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shurisneakers · 3 years

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harmless (ix)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, sex jokes, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, anxiety

Word count: 3.9k

A/N: a lot of requests came in last week, so cool and thank you for sending them in!! i’ll try my best to write them if they weren’t originally what i had planned for this series bc they’re so cute kfjdghdf. also hey shoutout to @i-reblog-fics-i-like for suggesting the backstory thing!

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Additional Scene || Previous Part || Series Masterlist

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Somehow it bypasses Bucky’s spam folder and is in his primary email. SHIELD tech is too advanced to let fake mails like this reach him and this doesn’t make sense. Unless it was one of the stupid dating websites he signed up for.

Leaving aside the obvious typo in the subject, he clicks on it, hoping it doesn’t unleash a virus onto his computer.

He’s instead greeted with a poorly Photoshopped picture of you at a bar with a martini in your hand. He doesn’t have to look too hard to see that the martini is, in fact, an emoji. Off to a terrible start already.

Right beside it is an even worse image, an imitation of an early Internet chat box.

Harbinger of Doom just sent you a message!

Come to the empty lot near lair. Bring goggles. 😩💦

Decline/Accept

He wants to strangle you.

______

“Why did you curse my eyes so early in the morning?” He spots you at the top of the lair, speaking loudly so that it hopefully reached you.

“What?” you yell back down instead. “If you’re saying something, I can’t hear you.”

He rolls his eyes. He pulls his phone from his pocket and presses on your contact.

He watches the look of confusion morph into one of slight surprise when you reach into your pocket and pull out your call.

“Don’t ever send an image like that to me again,” he says directly.

“If that one image is too much for you, how will we ever make our sex tape?”

His mouth opens and shuts like goddamn fish.

He can hear your laughter even without the phone.

“First of all- stop laughing- first of all, a sex tape is never going to happen. Second of all, I have a debriefing to go to, we need to make this quick.”

He holds up a finger when he sees you begin to say something. By the look of trouble painted all over your face, he knows it’s going to be a dumb innuendo.

“Thirdly, why are you standing there?”

“I watched The Last Airbender,” you say once your cackling dies down.

“I like that show.” He did. Peter sometimes watched it when he came over and Bucky more often than not joined in.

“I know, you told me.”

Oh.

“Okay, what now?”

“Put your goggles on.” You take one step towards the ledge.

“What are you doing?” The goggles don’t do anything to shield him from the sun, considering that they’re not tinted. Maybe he could invest in those.

You send him a smile, taking a step further. His walk towards the building turns into a jog, then a sprint when you’re basically standing on the edge.

You spread your arms out like Jesus Christ himself before flinging yourself off the building. His stomach drops.

His phone falls to the ground, discarded to the side as he sprints to break your landing.

It never comes.

Instead, a gust of wind smacks him in the face, forcing him a few steps backwards.

“I am now an air bender.” your eyes shone. “Kind of.”

Just like that, the show was ruined.

He wipes the dust on from his glasses that he now understands why you made him wear. Considerate, for a person who nearly just gave him a heart attack.

“Why.” It’s not even a question, just a statement.

“You know how the Tower has a giant ‘A’ on the side?”

He stares at you.

“I‘m gonna spray paint ‘asshole’ on the side of it.”

Pepper would not like that.

“That’s not even evil.”

“Yeah, but it’d annoy your super friends,” You do a flip midair, testing out the repulsors that were tied around your palms, “and I’m the voice of the people.”

You’re too high for him to reach. He doesn’t have his tools, or anything useful on him considering that he never had to use them before. He couldn’t even launch himself at you from the side of the building because you’d just move out of the way. He could jump really high but it would just have the same consequence.

He could talk and keep you distracted but that worked once, it wouldn’t again. At least not for long.

Fuck, he really had only one option.

He leaves you to do your somersaults and turns, walking over to where he dropped his phone. It’s an upgrade from the brick he was using a while ago, but not a high end Stark model. A smartphone, but barely.

He sighs, punching in the number and holding it up to his ear.

“Who are you calling?” you yell from above him.

“Go back to your shitty aerobics,” he yells back.

You pause for a second. “Was that a fucking pun, James Bar-”

The dial tone ends when someone picks up. He diverts his attention back to the call.

“Hey man, I-

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“It’s probably something stupid,” Sam doesn’t even sound annoyed, just uninterested.

“I need your wings.”

“I was right. Bye.”

It was a long shot anyway.

“Fuckin’ hold on a second.” He sees you disintegrate a concrete block by having it drop from the air. “You come here and fix this, then. She’s air bending now.”

“...like Avatar?” Sam unsurprisingly got the reference.

Peter’s interests were usually shared by everyone in the Tower, just because they had to compensate for the teasing he had to endure. It led to a lot of geeky documentaries and occasional musicals. Bucky wouldn’t be caught dead humming songs from Thoroughly Modern Millie under his breath.

“Yeah.”

“You want me to come and fight your girlfriend,” he says slowly.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Bucky urges, “and yes, I need help. Can’t exactly reach her when she’s twenty feet above me.”

“We have a briefing in 30 minutes. Why did you even go there today?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. Just looks up at you smacking one of the repulsors against your thigh when it sputters for a second. It’s tradition.

“Well?” Bucky ignores his question.

“Fine,” Sam’s voice is distant for a second as he agrees. “Clint’s asking if he can come too.”

“Fuck no.” One of them was more than enough and Sam was way better at negotiation.

He hears a faint profanity from who he assumed was Clint before the call cuts.

He takes a seat on the ground and waits.

“You’re not going to make any effort to stop me?” You have your arms pressed to your side, palms pointed downwards to keep you afloat.

“I could just throw things at you again.” He makes a mention towards the small pebbles.

“I will fuck you up if you even try,” you warn. He lifts his arms in surrender. “So that’s it. You’re just going to sit there.”

“To be honest, I couldn’t care less if you painted the building,” he says with the least amount of interest he could muster, not that that was very hard.

“Do you not like your team?”

“I do.” He isn’t lying. “But they’re little shits.”

“I can draw a couple of dicks on their window, no problem,” you say offhandedly.

He looks up at you through his fingers. “That won’t be required.”

Although it was appreciated.

“Cool, so then I’m gonna go.” You make a mention of the utility belt on your waist. He looks at the many spray cans that decorate it.

“What colour are you going with?” he interrupts quickly. Fuckin’ Sam. What was the point of wings if he couldn’t get here in 2 minutes?

“Red, probably.” You look down. “I got purple and white just in case.”

“Building’s dark, red is good.”

“You really don’t care, do you?” You lower yourself down to the ground, a few feet ahead of him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” For fucks’ sake, Sam. “You really don’t like superheroes, do you?”

“I don’t have anything against them.”

“Then why do you do this every week?”

This was wading into personal territory and he did not like it.

“Well.” Your eyebrows knit together. “Because I want to. It’s fun.”

“No other reason?”

“Do I need to have another reason?” You push your palm downwards, sending you back up into the air. “Can’t I just be evil because I want to?”

“Sure,” he says. He’s heard worse reasons. “Why not?”

“Besides, if you think I don’t like superheroes then you should meet Jake.”

“Who’s Jake?” He hadn’t ever heard you mention him before because he’d remember if you had.

“My roommate.”

“I didn’t see him when I came over.”

“That’s because we’re not conjoined at the hip.” It takes you a second to stabilise. “Besides, he grabbed the water while I got the bracelet but he refused to come say hi.”

Bucky looked down at his wrist. It was still there. He found himself fidgeting with it more often than not.

“He hates superheroes?”

“He has a valid reason.” Your eyes widen in worry when your head suddenly dips.

“What is it?” He knows the height at which you’re at isn’t very dangerous but if need be, he’s close by.

“Come find out.” Your eyes shone mischievously. “But yeah, no reason for me to be evil.”

“Not even a tragic backstory?”

“None. But if you want it, I can give you one, Barnes.” You test the waters, seeing how long you can lie horizontally. “Can’t promise you’ll like it though.”

“Try me.” He has time to kill. He’s a good listener.

“Well, it all started with my family- a troop of gorillas.” You flip over to lie on your back. “They practically raised me, they did. Until my gorilla mother died and I was all but consumed by grief and-”

“Your mother was a gorilla?” He entertains the notion.

“Or was it my father?” you ask thoughtfully. “I don’t know, I don’t remember. Anyway, I met a-”

“Just to clarify, none of this is real, right?” he interjects.

You stare at him. He stares at you.

“Bucky, that’s the plot of Tarzan,” you say slowly, “or at least whatever I remember of it... which I’m beginning to realise isn’t much.”

“Just clarifying.” He leans back again.

“Anyway so then when my mother, the deer-”

“Gorilla.”

“Whatever. Was killed, I escaped to some place-”

“Where?”

“Somewhere. And I stayed with these seven men-”

“Why seven?” He actually remembers watching this movie with his sister when it came out. An early memory, a bit faded. He remembers how long he saved up for the ticket.

“Because character development. And then I realised the reason my life was so weird was because there was a rat controlling me by pulling on my hair-”

“What the fuc-”

“If you ask any more questions, I’m going to stop.”

Bucky blinks at you. “So that’s your backstory.”

“Raw and uncut, baby.”

“Just to get this straight, your mother, the gorilla deer-”

“Witch.”

“Huh?”

“She was a witch who stole my hair.”

“Wha-”

He’s interrupted by the giant shadow cast by something that flies overhead.

Fucking finally.

He doesn’t even have to look up. Sam does a small glide to the ground, landing gracefully beside him.

Bucky finds you speechless but straightened up from your earlier posture.

“Buck,” Sam greets him.

“Sam,” he says in return, getting up from his place.

A grin spreads across your face. “Mr. Sam Wilson. No way.”

“You’re Y/N, I’m assuming?” Sam offers, posture relaxed. He clearly wasn’t here to fight.

“The one and only.” You tear your eyes away from Sam to glare at Bucky. “Barnes, if you had told me we were expecting guests, I would have dressed better.”

Bucky furrows his eyebrows in suspicion at you. You’d dress up for Sam.

You dressed up like a suburban tourist dad for him. He was feeling the offence incoming.

“Can’t count on him to be useful in any situation.” Alright, he did not call Sam just to have the both of you team up against him.

“Normally I’d agree with you but he did just invite you here, so...” you trail off, looking at Sam expectantly.

What the shit.

Sam smirks. Bucky switches rapidly back and forth between the both of you.

“I see why Buck keeps coming back every week.” It doesn’t take long for him to catch on, enlisting a feeling of triumph from you.

“I can’t see why he doesn’t just stay at home everyday if this is the view.” You gesture to him.

This is not what Bucky wanted.

“Okay,” Bucky interrupts, “what is going on here?”

“Pure chemistry, I’d say.” You’re half tempted to bite your lip to seal the deal.

“I agree.” Sam just nods, completely and utterly serious.

You think that you’ll give him a gift basket just for playing along despite meeting you for the first time at that moment.

“Get a room.” Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Maybe we will.” You tap your finger against your lip in thought. “How do you feel about Indian food, Sam?”

“Very positively.”

Bucky grits his teeth. “If you’re not planning to spray paint the Tower, can you just hand over the repulsers so we can go home for the day?”

You let out a small tsk in disapproval. “See what I have to deal with?”

“Can’t imagine how you do it every weekend,” Sam says dryly, not wasting a second in replying.

“Hello?” Bucky waves his arm around. “She’s the villain here.”

“Your face is the villain here.” You tear your eyes away from Sam only to glare at him. “He won’t even wear a cape. Why am I the only one who brings their A-Game every week?”

“Sam just get the damn-”

“You should wear a cape, man.” Bucky’s absolutely sure that even Sam knows it’s a ridiculous idea.

“I’m not wearing a fuckin’ cape,” he grumbles.

“What are your thoughts on swords, then?” Your finger finds a place under your chin in deep contemplation. “You’d look great with a sword.”

Bucky buries his face in his palms. “Sam, for the love of God.”

“Okay, alright.” Sam finally gives in with a small chuckle. He runs a few steps to get a small head start before launching himself into the air, whizzing past your levitating figure. He does a neat little flip midair before matching your height.

Showoff.

“How difficult are you gonna make this, Wilson?” you ask, a smirk on your face.

“Jesus Christ.” Bucky exhales, looking at the both of you through his goggles.

“What’s your play here?” Sam calls out loudly.

“Was gonna spray paint ‘asshole’ on the side of the Tower.”

“After the ‘A’?”

“After the ‘A’,” you confirm.

“Now that’s too small,” Sam tutted. “You gotta think bigger. Paint the whole Tower.”

“Sam!” Bucky looks horrified.

“Hmm.” You look like you’re considering it. “Don’t have enough paint for that though.”

“You’re an evil genius, right?” Sam casts a small glance at Bucky. “At least that’s what he tells me.”

“You talk about me?” You grin at the disgruntled man on the ground.

“I don’t,” he mutters, shaking his head. A lie.

“Yeah, so build something,” Sam points out. “Get some more paint. I’ll even tell you the best vantage points to spill it.”

“No, he won’t,” Bucky shouts from below.

“He’s just cranky because he didn’t get his prune juice this morning, ignore him,” Sam dismisses him.

Prune juice? He was a young 100, not ancient.

“What’s your favourite colour, Falcon?”

“I like red.”

As annoyed as Bucky is right now, he stores that away in his memory for later. He also knows Sam loves seafood and a good pair of shoes.

“A couple of gallons of red paint it is, then.” You lower yourself to the ground, Sam slowly follows suit until he lands beside Bucky.

“You know we can’t let you go without taking those, right?” Bucky tilts his head towards your invention.

You narrow your eyes at him. He doesn’t budge.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Sam pipes in instead. “I’ll keep them until you finish getting the paint and once you’re done, we’ll make an evening out of vandalising the Tower.”

Bucky may not enjoy his company all that much but he admires Sam’s diplomacy. Of course, you would never make it this easy while reasoning with him.

“That a promise, Mr. Wilson?” You raise your eyebrow at him questioningly but are already in the process of removing the things from your hand.

“Wouldn’t ever lie to you, doll.” He holds up his hand in a mock swear.

You walk towards Bucky and him, rotating your wrists to get rid of the soreness. “Bold claim for a man who met me ten minutes ago.”

“Feels like it’s been longer.” He sends you a wink and you can’t stop the laugh the escapes from you finally.

Bucky holds his hand out for the gadgets. You shrink away from him with a click of your tongue.

“Technically, he takes this round.” You send a nod towards Sam, dropping off the repulsors into his hand. “So he gets it.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“You gonna keep ‘em safe?” you ask Sam, this time a little more earnestly.

“Guard it with my life,” he says seriously, pressing his lips together in a line to avoid smiling.

“You’re both ridiculous,” Bucky cuts in.

“You’re going to be late.” Sam tucks the devices into his pocket safely. “You know how Steve gets when people walk in on his speeches. Do you even have a ride?”

“Got the motorcycle.”

“See you there.” Sam nods.

“Save me a place,” Bucky says to him.

“No.” He doesn’t even hesitate. “Y/N. It was a pleasure.”

“Still holding you to that evening, Sam.” You send him a smile.

“I’m countin’ on it.” He gives you a small three finger salute before taking off, leaving you staring after his retracting figure.

When the dust settles, Bucky awkwardly clears his throat. “Right. So that was that.”

“Dude,” you let out an exhale. “he’s so hot.”

He murmurs something unintelligible. It vaguely sounds like a series of threats but mostly a list of complaints.

“Don’t you have a meeting to get to?” You turn your attention back to him.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you going to be late?” You glance at the clock on your phone.

“I’ll just tell them I was on a mission.” Well, sort of. “Besides, what are they gonna do? Kick me out?”

“Fair enough.” You shrug. “Have a safe ride back.”

From what he knows of you and Sam, the both of you were kidding around. But he could never be too sure. He can’t even ask if you were serious about the entire thing because it’s none of his business.

Were the implications of having his mortal nemesis and other mortal nemesis date important enough to overrule that?

“Are you planning to skip your meeting, or?” you ask when he remains freezes in his spot, eyes glazed over like he’s thinking about something. “Because if you are, I know this great Thai place-”

“Don’t do that again,” he says instead, shaking his head to jolt him out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“Flinging yourself off roofs like that.”

“Why?” Because it scared the hell out of him, for one.

“Just don’t.”

“Oh please, like you’ve never done dangerous shit like that before.” You narrow your eyes at him, reading his face. “Are you telling me you care about me?”

“No.” His nose twitches. “Just don’t throw yourself off buildings when I’m around.”

“What about when you’re not?”

“As long as I’m not there to witness it.” He shrugs, spinning on his heel to leave. Technically he preferred if you didn’t do things like that at all.

“Fine. I’ll just have my clone try out all the dangerous stuff for me.”

He stops in his tracks. “You have a clone?”

“Well,” You squint, “no. But I’m working on it.”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “Bye Y/N.”

“You know, it sounds an awful lot like you’re saying we’re friends.” Your whole demeanour changes and he already knows what’s coming.

“I never said that,” he argues vehemently. “All I said was that I can’t have your murder on my hands.”

“Thus implying that we’re friends. In a fucked up, enemies kind of way.” You positively beam at him. “Aw, Barnes, that’s adorable.”

Adorable? Adorable?

“I hate you.”

“I love you, too, bestie,” you gush, dumb grin on your face. “I’ll make us friendship rings next time. What are your thoughts on matching tattoos?”

He wants to cry.

______

By the time Sam walks into the meeting room, the session’s already begun. He shoots an apologetic look to a monologuing Steve before taking his place at the nearest chair available.

Something sharp pokes his thigh. His wings are off and in the backpack beside him, but then he remembers your little inventions that were still in his pocket.

He tries not to make much of a noise while he pulls them out, giving them a look over to make sure they’re not broken.

“Watcha got there, Big Bird?” Tony asks lowly from beside him.

“Something that Barnes’ enemy made.” Sam holds it up slightly.

“The one he’s been rendezvousing around town with every weekend?”

“That’s her.” He’s about to put it in his backpack when Tony stops him.

“Pass that here for a second.” He recognises it immediately for what it is, interest piqued.

Sam hands one of them over while he puts the other back in the bag. It’s a metallic circle, not bigger than Tony’s palm, with a thick leather strap to tie it around your palm.

“She made this?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Sam mentions towards Bucky who silently slips into the conference room, standing in the corner near the potted plant since there were no more chairs left.

“The balance has gotta be off on this thing,” he mutters to himself, wholly ignoring the brooding man standing in the corner like a Christmas tree.

“She seemed to be manoeuvring it fine,” Sam catches the eye of a lower ranking agent who makes the mistake of glaring at him for talking while the meeting was going on. A few seconds later the agent hastily looks away and doesn’t turn around for the rest of the hour.

“Could be better.” He uses a much more intricate model for his suits, although this isn’t even half-bad for a homemade version. “Do you know how long she took to make this?”

“Buck says she comes up with a new one every week, so I’m guessing that long.”

It had a few glitches but it was incredibly refined for a week’s worth of work.

“Interesting.” He gives it a quick overlook before handing it back to Sam who drops it into the bag.

He casts a swift glance at Bucky, noting how he wasn’t even paying attention to the meeting but rather to whatever he had tied around his metal wrist, fidgeting with it with his thumb.

Tony has an idea.

And that was generally bad news.

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#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #mcu fic #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky angst #bucky barnes angst #harmless fic #winter soldier x reader #Winter Soldier #bucky barnes #bucky

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theunholygrails · 3 years

Text

Foolish Games Part 2

Masterlist

A/N: Introducing new characters and some drama! Percy is still sexy as ever :'(.

Warnings: BJ

I woke up to a door slamming so hard it joined the symphony of my pounding headache. I groaned, hoisting myself over the back of the couch to investigate to intrusion. A brunette head of long sweeping hair rushed through the foyer, barreling towards the kitchen. A familiar mop of black hair hurried after.

Reyna was speaking so fast in Spanish my brain scrambled to keep up. I noted lots of curse words followed by a series of sentences too fast I was surprised she even knew what she was saying. Percy was answering in slow measured words, probably fighting a hangover of equal measure. I ducked behind the back of the couch, reaching for my phone plugged in on the coffee table.

It was noon. 2% battery and a couple messages from friends. Nothing from my ex thank gods. Five from Annabeth being nosey. I opened my uber app, squinting in the sunlight breaking through the cream curtains. I managed to get my driver secured.

A door slammed and I winced, peaking to check that they were in another room. I did not immediately spot my dress in the chaotic. I grimaced remembering the midnight swim. When I sat up I finally noticed the white tshirt I wore and the basketball shorts. And then I went rigid remembering what happened after the swim.

“Motherfucker,” I whispered.

Now I really had to get out of this house. I checked the arrival time of my driver. Three minutes away. Great. I made my way on shaky knees to the large wooden front door. My keys were still in the collection dish. I grabbed them quietly and turned the door handle a fraction of an inch before another door slammed open and Reyna came barreling back into the foyer, brown eyes landing promptly on my guilty ass. Behind her, Percy pursed his lips into a thin line and raised both of his hands to lay on top of his head. His biceps strained nicely against the thin t shirt.

“The fuck is this?” Reyna whispered.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” I babbled.

“It’s just Noa, Rey. Gods,” Percy said.

“I can see that, Percy!” She snapped. I was glad her spear was not strapped across her back this morning. “Why is she sneaking out of my house in your clothes?”

“People were swimming last night. Her clothes got wet.”

“I’m sure the fuck they did.”

“Zeus, Rey! You ended it with me. Why does it even matter?”

“Because I still fucking love you! I’m sorry, okay?” She burst out crying and Percy instantly pulled her against his chest. The memory of being in those arms drove me out the door like a nest of hornets.

~~~~

“I’m just saying. You have nothing to feel sorry for,” Annabeth paused to sip her iced coffee. “Unless they get back together and then you sleep with him. But as of right now, you’re good. Trust me. Been on the Percy train. We’re still friends. You’ll get over it. Just a harmless rebound for both of you.”

I groaned, laying my chin on the cool metal table parked outside our favorite coffee shop positioned between our New York apartments. Just two Manhattan women enjoying their Sunday afternoon. The air was cooling as fall neared. I pulled my baseball cap closer to the top of my sunglasses.

“Should I call him?”

“Maybe tomorrow. Let him deal with his relationship drama. Reyna is a lot to deal with. Still nothing from fuckface?”

“Nope and that’s fine.”

“Good for you. We will hydrate you, get you a good dinner, hit the gym before work in the morning and then get back on our bad bitch mental track. Agreed?”

~~~~

“Good Monday, yogis,” I chirped from my desk at the corner of my studio.

The third class was beginning to trickle in and I was settling into my rhythm. Hot yoga was next and hopefully I would sweat out all the negativity I’d allowed lately. I was in the middle of emailing back a potential client when someone rapped at the wood of my desk. I glanced up to a blonde male who waved gently.

“Heya, sansei Noa,” he said.

“That’s karate. Can I help you?”

“Do you do trial classes?”

I hit send on my email and closed my laptop. The guy was built like a poser with the defined muscles and chiseled jaw but his voice was soft and tempered. He was clean shaven and dressed like a basic gym bro.

“Normally you have to schedule them beforehand because of class size,” I gave my standard answer.

“Right, my bad. Sorry. I was just passing by the front and it looked like the kind of place I needed right now. Can I go ahead and pick a date then?”

I was staring too long into his pale blue eyes, honed in on the polite response. A nice change from the daily demanding consumers. “You know what? Ive got space right now if you like? Have you ever done hot yoga?”

A brilliant white smile showcasing sharp canines. “My favorite.”

“Perfect. I just need a name, number and email to get you a file started.”

He leaned large hands on my desk. “It’s Luke Castellan.”

Before he could give the contact information, I cut him off. “Wait. I know you.” His tanned skin paled significantly.

“I…”

“You’re supposed to be dead!” I blurted out.

His eyes skated around the room and he leaned in closer. “That’s not supposed to be public knowledge. I assume you’re a demigod?”

“Luke, you trained me. We took fucking sculpting together. The Apollo table was right next to the Hermes one for fuck’s sake.”

He winced. I heard a murmuring from the rest of my class I was disturbing with my volume. I collected my shock finally. “Take a seat if you want. We should talk after class. I need to start.”

“Okay. Thank you. I’m sorry Noa.”

I waved him off and walked over to my yoga mat. I sat cross legged and drew in an even breath to smooth out my emotions.

It was a slow 30 minute class. Each pose and movement dragged on. Finally, I dismissed the group and nodded Luke outside. He was waiting on the bench outside of the studio I split renting with a few other instructors. I sat next to him, wiping sweat from my face with the towel slung over my pink sports bra.

“Alright, talk,” I said.

“Not much to say. I was given a second chance at my hearing. Here I am. Starting over.” A shrug of well-defined shoulders. The muscles flexed beneath his gleaming sweat. His red tank top stuck to his chest and stomach. “I wish I remembered you, truly. That time is such a blur in my life.”

“It’s ok. You were a lot older than me and to be honest I had a massive crush on you so I probably hid most of the time.”

A surprised smile slipped across his lips. “I’m assuming the betrayal helped you get over that?”

I laughed outloud, slapping his knee. “No shit! So where are you staying these days?”

“Just around the corner actually. Got a job at the local gym.”

“Yeah I bet the fuck you did.” I squeezed his forearm between both of my hands. I wanted to roll my eyes at me falling back into my school girl giddy at him. Betrayal of the gods aside. He was even more gorgeous than ever. The scar down his face gave him a dark sexy vibe. Like a bad boy even though he claimed he was rehabbing himself now.

“So how, did you feel about the class?”

“I mean, I’d like to sign up for it a couple times a week, that’s for sure. And I’d like to take you out to dinner to make up for not remembering a beauty like you.”

I almost bit my cheek biting out the response of “Yes!”

“You’ve got my number,” he said, chuckling quietly. “I’ve got to get to work.” He shouldered his gym bag and excused himself.

The bike back to my apartment was spent reliving my tween fantasies about bad boy Luke. I opened my apartment door and screeched seeing a man sitting at my kitchen counter. Percy turned to face me.

“You know you live in New York? You should really lock that.”

“It was!” I snapped.

A quick grin. “Yeah. But it was easy to break into.”

I dropped my bag onto the floor and brushed past him to get a protein shake from the fridge. “I have to shower and get prepared for my night classes.” I told him.

“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t either.”

He paused, studying my face in the shitty lighting of the single bulb hanging between us over the counter. “Are we good, Noa?”

“Of course. What’s a little head between friends?”

“Okay…I can’t read you. Can you not play tough just for a minute?”

I chugged the shake and set the bottle down between us. I leaned my arms on the chilled counter, bun knocking against the light. “Honestly, Percy. I’m fine. We are good.”

“Reyna moved back in.”

“You’re engaged again?”

I drank from the empty bottle to give myself something to do. He watched me with those green eyes. He’d known me for far too long. He was nearly impossible to deceive, but I was determined today. The fact that I had dreamt of fucking him two consecutive nights was irrelevant if he was off the table. Even if his lips did look incredibly juicy tonight. Even if they had done near illicit things to me just nights ago.

“I don’t know. She said she wanted to work on things. And it’s her dad’s house, so I can’t ask her to go and I don’t want to go to my mom’s and admit defeat.”

“You know you could stay here, Perc.”

He worked his jaw silently, then rubbed his hands over his face. “Thanks. I do know. Even if we aren’t officially back together, I think we should work on it…” he trailed off.

“And not tell her about you eating me out?” I leaned closer because I was mean to both him and myself. Because I knew this top combined with this angle gave him a simple opportunity. And he took it.

His tongue slid out between his lips as his eyes flicked down, stayed, then dragged deliberately back up. “Probably not,” he agreed.

For a long moment neither of us said anything. He had more to lose now than me. We were no longer on equal playing fields. So, I left the ball in his court. “I’m going to go shower.”

I was done washing in the first ten minutes. The second ten was giving him a little wiggle room to decide. I had my hand on the faucet to cut off the water that was beginning to go cold when I heard the door creak open. I watched through the fogged glass, catching a hold of my breath. I watched as he tugged his shirt off. My stomach flipped over itself when he reached for his jeans. What had I done?

The opening door let in a rush of cool air, perking my skin to attention. My eyes raked unapologetically over his naked, aroused body. His dark hair quickly slicked against his stubble covered jaw. His eyes were no longer the sea green but murky like the deep water of the ocean.

“Hey,” he said quietly, cautiously.

“Hey,” I giggled, reaching out to touch his rough jaw. He winced, catching my hand with his. “We probably shouldn’t kiss again.”

“Sure, whatever you want, Percy. What can I do to you?”

He groaned, turning his mouth into my palm, scraping teeth against the vulnerable skin. “Touch me,” he said.

My free hand instantly planted against his chest, scraping at the muscle. His eyes fluttered closed, head tilting back to expose his throat. I slid my other hand into his thick hair, tugging it tightly between my fingers and pulling to grant myself more access to the strong column of his neck. I bit it first, backing him into the tiled wall when he shuddered. I kissed over the reddening skin and moved my hands to his flat stomach, feeling the shuddered breaths beneath my touch.

“Like this?” I asked.

His reply was unintelligible. I kissed down his chest, moving my hand lower still as I went. When my fingers brushed over the v-line of his hips, I shifted my route away from the center and to his thighs. An annoyed grunt escaped his lips. “Hush,” I scolded, getting my knees under me. The now cold water was hitting the back of my neck and flowing down my body. I placed my hands on the inside of both his thighs, trailing them upwards and upwards until he nearly contorted when I gripped him. He let out a scandalous string of curses that quickly turned to moaning silence when I took him into my mouth.

He unraveled in minutes and I let him cum all over the breasts I had teased him with earlier. I rose in front of him, my own rosy cheeks mirroring his. “Now we’re even.”

#percy jackson smut #percy jackson fanfiction #percy jackson #logan lerman smut #logan lerman fanfiction

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archonoftears · 3 years

Text

info: modern au! reader receives a package that helps her tease her boyfriend while he’s at work.

warnings: 18+ smut, slight breeding kink (mentioned), lingerie, phone sex (kinda), pretty vanilla, no penetration, just description, a tiny bit of dom/sub (implied through dialogue)

word count: 1,626

authors note: umm head empty, thoughts only filled with laying in zhonglis bed and teasing him over the phone. i really can’t remove myself from modern au! with ceo daddy zhong. so here we are again. not gonna lie though, i found myself looking at dragon dildos yesterday and now i just wanna write dragon zhongli and sacrificial maiden. so maybe after i finish with the first chapter of my other fic i’ll get right on that.

ps no beta, i just kinda got this out and edited it once. so sorry if any mistakes or issues.

please thirst with me if you want to!!

Glancing around your dining room table you felt defeated by the amount of packages staring back at you. You were surprised by the latest delivery of clothing you had received for PR from a few high end designers. You knew you shouldn't have been shocked, dating a CEO of a multi million dollar cooperation came with many perks. Yet you never imagined anything like this. Knowing the mess would only stay on the table if you didn’t start tackling it. You began opening up a few packages, finding bags and shoes. Even the latest spring wear from the major brand ‘Liyue Qixing’ sat in a box for you. Before setting your eyes on a more intricate looking box. Opening it to discover some of the most beautiful lingerie you had seen in a long time. Looking at the brand name ‘Scent of Spring’. You didn’t recognize it, but you were quite enamored with the pieces inside.

Forgoing opening any more packages you quickly gathered the items in the box and wandered off to the bedroom you shared with your boyfriend. Selecting a ivory and gold silk longline balconette bra, with matching thong, and harness. The gold tulle flowers that patterned the silk and lace were soft and delicate under your fingers. You couldn’t go a second longer without wearing the beautiful set. Quickly stripping off the clothes you were wearing and slipping on the lingerie. Loving the feel of the soft lace and silk against your skin. Staring at yourself in the mirror.

