Sunwoo says, exhaling. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a park like this.” 

And it’s true, he really can’t. He’s been sick for so long now, and has been through a multitude of treatment plans and too many surgeries. When you’re sick and have 9 surgeons turn you down after asking them to save your life, you forget the joy of being outside and feeling the sun on your skin. You were the first doctor to agree to the surgery. You’re the only doctor to have ever treated Sunwoo like he wasn’t dying, like he was actually going to live.

“You don’t have to thank me. This is good for me too.” You say, head resting against the park bench and eyes closed. 

Sunwoo inhales, taking in the park with all his senses. A visceral sort of thing you learn to do as often as possible when you’ve been as close to death as frequently as he has. He feels the wood beneath his body and the grass beneath his feet. He feels the light on his skin and the wind pushing against his arms and nose. He listens to the kids screaming at the playground at the bottom of the hill and to the dogs barking within the dog park beside it. He takes all this in, relishes in it for the last time as a dying person. 

You sigh. “One more surgery.” 

“And then I’ll be done with this sickness.” 

You smile. He pretends not to see. “And then you’ll be done.” 

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“Don’t do that.”

“No. Seriously.” 

You smile again, this time at him. Sunwoo doesn’t have to pretend not to see. “I haven’t finished saving it yet.”

He leans back against the bench and closes his eyes. “But you will.” 

You tap on your coffee cup. “Honestly though, you did more work than me.” Sunwoo frowns while you take a sip. “The other nine doctors you called are good doctors, and they made the same judgement call I would have made for any other patient. No sane doctor would have agreed to treat you. But you were the reason I said yes. You had such faith that you were going to live and so much faith that I could do it that I believed you. I might be the one doing the technical saving, but you, Sunwoo, you’re the one who convinced me to do it. You saved yourself.”

He stares at you. The light hits your eyes like it’s finding a way to break through them. In truth, before Sunwoo got sick, he didn’t think he was scared of death, but he is. He’s terrified of it. Sunwoo realized it two weeks after his diagnosis and the day after he was wrongly told he only had three more months left to live. But now, for the first time since he was diagnosed, he doesn't feel so afraid of it. Despite how far he’s come and how close he is to beating this fucking illness, while staring at the light woven through your eyes, Sunwoo thinks he could live with himself if he dropped dead tonight. 

That thought alone, is almost as terrifying as death used to be. 

act iii. scene v.

“I saw your ghost, you know.” It’s the first thing Sunwoo has said to you in over two weeks. “It wasn’t actually you though, was it?” You don’t even bother looking up from your cup of tea. Through the silence, Sunwoo orders a coffee. 

“I didn’t know that.” The coffee turns lukewarm. “It wasn’t me.” You push an uneaten half of chocolate bread towards him. “It’s in your brain this time. Symptoms can include hallucinations.”

“Think you can still save me?” You can’t. If you know that much, you know he’s out of medical miracles, and that this time, he really won’t survive it. But it’s a joke. And you laugh at it.

“Definitely not. I never really liked neurosurgery.”

And all at once, he’s painfully aware of your friend somewhere in the real world that does like it but watched anyways as your brain died before her, split wide open. 

“Anyways, how do you know all of this?” But what Sunwoo really wants to say is brains are killer. Literally. Figuratively. 

“I’ve known since we...“ you hesitate, mouth stuck halfway through a word he can’t place. “After last time, I read your chart and looked at your scans.” Sunwoo nods. He expected as much. He doesn’t ask how you got them. “I’m sorry you're sick again.” You say to him quietly. “I’m sorry you’re dying.”

“I’m sorry you’re dead.” As soon as the words have left his mouth, he regrets them. Because you aren’t. And he knows you too well to think you’d look past the technicality. 

You scoff, shake your head slightly, and with a spiteful smile say, “Can I say it?”

Sunwoo only sighs. “Let’s start over instead.” 

You nod. He pushes the chocolate bread back. 

act iii. scene iv.

