#and it is so cursed like what the actual fuck???
Text
(Now) Tired Dads- John meets Danny
John stared, betrayed, at the armchair that he had just stubbed his toe on. Yes, it was only nine in the morning and yes he had only gone to bed at four in the morning after being up for nearly thirty-seven… nine, what-the-fuck-ever hours, but that was fine. That was normal. The armchair being in his way was not.
He’d wandered the House of Mystery plenty of times when half asleep or with his face in a book or bleeding out… whichever of those. Point was, he never stubbed his toe on any of the furniture in any of those states. Him and the House got along pretty well these days. Sure it was a little rough in the start, but now the House looked out for him just like he looked out for it.
That meant that if he stubbed his toe— if the House let him stub his toe— then the House was trying to get his attention about something.
And that was never good.
John rubbed at his face as he spent a moment considering just going back to bed. He was trapped, drained, spent, out of everything. He’d be no good if it was something actually dangerous. But if it was actually something dangerous, the House would have (or should have) done more than just stub a toe. Maybe it was just a clogged pipe or some shit like that and the house was feeling bitchy.
“Right then House, lead the way, show me what you're having a mare about ” John said with a sigh and headed for the closest doorway. He trusted the House to put him in the rooms that it wanted him in.
It was concerning, then, when John had moved through a few rooms without anything of note. If it got to several rooms he was backing out until he had more sleep. Anything that could confuse the House like this was dangerous.
“Fucking— really?” John asked towards the ceiling as he was looped through the kitchen after having just left the kitchen.
A cabinet slammed into the back of his knee, right into the bend. Clutching at the spot, John hobbled out of reach with a string of curses and a glare at the door.
It hung open with a pointed little creak.
“Right, fine, kitchen it is. Gonna be any help with that, mate? Any hints?” John asked as he started opening cabinets. “Clogged sink? Burner out? Something rank in the back of the fridge? Small child hiding in one of your cabinets?”
The small child’s face scrunched up in a scowl. “I’m not small.”
“You’re in cabinet, bruv.”
“I just squish well!”
“… yeah, that isn’t better than being small, Tiny,” John said.
“Tiny?! I’m, like, fifteen!”
John thought the tiny kid might be actually offended, not that John cared. He backed up a step and crossed his arms. “And yet still inside a cabinet. Get the fuck out of there.”
The child— seriously fucking what— glared at John before they finally moved to get out of the cabinet. The stacked saucers and tea cups rattled as they pulled out of the fucking kid’s body as the kid moved to sit on the counter in a huff.
John would so be washing everything in that cabinet before next tea time.
If he remembered.
Maybe.
“Okay Tiny, what the fuck—”
“You can’t kick me out!”
John paused, just for a moment, but quickly got his feet under him and asked, “Yeah? Why not?”
“Because the House let me in! It says I can stay so I can stay and you can’t kick me out,” Tiny said in a rush.
John was pretty sure if the kid was breathing, they would be hyperventilating.
Wait.
What?
---
AN: This used to be possibly black smoke custody, but I went back to it (only had the first few paragraphs) and this is much, much more Tired Dads energy. Poor Danny, stuck being called Tiny.
483 notes
·
View notes
Text
“I’m just saying it’s manipulative.”
“Manipulative? Eddie you can’t be serious.”
“I am, now, where’s the dish? It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“Maybe in this box, clearly labelled ‘kitchen’?” Dustin snarks, “and I don’t see how you can say behaving in a way that’s been dictated by your very biology is...manipulative. That’s not fair, man.”
Eddie digs in the box, bringing out the baking dish he wants, and then heads back into the kitchen, swerving around clutter and open boxes as he goes, “yeah, I get that a lot of Omega act the way they do because of what they are, alright. I get that, I do. But all this...kind of, 'oh my oh my, can’t the big Alpha come and save me...I just need looking after and...and protecting'. And I get that it works, a lot of Alphas eat that shit right up, I’m just not one of them.” Eddie bangs around in the kitchen fixing Wayne’s famous corned beef hash casserole, “it’s just not for me, you know? I don’t want someone who’s just going to do as they’re told and roll over on everything, I want someone who is equal, not someone who wants looking after all the time. I will not be loosing my head over any Omega, no matter how pretty they are.”
“So you...wouldn’t look after your Omega?” Dustin squints at him.
“Firstly, not happening, not ever, I’m sticking to Beta’s and that is final...but, I mean, yeah, of course I’d look after my partner, but I’d do that for anyone. I don’t want this hormone driven need to...to I don’t know. It’s just not for me Henderson, okay? Now help me with the books.”
Dustin whines, “but there’s like, fifty million of them...and I still don’t agree that it’s manipulative. They’re just...playing to their strengths, or whatever.”
“Right, so an Omega bats their eyelashes and every Alpha in sniffing distance is falling over themselves to do whatever the Omega wants, and that’s not manipulative?”
“Welllll…no, especially since it only works because of the Alphas in the first place, if it’s anyone fault, it’s the Alphas, right?”
“Fucking...just shut up Henderson.”
Eddie’s just put their plates on the table when there’s a knock at the door, “I’m not waiting,” Dustin sits down and starts shoveling, and Eddie mutters curses all the way to the door, he’s absolutely starving-
“Hi, I am so sorry,” it’s an Omega. A ridiculously pretty one. A very, very pregnant one. “I’m from next door,” the very very pretty Omega is on tip toes, trying to look over Eddie’s shoulder. He’s clutching a plate to his chest, “I know you’ve just moved in and, again, I am so so sorry about this, but is there any chance I could try what you’re cooking? Please?”
He smells so good. Even better than a regular Omega; Eddie’s sure it’s because he’s pupped, probably some biological bullshit about protecting pups and whatever. But still, he’s...he’s cute, standing there with his plate, sniffing after Eddie’s cooking.
“I could smell it in the hall. It could just be the tiniest bit, but I just would really like to try it, I’m so sorry for interrupting your dinner but-”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Eddie says, taking the guys plate, “just hang there a second.” Eddie goes and...well, if he fills the plate of what was going to be tomorrows dinner, no one needs to know. Eddie might have opinions on gender, but he’s not a dick. The guy is very pregnant, plus he was being super polite about it. He even brought his own plate.
It’s another human being, pregnant and hungry; Eddie would do the same to help anyone out. This is absolutely nothing to do with the guy being the prettiest Omega Eddie’s ever seen in real life.
Eddie delivers the plate back, “oh my goodness,” oh okay, that’s adorable. Eddie’s pretty sure he’s never heard anyone say ‘oh my goodness’ in real life, like, ever. “Thank you so so much, is there anything I can do? I can contribute to the ingredients or-” and that’s when Eddie figures that not only is the guy very pretty, he’s actually a reasonable human being too, lots of people wouldn’t have even thought about that sort of thing.
“No, we’re good just, ah, let me know what you think.”
“I will, I will,” the guy is saying as he turns to leave, carefully carrying his laden plate. He’s big enough that he’s kind of waddling, and Eddie watches him long enough to see him go into the next apartment along the hall.
Eddie shuts the door, turning back to find Dustin watching him, both eyebrows raised, a very accusatory look on his face, “oh shut the fuck up.”
“Just let me know what you think,” Dustin mimics back, like a little bitch.
#eddie munson#steve harrington#stranger things#steddie#pre getting together#pre steddie#dustin henderson#omega steve harrington#alpha eddie munson#ao3 author#ficlet#ao3 writer#mpreg
385 notes
·
View notes
Text
heaven is a place on earth with you
art donaldson x fem!reader
|| soft moments in your fresh new home
cw: smoking, minor cursing, no use of y/n (1240 words)
a/n: writing about my sweet baby art during finals bc why not
you swore you could have stayed like this forever. tangled in silky bedsheets, soft rays of light that tingled on your face, body pressed against art's. one of those moments you wished you could pause and settle in for an eternity.
the mattress was on the floor, and cardboard boxed were scattered all around your apartment. your apartment. it felt blissful to say it. a life awaited you there, between the beige and baby blue walls that screamed for another hand of paint. it was far from the ideal, but it was perfect because it was yours. art's and your world. didn't it sound so pretty?
you looked over at him. eyes closed, lips slightly parted, his head a blond mess of curls and his skin warm despite the moring breeze that slipped inside the room through the opened balcony. art looked otherworldly. he always did, in your eyes. and you felt like the luckiest woman on earth with him, because he looked at you, because he touched you, because he loved you. because he felt for you what you felt with him.
and you two were fucking living together. the thought was enough to bloom a grin on your lips. a pure, joyful smile that made you want to jump and dance all around. pressing a feather-like kiss to his temple, you sat up, careful to untangle yourself from his arms and slinging over one of his standford t-shirts.
you reached over to your bedside table- well, the brown leather suitcase on which you had left some stuff. a provisional nightstand, let's leave it at that. you took a cigarette out of the box, holding it between your lips as you grabbed the lighter and your sketchbook and pencil.
the cool air of the early morning greeted you as you stepped out onto the balcony, goosebumps appearing all over your skin.
you lit the cigarette with the pink lighter art had gifted you on your fourth date, all that time ago, when you mentioned you kept losing all your lighters. it was safe to say you'd kept this one. it had fake rhinestones forming your initial on one side. you recalled thanking art with a very excited hug and an even more excited peck.
"you made it?" you had ask him, the glint in your big eyes almost matching the glimmer of the rhinestones under the streetlamp. when art nodded, you gushed, hugging him again. "it's beautiful, art, i love it."
"i'm so glad," he smiled. you looked ethereal, all the eagerness painted on your face, cheeks rosy from the cold, babbling about how sweet you found it.
"hey, do you have any more rhinestones left?" you asked.