‘This lingerie had to be designed by some deity who knew Zhongli’s taste.’ You thought to yourself as you admired the way the balconette bra exposed half of your breast and how the thong straps cut into the flesh of your hip in a sexy way, giving your body a more defined silhouette.

A light bulb went off in your head, walking over to grab your phone and opening the camera app, returning back to the mirror. Posing yourself quite provocative as you snapped several photos, dropping to your knees and taking a few more photos, before flipping through them. A coy smile playing on your lips as you went to call Zhongli.

Zhongli was startled by the sound of his phone ringing on his desk, glancing down to see your contact photo, a smile immediately forming on his face, he swiped to answer.

“Hello (name), is everything alright my dear?” Zhongli greeted as he turned from the documents in front of him and leaned back in his chair. You seldom ever called him when you knew he was going to be in the office all day, preferring to email him if you needed anything so he assumed this must have been important.

“Everything is fine, just calling to see what you were up to.” You greeted over the phone. Zhongli let out a small sigh, relieved that nothing was wrong.

“I’m just preparing for a meeting with Fatui Industries in a little bit.” Zhongli started, glancing at the clock to check the time. “What are you doing today my dear.” He asked, knowing you didn’t have much on your schedule today.

“Well I was going through some packages I received, you know the PR kind. It was mostly clothes from some nice designers.” You hummed, he could hear you twirling your hair in your fingers as you spoke.

“Oh really? Hopefully they sent things that are your style.”

“That’s why I was calling actually. There was this one package, the clothes are really nice. But I think they’re more to your taste, and I wanted to get your opinion on them.” You confessed.

“Of course, I can do that when I get home for you if you would like.” Zhongli replied, glancing at the clock noting that he had about 27 minutes until his meeting. “I should be done with work after I meet with Signora and Childe.”

“I’m actually sending you a couple photos right now, please check your email and tell me what you think.” He couldn’t put his finger on it, but you seemed awfully excited about all of this but he complied with your request.

“Of course, one moment.” Opening his email, quickly finding the one from you at the top and opening it, his eyes widening in realization as he enlarged one of several photos in the email. His voice catching in his throat as he examined it.

“Are the clothes to your liking, sir.” You cooed from the other end of the phone, knowing very well they were in fact to his liking.

“Ms. (Name)..” Zhongli growled quietly.

“Yes sir?” You asked innocently, Zhongli aware of the game you were playing, but nevertheless here he was clicking on the next photo, feeling his pants grow tighter as he continued to view the photos. The one of you on your knees sending more blood rushing to his already aching erection.

“Are you being a good girl right now?”

“I’m always a good girl Sir.”

“Are you? You don’t look to be acting like a good girl in these photos.”

“Then should I send you some more photos so you make sure I’m being good?” He could feel himself getting riled up just by the implications of what was being said.

“Well… I’ve already sent them so hopefully you don’t mind.”

Not needing to be told twice Zhongli refreshed his email inbox to find a new message. Opening it to discover new attachments. Slowly he clicked the first picture. Finding you not in front of the mirror in the bedroom anymore, but now on the black sateen sheets of the bed the two of you shared. Angling the camera in a way to show how you would look if he had you pinned down. You looked ravishing, from the way you let your cleavage spill out exposing your nipples, to the way you spread your legs.

The next photo your hand was on one of your breast cupping and pinching the nipple. The next photo was taken lower, your hand was now in your panties clearly teasing yourself. And the final attachment was a video, it was no more than 15 seconds, but in those 15 seconds you show yourself pumping your fingers in and out of your pussy, before dragging your fingers out of yourself and licking the wet slick off your digits. Zhongli was taking deep breaths as he watched. His eyes following your every movement.

“Sir…” You moaned, lust lacing every syllable. “Do you think I look like a good girl in those photos?”

Zhongli couldn’t say anything for a moment. Letting the video replay itself over and over, his eyes finding new things to focus on each time it replayed. From the way your plump lips wrapped around your fingers or the way you quivered when you plunged your two digits into yourself. He just wanted to see you do more.

“When did being a good girl equate to acting like quite the little slut? Surely I’ve taught you better than that.” Zhongli replied firmly, as he adjusted the way he was sitting to accommodate his throbbing cock.

“This is what you’ve taught me…” the breathiness of your voice letting him know you were in fact still touching yourself as you replied.

“I don’t recall teaching you to send provocative photos to me while I’m at work.” He glanced at the clock again, 16 minutes until the meeting. Fuck.

“Did they make you hard?” You asked suddenly.

He was not a liar, so he wouldn’t lie to you. “Yes they did…”

“Did they make you want to come home and stuff your big. thick. cock inside of me.” The punctionaction of your words were breaking him down.

“Yes they did…”

“Master are you going to come home so I can show you how much of a good girl I am, when I’m milking your cock.”

“My Lily… I-” Zhongli wasn’t used to you being this forward with him.

“I need you to come home and fuck me now. Because if you don’t pump me full of your cum I might go crazy.” You whined your voice working wonders on his resolve. “Please… Please come home and breed me sir.”

One final weak glance at his clock showed he had 9 minutes before they would arrive.

You moaned again calling his name out through the phone, the thread holding his composure together snapping.

“You’re not allowed to cum until I get home do you understand.” Zhongli growled into the phone, quickly on his feet, grabbing his bag and making his way to the door of his office. “Do you understand?”

“Yes sir..!” You exclaimed.

“I hope you understand you won’t be walking for the next few days my Little Lily.” He warned before leaving the safety of his private office.

“Yes yes! Hurry please.”

“I am.” Quickly saying goodbye and hanging the phone up with you, while walking towards two approaching figures.

“Mr. Zhongli goo-” Signora began, reaching her hand out to greet him, but he didn’t meet it.

“My apologies, there seems to be an emergency at home, can you meet with my assistant to reschedule.” Zhongli haphazardly explained. “Again my deepest apologies.” He finished, turning on his heel and b lining it to the exit. Letting the receptionist know that he was leaving and scrambling for the parking garage.

“What do you think his emergency was?” Signora stood bewildered where Zhongli had left her and Childe.

“Do you think everything is alright?

Childe seemed to be having the best laugh of his life as his colleague pondered the obvious.

“Trust me everything’s fine.” Childe said in between laughs. “We should probably reschedule for Monday, he’ll probably need the whole weekend off.”

“This is why I hate partnering with you, you’re too vague sometimes.”

#zhongli x reader #zhongli x fem!reader #zhongli x you #modern au! genshin impact #smut #imagine a big bed of black and gold sheets #a bed designed for a god #that's the bed i wanna be spread out on for zhongli #cakey cries #genshin impact x reader #rex lapis x reader #morax x reader #genshin x reader

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lucy90712 · 3 years

Text

Karl jacobs- mr beast

wc- 2117

Warnings: none

~ Two weeks ago I randomly got a call from a man who invited me to a shoot for a video, believe me I was sceptical at first which the man seemed to understand but he provided me with all the information I could ever need and answered all of my questions so I believed him and agreed to go and now is the day of the shoot. To my knowledge there will be a few others there as well as a whole crew so if this is a bad situation at least I won't be alone.

My parents think I'm insane for going to this and they have made me promise to keep my phone on me at all times and to text them that I'm safe when I get there, it's nice that their worried but I honestly think I'll be fine. The friend that I've told seem to be thinking the exact opposite in fact they are convinced that I'm going to a mr beast shoot but I'm not too sure. They seem to think that because we live in North Carolina that this is the only possible explanation but I think that they would say that it was for mr beast so that the whole situation seemed less sketchy.

For the day of the shoot which happens to be today we were instructed to wear what we normally would but not to wear too much makeup because it doesn't look good on camera. I took this on board and wore my mom jeans with a black crop top just because it was plain and not too over the top, I don't want to stand out too much. I also barely put on any makeup I just covered the dark circles under my eyes and the few spots I had and I put on mascara so that I didn't look like I had no eyelashes.

The location I had to go to was only about 35 minutes drive from my house which was nice because I wasn't feeling a long drive today. I woke up early enough to have time to make myself breakfast and get coffee on the journey. At the local Starbucks drive through I got my usual order and talked to the girl at the window for a moment because she happens to be one of my friends sisters so we know one another.

"Isn't today the day if that mysterious video shoot your going to" she asked

"Yeah I have to be there in like 50 minutes" I said

"Well have fun meeting mr beast" she said handing me my drink

I rolled my eyes as I pulled away and started my drive. I listened to my Spotify playlist on the way just vibing to each song that played normally it plays at least one song that I'm not that into but today all of them were some of my favourite songs so I think today will turn out to be a good day.

As I arrived to the location I noticed that it was in this really random place with a bunch of big warehouses which I'm not gonna lie was a little sketchy but there seemed to be quite a few people about with cameras and other equipment so I calmed down again. I got out my car and went to the place that I was told to in the email which was relatively easy to find once I knew where the people were going and a guy led me into the middle of this warehouse with a few other people who were obviously taking part too.

Me and this one guy got talking while we waited and he seemed to know a little more than I did about what was happening so we talked about the video and this whole sort of experience. He was really cute too he had kind of long fluffy brown hair and lovely blue eyes that were and interesting shape but they really suited his face, I also noticed that he had his nails painted which made him seem even cooler much to cool for me to be talking to him. He was super nice to me and we had a good conversation until we had to start filming.

A few more people walked in with cameras following them as they talked but when they got closer I recognised the face and I couldn't believe it. My friends were right it was mr beast and his friends or at least a few of them. As they came in the guy I was talking to went over and joined them as they explained the video concept to the rest of us.

"Right for todays video we are going to get all these people to hide in pairs around these warehouses and whoever is found last wins $100,000 to share" mr beast explained

They sorted people into pairs but there was an odd number so I was left on my own.

"Slightly awkward but one person didn't turn up so Karl is going to step in and be y/n's partner for this" Chris explained

This Karl guy came over and he was the guy I talked to earlier, I got a bit embarrassed realising that I had absentmindedly been talking to this guy who's so well known as if it was nothing. The poor guy was probably so confused that I had no idea who he wasn't while at a mr best shoot hopefully I can redeem myself with this challenge.

We each took cameras to film as we found our hiding places which we had 10 minutes to go because the area we had was so big. Most people ran off to the furthest warehouses but me and Karl decided to stay a bit closer hoping that all the others would be found quickly. We went into this relatively small but tall looking warehouse which had a small upstairs bit to it where we looked for a good hiding place, there wasn't a whole load of options apart from this old wardrobe which looked like it could fit the both of us. We decided to keep looking seeing as we could always come back if we found no where else.

After checking another 2 warehouses that were almost empty we realised that our best option would be that wardrobe so we went back and squeezed ourselves in leaving one door open for now at least until we heard movement near by so that it wouldn't be quite as cramped. The both of us did fit in this wardrobe but on the inside it was smaller than it looked so we were pressed right against each other which would be awkward if you hadn't already embarrassed yourself in front of the person so I felt 10 times more awkward in this position.

We had to film ourselves which was quite hard with the darkness and the cramped space but Karl knew what he was doing so he took the camera off me and filmed the both of us explaining where we were showing just outside the wardrobe so that the viewers would know when the others were close to finding us.

Soon enough the timer went off indicating that our hiding time was up and now we really had to be careful not to make too much noise as we could've found any second I had kind of forgot about the fact that this was for a whole lot of money up until now because I was just so annoyed at myself for being such an idiot but now it felt really real and I was starting to feel quite competitive.

We waited what felt like an age before we heard any movement but when I heard the door open I almost jumped out my skin because it was so quiet up until that point. I gave Karl a look and the both of us forced ourselves further into the wardrobe and shut the door as quietly as we could making it completely pitch black.

It was a lot more squished in the wardrobe now as there was no space to move, there was no good way to stand because we had to had some part of our bodies touching or else we wouldn't fit. Karl whispered telling me to turn my phone touch on so that he could film for a second because he said that it wouldn't be seen from outside.

"We just heard the door open and there is movement downstairs so the door in now closed and its super dark without the light" Karl explained to the camera

"It's also super claustrophobic in here with the door shut" I added putting my head over his shoulder so that the camera could see me

He put the camera down and I turned off my touch and we just kind of listened and we heard the door close again or so we thought but it wasn't worth the risk so we left it a little longer before we felt safe to be a little louder but we didn't want to risk opening the door again so we stayed how we were.

It was actually a good time talking a little bit like we were before the filming started, Karl is a very sweet guy he really just wants to get to know me as a real person and not just someone helping him do his job. He seemed to really care about what I did with my life and who I am seeing as I know a bit about him and he knew that he was interested in learning about me.

Our nice conversation was soon interrupted when the door opened again and we heard voices getting closer to us. The sound of the metal stairs that lead to where we are could be heard which meant that they were close. There was a panicked feeling between the two of us and Karl pulled me closer to him just incase they opened one door they might not be able to see us.

"They could be in the wardrobe there" I heard a muffled voice say

Mine and Karl's breathing slowed down so that they couldn't hear any noise at all and if they did well they have great hearing. It was at this point that I realised Karl had his arm around my waist holding my back to his chest which was making me blush but it was dark so no one could see. The door opened on the other side and a camera was pointed in.

"There no one in this side do you really think they would both fit on the other side?" Someone asked

"I don't think so honestly but we really should check" another said

I knew it was over from that point and I was right the second door opened and cameras went straight into my face, Karl also let go of my waist at this point not wanting that to be on camera. Karl got out the wardrobe and offered his hand to help me out.

"Congratulations you guys have won" mr beast said

"It took us forever to find you so well done" Chris said

"Oh my this is amazing thank you" I said feeling quite overwhelmed

Obviously the prize for winning was $50,000 each which was absolutely amazing and just so life changing like there is so many things I could do with that amount of money but I have no idea what that will be yet.

"You have won $50,000 congra" mr beast started

"Wait I want y/n to have my share I don't need it" Karl interrupted

"Karl there is no need for you to do that I'm more than ok with $50,000" I said

"You are taking the money please it would make me happy" he said

I accepted the fact that Karl was never going to give in so now I'm $100,000 richer which is insane no one is going to believe me until this video comes out. My parents are going to think I've committed a crime of some form which isn't good but they will have to believe me eventually so it's fine.

The shoot wrapped up and I was heading to my car to go back home when Karl came running over and gave me his phone number saying he wanted to hang out sometime. What has my life become? I started the day thinking that I could be in danger and have ended it with $100,000 and the phone number of one of the people that works for a huge YouTube channel, it's almost like a dream.

#karl jacobs x reader #karl jacobs #mr beast #dsmp #mcyt #karl

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hoe-doroki · 3 years

Text

Siberia

minors do not interact

warnings: 18+, drunk sex, marking, biting, love scratches, sloooow burn

pairing: Shouto x fem!reader

genre: pining/angst, smut, fluff

wc: 13.8k

summary: On the field, you and Todoroki are rising stars amongst hero pairings. Off the field…you’re kind of in love with him. After a successful capture, you’re boss brings you in to let you know you’re being sent on assignment in foreign country…alone. Before you leave, you have to act. You’re not partners anymore, after all. And with a little liquid courage you do. Then, the next morning, you still have to leave.

a/n: Thanks so much to @some-kindofgnome, @mindninjax, and @linestrider for helping me out with this beast! Ya’ll are such dears, hyping me up when I was feeling really uncertain about this story. FYI, this story is kind of the prequel to a short fluff fic that will be posted (for bnhabookclub’s secret santa) on Christmas, so stay tuned for that!

edit: I no longer write x reader but here’s my old masterlist - mobile | desktop

September

Shards of ice and concrete flew. Ears ringing, you faced away, keeping your uncovered cheeks and hands from the debris. You’d have to turn back into it soon to keep an eye on the villain soon, though. He wasn’t exactly subtle, firing off explosions every few minutes, but he did have plumes of smoke and heaps of destruction on the city street to hide behind. Todoroki had been shooting walls of ice up to protect the buildings, but the road was shredded.

“You okay?” Todoroki shouted, also facing away from the blast.

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah.”

You turned back with a dry, scratched hand in front of your eyes as you squinted into the wind, streaks of both freezing and hot air blowing past you. You had to consciously keep from grinding your teeth in frustration as the villain cackled at you.

Todoroki and you had a near-perfect capture rate. Usually, the two of you could manipulate his ice to capture any villain, but ice didn’t work so well against a villain with exploding spines on his back. Each attempt to restrain him ended with ice shattering, blown away from the villain’s body in one go. There wasn’t much that Todoroki’s fire could do against a guy like that either.

“Shouto,” you shouted, making your way closer to him. “Make me a big block of ice and then distract him. Be ready to run back and use your fire.”

You saw the question in his eyes for a split second, but he’d stopped asking questions of you early on in your three-year partnership. Questions and explanation took time that couldn’t be spared in battles against villains, so you just had to trust each other.

You hadn’t failed yet.

With a sweep of his arm, you had an iceberg the size of a school bus at your disposal. Todoroki ran at the guy, fire in his hand in order to distract with some close combat—neither of your specialty.

You worked quickly to manipulate the ice into four walls. They didn’t have to be straight or pretty, just sound and close enough in size to line up. Luckily, Todoroki’s ice was the easiest thing you’d ever worked with; it was free of impurities and even in temperature. From there, you could mold it however you wanted.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw another one of the spikes on the man’s back explode. Todoroki was able to counter the blast with a wash of fire, but it still knocked him back and set your heart pounding. You needed to end this before either of you ended up hurt with more than the light burns and scrapes you were sporting now.

You took the last bit of ice and lifted it overhead, letting it expand into something soft and irregular—nothing more than densely packed snow. Then, another shout of Todoroki’s hero name had him running back, and you used all your focus to shove the four ice blocks around the villain and fuse them at the corners, sealing them to the irregular ruble on the street.

“Haven’t you learned that ice can’t keep me down?” the villain shouted over your frozen terrarium.

You had learned that, but you’d also learned that he was slowing. He only had a few spires on his back—less than ten—and each one he used had to be regrown. He was regenerating them much quicker than you might have hoped, but it wasn’t as fast as at the beginning of the battle. However the explosions worked, whatever they did to his body, they must have been taking a toll. That gave you a window. A small one, but hopefully enough.

“Fire!” you shouted at Todoroki, pointing to the tall pile of snow you were controlling, moving to just above the ice box.

Todoroki loosed a thin tongue of fire, letting it hit the snow but dissipate before it turned the solid straight to a gas. He knew that what you needed now. The only thing that would bring you both victory, was liquid.

A shelf of water dumped into the room of ice you’d contained the villain in and you returned your focus back to its makeup. You held the ice strong, not letting the new water—warm in places, still nearly frozen in others—melt the walls. Then you shifted some of it to create a roof, leaving only enough room for the man to be able to poke his head out, and some air holes to allow in oxygen. You didn’t need him poking his back out of the water and creating another explosion.

You used your finest degree of control, your tightest concentration to clarify some of the ice, providing a window into your new aquarium. The villain was holding his arms, obviously cold, but he wasn’t using his quirk. Seemed that his explosions didn’t work underwater.

“God,” you said, letting out a relieved sigh as your shoulders slumped, though you didn’t relax your hold on the walls. They wanted to melt against the heated concrete, but you didn’t let them.

Todoroki came over to you, breathing heavily himself. “He won’t be able to stay in there long.”

“I know,” you said, watching the man’s movements closely for signs of hypothermia. You weren’t too worried, since Todoroki could create heat at a moment’s notice, but you still didn’t like this method. It was the best you’d been able to come up with, though.

“Great work, Snow,” he said, a thin smile curving on his lips.

The thing about Todoroki’s smiles, rare though they were, was that they were contagious. They were always earned, always a surprise, and you couldn’t ever help but return one when it was given to you. So, you smiled back, heat blossoming in your chest as your gazes lingered, panting in matching breaths.

It was easy to restrain yourself during battle. In combat, you and Todoroki were partners whose quirks worked well together, whose minds and styles had grown to be one with each other. But as soon as the battle was over and your breath was allowed to slow, the adrenaline able to recede, things felt different. You wanted to take his cheek in your hand and wipe the ash off his face. You wanted to take a washcloth and clean the blood away. You wanted to hold him in your arms and whisper that he was whole and okay and you’d both done your job well.

But all that you could offer was a hand raised in partnership. He took it and you touched from fingertip to elbow. Your tight grip on his equally cold hand held for just a moment, just one squeeze. And then you parted.

“Excellent work today, Snow.”

You were standing in front of your boss, freshly showered and out of your thermal costume, back in clothing that was a little more appropriate for a temperate fall in Japan. Nevertheless, the office felt warm, kept that way to make your manager’s day of sitting in pencil skirts at her oak desk comfortable.

“Thank you, ma’am,” you said, bowing and doing your best to read her face. “It was a team effort.”

It was unusual that someone was called to the boss’ office for good news, but, at the same time, you couldn’t read any dissatisfaction on your boss’ face. Your capture today had gone well. Yeah, there had been damage to the street, but very little to the buildings—save for the guy’s hideout, which had been ruined—and the police apprehended the man before he’d gotten frostbite. All in all, a neat wrap-up to a villain you and Todoroki had been chasing for weeks.

“Yes, it was. You and Todoroki are one of the star partnerships on the field nowadays,” she said, her gaze breaking down to some paperwork on the table.

You narrowed your eyes, able to hear the but that was coming.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth in your quirk. You used it really fantastically today when you were in a tight spot, and we’d like to send you on a covert operation.”

You cocked your head, feeling a disconnect between the different statements she was making. “…With Todoroki?”

She shook her head, looking grim. “Only one was requested for this mission, and you’re the one best suited to the job. Your ability to freeze and manipulate ice at will is really unique. If all goes well, it won’t be for long.”

“How long?”

She shrugged and your heart dropped. “Maybe a few weeks? It depends on how it goes. I’m emailing you the briefing now.”

A shrug and a maybe. She obviously had no idea.

“Okay, well, where is it?”

She looked up at you, a slight cringe wrinkling her brow and the bridge of her nose. This, she did have the answer to.

And she knew you wouldn’t want to hear it.

You’d somehow managed to drag Todoroki to a bar, you hadn’t been choosy about which. The light was dim, the décor mostly dark wood with black accents, and the atmosphere nearly morose with the lack of patrons. It matched your mood. He was nursing a gin martini and you a vodka to give yourself an ironic little laugh. Or maybe it was preparation. Either way, it was helping to steel your nerves.

“You seem upset,” Todoroki said before you were halfway through the drink. You’d been through congratulations on the day’s capture, but it had been hard to keep up the merriment. You weren’t entirely shocked that he’d picked up on it so quickly, though. The two of you were only kept alive by how attuned you were to each other, after all.

“It’s annoying that your job is being perceptive,” you said, knocking back a bit more of the drink.

“It’s yours too,” he said plainly. “What’s on your mind?”

You sighed, plucking the olive out of your drink to chew on it. Your mouth filled with brine, each taste bud standing on end at the sharp taste of pure salt. You had to take another sip to wash it down. “Boss lady didn’t tell you I’m going on assignment?”

You knew she hadn’t otherwise he would have asked you immediately. Todoroki wasn’t the kind to beat around the bush.

“Oh?” Todoroki asked, sipping more of his own drink. “By yourself? For how long?”

You ran your finger over the condensation on your glass. It was cold, though not as cold as you were used to. You liked your drinks frosty so you froze the condensation and gave the glass a swirl. “I don’t know. A month?”

You’d saddled Todoroki with the day’s villain paperwork while you’d read over the mission’s briefing. It had been short, which was your first hint that the team didn’t have as much information as they needed. They were pulling from an outside agency, after all, which always smelled of desperation to you.

“Where are you going?”

You looked down at your vermouth-mixed vodka and said, “Siberia.”

A rare bald reaction showed on Todoroki’s face. His eyes went wide and his chin jutted toward you. “Siberia?”

You held your hand out and pulled at the particles of water in the air, freezing just enough to make a few snowflakes to dance above your hand, drawing Todoroki’s gaze. “Siberia.”

It was your quirk that matched you to this assignment. You would thrive in an environment surrounded by snow. You’d be able to manipulate the whole terrain and freezing would be easy. You’d be at full power.

Todoroki took your ice-filled hand in his warm one and you felt heat flow rapidly into you as he melted the snow to water and then back into vapors barely catching the bar’s yellow light before slipping in and amongst the smell of liquor and hops.

“Wow,” Todoroki said, a word that always sounded stunted through his dull monotone, almost oxymoronic. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” you said, though receiving the compliment felt disingenuous. Being chosen for this was a testament to your strength, but it didn’t feel like an achievement—it felt like a disruption. Months away from the job that you loved and the partner you…

You swigged the rest of the martini and ordered another one. If you were going to have to go to Russia tomorrow, you’d do well to invite a piece of it to you tonight. Microdosing or something.

Todoroki ordered a second, too, as he was nearly to the bottom of his own drink. He stirred the last dribbles of it and said, “Siberia isn’t that far from Japan.”

“Just one time zone behind,” you said. You’d done some googling after memorizing your notes. You weren’t sure how much you’d be moving about the region, but the location you were being sent to tomorrow was set.

The energy between you was stiff. Battling together today had been so easy, the two of you essentially extensions of one another. Todoroki created ice that you could manipulate as though it had come from your own body. Sure, you could create ice out of the water that was around, but Todoroki could so easily give you exactly what you needed. And then his fire could clean it all away. It was a perfect pairing.

Usually that chemistry followed you off the battlefield, but now you were trapped in small talk. Stuck with you apparently one foot out the door, unable to face him fully. Your elbows fell to the black marble bar, hands pushed into the roots of your hair. “God, this sucks!”

“They can’t force you to go if you don’t want to.”

He was right, but how would that look? Heroes didn’t turn down cases without good reason; that wasn’t how the job worked. You were expected to take jobs that were difficult, dangerous, and unpleasant—that was simply the field. The only reasons to turn one down were if you felt you couldn’t fulfill it.

“I can’t exactly tell them that I’ll miss my partner too much to go,” you said, eyes flickering towards his for a moment before starting on your second drink. “Then they’ll just think I’m too stupid and they’ll fire me.”

“I’ll miss being your partner too,” Todoroki said.

Your stomach squeezed. This. This was what made it impossible to spend time around Todoroki without getting the wrong idea. He just said things, so simply and genuinely that your mind would always jump to the next thing, when really, he just said what he meant and nothing more. There was no subtext, no matter how you tried to find it. And the search made your heart ache.

“So this isn’t a celebration so much as a farewell,” Todoroki mused, finishing his first drink and joining you on the second.

You were beginning to feel a bit of a buzz. Your emotions were a bit more liquid, sloshing from one state to another with more ease than usual. The sadness was transmuting into longing. The longing transmuting to desire.

“I wish I had known,” Todoroki continued, your eyes slipping back over to him. “I might have ordered something stronger.”

“Hah,” you said, the huff coming out humorless. You might have also, if you didn’t want to avoid being hungover on the plane. “Wanna drown my memory, Todoroki?”

“No.”

He didn’t look like he had more to say. Damn, sometimes you needed just a little more—subtext or actual text—out of him.

But he didn’t give it to you, so you just looked at him. His bangs were covering his eyes from you as he looked down into his drink, but you thought you could see the sadness. His shoulders were hunched, head hanging heavy off his neck. He would miss you. Maybe not as much as you would miss him, and maybe not in the same way, but you knew he valued your partnership. Your friendship. That, at the very least, meant something to him.

Tonight, however, you weren’t thinking about the very least. You didn’t want the lowest common denominator between you—your professional partnership—to be the last image you held of your relationship before heading to one of the most desolate places on Earth.

Besides, as of this afternoon he wasn’t your partner anymore. Not for the moment, at least.

“Shouto?”

Your voice was timid, unfamiliar with using his name in this setting. It was his hero name, but that wasn’t what you were saying here, and you knew it. He knew it too, by the way his eyes jerked up to yours, a question creasing between his eyebrows.

You didn’t answer, though. Maybe he had the right idea, leaving things unsaid.

You put two fingers to his jawline, drawing his face up, lifting his whole posture off the bar with nothing but a gentle touch. His brows furrowed deeper and then they relaxed, his eyes open and at ease.

For a moment, you did nothing more than breathe each other’s air. A moment of hesitation or of resolve, you didn’t know—it didn’t last long enough to figure it out. Then your mouth brushed against his, the bitter taste of alcohol on both your lips.

It wasn’t a good idea. But you’d regret it too much if you didn’t, and you had just enough courage to make it happen. As you twisted more to the side, slanting so you could feel the smoothness of his shaved cheek, you soared. Maybe he’d wanted this too. Maybe even as long as you had, though you’d lost track of exactly what that was.

Then he pulled away. Not for breath, but for distance.

“We can’t,” he said, feeling for his wallet and pulling it out. He placed a few bills on the bar, paying for both your drinks and his. Your heart hadn’t even finished breaking by the time he was taking your hand and dragging you out of there.

He hailed a cab in record time, everything moving just a bit too fast for you to keep up with. He was ushering you into the cab without a word and then you were seated side by side, hands still clasped tight.

“Todoroki, I—”

Todoroki caught your eye and shook his head, and you stopped immediately. Just like in combat, you didn’t ask questions. You did as he said, quiet for the whole car ride to his apartment.

Luckily, it wasn’t far. Half the reason you’d been able to drag him to the bar was its proximity to his apartment. It was fully within walking distance. But it seemed he’d decided he was in a hurry.

Your hands finally split from one another as you exited the cab and you followed him through his building, still quiet. You’d been there before, visited him when he’d been sick or injured, or occasionally to talk shop—though usually that easily dissolved into something more casual with food being ordered, knees touching as you sat crisscrossed around a low table.

The moment you made it through his front door, you automatically toed off your shoes on the tatami mats. Then the light were flicked on and his lips were back on yours, catching you off guard. Hadn’t he just rejected you? Hadn’t he pulled away from you and spoken his dissent?

You fell into the push and pull of his lips against yours, both a little too dry from the constant cold and heat you put them through, but that didn’t matter. You’d dreamt of kissing this man for so long, and here he was. You allowed yourself to revel in it for just a moment more before pulling back, just as he’d done earlier.

“What’s happening?” you asked. “I thought—”

“Not in public,” he said, “That’s not how I want to do this.”

“Oh,” you said, unable to believe you’d disregarded that. Even if the bar you’d been in hadn’t been that populated, that didn’t mean that you were invisible. And, like it or not, you and Todoroki were both public figures, well known for your partnership. The two of you kissing, no matter how innocent, would be news if it went public. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Todoroki said immediately, taking your hand in his warm one. “Don’t be.”

And then he was kissing you again, this one more passionate than either of the last two. The first had been hesitant, feeling each other out, the second quick and needy. This one was full, in no rush while making sweet use of the time you did have. His other hand came up to grip your waist and you moved to grip his shoulder, feeling the swollen muscle beneath his shirt.

You were drawn to his warmth, as you always were, and your body couldn’t help but press against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. You’d always tried so hard to keep a professional distance that as soon as the boundary was taken away, you couldn’t seem to get close enough. Making up for lost time, as it were.

Making up for the time that was about to be taken.

You felt yourself being dragged out of the entryway, and you eagerly let it happen. In the past times you’d been to his apartment, you’d never seen his bedroom, but you knew where it was. Todoroki led you there, his lips barely leaving yours for breath, fingertips pressing in wherever they could reach.

The next thing you knew, your knees were hitting the back of a bed and you allowed yourself to be pushed back. You landed on a soft comforter atop a neatly made bed, and were met with Todoroki’s hard body crawling on top of yours. You continued to make out and you thought that if this was how you spent your last night before leaving Japan, you’d be happy. You were already happier than you’d been in ages.