Mr. Choi was the one to recommend that Sunwoo give you and himself space. It’s been a month since you and him last spoke, since that moment hovering above the waves after he read his file and after he found out you read yours. He misses you, and has been for so long now. Mr. Choi was wrong. Sunwoo’s standing outside your forest green door to prove it. 

You open the door before he can knock. There’s no shock in your voice when you say his name, like you’ve been waiting for this day, expecting it. 

He looks behind you, at your apartment in Clara’s building that looks just like your apartment in the real world. The same one he cleaned out after you died, still filled with things he gave to your family or donated or took back to his place. He wants to crumble just looking at it again. “Can I come in?”

“It’s only been a month.”

And he knows what you mean by it. Three months is the recommended time off after reading one’s file. To reacclimate, they say, to process. But the insinuation that Sunwoo was supposed to go three months without seeing you makes him feel sick. The insinuation that after a year of being without you in the real world he was supposed to be without you here too, enrages him. Then he remembers how long you’ve been here, and how long you’ve been doing this and feels slightly murderous.

All he says is: “It’s been a lot longer than that for you.”

Your lip twitches. You lock and unlock the open forest green door five times before saying, “Are you sure?”

He nods. You let him in. 

Sunwoo used to imagine what it would be like to meet you again in the Cloud one day. He imagined tears and hugs and kisses. He imagined i love you’s and i hate you’s and i miss you. He imagined the scenario more times than can possibly be considered healthy. But he imagined something. He was waiting for the day. Waiting for this day. But this moment, sitting at your round wood table while you boil water for tea, is nothing like the million different ways he imagined seeing you again. 

And as you set down two mismatched mugs and take the seat across from him, he doesn’t even try to create one of them. “How long has it been since you read your file?”

You watch the steam rise from your tea for a long moment, then stand, grab the sugar and pour a spoonful of it into your tea. You take another spoonful and look at him expectantly. “Want some?” He nods, and you pour the sugar into his. You stir the tea then taste, then cringe, then add more sugar and then ask if he wants it. He refuses. You stir again. Sunwoo watches the whirlpool and waits the eternity it takes you to say: “I read it on my first day.”  

You put the sugar away, satisfied with the tea’s sweetness while Sunwoo marvels at how long you’ve known and how silently you’ve been carrying the knowledge of you and him since he came. And that knowledge is what makes him finally remember one of the reasons he came. “Is there something you want to tell me?” You look up at him when he asks it, exhaling like you’ve been wanting to bring it up for so long now, which Sunwoo guesses isn’t as much of a simile as he thinks it is. 

“Yes, actually. I…” you hesitate, flicking the mug as if the right words will come hopping out of the tea. Sunwoo watches for it. “I’ve just been here for a long time now, Sunwoo.”

“Two years isn’t that long.”

“Time doesn’t work the same here as it does down there.” You tell him tiredly. “It’s been decades.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“In the beginning, I didn’t mind the waiting. I knew you were on your way, but I just,” you hesitate, “I didn’t think it’d take so long for you to come back to me.” 

Sunwoo covers your hand with his. “I’m sorry.” You twist your palm into it, squeeze, then pull your hand away. Sunwoo swallows. “I came as fast as I could.”

“I know. I waited.”

“Do you regret it?” Sunwoo’s terrified of what the answer might be.

You don’t give it. “That’s not what I meant.” 

“Then?”

“I’ve been here for so long, and,” your head drops, voice breaking under the weight it carries, “it’s been so lonely.”

“But I’m here now.” Sunwoo says, leaning forward against the table. “You aren’t alone anymore.”

“I know you’re here. I know, and I thought that would fix it, but it didn’t. Seeing you in the hall that day was so bittersweet, because you were here but that also meant you were somewhere else dying. Because you were here and I still felt lonely.” You stop, chugg the remaining bits of your tea, and then wipe your cheeks. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

“No.” But it’s a lie. He does get it. He knows all about loneliness and the way it creeps inside, so slyly. The way it starts small and then grows, feeding on negligence, until it's too big for your body. He knows how it sits inside you, for all its enormity, and spills into everything. He knows how it lingers. How it has nothing to do with people or lack of them and everything to do with grief. Sunwoo knows all about loneliness. The day he read his file he felt a dam of it burst open within him. 