"yeah, yeah, here," he handed you the stickers, watching you start putting some more on the other side of the lighter. "what are you-"
but he was shut as he guessed the shape of his own initial, a very shimmering 'A'. once finished, you showed it to him proudly.
you both broke into laughter, cheeks flushed and hurting from the smiles, but it didn't matter. not when you felt so safe around him. and certainly not when he pulled you in for a kiss.
taking another drag of the cigarette, you traced your fingertips against the initials on the lighter. call it luck or fate or whatever, but none of the rhinestones had ever unstuck from where you both had originally placed them.
you sat on the beach chair that you'd placed on the balcony last night, before getting trapped between art's arms and lips, and getting lost in him. tipping the ashes off of the end of the cigarette, you opened the sketchbook. it was actually another of art's little thoughtful gifts that he loved to give you, and you loved to receive.
on the first page of it was a sweet little dedication art had written.
'for my angel girl, so you can be an artist and carry me always with you
(get it? because i'm ART and you're an ARTist? so funny, i know.)
love you forever baby <3'
it always made you smile when you read it, and reach over to kiss him for no apparent reason, leaving him a curious, flushed mess.
on the page you were currently at, there were some seashell doodles from your last trip to the beach. art had picked them out for you, and peered through the whole process with his head resting on your shoulder. beneath the collection of seashells was a watercolor drawing of art's beautiful, dual colored eyes, and a little sketch of a couple of figs.
looking over, your eyes settled on the pastel colored laundry your neighbors in front had hanging and swaying lightly with the dawning breeze.
your traces were fast but precise. soon, the laundry was replicated under your pencil. shirts and pants and socks and even a bra. the cigarette dangled from your lip, forgotten amidst your concentration.
you were so absorbed in drawing little daisies on the socks you didn't hear the sheets rustling as art stirred awake, or his soft footsteps as he approached you. thus, when you heard his voice, you were startled for a second.
"hey, artist."
you turned to him, eyes big. the movement was so sudden the cigarette fell to the floor.
"hey, art," you smiled, setting down the sketchbook and pencil and standing up to greet him.
his hands were on your waist in no time, pulling you in for a kiss. you nuzzled your head onto the warmth of his chest, running your hands on his back.
"morning," you looked up to him. art smiled. god, that smile. it drove you crazy, made you weak at the knees. your soft fingertips drove up to trace his smile lines, trailing down to his jaw in no time.
he tucked some strand of hair behind your ears, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "were you drawing?" art asked, spinning you around so you both faced the view, his arms around your waist.
the sky was not fully blue yet; pink and purple hues shining over the horizon.
"mhm," you hummed. "i want to colour it later, will you help me?"
"of course, baby," he mumbled, pressing kisses to your cheek.
it was something silly you two did sometimes. after pouring you both some coffee (you made it for art the way he liked, as he prepared yours as he'd learnt from several coffee dates), you'd pull out some colour pencils or sharpies and paint the little doodles you had drawn.
"hey," art whispered. "we live together."
you smiled. "yeah, we do. it's perfect."
art huffed at that. "the walls are on the verge of falling apart. and the people from the bar downstairs were noisy as fuck. and the shower-"
"shut up," you playfully hit his arm, rolling around again to face him once more. "it's you and i. sounds perfect to me."
he gifted you another smile. "you're right. it's ours. that's more than enough."
was this your own personal heaven? you found yourself thinking that often, as you got lost in his always tender eyes, or the sound of your laughters together, or the tingles he left on your skin, or the way you loved each other. as he lifted you up and carried you inside for your first breakfast at your place, you were sure of the answer.
yeah, of fucking course it was.
© heartcereql, 2024 || thank you for reading ! 𓆩 ♱ 𓆪
#mike faist x reader#mike faist#art donaldson#art donaldson x reader#art donaldson x you#challengers x reader#dodge mason x reader#heartcereql
270 notes
·
View notes
Text
HIGHWAY 143 ┆ A LEE HEESEUNG ONESHOT TEASER
SYNOPSIS! landing your dream job at scuderia ferrari formula one as a radio operator, things only seem to be up for you; especially when you’re in charge of two time reigning champion lee heeseung’s operations. but what you’ve heard about him proves to be seemingly wrong when all he does is play around with you like a toy — and you can’t help but give in because fuck, does he look good in his red racing suit.
GENRE! f1 racer!heeseung x fem reader, enemies to lovers, heeseung is a player, mutual pining, jealousy, TBA
CAUTION! cursing TBA
WORDCOUNT! 500 (est 10k)
MIKAELA’S! i’ve had this idea for months lol — please reply to this post to be added into the taglist☺️
“Don’t fuck up my race again, hmm” Heeseung hums, fingers dancing over the strands of your hair as he tucks them behind your ear, “I won’t hesitate to fire you, princess.”
You scoff, arms crossed and head held high — you held yourself to a certain standard, and it was a fact that what happened in Bahrain wasn’t something that was in your control. And as a two time world champion, Heeseung himself should have known, yet here he was; making you second guess yourself, making your cheeks a shade of mauve whip at his loaded threat all because a nickname rolled off his tongue.
“You think I'm messing up your race? We’re on the same boat, Heeseung.” You retort, unable to get his agitation towards you. “When you lose, I lose too.”
Heeseung retracts his hand from the tips of your ears, folding his arms. And all you can focus on is the way his racing suit clings to the muscles of his arm, ripped biceps and strong build, Heeseung is God and more.
He gives you an unreadable glance, tilting his head in question, “when I lose, a big fat paycheck still goes to your bank, don’t forget that pretty girl.”
The time ticks as the start of qualifying nears, and all that rings in your ears are the words of the reigning world champion — did he really view you as such? A materialistic person who wasn’t sincere about their job? As if you were in it for the money, heck your father could land you a job that paid ten times more than this job would.
And it invigorates you, the way Lee Heeseung thinks he’s all that: the charming charisma of an experienced playboy that he has, you hate it, it pisses you off. Who was he to say such things about you, especially when the both of you had just barely become acquainted.
You watch from your seat, headphones perched prettily on your head as Heeseung stares back at you from inside the iconic red car. And he curses in his mind yet again, for the nth time ever since you arrived. It irked him how his attention seemed to automatically divert to you every time you were in his vicinity, the smell of your perfume brandishing in his mind unwillingly.
He hates the way you look, the way you act as if you actually care, the way you talk so smoothly and controllingly over the radio, the way his heart exhilarates when you praise him for a job well done or when he qualifies for pole position even when it’s such a common occurrence to him.
And most of all he hates how the iconic ferrari red that surrounds his life reminds him of how pretty you look in his team shirt.
© SJYUNS
#⪩⪨ mikaela's#enhypen#enhypen drabbles#enhypen soft hours#enhypen x reader#enhypen fluff#enhypen headcanons#enhypen imagines#enhypen x you#heeseung x reader#heeseung soft hours#lee heesung x reader#heeseung fluff#heeseung imagines#heeseung drabbles#heeseung oneshots#enhypen oneshots
181 notes
·
View notes
Text
𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 - 𝐋. 𝐇𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐭.𝟐
Pairing: heeseung ⚥ reader
Warnings: smut, cheating, stepson, stepmom, dirty talk, taboo relationship, dry humping, unprotected sex, oral, cum eating, cursing, mommy kink-ish, no plot.
Genre: 18+, step relationship, taboo. Not proofread.
WC: 3,534k
⟱⟱⟱
A lie is what you’d be telling if you said you didn’t think about feeling your stepson again the moment your eyes opened in the morning, but you were quick to push those thoughts far back to the recesses of your mind, hoping that they would never come forth again.
Even though the night spent with him was nothing short of mind blowing you had to do your best to forget it cause you couldn’t do that with him again especially after the guilt you felt when your husband came to bed last night.
Guilt.
Now, that was something you and heeseung didn’t have in common. What you did have in common was that you both most certainly enjoyed last night.
Fuck does he remember last night? It was so good that it’d be hard to forget, and what would he have to feel guilty for after fucking every single last one of your precious little holes.
Speaking of, he can’t decide which one he likes more. All of them brought him immense pleasure, so much pleasure that at ten in the morning, he’s as hard as a brick just thinking of you, but he’d just have to feel each of them again before he could really decide.
You’d already sent your husband off for the day with his lunch, and now you were busy cooking breakfast for yourself and, obviously, your stepson.
Who was now standing at the end of the stairs greeting you in nothing but his pajamas, and the large print between his legs was hard to miss. You clenched your thighs at the sight of your pussy already missing him. “Morning, Mommy,” he chuckled tiredly, slithering into the kitchen, and before you can even calm yourself, he’s got his arms loosely wrapped around your waist, his cheek pressed to your shoulder, and his groin nestled right against you. “Hmm,” he moans from the contact on his sensitive leaky tip.
You gasp, the feeling of him shocking you back to your senses. The knife you were using to cut fruit falls on the counter, and you flatten your palms, bracing yourself against the kitchen island.
“What’s wrong?” He mumbles as you go stiff in his hold. “You’re not gonna greet your stepson?” He pushes forward, leaving you no space, and now you’re trapped between the counter and his body just like yesterday, and just like yesterday, you feel the restraint quickly leaving your body.
How could you have any restraint when his dick was so hard against you and so close to where you needed him most.
Last night you told yourself never again would you let your stepson fuck you, but that was last night when he was in his room far away from you. That was when he wasn’t standing behind you shirtless that’s when his dick wasn’t nuzzled right up against your ass.
“H-heeseung, stop,” you tell him feebly, your voice trembling, and you would never willingly admit that you were already leaking for him.
“You really want me to?” He sneaks his hands under your sleepwear, cupping your breasts and squeezing them with his large hands. “Tell me again, and I will” he rolls his hips tracing the crease of your perfect ass with his long dick. “Just want you to be sure, that’s all.”
You do your best to hold in your whimpers. If you were being honest, you really wanted him to slip your sleep shorts off and take you from behind right then and there in the kitchen, but for a split second, you had an ounce of rationality. “S-stop,” you said with a shaky breath. “Y-you should take a shower. Breakfast is almost ready.”