Todoroki was panting when he pulled away from you, kneeling over you so that he looked powerful in a way that you didn’t usually acknowledge. You were intimately aware of Todoroki’s strength, but usually it was matched with yours, used to compliment and support you and vice versa. But now it was suspended over you and it sent a thrill through your core. This was a side of him that you’d always wanted to see, always imagined, but never believed would be yours.

“Y/N,” he said, brushing a soft hand down your arm, the light touch making you shiver. “What do you want?”

“What do you want?” you asked, pressing up, entangling your legs.

Now both of his hands were on your arms and you loved the touch, warm on one hand, chilled on the other, but both making you equally heated.

“I want to be with you,” he said, the rare euphemism coming out as assuredly as any blunt word ever had from him. “I want to have you.”

“Me too,” you said, pushing on your knees to catch his lips again.

Then there was no stopping you. Todoroki’s hands moved down to the hem of your sweater—too cold for outside, too hot in the bar, and utterly unneeded here—and ripped it over your head before starting on the buttons of his shirt.

In the meantime, you pressed your way into his lap, riding his thighs a little as you kissed him, making your way down his neck and leaving the softest kisses, reveling in the shiver it sent down his spine as you did.

“Sensitive?” you whispered in his ear.

“Mhmm,” he murmured. Then his own shirt was off, and a quick flick of his fingers behind your back sent your bra following.

Then you were pushed back on the bed, his lips now giving your neck the same treatment. You felt him lingering in one spot halfway between your jaw and your collarbone, his teeth just barely grazing the soft skin. Before you knew what you were asking for, you whispered, “Do it,” and felt his lips latch and give a good suck.

You were going to Siberia. A scarf would never leave your neck. You’d be clothed head to toe every moment you were there, you were sure. He could mark up your whole body and no one would ever know.

What was more—you wanted him to.

You wanted to dress in the morning, clean yourself and see the footprints of his presence on your body. Little reminders that this wasn’t a dream, one of the many fantasies that had eaten at you, feeling good until they left you hollow. This was as real as the familiar smell of his detergent on his navy blue bedding. The poster of All Might you couldn’t really be surprised to see.

A moan escaped your lips as you felt the spot on your neck go hot with his ministrations, and you knew the bruise would linger for days. You grew wet at the thought of it.

“More.”

Obediently, Todoroki trailed down your neck to your chest, taking in the sight of your upper half bare to him. You’d seen him topless before, usually when the two of you exercised together, his body glistening with sweat, rippling as various muscle groups enjoyed his focus. But he’d never seen you. He looked up at you, eyes almost too soft to bear, and said, “You’re beautiful.”

You bit your lip and your head fell against his pillow as his mouth descended onto your breast, not the nipple but just above. He sucked a new spot, this one even more private than the previous. You arched your back into his mouth, wanting him to know how much you wanted it, how much you needed it. He could read you as well as ever, sucking the spot until the pain was sharp, then releasing and laving his tongue over it. Then he sunk his teeth into your nipple.

“Ah,” you gasped, gripping his hair and tugging. That pulled the smallest moan, almost a grunt out of him, and you realized that you needed more. You needed more, fast.

“Shouto,” you breathed, reaching down his waist towards his pants, but arms not quite long enough to make it there. Still, he looked into your eyes and understood, giving a smile that bloomed one of your own and pushed his jeans down, leaving him in nothing but tight boxers.

You could see his bulge straining against the fabric and your heart knocked against your chest. This was your partner, the man who held your life in his hands on the daily and his in yours. The man you sat up with doing paperwork, and who worked missions with you when you were both dead on your feet, starving, and snippy.

How did that add up to where you were now? You didn’t know, but when he unbuttoned your pants and looped his fingers around the hem, you lifted your hips. Your panties when halfway down with them, leaving half your ass against the comforter and the tops of your pubes frizzing out, but what did it matter?

You didn’t wait for Todoroki and pushed your panties the rest of the way down yourself. You immediately felt the slickness at your center begin to dribble down your thighs, sticking them together. Todoroki took the invitation and removed his boxers as well, revealing himself in his full glory to you. He was pale along the shaft and red at the tip—the same colors that you associated with him. You blushed at the thought, unable to miss the subtle dual-tone of his pubic hair, more muted in color than the hair on his head. You’d never be able to look at his split color the same way again.

Your hand was on the back of his neck, bringing him to you before you could overthink things any further. His dick pressed against the crease of your inner thigh as you tasted his tongue, the flavor of the martinis all but gone at this point and replaced with nothing but him and you.

“Y/N,” he managed, his voice coming out rough as he grinded against you, the whole of his length making it from your crosswise crease to your belly button, leaving sticky pre on your stomach. “I feel I should tell you…it’s been a while for me.”

“Me too,” you answered quickly, lifting your hips into his, pulling a groan from him.

When was there time to be meeting people—much less people who weren’t influenced by your being a mid-tier celebrity—when you were a pro hero? Not that there was any point in trying. You’d barely been able to look at other men as you spent your days fighting off a growing crush on your partner.

“I’m just saying,” he said as you went to press your lips against his neck again, “this might be over quickly.”

That affected you, causing you to bite down high on his shoulder, where the tall neck of his hero costume would more than cover.

You didn’t care about how long he would last. The base of his length had moved between your lips and was grinding soundly against your clit, ensuring that your own orgasm wouldn’t be far off either. But while you weren’t particular about how long it lasted you didn’t want it to be over. You wanted to stay in this forever.

“Nothing to prove,” you said, returning to his lips and taking them in yours. “Just need you.”

“Me too,” he said, voice low and throaty. Your heart flipped before you forced yourself not to read into it. There was no subtext. Never any subtext.

He reached away from you, pulling at a drawer next to his bed to pull out a pack of condoms. He picked a square from it and tossed the rest aside before ripping it open. He rolled the rubber down himself and you took in his size again.

It would be a lie to say that you’d never thought about what Shouto was packing before. You’d seen his costume in ribbons after a particularly grueling battle, leaving little to the imagination. You saw the thickness of his thighs, the jut of his hipbones. You’d wondered what else was there.

He didn’t disappoint. The condom left a good inch or two at the base of his cock uncovered, and he wasn’t narrow either. He’d be a stretch, a delicious elongation for you to make room for.

His hand left his dick and went to your center and you spread your legs automatically. He reached with two fingers and spread your wetness up and down your pussy. You groaned at the feeling, arching your hips up to encourage him further. Hesitantly, he began to press one finger into you and then another.

“Damn, you’re tight,” he said. “You weren’t kidding.”

You just squirmed beneath him, all of his movements far too slow to stoke anything but the smoldering coals within you. But you needed Shouto’s fire.

“Sho,” you whined. “Don’t tease.”

“I just don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his voice not carrying an ounce of the smugness that another man’s would.

“You’d never hurt me,” you said, lifting your arms up and encouraging him toward you. He indulged, giving a couple more pumps of his fingers, scissoring them just a couple times and then pulling out. Without hesitation, he slipped them into his mouth and sucked them clean.

Your face went hot. The pure nonchalance of his gesture didn’t even seem to register, as his hand dropped to the bedspread, his lips back down to yours. You tasted the tinny flavor of yourself on his lips and only felt more aroused.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice soft and hot in your ear.

You grinned. “Impatient.”

He chuckled as his knuckles brushed against your thigh, guiding his dick to your core. And then he was pressing in, stretching you wide despite the prep that he’d done. Your body ached, wanting to pull away from the discomfort, but also yearning to feel whole, feel full. But he was filling you up so slowly.

“There you are, princess.”

You felt the head of his cock kiss your cervix, and when you looked down, you saw that he wasn’t even all the way in. A good inch still hung out, keeping his hips from being flush with yours, keeping you from being as close as possible.

But you felt it, that heat that started in your groin and moved up through your stomach and your chest as you squeezed your walls around him, feeling every bit that you could. Sex wasn’t love, you knew that, but then why did having him so close make your heart flutter in a way that it didn’t when he was gone?

“Can I move, sweetheart?”

You were gone. The tone of his voice, the words on his lips made anything possible. You would take whatever he would give you and hold it with both hands.

“Please.”

He started with a gentle rocking, barely leaving you, and you were grateful for that. You were so warm when he was deep inside you, his swollen cock pressing against the nerves of your clit, even from inside. He took one hand and pressed it against the base of your belly and every sensation turned hot, searing. Every drag of his cock was magnified, and you could see the light ripple of your belly every time he plunged into your depths.

You gasped and wrapped your arms around his back, nails finding the skin under his shoulder blades and digging in. “Oh, fuck,” you whined as he upped his pace, sweat making your skin stick to each other.

“What do you need?” he grunted, his words knocking you out of your daze just enough to hone in on his sentiment.

“Fingers,” you breathed.

Todoroki rotated his hand so that the heel of his palm pressed right above your pubic bone, and the tips of his fingers began toying with your clit. After that, it wasn’t long. Your hands clawed at his back, knees rose all on their own and clung to his sides.

“Shouto,” you cried desperately. “Shouto…!”

“I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you.”

“I—” Your voice broke as the heat spread from your core and your chest to all through your body. Even your extremities, always cold from your quirk, became flush with warmth, your cheeks hot, lashes wet as Todoroki only seemed to move quicker. “I’m—Shouto!”

Your breath left you as your orgasm tore out of you. It seemed that was all Todoroki needed, as he pushed a few more desperate ruts into you, half your name passing his lips before he stuttered to a halt, only managing a few more rough passes of his cock before he collapsed on top of you.

You panted as the heat left your body, save for all the corners at which Todoroki was still pressed against you. Those were hot, hot as any touch from him had ever been. You felt him adjust his hips as he pulled out of you, but you didn’t loosen your hold across his back, not wanting to break apart.

“Y/N,” Shouto said after a minute. “We have to clean up.”

Always so logical. Always so sensible. Your brows furrowed above your closed eyes as you tried to wish it away. You wanted to stay here. As long as you stayed put, it felt like time was paused in this moment for you. That you could live in afterglow forever.

“I know,” you said, but you made no sign to move.

Todoroki seemed to think this was because he was on top of you and rolled to the side, peeling of the condom as he did so.

You shivered immediately, your combined sweat on your chest cooling and leaving your skin tacky and raised with goosebumps.

“C’mon,” Todoroki said, placing a hand over yours. “We’ll take a shower.”

He helped you up, your body heavy, though you didn’t know if it was from pleasure or denial, and led you to the bathroom, flicking on the shower.

Under the hot spray, you leaned into the touches of Todoroki treating your skin with soap, pressing his hand gently between your legs to clean you of evidence of your activities. When he faced away from you, you gasped at the lines of red you’d left down his back, pairs of stripes marking either side of his spine. The spot you’d left on his neck was already purple, as were the two he’d left on you.

“I’m so sorry, Shouto,” you said, rubbing light fingertips over the raised spots.

“I don’t mind,” he said, turning around and taking your hand in his. “Don’t worry.”

He passed his thumb over the bruise on your breast and, despite the warm water, the soft touch had you shivering again. The intimacy was surprising. Weren’t you supposed to rebuild your walls after your time in bed was over? Was this a one night stand?

It had to be. Because you were leaving.

With that thought on your mind, you wrapped your arms around him and hid your face in his shoulder as the water poured over you. You couldn’t face him.

But you surely couldn’t let him go either.

“Stay.”

You felt Todoroki’s chest rumble around your hands, his words carrying into your bones. You weren’t certain whether he was talking about tonight, or asking you not to go to Russia. But, either way, tonight, you could do. It was all you could do.

The vibration of your phone was faint, but pulled you from slumber as the sensation rattled up your arm. Somehow you’d managed to keep your phone clenched in your sleep and you fumbled as quickly as you could in your haze to turn off the alarm. Your motions were imprecise as sleep and the last vestiges of alcohol coated a thin film over your senses.

You blinked at your phone. 4am. It was early, but that didn’t mean you had time to spare. As you tried to peel through the murky layers in your mind, you became aware of the sensation of something thick and warm across your middle.

The next breath you took squeezed your chest, seeming to inflate your heart instead of your lungs, bolstering the dual weight of joy and heartache. Todoroki’s touch was always one that you craved, his left side so warm to your constant chill while his right side never shivered at your own cold touch. You wanted to curl in closer, scoot back to deny the few inches that were separating most of the lines of your bodies.

But you couldn’t. The arm was enough of a problem.

As slowly as you could, you scooted out from under his hold, hoping that the alcohol—or the sex—had rendered Todoroki out cold. This was the first time you’d seen him in repose, so you weren’t sure of your luck. He’d never told you if he was a heavy sleeper or not.

So you could only hope for the best as you slid to the ground, recovering the clothes you hadn’t put back on after your shower and gathered them in your arm. You just had to leave the bedroom without waking him up.

But that didn’t mean you couldn’t look back.

Todoroki’s room was dark, each piece of furniture nothing more but a rectangular shadow in the sparse space. But Todoroki’s hair, pure white on his right side, caught just enough light to draw focus to the bits of him that poked out of his blanket. His cheek pressed against the same pillow you’d used, the second one behind him resting untouched. You let yourself study him, memorize him like this, and then brought a hand to your lips and blew him a kiss, relieved you hadn’t woken him.

You didn’t know what you’d do if you had to say goodbye.

The good thing was that you could feel that you weren’t hungover. You and Todoroki had both gulped big glasses of water before bed and it seemed it had paid off. Of course now you had to pee, but that would just have to wait. You couldn’t risk making the noise.

You called a car to Todoroki’s building. You were all packed back at your place, and then you’d have to dash to the airport to make the flight that had been arranged for you. It seemed this was all happening so quickly to keep you from even being able to consider making a decision. Your next steps were handed to you quicker than you could plan for. Your agreement was expected. Assured.

You shuffled back into your clothes at the front door, not wanting the pull of your sweater against your skin or the zip of your jeans to alert Todoroki to your sudden departure. Then you slipped on your shoes and pushed yourself out the door before your car was even ten minutes away. Once you closed Todoroki’s door, there was no way back in—an automatic lock. No turning back.

As you passed through the bright corridors of the apartment complex and then to the sheet of darkness outdoors, you felt the stillness of the world at 4am. Your sluggishness from both the remaining alcohol in your system and the paltry three or so hours of sleep you’d gotten feeling endemic to the atmosphere. It was a lull, providing you just enough awareness to gently guide you through the motions, but not enough to truly have to think about them.

The cold curled around you as you waited on the car, making you shiver through your sweater despite your high tolerance. You wished that Todoroki was back beside you, making you warm with either his quirk or just his presence. But now, every move you made was taking you one step further from him for who knew how long.

Time crept by before your car finally approached. You sent it in the direction of your own apartment, dark and empty, and told the guy to wait once you got there. You’d be right back down.

And then it was off to the airport to catch a redeye due north.

Shouto felt cold.

Not from his quirk. No, he’d just finished his first solo patrol in months, and there wasn’t a villain to be seen, so he hadn’t had to use either his right side or his left.

Now that he was back at the agency, he felt sluggish. Pulling his boots off, unzipping his uniform was a chore. He placed them on the wooden bench mechanically, wondering if this was what the next month or so would be like since you had left his apartment this morning.

The thought of it was bittersweet. He’d been so happy yesterday, and then had woken up to find nothing but bunched up covers in front of him when he’d woken up. Your smell had barely even lingered, since you’d showered using his soap. He’d been left alone with little more than the memory that you’d been there at all, the whole thing barely feeling real at that point.

He’d been cold ever since.

It took Shouto only five minutes to fill out his no-incident log, and then there was nothing to do but go home. But the last time he’d gone home had been with you by his side, the promise of kisses in the air between you. He was loath to replace that memory by schlepping home with loneliness as his new partner.

He closed his locker door with a slam, frustration feeding his emotions. He needed to snap out of it. You were his partner, dammit, and you were away on hero work. That shouldn’t have left him feeling so empty.

Worse, he didn’t know what to make of last night. You both had been tipsy, but not drunk—he was sure of that. You’d been to enough company holiday parties, galas, and celebrations to know each other’s spectrums of drunkenness pretty well. So that meant there should be no regret, right? He didn’t regret it.

But you’d left without saying goodbye. Had you just been upset about having to leave and had got caught up in the moment? Had you been trying to communicate something he wasn’t getting?

Shouto ran an irritated hand through his hair and left the locker room, marching for the elevator. When he made it to the boss’s door, he gave three good raps of his knuckles and waited, his nerves more on edge than they’d been for his entire shift. He touched the bruise at the base of his neck through the turtleneck he had on now. It was probably good he’d been in the locker room alone. This morning, he’d gotten a good look at the scratches you’d put on his back, flashing immediately back to the moments before your orgasm when you’d clung to him so tightly, seeming to need him more than you ever had in combat.

“Come in.” Shouto walked in to see the agency’s manager smiling up at him as she lowered her laptop screen. “Oh good, I was hoping to speak to you, “Shouto.”

She gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk, plush green ones with rounded upholstered backs. Shouto sat down and eyed her wordlessly.

“We haven’t worked out the details completely, so that’s why I hadn’t called you in yet, but it’s just as well that you’re here,” she began, intertwining her fingers and resting her chin on them. She was casual in a way that Shouto didn’t quite think was professional, but that you always said you appreciated. “We’ve been speaking with Deku’s manager and think that it’s a great opportunity while Snow is gone for a little PR between the two of you. It’ll look good, the two of you, high school friends, crossing agencies to do a little partner work to make up for the fact that Snow isn’t here.”

“That sounds fine.”

He wouldn’t mind working with Deku—they didn’t get to see each other often enough as it was now that they were both pros. Their quirks didn’t work as well together as yours and his did, but he did know Deku’s style well enough to be able to work seamlessly. It would do in the interim.

“Of course, it’s too bad to lose her while you two are going up in the rankings, but we’ll just have to make the best of it.”

“Right,” Shouto said, his hands going clammy. “Have you heard from her? Do you know if she’s landed?”

“The flight has landed,” she said. “But I have not heard from Snow. There won’t be any internet or cell service there.”

Shouto’s eyes widened, posture falling forward. “What?”

“That’s right,” she said, looking only the slightest bit apologetic. Not nearly enough. “I’ll probably get occasional updates about the course of the operation, but we can’t expect anything more than that.”

“So we just won’t hear from her for a month,” he stated, voice tumbling out quick with disbelief.

“Maybe less, maybe more.”

Shouto stared, able to see his reflection in his boss’s perfectly polished glasses. His jaw worked as he finally looked down, hands pushing against the seat of his chair, ready to push up and out of there. “Are we finished?”

“You’re dismissed.”

Shouto swept out of there, feeling the tension of a slowly ticking clock following him.

November

“Three, two, one.”

The man beside you put his hands on the wall and you felt the telltale vibration that the snow around your feet never seemed to dampen. A round hole dug through the thick concrete wall of the building you were back against as you held a pile of snow taken from the ground aloft, ready to turn it into spikes or a dense shield or sword at a moment’s notice.

As soon as the wall was dug through, you charged in first, masses of snow floating on either side of you. You ran fast, perhaps a bit quicker than was strategic. The nondescript hallways of the concrete building blurred past you, mixing in a blur of beige as you kept your senses alert. All you could pick up on, though, were your own echoing footsteps and those of the team behind you.

When the path split, so did your group, different people going down different hallways as you continued straight, barreling forward. There had to be something this time. Some clue, some person. Or, gods willing, maybe the whole operation would fall into your lap. Rarely did you hope for battle when on patrol, but you were. Eight weeks and yet to actually interact with any of the big bads you’d read about had you itching for a fight. Hungry for it.

Anything to get this over with.

But you already knew there was nothing. Nothing more than the dank smell of mold from melted snow traveling from the grimy corners of rooms and hallways into the air. The wireless communicator in your ear was silent and you didn’t see anything to hint at any signs of human life. No footprints—nothing.

You let go of some of the snow you were holding, turning it to ice slabs and sticking it to the rough texture of the cement walls. You weren’t going to waste your energy on villains who weren’t here.

You barely felt yourself slowing to a stop, nearly causing the person behind you to smack into you. “Sorry,” you said, before gathering the strength to at least keep walking.

A clean sweep would have to be done before this building was rendered a lost cause like all the rest. And then you’d go back home.

Well, not home. Not even close.

“Why don’t you go outside?”

The Mole’s eyes were on your leg, which was bouncing up and down as you sat in a rocking chair, trying and failing to read. You turned to him, eyes cold. He had the strange snout of a star-nosed mole, though it had nothing to do with his quirk. Neither did his name, which you always thought made it sound like he was some sort of spy. No, his quirk was tunneling, which was handy for powering through old cement prisons, seeing if they had hidden basements but made for quite the nightmare from a hero branding standpoint. You’d gone simple. Ice quirk. Snow.

“Fine,” you said, standing up, feeling the heat you’d created in your leg from the anxious bouncing.

It took five minutes to bundle up. Thick socks over your thermal leggings and snow pants over those. Gloves then jacket, scarf then coat. Hat and waterproof boots. All that and when you stepped outside, you still felt the cold biting into you. Still, outside might have been cold, but inside was stifling. After two months you had cabin fever bad.

It turned out that Siberia had its own League of Villains much like the one Todoroki had interacted so much with during his high school days. Siberia housed a lot of prisons that had been dealing with high profile escapes for months. Then people with matching quirks descriptions were showing up in groups, wreaking havoc only to recruit more members.

But they were slick. Siberia was so vast that so long as the villains made it in and out quickly, hunting them down was a wild goose chase. By now, you were afraid that they had one or more teleportation quirks in their ranks, able to send them hither and yon without so much as a scent to follow.

Thinking about it too hard grated on your nerves, though, so you walked over to the garden. This was the real reason why you’d been sent to Siberia alone, without room for even just one other person to join you. Your group of heroes was off the grid with as little contact with the outside as possible. That meant growing your own food.

In the arctic.

You approached a woman who simply went by Dell—you didn’t know if it was her real name or a hero title—who had bare fingers to the soil, coaxing life out of a potato sprout. You crouched behind her, back naturally curling to match her premature hunch, making her look older than she was—and she did look old. There’d been no snowfall today, so the only snow that had to be cleared was that that had been blown by the wind. Light stuff, easy to move as breath itself—easier, actually. In this cold, every breath felt like it tore at your nostrils, then your lungs. You’d thought you were used to the cold, but it turned out you didn’t truly know it.

You easily moved the snow that had strayed into the garden, compacting it into a snowball and dropping it in your hand to toss it off into the pine trees. That brought you a smile, at least. Then you began the harder work of picking the frost out of the soil. You’d grown spoiled, manipulating little ice other than Todoroki’s for three years now. What he created was perfectly pure, exactly what your quirk liked best. This stuff was tiny, stuck in dirt and warped with atoms besides hydrogen and oxygen. It was good practice, but it made you miss the ease with which you interacted with Todoroki’s quirk. Like it was an extension of your own.

Dell’s eyes were closed, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think that she was totally unaware of your presence, her focus solely on the plants. They were growing, just barely perceptively—almost a trick of the eyes. If you stared long enough, though, you could see a leaf’s edge move past one wrinkle on her knuckle to another, a mark of the growth.

Her quirk allowed for her to steer nutrients from the earth into plants. So long as they had sunlight and water, they could grow more rapidly. She could protect them somewhat from the cold as well, but your quirk was also intended to help with that. While you couldn’t heat the soil, you could keep the frost off of it, keep the leaves bare and pointing up to the sun.

“Bad nerves?”

You looked at Dell, her eyes still closed. You couldn’t even say what color they were, you’d so rarely seen them open. When they were, she was walking from one plot to the next, eyes cast down. Humans got her ears and her mouth, plants got her eyes and her touch. As for smell—it was hard to smell anything in this cold, much less through the scarves everyone had bundled up to their eyes.

“No,” you said, perhaps a bit petulantly. One didn’t get to be a hero with bad nerves. You had to be cool and calm under pressure. Steady.

“They sent you out again.”

It had become a habit of the group, the dozen or so members who had access to this remote cabin. A location only to be found with coordinates of latitude and longitude, as there were no other landmarks for miles. Just snow, trees, and Dell’s small garden. When the few weeks your boss had promised you turned to the month you’d promised Todoroki, then turned to five weeks and even six, you’d become more and more ornery. At least you always had Dell to talk to when you were kicked out, the comfort of the snow around you feeling both familiar and allowing you to feel powerful.

No one had mentioned that you’d have no internet access. No cell phone. No courier service. The detectives in the group had some internet access, but it was strictly for professional use. Not a single private email was to be sent.

“Not a lot of patience for fidgeters,” you mumbled. “Gotta do something to stay warm.”

“The fireplace makes me sweat,” Dell commented, shifting to the next plant over.

It did for you too—you’d just been making an excuse. It was so hard to get a neutral temperature in this place. This was the land of extremes. Blizzard or drought, heat or frostbite. Yet people continued to survive and have the propensity to commit crimes.

“Something is on your mind.”

Todoroki.

On your flight north, you’d let the warm feelings of your night together linger over you, kindling into hope. He hadn’t said anything, but Todoroki wasn’t foolish enough to jeopardize a years’ old partnership for the sake of carnal passion. No, if he was going to sleep with you, it was going to be for a reason. Just like you.

Since then, you’d been in two months’ worth of circles.

“I didn’t tell anyone goodbye,” you said, just one of the many things that had been on your mind. “I didn’t get to tell anyone.”

You’d put every effort into not waking him. You hadn’t left a note. You hadn’t stolen one last kiss or even a touch of his hand. You’d thought you’d be able to talk again. Soon.

What was the point of being one time zone away if you couldn’t make contact?

“You’re missing someone,” Dell surmised, pulling a potato the size of her fist from the ground you’d just cleared of frost. Without you, it would have taken a shovel to do that. The frozen ground here was as hard as asphalt.

“Yeah,” you said. It wasn’t that you didn’t miss everyone else, but at least you knew what you’d be coming back to with anyone else in your life. You relationships were stable. But Todoroki…

“You’re in love.”

You’d been staring at the dirt, your eyes practically frozen over. You blinked up to find Dell’s eyes staring at you. They were a murky brown—or maybe a murky blue. They were right in that land of in between.

“Can you really be in love if you’re not in a relationship?” you asked. “If you’re not in it with someone else, really testing out what your compatibility is like? Isn’t it just a crush otherwise?”

You didn’t know why you were asking her. You were the only person you ever saw speaking with Dell—the others seemed to think that her plants were enough for her, that she had all the conversation that she needed with them. Maybe that was true. You had no idea what she knew of love.

“Is dating the only way to know those things?” she asked. “Is dating the only relationship of meaning?”

“Of course not,” you answered. It sounded stupid the way she said it. You and Todoroki were partners—had been. You had no idea if you’d been replaced. Certainly temporarily, if not permanently. But you knew how the two of you worked. Perfectly in tandem. As each other’s other half.

The wry laugh that followed didn’t come out as anything more than a breath, muffled in our scarf.

“So you love them,” she said, a smile quirking her lips as she pulled another potato. “But they don’t know.”

“I thought he might,” you said, the cold from both the air and your quirk leeching out any heat that that cabin had brought you.

“But now?”

You had no clue.

December

As The Mole tunneled into this building, you could tell it was different right away. Rather, you could hear it.

Human noises. Voices. Multiple of them. You ran in first, taking your place as the muscle of the group as you carried as much snow and ice in with you as you could without inhibiting your peers’ vision. You stuck patches of it to the wall, where it wouldn’t be in the way, but would be available for you to call on. Then you readied a staff of ice, compact with no air pockets so that they wouldn’t snap as soon as a fist or weapon came at them.

You began knocking people down indiscriminately, thwacking them with your staff and then sending slicks of ice to their feet, sending people sprawling. You created handcuffs and restraints watching to see who had a quirk that would let them crack out of them, only for you to trap them in something bigger.

Three months. Three months of isolation with no one but a handful of colleagues to keep you company, nothing but the case and the garden to give you purpose. Now, all of that impatience, all that frustration came walloping out on these villains, descriptions matching the text that had burned into the back of your eyes.

A screech came through the hallway, making your fingers go numb almost too quickly to counter for. But these villains didn’t know who they were dealing with.

You formed hunks of ice in your ears, freezing one of the only parts of your body that still felt the warm pulse of your blood, but silencing out some of the noise. You clenched your staff, ignoring the tingles of the villain attack and headed back into battle, deafened, looking for a mouth to fill with ice.

It was easy to spot the one making the soundwaves. It was a quirk similar to Present Mic’s, except the pitch was always high and, rather than just being painfully loud, it was at such a frequency that it messed with the nervous system. You jabbed some snow into his mouth, feeling it form around the nooks and crannies of his teeth, pressing it up against his soft palate, and turned it from compact snow to hard ice, hoping he got brain freeze.

You weren’t usually so coldhearted. But you’d been in Siberia for three months. You wouldn’t allow anyone to get frostbite. You’d cuddle any villain you gave hypothermia to if you had to. But your nerves were raw as your throat was with every frozen breath you took. It had taken three days through the tundra to reach this place.

Your patience was at its end. You’d been brought on to be the brute force.

So you were brutal.

You continued plowing through the crew in the windowless hallway, catching more of the quirks you’d read about in the mission’s write ups. Fortunately, most people could be stopped by ice—it just depended how much ice would be needed. The next thing you knew, a hole was burst through in the ceiling. You raised a shield of ice over your head, saving you from the dust and plaster that rained down on you, though it did little to help your vision.

You were unsure if the move had been done by your side or theirs, an accident or not. But it was to the villains’ detriment, as you were now able to reach your pull out of the building and drag in heaps of snow through the new hole. Now you could cage people completely if you needed to; you could freeze the whole room.

Although, suddenly, it became much harder to do that. Your ice wanted to melt. You had to focus on all that you’d already molded, keeping it solid and strong as you felt the temperature in the room steadily rising. You were sweating, both from the exertion of the fight and then the heat you first felt on the exposed skin of your face and then at your extremities, tingling from the temperature change now that the previous numbness had dissipated. Something was coming. Something hot.

Then you saw it, a bright orange flecked with streaks of yellow and red, fluid and coming at you. Reflexively, you brought your ice up to shield you. It held long enough to turn the incandescent source from orange to black in an instant. Then what was once liquid was suddenly solid, sending it crashing through your ice and to your skull.

You didn’t even remember falling.

You woke up to a pounding headache, exacerbated by the constant rumbling underneath you. You opened your eyes and found yourself already sitting up, strapped in the backseat of a car.

Panic shot through your veins immediately. You’d been caught. The villains were taking you somewhere. The feeling only lasted a second, though, as your wits returned. You were bound by nothing more than a seatbelt, limbs loose and free to unbuckle at an instant.

“What’s happening?” you asked, your voice dry.

The teammate beside you handed you a water bottle as The Mole began to speak from the driver’s seat. “Mission’s over, kid,” he said, “I tunneled the lava quirk into the ground and when he used his quirk to ride back up, we were able to capture him.”

“But what about all the other villains?” you asked

You had no idea how many had been there. Your shots had been fired indiscriminately at anyone who wasn’t one of the few people you’d spent the last three months holed up with. Everyone else had gotten your ice—until that lava villain had melted it.

“Your ice held even when you were unconscious,” he said, glittering eyes catching yours in the rearview mirror. “You’ve got a strong grip, kid.”

You furrowed your brow, drawing your attention back to the throbbing at the side of your head. You were definitely concussed, but that was nothing you couldn’t push through.

What The Mole was describing shouldn’t have been possible. Certainly, the ice couldn’t have been that strong to have withheld the heat that villain brought into the room. Unless you were holding it in place. Which you always had to put thought into. Thought that wasn’t possible when you were knocked out.