“I’m saying that in the real world I saved you, and now it’s your turn to save me.” You gulp. “I’m saying that I want you to unplug me.”

It takes a moment for Sunwoo to even register what you’ve said, but when he does remember the life support that’s keeping your body alive somewhere in a universe far away, he doesn’t say anything. He just stands and walks out of your apartment. 

act i. scene iii.

“Doctor, please present.” The attending announces, stepping into Sunwoo’s room for rounds. 

“Mr. Kim,” a resident starts, flipping open his chart, “was diagnosed 14 months ago and has gone through several different treatment plans. When he came to us, the illness had spread and was deemed inoperable and untreatable by several other physicians. Our treatment plan was aggressive and grueling but ultimately, effective. Sunwoo is 20 days post op from his third and final surgery. The surgery went extremely well with no complications and his vitals were excellent. He has been a model patient all throughout recovery, and according to our latest scans, he is also now illness free…”

Sunwoo doesn’t even bother listening to the rest. 

--

“So, now that I’m no longer a patient, if I ask you out on a date, will you actually say yes?” 

“Well,” you say, signing his discharge papers, “only one way to know.”

“What is it?”

You look up at him, smiling. “Ask me again.”

He does. 

You say yes. 

act iii. scene v. take ii. 

“I saw your ghost.” The first thing Sunwoo says after the last failed attempt.

You look up from your tea. “It wasn’t me.” 

“I know.” Sunwoo orders another coffee. “But the hallucination was how I knew I was sick again. It made me feel like you were trying to warn me, like you were up here somewhere caring from a distance. Right after I pieced it all together you told me to find you here and that there was something you wanted to say.” The coffee turns lukewarm again. Sunwoo can’t bring himself to say it. You sigh and push the same piece of chocolate bread back towards him. This time, he takes a bite from it. And with a mouthful of chocolate bread, he cries, “I just got you back, and now you want to leave all over again.”

You frown. “I didn’t want to leave the first time, and it’s different now.”

“How?”

“I want to go. Isn’t that worth something?”

“And what about what I want?”

“Oh, Sunwoo,” you say, “I’m sorry you’re sick. The hallucination was you and your head, but for what it’s worth, I have been up here caring from a distance. I still…” you don’t need to say the words. He knows. He never had to doubt it. “I never stopped.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you asked of me.” Sunwoo tells you. He made the decision last week but today, right now, with your confession still falling through the air, is the first time he’s had the stomach to swallow it. “And I’ll do it. I will. I just need some time. You’ve had so long and in comparison I’ve had nothing.”

“Okay.” You say simply.

“How long can you give me?”

You smile. “You know I’d give you an eternity if you asked for it.”

“I’m scared.” Sunwoo confesses then. “I know it’s what you want, but selfishly, I don’t want to let you again. I don’t know if I’m a big enough person to do it.”

“I do.” You say to him, leaning forward against the table and looking straight through him. “I know because I was your doctor. I have cut inside your body, seen all your organs, and during surgery two, I held your heart in my hands. I felt it beating. So I know exactly how big it is, and I know it’s big enough for this”

Sunwoo feels the heart you worked so hard to repair bursting inside of him. 

“God. Why’d you have to read your file so soon?”

You laugh. “I missed you. I couldn’t help it.”

And just like that, you’ve stolen the entire concept of fear from him. 

“I’m ready.”

“What?”

He looks at you and feels the loneliness slither away.

“Ask me again.”

[flourgirl]

When The Party’s Over

Part II to “Even If It’s a Lie”

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader, Peter Parker x Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn x Reader

Summary: The closer that Peter gets to Gwen, the more he realizes how irreplaceable you are to him.

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: A few curse words here and there.

A/N: There’s going to be a third and final part to this story, so if you’d like to be tagged in it, please shoot me an ask or a reply and I’ll gladly add you to the tag list. Hope you guys enjoy this new part and happy reading :-)

“Counted all my mistakes and there's only one Standing out from the list of the things I've done All the rest of my crimes don't come close To the look on your face when I let you go” -Where Do Broken Hearts Go, One Direction

It had been 17 days since you had last seen Peter and all you could do was sit in your favorite coffee shop and stare at all the muffins in the case. Peter loved muffins. His favorite flavor was banana nut, and usually the two of you would jam out to all of your favorite songs while you waited for them to come out of the oven.