“No,” he whines in protest but quickly obeys. “Fine, I’ll do as you say, Mommy.” You feel the warmth leave your back as he creates enough distance between you two, and for the first time since you saw him today, you feel like you can actually breathe.
“Looks good,” he spanks your bottom, and the sound echoes in the quiet kitchen. He grabs an orange slice and holds it to his mouth, slurping the juices provocatively; the scene looked all too familiar to the way he ate you out last night. You glued your eyes on him while he stared at you, flicking his tongue on the center of the orange and then sucking on just like he did your clit. “Tastes good, too,” he smirks at your dazed expression, walking past you to the trash bin to throw the peel in the garbage, purposefully brushing himself against you on his way upstairs.
Once he left, you stood there for a good minute. You tried to grab your knife to resume making breakfast, but your hands were literally shaking with need, and the guilt you once felt was pushed to the back of your mind as you climbed upstairs in search of your one and only stepson.
You knocked on the door right in the middle of him getting undressed, and him being him, didn’t think twice before answering the door fully nude, his cock still very much hard. He was going to take care of his problem himself, but now you’re standing outside the door, and you definitely look like a better option than his right hand.
He smiled, happy to see you standing there and shamelessly looking at his dick.
Your eyes are glued onto the one thing you need inside you the most. Your brows furrow together at the sight of your thighs shaking and your hole clenching around nothing, dripping with sticky arousal.
“Did you need som-“You step forward into the bathroom and, without a thought, slam the door shut before dropping to your knees in front of him and taking his stiff shaft in your hand, gently pumping it up and down. “Oh shit,” he groans. Your actions caught him totally off guard. He had to brace himself with his right hand against the bathroom sink. “I guess so,” he smirked down at you and placed his hand on top of your head, smoothing over your hair.
You’re too ashamed to respond, so instead, you put your mouth to use elsewhere and lap at his sticky tip, tasting the salty precum that oozed from it.
A taste you had already become addicted to.
You hungrily take more than half of him in your mouth, sucking his cock desperately.
The little sounds you made when his tip hit the back of your throat made his cock twitch, and you loved the feeling of his heavy length resting on your tongue as you gagged and slobbered all over his shaft.
He must have really got you worked in the kitchen for you to be sucking him off so eagerly like this. It has barely been a few minutes, and he could feel the need to cum. “You suck it like you need it, baby” he tilts his head to the side, lips pursed, as he gently bucks his hips and helps you take him impossibly deep.
The sight of you both in his peripheral vision caught his attention, and he looked in the mirror watching from a different angle how you sucked him off. You looked so fucking good on your knees. “Yes, Mommy, just like that fuck, you’re gonna make me cum in that pretty little mouth already,” he breathes deeply, trying to hold off and enjoy the feeling of your wet mouth just a little longer. “Oh!” He lets out a strained moan when you cradle his balls. “Fuck it feels so good” he throws his head back, his hips moving on their own as he lightly fucks your throat, getting lost in the pleasure.
You take deep, calculated breaths through your nose, never taking a break no matter how tired your jaw gets. The feel of him in your mouth was far too rewarding to stop from a little jaw soreness, especially with the way his needy moans were filling up the space of the bathroom. “Fuck” he groans out, abs tensing and sweat beading on his body. “I’m cumming” he holds his hips, still throbbing on your tongue as he releases his warm semen on your tastebuds. “Ah fuck oh shit,” he moans as the white creamy liquid trickles down your throat.
You moan in pleasure, the taste of him making your clit throb even harder with need. Your cunt was sore. That’s just how engorged it was, and you needed him so bad his mouth, his fingers, his cock, anything would suffice with the insatiable urge that was flowing through your veins right now. “Taste good?” He grins while gripping your chin and tilting your head up. You look so gorgeous with your mouth full of his cock.
“Yes,” you moan when he pulls out of your mouth, your lips swollen from taking his thick cock deep in your throat.
His eyes nearly roll back in his head at just the thought of bringing you pleasure and tasting your pussy. Without another word, he quickly joins you on the tile of the bathroom floor. “Up.” he holds your waist, helping you up and sitting you on the sink. “That’s it, Mommy.” he grabs the waist of your shorts, hooking his fingers inside the waistband of your shorts and yanking them off your hips with minimal effort.
He smiles as you spread your legs wide open for him, and it’s no secret what either of you wants. He places his hands on your knees, keeping you open for him as he presses his face in your cunt, inhaling your scent. “Hmm, smells so good.” he licks his lips. Just your scent has him getting hard all over again.
“Hee,” Throwing your head back, you whine, one hand on the sink, the other in his hair. He moans shamelessly as you call his name, his tongue falling out of his mouth and tracing the path of your swollen folds to your clit.
You sigh in pleasure when you get some type of relief from all the built-up tension down there.
He sucks nips and licks all over your vulva, covering it in a mixture of his spit and your juices that seem never-ending no matter how many times he gulps it down, but he doesn’t care. He could drink you forever.
“So good.” You massaged his scalp, and he looked at you, enjoying all the faces you made, from the small lip bites to the heavy sighs and labored breaths.
He closes his eyes, really devouring you now, nose rubbing your little clit as his tongue sinks inside your hole.
“Oh yes!” Your head cranes backward, your thighs tensing when you feel a certain pressure building slowly in your abdomen.
He flicks his tongue in and out, deliberately nudging your clit with his pointed nose, causing your toes to curl.
“Yeah? That feels good?” He spits on your core, licking it up and shoving it in your hole. Before it can leak out, he stuffs his tongue back in. You fucking it in and out.
“So fucking good,” you praise, and his cock is definitely fully hard now.
He feels your walls tighten, and he’s just waiting for you to cum all around his tongue. His wait isn’t too long, and before you know it, you're creaming on his warm tongue, giving him all the satisfaction of making you orgasm.
“Shit,” Your legs dangle over his shoulders, shaking and trembling as your orgasm washes over you.
Your moans grow louder the more intense the pleasure becomes, and he works his tongue carefully, giving you the most of your high without overstimulating you.
Your breath is uneven, and the tension is releasing from your body now that you got what you were craving so desperately.
He kisses your inner thighs and kneads the soft flesh.
You cup his cheeks, wiping the arousal from his chin, staring at his eyes with something more behind them.
Looking up at you, he sees the blown-out look in your eyes telling him exactly what you need.
He stands up, his knees aching slightly, but he can’t even be bothered right now, too distracted by the intense pulsing of his needy cock.
His hands hold your hips, pulling you towards him, his tip resting on your mound. “Been thinking about this pussy all morning” he rolls his hips painting your core with sticky strings of precum. His eyelids drop so low they’re barely even open.
You whimper, the sensitivity of your high making you feel him much more intensely.
He bites his lip, thrusting on your clit as if he was inside you. “Woke up harder than ever.” he lets out an airy laugh as you stare at him, your brows creasing, and you nibble on your lip, just waiting to feel him inside of you. “Feels so good.” he gives you a lazy smile and bends forward, kissing your forehead. The kiss is much softer and sweeter than what you two are about to do, and somehow, that settles the beating of your heart and braces you for what’s about to come.
You lift your hands from the sink stroking his toned chest, your other grabbing the base of his thick cock, covering him in your wetness. “Ah,” he moans softly, feeling much more sensitive from your touch than his own. “Please put it in, Mommy.” he rests his forehead on yours, both of you watching as you guide him inside you.
Shaky breaths are exchanged as he slips in you with one smooth glide, your hole stretched and ready to swallow up all his inches.
“Look at the way you suck me in” A low hum settles in his chest as he meets you halfway, thrusting his whole length inside of you, knocking the air from your lungs with the pleasurable stretch. “Fuck y/n” his mouth falls open from the way your silky walls feel wrapped so tightly around him.
“Hee,” whining his name, you can’t help but look into his eyes just to see him staring back at you, both of your expressions riddled with pleasure.
He pulls out to the tip and pushes back in, both of your bodies shuddering from the sensation. His cock slid in and out in a steady motion, your arousals mixing together, creating the dirtiest sounds and staining your pussy lips with creamy white.
“Faster.” You fall back against the wall mirror, and he holds you in place, going faster and deeper, so deep you can feel it in your stomach.
Your breasts jiggle with each one of his thrusts, and he stares at them, your perked nipples peeking through your shirt, looking so mesmerizing to his eyes. “Fuck, your pussy is so fucking perfect” A chill runs up his spine every time his tip pushes past that little tight barrier on your opening, and he swears he sees stars. “It feels so fucking good.”
“Keep going” Your body shakes on the sink trusting him to hold you up, and he doesn’t even leave one doubt in your mind as his hold is firm on your waist, keeping you in place no matter how much you write and squirm on his dick. “Fuck yes, so good, so deep, mhhm” Your loud moans bounce off the walls, and your sounds entice him to go as hard as he possibly can.
“You like that, huh? You fucking want me so bad, don’t you?” You shake your head no despite you loving the way his inches fill you up. You know in your right mind you would never say yes to him. You were already committed to another man. You only wanted his dick, not him. “Is that so? Your cunt is saying otherwise, squeezing me so tight I can barely move” he digs his fingers into your skin, his hold on you growing harsher from the force he uses on your body. “Just look at you, spread open, taking it so good.”
“N-no,” you babble out despite rolling your hips to meet his thrusts.
“No? So why are you so wet, hmm? So tight,” he grunts, growing flushed with how much energy he exerts. “Fucking back on me like that.”
You grab onto his shoulders when it becomes too much for you, and he handles you with ease as your body goes limp, completely wrecked by his cock plugging in and out of you so fast and deep.
“See, Mommy? Knew you wanted it,” he smirks, going at an animalistic speed, his balls smacking your ass as his abdomen gets coated in a thin layer of your guy's mixed arousal.