You froze a bit of the water in the bottle that was in your hand, playing with the ice as you shifted the fractals from snow to ice, changing the shapes like you were twisting the base of a monochrome kaleidoscope.

Your quirk had gotten stronger here. All the snow you’d worked with—the vast amounts, the uncontrollable impurities, not to mention your hours of detail work in the garden—it had refined your craft. Outside of the minimal hero work you’d been able to pull off—until the hurrah at the end, of course—the last three months had been an intensive in using your quirk. In living up to your hero name as you were thrust into the stuff it was made of. Without Todoroki to rely on.

“Are we going home?” you asked suddenly. The Mole had said that the mission was over, but…

“Yeah, we’re all going home,” he said, and you could hear the grin on his face.

Home, you thought in relief, your head falling gently to the headrest. Then you froze.

Home.

Shouto.

“Shouto?”

Midoriya was right in front of Shouto, eyebrows raised in concern. Shouto leaned back reflexively—he hadn’t even noticed Midoriya approaching him on the sidewalk. His training shouldn’t have allowed for that to happen, but he’d been distracted.

“Something on your phone?”

Shouto was suddenly aware that he’d been staring at his phone entirely too long. He’d barely noticed the snow landing and melting on the screen. He wiped it against his pants.

In the three months that he and Midoriya had been partnering—offset with many solo shifts and shifts with their various sidekicks—Shouto had been pushing himself. He’d been overcompensating because you’d become inextricable from his battling style over the years. And now that you were gone, he had to be on top of his game.

But, aside from that—he wasn’t mad about having to further hone his skills, after all—he and Midoriya had needed to be on their best behavior. There’d been more citizens and fans to interact with, more autographs to sign, more selfies to pose for. Midoriya had taken on your usual role of speaking with charm to the crowd, and Shouto was thankful. Thanks to him, PR had been right; Shouto’s public perception had gone up.

However, staring enraptured by his cell phone while on the job didn’t look good.

“She’s coming back,” Shouto said, unable to quite have it in him to put away the phone, still open to the email he’d just received. He had a special alert for work messages and he’d almost skipped this one when he’d heard the notification. They’d done nothing but disappoint him for weeks now—months.

“Snow?” Midoriya asked, his grin bright and genuine as ever. “Wow, that’s amazing! When?”

“Should be today,” Shouto said, staring back at the little box of black and white text on his screen. “Soon.”

His heart started pounding, and suddenly all the warmth that he’d been missing for months was pooling back in his belly, in his cheeks, in his sweaty palms.

“Shouto, are you okay?” Midoriya asked, cocking his head as he brought his hands up to the phone and lowered it.

“I’m not sure,” Shouto said, putting his phone back in his pocket to find his hands tingly, his fingertips feeling flush and warm. He took a step in the light dusting of snow, continuing the route of their patrol while Midoriya followed. “I feel very…anticipatory.”

“Anticipatory?” Midoriya echoed. “You mean excited? I know you’ve been eager for her to come back.”

“Yes, but…” Shouto let out a sigh, brushing both sweaty hands through his hair. “I don’t know.”

Midoriya smiled, eyes wide with mirth. “You’re nervous. What do you have to be nervous about?”

Shouto had been playing over the events of the last time he saw you for three months now to the point that word you’d said, every sound you’d breathed when you’d been underneath him was branded in his mind. But in between all of it, there’d never been any promises, any statements that he could glean your intentions from.

“We slept together. The night before she left.”

Midoriya nearly choked, doubling over coughing while Shouto cocked his head and patted the man’s back. He’d probably swallowed some spit.

“Midoriya,” Shouto continued, grateful that the snow was keeping people off the streets, and they could speak for a moment without hordes of fans approaching them for once, “do you think that one can make love to someone if it’s onesided?”

When he could stand straight again, Midoriya’s face was red, so Shouto waited for him to get his breath back under him as they began walking again.

“Um, wow, sorry, you just surprised me,” Midoriya said. “Can we backtrack for a second?”

“But nothing was happening back—”

“No, I mean,” Midoriya pinched the bridge of his nose and Shouto paused, allowing him to gather his thoughts, “was that the, uh, first time?”

“Yes.”

“And, er, nothing like that had ever happened before?”

“No.”

“And you’re in love with her?”

Shouto became aware of his heartbeat again, now moving up to his throat. He could see your face in his mind’s eye and wondered if your hair was longer or if you’d had it cut while you were away? Had being up north paled your skin since you’d been here in the fall, or would it have the same hue as when you’d left? It had been so long since he’d seen you; would he even notice?

“I’m not certain,” Shouto said. “But…”

Shouto put two fingers to the pulse point at the base of his neck. The mark you’d left there was long since gone, as were the marks on his back, but he could still feel the ghost of them. Your touch had hardly left his mind in the three long months of autumn turning over to endless winter.

“My heart races when I think of her.”

“Aw,” Deku said, his mouth turning down in one of those smiles that radiated out even when it curved the wrong way. “You do. But wait, you asked if you could, uh, make love if it’s onesided. Why do you think it’s onesided?”

“Because she didn’t say anything,” he reasoned. “And her actions could have meant a lot of different things.”

“Shouto,” Midoriya put a hand on Shouto’s shoulder, “obviously I don’t know the whole situation, but do you really think that her actions would mean anything other than her liking you?”

“I just…” Shouto made a block of ice in his hand, thinking of the fine control you had over your quirk. You could take this crude creation of his and turn it into something utilitarian, whimsical, beautiful. Then he took it in his other hand and melted it away. “I always thought I would be a solo hero. But I really don’t want to have to keep doing this without her.”

“So go,” Midoriya said. “You said she’ll be back soon, right? Go to her then. I can handle,” Midoriya gestured to the light flurries around them, “all this.”

Beyond the flurries there were only a few pedestrians, clad with umbrellas. There was a fairly steady parade of slow-moving cars on the city block, but no one seemed to be in a rush today. The snow made everything quiet.

“But I still don’t know—”

“You know, Shouto,” Midoriya said, an assured smile on his face. “So go do what you need to do.”

Upon getting to the airport, you’d had access to the internet for the first time since you’d left, and the first thing you’d done was google Todoroki’s name. You had to make sure that he was alive and uninjured. In doing so, you’d stumbled across heaps of articles with photos of him and Hero Deku, a few of which mentioned your absence and yours and Todoroki’s esteemed partnership.

Was there a partnership to come back to? Or had it been dissolved in your absence and you’d have to become a solo hero or settle for sidekicks until a new partner came along.

You weren’t sure that you’d ever be able to partner with someone else after working with Todoroki.

You’d become much stronger in your time abroad—you knew that now—but you wanted to bring that back to Todoroki. You wanted to show him what you’d learned, wanted to feel that power in a battle alongside him.

On the airplane, you tried to push all that aside and focused on Japan. You’d packed so sparely for the trip that the few pairs of socks you’d brought were threadbare, your costume in need of a replacement. You thought of the warmer weather, the longer days, the familiar faces, and your own warm bed.

By the time you landed, you’d almost convinced yourself. You hailed a car, enjoying in the easy Japanese you exchanged with the driver rather than the broken English you’d brought with you to Russia.

All you needed was Japan. You could worry about everything else later

You had the car drop you off on the corner of the street from your apartment building. The snow was coming down, but it was different than it had been up north. It was only just starting to stick, each step leaving a bald spot on the sidewalk that would be filled again in a few minutes. The chill wasn’t bitter, the air no longer biting. For a moment, you reveled in the snow. It would likely be melted by noon tomorrow and, despite all the snow you’d just left, you’d still miss it when it was gone.

When you approached your building, you noticed a silhouette loitering outside through the dimming light of the afternoon. The sun set only an hour later than it did in Siberia—still not nearly enough daylight. No one knew that you were returning today, so this person couldn’t be waiting for you, but you still used your quirk to sweep away the snow to leave your vision unobscured between yourself and the figure.

You recognized the hair immediately. The last thing you’d seen before you’d left.

“Shouto?” you called, your pace increasing as you released the snow and it flurried back to fill the void you’d created. “What are you doing here?”

That rare smile tugged at his face and then he was coming your way, arms outstretched.

“I missed you so much.”

You felt his hands coming to clutch your arms first. Then, not a moment later, his lips slanted over yours and your suitcase toppled to the ground.

His lips were cold. The cheek your hand came up to touch was cold. But his tongue was hot, and you could feel the heat spreading throughout you as wildfire on kindling kept too dry and too isolated.

He pulled away too soon, your mouth taking in a breath of frozen air when it had expected another touch of his lips.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked,” he said, taking a step back.

“No, it’s okay!” you reassured him, feet creeping half a step forward, feeling the crunch of snow under your boot. “It’s just…we’re in public.”

You remembered last time, when Shouto’d had the foresight to save any physical affection for the privacy of his home. A good call, as it seemed that any knowledge of your stolen kiss at the bar hadn’t leaked.

“And it seems a lot of people have been enjoying taking your picture lately,” you said, referencing all the photos you’d seen with him and Deku.

He smiled again—maybe they weren’t so rare after all. “I don’t care. I mean, if you do that’s fine, but I want people to see us together. Because…I want to be together. If you do.”

He took your hands in his and you wished neither of you were wearing gloves. You wished all the bundled layers between you would fall away—you’d been in cold worse than this.

“I do,” you said, and you leaned in to kiss him to prove your point. If he was okay with people seeing, you didn’t care either. Your boss could take it up with you later. “I really do.”

“Good,” he said, and his hands slipped up your arms before wrapping behind you, pressing you against him. You clung to him, fists clutching the fluffy material of his coat. “I know that maybe it’s too early to call this a relationship or anything—”

“I don’t think so.”

Todoroki fell silent at your interruption, waiting for you to continue. But, for a moment, you contented yourself in breathing in his scent, before pulling your face away to look into his eyes, pupils wide from the dimming light.

“A friend told me that a relationship isn’t the only way to have a partnership with someone. That it wasn’t the only circumstance around which to have true feelings for someone,” you explained, thinking of Dell.

“You were thinking about this while you were away?”

“Every day.”

He kissed your forehead, and then his eyes urged you to continue. “What did you think about?”

“Well,” you started, feeling flush from the gesture, “the way I see it, things usually go crush, partnership, sex. Or, I guess if you’re feeling impatient, crush, then sex, then partnership. But we kind of did: partnership, crush, sex. We have all the right pieces, they were just out of order.”

“That’s not so bad,” he murmured, low voice sounding deep and rumbly so close to you. If you didn’t have the soft layers of your overcoats between you, you’d be able to feel the vibrations under your skin.

“So the only thing we really need to catch up on…is dating.”

Your eyes met his shyly, a question hidden in your words. Todoroki wasn’t always good at reading between the lines, but you were good at reading his face. You saw the understanding in his eyes.

“Well,” Todoroki said, looking around. “I understand if you’re sick of the snow, but it’s not that late yet. Maybe we could go for a walk and see where it takes us?”

“I’m never sick of the snow,” you said with a grin, taking one hand off Todoroki’s back so that you could pull all the flakes that had fallen on his person at once and swirl them in your hand, just like you’d done in the bar so many months ago. One of your favorite tricks since you were a kid. Then you dropped them to the ground with their brethren. “I even got pretty good with it.”

“Impressive,” Todoroki said. His voice was deadpan, but the brightness in his eyes hinted at his intrigue.

“I learned some tricks while I was away.”

“I can’t wait to see them,” he said. “And, you know, I don’t mind a little snow either.”

A snowflake landed on your cheek and before it melted, Todoroki leaned in and kissed it, replacing the cold with his heated touch. When you left the embrace, you remembered your suitcase flat on the ground, handle outstretched. Todoroki saw your gaze and reached for it, but you did him one better. You grabbed the thing and pushed it into a hedge outside your building, totally obscured in the low evening light. Todoroki raised a brow at you, but you just smiled, summoning snow and turning it to ice. You wrapped it around your suitcase, sticking it to the ground, and giving it a coating too troublesome for a thief to bother with hacking through with a pick.

“It’ll melt,” Shouto said. “We can just take it up to your room or leave it in your lobby.”

“No,” you said easily, looking up at the falling snow. “I don’t want to miss a moment of this. And besides, it won’t melt. I told you I’ve learned some tricks.”

And, just like always, he didn’t question you. He simply offered his hand to you and you took it as though it was ordinary. As though the many times you’d been side by side over the years had always been linked with a hand, not just trust.

Then, without a destination, you took off strolling. The night wasn’t nearly as dark as it had been in your little cabin in Siberia, what with all the city lights. The air was still below freezing, but you’d never felt warmer.

“Can I ask you something?” you said, before the air fully settled and left you in a lull of silent contentment. “Why did you bring me home with you? Back then. Did you like me and just didn’t say anything or…?”

Todoroki was quiet for a moment, the night air filled with the drone of slow-moving cars and the beeping of city crosswalks.

“It was nothing I had thought about before,” he admitted. “But when you kissed me, I wanted to kiss you back…because it was you.”

That didn’t really tell you anything. Nothing about what he’d felt before or after, nothing about how that had led him to waiting out of your building to kiss you again. But, at the same time, it told you everything. Because, after all, it was the same reason you’d kissed him. That you’d liked him at all. Because he was your partner, your best friend, the person you trusted with your life over anyone else.

Because…it was him.

#todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #todoroki smut #shouto todoroki smut #shoto todoroki smut #not/sfw #bnha smut #mha smut #mha x reader #bnha imagines #bnha imagine #todoroki imagines #todoroki imagine #shoto x reader #shouto x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #shouto todoroki x reader

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bobohu4eva · 3 years

Text

Pink Lace - Chapter 5

Characters: Baekhyun x Reader

Genre: College AU, stripper AU, fluff, smut, slow burn

Summary: Baekhyun, a philosophy professor with mysterious wealth, got himself completely fucked over a girl who can’t let him into her life.

Word count: 4k

Warnings: sex work, mentions of sexual assault, adult themes/situations, eventual smut

Tag list: @smolbeanmika @leave-me-in-the-summertime @totallynerdstuff @bbhmystar @nana-banana @kimyhappy @thegreatandi @geniusloey @deligxt @baekswifey @bbhyun506 @lovebuginlove @bellamendoza @baekyeonoreo @bobohumyonlyboo

Masterlist

After your conversation with Baekhyun Monday evening Tuesday was spent desperately trying to get Baekhyun off your mind, with little success. He’d asked you if you liked him like that, and you couldn’t tell him no. Hell, you knew in the back of your mind that the answer was definitely yes, you just couldn’t bring yourself to say it to his face.

As much as you did like him, the prospect of starting something with a customer who was also your professor was still terrifying. What if you two got together and people found out? Or what if things started to go south and you were still stuck with him as your teacher?

Despite your other schoolwork, and cleaning basically everything you possibly could, your mind just kept racing with every different possible scenario for if you did tell Baekhyun how you felt. And most of them were quite unpleasant. He could lose his job, you could make class absolute hell for yourself if things didn’t go well, and so on. Different possibilities played themselves out in your mind over and over, and there was little you could do to stop it.

However the thoughts that stuck with you the most were the ones where things didn’t end badly. Thoughts of his arms around you, his comforting words whispered in your ear, and the gentle touches of his pretty hands on your skin. As much as you fought it, the attraction was there.

The way your mind bounced between thoughts was stressful to no end. Every time you tried reasoning with yourself, you just thought about how good he made you feel when you were alone together.

Baekhyun was always so willing to be vulnerable with you, it made you feel appreciated. He was so open about his feelings, and honest with his intentions towards you that it made it difficult to push him away. You wanted to be able to show him the same kind of vulnerability as well, but the possibilities if you did still frightened you too much.

You knew you wouldn’t be able to go on like this forever, sooner or later you had to figure out what to say to him.

Your essay was plaguing you as well. You’d tried to start it on several occasions, but Plato’s writing was so old timey and incomprehensible you didn’t even know where to start. It also didn’t help that every time you tried to start writing, all you could think about was what Baekhyun would think. The idea of turning a shitty paper in for him to read and grade made you feel sick. You knew you were shooting yourself in the foot putting it off but you just couldn’t bring yourself to start it either.

“You’ve cleaned everything in the apartment. Twice. What’s with you today y/n?” Mia asked as she walked out of her bedroom and into the common area, finding you once again wiping down all the surfaces in the kitchen.

“I’m trying to distract myself, was that not obvious?” You knew what was coming next.

“Baekhyun still on your mind?”

Yes. He was. In every possible way, good and bad, and you couldn’t stop it.

“I think I do like him.”

“See! I knew it!” You rolled your eyes at her. “Anything exciting happen yesterday? Did you decide to keep the money?” She asked, sitting down at the dining room table, you sitting down across from her.

“I’m keeping it, I tried giving it back but he told me some stuff and turns out he doesn’t need it after all.”

“So he IS rich?!”

“Yeah... although not from anything cool or fun. His rich parents died recently.”

“Oh shit, that sucks. That must’ve been an awkward conversation.”

“Not really. I don’t know why but talking to him is getting easier and easier. I even stayed after he told me I could go.”

“You really must like him then, damn. Can’t blame you though, he is hot.” You shot her an angry look but you both knew she was right. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

“Do about what?”

“You liking him. He obviously likes you a lot too, so what happens next?”

“Nothing. He’s my professor.”

The look she shot you next said something reminiscent of ‘are you fucking serious’.

“Oh come on y/n this guy is hot, and rich, and super into you. Even if he is your professor you can’t pass up a fling at least.”

“And when it ends? What then? Or if someone finds out he’s fucking a student? He’d lose his job and it would be my fault.”

“No, it would be his fault, and he’s rich anyway so it wouldn’t even matter.”

You thought back to your last conversation with Baekhyun, and what he said about his parents. Even if he did choose to risk it for you, the thought of him losing a job that meant so much to him still didn’t sit right with you.

“It would matter to me. Either way I don’t want other students shit talking me either. If my classmates found out there was something between us it would be hell.”

“All I'm hearing right now, is that you just need to not get caught. The semester is only 16 weeks, as long as nothing gets out while you’re in his class nothing too bad can happen. You just have to be careful.”

You thought about it, and she wasn’t exactly wrong. As long as nothing got out while you were his student, nothing too bad could happen.

“He won’t lose his job if people find out we’re together later on when I’m not his student anymore, right?”

Mia shrugged. “He doesn’t hold any power over you anymore then so I don’t see why he’d get in any trouble. People might just think it’s weird since he’s older. How old is he anyway? He looks young.”

“I’m not exactly sure... Somewhere around 30? Late 20s maybe? I should ask him.”

“Yeah you should. I still have homework I need to do, I should get back to that.” She said before getting herself a glass of water and retreating back to her bedroom.

The next morning you were exhausted. You hadn’t gotten much sleep because of everything that was going through your head. You wanted Baekhyun, and he wanted you, but there was still too much risk involved. But part of you kept thinking about what Mia had said as well. Could a fling really be that bad?

You were nervous to see him too. You still hadn’t given him an answer to his question, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to dodge it forever. Lying seemed like a decent option, but you knew with how honest and vulnerable Baekhyun always was with you, you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to lie to him. Especially when you did want something more with him, you were just scared.

As philosophy class drew closer and closer you felt uneasy. You felt bad seeing Baekhyun again without giving him an answer, but you didn’t know how or what to say. You only hoped he wouldn’t press you for it.

Class went by and you didn’t speak to him. He didn’t keep you after either, which was a relief. You had been hoping he’d at least go over some stuff that would help you on your essay, but you had no such luck, and you needed it done by midnight if you wanted any credit.

When you got home you cursed yourself for procrastinating so much, but you had other homework too and you knew you’d be able to focus on that better, so you started it first.

Eventually your mind got sucked into your physics assignment, and you forgot about Baekhyun and the essay, too focused on the task at hand.

By the time you were done with your other assignments it was 8pm. Four hours until you had to submit your essay. One hour went by just reading and rereading the text you were supposed to write about. Another was wasted on an intro paragraph you kept deleting, because you still couldn’t understand the text. When 10pm hit, and you started to panic.

You realized that you weren’t going to be able to do it. Your mind was now in freak out mode and you couldn’t concentrate anyway. Either the paper wasn’t getting turned in at all, or you needed to do something fast. In any other class you would’ve BS-ed your way through it to turn at least something in, but you just couldn’t do that knowing Baekhyun was going to read it. You weren’t going to be able to submit it that night, but you needed to at least contact him and explain so he wouldn’t think you were stupid.

By 10:30 you found yourself scrolling through your contacts, staring at his name. You’d thought about emailing him, but he probably wouldn’t see until morning and you didn’t have that much time.

In hindsight you probably would’ve been fine to just send an email and try to get an extension, but the combination of anxiety over your grade and wanting to talk to him had his name in your phone looking better and better.

So you called.

Your nerves were on fire as you waited for him to hopefully pick up. Was this stupid? Would he even answer? Worst of all, what if he was disappointed in you for not being able to do the assignment?

After a few rings, he picked up. “Hello?”

“Hi Baekhyun, it’s y/n.”

“Y/n? Are you alright what’s going on?” You could hear the concern in his voice even over the phone, and you remembered why he gave you his number in the first place.

“I- I can’t do the essay.” You felt your voice shake, before unloading all your grievances in one breath “I read the thing a million times and I still have no idea what it’s about and I put it off until tonight cause it was making me so anxious but I still can’t focus and now it’s too late and I don’t know what to do and I’m freaking out.”

You heard him sigh. “Slow down, It’s okay, I know it’s a difficult assignment. Have you at least started?”

“No..” You felt tears swelling in your eyes, threatening to spill and you’re sure he can hear it in your voice even over the phone. “Can I just skip this one? I tried to start it so many times but I don’t know how to analyze something I can’t even understand.” You choked out.

“Y/n...” You could tell he was thinking of what to do. He probably shouldn’t give you special treatment, and you knew that but right now you hoped he would just give in. Unfortunately you had no such luck. “I’m sorry but I can’t let you just not do it. It would make it too obvious that I’m treating you differently than other students.”

“Then can you at least help me? Or give me more time? Please?” You begged.

“I’m still in my office. I can help you if you meet me here.”

You felt your palms get sweaty and your heart beat faster at the idea of going to his office again after what had happened last time, especially this late at night and in such a fragile state.

“O-okay. I’ll be there in 10. Bye.” You said, hanging up before he could respond.

Quickly you got on some shoes and drove yourself to the building his office was located in. Last time you’d been in there he’d asked you about your feelings for him, and now you had to go back. You told yourself to just focus on getting the essay done, but the thought still hung around in the back of your mind as you walked down the hall towards Baekhyun’s office. You felt jittery and embarrassed, but you needed to do this for your grade.

After taking a few deep breaths to ready yourself, you knocked on the door, and heard a muffled “Come in” from the other side, so you let yourself in. Baekhyun was sitting at his desk, which was covered in papers you assumed he’d been grading. Instead of the nicer clothes he would usually wear during lecture, he was just wearing a black t shirt and sweats now.

“You know you scared the shit out of me when you called. I thought you were in danger or something.” He said to you as you sat down in front of him. “I really didn’t think you’d call me over school work.”

“I’m sorry..”

“It’s okay! I’m not mad or anything, just surprised. What part of the text are you having trouble with?”

“All of it...” You felt your lip starting to quiver. “I’m sorry I know this sounds so stupid and you probably think I’m just trying to take advantage of how you like me but I promise it’s not like that.” You said, looking down and fidgeting with your hands, trying to hide the frustration on your face.

Baekhyun crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, smiling. “I never said I thought that. I told you it’s not an easy assignment, it’s ok if you’re having trouble. Plato can be difficult especially for people who aren’t used to reading things that old.”

“I should’ve at least started earlier...”

“Probably, but it’s too late to dwell on that now. Let’s just try to go over the reading together, yeah?” You nodded.

He moved his chair to your side of the desk before opening your textbook to the reading for the essay.

“So the first thing that makes The Ring of Gyges so confusing is that you don’t really know who’s talking. Basically it’s a conversation between Plato and his brother Glaucon where they’re discussing justice, and it’s actually Glaucon speaking for most of it, not Plato.”

You were listening to what he was saying of course, but you were still distracted by the proximity. Baekhyun was sitting right next to you now, arms almost touching. The only other time the two of you got that close was at the club. And you did not need to be thinking about that while he was explaining your assignment to you.

“Are you following me so far?”

Your eyes immediately shot up from the book to meet his, and you quickly nodded. Having him look you in the eyes again like that made your face feel hot.

“Glaucon argues that people only peruse justice for the benefits of it, and not because they actually want to be good people. He uses the example of a ring that grants it’s user invisibility, therefore allowing them to do unjust things like steal without being caught. He tells Plato a story about a man who finds such a ring and uses it do overthrow the king.”

You groaned. “It still doesn’t make sense though, what does some story about a stupid ring have to do with justice?”

“Well, if you were given the ability to steal and deceive people for your own benefit, without ever having to worry about getting caught, wouldn’t you do it too?” You stayed silent. “Basically, what you need to understand is what Glaucon is arguing. He’s saying that doing good deeds isn’t a part of human nature, and everyone would behave unjustly if they knew they would never get caught. Therefore, justice is something people pursue not out of want, but out of fear of the consequences if they don’t.”

All you could do was stare at him. It was infuriating how attractive he sounded while explaining it to you.

“Do you have a bit of a better idea what to write about now? Remember it’s only two pages, so don’t stress too much.”

You snapped yourself out of your thoughts. “Yeah, it makes a bit more sense now... do I still need to finish it tonight or?”

“Friday. Just email it to me by midnight on Friday and I won’t count it late.” He said, smiling again.

“Thank you for doing this, I’m sorry it was so late and everything.”

Baekhyun just chucked, “You know if it’s you I don’t mind. You could keep me here all night with questions and I wouldn’t stop you. But you understand now, right?”

The way he was smiling at you now along with the closeness was making you slightly dizzy.

“I think so, Glaucon is basically saying that injustice is better than justice then right? Because everyone would do unjust things if they’d always get away with it.”

Baekhyun nodded.

“So according to him the best way to live life would be to do things you know are wrong, but without being caught.”

“Exactly. See, I knew you were smart, y/n.” A smirk had made its way onto his face as he spoke.

You couldn’t help connecting what he was saying to what you were feeling inside towards him. You wanted him, and you knew it was wrong, but how could you deny it to yourself when it felt so right?

“Baekhyun...” You asked, hesitantly. “D-do you think it’s okay to do things you know are wrong, as long as no one finds out?”

“I think it depends what you’re talking about.” He answered, now looking you in the eyes again with intensity. “I would never kill anyone, for any reason, even if I knew I could get away with it. But, if I really wanted something, I think I would take it.”

You were hyperaware of how his eyes were now scanning your face, lingering on your lips. “Take what?”

A hand made contact with your thigh, slowly moving up until he stopped, right below the hem of your shorts. His thumb drew soft circles on the sensitive inner flesh, giving you goosebumps.

“I know you feel it too, you want this, don’t you?” Baekhyun asked, now moving a stand of hair out of your face. He let his hand rest on the back of your neck, keeping you facing towards him.

Your heart felt like it was about to short circuit from how fast it was beating. Your palms were sweaty and you could feel yourself shaking slightly. The way his thumb stroked your neck beneath your ear made you shiver, and you knew he saw. All you could do was stare back at him, dumbfounded. Any words you tried to get out stuck in your throat. He was right, you did want it. Now more than ever.

“Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you right now. I dare you.” He said, running his thumb over your bottom lip, eyes fixed on how it trembled beneath his touch. He was slowly moving your face closer his, but you didn’t stop him.

Your silence told Baekhyun all he needed to know, and his lips quickly found yours. Immediately you let yourself melt into the kiss. You felt your whole body buzzing, finally getting what it had wanted for so long. His lips felt unbelievably soft against yours, moving in a slow rhythm as his other hand came up from your thigh to cup your face as well. You wrapped your arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, letting it become messier and more desperate.

“I like you” you pulled away just enough to whisper “so fucking much.” You felt him grin into the kiss as your lips met again.

He tasted like strawberries, and you felt high as your lips kept crashing together with more and more need. Your whole body felt like it was set on fire and simultaneously dunked in an ice bath, every nerve vibrating with want.

When Baekhyun pulled your bottom lip gently between his teeth you let out a soft moan, and he started to lose it. He broke the kiss, standing up and pulling with him, before backing you up against the wall, a hand on either side of your head.

“Sweetheart, don’t push me” He breathed, and started peppering kisses along the side of your neck, from under your ear down to your collarbone, sucking and biting on the way.

Trapped between him and the wall, you felt weak and breathless. Your brain was in overdrive and you gasped at his ministrations, hands burying themselves in his soft hair. His hands had traveled down to your waist, holding you against him tightly.

“Baekhyun” You breathed out, rubbing your thighs together as he sucked on a particularly sensitive spot.

“Fuck, y/n. Don’t say that.” He forced the words out through gritted teeth.

His body pressed you into the wall, and your arms wrapped around him pulling him into you even tighter. He was completely consuming your senses and your knees felt wobbly from the intensity of it all. He was already smothering your entire front, but you tried to pull him even closer regardless.

You felt something hard press into your hip as his mouth covered yours again, and this time you shamelessly moaned his name into his open mouth.

Much to your disappointment, Baekhyun immediately detatched himself from you, backing up until his back hit the opposite wall of the office. You could see how turned on he was by the outline of his dick through his pants and the pained look in his face.

“Fucking christ...” He said, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. You just watched from the other side of the room. He kept his eyes closed and you observed as his jaw clenched and unclenched before you heard him continue. “You have to go. If you don’t I’m gonna fuck you on my desk and I won’t be gentle.”

Your throat went dry at his crude words, but you couldn’t deny your own arousal. You walked back towards him, reaching out to touch his chest which was now rising and falling rapidly, but he grabbed you before you could make contact. His grip on your wrist was so tight it was almost painful. His knuckles were white, and you could see a drop of sweat trickle down the side of his face.

His eyes bore into your own with a stare that warned you not to try anything more.

“I’m sorry y/n but you have to leave. Not tonight. Not like this.” With his free hand he grabbed your belongings off his desk, shoving them into your arms.

Still speechless, he opened the door and pulled you outside before going back in and closing the door behind him. You stood and stared at his office door for a minute, recollecting yourself and processing what the hell had just happened.

Eventually your shaky legs began making their way down the hallway, back towards your car. You were pretty sure a janitor saw you as you turned the corner just down the hall from Baekhyun’s office. You kept your head down, trying to hide your face best you could while hurrying past.

Once you were sitting in your car, you slumped into the seat, mind still in a daze after what happened in Baekhyun’s office. You waited for your breathing and heartrate to slow down before you drove away.

Baekhyun left shorty after you as well, unable to concentrate on anything but the sound of you moaning his name. He felt terrible for throwing you out of his office but he’d meant what he said. He didn’t want his first time to have you to be in his office, purely fueled by pent up lust. He wanted to give you more than that.

More than anything, he just couldn’t believe he’d gotten what he’d wanted for the entire summer. It didn’t seem possible, but now it had happened. And you actually kissed him back. It felt too good to be true. He felt himself once again struggling to sleep, but this time because he was too excited. This time, he didn’t have to keep himself up wondering, he knew he had you. He just couldn’t wait to see what would happed now.

You on the other hand couldn’t stop worrying about that exact thing as you stared at the ceiling above your bed. What would happen now? The thoughts weren’t fearful anymore, there was just too many of them to shut your mind down enough to sleep.

You’d finally allowed yourself to give into him, and there was no more turning back.