“Y/N,” Betty said, snapping you out of your daze, “Are you alright? You’ve been staring at the pastries for, like, five minutes.”

MJ put down whatever book she had decided to read this week. “Yeah, if you want one, go for it. You deserve it. Here, I’ll pay.” 

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wadded up $10 bill, dropping it onto the table in front of you, and returned to her book.

“You could get a slice of cheesecake,” Betty suggested. “I know how much you like the raspberry one from here.”

But all you could think about was how you wished Peter loved you the way that he loved those stupid banana nut muffins.

“I’m not hungry,” you muttered, crossing your arms and closing your eyes to take in the soft jazz music that was playing alongside the chatter of the café. “But I’m keeping the ten bucks.”

“Maybe it would help take your mind off of things if you met someone new,” MJ suggested without even looking up at you. It was honestly amazing how she could carry on a conversation while still being so engrossed in her book.

“Yeah, Y/N,” Betty agreed, “You’re so smart, and pretty, and you made all of the baked goods currently taking up lots of precious space in our kitchen.”

“You’re a stress baker,” MJ added. She was right. Over the past two and a half weeks since that night, you had baked three cakes, four pies, and seven different kinds of bread. Maybe tonight wasn’t the night you tried out the new focaccia recipe you had been eyeing.

“I don’t know, guys,” you said, slinking further down into your chair. “I just don’t think I’m ready for that sort of thing.”

“That’s okay,” Betty reassured you. “Take all the time you need. But we’re here for you, Y/N.”

And that’s how the rest of that day went. Lots of suggestions on ways to stop thinking about Peter and you shooting them down. No matter how Betty and MJ tried to make you feel better, your mind was stuck on the nine voicemails and thirty-two texts he had sent you saying how he was sorry for whatever he did and how he just wanted things to be normal again.

Except you didn’t want normal. You wanted him. You wanted his bad puns and the way his sweaters smelled when he let you borrow one. And the worst part was, he didn’t even know what he did wrong. He didn’t know that he had broken your heart.

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

It wasn’t like Peter didn’t like Gwen. She was outgoing and confident, and he liked how it felt like she was always the center of attention. People wanted to talk to her, or sit next to her, or even have her know that they existed.

But she wasn’t anything like you, and the more time that Peter spent with her, the more apparent that became. She didn’t rant about reality TV or get so overwhelmed during public speaking assignments that the only way she could calm down was with a hug from him. In many ways, she was perfect. Except for the fact that she wasn’t you.

“We’re still on for Flash’s party on Saturday, right?” Gwen asked as she walked with Peter out of the lecture hall where they learned about vascular mechanics.

Honestly, Peter hadn’t even remembered that she had asked him to go to that until she brought it up just now. He was too stressed out wondering whether or not you’d ever speak to him again. 

But what did he do to make you upset? He had promised that if you wanted to leave the party, you could tell him and the two of you would go. Except you never said anything. You just got up and left, without even saying goodbye. You hated him and it killed him to not know why.

Despite this, he wanted to be the good guy and not disappoint any more people, and so he took Gwen’s hand in his and said, “Yeah, definitely. I’ll be there.”

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

If someone had told you that you’d run into Harry Osborn in the middle of Arthur Avenue, you’d say they were crazy. And if that same someone said that you’d ask him on a date, they’d be even crazier. But somehow, some way, that’s exactly what happened.

You were on the way to interview a third-generation restaurant owner for your Italian class. You had never been very good at foreign languages, but you would use any excuse to take a trip to Little Italy. The nervous knots in your stomach from the possibility that they would only speak in a dialect that you couldn’t understand was worth it, because this little nook of the city was home to the best arancini in all of America.

To be honest, it seemed unbelievable that he’d be there, at that exact time, in that exact place to where you’d run right into him. You had been too busy reviewing the notes you had taken during the interview to see that you were on a direct path towards face planting into his torso.