“Oh heeseung!” You moan out loud, wrapping your arms around his neck as he plows you into oblivion.
“Yeah, say my name, Mommy, just like fucking that” he drags his hand down to play with your clit as you cling to him. You’re so so close.
“Yes, yes, yes fuck me,” you squeal out. You can’t help but say the words even though your mind is conflicted. You know it’s wrong to fuck your stepson, but you can’t stop cause it just feels way too good. You’ve never felt anyone like him before.
“Uh uh uh,” he grunts, giving you everything you need and so much more. “Cum on your stepson's dick, Mommy.”
His filthy words put you right on the edge, but you both stop immediately when you hear the front door shut downstairs. “Honey, I’m home early!” You hear your husband’s voice looking at heeseung with fear in your eyes, afraid of being caught, but he doesn’t seem to even care and begins to roll his hips, picking up the pace cause he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get you to come on his dick.
You shake your head back and forth. “N-no heeseung, what if he-” he cups your mouth, keeping you quiet.
“Shh, just let me make you feel good promise we won’t get caught” It was risky, and you knew it, but at this point, you needed to cum on his dick so bad that you’re not even sure if you’d stop if your husband walked right through that door and saw you getting absolutely pounded like a whore by his son.
He drops his hand from your mouth and kisses you to keep you quiet, his other one playing with your clit and winding up your orgasm again.
“Close,” you whimper, clenching around his cock repeatedly.
“I know I can feel you, baby. Keep squeezing on my cock. Keep going cum, and make a fucking mess on me. Mommy want it so bad,” he moans lowly into your mouth.
“Cum inside me,” you whisper to him in your lust-filled daze.
He whines into the kiss, obeying your command. “Yes, Mommy” With three more quick snaps of his hips, you come undone, moaning out loud, but he quickly muffles it with his mouth sloppily kissing you as he stills in your pussy. Those three words instantly made him shoot his thick, creamy load into your walls, filling you up to the absolute brim.
Moaning into each other's mouths, he stroked through your highs, so lost in pleasure and not the slightest bit worried about getting caught.
He leans back, smiling at your exhausted face, and slowly pulls out his load spilling from your pulsing hole and down your ass.
He bends down eagerly, licking it all up, cleaning every single last drop of your combined releases, and then pressing his lips to yours so you both can taste each other.
The taste is something that has you wanting more as you deepen the kiss and lick inside his mouth, not leaving one inch uncovered.
You both finally part for air, and he pats your thigh, grabbing some tissue to wipe you off with. He helps you stand and step back into your shorts while you adjust your shirt and run your fingers through your hair to make yourself presentable.
He peels the shower curtain back, smirking and getting in the shower like you told him to, and when you step out of the bathroom, your husband is standing right outside the door.
“Oh honey, I was looking for you,” he chuckles.
“Oh, I was just getting heeseung his towel. He left it in his room,” you quickly come up with a lie, trying your best to wipe the look of fear off your face with a nervous smile.
“Can’t that boy do anything on his own?” your husband sighs. “Well anyway, what’s for dinner? I’m hungry.”
You close the bathroom door and walk downstairs in front of your husband, discreetly rolling your eyes.
All he ever did was demand you make meals for him and talk down about his son which was admittedly very annoying he talks about his son not doing anything meanwhile all he does is work and laze about all day long waiting on you to do everything for him.
“I’m making your favorite.” You turn to him with a fake smile plastered on your face.
“Well, hurry up.”
You closed your eyes, releasing a deep, and maybe you didn’t feel that guilty after all for fucking his stepson more than just one time.
⟱⟱⟱
Thanks for reading please reblog and leave feedback🩵
#heeseung smut#enhypen heeseung smut#enhypen heeseung#enhypen#heeseung#lee heeseung#lee heeseung smut#enhypen smut#enhypen hard hours#enhypen lee heeseung smut#enhypen lee heeseung#lee heesung x reader#heeseung angst#heeseung fluff#heeseung x reader#enhypen hyung line#enhypen fluff#enhypen fanfic
382 notes
·
View notes
Text
COMMIT • PAIGE BUECKERS
pair : paige b. x reader
word count : 528
warnings : very lightly hints to homo erotic friendship (friends to lovers type shit, but it’s never actually mentioned), swearing, angst, use of y/n (sorry!!)
notes : um hi. i didn’t think id ever write but heyyy i got motivated 🤗🤗 anyways idk if i like it but mwah hope u enjoy.
“And who’s fault was that, Paige? You got your hopes up. Nobody committed anywhere.”
The words you spat out rolled off your bitter tongue in frustration. What you were referring to was how Paige Bueckers, your childhood best friend, had fostered up all her hope for you to follow her to UConn, a school she had only dreamt of committing to, wanting to follow her aspirations of making it to the W. Ever since you two were freshmen in highschool it was truly one of her only longings to be offered a scholarship there. This was a dream that Paige had, not you. You wanted to become a lawyer and go to harvard. You could admit that you pro-longed telling Paige the truth about how you felt about committing to UConn but put it off, the conversation needing to be talked about at a more ‘appropriate time’. Unfortunately, time flies when you're having fun, so graduation came around the corner faster than expected. And that meant telling Paige the truth about your applications and where you were going to commit.
So here you two were, sitting in your room, criss cross legged and fiddling with your nails, occasionally putting the nail between your teeth in your anxious tendency, in which Paige responded by holding your hand in hers. She soothed it as she rubbed her thumb on your soft hands, her face was etched in concern and mild confusion. The simple gesture almost made you break out into tears right on the soft matte pink comforter neatly placed beneath you two. But instead, you looked up at your ceiling, using your thumbs knuckles to dab at the eyes that threatened to drown you in tears.
You exhaled, “So, uh- graduation is soon. And-” You were cut off by Paige’s face that heightened in excitement, “UConn! Y/N, was it UConn!” You bit your lip, colour fading from your face. It almost gave away everything you were going to say without words. “So did- Did you get in?” She inquired.
“Well, yes. But-” A shaky breath escaped your lips, “So.. We get to go to uni together?” She offered a comforting smile, her brows still slightly furrowed.
“Paige, no. I’m- I’m not going to UConn.” The air turned thick. The room fell silent.
“But I-” She let out a breathy laugh, “I thought you said we were going- We were going to continue school together?”
“Paige, I’m sorry. I- I really am. I got accepted into Harvard law, dude. And I love you with my whole heart but I just can’t- I can’t pass up this opportunity.”
“I get that, Y/N. But that's not what you told me, this wasn’t our plan,” she looked stunned in the words that spilled out of your mouth.
“Our? Paige, I told you that UConn was your dream, not mine-”
“Then you should’ve told me? Instead of leading me on, like, what the fuck?”
“I told you this freshman year in highschool. We’re seniors. Come on, Paige. You have to understand. I told you how much Harvard meant to me. Look around,” Paige looked around the room, little trinkets of Harvard's merchandise scattered around the all too familiar room. “Look down, Y/N,” Your eyes roved towards the UConn sweater clad to her body, silenting cursing to yourself for being stupid enough to forget that she, too, had a dream. “You're not the only one with a dream. Even then, I thought we shared the same one.”
Paige’s tongue poked the inside of her mouth, nodding in the disloyalty of the whole situation, she looked away from your eyes. You tried to reach out for her hand, anchoring you both to the bed, afraid if you didn’t she’d fade away into a distant memory, far from reach. She pulled away, now shaking her head in resentment. “Please, Paige, I never meant to tell you like this.” Your voice begged to break as it was only slightly above a whisper, “You lied, Y/N, I really don’t have to understand shit,”
“Okay, how's this fair to me, Paige? I have to drop everything that I’ve worked for because of something I told you three years ago? Give me a break,” You scoffed, the apologetic feeling toward her now sour, “ I’ve done nothing but support you through everything.”
“Bullshit. You're just a bad friend. I can’t believe I got my hopes up,”
“And who’s fault was that, Paige? You got your hopes up. Nobody committed anywhere.”
“‘Ight. That’s how you wanna be, fine. Be like that.”
“Like fucking what?” You hit back, “Like a bitch.” She then got up, pulling up the left sleeve of the blue sweater, she roughly pulled the bracelet off, bitterness clearly evident in her actions. She tossed it on your bed, you weren't sure where as your tears clouded your vision.
“Real mature, Paige, get up and leave like you always do, can’t even talk like mature adults.”
Discomfort heavily weighed upon your chest, you wanted to stop her from leaving, pull her down and swoon her in your arms, stroke the once blonde roots of her hair and reassure you everything would work out. But you couldn’t. One, you couldn't bring yourself to break down the walls so carefully placed around yourself to shut her out, and two, she would’ve rejected the gesture in every universe. So instead of consoling your best friend's soft spirit now stained with malice, you let her abandon the whole situation.
“Yeah, fine, I will.” She slams the door, the echo repeats in your ears and you hear the front door close. She starts her car and you watch her drive off. The conversation replayed in your head, the bitterness and out-of-character feelings towards each other, the way it escalated so quickly, the way your message was never fully conveyed. It all struck so deep within your heart.
The realization hit, you let your true soul tie walk away.
168 notes
·
View notes
Text
呪術廻戦
⊹˚˖୧ you’d look even prettier as a mommy ◞♡ jjk men & their breeding kinks
⟢ includes. satoru gojō, kamo chōsō, fushiguro tōji, nanami kento
⟢ content. breeding kink (ofc), fem!reader, mating press, doggy, praise, tummy bulge, mentions of mommy n daddy
⊹˚˖୧ satoru ⋯ because you’re his soulmate
actually obsessed with you. luckily for you, the jujutsu society would approve of you carrying the gojo bloodline, but it’s not like satoru cares either way — anything to see your tummy swell and watch his sweet, milky cum drip out of your pretty pussy.
he’s so obsessed with seeing you full that he’ll even lick your mixed cum out of your cunt sometimes, just to spit it back in your mouth to make you swallow everything. he knows it’s kind of disgusting but he also knows that you won’t tell anyone! definitely cocky about how valuable his genes are and nothing makes him happier than seeing his perfect, favorite girl stuffed full of it.
he loves having you in a deep mating press, his arms locked behind your knees, his forehead resting on yours so he can look into your eyes or kiss you whenever he wants. loves spitting in your mouth, loves seeing a line of spit connect your lips when he pulls away from a kiss, and he whimpers and whines anytime he slips his thick cock in or out of your tight wetness.