Next Chapter

#baekhyun #exo #baekhyun fluff #baekhyun smut #baekhyun fanfic #exo fanfic #exo fluff #exo smut

285 notes · View notes

sanguineness-wings · 3 years

Text

home early

Pairing: Hawks x gn!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ minors do not interact )

Warnings: Sexual content, hand jobs, lap sitting, all Hawks focused/receiving, established relationship

i haven’t written smut since 2013 and it shows. please be gentle. this is totally self indulgent. i’m always daydreaming about showering hawks with love while i work from home

The file you were working on (named final2-revision5_FINAL-FOR-REAL.psd) was saved with a relieved sigh. This client had been beyond difficult to work with and you were more than ready to be rid of them. With the file sent off for approval, hopefully for the last time, you stretched out your stiff limbs and groaned at the satisfying pops of your joints and spine. After being hunched at your computer all morning, you decided to treat yourself to a fresh cup of tea and some cookies.

When you returned to your computer and checked your email, your heart sunk at the multiple emails from the client. You swore loudly and banged your forehead against your desk a few times. You should have made coffee instead.

Hours passed with you hyper-focused on your screen and music blasting through your headphones, determined to be done with this project today, even if it killed you. Your phone sat neglected at the corner of your desk, even as it lit up with multiple text messages. You didn’t even hear your front door open sometime later. Or the voice calling for you from the living room. The press of warm lips against your cheek startled you out of your concentration, making you jump and rip the headphones from your ears.

Hawks, in all of his wind swept glory, grinned down at you, “Working hard?”

“I didn’t even hear you come in,” you breathed out, willing your heart to stop sputtering in your chest. It was honestly rare to see the hero while the sun was still up. “Did you get off patrol early?”

“Yeah.” Hawks pouted, turning to show you the little feathered nubs where his full wings should be. “I got plucked pretty bad.”

“Shit! What happened? Are you okay?” He didn’t seem hurt, but that didn’t stop you from trying to tug off his coat to make sure.

Hawks took one of your hands in his own and kissed at your knuckles soothingly, “I’m fine, chickadee. Promise. Just was a busy day. But! Bright side is I get a few days off.”

The motivation to get this stupid project done flared inside of you renewed. Nothing was going to get in between you and two whole days alone with Hawks.

“I just have a few things to finish up, then I’m all yours,” you explained as you turned back to your computer.

“Sure, I’m gonna shower quick,” Hawks said with a quick kiss to the crown of your head.

—

Warm, damp hands interrupted you sometime later as you furiously typed out an email to the client with murderous intent in every keyboard click. Hawks’ fingers ran through your hair as he hummed in your ear, “Almost done?”

“Almost…hopefully,” you grunted out, barely registering Hawks’ touch. You heard Hawks let out an exaggerated sigh.

“You promise?”

You hummed noncommittally, not breaking your gaze away from your screen. Hawks huffed loudly as he shuffled out.

—

The sun started to sink low in the sky, casting your home office in a beautiful pink and orange hue. It would have been a nice view, if you had time to admire it. But you were too busy working yourself to the bone.

You noticed a tickling at your neck and tried to brush it away, thinking it must be a piece of stray hair. But every few moments you felt the tickling again, no matter how you rearranged your hair. The tickling then traveled down your neck and into your shirt. You yelped, realizing the source of the tickling was a single tiny feather.

“Hawks! Stop it!” You shrieked as you dug around under your shirt, trying to catch the little puff of red. Hawks’ laughter reached your ears from the kitchen as you writhed, nearly falling out of your chair. He finally relented once you were red in the face with tears welling up in your eyes from the endless teasing. You shook out your shirt until the little feather fell out and returned to your work.

—

Hawks grew more restless the longer you worked, pestering you every so often for attention. But you were determined to finish up so you could relax with him tomorrow without this project looming over you. You ate dinner at your desk while Hawks sat on the floor with his own plate, chattering away about patrol or something. You were barely paying attention.

Once the plates were cleared away, Hawks’ patience wore out. He grabbed your hand away from the mouse and tugged, “Come on, that’s enough for one day, don’t you think?”

You sighed wearily and tried to shake your hand free from his. “I just have a couple more revisions.”

“I’ve been home for hours and you’ve barely looked at me!” Hawks whined, draping himself over your side dramatically.

“If I get this done now, we’ll have all day tomorrow together - Ow! No biting!”

Hawks left little stinging bites at your shoulder and neck, growling low in frustration. You grabbed at his face to push him away, squeezing his chubby cheeks between your fingers to make him look at you. “Listen. I’m patient when you have to work late, right? I just need one more hour.”

Hawks seemed to deflate a little and looked away with guilt in his eyes. You never once complained while he was away on long missions or had to cancel plans, you always understood when his job came first.

“Why don’t you sit in my lap while I finish up?” You suggested, rolling your chair back from your desk to make room for him. Hawks’ eyes immediately lit up and he eagerly scrambled to straddle your thighs. You pulled him in close by his hips as his arms looped around your neck, nuzzling his face into your hair.

“Better?” You asked, smiling against his shoulder.

Hawks hummed, wiggling to press himself flush against you. “Much better.”

It was nice being able to dote on him while you worked, wishing you thought of this sooner. The weight of him against you and the smell of his sweet shampoo was grounding, soothing away your frustrations. You pressed gentle kisses to his neck to make him sigh and played with the curls at the nape of his neck with a free hand. He cooed and hummed in a low, satisfied voice when your hand snuck beneath his oversized t-shirt to pet up his back. You rubbed slow circles into his smooth skin, eating up the way he pressed into each touch.

—

“All done, baby boy,” you whispered while pressing a kiss to Hawks’ temple. He had gone completely limp in your lap from all of the petting and little affections, making you think he had fallen asleep. You warmed your hands along his bare thighs, him sporting nothing but boxer briefs, earning you a spine tingling groan from the hero. He pulled back from where his head was buried in the crook of your neck, only to lean in to for a sweet, lingering kiss.

“Now you’re all mine,” Hawks murmured against your lips before his kisses turned more demanding. Your hands slid to Hawks’ ass, giving his cheeks a loving squeeze. It spurred his hips to buck against your stomach, the hard line of his cock pressing against you.

“Let me take care of you,” you sighed as Hawks’ lips found your throat. You wanted to make it up to him for basically ignoring him all day. Your hands toyed with the waist band of his briefs, loving the way you could hear his breathing hitch. Slipping inside, your fingers found the wet tip of cock, already drooling with excitement. You thumbed at the engorged head, making his hips jerk into your touch as you wrapped your hand around him, pumping him with languid strokes.

“Oh, fuck,” Hawks groaned as his head fell back, rutting into your hand. He gripped at your shoulders with trembling hands for leverage as his hips rolled. “Feels good, babe.”

You peppered kisses up his exposed neck, finding the little tender spot behind his ear to abuse by suckling at the soft skin. Hawks’ voice keened into a desperate whine as his fingers found purchase in your hair.

“Look at you, falling apart so easily for me,” you crooned into his ear, smiling at the way he shuddered.

“Don’t get too c-cocky there,” Hawks breathed out, stuttering when gave the tip of his cock a firm squeeze, “I haven’t even started with you yet.”

“Is that right? I look forward to it when you’re done leaking all over my lap.”

“F-Fuck, where is all this coming from, dove? Usually I’m the one running my mouth.” Hawks let out a breathy laugh as he tightened his grip in your hair, pulling you back to look you in the eye.

“I just want to make you feel good,” you whined out as you met his liquid honey gaze. “Is it working?”

A warm smile upturned his lips before he pressed his forehead against yours, “You know it is. You feel how much I’m squirming here.”

“I just wanted to make sure. Now, let me see you,” you hummed, pecking his lips before urging him to lean back. With your free hand you pushed up his t-shirt, nudging him to hold the fabric up with his teeth so you could watch the muscles of his stomach clench with every shock of pleasure. Your fingers explored the smooth expanse of his chest, teasing around his nipples before toying with the piercings there. Hawks groaned around the fabric in his mouth, his back arched to press further into your teasing touches.

You worked him through the throes of his pleasure as his skin flushed a lovely shade of pink. You decorated his chest and stomach with pretty little hickeys, drunk on the way every suck drew a moan from him. When you used your tongue to tease at the piercings in his nipples, Hawks completely broke. He hiccuped and swore loudly, though muffled by the fabric clenched tightly between his teeth, as his cock twitched and throbbed between your fingers. Thick strands of cum splattered against his chest and drooled down his twitching muscles.

“Aren’t you a pretty mess,” you moaned, drinking in the sight of him blissed out. You leaned in, lapping up the cum from his skin, making Hawks shiver and gasp at the warm, wet passes of your tongue. Hawks pushed you back firmly before you could finish to kiss you sloppily, chasing the taste of himself on your tongue. He nipped at your bottom lip before slipping off your lap, urging your thighs to part as he knelt between them.

“You better get comfortable, dove,” Hawks said with a wicked grin, his eyes sparkling with lustful intent. “We’re going to be here for a while. I want to hear you sing for me.”

His hands were already tugging your sweatpants down your legs impatiently, making you swallow thickly. Good thing you both had off of work tomorrow.

#takami keigo x reader #hawks x reader #echo writes #hawks smut #bnha smut #mha smut #takami keigo smut

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eltanin-malfoy · 3 years

Text

The Portend (His Royal Highness II)

word count: 6.7k

warning(s): cursing, anxiety

a/n: hi all! i just wanted to say that i know this chapter’s length is SO different from the first one’s but that’s because that one is, again, 2 years old and was written all at once. the other chapters will also be fairly long from here on out. i hope you enjoy this one!

taglist: @drawlfoy @war-sword @lilyreachelcassidy @socontagiousimagines @andreasworlsboring101 [@kaibie @regalillegal @mayorofzillyhoo, i know you all wanted to be tagged in the full-length HRH and this is pretty much it ig. please let me know if you’re still interested and want me to add you to the permanent tag list for this series]

reply to this post or send me an ask/dm if you want to be added to the tag list for the series or for all of my fics!

HRH - Table Of Contents

Y/N placed her palms flat on her desk as if doing so would bring any sort of change to the absolute hurricane that had begun its wrath within her stomach. She tried to imagine she was somewhere else for a second. Why would any rational human being do this to someone? That too to someone with as much responsibility as she had. Oh, right… she’d forgotten. Prince Draco was far from rational. Far from being a human being, even.

She looked down at the paper trays with guest lists upon guest lists kept before her, shifted them to the side and planted her face on the wood. That’s better , she thought. Now no one else can see how fucking ridiculous I feel right now! She tried to think about what the hell she’d done to him to make him act so horribly towards her. What could she have possibly done in a past life that would have resulted in her having to face such a… conundrum? She’d thought it was hard enough having to bargain with the King and Queen over how much detail could possibly be squeezed into cake decorations but had no idea a situation even more stressful could and would arise.

How could she let herself get so weak? How could she not bring herself to be assertive? She could have just said no, right? It wasn’t that hard. He hadn’t been nice at all. She took a deep, deep breath, trying desperately to calm her brain. It had begun to run from thought to thought, imagining every possible scenario that could go wrong. She had so much work left to complete on her own, and god knew how much attention and criticism she might face at and after the ball.

And the way she’d freaked out in front of Draco as well! She was sure he must’ve been at least a little put off by how strongly and emotionally she’d reacted so quickly. God, not that that should matter that much but… if they were supposed to work together for a highly publicised ordeal, they had to get along, right? Right? She hadn’t meant to do that. It’s just that he’d already shocked her a bit by slipping into her office so unexpectedly. And then he’d gone on and rushed to… that . Not to excuse what he did but perhaps she should’ve realised she didn’t need to panic so much over it either. She knew she was having a hard time with her anxiety…

Nevertheless, she brought her hands to the edge of the table closer to her and pushed herself up. She looked forwards, turning slightly to face the window she was looking out before everything turned to shit. The scenery was still gorgeous, albeit not that comforting anymore but looking out at the wide expanse of a beautiful garden would bring just about anyone some tranquillity. She had been thinking about how lovely the weather was today, how nice it would be to go for a walk after she’d finished up with her work. Maybe she could even head downtown for once and meet some old friends. But no, no one was happy just giving her a single moment of peace. Even fate was bent upon just giving her as much to stress about as was possible.

She looked down at the paper trays she’d just abandoned. Administrative work could distract her a bit, couldn’t it? All she had to do was send RSVP reminders and reach out to the guests and performers coming in from out of town about their travel and accommodation details. As well as request the performers for the outlines of their performances and send them contracts saying they’d stick by the approved setups. They couldn’t have a repeat of last year’s embarrassing The Hobgoblins’ performance. To be very brief, it had gone sexual. (The King and Queen’s expressions during it were still popular reaction gifs) She picked out one of the lists and opened up her laptop, finally beginning the work she’d been putting off all morning. It seemed so much easier and more comforting now that she had the much more disturbing dilemma on hand. She corroborated the list in front of her, adding ticks and crosses to the list to mark invitees as having confirmed or not. She then compiled their contact details and created a template for emails to send to those that had yet to confirm their attendance and travel itineraries. After this, she did the same with the list of performers, making sure to add enough information to their emails regarding the outlines they should send back.

And there… most of her work was done already, wasn’t it? Now all she had to do was proofread these, make sure all of the addressees were receiving the appropriate emails and well, press send. It shouldn’t take too long and then she could… She could get back to stressing about the problem fucking Draco had landed her in, goddammit! She was right back there again, her stomach beginning to swirl dangerously. She tried to take in a few deep breaths, forcing herself to get back to work. It wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t that hard!

Never mind, she couldn’t deal with it right now. She… Well, she needed a break. Or maybe she just needed to leave work early today. It was fair game after what the hell Draco had just unloaded on her. It was time she gave her intern some actual responsibility anyway. He was a sweet little fellow, straight out of university. Had his head in the right place but wasn’t particularly good with all the practical work yet. She’d assigned him some random organisational task she knew wouldn’t take her more than a minute and wasn’t going to bother checking because she thought it was simply too easy. Hopefully, he’d been able to do it to her standards.

She sat back in her chair and raised her hands up to her head, stretching out her fingers and breathing in and out deeply through her mouth. She was going to do this. She was really going to handle this (easier) bit of the work off to the intern and he was going to do it just fine. Just fine. Maybe she might have to assist him with it a little bit but it was going to work. It would work. Yes, it would. She shook her head to try and shake off some of her anxiety and stood up, closing her laptop’s screen and picking up the tray of guest lists. She walked out of her office and into the large room outside of it, which had a small group of cubicles placed in the middle.

While the rest looked rapt in their work (an exaggeration, to be sure, a lot of them were chatting with their co-workers and eating snacks), she noted her dear intern was just sitting idle which both made her feel hopeful and worried. He was sitting with his laptop closed, one hand tapping on the table’s surface, the other holding his phone.

“Hi, Colin!” Y/N said and he jerked forwards in surprise, dropping his phone to the floor. “Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”. Colin shook his head as he picked it up and looked it over, “It’s no problem, miss… My phone is just fine. Are you alright? I know the prince was just in your office, he came to ask me where it was first! I was so excited and I asked him for a picture but he said he was in a rush! I can’t believe I’ve managed to have a conversation with one of the royals already!” Hmm… “have a conversation” was probably a stretch but… she chose to ignore that. The boy was definitely an optimist and she couldn’t fault him for that.

“That’s lovely, Colin. I’m sure you’ll get to talk to him and the others again. I had some work for you if you’re up to it.”

“Yes, of course! Does it have anything to do with the prin-”

“Let’s calm down there, Colin. I trust you’ve completed what I assigned you earlier?”

“... Oh, yes I have!”

“That’s great.”

She set the paper tray on the side of his desk and he looked at it for a few seconds before looking up at her again.

“So… what do I have to do?”

Y/N gulped and laid out the lists for him, beginning to explain to him the meanings of the markings she’d made and the emails he had to look through and send off.

***

Beep, beep.

Y/N kept her phone pressed between her shoulder and her ear as she walked around her apartment. She was holding a large iced vanilla latte in one hand and her purse in the other. She knew she needed to set something down but felt too jittery to do anything but pace around with her stuff. It was probably partly inspired by the amount of caffeine she’d drank that day but hey, that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Today was also a terribly tense day, wasn’t it?

Beep, beep.

She took a nice long sip of her latte, relishing in how nice and cold it was. She had the air conditioner on and had taken off her blazer but it still felt like she was this close to overheating. This sudden heatwave throughout the country was absolutely unwelcome as far as she was concerned.

Now if only Pansy’d pick up so she could get some clarity on the situation. Suddenly the dial tone ended and she heard the crackling of breathing through the speaker.

“Hello, Y/N?”

She smiled and finally set her purse down.

“Hi, Pansy! It’s so nice to finally hear your voice. Are you free to talk?”

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting, I was just sending off this email but now I’m free for a bit, yes. And Jesus, Y/N, is something… up?”

“Oh, nothing… it’s just… the prince really got me gobsmacked today.”

She hears her gasp over the phone.

“Oh my, the prince?! Well then… I certainly wasn’t expecting that. Although, I suppose… it’s not so far off for the prince to bother you when you’re working at the palace...”

“Pansy… that’s beside the point.”

“Yeah, okay, so… what happened? You have to tell me now.”

“I will but you need to promise me you won’t get mad or jealous of me or anything. I didn’t choose to be a part of it.”

“Of course I won’t be mad. Why would I be?”

“Well, you know, your history and… how you were off your trolley about him as a teenager?”

“Oh, bugger off, babe. That’s not even true anyway.”

“Oh, really? I can vaguely recall someone crying and taking care of him for weeks after he was attacked by that bird he harassed in the first place.”

“I was just… overemotional.”

“Right.”

“So what, okay? So what if I liked him for a while? There’s nothing there anymore. Even waking up to him the next day after the… you know what between us, I was just repulsed. And you thought he was fit too! So. And I feel like I only just liked him because I thought my parents would be happy with us together.”

“That’s… fair. But yes, you’re right, I’ll get back to my story then.”

“Yes, please.”

Y/N started to unbutton the collar of her shirt, beginning to feel hot again. She took another sip of her latte.

“Well, basically, I was just sitting in my office, you know, minding my own business, when Mr Royalty just busts in and starts talking to me.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, I know right? Anyway, he got straight to it and asked me to be his date to the coronation ball.”

“Holy shit! That’s… never mind, but you said no, right?”

“Well… at first, yes. But then...”

“You what? That’s so unlike you, Y/N, come on…”

“I know, okay… I shouldn’t have. I just started to feel bad for him and I... Should I get out of it? I’m thinking I will. It’ll be stressful, won’t it? I just… I don’t know what to do about it, okay? I’m lost. Help me.”

Pansy fell silent for a second and Y/N undid the whole of her button-down, setting her drink down onto a table as she headed into her bedroom to look for a lighter change of clothes.

“You know the first thing I’m going to tell you is you owe him nothing. I know you felt bad for him but he really shouldn’t have asked you that with no context or anything. He was the one in the wrong here for sure. It’s sweet of you to accept his offer but you don’t have to keep up on it if it’s really stressing you out so much. Also, the fact that you accepted such a spontaneous offer makes me a little sceptical of the power play there...”

“You’re right. Also, I think it definitely wasn’t nice of him but he wasn't mean about it or anything. He was definitely adamant but eh....”

She set her phone onto her bed and turned it to speakerphone, opening her wardrobe and taking out a t-shirt and some shorts.

“At the same time… when we look at the positives, they are fairly significant. You’ll likely have to give in… not that many hours in exchange for a pretty fun night. You know the service at royal events is amazing and if you’re literally the date of the guy the event is being thrown for, the King being crowned that night… I’m going to guess you’ll get so much from that. You’ll obviously get some… fame and have to pack on some PDA there and what not but that means free stuff, great clothes, who even knows what else. You’d just have to work extra hard for that time and balance the work, but I thought you said you were done with a lot of the stuff already.”

“That is … true.”

“But you’re not happy with that, are you?”

“You don’t have to say it like that. It’s just… actually I don’t have a counterargument for that. The perks do sound pretty good.”

“Right? But you know, there might be criticism or hate or something you might get.”

“Well… I’ll also get paid to advertise things after that, won’t I? And free things and VIP invites to places I wouldn’t even have been able to enter before.”

“Well, yes, but… maybe that’s something of an exaggeration, you know. Not every brand or group or whatever is that fixated on how much publicity they can get.”

“... I mean, aren’t they?”

“Okay, yes, they are. I think you should do this.” Y/N laughed as she took off her skirt. She sat down on her bed in her underwear, lying down so her head was near her phone.

“This was a very helpful call. Thank you.”

“I do agree, I think I was a huge help.”

“I concur. Again.”

“Thank you! Now, can I request an invitation to the ball as well?”

“Pansy!”

She giggled and sat up, crossing her arms. “Of course I’ll get you an invite, Pans!”

“Great. I was expecting that. I’m not missing you floundering around, having a… Cinderella moment for the world.”

“A Cinderella moment?”

“You know, getting a chance to dress up like a princess for a night? It’s weirdly literal too, it’s just for the night and then you go back to being normal again. Unless… the prince charming decides…”

“Shush up!” Y/N felt her face beginning to heat up. Not for the second time in one day… She sighed. And… partly because of the same person too.

“I’m sorry, darling. I hope I didn’t say too much there. You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah of course. It’s just a problem I’m starting to recognise with me. I keep getting more aggressive and emotionally charged than I mean to be.”

“I get that… you could try meditation, you know. Or you could join my yoga class, it’s pretty relaxing. The teacher has a nice butt too.”

“Pans!”

“Y/N!”

***

Her evening was fairly relaxed after that. The call with Pansy had seemed to fix the problem. Well, not exactly “fix”, more like change the way she looked at the issue so it felt all the lighter. And it worked pretty much the same. She began to feel so much better about the decision she’d made. After all, even if it was destiny or whatever, she’d been chosen for a reason, right? She’d managed to get Draco’s number off of Pansy. (“ It’s from… way back when so forgive me if he changed his number to get me off his back or some shit. ”) And… on a caffeine high, she had decided to text him almost right away.

Hi, your royal highness!

It only took a few hours but soon she was privy to:

Where did you get this number?

Got it from a friend. It’s Y/N btw :) should’ve said that before.

Oh, right! That makes sense. How’re you doing?

I’m alright, thanks. What about you?

I’m okay.

Listen, I was thinking about what happened today.

And now I’m wondering if we could meet tomorrow? Morning, if possible? It’s urgent.

Y/N squinted down at this message in confusion. What was this suggesting? Was there something wrong? Was he going to retract his offer? She knew there must be some kind of administrative work they’d have to log but was it really that serious already?

Sure, I’ll be free to meet before 9:30.

That is not what I was thinking of when I said morning :(

What, do you wake up at 4 o’clock or something?

No, I meant that that was too early!

She rolled her eyes. She should have seen that coming. He wasn’t exactly known for being put together. Or spiritual, for that matter.

We can call now if you really want.

No, it’s okay. It’s better we talk about it in person. I should try and wake up earlier anyway.

As you wish.

So I’ll meet you tomorrow then. Let’s say, 9 am sharp?

Perfect. I get dropped to the main drop off point at that time anyway.

Great. See you xx

See ya x

Y/N set her phone on her counter and put it to charge for the night. What the fuck? What was happening? The sleep she’d been looking forward to seemed to have suddenly drifted away. What was she going to have to worry about tomorrow morning?! She shifted under her sheets, turning where she lay to face the other side and look out her bedroom window. It was a clear, clear night. If she looked hard enough, she could probably see the edge of the royal estate. But then again, she really didn’t want to. She turned to the other side and just stared at her closet.

She wasn’t sure when her mind got tired of imagining potential disaster scenarios for the next day but Y/N woke up to the sound of her alarm ringing at 6:45 am. She reached over to her nightstand and turned it off, sitting up in bed and looking out the sun already shining bright in her window. It was barely May but the days had already begun to increase in length.

Since she’d woken up with ample time to complete her routine, she did everything she could to pamper herself, spending almost an hour in the bathroom. She even changed into her nicest formal clothes after, a white pantsuit with dark detailing. She packed her work bag with the essentials, her laptop, her water bottle, her royal admin ID, her wallet, stationery and her phone. She felt very prepared for once. Whatever was coming her way would be taken care of as needed.

She had a comfortable trip from her apartment building to the estate, the state-sanctioned car ride feeling a lot less bumpy than usual. It was still just as clear as it was last night, but the car’s windows were tinted so the sun’s rays felt like they barely even touched it. There was only the slightest hiccup when the driver slammed the brakes too hard all of a sudden and made Y/N’s face hit the seat before hers. OUCH!?

It didn’t take very long for the car to get to the palace, stopping at the main entrance pavilion. She didn’t notice anyone there yet and checked the time. It was still only 8:53 am. She had enough time to walk to the administrative wing, leave her things there and come back with time to spare. She walked through the hallway and towards the next hall which she knew led her to-

“Fuck me!” “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Hi, Y/N.”

She had her hand on her heart, trying to slow down her breathing as she looked at the blonde who had bumped straight into her. He had his hands in front of her to catch her if she fell. Thankfully, she had just missed falling.

“What the hell is it with you and giving me heart attacks?”

"I promise you that wasn’t my intention.”

“Well, I’d sure have hoped it wasn’t.”

She sighed and dropped her hand to her side, looking up at him with an eyebrow raised.

“So?”

“So, yes. Um. Can we walk or something? I don’t want to be standing here and have someone walk in on us?”

“... Draco, what do you have planned exactly...?”

She looked up at him quizzically and smirked. He managed a small smile but shook his head.

“God, get your mind out of the gutter! I just mean… this is stressful, okay?”

“Well, I’d like to drop my things off at my office if you don’t mind.”

“Alright, I’ll wait for you by the admin wing’s garden exit.”

“Done.”

***

Y/N had decided to leave her blazer on her chair and all her belongings except for her phone on her desk. Hopefully, Colin was good enough as a guard or she was getting robbed. Either way, she could spot a tall blonde’s head nervously bobbing above the hedge next to the exit. His face was a concerning shade of pink, goodness could only hope he’d put on an adequate amount of sun cream.

“Draco?”

“Yes, hi.”

He managed out, looking toward her walking out now.

“Are you okay? You look… red.”

“I’m fine.”

“I mean, are you sunburnt?”

“Oh…?”

He brought a hand up to touch his cheek.

“No, but that’s a good point. Let’s stand in the shade.”

She stopped where she was and he walked in to meet her. She felt her insides begin to do the jitterbug in anticipation. What could possibly have him so on edge? What was wrong?

“I’m really very sorry about yesterday. I wasn’t exactly thinking very straight when I came to see you. In hindsight, I know it got on your nerves and everything and I should’ve been a lot better at telling you about it.”

“It’s no big deal now, honestly.”

“Okay, but that’s not exactly why I called you. The thing is, there’s going to be a lot of PR work at this ball. I didn’t realise it before but Mother told me she’s arranging a meeting with our publicist for us today. And the publicist is never there just to take the piss. This is serious now. Like, even more than I thought it was.”

“I- what do you-”

“It’ll be very pressing, I would never hold it against you if you decided to pull out.” He stared into her eyes with a pensive expression on his face and Y/N felt whatever response she had been planning just vanish from existence. She pretended to have comprehended everything he said, but could only really think of saying one thing right then… That’s what she said... but that would be inappropriate. He soon got conscious and looked to the side and she felt the cogs in her brain begin to work again.

“The thing is my mother was getting a little impatient with me and telling me it was time for me to tell her who my date for the ball is. My parents have been begging me to find one unless I want to risk an arranged marriage, it’s a long story. So, I told them I’d find a date for myself and that they don’t need to worry. The truth is, I didn’t actually bother to find one and it was starting to get a little late. You know there’s only one month left till... right, you know. So… she came to talk to me about it over lunch and she told me I had to tell her who it was so she could arrange everything for us. I started to think about whom my parents would be okay with me going with and whom I would be okay with and well… you were on top of the list.”

“I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”

“It- it is. I told her your name and she was satisfied with it, I think. And then I was scared she’d come and talk to you immediately so I ran to you first and just asked you about it then. Again, I’m sorry it came out as forcefully as it did. I didn’t mean to… get you stuck in this whole thing.”

He took a deep breath and looked back at her again. Her stomach seemed to begin buzzing as she felt her anxiety grow. This was not going to go as smoothly as she expected, was it? The queen, and most likely the king as well, knew. Although that wasn’t exactly unanticipated, it gave everything a sense of finality. Like, she didn’t have much legroom here at all.

“Anyway, that's what happened. I’m sorry, again.”

He looked at her as if he was waiting for her to yell at him. She wasn’t intending to and just turned to the side, trying to calm her racing heart. She needed to make a decision, didn’t she? And who knows what kind of problems would face her, either way, she decided to go? It seemed like teasing to dangle this lux option in front of her just to draw it away. Draco annoyed her.

Looking at how strangely afraid of her he looked, she couldn’t help but notice how very much he started to look like the Draco she used to know. Little and arrogant and scarily afraid of his parents getting upset with him.

“You’re fine. I… I’m going to need some time.”

“That’s okay. You can take as much time as you need. The problem is, I have no idea when today my mother is going to pull you out for the publicist meeting.”

Y/N huffed slightly and covered her face. So, what was she going to do? What was she going to do?

“I’m in.” She’d set her mind to it, hadn’t she? She’d made a promise to the prince, and his parents knew of it already. She’d already told Pansy she was going for it. Well, all of those things and also the prospect of fulfilling a childhood princess fantasy seemed more enjoyable than anything. There was something so gratifying in that idea, dressing up well and being pampered and showered with affection and just… pretending to be a princess. What could be more fun than that?

“You’re sure?”

The answer was nothing.

“Yes.”

Most likely.

“Well, I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“So do I.”

***

It still hadn’t really sunk in yet that she was actually going to do whatever this would entail. Sure, she’d been dreaming about it the day before but it seemed completely different now. Her gut seemed to be calmer now, signifying that perhaps her intuition hadn’t been completely off guiding her in the direction it had.

What’s sad was Y/N was still lost about this after Narcissa had whisked her away into one of the palace’s many giant bedrooms. She was sitting on the bed, still in her work clothes, stressed after having had to explain to Colin how to decide how accommodations would be settled for the guests and the performers coming. She’d been expecting the meeting with the publicist and Draco to happen but she was lost as to what was taking place right now.

Narcissa approached her with a clipboard and a pen. “Now, dear, I just need you to sign these first.” Y/N took both from her and glossed through the texts.

A non-disclosure agreement and an employment contract…

“I’m sorry, your majesty. Do you mind me going through the documents before signing them?”

“Absolutely not, sweetheart. Though do try to rush, we have appointments we need to get to in time.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Honestly, ma’am, I’m not too aware of legal jargon like this. Could I please ask you to explain the purpose of this agreement?”

“Well, when any…”

She seemed to want to say a word but held it back, twisting her tongue around in her mouth as she thought of what to say.

“Person unfamiliar with our ancestry and our policies gets… involved with a member of the family, we have them sign one of these in order to protect our privacy.”

“I see…”

That seemed very… imperialist of them. She began to skim through the document, trying her best to understand it based on what little knowledge of this she had. It all seemed par for the course except for the last clause.

“I’m sorry again, ma’am. The others make sense to me but this one: 11. Covertness, it’s quite vague, the “other actor”…?.”

“To be transparent, the King and I posed the covertness clause as a protective measure. We don’t need Draco learning about this agreement and growing wary of all of us. We’re doing it to protect him more than anything. You are not to revert any of this portion of our meeting to him and he mustn't ever come to know of this agreement or the contract at all.”

The Queen suddenly seemed scarier than she ever had in all the years she’d known her.

“Well, that’s- I’ll have to think about that for a second.”