“Fuck,” you grumbled, staring down at your notes scattered on the sidewalk at your feet. The guy you had just ran into kneeled down to gather them into a neat stack, handing them back to you.

“Y/N?” he asked, which caught you off guard. Who the hell was this? It wasn’t until you stared at his face for a few seconds that you recognized him. That guy that Gwen was with at the party. He looked a lot different in his button down and khakis compared to the sweatshirt and baseball cap he had on when you had first met him.

“Uh, hi. You’re Gwen’s friend, right? Henry.” You knew his name. You just didn’t plan on letting that you knew it.

“Yeah, but it’s Harry. Sorry about that, by the way. So, anyway, what brings you all the way down to Little Italy? It’s pretty far from campus,” he told you, as if you didn’t know that. I mean, you had walked all the way here, hadn’t you?

You shrugged, looking away from him. “I guess I could ask you the same thing.”

It was the first time in a while that someone wasn’t fawning over him just because he was rich. Honestly, it was really refreshing. “I asked first,” he noted, mimicking your crossed arms with a smirk.

Who does this guy think he is? 

“Listen,” you sighed. “I really don’t have time for this. I need to get back to my apartment and finish up writing this essay that’s due at midnight.”

“So you’re taking Italian, I presume?” he asked, it suddenly becoming quite clear as to what you were doing on the other side of the city.

“Yeah. And let me guess, you were eating brunch at some fancy, expensive restaurant that your dad owns, drinking some $100 bottle of wine while some nerd you pay does your homework, huh?”

“No,” he laughed. “I was helping put together Thanksgiving dinner baskets for underprivileged families down at the soup kitchen.”

It was only then that you noticed how annoyingly handsome he was. Essentially, he was the male version of Gwen. Same blonde hair and preppy style that just screamed “I have a trust fund.”

“Of course. What, did you need a good photo op ever since the Daily Bugle ran that issue where they called you a spoiled playboy who loves to party?”

You had no intentions of entertaining him, especially since he was a friend of Gwen’s. The girl that had kissed Peter right in front of you, and pretended like she couldn’t remember your name. The girl that Peter was probably with right now.

“I’m not going to pretend like that wasn’t part of it, but believe it or not, I’m not actually as big of a selfish asshole as the papers make me out to be.”

You rolled your eyes. “Sure, I can tell by the cashmere sweater vest and leather loafers that you’re wearing that you’re so down to earth.”

There was an awkward silence, and Harry decided to change the subject before he pissed you off even more. But what he chose to mention next was the one thing on the planet that you didn’t want to talk about.

“So, uh, I guess your friend Peter is with Gwen now,” he started, which had somehow managed to make you dislike him even more than you already did. Sure, there was no way for him to know how you felt about the whole situation, but it still pained you to think about how you had become an afterthought to who you thought was the guy who would always have your back.

You blinked back at him, frowning. “Yeah, I guess so,” you muttered. And then there was another awkward silence.

“Well, I’ll let you go now. It’s obvious I’m taking up some very precious time in your day,” he said, offering a weak smile. “Maybe we’ll see each other around campus.” 

It suddenly dawned on you that you might have been just a little too hard on him. He seemed nice enough, even if you weren’t a big fan of the company he kept. Before you could even really think about it, you called out, “Wait!” and walked over to meet him when he had turned around.

“I’m sorry,” you admitted, nervously toying with the hem of your sweater. “I’m just in a really bad mood.”

“It’s fine,” he reassured you, although he wasn’t quite as confident as when the two of you had started your conversation. “We all have bad days. I hope yours gets better.”

“It could, if you’d let me buy you a coffee,” you said, genuinely smiling for the first time in a while. Sure, it was nice to think that Peter would probably be upset once he heard that you had asked someone out and he knew nothing about it, but a small part of you was asking just because Harry Osborn seemed like the kind of guy you’d like to have around.

“Sure,” he answered back, running a hand through his hair, which seemed to be in a perpetually perfect messy-but-not-too-messy state. “Have you ever been to Hungry Ghost in Brooklyn?”