“fuuuucckk, baby. how are you still squeezin' me so tight after so many rounds? and it’s so wettt…” he sighs, fucking you deep and slow, before bottoming out and grinding his hips into yours. you’re perfectly relaxed, he’s just obscenely big.
“‘s too big, toru.” you cry, tears welling in your pretty eyes.
he kisses your blushed cheeks. “nah, I think it’s the perfect size for you, mama. ‘n it’s only for you.. you feel how deep it is?”
you nod, he presses his large hand over your stomach and you whine loudly. his eyes nearly cross and he cums immediately after feeling himself move inside of you like that, filling you with what has to be his fourth load tonight. “fuck, baby, it’s so fucking good, I love you so fucking much, you're gonna be even prettier as a mommy.” he whines, licking your neck, collecting your spilled tears on his soft tongue.
⊹˚˖୧ chōsō ⋯ gonna cum inside of u in every position
determined is the best way to describe choso. neither of you are certain that he can get you pregnant because he is a curse, but, fuck if he isn't going to try.
he wants to make you orgasm, and cum inside of you, from every position possible — that's the best way to make it stick, right? he thinks. he's even whinier than you, he has you in a mean doggy backbend with his hand on your throat.
"you're gonna look so fuckin pretty when you're a mommy, ohmygodd, I'm gonna cum again, fucking hell, fuuuuuuuuuckk.." he's whimpering, against your ear, you wish you could see more of his handsome face but he insists on trying this position before you can get back in a mating press.
"love you, choso, such a good boy, you're gonna be such a good daddy." you tell him, he lets up his choking a bit to let you speak. his eyes nearly roll back at your words, he's dragging his tongue along your neck. "love you too, so fucking much, you're so pretty, n your pussy is so good for me." he cries, pounding you harder and harder.
he releases your neck, forcing your chest down on the bed to grab your hips. he's never been this rough, you're squirting around him and screaming his name, grasping the pillows and sheets so hard your knuckles go white. he cums hard, fucking his load back into you repeatedly, whimpering I love you over and over again into your neck.
⊹˚˖୧ tōji ⋯ he loves you & wants to be a better father this time
toji should not want another child. everything in his brain is screaming for him to stop, he can’t fuck up again. it wouldn’t be fair. but he loves you, you’re the only person who can make him feel anything now, and you mentioned wanting children. it has to be toji to stuff you full, if any other man did he would likely kill that guy and then himself.
“you sure about this, baby?” he whispers gently, he was over you in bed, softly running his thumb across your cheekbone. “yeah, certain.” you reassure him, nuzzling closer to his hand. “love you,” he mumbles, kissing you slow and sloppy. “mm lov— too” you try to respond, but his lips and tongue are blocking your words.
you’re both plenty wet from the 69ing you had just finished, and as much as he loves your cute pussy, he missed kissing you. he had to have you close like this, in a sweet missionary hold. he loves watching your pretty face as your tiny pussy tries to take him. he was so fucking big. you had been together for years and it was always still a struggle.
“breathe a bit, baby.” he tells you, and he bottoms out after a couple of careful strokes. he’s rubbing your clit, licking and kissing all over your cheek and jaw. he’s so sloppy with it, only one thought in his mind — fuck her, make it stick.
he’s fucking you hard, eventually sitting upright so he can get a better angle with his thick, muscular thighs. grabbing your waist, driving his hips so hard against yours and making the messiest squelching sounds. slck, slck, slck, slck.
“toji, ‘m so fucking close, holy fuck,”
“so fuckin pretty baby, still can’t get over how tight you’re gripping me.. I’m gonna fill you up so fucking full. you wanna make me a daddy, yeah?”
“please, please, toji, please,” you’re babbling and he leans back down to kiss you, taking your hand in his and fucking a massive load of his hot cum into your womb, moaning into your mouth while he kisses you, he tastes so sweet.
he came so much that his pearly cum is squirting out from you around his cock, still plugging you full. your toes are curling and your legs wrapped around his slutty little waist, your heels on his back, keeping him locked in close. neither of you are even close to being finished for the night, though.
⊹˚˖୧ kento ⋯ the idea overtook him out of nowhere
"do you want to have children, my love?" kento asks softly. you two had just finished and were lying in each other's arms, your head on his chest. you sit up and look at him, tracing gentle lines against his toned chest. "yeah, and do you?"
he ran his tongue across his bottom lip, looking into your eyes. "yes, I do." you smiled at his response, which of course caused him to smile back even wider. "I want..." you started, unsure of how to phrase it. "fuck it, fuck me again, right now, without the condom." you climb on his chest and he rests his hands on your hips. "yeah?" he asks.
"yeah." you smile again.
within a few minutes, you're on his lap, riding him harder than you ever had. your arms wrapped around his shoulders, occasionally pulling him into a sloppy, deep kiss, but mostly with your face in his neck, digging your nails in hard.
your pace is insane, but you're absolutely determined. he feels so fucking good raw, with pretty throbbing veins and a defined tip. your eyes literally rolled back and you almost fell backwards when you first sunk down on him with your tight cunt. he's rubbing your clit, whispering, "you're gorgeous, you know that? can't believe I'm lucky enough to have you.. you're gonna be such a great mother, I love you more than anything."
you kiss him again, tilting his head back by pulling his hair and spitting into his mouth, your hormones have you way too far gone at this point. he happily swallows, all dazed from you and how hard you were fucking him. "love you, kento. you're gonna be such a fucking good daddy,"
[ daddy kink unlocked! ] he came right after he processed what you said, pumping you entirely fucking full of his thick, milky cum. he involuntarily fucked up into you even deeper, letting out such a sexy moan, pushing you back a little so he had more space to roll his hips into yours. "you're so fucking hot, I wanna keep going." he says, breathless.
⟢ @slutsenpai ⟣ // masterlist // navigation
notes. thank u so much for all of the love on my last post!
˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ I’ll be continuing to write stuff including multiple characters and then some individual fics.
I can’t promise that I’ll fulfill any requests bc I’m kind of busy, but definitely feel free to send some! next multi post is giving the jjk men head for the first time, and then a satosugu 3some :3
once again I really appreciate the love ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶
likes, reblogs & comments much appreciated!◞♡ do not copy, repost, modify, or translate my writing anywhere for any reason.
#⟢ slutsenpai ⟣#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jujutsu kaisen smut#jjk smut#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#gojo smut#choso#choso smut#fushiguro toji#toji fushiguro#toji smut#nanami kento#kento nanami#nanami smut#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jjk x reader#jujutsu kaisen x you#jjk x you
267 notes
·
View notes
Note
I loved LOVED a word, a look, will be enough. I’m obsessed with the way you write jason and tim. No pressure to answer this at all, but I was curious if you have a headcanon about how the missing spleen reveal eventually goes
Jay »
Good afternoon Timothy.
« tim
uh oh
Jay »
I just had a fascinating conversation with Doc thompson
Care to hazard a guess about what?
« tim
pollen season
Jay »
No.
« tim
bird flu
Jay »
Is there a reason you havent told anyone in your life that you dont have a fucking spleen?
« tim
okay first of all
i’m not sure why doc thompson felt the need to tell you my private medical information
pretty sure they have a rule about that
Jay »
It’s not her fault.
I mentioned that you got whammied with that stupid germ bomb from Typhoid Tony or whatever the fuck his name was
« tim
vik vyral
Jay »
And she got all serious and told me I should get you into the clinic asap, and I was like no he’s fine now, it was basically a 24 hour bug, and she was like no, theres no such thing as a 24 hour bug for him, he needs to come get his blood tested yesterday
And then she clearly realized I had no fucking clue what she was talking about and clammed up. Wouldn’t say a thing. Told me to ask you myself.
Jay »
The look she gave me when I said you slept it off and went back to work. Like I should know better. like I was letting you be careless and shit bc thats just how I am or something.
« tim
“letting” me?
Jay »
yeah. Letting you. I know you know what I mean
« tim
i’m not sure i do.
Jay »
When youre with someone you take care of them.
I dont pretend to know much about this shit but I know that.
I’m not talking about handcuffing you to the radiator. Im talking about knowing whats going on with you and knowing that sometimes you let shit slide that I wouldn’t. When it comes to you
You do that for me and the others all the time. Thats how it works.
« tim
doc thompson doesn’t know you’re “with” me
Jay »
If you think everyone doesn’t know exactly what’s going on then your detective skills need work
Jay »
Also, Jesus, Tim.
« tim
ok sorry, i didn’t mean the scare quotes part
but did you pause to consider maybe there’s a reason i haven’t told everyone other than whatever shortsighted masochistic bs you’re assuming
Jay »
I dont need you to tell everyone. I’m not asking you to write a report on it.
Just like. if there’s any other major medical shit can you maybe tell me
Before you fucking die of a sinus infection or whatever bc the asshole who lives with you didn’t know your immune system has the horsepower of a bicycle
« tim
did you know you curse more when you’re fronting like you’re not worried about me
Jay »
I’m actually not fronting! in this moment!
« tim
okay
well. i am sorry
that sounded sarcastic bc of who i am as a person
but it’s not. i mean it.
Jay »
Sorry for yelling at you
« tim
i dont wanna go into it over text but i’ll tell you tonight. okay?
about what happened.
also there’s nothing else. it’s just the spleen thing
ok?
Jay »
Okay.