She started looking through the employment contract. It was similar to the one she currently held, nothing too special, except for the fact that it detailed that she was entitled to a lump sum of £200,000 at the end of the event, assuming she kept up her end of the agreement. She paused for a moment and just stared at that number.

“Is this a misprint by any chance, ma’am?” The Queen leaned over and looked at where she was pointing, then shook her head.

“No, it is not.”

She took a deep breath. That would be much more than enough to have her set for life and for a private event planning business alongside. It would take her 10 years to even come close to earning as much. She continued reading the document. She was supposed to participate in a few publicity stunts, make it clear “she had good intentions” and was supposed to disconnect from the prince entirely after the affair was over. Those terms didn’t sound too harsh, now, did they? A little acting and ghosting for 200 grand? It didn’t sound like much. Even a real big shot actor wouldn’t get paid half as much for such little work. And the part about her leaving the prince alone after was a little strange, but she supposed it made sense, what with the royals’ obsession with keeping their family all blue-blooded. Draco had been the poster child for that kind of thing growing up. And she likely didn’t have an ounce of it in her.

Why were they even that desperate anyway? This seemed huge. It might boost the prince’s reputation a bit but… what else was there to this? She knew the country was not doing the best in terms of international relations but did this really hold that much weight along those terms? Surely, there was something here she was missing. Regardless, 200,000 quid for a little work and a lot of fun was too amazing an offer to turn down. And so, Y/N signed both papers and handed them back to her. Jesus Christ, Draco’s impulsive decision was about to get her rich. Quick. She certainly hadn’t been expecting this.

She handed the clipboard back to the Queen who smiled and took it back quickly, setting the papers into a folder which she kept in a decorative paper bag. Not a bad hiding place at all. She walked outside for a few minutes, before reentering, followed by a squat old lady well-dressed in mauve and a younger woman wearing similar clothes. The Queen ushered towards either of them and began speaking.

“Madam Malkin and assistant, this is miss Y/L/N, the crown prince’s date to the coronation ball, miss Y/L/N, this is Madam Malkin, the family’s official stylist and designer, and her assistant.”

Y/N raised her hand out for her to shake, and she did so, firmly. “It’s so great to meet you, Madam.”

“Pleasure as well, love.”

She retracted her hand, looked over Y/N’s outfit and began whispering to her assistant.

“Well, to be very honest, I feel we don’t have to worry about my wardrobe as much. I know I probably don’t meet the royal standards but… I was planning on buying this really nice dress online anyway. I could show it to you and have you approve it if that would be fine.”

The Queen looked at her vacantly, her eyebrows raised and her nose pinched in the slightest. Then her expression settled and she exchanged a look with Madam Malkin before looking back at Y/N. Madam Malkin maintained an unamused expression, then began to speak.

“ I hope you know we’re not going to let you just wear a dress you bought online to the ball… We’ll tailor one for you. And your other clothes will be picked from contemporary designers ourselves.”

Y/N just looked at her silently, nodding and blinking slowly in assent.

***

An hour or so of Y/N having to change into various clothes behind a divider and then show them off to the pair of them passed quickly. It was very fun knowing she’d get a bunch of very nice clothes out of this (even custom made underwear so her clothes fit her right over them!), and she thought the royal family was really being very generous with all of this. Lots of money and clothes? There had to be some kind of catch, right? Something that would make this hard to keep up with? What was it? Just the stress of all the work that’d pile up? That didn’t seem like enough. Everything was not going the way she was anticipating. It was going a hell of a lot better. Mostly.

The actual meeting she’d been waiting for all morning was finally occurring. She was seated in a meeting room opposite the Queen and Draco and their publicist. It was weird seeing them like this. It seemed like a strange grown-up parent-teacher conference.

“So, our point is, we need to have you both make it clear to the public that there is a strong relationship between the two of you.”

The redheaded man droned on at the head of the table and Y/N looked over at Draco who glanced at her as well before both turning to look at the man.

“It’s Percy, right? I’m just a little… I’m sorry if I just don’t know my current affairs well enough for this but… why?” Y/N gulped, crossing her arms tightly after asking this question. It was quite bold of her for sure. She could only hope she wasn’t violating anything by asking this. “She’s not wrong.” Draco chimed in, ”You never had to do anything like this, mother.” The Queen smiled but shook her head. “Things just aren’t the same anymore, are they?” She looked over at Percy to continue.

“We now live in a world of social media and tabloids and none of that will work towards the image we need to create.”

Draco seemed to be satisfied with that and just looked at Y/N silently, who could only really do the same at this point. “I’m sorry, again, I… think I’m missing something here. What “image” are we trying to create?”

Percy and the Queen exchanged a long look, where she pursed her lips and shook her head somewhat disapprovingly. She then nodded and he began to speak.

“Miss Y/L/N, to be very frank, the kingdom isn’t doing amazing. In terms of international relations and funding and… most importantly, resources and trading. We’re afraid we’re losing allies and we cannot risk anything. We not only need to increase viewership and publicity of the ceremony and the ball, but we need to raise the reputation of the family and the prince in the public eye. It’s… a trend at King’s coronation balls for royals or other elite families to offer their daughters’ hands in marriage to the crown prince or king. Our prince is bent upon not getting into an arranged marriage and having to reject offers is a lot more publicly disgraceful than you might anticipate. As you might know, the country wasn’t even on speaking terms with one of its neighbours because centuries ago a crown prince rejected an offer for marriage and an alliance with them. We cannot risk having that happen when we’re in as dire straits as we are.”

Y/N could only look up at him with her mouth agape. They were serious. This was why it mattered so much to them. This was why she was being paid to do this. In case they offended an ally or just any other country. Because of the prince’s idealistic desires for romance or whatever it was. Although she couldn’t really fault him for that, his father hadn’t had to do the same and she’d heard the conditions for some of those alliances and the situations they landed themselves in the future were never that positive.

She nodded up at Percy. “I understand. I should probably read a bit more on the news and the family anyway. I tend to avoid it.” Percy barely seemed to notice her response and started to talk about strategies and actions that needed to be taken. The meeting ended with Draco and Y/N agreeing to keep up with their public profiles and maintain a good reputation on them. They were supposed to interact more publicly for the time being while Percy laid out more intricate publicity stunt plans.

As she left the room and started to walk back to her office, thinking about what work she had to do, someone tapped at her shoulder gently. She turned around to see the very same prince that had dragged her into this mess staring down at her.

“Again, I’m sorry.”

Him saying that like this made her feel guilty now.

“It’s- it’s really okay. You don’t have to say that.”

“I feel like I have to. You’re barely getting anything for doing this for us.”

“That’s- that’s not true. I’ll have my fun, won’t I?”

“Well, whatever it is, what I told you yesterday, the offer still stands. I’ll get you anything, I’ll buy you a mansion, whatever you like.”

“Not that I’d ever decline you giving me anything… you really don’t need to. Thank you for the offer, though.”

Y/N bit her lip and smiled up at him, waving him off as he made to leave, pretending like that was really the truth. She watched him as he walked to the other end of the hallway. She was going to have to keep up this lie all the way till the event. It definitely wasn’t going to be easy. She began to clench her jaw, setting a hand on the wall as everything rushed through her head.

This was exactly like Cinderella except she had no evil stepmother or fairy godmother or glass slipper or a prince charming on a quest to find her, just a lump sum, publicised PDA and more acting than she realised. And absolutely no way out of seeing the story through anymore.

a/n: there will be a hell of a lot more draco in the next chapters, stay tuned!

#draco malfoy x reader #draco x reader #draco malfoy #draco #hp #draco imagine #draco malfoy imagine #hp imagine #au #prince au #royal au #prince draco #prince draco au #romance #draco malfoy series #draco x reader series #draco malfoy x reader series #drama

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bearlytolerant · 3 years

Text

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Solavellan (Modern AU)

Ch Rating: T

Ch WC: 2169

AO3

Chapter 7

Another day at the office. Editing, emails and the ever elusive caller that enables equal opportunities for playing phone tag. A game Solas never enjoys participating in. The morning slides by and Varric is at his desk, twirling his keys around his finger.

“Lunch?”

Solas glances up and sighs. “I’m trying to get a hold of Seeker Pentaghast. Sera said she had more info on an agent that might have a lead on Crystal Red.”

“That sounds like a lot of maybes and probablys and a whole lot of I don’t give a fuck. You’re allowed to take a break and get some lunch.”

“What if they call while I’m away?”

“They can leave a message. Now let’s get out of here before we don’t have any time at all for food.”

Solas shoves back his chair and follows Varric. “I did pack a lunch today,” he mentions.

“Save it for tomorrow then. I’m craving some street tacos and there’s a truck just up the road. I’ll buy so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“I am less concerned about finances and more concerned about getting food from a truck.”

“Ah, live a little Chuckles,” Varric says as he gives Solas a whack on the back.

“If living a little, as you say, means spending two days on the toilet. Perhaps I do not wish to live a little.”

“Well come with me and grab something else. I’m sure there’s something you’d find worthy of your tastes nearby.”

A half hour later and Solas is holding a taco that’s worth the regret he’ll experience from his future self. Some chipotle mayo dribbles down his chin and he swipes it away while pulling out his phone.

He checks his messages. One from Sarya and one from Veda. He taps on the one from Veda first.

Connor went home sick. Pick me up after school today?

He checks the time and swears. How did he not realize he took such a late lunch? She needs to be picked up right now. He dials her number as he stuffs his arms into his coat.

“Veda needs to be picked up,” he tells Varric as he shoves the remainder of his taco in his mouth.

“Got you covered,” Varric replies.

He mumbles a garbled, “thanks” then takes off down the street. Solas is just a block away from his car in the parking garage when she picks up.

“Hey papae!”

“Hello. I apologize. I just now saw your text. I will be late.”

“No worries. I can always watch the band practice until you get here.”

“I will be there soon.”

“Okie doke.”

He says he loves her and hangs up. Sprints the rest of the way down the street, half choking and wishing he’d at least drank some water but makes his way to his little car without incident. He hops inside. Starts it and zooms out of the garage. He’s speeding which has him checking his rear view mirror constantly. But of course, the city has a million stop lights and he hits every red one. He gets to her school later than he ever intended.

He parks, shoving his glasses all the way up his nose, and searches for Veda at the stadium. He spots her in the bleachers, chin resting in her hands and her copper braids coming undone in the breeze. He takes the stairs to meet her two at a time.

“I am so sorry to make you wait,” he says as he wraps her in his arms.

“Seriously, papae. It’s not a problem at all.”

“But what if it had rained? Or stormed like yesterday?”

“I would’ve just stayed inside. Besides, that didn’t happen.”

He sighs, berating himself a little internally. Then he walks with her back to the car. Slides in and clicks his seatbelt in place.

“What’s this?” Veda asks.

Solas glances over at her. She has Sarya’s camera in her hands. He hadn’t even noticed it there. He calmly says, “a camera.”

“Pssh, obviously. But I don’t remember you having a camera.”

“It’s a friend’s,” he says. “We went out for lunch and they must’ve left it.”

“Oh,” she says. “How was work today?” She’s still fiddling with the camera.

“It was work,” he says. Thankfully she easily dropped the subject. “Not much was accomplished.”

She gasps. “Your friend is so pretty. You’ve never mentioned her before. New coworker?”

“No. Just a new friend I met.”

“She looks familiar—and she’s a wonderful photographer. Maybe we should have her take some pictures of us. We haven’t updated our family photos since I was ten.”

“That’s a wonderful idea Veda. However, my friend is only visiting for a short while. I’m not sure there would be enough time to squeeze some family photos in.”

“Bummer. You look so happy around her.”

“I don’t always look happy?”

“You look a different kind of happy with her. It’s nice.”

He takes her words and holds them close to her chest. “Anything interesting happen at school today?”

“Yeah,” she says, then she unloads a multitude of stories. How one of her friends got their tooth knocked out by a basketball in gym. How she accidentally used Elvhen in her Tevene class and didn’t notice until the whole class was just staring at her.

“Did you feel embarrassed?” he asks as they pull into the garage.

“A little. But I mostly found it funny. The way the other kids looked so confused.”

“Does anyone treat you differently when you speak Elvhen?”

She shrugs. “There’s a couple of kids who say stupid things but I don’t hang around them.”

“Veda, I’m happy to speak with the administration if your having trouble with other students—“

“While I appreciate that, I can handle a couple of kids who are jerks.”

“Very well but if you ever—“

“I know.” She slings her backpack in her back then kisses his cheek. “Can I go to Varric’s house? I want to see the cats and hang out with Cole for a bit.”

“Yes, so long as you check with—“

“Already did.” She steps out of the car. “Going to drop my stuff off inside then I’ll see you later.”

“Text me when you want to leave. I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay. See you later, papae.”

Solas sighs. He’s glad she still talks to him and he still gets to see her but there’s also this tiny ache in his chest that misses her always being around the house. But he reminds himself that this is a good thing. It’s just new and he pulls out his phone to read his messages from Sarya.

Hey I’m going to try and stop by your work around 3:15 today.

I stopped by your work but you weren’t there. Saw Varric though! He introduced me to everyone and it was fun! I really like Sera. She’s hilarious! And Merrill was so sweet! Anyway, hopefully I’ll see you sometime soon. 😉

—

“I fold,” Sarya says, she takes a drag from her cigarillo. Then throws her cards face up on the table.

“Already?” Han asks. “What a shame.”

“Your mind must be elsewhere, Sarya. I’ve never known you to throw a game,” Vilanti says as she shows her cards.

Han takes the game and lets out a whoop as he gathers them all to shuffle.

“I still can’t believe Dallen just up and left us. Did he say anything to either of you? About his plans.”

Both of them shake their heads.

“It’s really odd.”

“I don’t know why you care. Easier to keep yourself from using him. Easier for him to be happy this way,” Han says.

“Ouch,” Vilanti grimaces, then gestures for all the cards to be handed over. She shuffles.

“I do agree with that actually. It’s just that most who move on from our happy little family tend to give us more of a notice. We didn’t get to give him a proper goodbye.”

“I don’t mean to sound callous here Sarya, but you were the only one who cared about the guy. Makes sense why he moved on.” Vilanti deals.

Sarya picks up her hand and stares straight through the cards. “That’s not true.”

“Basically,” Han argues. He draws a card.

“Sometimes you both are mean.”

“Not mean. Just honest,” Han says.

Vilanti draws. “On another note, I heard Makon made a new friend today.”

“What?” Sarya nearly drops her cards. “Our Makon? Makon—stoic, quiet, unsociable Makon?”

“Yep. Met her at the gas station. She was passing through on her way to Wycome and her motorcycle broke down. He fixed it up for her on the spot and they exchanged numbers I guess.”

“What the fuck?”

“Good for him,” Han says.

Sarya draws a card. “Yeah, seriously. I hope that works out.”

“Our next gig is in Wycome and he plans to see her then.”

“Was it love at first sight or something?” Sarya asks. She folds and picks her cigarillo back up. Her interest in cards declining by the second.

Vilanti shrugs and plays her cards, taking the game. “By the way he keeps talking about her, I’d say yes.”

“What’s her name,” Han asks, gathering all the cards into a pile.

“Athi. Athi Lavellan.”

“Another Lavellan huh?”

“Guess so. Maybe she’s related to you two,” Vilanti says.

“Doubt it. Or if she is, it’s very distant,” Han says.

In the distance they hear yelling and smashing bottles. They all exchange looks.

“Wonder who the hell set Deshanna off—“

“Let’s go see if we can smooth things over,” Han says with a sigh.

“You two can go. I’ll probably make things worse. I don’t think he likes me much.”

“That’s because you push his buttons. Definitely better for you to stay here,” Han tells her.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Then she waves at them as they slip out the door and finishes off her cigarillo.

—

It’s dark and quiet and Sarya gazes longingly out the window at a small patch of stars. The only patch not hidden by the clouds. She sighs and startles at the sound of knocking. Straightening herself out, she rubs the redness from her elbows and opens the door.

“Solas,” she says it like she’s expecting him but she’s truly surprised. She steps out with him, shutting the door behind her.

“You forgot your camera,” he tells her, holding it out in his hands.

She takes it from him, hanging it around her neck. “Thank you. I should really start keeping better track of my things or you’re going to start thinking I’m trying to bait you or something.”

“I would bite every time,” he says, his hands clasped behind his back. There’s a certain sparkle in his eye and she can’t read him. But she knows she wants to kiss him. So without another thought, she stretches up on her toes and takes him by surprise. He is frigid and she panics, certain she has misstepped. After all, friends don’t kiss like that.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a little out of breath. “I don’t know what…”

Her words are caught on the edge of his lips as he captures her mouth again. His kiss is unreserved but not what she’d call passionate. Like the kiss of a long time lover. A kiss of promise. Of commitment. Her mind screams at her to let go while simultaneously wishing and longing for more. His leg is pressed into her inner thigh and despite the chill of the air, she’s certain she is on fire. Her nails are in his shoulder, the camera even hurts just a little as it presses into her chest, and she doesn’t mean to let out a moan but it’s too late for regrets as he pushes her against the side of her trailer. One hand above her and the other in her hair. With each breath she steals between kisses, she studies his face. Memorizes it and stores it for always. Freckles for days and the tiniest scar above his brow. The only sign of his age lies in the lines of crows feet near the edges of his eyes and she tells herself to ask if he has a skincare routine. He certainly seems the type.

She studies his closed eyelids, there’s two freckles on the right and a singular small one on the left and she notices that there’s even some red in his brows and wonders if they’d have red headed babies.

She gasps then. Pulls away. Why in the hell is she thinking of babies?

“Perhaps I should…”

“Kiss me again,” she says to him. She won’t let one ridiculous thought ruin the moment. She knows that she’s falling for him. Too fast, too soon but she’s holding on for another day.

When they break apart she doesn’t want him to go. But it’s too much to ask him to stay. So she waves goodbye then clicks her camera, saving the image of him walking away.

#dragon age #solavellan #modern au #solas x Sarya Lavellan #circus au #free falling #bear writes

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lalainajanes · 3 years

Text

For the square “water park” on my Klarosummerbingo card! Might be my worst title ever but it’s actually better than the original one so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Slip and Slide

Caroline speedwalks through the lobby, weaving around people who seem to think it’s the appropriate place for an early morning stroll. “Hold the elevator!” she calls, ignoring the few disgruntled looks she receives.

She hadn’t been that loud, and she’s nearly late for a critical meeting. It’s the first one with a new client, and she’d hate to make a bad first impression.

She’d had to head to the dry cleaners before work, had gotten caught in a traffic snarl in an area she wasn’t that familiar with, and it had taken her way too long to figure out the detour. She should have left her place earlier.

She gets to the security gates, juggling a garment bag, her briefcase, and a portfolio. Her ID seems to be just out of reach, and she jams her hand further into her purse. Albert, her favorite guard, murmurs, “Take a breath, Ms. Forbes.”

She blows one out, frustrated. Rolls her shoulders in an attempt to relax. “Sorry. I’m just…”

“Stressed? I can tell.”

Yikes. Caroline hopes that doesn’t mean her hair has exploded.

She smiles weakly, “Big day today.”

A brand new project, after the last one had been a disaster. Caroline’s comfortable with stress, thrives on high stakes, but she could totally use a win.

Her fingers touch the familiar edge of her badge, and she pulls it out triumphantly. She taps it on the sensor, walks through the revolving gate. “Good luck, Ms. Forbes,” Alfred murmurs as she passes.

It’s a little thing, but Caroline feels a little better knowing someone’s rooting for her.

She’s relieved to spot that one of the elevators is open, a man holding the door, his eyes on her. She doesn’t recognize him, but that doesn’t mean anything. The building has 55 floors, offices for more than two dozen companies within it. He’s dressed in a suit, like the vast majority of the men she sees in the building. His is nicer than most, charcoal grey, perfectly fitted, with a very subtle pinstripe that she only notices when she gets closer. Caroline hurries into the car gratefully. She leans forward, punches 32. “Thank you so much,” she says to him, turning so they’re shoulder to shoulder. “You’re a lifesaver.”

The man on her other side makes a noise, a tiny scoff. Caroline glances at him quizzically. He’s stoic, eyes forward, but she’s sure there’s a hint of amusement on his face.

An arm brushes against hers, drawing her attention. “Feel free to ignore him,” the man who’d held the elevator says. His voice is low, smooth and she’d be charmed by the accent if they’d met in a social situation.

Or any situation, if she’s honest.

“My brother would probably describe me as more of a troublemaker.”

Huh. She hadn’t have figured brothers. They’ve both got attractive and well-dressed going for them but little other familial resemblance. Caroline’s head swings back, “Are you a trouble maker?”

His amusement is plain. His full lips curl, and deep dimples appear in his cheeks.

Oh yeah. Definitely a trouble maker.

“I’m about twenty minutes early for my meeting today; how much of a trouble maker can I be?” His tone is playful, a touch too innocent to be believed.

Damn it. Caroline does not have time for an attractive man this morning. At least she hadn’t changed into the frumpier outfit in the garment bag. Hopefully, she’ll run into this guy again.

“I think I need more info. Could be a one-time thing. I’m almost late for my meeting, which is wildly out of character.”

“Not the trusting sort, are you?”

Caroline shrugs, raising her brows expectantly.

He laughs briefly, “Well, I did send an email ahead to inquire about the coffee preferences of the team I’m meeting. I’m stopping at one of the cafes to pick it up now. Would a troublemaker do that?”

“Hmm, maybe. Could be an underhanded tactic to get on a good side before the trouble starts.”

Dimples’ brother chimes in again, dry this time. “I believe your assistant sent that email. And that she learned the practice from my assistant.”

Dimples glowers, and Caroline must admit this is a delightful distraction from her anxiety. She glances up at the panel above the door and is disappointed to find they’re almost on her floor. “If you’re going to the café on 36, I recommend the oatmeal raisin cookies. Most people go chocolate chip. Trust me, that’s a mistake.”

The elevator pings, the doors sliding open. Caroline smiles, hitches her briefcase higher on her shoulder. “This is me. Thanks again.”

The receptionist spots Caroline, stands up, a sheaf of papers in her hands, and Caroline’s reminded about how much she has to do. She hurries out, her heels clicking across the shiny tiles of the lobby.

She still glances back at the elevator, can’t help smiling, pleased, when she finds her new friend from the elevator watching her as the doors close.

Even if she never sees him again, he’d made her morning a little brighter.

Now, though, it’s time to work.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later, Caroline’s pacing in her office. She’s pinned her hair back and changed into the purple pantsuit she’d picked up at the dry cleaners. It’s a great color but not the most flattering fit. The pants are fine, but the jacket’s boxy, and she’s wearing a plain pink blouse underneath, buttoned to her throat, a thick silver necklace threaded through the collar. There’s a pair of glasses perched on her nose, and she’d changed into sensible flats.

She’d learned her lesson last time, at the first meeting where she’d been the project lead. She’d been called ‘Honey’ and other more annoying pet names and asked to serve coffee and fetch snacks. She’d received skepticism when she’d introduced herself. By the end of that first meeting, Caroline had wanted to scream her credentials – a B.A. and a Master’s in Civil Engineering, a whole pile of certifications, several prestigious internships, and stellar work references, thank you very much – at most of the people in the room.

Ultimately, the project had been successful, but Caroline had experienced frequent bursts of frustration that bordered on rage. Her suggestions were met with questions that made it clear her intelligence was doubted, her corrections with condescension, even though she’d usually been the only one in the room with any significant scientific expertise.

Expertise that’s kind of crucial in designing a water park. It wouldn’t have been a good look, or a sound investment, if guests were to end up injured or dead after paying exorbitant ticket prices and expecting a fun day.

Her skin has thickened considerably, but Caroline hopes that’s less necessary this time. Her boss had assured her that this job would be easier, and Caroline’s choosing to believe her. It’s even potentially exciting – these clients own several international resorts, the park she’s pitching on will be built in Spain.

Being project leader, she’d traveled to oversee construction on the nightmare build, but Tennessee doesn’t carry quite the same appeal as the Spanish coast, at least from the photos Caroline’s seen.

At the very least, it can’t be a worse experience. She hopes.

She hears Katherine coming her way, takes a final deep breath before Kat breezes into her office. “What are you wearing?” Kat asks, sounding both mystified and vaguely disgusted. She pauses in front of Caroline, fingers pinching her lapel and tugging. “Is this polyester?”

“Maybe. I thrifted it.”

Katherine’s face twists in the sort of revulsion one would expect if Caroline confessed to grave robbing the ensemble.

“Ew, why?”

“Figured I needed a costume. To make sure that this time, no one in there thinks to call me ‘sweet cheeks.’”

She’d been paired with another designer last time, Matt Donovan, who was a nice enough guy but had been pretty useless in the having her back department. Caroline likely wouldn’t have cried into her Ben and Jerry’s quite so often had Katherine been her partner. Kat has the unique and impressive ability to make demands and issue orders and have people thank her for it.

Kat snorts, “Elijah Mikaelson would never. He’s aggressively polite. I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I doubt Niklaus would either. I assume he has the same hot accent.”

That’s a new name. Caroline doesn’t like surprises. “And who is Niklaus?”

“A brother. And a business partner. He wasn’t originally scheduled to be here but is unexpectedly in town. What do you think the British equivalent to sweet cheeks is?”

Caroline’s eyes go wide, a few puzzle pieces clicking together. British brothers, twenty minutes early for a meeting. What are the odds?

Crap. Had she been flirting with a client? In front of another client?

There’s a tap at the door, her boss’ assistant’s head poking in, “They’re ready for you in the conference room.”

Ugh. Maybe she’s cursed.

* * * * *

The presentation goes fantastically.

Katherine had been correct – the Mikaelsons don’t seem to labor under the misapprehension that a conventionally attractive blonde woman can’t grasp complex concepts. They’d shaken her hand when she’d arrived; Niklaus (or Klaus, as he apparently prefers) had looked a bit puzzled when they’d been introduced, Caroline had chalked that up to the outfit. He’d said it was nice to see her again. Explaining her mad dash to the elevator, and Klaus’ assistance, to the room had broken the ice nicely.

Kat kicks them off, and her design is gorgeous; Elijah and Klaus appear suitably impressed. When it’s Caroline’s turn, her nerves fall away by her second PowerPoint slide. She knows her stuff backward and forward, and she’s incredibly pleased with her innovation.

She also begins to feel less bad about the flirting once she sees that Kat throws Elijah a few looks that are borderline inappropriate for the office (that he seems pretty pleased with).

They ask questions, pour over the mock-ups and technical drawings Caroline and Katherine had prepared. Their ideas are actually good, which is a nice contrast for the last project. She’d done far too much lying and finessing to attempt to steer the previous park into a less terrible direction. The Mikaelsons have far fewer notes than Caroline had anticipated, and she promises to put together an update ASAP. They schedule another meeting.

She thinks Klaus’ handshake lingers when they say goodbye, but maybe she’s just riding high on adrenaline and imagining things.

She kind of hopes she isn’t. It’s probably too messy to date a client, but a girl can fantasize, can’t she?

Caroline helps herself to the cookie tray, pleased by the generous helping of oatmeal raisin she finds. Kat’s disappeared, but she knows their boss will want to debrief. Caroline collapses into one of the conference chairs, pulls out her phone to check her messages.

She replies to a few emails before she notices one that’s just arrived.

Hello Caroline,

I enjoyed your presentation today. I look forward to the next.

Warmly,

Klaus

She grins to herself, slumps lower in her chair. Clearly, she hadn’t imagined anything if Klaus is emailing her when he’s barely out of the building. She takes a risk and sends a slightly more casual reply than she’d usually attempt at this point.

If he reacts badly, she can up the formality later on. If he doesn’t, well… she’s only fostering a good working relationship. That’ll be essential if they land this contract.

And she’s like 90% sure it’s in the bag.

Hi Klaus,

Thank you!

The photos your team sent over of the location were gorgeous; both Kat and I were inspired. I think this is some of our best work to date. I’m excited to dive into the updates and meet again next week.

Best,

Caroline

P.S. Thanks for the cookies.

His reply comes minutes later.

Caroline,

I believe it. Your work is impressive, as I’m sure your new ideas will be. Have you ever been to Spain? The pictures hardly do it justice.

Warmly,

Klaus

P.S. You’re welcome. Which coffee order was yours?

Well, that’s the opposite of a bad reaction.

Caroline sets her phone aside, tells herself she has to be smart here. She’s reasonably sure she’s not doing anything that’s prohibited. The emails will speak for themselves, and they live on the company server. Neither she nor Klaus are offering anything untoward for the contract. If things go well, she may just have to fill out an HR disclosure form. She’ll double-check the firm’s code of conduct.

Just in case.

#klarosummerbingo #klaroline #klaroline fanfiction

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winterscaptain · 4 years

Text

joint chiefs.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader

a/n: aunt tali is back for the third night in a row (whoops). this can be a stand-alone, but the original intention was to follow up in the dark, a few years later. it’s totally not necessary to read that one beforehand, but it might be fun! as always, tell me if i’ve screwed up somewhere and i’ll fix it right away :) words: 3853 warnings: swearing, some good kissing, snark, a couple of references that you get bonus points for recognizing some vocab, just in case: CARD: child abduction rapid deployment team, SAIC: special agent in charge, taking six/on your six: covering your partner’s back

ao3 | masterlist | requests closed

+++

You rolled over when your phone rang, answering it right away. “Hotchner.” You checked your watch on its charger. Just after 6am.

Can’t kidnappers wait until the sun’s up?

“We need you in the field today. CARD presence has been requested in Chicago for an all-hands, time-sensitive joint case. Details are incoming, but may be slow to reach you - I have very few myself. When can you be in the office?” The voice of your section chief came at you rapid-fire, and you sat up, rubbing your eyes.

“Yes ma’am. I can be there as soon as my sister-in-law gets here for Jack. I’ll call her now and give you an ETA when I have one. I can’t imagine it will be more than an hour.”

“Thank you. I know it’s a lot to ask with Aaron out on a case as well.”

“It’s alright, ma’am. I’ll be in touch.” You hung up and dressed quickly, calling Jess.

“Got a case?” She sounded terribly chipper for this hour.

“Yeah, I do. I’m so sorry to wake you,” you added lamely.

She chuckled. “You didn’t, and I should thank you. You just saved me from my 7am yoga class.”

“Well, put it on my tab. How quick can you get here?”

“I’ll be there in 20.”

You thanked her again and padded down the hallway to Jack’s room. Kneeling beside him, you brushed some hair off his forehead. It was enough to wake him. He blinked sleepily up at you and reached for you. You wrapped him in your arms, stroking the back of his head.

“Hey bud. I’ve got a case I gotta go on, but Aunt Jess will be with you until Dad or I get home, okay?”

He nodded, closing his eyes again.

You kissed his forehead. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he mumbled.

You shot a text to your section chief. Be there in 35 mins.

You made yourself a quick breakfast and a pot of coffee. You pulled a travel mug for yourself and a mug from the cabinet for Jess (It said Someone from San Antonio Loves Me!, but that was neither here nor there).

Your go bag was already in the car – BAU habits die hard.

Jess arrived in record time, giving you a quick kiss on the cheek and taking her cup of coffee out of your hand. You’d grown close in the last few years, and considered her as much of a sister as Aaron did at this point.

You slipped out the door as quietly as possible, jumping into the car and driving straight to the Quantico airstrip.

The plane was waiting for you, and you greeted the CARD B-Team as you sat down.

+++

The flight to Chicago wasn’t too long, but you managed to get some sleep on the way.