Your eyes lit up. “That’s actually my favorite café! They have this really awesome grand piano in the middle of the room, and every Friday they have an open mic where anybody can sign up to play it.”

Your enthusiasm honestly surprised you. It was nice to have something to talk about that didn’t somehow involve Peter.

“Actually, I’m signed up to play tomorrow night,” Harry told you, “Do you like jazz?”

It almost seemed too good to be true. You loved jazz. “Definitely,” you confirmed, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Alright, cool. Let’s make a deal. I’ll let you buy me a coffee if you come watch me play tomorrow night.”

“Deal,” you agreed, before turning back towards your apartment, all giddy with excitement to tell MJ and Betty about what had just happened.

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

“You probably didn’t know this, but Y/N’s been hanging out with Harry Osborn,” Ned said, walking into the common room wearing his “special” Hawaiian shirt, which Peter knew meant he was going someplace fancy. “They’re kind of dating.”

Peter looked up immediately from his linear algebra homework. He had an uneasy feeling in his stomach about what Ned had just revealed, but he didn’t know why. He was with Gwen, and if you wanted to date Harry Osborn, then you could. But still, he found himself being just a little bit jealous that some other guy was filling in for him.

“Oh,” Peter said, looking back down at his homework. He couldn’t focus anymore, so he just shut the notebook and threw it from where he was sitting on the top bunk onto his desk. “How long has that been going on?”

“Two days now, but they’ve been spending every minute together since. Betty said that they bumped into each other on the street and she just asked him on a date out of nowhere,” he replied, tying his shoes to go meet his girlfriend for date night. “I just thought I’d let you know, in case you saw them when you were out and got mad at me for keeping it from you.”

“Thanks, dude,” Peter sighed, lying on his back, “You’re a good friend.”

“I know. Anytime, man. Now I gotta go. M’lady awaits,” he said. Peter didn’t even have to look to know that his roommate had just tipped his imaginary fedora.

Harry Osborn wasn’t even your type, Peter thought. You didn’t like guys as “pretty” as him, and you had always been more into brown eyes, not blue. So what was the appeal? His trust fund? Peter knew that you weren’t that shallow. It was just that, well, he couldn’t imagine you falling for someone like that.

You’re with Gwen, Peter kept reminding himself. So many guys would kill to be in your place. It wasn’t until he checked the time that he realized that he was actually about 20 minutes late to meeting her for the party. The stupid party at Flash Thompson’s tacky apartment that he didn’t even want to go to in the first place.

It was an understatement to say that Gwen was pissed when Peter knocked on her front door over half an hour late to the time they had agreed upon.

“What took you so long? I’ve been waiting,” she complained, smoothing out her sparkly silver dress that caught the light just right when she moved.

“I’m sorry,” Peter sighed, grabbing her hand as they walked down the street. “Uh, I guess I just lost track of time.”

“Whatever,” Gwen said, “Just don’t let it happen again.”

When they finally arrived at the party, the bowls of potato chips and mini pretzels were nearly empty. The floor was sticky, and Old Town Road boomed from the speakers in the living room. 

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” Peter told Gwen, leaving her to greet all of her friends that had been waiting for her to show up. 

As Peter wandered towards the keg, he couldn’t stop thinking about you and Harry, and all the things that he didn’t know about your newfound relationship with some guy you had just met. He still didn’t know why he was so upset about it. He should be happy you had found someone you liked. In high school, all you ever talked about was finding the perfect guy, and if that was Harry Osborn, who was Peter to make a fuss about it?

But that didn’t stop Peter from filling up his plastic cup more times than he should’ve that night. It wasn’t until he was being dragged back to his dorm room by Gwen after puking on Flash’s couch that he realized what was wrong. He wanted to be that guy. The one who got to hold your hand and cuddle with you during scary movies. The one that got to love you and be loved by you.

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

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P.S.: Sorry to all the people I forgot to tag on this one! I didn’t know that when you answer asks privately, they go away from your inbox. Please shoot me another ask or reply to this post so I don’t miss you again!