« tim
well and the mango allergy
well. and i’m double jointed specifically bc i have joint-hypermobility syndrome
which is why im so flexible :)
but also why i dislocate things a lot :(
um and im mildly allergic to carrots, bananas, pineapples, and most legumes, but it’s fine they just make my tongue itch
i think that’s all
Jay »
Tim can you be honest with me for a second
« tim
yeah…
Jay »
Are you inbred
« tim
NSJDN/&2&jdj?!_£_??
Jay »
Like are you that type of rich person
You can tell me. We are not going to procreate so I dont mind either way
« tim
just scared the living shit out of an intern who had never seen me laugh before. i think she thought i was choking
jesus CHRIST
i will see you at home.
Jay »
You
didn’t answer the question….
#feyburner ask#jaytim#my writing#idk what this is tbh i think i just wanted them to have a little spat. sharp edges meet rough edges etc
164 notes
·
View notes
Text
Rule Breaker - Pt 3
max Verstappen x single mom!reader
{masterlist}{prev} {next}
warnings: cursing, jos is an even bigger asshole, barely proofread, logan's there, glazed-over mentioning of childhood trauma
Summary: Max has it all...right? Besides, he's too busy collecting trophies and completing side quests for anything else. Until... You moved across a whole ass ocean to start over, uprooting you and your son's lives to become social media admin for cars that drive in circles.
word count: 7937 (i got so carried away holy shit)
auth.note: listen, eagle boy swayed me with his pretty eyes and soft voice... also this was a great excuse for me to rewatch Mulan for the millionth time.
spotify: i made a playlist
"Team meeting in ten," GP commented.
Max nodded, eyes following y/n through the window as she paced in the small courtyard, talking on her phone. He hadn't seen or spoken to her since they'd finished the Q and A the day before. Surprisingly, he'd actually enjoyed it. He told himself it was because she'd made sure to gather thought provoking questions, not because some of his answers had made her laugh and her laugh made him feel relaxed. GP turned to look out the window and Max quickly looked down at his plate, even though he'd just taken the last bite of his breakfast. When the engineer turned back, Max could feel his amused expression.
"Looks like it might rain," GP said casually.
Nodding again, Max washed down the last of his food with his coffee. "More chances for fuck ups."
"It's not a crime."
He finally looked up. "What?"
GP nodded towards the window.
"If rain was a crime, would they put god in prison?" Max asked, keeping his face blank when his friend snorted and rolled his eyes.
"You're not a robot, Max."
From the corner of his eye he could see her approaching Christian, who was coming from the garage. "I never said I was."
"Then stop acting like one. You're still young, I guess you're attractive, and you're at the top of your career."
"Thank you for that endorsement," Max said drily. Horner had stepped aside with y/n, whose hands were moving as she spoke to him. "I'll be sure and put it in my Tinder profile."
GP's eyebrows lifted. "You have one?"
"Fuck no." He pushed his chair back. "I don't have time."
"Max," his friend sighed.
"I'll see you at the meeting." He took care of his dishes, making sure to thank the staff working the dining area before leaving the motorhome, telling himself it was so he could get some fresh air and clear his head for the meeting. His legs carried him around the corner to where y/n and Christian were still talking, and he boldly approached.
"…speak to him." Christian shot a look at Max.
"If he was joking I wouldn't think twice about it.," y/n said, frowning. "But I don't see how it could have been. He was extremely rude, implied I wasn't worth hiring based on my looks, and…"
Max kept his mouth shut, knowing she needed to do the speaking. Giving her a faint nod when she looked at him, he felt a glimmer of pride when she straightened her shoulders.
"I didn't spend four years in college – sorry, university – and work three jobs at once to be demeaned. I know I have the skills and drive to do my job, but if this team continues to foster that sort of toxic environment you'll have to look for a new social media admin," she said firmly.
He tried to but couldn't keep the smile from forming.
Christian looked slightly impressed, giving her a reassuring nod. "I understand. He's not employed by us, he's only here by our good graces."
"I know he's the father of the your top driver, and I spoke with him before coming to you," she said, as though Max wasn't standing right there.
Christian pressed his lips together and Max knew he was trying to hide his smile. "Of course. We'll deal with it, I promise."
"Thank you." She relaxed, sighing softly. "I'm not trying to cause trouble, Mr. Horner."
"It's Jos fucking Verstappen, he's the trouble," Christian muttered. "Don't worry, alright? If anyone ever gives you a problem, reach out to me."
She nodded. "Thanks again. Oh!" She turned to Max, smiling hopefully. "I already asked Checo and he said yes to doing it this week. Would you be up to 24 hours with you at Monaco? Not the full 24 hours since I don't want to watch you sleep, but I just stick with you for the rest of the day and show fans a behind the scenes look at what a practice or quali day for you looks like."
"Why?" he asked, still stuck on the thought of her watching him sleep.
"Well! Casual fans don't realize how much work goes into being you. The training and diet and analyzing and teamwork. All the stuff you do even before practice and quali, like walking the track."
"For the whole day."
"Yeah, except for sleeping. I mean, that would probably really ramp up views, but—"
"I'm not that interesting though," he said. Why would anyone want to spend a practice or quali day with him?
"Oh don't start with the modesty. You're an elite athlete. I'm not asking you to invite me into your bedroom and let me show your bed to the world, just a small peek at what you're like. We can highlight your sim racing, explain how it's helped you learn the tracks so well. Talk about your suit, why the fireproof is so important." She tipped her head. "Maybe a shot of your suitcase to prove you do have clothes other than Red Bull gear? If you do, because I'm beginning to think you only have one pair of jeans and a Red Bull shirt."
He laughed at that, shaking his head. "I guess I can do it. We'll see how Checo's goes."
"Perfect. Speaking of, I'm doing that tomorrow so I gotta start posting to hype it up—"
"Meeting in two minutes," Christian told them.
Max looked at him, chagrined to admit he'd forgotten the man was there. "On the way," he promised, rubbing the back of his neck when Christian shot him a knowing look and headed off. Turning back to y/n, he cleared his throat. "I'm not showing my suitcase to the world."
"Is it that embarrassing?" she asked, clicking her tongue in sympathy. "Do you have Red Bull boxers too?"
"No, I—" he cut off, remembering the company's joke birthday gift to him the year before. "Okay, I do, but they're not in my suitcase."
"At least let me throw a team logo pillow on the bed—"
"Absolutely not."
She fell into step next to him, an extra bounce in her walk. "Are you saying there's already one there?"
He shouldn't say it. It would probably be inappropriate. He told himself that repeatedly, even as he drew a breath and opened his mouth. "Why the interest in my bed?"
"I told you, I love sleep. Oh." She frowned. "It'll be a hotel bed anyway."
Opening the motorhome door for her, he glanced up at the cloudy sky as the aroma of flowers he couldn't identify washed over him. "No?"
"Are you saying you get an Airbnb?" she asked in confusion. "Do they even have that in Monaco—"
"You didn't know? I thought you asked Google everything," he teased.
Her brow furrowed deeply. "Didn't know what?"
"I live in Monaco. So no, it wouldn't be a hotel room."
The confusion melted away, her eyes widening a little. "Oh. Wow."
"Wow?" he echoed, heading to the stairs.
"You're rich rich."
"Don't say that," he requested, making a face. She made wealth sound dirty.
"In my defense I didn't think to look up everyone's salary when I got hired. I mean I knew you were rich, but—"
"Stop saying it—"
"Sorry." She smiled sweetly, which told him she wasn't sorry at all. "Have a good meeting, Max. Oh, wait!"
He stopped at the top of the stairs, huffing when she lifted her phone and snapped a photo of him. "Why do you need a picture of me right now?"
"To show the world that even Max Verstappen, three time world champion, record breaker and maker, is sometimes late for a meeting."
Dragging a hand over his face, he sighed. "You're in a strange mood today."
"I'm getting comfortable. It's what I do. Lull everyone into thinking I'm sweet and quiet, then once I know I can relax I let my true self out."
"I'm scared to ask what your true self is," he admitted, ignoring his phone when it began to buzz with a phone call.
"Chaos," she told him, snapping another photo. "And I'm so putting a team logo pillow on your bed next week."
"No," he warned her as she turned to go back down the stairs. "No pillow."
"Go to your meeting or I'll post on Twitter than you have Red Bull boxers!"
"You wouldn't."
"Try me, rich boy."
And, damn everything, he laughed. She spun at the bottom of the stairs, giving him a smile that was pure sunshine. Not about to tempt fate, he held up his hands in surrender and went to the conference room for the meeting, still smiling as he slid into his seat next to Checo. When the meeting was over he hung back, his smile long gone as he waited for whatever Christian had to say.
"Two things," Christian started, leaning back in his seat with a sigh.
Max rolled his water bottle between his hands and stayed silent.
"Your dad."
He nodded. "I'll talk to him—"
"He's on probation now. If he so much as looks at anyone the wrong way, he'll be banned from the garage and the paddock." Christian steepled his hands. "It would probably be best if I did it now, but…"
"I'll talk to him," Max said again, already dreading that conversation. "Sometimes he speaks before he thinks, and unfortunately y/n was on the receiving end."
"Are you defending him?"
"No. I'm saying…" What was he saying? He didn't even know himself, so how could he explain it to Christian?
"You're saying what he would expect you to say. Max." Christian leaned forward. "I know he's your father. But – what did y/n say? He creates a toxic environment."
Max was on his feet and pacing before he realized he was moving. "What do you want me to do? Cut him out of my life completely? He's my dad. He made me who I am." Slinging his cap onto the table, he ran a hand through his hair. "He gave up on a marriage so I could achieve my dreams. I know people call it abuse and yeah if I could change the past I would, or at least some parts, but… Would I be me if he didn't do what he did?"
Christian sighed and Max hung his head. The bitterness between team principal and his father had been around as long as he could remember. And he understood, he did. Most days even he didn't like Jos that much.