When you were on your final descent, you checked your email, finding no further information from your section chief, other than a case file for a series of missing children and address for the precinct. You didn’t have any information about the other factions of the joint case. Hopefully it wasn’t those jokers at the State Department. They meant well, but they never played nicely with the bureau.

You almost laughed out loud when you arrived at the local precinct, finding the backsides of both Spencer Reid and Derek Morgan in front of an evidence board.

“Hey, Chief?” One of your SSA’s – Agent Esme Salinger, stepped up beside you. “Aren’t those guys from your old unit?”

“They sure are.”

She snorted. “This’ll be fun.”

The back door opened, and Aaron, Emily, and Dave barreled in, heading straight for the conference room.

“You may be right about that,” you said distractedly.

Aaron was barking about something in his Unit Chief Voice™, but you couldn’t make out the details as he kept moving. They pinned new evidence on the board right away, not taking any time to clock your presence.

That didn’t last long. Your newest agent, Knowles, jogged up to you with his go bag slung over his shoulder. “Hey, Hotch,” he said, way too loudly, “where should we park the cars?”

You whirled to face him, directing him to park by the other federal vehicles around the side of the building. You stifled your smile as you felt eyes turn to your back.

When you turned, you found the entire BAU grinning at you. You crossed to the conference room, wordlessly asking your team to hold where they were as you left them behind.

“SSA Hotchner. Good to see you again.” you said, approaching Aaron, your hand extended and tone extremely formal.

He bit back a smile and he shook your hand with an unreasonable firmness. He matched you note for note. “SSA Hotchner. Glad to have you with us.”

You winked at him.

With a wave of your hand, your team trailed across the room and fell into a line at your back like a pack of well-trained ducklings. With a certain degree of pride, you introduced them to the BAU one by one.

“...And this is SSA Aaron Hotchner, BAU Unit Chief.” You looked at your husband with a small, fond smile before sobering and redirecting your attention to your team. “For the sake of clarity, we’ll switch back to my SAIC callsign – Ace – while we’re working with the BAU. Understood?”

They nodded, and got to work, pairing off with your former teammates to determine their plan of action.

Aaron stood beside you at the board. Staring straight ahead, his arms crossed, he asked, “Ace?”

“Yeah – I used all your poker tricks and cleaned them out my first week back at CARD as SAIC.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Excellent.”

+++

Aaron let himself into your hotel room just as you finished hanging the rest of your clothes in the minuscule closet. He came up behind you, dropping his hands to the waistband of your pajama pants and kissing your neck with a kind of desperate gentleness.

You smiled and tilted your head, bringing a hand up and carding your fingers through the hair at his temples. “Miss me?”

“You have no idea,” he said against your skin.

You turned in his arms and kissed him, pouring all your love and pride into it. He opened his mouth to you, and the way his tongue ran against yours stole your breath. He emitted a low groan when you scraped your teeth along his lower lip and he backed you up toward the bed.

“Planning on gettin’ some tonight, Agent Hotchner?”

He huffed a laugh, his mouth falling to the underside of your jaw and around to the sensitive skin over your carotid artery. You fell back on the bed, and he followed.

There was a knock at the door. You both froze, his body hovering over yours.

“Fuck,” you whispered, nearly throwing him off you.

He pressed his back to the wall by the bed, out of sight from the door. There was a shit-eating grin on his face. You rolled your eyes and straightened your shirt, hoping things weren’t too out of place.

Agent Salinger was on the other side of the door. “Hey, Ace. Do you have a minute?”

You leaned against the doorframe, trying to imitate something that looked casual. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Did you happen to bring any Advil with you? I’ve got a splitting headache and I’m out.”

“Sure, give me just a second.”

You left the door cracked and dug your med kit out of your go bag. Aaron tugged on the back of your shirt as you passed, and you swatted at him out of habit. Retrieving a small handful of tablets, you poured them into a little ziploc, sealed it, and returned to the door.

“Here, Salinger. This should hold you over if it continues through the end of the case. If you’re still hurting after we land back at Quantico, go ahead and visit the infirmary to see if they can do anything for you. That concussion’s still healing.” You smiled at her. “We need you sharp, alright?”

She took them gratefully, and gave you a mock salute. “Thanks. You’re the best.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” you joked. “Anything else you needed?”

She shook her head. “Have a good night, Ace.” She paused, hiding a smile and raising her voice a little, rising up on her toes. “You too, Hotch!”

You huffed and rolled your eyes. “Goodnight, Salinger. Sleep well.”

“Feel better!” Aaron’s voice came from around the corner, and you rolled your eyes.

“Sleep well, you two.” Then, with a suggestive, curling smile, “Need a wake-up call in the morning?”

You shut the door in her face with a laugh and another farewell. As it closed, you leaned against it heavily. “Oh, I am never going to hear the end of that.”

Aaron turned the corner, loosening his tie. “Now, we’re even.”

You looped your arms around his neck as you remembered that day, years ago.

“You know, for a pair of profilers you guys really suck at sneaking around.” JJ’s voice echoed in your head.

“I guess so,” you laughed. “This marriage is about give and take, after all.”

He kissed you languidly and you could feel the tension as he did his best to hide his smile.

+++

“Hey, Hotch, how come you don’t have a cool nickname?” Derek said, grinning behind his sunglasses as they all piled into the car.

“I’d have one if you gave me one,” he quipped. You drove the car in front of him, the window rolled down and your elbow visible where it rested in the frail Chicago sunshine.

He was excited to see you back in action. With your position as deputy unit chief, your role in the field was limited to emergency situations only. And with the CARD A-Team up in Pennsylvania for the week, you were stuck wrangling the younger agents on your own.

That said, it was exciting for you to take point, and even more so to work alongside Aaron again.

The difference this time? You were peers. You had the same title, the same posture, the same authority.

And perhaps most importantly, very little scrutiny regarding possibly-shared hotel rooms.

+++

He knocked on your door in the little pattern he picked up from you, and you opened it with a faux-serious expression.

“Agent Hotchner, we can't keep meeting like this.”

He raised an eyebrow at you.

He has a motive.

You opened the door further and draped yourself against him where he stood in the hallway, continuing dramatically, “What will the people think?”

With surprising, but still gentle, force, he pushed you back into the room and pressed you against the wall. There was a click behind him as the door swung shut.

You gasped, and your hands were suddenly over your head, locked between his fingers.

“I think,” he said, wet, breathy kisses trailing down your neck and behind your ear, “the people will be appalled,” his lips closed around your skin as he painted marks over your collarbones, “by the unprofessional,” he released your hands, dropped to his knees and raised your shirt, “shocking,” he laved kisses across your stomach, “and unbecoming conduct of two senior agents.” His final words were delivered against your left hip.

You wound your hands in his hair and inhaled shakily. He pressed kisses and swept sweet bruises into your skin until you couldn’t feel anything but him.

When his mouth ghosted over you through your pajama pants, you knew exactly where the night was going.

Your knees gave out, and you dropped into his lap, straddling him. You traced a hand down the side of his face, over his jaw. He leaned into it, and you roughened, taking his chin between your fingers With a firm, controlled jerk, you brought his lips to yours. His hips twitched, and you bit his lower lip in retaliation.

He let out a low moan in his chest and his hands rucked up your shirt. They splayed across your back and shoulders, calloused and familiar.

Allegedly, you made it to the bed at some point. If your exhaustion the next morning wasn’t enough evidence, the duvet on the floor and the pillows on the wrong side of the bed would happily testify to the lack of sleeping you did once you got there.

+++

The next day at the evidence board found you and Aaron with identical, massive cups of coffee.

Agents Salinger and Knowles sat at the table the next room over, reviewing interviews with JJ.

“Do you think they ever, you know,” Knowles made a vaguely obscene gesture with his hand, and Salinger covered her mouth to hide her laugh.

JJ didn’t look up from her notes, but replied, deadpan, “You have no idea.”

The younger agents snickered and watched you two work.

It was easy. Even considering the stressful, time-sensitive nature of the unsub’s escalation over the previous four hours, you both moved around each other with a grace that only came with time.

+++

A critical error.

That’s the only thing you thought when you busted into the unsub’s house, minutes after your agents. The unsub was nowhere in sight, and Salinger was on the floor with her partner, putting pressure on a mild wound on his forehead and temple.

Your jaw tightened and you shot them a look.

I’ll deal with you later.

Later came faster than even you could have imagined. You rounded the corner of the precinct to find Aaron laying into your agents for their screw-up back at the house.

You stepped up to them with purpose and put a firm hand on Aaron’s arm.

“Hotch, can I speak with you for a moment?” you looked at your agents and then back at him. “Privately.”

It took everything in you to resist slamming the interrogation room door behind you.

“What on this God-given green Earth made you think it was appropriate to discipline my agents?”

He took a deep breath before replying and dropped into what you, usually fondly, referred to as Lawyer Mode. It was far less endearing in that moment, and only served to further piss you off. “Their mistakes cost us an arrest today. With this level of escalation, we could have two more missing kids by sundown. They needed to be made aware of their critical failure.”

You pressed your hands to the cool table, realizing you two were facing off over the surface like two cowboys in an old Western.

This town ain’t big enough for the both of us…

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“No, I think it’s time sensitive and needed to be addressed immediately.” He crossed his arms.

Damn it.

You changed tactics, opening your shoulders as you braced yourself on the table. “I’m acutely aware of the time-sensitive nature of this case, which is why I was waiting to reprimand them until they had the time to actually process it. They’re young. They get caught up in it, and Salinger is particularly prone to amplifying rejection, so she’ll be unwilling to take risks until we fly home for fear of inspiring your ire and my disappointment. They fucked up, I know. But I know my team, I know how they need to be handled so we can continue working on this case. You don’t.”

The frustration had drained out of him during your tirade and was replaced with contrition. You were right, and he knew it. You softened your tone, but only a little.

“Aaron, I need you to trust me to handle my team effectively. I don’t need you to step in on my behalf.” Your frustration crawled up into your throat, and you begged your tears not to betray you. Swallowing, you collected yourself and stared him right in the eye. “You undermined my authority today. Please don’t do it again.”

His mouth pressed into a thin, remorseful line. He looked down at the table and took a deep breath. Meeting your eyes again, he said, “I respect and value your leadership and your position. You are, and always will be, the best person to lead your team. I got caught up in my frustration and failed to consider the optics and the specific needs of your agents. I’m sorry.” He rounded the table, crossing to you. “It won’t happen again.”

There was silence for a moment. Then, Aaron crossed the chasm between colleagues and spouses and reached for your hands, running his thumb over your wedding ring. It was a silent reminder, for both of you.

Fight nice.

“Thank you.” Sighing, you brought one of your hands to the lapel of his suit jacket, fiddling with it just for something to do as you spoke. “You need to apologize to my agents for overstepping and emphasize that you defer to me on all aspects regarding CARD involvement in the case.”

“I can do that.” His lips quirked up into the smile you loved, the smile that only you saw. “Forgive me?”

You heaved a sigh. “I guess so.” He met your eyes and you broke, a little smile threatening at the corners of your mouth. “Let’s get out there and save some kids today, yeah?”

He released your hand and crossed the room, opening the door for you - a wordless agreement, as well as a reiteration of support you so deeply cherished.

+++

It only took you another hour to locate the unsub - even though he used forensic countermeasures, he wasn’t all that bright. One swipe of his credit card, and Garcia had him in her clutches.

You raced to his location. Aaron drove the lead car with Derek behind him, and you brought up the rear with the rest of the team. It was more than a little thrilling to drive impossibly fast, sirens wailing, headed to end this man’s reign of terror on Chicago families.

Throwing the car into park strategically perpendicular to Derek’s SUV, you jumped out of the car and drew your weapon. You took Aaron’s six through the front of the house, a calm settling over you as the pair of you fell right into line.

Aaron found the unsub in the back bedroom, with a knife held to the most recently kidnapped child. You squared up just off Aaron’s left shoulder for a clear line of sight, avoiding his right side. If you had to fire a shot, the last thing you wanted to do was aggravate his bad ear.

Out of the corner of your eye, Derek lined up a clean shot through the window. He knew to wait for Hotch, who had started to talk the unsub down, before taking any action.

Your heart swelled with both pride and affection as Aaron successfully and handily de-escalated the situation and made the arrest himself. He passed the unsub off to the local officers, and you both continued searching the house for the missing children.

JJ found them first, unharmed and terrified, in a hidden shed out back. She deferred to you, and you called your team over to perform a quick trauma eval on each of the children.

Knowles and Salinger, still twitchy from their earlier run-in with Aaron, settled down once they were able to perform their designated duties with their colleagues.

When they were finished, Aaron pulled them aside and spoke quietly with them for a moment. Salinger’s mouth twisted into a little smile, and Knowles took a deep breath. Every once in a while, one of them looked over at you as Aaron spoke.

After a final set of smiles and nods, they exchanged handshakes. Aaron looked significantly lighter as he approached you as you leaned on the SUV. With your sunglasses on, you looked decidedly and federally important.

Aaron settled in beside you, slipping his sunglasses over his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. You bumped his shoulder, and kept your voice low. “It was nice to work together, again.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face, but it was one only you (and maybe Dave) would notice. You could carry on entire conversations without physically acknowledging each other just as well as you could communicate without words at all. Aaron stayed focused on something in the middle distance as he replied. “It was.”

“It’s nice to know you’re still good at your job without me.” You bit back a smile as your eyes tracked your team, wrapping everything up.

You could almost hear his eye roll. “Glad to hear my performance is consistent and up to your standards.”

“Your performance is always consistent and up to my standards.”

The double meaning was not lost on him, according to the dimple that pressed into his left cheek.

After a moment of silence, the humor dropped from your tone. “Sorry I got mad at you.”

He huffed a laugh through his nose, his face unchanged. “I deserved it.”

“You did,” you agreed, “but I forgot how much I dislike getting upset with you in the field.”

“As opposed to getting upset with me at home?”

“Exactly.”

+++

Knowles and Salinger placed a bet on something while you were all in the car, but you weren’t sure what it was. You shook your head at their antics, feeling very much like a parent all of a sudden.

When you all landed in the hotel lobby, BAU and CARD combined, Hotch checked his watch and said, “We’re all taking the jet back together. Adjust accordingly. Wheels up in thirty.”

With a smug grin, Salinger collected her cash from Knowles.

You exchanged a glance with Hotch, one full of long-suffering understanding, and shook your head.

+++

To save on space, it only seemed reasonable to cozy up to Hotch on the flight home. The three extra bodies meant that almost every seat was full, and sleeping in a ball was the only option.

Your head rested in Hotch’s lap, pillowed on his suit jacket, while the rest of you curled up on the seat beside him. A case file rested lightly on the side of your head as Aaron reviewed it, flipping pages every once and awhile.

Your phone rang, and Hotch pulled it out of your pocket before you could reach around for it.

“Hotchner….Hey buddy...Yeah we’ll be home really soon. We’re on the plane right now…” He checked his watch. “It’ll be past your bedtime when we get home, so we’ll come in and say goodnight to you really quick, okay?...Alright. See you soon. I love you.”

He hung up and tossed the phone on the seat, reclining and stretching his long legs out in front of him. You tapped his knee. “How’s the kid?”

He chuckled. “Good. Apparently there’s mac ‘n cheese for dinner. It’s very exciting.”

You hummed contentedly, bringing your arm up to rest on his knee as you endeavored to get a little more comfortable.

Aaron’s hand landed on your shoulder, and he squeezed once. “Missed you.”

You covered his hand with yours. “Missed you, too.”

+++

tagging: @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @wandaswitxh @hurricanejjareau @fics-ilike @ange-must-die @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @dr-reid-ismyspiritanimal @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @saintd0lce @good-heavens-chris-evans @davidrossi-ismydad @angelsbabey @gublergirls @writefasttalkevenfaster @venusbarnes @vintagecaptainspidey @micaiahmoonheart @thatreallyis-americas-ass @marvels-agents100 @newtslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @joemazzello-imagines @pinkdiamond1016 @sebbybaby0 @wannabewinchester67 @pan-pride-12 @hotchlinebling @lee-rin-ah @sunshine-em @jdougl-love @sageellsworth05 @nohalohoseok @giveusbackourbucky @mrshotchnerrossimulder20 @darkeclipsebatlight @honeyshores @laneygthememequeen @emmice9 @word-scribbless @abschaffer2

(if y’all have been up in my masterlist recently, i added you to the tags. i also love you. pls let me know if you want to hop off the tag list anytime - i promise you wont hurt my feelings!) also some tags aren’t working - make sure you’re able to be tagged in posts in your settings!

#aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #hotch #tali writes fanficiton

498 notes · View notes

purpleyellow · 3 years

Text

Spaces

BTS 8th member

Sunny’s masterlist

“Sehun confronts her about a particular interview that went viral”

a/n:Your opinion is very important for me, send feedback and requests anytime 💜 Also, don’t be shy and interact a little, ask box is always open.

Sunny was peacefully scrolling down her email box while Sehun went on about this meeting he had during the day, his call nothing but a minimized tab on her computer to allow her to read the messages and spread clean her inbox in the empty studio she was in.

“So yeah, after that we went back- Why do your eyes keep going around the screen?” Sehun’s tone suddenly became worried and he gasped in realization “I’m not your main window, am I?”

Quickly switching tabs, Sunny tried not to laugh at his hurt expression, instead frowning at him with his hand on his chest.

“Of course you are. That’s just how eyes work, you’re not staring at a straight point either.” She snickered, making him humm and look outside the car he was in. “I’m sure whoever’s driving you must be having a lot of fun hearing one side of our conversation”

“Are you sure this isn’t you trying to send a message” Sehun pursed his lips, clearly annoyed and the girl tilted her head to one side “I mean? You obviously would prefer to date someone shorter, so should I just take the hint and leave?”

Rolling her eyes at him, Sunny couldn’t hide her smile at his cynical face, which only increased the amount of his whining.

“C’mon, you can’t just say those kinds of things and expect me not to get insecure over it”

“I never said anything like that”

“You said shorter men are better”

“I said height doesn’t matter as much as everyone says” She rolled her eyes, quickly switching tabs again since the topic didn’t actually phase her “Don’t you think I would have dropped you long ago if that was actually important to me”

“I don’t know what to think now that I know I’m dating a liar” He puffed and she knew he was pouting by the tone of his voice.

“I’m a what now?” The girl tried to sound as offended as possible and he scoffed.

“Don’t play saint on me, you blatantly lied about never dating before and-”

“I did it to protect our relationship. And how do you even know about this? Are you searching my name on the internet again?”

“It’s everywhere online, I didn’t have to look for it to find the interview. It’s trending right now you know, Shorter men is number three worldwide” He said it annoyed, giving a dramatic pause and after a few seconds of silence the two of them began laughing.

“This is so dumb” Sunny giggled leaning back on her chair and pressing her hands on her face “People shouldn’t care this much about a single joke”

“I know,” He said and waited for a minute, almost making her forget she was on a call with him. Cleaning his throat, Sehun awkwardly said “Next time, you don’t have to lie though”

“I kind of do” Sunny shrugged her shoulders, still scrolling down on her inbox.

“No, you don’t. Just go around the question like we’ve been doing this whole time”

“Sure, my bad” She scoffed, reaching for the coffee mug on the table.

“I’m serious here” Sehun sounded more affirmative and she quickly clicked on his tab to see he was now walking down the hallway for his apartment “The more lies you build up, the more the press can hold against you”

“Okay but that one just slipped up. The interviewer was getting on my nerves and-” The girl began rambling and as she switched tabs again he cut her off.

“I’m just saying, you could’ve just said you didn’t want to answer it instead of making up a persona” He ironically spoke as she heard the sound of a door clicking.

“I never made up anything. We both know dating isn’t a top priority on my mind” Sunny tried to sound calm as she deleted another spam by pressing a little too harshly on the key.

“Tell me about it” The boy scoffed, throwing his coat around and she raised an eyebrow.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I just find ironic how I call you almost every day to tell you what I did and you always say you didn’t do anything special”

“Because I haven’t” The girl chewed on the inside of her cheek and paused her reading, but not bringing herself to change back to him and what she assumed would be his disappointed face. “My days are literally all the same, and you’ve had them almost twice as much as I have, you’d get so bored if I were to tell you about them”

“Well, I spent today in a meeting and we both know there’s nothing as boring as that. But I tell you about it anyway because I want to feel like you were there with me” He huffed and threw himself on the bed “But instead of allowing me to be with you, you don't tell me much and I only find out what happened after half of the world did”

“I told you we did that interview weeks ago. I never touched the subject because-”

“This isn’t about one case, love” Sehun groaned and paused for a second, trying not to raise his voice as his desperation grew “For weeks now, all I get from you is the ‘same old’ without any detailing. It’s like you don’t even care that I want to connect with you. You’re not even on my tab right now, I can see it from the reflection behind you”

Quickly exiting her email, Sunny maximized the call so that it was the only thing on her screen, and just like she expected Sehun was laying on his bed as pissed as she'd ever seen him.

“You could get someone to clean your inbox for you” He coldly raised an eyebrow at her after realizing she didn’t have anything to say.

“I enjoy doing it”

“Clearly you like it more than talking to me” He scoffed and Sunny closed her eyes for a second, taking a deep breath before speaking.

“I don’t. It’s just... I have a lot on my plate right now. I need to make the most out of my time” The girl tried to reason and he shook his head.

“I’m just asking you to make a little time to talk to me, is that too much?”

“I’m doing it right now” She spoke, making him sit up annoyed.

“You were listening most of the time. If you were even paying attention to me at all” Sehun accused watching her slowly lose her posture and tiredly lay back on the chair “Since I called you, this is the first time I actually feel like I’m not talking alone”

“I’m sorry I don’t have-”

“Enough time, I know. I work just like you. But apparently, I still can put effort in this relationship”

“Sehun…” Sunny whined, hugging one of her legs and resting her head on her knee. “I’m trying my best”

“I don’t feel like you are though” His laugh lacked emotion “I’m going to hang up because I need to rest for a minute”

“No, wait. I’m sorry, really” She frowned, speaking softly as she also didn’t have much energy left “I can’t connect much when we’re apart like this. I wish we were together”

“I was trying to make you feel like we’re together this whole time” The boy smiled sadly “We’ll talk about this another time, hopefully in person and when you’re not working so at least you will care enough to focus”

“Sehun…”

“Good night, HyeSun”

152 notes · View notes

penaltbox · 4 years

Text

everything comes back to you - dylan holloway

a/n: aka the fic that took me forever to finish, or better yet, the one where dylan plays tour guide and you both get more than you bargained for

if you like it let me know! we love to get some feedback :)))

word count: 6.4k

“Where the heck is this place?” You wonder out loud, looking at the little campus map in your hands and turning in circles. You should be exactly where you were supposed to be, but for some reason you couldn’t find the right room.

You were most likely transferring to Wisconsin after taking a gap year and going to the tour solo was something you thought you could handle. It was proving much more difficult than expected though. You swear under your breath and study the map again.

“Hey, are you lost?” You hear a voice ask next to you.

You jump a little but you’re met with a soft smiling blond who looks harmless despite how big he is. If a puppy could have a human form you were pretty sure this guy was it. You feel yourself smile back almost instantly.

You hold the sheet up, feeling a little embarrassed, “yeah just a bit. I’m supposed to have this campus tour but I seriously cannot find the room for it.”

“Do you mind if I-?” He gestures to the paper, “I’m Dylan by the way. Not trying to be weird or anything.”

His cheeks start to turn red as soon as the words leave his mouth and you can’t help but think how ridiculously cute he looks. Maybe academics and campus life weren’t the only good reason to choose Madison.

“Of course! Trust me, the help is appreciated,” you hand the paper over and bite your lip as he reads over the page.

He frowns a little at the page and then turns to walk down the hall. He gets two steps before he freezes and looks over his shoulder, “come on. I think it’s right over here.”

You take a few quick strides to catch up with him and realize just how large he really is once you’re right next to him. You try to look him up and down quickly without getting caught, just to take him all in. He turns down a hallway you hadn’t even noticed before and stops in front of a door.

“Uh oh,” he mumbles, looking at a sign placed on the door.

“Uh oh what?” You ask, starting to panic a little.

He points toward the paper sign. ‘All tours cancelled today. We apologize for any inconvenience.’ Your jaw drops and you stare for a minute, willing the sign to say something else. You were here for the next few days and now you suddenly had nothing to do? How could they just cancel like that?

Dylan winces next to you and awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, “did they send an email or anything? It seems weird that they would just cancel so randomly.”

You sigh and feel yourself deflate a little, “I don’t know but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. My whole plan was to go on the tour today and then revisit a couple places I really liked tomorrow so I could be sure this was the place to go to.”

Dylan feels guilty for some reason that you’re being let down like this and he has this odd feeling in him that he needs to fix it somehow. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sees a couple messages in the group chat that give him an idea.

“How about this - what if my friends and I give you a tour? You’ll get a way more honest experience from us since we go here and then you’ll still get to see the campus?” He offers, the corner of his mouth starting to turn up.

You glance up at him, weighing the pros and cons. He seems nice enough and he has been helpful so far. But he was also a boy and his friends might not be quite so nice. Worst case scenario, you could possibly get murdered, right? But best case… well he and his friends could be amazing and be the first people you meet at the school. You decide to go for it despite your worrywart side yelling at you to think twice.

“You would do that? I don’t want to interrupt your day or anything.”

He smiles then, a big one that makes you gasp in a breath at how cute it is, “not at all! We didn’t have any plans. I just stopped over here to grab a couple things but I got a little sidetracked when you looked so lost. Let me call them.”

You nod quickly as he taps on his screen, lifting the phone to his ear. There’s a loud greeting on the other end that makes Dylan pull the phone back a little before he gives his pitch about needing help with showing this ‘poor girl who got lost’ around campus. You couldn’t help but laugh as you hear those words come out of his mouth. He offers a few ‘mhm’s’, ‘yep’s’, and finally a ‘cool, hurry up’, before he’s off the phone and smiling back at you.

“I’m just gonna warn you now that whoever shows up will probably be way too loud and if they make you uncomfortable with how outgoing they are then just tell me. I’ll get them to back off,” he says, scratching the back of his neck again. It seemed to be a nervous tick for him.

You’re not sure how a boy as physically intimidating as he is could be so endearing, but it works for him. It’s easy to reply to his mild warning with, “I think I’ll be able to handle it. I have a younger brother and he’s always been a handful.”

Dylan laughs at that and leads you back the way you’d originally come from. He walks outside and not two steps down the staircase does he hear his name shouted from a little ways over. A blond boy that seems to possibly be a bit taller than Dylan is headed your way and your eyebrows knit immediately.

“Are all your friends giants like you?” You mumble, thinking he didn’t hear it, but you were very wrong.

Dylan laughs and elbows you gently, “we’re not that big! You’re just short.”

Your face flushes immediately and you throw a playful smirk his way. It’s returned quickly enough that butterflies erupt in your stomach and you have to refocus on this new boy heading towards the both of you. He gives Dylan a quick fist bump before looking over at you with a big smile.

“Hi, I’m Shay and I’ll be your tour guide today,” he says, a level of confidence rolling off him that you wouldn’t have expected from his goofy appearance, “has Dylan here been polite so far or do we need to kick him off the tour?”

You glance over at the boy next to you who already looks like he’s about ready to fight the one who just showed up, but he only shakes his head.

“We’re fine, Shay. You’re just here for moral support, not to scare her away,” Dylan says with a roll of his eyes.

Shay laughs and gives you a quick wink, “don’t be fooled. I’m the fun one in our group.”

You blush a little and nod, feeling a little nervous. Would these guys actually be nice and show you good things or should you have just figured things out on your own? You’re about to tell the boys to just forget it when Dylan pulls you back to the real world.

“Did you have a degree in mind? We could show you the main building for whatever it is,” he says, his tone patient enough to make you sigh and relax.

“Actually,” you smile, “I do. Biology.”

“Oh so you’re like smart smart,” Shay says, his eyebrows raising as he looks between you and Dylan, who lets out an annoyed sigh.

“We’re not idiots, geez. Just come on,” Dylan shakes his head and starts heading down the sidewalk.

You follow quickly, trying to keep up with his long strides and he seems to notice. He slows down half a step and gives you a little smile that makes you grin right back, but you look away just as fast, too.

“So your main building is probably this one right up here,” he points, still fighting off a little smile.

You glance up and freeze in place, taking in the big building and how pretty it looks. What you don’t notice is Dylan watching you as you take in just one of the many spots on campus he wanted to show you. The awe on your face has him staring and he has to blink hard to get out of his own head. He just met you. He couldn’t be creepy and scare you off already.

A quick glance over to Shay has him blushing as the older boy smirks at him before tapping away at his phone. Although Shay doesn’t say anything, Dylan knows he’d been caught in the act. He wants to move on quickly to hide himself from being embarrassed all over again.

Dylan sets out on a mission after that: find every place in Madison that would get you to make that face again. He couldn’t help but think how pretty the look was on you and he’d do just about anything to see it over and over again.

You spend the whole day following these two giant dorks around and they make you laugh so much your stomach hurts by the end of it. You’re sitting on top of the half wall in front of the Kohl Center, looking around at everything when you take a deep breath and let out a big sigh.

“Uh oh, is that a good thing?” Shay asks from your left, eating the last scoop of fro-yo from his cup.

“It is,” you look over at him and smile, “I love it here. I don’t want to have to leave in two days.”

You turn your attention to Dylan on your right and find him looking at you already. You give him a once over and smile before looking down at the empty cup in your hand.

“Do you want to do something tomorrow? I have a workout in the morning but I’m free around lunch,” he speaks up and you know he’s not talking about including Shay.

Just as you guessed, the taller blond stands up with a quick clear of his throat, “it was super awesome to meet you. I hope you love Wisconsin as much as we do, and uh, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you. Get home safe.”

You thank him and give him a hug before he gives Dylan a nod and starts to walk down the street. You can’t help but laugh and turn towards Dylan.

“He’s a little odd, huh? Like super nice and friendly, but wow, that’s a personality,” you bring up, trying not to sound mean or anything.

Dylan laughs with you, cancelling some of your nerves, “oh he’s something. We aren’t sure what to do with him most days, but we like him nonetheless.”

“Thank you by the way,” you say, your voice dropping lower as you notice the sun starting to set, “I really appreciate you guys going out of your way to show me around today.”

“No problem. Hopefully you got a good feel for everything, and that offer is still up for doing something tomorrow. If you want that is. You don’t have to if you don’t want or if you’re not comfortable with it or anything. I don’t want to overstep,” he rambles, his cheeks starting to dust a little more pink.

You bite your lip, shocked that this cute boy was getting flustered around you of all people. You decide to save him some of the pain of whatever is scrambling through his head and you gently bump his shoulder with yours.

“Hey,” you mumble, catching his attention, “I’d love to.”

His eyebrows shoot up and his smile makes your stomach flip a little, “yeah? There’s this cool spot close to the capitol with the best burgers in town if you like that kind of thing. It’s called Dlux if you’re a menu checker.”

“That sounds amazing,” you respond, your smile matching his, “I don’t know how I’ll repay you for this weekend. This town is unreal.”

He shrugs, looks happy as can be, as he tells you, “I think hanging out has been plenty of payment. Anyone that can give Shay a run for his money with witty responses is good in my book.”

He uses Shay as a reasoning but there’s a feeling in the pit of his stomach that says maybe it’s something else. There was something about watching you fall in love with where he lived, where you’d be living, that had him looking far more at you than at the city he’d been in for months.

The two of you repeat the cycle the next day, getting burgers for lunch that are delicious and going all around town. Dylan watches you take pictures and answers as many questions as he can. He manages to find an open door for the main building your classes would probably be in and he has to take a deep breath and look away at one point when you’re just staring in awe at everything. He didn’t know what was going on with him.