"What he said to y/n was unacceptable. I know that. When she told me, I…" He paused, unsure whether he wanted to admit what his first thoughts had been. Starting to pace again, he stopped at the window and looked outside, noting that the earlier clouds had rolled away. "I was ready to tell you to ban him."
Christian nodded. "You sure you want to talk to him? Because I'll do it. I don't have a problem telling him to go fuck himself."
"I should do it," Max said with a sigh.
There was silence from Christian, and Max finally snatched up his hat and sat back down. "I'll do it, Max."
He would never admit to the rush of relief at those words. "What was the other thing?"
"Y/n."
He set his jaw. "What about her?"
"She's off limits."
Max blinked. "How do you mean?"
"I've seen the way you look at her."
He pinched his eyebrows together. He wasn't aware he'd been looking at her in any particular way. He just…looked at her. It was true that she did make him smile a little bit more than he usually did, but that had to be due to her self-professed chaos—
"It's in her contract. Yours too, I'm sure."
"I'm – Nothing's happened." Yes, she'd slept in his private room and yes, his sheets had smelled of her and given him dreams he shouldn't have been dreaming. But nothing else had happened.
Soft hands, plush hips, bright eyes, lush mouth—
"Keep it that way. We can't afford another PR disaster."
Max snorted, unsure how anything he did – not that he would do anything – with y/n could come close to the disaster Christian had caused. "I'm not texting her, so."
"Cheeky bastard," Christian muttered. "Go get prepped for practice."
Grabbing his water bottle from the floor, Max left. Off limits. What the hell did that even mean? He couldn't be friendly with her? He couldn't keep his promise to watch a movie with Kevin?
Fuck Christian anyway, he wasn't one to talk about someone being off limits, he decided. He went down for another coffee, inconspicuously looking around for y/n. Not seeing her, he turned his attention to the upcoming practice, trying his best to push his worries about his father to the back of his mind.
When he approached the garage he saw her, and he frowned slightly when he saw Logan talking to her. Did they know each other? They obviously did, judging by the way she laughed at something he said. Sourness filled his mouth and he gulped down his water, grunting when a hand suddenly clapped his shoulder.
"Mate, you coming out tonight?" Lando asked with a grin.
"Not a good idea to go out before quali, mate," Max said automatically.
"I'm not gonna get drunk. A few of us are just going out to eat. You in?"
"I think I'll skip it. But we'll go out Sunday?"
Lando's grin widened and Max chuckled, knowing he was remembering what little he could of the celebration in Miami. Lando loved to party after a race. "Absolutely. Good practice, yeah?"
Max grinned, bumping fists with him before they parted. The American was still talking to y/n. Didn't he need to get ready? Go fluff his hair or something? Walking up to them, he nodded at Logan. "Have a good practice alright, mate?"
"Oh, yeah, better get to the garage." Logan turned and flashed a smile at y/n. "I'll see you later, okay?"
"Sure. Be safe," she said.
She was smiling a little too hard, in his opinion. And then she was—
Hugging? Him?
Max felt like he might vomit.
"Later, Max," Logan said as he jogged off.
"What did he want?" Max asked.
She looked up from checking something on her camera. "Hm? Oh, nothing, just chatting. He's nice."
"Yeah, a complete sweetheart," he said with a roll of his eyes. Then, shoving the sourness away, he cleared his throat. "I've got the sim racing tomorrow after quali, then the race is Sunday."
Y/n blinked, then nodded slowly. "Yes?"
"I promised Kevin we'd watch the movie?" he reminded her.
"Oh, yeah. Don't worry about it, I know you're too busy. He hasn't even mentioned it again, I'm sure he's already forgotten." She turned slightly and knelt to take pictures of his car in the garage.
"But I promised."
"Max, it's really not that big a deal."
It was. To her it might not be. If she couldn't do something with her son when she had promised she could, she was able to do it another time. He couldn't just show up to her flat to watch a movie. And Kevin had been so excited… He tried not to remember all the promises that had been made to him as a child, promises he had learned at an early age would never be kept. "Y/n…"
She looked up at him, drawing a breath to, he was sure, tell him again that it was fine. But she paused, studying his face, and he heard her sigh as she lowered the camera. "This is really important to you, isn't it?"
"And to Kevin," he pointed out.
"He did talk about it a lot last night before he went to sleep. Made sure the hotel tv had Disney plus and asked if Ellie would buy some popcorn…" She sighed, smiling. "Did you want to do it next week before Monaco?"
"I was thinking today? After the practice and debrief. If you're not too busy," he added, unintentionally looking towards the Williams garage.
"No, I don't have any plans. Just editing and posting, and I can do that while you two watch a movie. I've got plans for dinner, but there's plenty of time."
"Plans?" he asked, trying his best to sound casual.
"Yeah! Logan offered to take me out to see a little of the town. He's offered to be my tour guide."
At night. Now he knew he would vomit. "How delightful," he managed.
"Yeah, he's sweet. Don't worry, I won't give away any secrets."
The sourness returned, doubled, and he recognized it now as jealousy. Which was beyond ridiculous, because she wasn't his to be jealous over. Seeing that she was about to stand he immediately offered his hand, easily steadying her as she rose to her feet.
"Thanks."
He wondered what sort of cream she used on her hands. They were so soft. "Y/n—"
"Max!"
Y/n's smile faded and she practically snatched her hand away. "I'll message you the hotel info," she said, turning on her heel and sweeping into the garage.
"I need to talk to you," his father demanded.
Looking into the garage, he saw that he had a full thirty minutes before practice began. No way out of this conversation. Nodding, he followed his father to a relatively secluded spot, keeping his head down.
*-*
"His father is such an asshole, honestly. We were talking outside the garage and he marched up like he owns the—" Y/n glanced to make sure Kevin still had his headphones on and wasn't listening in. Seeing that he did and wasn't, she turned back to Ellie. "—fucking place and barked at him all 'I need to talk to you' like the guy isn't about to go out on the track."
Ellie made a face. "What a prick. What did he have to say to him that was so important?"
Y/n shrugged, bending to gather the dirty pair of socks off the floor. "No idea. He dragged him off and I could see them but couldn't hear anything. I felt so bad for Max."
"I would have too. And he didn't say anything when he got back to the garage?" Ellie smoothed the bedding while y/n stuffed the dirty laundry into a sack.
"Not to me." Sighing, y/n dropped the sack inside the bathroom and then got down on her hands and knees to make sure nothing embarrassing was lying around. "He looked like a kid getting yelled at, Ellie. I had no idea his dad was that much of an—"
She saw Kevin moving and stopped, getting to her feet while he set his tablet and headphones on the table. "Gotta pee, mama," he said, sliding out of the chair.
"Did you finish your game?" she asked while Ellie looked around to make sure the hotel room was presentable.
"Yeah, it's easy," Kevin said.
"Are you gonna tell him?" Ellie whispered.
"No… What if he can't make it? I don't want to get his hopes up." Y/n pushed the chair in at the table and checked the tablet, seeing that Kevin had indeed finished the alphabet game she'd downloaded that morning for him.
"If he doesn't come, maybe we can—" Ellie laughed when there was a knock at the door. "Never mind."
"It might not be him," y/n muttered, even though she knew it had to be. He'd been so insistent, and she'd been able to tell that it was possibly more important to him than it would be to Kevin.
"I'll make sure the lil rugrat washes his hand," Ellie murmured, slipping into the bathroom.
Y/n rubbed her hands on her thighs and went to open the door, giving the hotel room one last glance before doing so. And, just as she'd known, Max was in the hallway. "Hey," she greeted softly, eyes widening a little when she saw he was wearing a pair of sweats and a hoodie. "Holy shit, you're allowed to wear non-Red Bull clothes?"
He snorted, letting out a laugh when she just stared at him. "Very funny."
"No, no, I'm serious. Isn't that in your contract or something?" Stepping back, she finally gave him a grin. "C'mon in."
"I don't know if he's allowed, but I brought some sweets." Max held up the grocery bag hanging from one finger.
"Yeah, he's allowed. No allergies or anything," she assured him, closing the door once he'd stepped inside. "He's washing his—"
"Mister Max!"
Y/n nearly teared up. Her son sounded so excited, and she had a moment of panic for letting him befriend Max. He was too busy to drop by regularly, and after Monaco Kevin would be staying home with Ellie, so—
"There's my little mate!"
Fuck's sake, even Max sounded excited. As though a movie with a three year old was the height of his day. Looking on as he swung Kevin up and spun him in a circle, she took the bag and emptied the packets onto the table while Ellie greeted Max and brought out the popcorn from where she'd hidden it from Kevin. Max and Kevin talked nonstop to one another, Max telling him about practice after Kevin gave him a detailed report on what he'd done all day. The boy grabbed his tablet and showed him the games he'd played, showing off his alphabet skills.
"You're good with letters, yeah? Maybe you'd be good learning a new language?" Max suggested.
"Do you know a new language?" Kevin asked.
"He's really good with him," Ellie whispered to y/n.
"Shh," she hissed. Because she already knew. And she didn't need it pointed out to her. Besides, she was listening to Max tell Kevin about the languages he spoke, then to him rattle off a few sentences in each one, much to Kevin's amazement.
"Can you teach me?" he asked hopefully.
"When I can, kleine maat." Max ruffled Kevin's hair. "That means little mate."
"You're my big mate," Kevin decided.
"Grote maat," Max said, repeating it slowly a couple times before Kevin said it properly. "There you go. You'll be speaking Dutch like a pro in no time."
"You want a drink, Max?" Y/n offered. "We don't have Red Bull, sorry—"
"Water's fine. Thanks."
"Can I have water too, mama?"
Nodding, y/n fixed their drinks while Kevin turned on the TV and opened Disney+, rolling her eyes when he told Max the password so he could put it in for him. She saw that Ellie was putting on her shoes and raised her eyebrows. "Where are you going?"