He can’t believe that he’d run into someone like you and had so quickly become enamored. He spilled to the boys that first night, due to some prodding from Shay, all about how cute you looked and how much you loved their everyday places and things.

“Guys, I think I’m in love or something. Holy shit,” he mumbled, his mind racing after that second day with you.

The boys give him a hard time, of course, but Dylan rolls with it. He wasn’t sure how you’d made your way into his life so quickly but he really hoped that weekend wasn’t the last of having you around him.

Your days blur by and before you know it you’re packing up to head home. Dylan makes sure he has your phone number and snapchat before you leave, claiming that he’d need it in case he saw something he thought you might like.

You swear the weekend had to be some kind of fever dream. This cute boy came out of nowhere and spent three days making you feel welcomed and at home in a place that had stolen your heart. How could it get better?

—

“Would you stop checking your phone?” Mike asks, glaring across the table at Dylan.

He rolls his eyes in response but sets it back down, “why don’t you worry about yourself? You’re always checking on your girl, too.”

“Oh, so she’s your girl now?” Ryder asks, his tone immediately teasing.

“No, come on. I met her once and we hung out a couple times. Knock it off,” Dylan defends, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Except I saw the way you looked at her. You’re in so deep,” Shay teases, reaching over to try and rub Dylan’s cheek, but he’s quick to smack his hand away.

He has to laugh it off otherwise he thinks he might explode. Shay’s quick to pull out his phone and pass it around to the other guys, all of them laughing and picking on Dylan. Mike finally hands it over and he sees what they’d be looking at.

It’s a picture of Dylan standing right next to you as you look up at the science building for the first time. Dylan has a soft smile on his face and anyone who looks at it can tell Dylan’s completely smitten in that moment.

“I’m in trouble, huh?” Dylan asks, a little laugh spilling out.

He runs his hand through his hair as he sits back and looks at the picture again. He knew he had it bad, he could tell, but he definitely wasn’t giving it up. Things were only getting better as time went on.

—

“Dude, are you good?” Ryder asks, smacking Dylan’s arm as he walks with his nose shoved into his phone as they head to practice.

Dylan smiles at him, completely oblivious, “what do you mean? Of course I’m good.”

“You are sick,” Ryder laughs, “are you guys still texting? Have you guys left each other alone at all?”

Dylan’s shrugs and finally pockets his phone, but stops when he sees an ice cream truck parked near the ice arenas. He grabs his phone again and sends you a snapchat that makes Ryder start howling with laughter when he realizes what’s going on.

“You’ve still got it so bad, oh my god. I’m telling the whole team now. Enough of just our group knowing,” he says over his shoulder, continuing his path towards LaBahn.

Dylan rolls his eyes, knowing anything he says to Ryder won’t stop him from running his mouth to the team. If Dylan was honest he didn’t really mind. He’d enjoyed his time with you and now you both were almost constantly sending each other snaps of things you thought the other would like and you’d even had some lengthy FaceTime calls.

Dylan is met with a round of interrogation the second he steps into the locker room and all he can do is glare at Ryder. The boys want to know more about this mystery person that had Dylan so wrapped up but he’s not giving much info. He tells them your name and where you’re from, but that’s about all he’ll give them. He thinks he’s fine until Shay picks up his head with a smirk.

“Is this her?” He asks, turning his phone and showing off your Instagram, though he knew exactly who you were.

“Stop it!” Dylan snaps, hurrying over to the older boy and trying to steal his phone away.

Shay can’t help but laugh as he turns to look at his brother, “you weren’t kidding, huh? Holloway, you’re fucked. Just ask her out already.”

“Just relax, every single one of you!” He warns, but there's no threat behind his words by any means and it only makes the boys try and rile him up more.

Dylan’s blushing furiously by then and he shuts off the screen on Shay’s phone, setting it above him in his locker stall. Dylan shuffles over to his own stall and pulls out his phone to send you a warning.

‘If you get a bunch of followers on insta and they’re all my teammates then I’m so sorry’

‘Uh oh who spilled the beans? 😂’

‘Shay of course. Are we surprised?’

‘Not at all. Have fun at practice!’

Dylan finds himself smiling at the phone again and he can’t even help it. You remembered when his classes and practices were most of the time by now and he really liked that for some reason.

“Let’s go, lover boy,” Ty yells across the room, “you can call her later but for now you’ve got hockey and the boys.”

Dylan tries his best to wipe the smile off his face but it’s not as easy as it sounds. The boys run him a little harder than they usually would but it doesn’t seem to break his mood at all. It starts to be contagious though, and the team ends up skating a couple extra laps for goofing around and having too much fun.

It’s not until Dylan’s in his room that night, attempting to study, that you send him a snap of the sunset at your place. He decides he needs to FaceTime you again right that minute.

“Hi,” you answer, not expecting the call, but not minding one bit. You hated to say you missed him but you kind of did. The thought alone gives you butterflies that you tried to ignore.

Dylan smiles at the screen and leans back in his chair, “you can’t keep sending me cool pictures of places in your town if I’m not allowed to come visit.”

You hear the flirty tone he strikes up right away and smirk, “I never said you couldn’t come visit. I mean I am dying to come visit Madison again so we can trade a trip for a trip.”

“So let’s do it,” he says, plain and simple, “you could even stay here if you wanted to. Then you don’t have to pay for a hotel. I can sleep on the couch.”

“I’m not kicking you out of your own place. But I think I might have to visit before too long,” you shake your head.

“Next time we have a little break I might have to head your way then. I already know at least one pretty thing in that town since you live there,” Dylan says, not even sure where the confidence was coming from.

You blush, ducking your head a little before looking up to find him blushing a bit too, “you better watch what you say or you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

“Maybe I want some trouble if you’re involved.”

“You better be careful what you wish for,” you warn him, but the banter has you buzzing with excitement.

“Think I already got what I wished for, so we need to get you yours next. Now get up here and visit,” he laughs, but he thinks it’s most likely just talk.

You were probably busy and as much as he wanted you to visit, he didn’t want to sound pushy or anything. He’d had a lot of fun with you and he thought you had fun with him, too. He remembers something that might even sweeten the deal some more.

“Hey,” he says quickly, “you remember that coffee shop we went to when you were here last?”

You smile and nod quickly, “I was just thinking about that place yesterday. It was so good.”

Dylan can’t help but soften a little when he sees you smile like that, “they have a new drink out. It’s a seasonal thing but I tried it and it’s really good. I think you’d like it.”

“Let me look at my plans for the next few weeks and let you know, okay? I can probably squeeze in a visit. Maybe I’ll even get to see you play,” you mention, trying to play it off, but you really did want to see him play a game.

“You want to come see me play?” Dylan asks, trying not to sound too overly excited, “that would be cool. I could get you a ticket.”

You nod quickly, having to press your hand to your cheek as you try anything to suppress the grin that always takes over your face when you talk to him, “I’d love to come see you play and see more of that city. I had a pretty damn good tour guide last time.”

He bites his lip and nods, thinking of a good response, “well they’re all private tours now. You’ll have to submit an application to get the same guide you had last time.”

You let out a laugh and shake your head, “you got it. Just tell me where to sign.”

Dylan steals your attention for a few more minutes, soaking in the time he gets. He knows you’re just as busy as he is, or at least pretty close to it, so he tries not to waste your time. You delay getting off the phone as long as you can, but your mom calls for you to come downstairs and even Dylan hears her beckon you.

“I’ll see you soon?” He asks just before you disconnect the call.

“Very soon hopefully,” you smile, knowing you couldn’t wait much longer to go see him.

—

Your hands are shaking as you raise your fist and quickly knock on the big door in front of you. You’re well aware of what’s waiting on the other side and you’re so excited to see him again that you can hardly contain yourself.

The door swings open and reveals a blond boy, but not the one you’d been wanting to see. Regardless you give him a big smile and hug him back when he leans in.

“Shay, how have you been?” You ask, holding him at arm's length and eyeing him suspiciously.

He laughs and pulls you inside, taking your bag for you, “I’m doing just fine. I think the real question is how are you? You look a little nervous.”

You feel your face flush and your eyes go wide, “stop, do I really? Oh gosh, I can’t do this.”

You don’t even get the chance to turn around before Shay locks an arm around your shoulders, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Why are you and Dylan so much alike? He’s nervous too, don’t worry.”

The confession doesn’t make you feel any less rattled but you’re quickly being walked through the only semi messy apartment towards a closed door off to one side. Shay wastes no time knocking and pushes the door open to reveal Dylan. He looks over, a shocked expression covering his face quickly, and he looks like he’d been pacing in the middle of the room.

He sees you tucked under Shay’s arm though and doesn’t even consider yelling at the older boy for barging in. He smiles right away, a soft one that makes you realize the trip was worth it, and he heads your way.

“Hi,” he says quietly, holding his arms out for a hug.

You dip out from under Shay’s arms and put your own around Dylan’s neck, hugging him tight, “hi, I’m here.”

You hear Shay groan behind you followed by the thump of your bag hitting the floor. You can’t help but laugh as the door closes behind the two of you, giving you some alone time. You figure Dylan is ready to pull away, but instead squeezes a little tighter, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You can’t help but run your fingers through his hair, finally getting to see him in person rather than over the phone.

“You are here. You’re coming to the game tonight, right?” He mumbles, still leaving himself practically attached to you.

You have no complaints about it so you reassure his question, “of course I am. I can’t wait to see you and the boys play.”

Dylan finally stands up, pulling his phone from his pocket and checking the time, “ah shit, I need to get changed. We have to head to the rink soon.”

You fight the frown that tries to make its way onto your face over him leaving so soon. You had him for the next two days before you really had to say goodbye. He tells you to make yourself at home, putting your bag on his bed before heading to his closet.

You sit on the unmade bed and look around, taking in all the little pieces that made it his room rather than just a plain four-walled-space. A couple pictures, a Wisconsin hockey banner, and a shoe collection that earned your envy all catch your attention. Dylan turns around, a dress shirt in one hand and a tie in the other.

“Do these match?” He asks, holding the two things a little higher.

You glance between them and nod, “yeah those look good. No tie might even look good.”

He considers it for a second and then turns to put the tie back, giving you a little smile, “okay, no tie it is. Ready to meet the monsters? I need to get changed.”

You laugh but follow him quickly to the door. You were honestly excited to meet his friends, especially if they were all as friendly as Shay was. As soon as Dylan steps out of his room he stops and you can seem him shaking his head at whatever he’s seeing.

“You guys all just happen to be changed and out here ready to go at the same time?” He asks, leading you to believe everyone had crammed into their living room at once and you were guessing it wasn’t because they were ready at their usual times.

“Some of us weren’t sucking face and actually got ready on time,” you hear one voice say loudly, but a smack quickly follows it.

“Be nice,” Shay reprimands the person and you find yourself peeking out from behind Dylan. He stays in place, almost like he’s protecting you, but Shay sees you, too, quickly calling your name, “come say hi. I’ll introduce you while lover boy here gets his shit together.”

You look up and find Dylan’s cheeks have gone deep red and he gives you an apologetic look, mumbling, “I’ll be right back. I swear I’ll be fast.”

Suddenly he’s stepping away and heading for the bathroom, leaving you with four pairs of eyes on you. You know who they are but you hadn’t formally met them yet so you opt for a little wave.

It doesn’t take long for them to get you to sit down, introducing themselves and then peppering you with questions. You thought Shay was loud before but then you realize the whole group of them together was even worse. They’re all funny though and make you feel comfortable so quickly that you don’t even mind the seemingly endless stream of questions as you sit on the arm of the chair Shay takes up.

The group suddenly goes quiet and before you can ask why a hand presses onto your back, causing goosebumps to shoot up your spine. You smile up at Dylan and find him giving you one back. The boys start to whistle and jab at Dylan, calling him names until he gives them a leveling glare. Something about the look makes your stomach flip and you have to look away, taking a deep breath to steady yourself.

“I’m ready when you guys are,” he says to the group, but barely takes his eyes off of you.

The boys, including Dylan, get up slowly and start grabbing things to take with them, hats and AirPods all included, but Shay stays in his spot next to you before tapping your leg. You look down at him and smile, letting him know you were listening.

“I need to show you something,” he says, causing your eyebrows to pinch in confusion, “I just think you might want to see this.”

You open your mouth to argue but he hands his phone to you, showing you the picture he’d taken the first day you all met. The one with Dylan standing next to you with that soft look on his face that told you everything. You can’t help but smile as you look it over.

Shay clears his throat a little, “I’m just saying, I called it that day.”

You nod, sending the picture to yourself, “yeah on his end. You missed it on mine though.”

“Did I?” He asks, finally standing up and starting to walk away.

You watch him walk off and you can’t help but wonder what he meant. You don’t have to wait long before your phone pops up with a notification. Shay must have noticed you send the first picture to yourself because he’s sent a second one. This time it’s one from when you’d first got there that day and Dylan had all but swallowed you into a hug.

He’s behind you then, his arm coming around you as he pulls you back against him. He sets his chin down on your shoulder and looks at the screen with a laugh, “in case you haven’t noticed, Shay manages to document every part of people’s lives with pictures and videos. Guess you’re officially part of the group now.”

You can’t fight the smile or the blush that take over your face then. Dylan diverts both of your attention and hands you his apartment key, explaining how to get to the rink, where your ticket will be, and where to wait after. You take it all in, nervous to have to meet him somewhere you’d never been, but a quick kiss on the cheek before he leaves has you more flustered than anything else.

You’re instructed to make yourself at home, though it’s quickly countered by Ryder with a joking ‘don’t go in my room’, so you stick to the living room until you need to get ready to leave. Dylan was right about getting to the rink though. It was an easy trip, just go down to the end of the block then hang a left and keep going until you see the big arena. You really couldn’t miss it.

You have to explain to the ticket window that a player had left you a ticket and by this point you were pretty sure the redness on your cheeks was just going to be permanent when you were in Madison. The girl hands your ticket over with a tight smile, one you don’t miss because it’s accompanied by her giving your appearance a once over.

You’re quick to bolt away from the ticket window and head farther into the arena. It takes you a minute to find your seat but when you do you let yourself look around. It was a pretty impressive arena but you’re much more worried about watching the boys skate around on the ice. It only takes you a minute to find Dylan and you can’t take your eyes off of him after.

The game goes by far more quickly than you wanted it to, but on the bright side you’d get to see Dylan finally. You wait in the lobby, constantly wringing your hands from nerves, watching as one group after another leaves the arena. You feel like you’re doing something wrong by waiting there but he’d specifically told you to wait inside until he got done after.

You feel silly by the time the place is virtually empty, but none of the arena workers seem to be shooing you out. You’re about to turn around and leave when you catch sight of Dylan and Ryder heading your way. The smile on your face is quickly matched by Dylan and Ryder is quick to nudge him. He gives you a wave and heads outside while Dylan makes his way to you.

He reaches for you right away, pulling you into another big hug that you knew you were going to get way too accustomed to over the short time there. You let yourself relax into him though, taking in the fresh smell of body wash that was coming from him.

“How was the game?” He asks softly, barely pulling back so he can look down at you. You’re sure he doesn’t realize it but he’s gently rubbing one thumb up and down on your hip as he holds them and it gives you instant butterflies.

You smile and nod as you respond, “it was really good. You guys are awesome to watch.”

“Do you maybe want to take a quick walk with me?” He asks suddenly, seemingly nervous about it.

You’re curious what could be so urgent but you agree, trusting whatever crazy idea he’d come up with. You have to bite your lip to keep from grinning like a crazy person when he steps away and takes your hand, tugging you along behind him.

It’s almost unreal how easy it is for the two of you to fall into step with one another and keep an easy conversation going. You feel comfortable around Dylan and he seems to relax around you in a way he didn’t before with the boys around. You’re not sure where he’s taking you but you go along anyways.

“Is this the point where you take me to a weird part of campus and murder me?” You joke, looking up at him as you wander the streets of Madison at night.

Dylan snorts and shakes his head, “no, I have no plans on ever letting you get hurt. If anything I’ll make sure you stay extra safe while you’re in town. It’s just a couple more minutes but I think you’ll want to see this. It’s a place I end up at a lot.”

Your heart hammers a little harder knowing he was taking you somewhere that meant a lot to him and you seem to pick your pace up a bit afterwards. You realize that he’s taking you closer to the water now, which had been blocked off mostly the last time you’d been there due to construction on the terrace.

Your suspicions are right as he leads you to the end of Lake Street and hooks around a building, landing the both of you on a bench that looks out at Lake Mendota. It’s dark out but there’s still so many lights reflecting off the water.

“I love it,” you mumble, very aware of Dylan putting his arm over your shoulders. You easily lean into his side before turning your attention back to him and smiling.

He returns the expression, “I’m glad you came to visit. I was a little worried I might have been bugging you too much and you wouldn’t want to come.”

“No, I’m really glad I came. I think I finally got what I wished for,” you start off, referring back to the FaceTime that had convinced you to return to the city.

“Oh you did? What is it?”

You blush hard then, turning to look out at the water again, “I like being here. I don’t mind having you here with me either.”

Dylan tries hard to keep his cool but it’s harder than he thought, “I’m such a sucker.”

He laughs and it makes you laugh a little. You were both goners and you knew it all too well. He reaches over, gently grabbing your chin and making you look at him. You hear him mumble under his breath, ‘I can’t wait anymore’, and suddenly he’s kissing you softly.

Your head spins a little and you lean into it, feeling like you can’t get enough of him. You finally need to catch your breath, pulling back, and leaning your forehead on his. You aren’t sure when you fell so fast for Dylan but you definitely did and he seemed to be feeling the same.

“I can’t wait to see every inch of this city,” you whisper.

“Well it’s a good thing you’ve got the best tour guide around,” he quips, leaning in for yet another kiss.

#dylan holloway #mine #my writing #wisconsin hockey #hockey fic #college hockey fic #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #edmonton oilers

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ushijimas-koibito · 4 years

Text

request no. 1

request: clingy ushiwaka. the partner has the same haircut as him and is trying to get their work done.

author’s note: thank you so much @im-cold-so-gimme-your-hoodie! i appreciate your request and will give it my best. i hope you enjoy and i look forward to hearing your feedback.

title: toshi comes home.

warnings: suggestive behavior, kissing, nudity, cheese, fluff

listening: crush on you by elijah who; it’s finally raining again by elijah who; sincerely, yours by nohidea; my new love by elijah who; frozen by sabrina claudio; wanna know by sabrina claudio; this town by ama lou; could’ve been by H.E.R and bryson tyler; i fall in love too easily by caleb belkin; wild by dijon; goodbye, good luck by sad face; laundry day by joey pecorano; monday loop by tomppabeats; give me something by joey pecorano

5:30; his flight should land soon and he would be back in your arms. ushijima wakatoshi, your partner, was returning home today after a very long national press tour. the two of you had video chatted every night, but it wasn’t the same as having him here with you. you felt a little guilty as you wait there in the airport lobby answering emails. you thought you timed everything right. you were sure you would finish everything for work by tuesday; and you would… but today is monday. how you got the dates confused, you will never know as you are an extremely punctual, efficient, and timely person. you had to be as a project manager for a major up-and-coming tech company. you and ushijima were something of a power couple. two of the youngest but most powerful people in your respective fields. you were each a force to be reckoned with.

you looked around the airport a moment, although mostly empty, you still managed to turn heads. you turned towards the windows looking out over the parking deck and caught a glimpse of yourself in the reflection. you adjusted the collar of your shirt and curled a face framing hair around your finger to smooth out the little bit of frizz. you hoped he liked it on you. you usually kept your hair quite long, at least to your shoulders, but the notion of having to style it and losing minutes to your hair was something you couldn’t take anymore. it looked very similar to ushijima’s hair, save for your hair being a different color and texture. the slight wave of your hair annoyed you but it was one of ushijima’s favorite things. the more you thought about it the more you realized almost everything that annoyed you about yourself was something he loved. he was always picking up on your quirks and insecurities and he found a way to romanticize them. he was just that way, seeing beauty in strange things, glamor in the mundane, and depth in simplicity. you checked your watch and turned to the gate. he was landing shortly.

you noticed a few paparazzi scuttle in and you tighten your jaw. couldn’t they leave him alone for just one day? you thought to yourself as you pulled the front hem of your blazer. you push your glasses up the bridge of your nose and straighten your posture and walk closer to the gate. ushijima would be in a much better mood if you were the first to intercept him instead of the paparazzi. as you walk toward the gate you hear the sound of a shutter click and a flash go off. you whip your head towards the young cameraman who has been stopped by an older journalist, “what are you doing? that’s not him.” the cameraman looks at you a moment longer before turning away under the pressure of your icy gaze. you check your reflection in your phone, my hair isn’t exactly like his, you ponder, is it?

at that moment you get a text from ushijima, be there soon. waiting for bags. can’t wait to see you. missed you, my dear. you smile and open your emails to squeeze in some more work. you always miss wakatoshi when he leaves and you hate that your first day back together will be spent with you working. if you don’t finish the work tonight, it will cut into your time together with the few days you have before he leaves again. the sooner you both get home, the sooner you could finish your work, the sooner you could be together with no distractions. he was sure to be frustrated but understanding.

the doors opened and there he was walking toward you. his usually serious expression faded away and a smile crept its way across his face. he walked directly up to you and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. “hello, my dove,” he rested his forehead against yours for a moment before taking a step back, “your hair,” he said quietly. “do you like it?” you squeezed his hand a little. “of course I do.” he pushed a tendril out of your eyes and pushed up your glasses with his knuckle, not releasing your hand to do so. you took his bag in your other hand, “the car is waiting for us outside.” you walked hand in hand without a glance to the paparazzi. you handed the bags to the driver and opened the back door for ushijima. he tilted his head back against the head rest and you slid in. he reached his arm across the seats and patted his hand against his chest to gesture you to give him a cuddle. you slid across the seats and he leaned his cheek against the top of your head as you draped your arm across his torso. he let out a long breath, “it’s good to be home.” you nuzzled his cheek and pulled him closer. you enjoy this simple moment; the rise and fall of his broad chest, the warmth of his body radiating through his thin cashmere sweater, the quiet inhale and exhale of breath against your skin, “you must be tired, darling.” he shook his head, “not really. i slept a bit on the plane. i made sure to get sleep so i could spend as much time as possible with you.” you can feel him smile against your head, “about that,” you say hesitantly as you pull away to look at him, “uh oh,” he whispers with a smirk, “i’m sorry,” you begin, “I just have a few things to finish up and then i’m all yours for the next five days,” he smiles and ruffles your hair, “you’re always mine.. but I understand.” he pulls you into his strong arms and holds you tight all the way to your apartment.

just as you arrive, your phone buzzes with a call from your business partner, “hello shimizu, i just picked up ushijima from the airport and i’m about to head upstairs.” ushijima waves his hand before picking up his bag, “he says ‘hello’,” you laugh softly while you fumble with your keys and head toward the entrance. you walk in and get on the elevator as she preps you for the video meeting. you look at ushijima and whisper, “kiyoko says hello back, she’s prepping me for the meeting.” he nods, “we’ll have to have her and ryu over for dinner this week.” you nod back. you both enter the elevator and he puts his arm around you as you listen carefully to the instructions; another pang of guilt washes over you as you catch him studying your face. he always looks at you like you’re going to disappear, as if you’re going to be a figment of his imagination, or like he’s afraid that one day he might forget. “alright, shimizu, i’m almost inside. i’ll be settled soon and we can jump on to finish prepping before the meeting.” you hang up and slip your phone in your blazer pocket. you have a few floors to enjoy the quiet with wakatoshi. he leans his head against yours and kisses your cheek. he lingers a moment and then tenderly kisses just behind your ear, “your haircut makes it easier for me to kiss your neck,” he whispers, “i like it.” you blush slightly and jump when the floor bell rings. he laughs picking up his bags and walking onto your floor, “come on,” he says with a smile, “wouldn’t want you to be late for your meeting.” you hesitate letting the guilt wash over you once more before walking up the hall and unlocking the door to your pristine corner apartment.

the apartment was very calming and soothing to be in. deep, cool colors and lots of open space with many beautiful plants. “i swear, (y/n), the orchids thrive when you take care of them.” ushijima delicately cradled the white and purple bloom in his fingers and craned down to take in it’s fragrance. the apartment always feels more like a home when he’s here. despite having floor to ceiling walls of windows, the place never fills with light until he comes home. you walk into the kitchen and turn on the kettle, “tea?” you asked, ushijima runs his hands through his hair and comes behind the counter, “i’ll make it, you go on ahead. don’t keep kiyoko waiting.” he bumps you out of the way with his hip and takes the tea bags out of your hands. you kiss his shoulder before heading towards your desk and taking off your blazer.

you sit at your desk and prepare yourself for the meeting. shimizu is already logged on and waiting. you open your documents and sign on to the video chat, “sorry to keep you waiting, shimizu.” over the next few minutes, you put the final touches on your project proposal. ushijima comes up with two teas for you both. he comes behind the desk and hunches down to be in frame of the camera, “hello kiyoko,” he says while setting down your tea. “i’m not sure if (y/n) has offered yet, but we would love to have you and ryu over for dinner this week.” she smiles and agrees that she will have to speak to ryu and hopefully you lot can work something out. “i certainly hope so,” he says before turning to you, “let me know if it needs more sugar,” he waves to the camera and then sits in the chair in front of your desk. you feel his feet touch yours as he stretches out reading an article from his press tour in a magazine. “ushijima, please don’t feel obligated to stay in the apartment, i’d hate for you to just be bored all-,” he cuts you off, “all I want to do is spend the day with you. i can handle sitting here for awhile.” you shake your head and log into your meeting. the meeting goes on for a couple hours. during your meeting ushijima refilled your tea, played footsie with you under the desk, and drew little plants and hearts on your sticky pad. he was very sweet and you felt bad that you couldn’t give him the attention he deserved.

after another hour of meetings and presentations passes, ushijima wonders into the kitchen and makes you both lunch. every so often, he looks up from his work and looks at you. he loves seeing you at work. he can only hope that you receive the same thrill he gets when he sees you at one of his matches. although, to be honest, he makes you nervous. you are so aware of his intense gaze and his deep eyes following your every move, that you become more aware of what you’re doing and that makes you uneasy. you’ve never been the best at handling the pressure of being observed and watched. the first half of your meeting wraps up and you all sign off to take a break for lunch.

ushijima has set up your lunches and waves you over. it’s a simple and nutritious lunch with vegetables, rice, and fish. he was a very good cook. everything he makes is simple but delicious. it’s an easy meal to finish quickly. you take the dishes to the kitchen and hear ushijima walk up behind you. he wraps his arms around you and plants airy kisses from your ear, down your neck, and to your shoulder. he slides his hands down your sides and grabs your hips, “please tell me you’re almost done with work,” he pleads in your ear and grazes his teeth across your skin. “ju-just a little while longer, toshi," you gulp as you hear his breath shudder and he pushes against you causing you to lean against the counter. he runs his hand from your hip, down your thigh and drags his fingers up your leg digging his fingers in, “promise?” he asks. “i-i promise.” you say feeling your heart slam against your chest. you wriggle away, “but i can’t think when you do stuff like that.” he laughs softly, “like what?” he asks coyly. you wave your hand towards where you just were in the kitchen, “like that, don’t be coy.” he saunters toward you, “i don’t know what you mean.” you back up until your back hits the wall, “yes you do. we’ll have plenty of time for that sort of thing after i’m done working,” he stands in front of you and his eyes seem to undress you, “but I missed you, dove,” you turn to walk away but he places his hand against the wall blocking your path and his face is inches from yours. he places his other hand on the opposite side of you, “and i’m taking my opportunity now to show you how much,” he nudges your nose with his and rocks his hips into yours. although you are flustered, you know what you must do. you stand up straight and look into his eyes, “ushijima,” you say flatly, “i have work to do and there is no amount of kabedon tomfoolery that can distract me.” he drops his arms and takes a step back and for a moment you think you’ve finally intimidated the great ushiwaka, until he erupts into laughter. “well, well, well, have I lost my touch then?” you roll your eyes and turn to walk away but he grabs your arm and spins you into an embrace. his eyes are very intense and serious, “do i really have no effect on you?” your breath hitches in your throat, “don’t be dramatic,” you say through a slight pout, “i just need to finish my work and then we can do this all day!” you push against his chest and stumble toward your desk. he chuckles and plops down in the chair in front of your desk, “fine,” he says, “i can behave.” you start to log back on, “for now.” he smirks and flicks open the magazine.

when ushijima gets clingy, it excites him when he can’t immediately get attention. it becomes a competition and he wants nothing more than to win. all throughout the remainder of your video meeting he was watching, sighing, stretching, and pushing his hands through his hair in the way he knows you like. you could hardly pay attention. this wasn’t the hard part. you knew he wouldn’t try too hard as long as you were on video chat, but the moment you got off and did your independent work, you knew it would be a real challenge.

you signed off for the day and began finishing up your work before you had to reply to emails. ushijima stood up and came around the back of the desk. “i don’t know how you’re able to sit all day. i’d be far too restless,” he pushed down on your shoulders and began to massage them. he spends a little extra time on the nape of your neck, now easily accessible thanks to your new haircut. you roll your shoulders back and hear a small pop, “you’ve been working so hard, maybe you can take a little break?” you sigh as he leans down and kisses the top of your head. “i’m almost done, toshi.” he sighs and squeezes your shoulders, “let me finish this and then i don’t have to do this again until sunday.” he groans in frustration and slips his hand underneath your shirt to trace circles on your chest, “how much longer?” he asks like a child waiting to open presents on their birthday. you look at the clock, “about an hour.” he huffs and sighs again, raking his fingers across your chest, “alright.” he pulls away reluctantly and stands in front of your desk. you continue to work on your computer and watch him out of the corner of your eye. at first he plops into the chair, stands up, paces back and forth, and then repeats the cycle. after about half an hour of this, he stands and looks at the clock, “you have much left?” you nod, not looking from your work, “at least another half hour.” he mumbles under his breath and paces a few more times. “i suppose i’ll have a quick shower,” he says forlornly, “alright, dear,” you say concentrating on your last few emails. suddenly, your vision goes dark and cashmere rubs across your face, ushijima has taken off his sweater and thrown it at your head. you slowly pull it off and look at him as he folds his trousers over his arm. he smiles wryly and saunters over to you, “how clumsy of me, slipped right through my fingers.” he stands very close to you and gathers the sweater up. you look up at him, “this will only take longer if you keep tempting me.” he laughs softly and curls a finger under your chin, “at least you are tempted,” he says with a sigh and walks off to the bathroom. hopefully you can finish up. he is so distracting. how you managed this long without giving in is astonishing.

the half hour of no distractions passes like a flash. you turn off your computer, take off your glasses, and rub the bridge of your nose. he has been awfully quiet since you heard the shower turn off. you get up from your desk and start to unbutton your shirt. you round the corner and look into your bedroom to find ushijima sleeping on the bed, hair wet, still wrapped in his towel. you smile, i knew he was more tired than he let on. you finish getting undressed and hear him snore a little. before heading to the shower you grab the blanket and go to cover him up. as you go to adjust his pillow, his eyes open with a glint and he traps you in his arms, rolling and pulling you on the bed. he peppers your face and neck with kisses as you both laugh together, rolling back and forth across the bed. “did you think i would really lose sight of my goal?” he smirks. “of course not, you’re ushijima wakatoshi,” you say seriously. you both erupt into hearty laughter before settling into each others arms. “so,” he begins, pulling you closer, “all mine now, (y/n)?” you smile and plant a sweet kiss on his lips, “i am always yours, wakatoshi.”

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