"Oh, I don't want to intrude on big mate, little mate bonding time," Ellie said with a small smile. Peeling Kevin from Max long enough to give him a quick hug, she grabbed her wallet and phone. "And I've seen Mulan about six hundred times, so I'm just gonna go for a walk. Take pictures. Get a coffee and a pastry."
"Have fun," y/n said.
"Mhmm, you too," Ellie said with a smirk as she left.
She rolled her eyes and handed Max his drink then Kevin his cup. Motioning for Max to have a seat on the small sofa, she couldn't help but smile when Kevin immediately climbed to sit next to him, and had the feeling that before the movie was over her son would be cuddled close to his big mate.
"Join us?" Max asked while Kevin looked for the movie.
"Work," she reminded him, transferring the sweets and popcorn to the coffee table and getting her laptop. "I'll watch from here."
"It doesn't look very comfortable."
"It shouldn't. It's work."
He looked ready to argue, but instead took a sip of his water and grabbed a bag of candy. Tossing it onto the table, he gave a small shrug when she looked at him. "You said you like strawberry milk."
Y/n looked from him to the bag several times. He remembered that? She'd mentioned it during the Q and A, when the question had been other than red bull what's your favorite drink? Staring at the bag, she felt a sudden rush of warmth. No one had bought her candy in so long… "Thank you," she murmured.
"You're welcome," he said softly.
She almost told him he didn't have to, but she knew that he already knew that. He'd done it because… She didn't know. Maybe to apologize for his father's behavior. Maybe to show he listened. Maybe, just maybe, because he'd seen it in the shop, remembered her liking strawberry milk, and had bought it because that was something he did, buy a little something for no other reason than you said you liked it.
She tried to focus on work, but the movie kept getting her attention. Finally she gave up, scheduling the posts she'd edited and closing her laptop. Grabbing a bottle of water, she joined them on the sofa as Mushu revealed himself to Mulan. As she'd expected, Kevin had already crawled into Max's lap, sharing his bag of popcorn with the man as they both focused on the movie.
"Mama," Kevin whispered, reaching for her.
She scooted closer, sighing as he turned so he could lean against her arm. Max shifted, and she tried to act nonchalant when he draped his arm behind her on the back of the sofa. Smoothing her son's hair, she pretended not to notice when the arm slid to her shoulders. He probably hadn't even noticed, she told herself, aware that his eyes were locked on the TV screen, paying attention to the movie. When Kevin's favorite part began he sat up, quickly sliding to the floor to sing along and she fully expected Max to pull away from her.
But he didn't, and she pulled her knees up, unable to focus on anything except the weight of his arm around her. It was solid but not uncomfortable, a very real reminder that she hadn't been in this position in a very long time.
"He's so mean," Kevin mumbled as Shun-Yu appeared on the screen. Y/n waited for him to hurry over to climb into her lap but he chose Max instead, and she bit back a sigh when the man gently soothed him, hugging him close.
"It's okay, kleine maat. The good guys will beat him, yeah?" he murmured, pausing the movie.
Kevin nodded against Max's shoulder. "Yeah but he's bad."
"A lot of people are," Max said softly. "But if we focus on that we don't see the good. Do you think about your happy days more or your bad days?"
"Happy days," Kevin said.
"Because they make you happy, yeah? If you think about bad days you'll always be having them. It's like that with people. Focus on the good and do what you can to keep the bad from happening. Bad happens, but the good will always be there."
"Okay."
"You ready to finish the movie?" Max asked gently.
Kevin nodded.
Max finally looked at y/n, glancing down when he saw the way she was staring at him. "I didn't—"
"No, you're good," she promised in a whisper, picking up the remote to resume the movie then hugging her knees. If she didn't occupy her arms, she would throw them around him. Usually she had to explain those things to Kevin. Ellie helped, of course, but Kevin always came to her for more explanation after a life lesson. But Max… He'd explained it so eloquently and gently that he'd understood. And she didn't know why, but, god help her…
It was the sexiest thing she'd ever witnessed.
His arm stayed around her shoulders through the rest of the movie. When Mulan was cast out, she got a little emotional as she always did, even after over six hundred views, and she felt his arm tighten around her, hesitating a tiny bit before letting her head lean against him. All she could smell now was him, the gentle but memorable sandalwood and amber scent that she remembered well from the day before.
"Gotta pee," Kevin announced a little bit later, clambering down and running to the bathroom. Max took the remote to pause the movie.
Y/n began to pull away, lifting her head when he squeezed her arm.
"You're fine," he whispered.
His face was so close. Seeing a tiny piece of popcorn on his chin, she reached up to brush it away, freezing at the sound of his sharp inhale. "Sorry, you got a little…"
When the hell had his eyes become so blue? Just a day ago they'd been a normal blue. Now they reminded her of the antique blue willow china her great grandmother had treasured. Her gaze slipped to his mouth and quickly moved back to his eyes and she heard him inhale again.
"Max?"
"Y/n, I…" His eyes flicked down and she unconsciously licked her lips.
She knew she shouldn't but she suddenly, desperately, wanted to know what it was like to kiss him. She hadn't thought about kissing anyone in what felt like a lifetime, but now she needed it. Lifting her chin slightly, she dropped her hand to his chest. "Max—"
"Y/n, you… I—"
"Okay!"
She snatched herself away from Max as though she'd been burned, going so far as to jump to her feet while Kevin rushed back to the sofa. "Go ahead and hit play, I'll be back in just a minute," she promised, nearly tripping over nothing in her haste to get as far away from Max as possible. "Hit play, it's fine, I've seen it a million times."
Once in the bathroom she closed the door and leaned against it, covering her face with both hands. What the hell was wrong with her? Just because she hadn't been kissed since— She dropped her hands, wrinkling her nose in thought. Kevin was three years and two months, and… At any rate, it had been so long she'd assumed she was never going to be kissed again. She hadn't even thought about it in ages, because she'd been so focused on work and raising her son and trying to survive. Now, all of a sudden, she was craving one so bad she'd practically begged him.
He'd been about to tell her he couldn't. She was sure of that. Which only made it even more embarrassing. How could he even want to? She'd seen the girlfriends of other drivers on the grid, there was no way he'd be even remotely interested in her. She wasn't a model or tennis star or whatever their occupations were.
Not to mention she couldn't. It would be wrong on so many levels. What kind of impression would her behavior leave on her son? Not to mention the troubles it would cause at work? And it was in her contract that any sort of fraternization with other members of the team were forbidden. She'd known that but she had read the full contract on the flight to Italy. If she and Max did anything it would eventually come out and she'd be jobless again, this time in a foreign country.
Checking her phone when she felt it buzz in her pocket, she sighed while reading Logan's text.
We're still on right?
She wanted to say no. The best thing for her to do would be to suffer through the rest of the movie, say goodbye to Max, have an early dinner, put Kevin to bed, then take the world's coldest shower. But she was already typing out her reply.
Of course! Looking forward to it.
And she was, she thought, seeing the delivered change to read then the three little dots that he was typing a message. Logan was fun. Nice. Completely uninterested in her romantically, she thought with a sigh.
Great. Be there at 8 to pick you up. Give Kev a high 5 for me?
Will do.
Pushing away from the door, she turned on the water to wash her hands and jumped slightly when there was a gentle knock.
"Y/n?"
"I'm almost done," she called.
She heard his sigh. "Can I come in?"
No. "Yeah, sure."
He opened the door and stepped in, and she swallowed when he closed the door behind him. "I…"
"Max, don't," she groaned, washing her hands and grabbing the towel. "You don't have to tell me you wouldn't have… Even if I wanted you to. I know."
"Wouldn't have what?" he asked.
God, could the moment get any more embarrassing? "I – You – Jesus, never mind."
"Kiss you?" he murmured.
Why did the way he said it sound like so much more than a kiss? "It's fine. Go back and finish the movie."
"Y/n, I can't."
"You have to leave?" she asked.
"What – no, not the movie," he said. Cupping a hand over his mouth, he breathed deeply and dropped his hand after a few seconds, looking pained. "I can't kiss you."
"Oh." Oh. "Do you have a girlfriend or—"
"If I had a girlfriend I wouldn't be in this tiny toilet with you."
And she believed him. He didn't seem the type to put himself in a situation that could be misinterpreted if he had a partner. "Right. Of course. Then…"
"It's…" He sighed.
"Are you gay? Because I won't tell any—"
"I'm not gay," he cut in gently. "It's… I'm not allowed to kiss you."
She blinked, suddenly understanding. And she wondered if he'd read the contract, too. "Right. Neither am I."
"Christian talked to you too?"
"No? Why would he?"
"He told me you're off limits." Max shook his head. "Said I look at you or something."
"Oh." He did? And just how did Max look at her? "I see."
"And it's in our contracts. Yours and mine, I mean. So… I can't."
She nodded. "Of course. Understood. No more explanation necessary, Max."
"I wouldn't want you to lose your job," he said softly.
She continued to nod. "Got it. Thanks."
He tipped his head, then reached to take the towel from her and she realized she was still drying her hands. "I'll still be Kevin's friend."
Still nodding, she picked up her hand cream and squeezed a dollop into her palm. "Thanks. He likes you."
"I like him too." He hesitated, watching her carefully. "You okay?"
"Peachy keen," she promised, rubbing the cream into her hands. "Just getting ready for my dinner."
His lips settled into a fine line. "Your date."
The way he said it irritated her. As though she was in the wrong for making plans with a new friend. "It's not a date, but yes."
"I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time," he said with absolutely no emotion.
"Well, he's not contractually obligated to be nice to me, so… I know I will," she said, forcing as much sweetness into her voice as possible.
"I'm not nice because of a contract," he snapped.
"Right, sorry, my mistake. He won't not kiss me because of a piece of paper," she corrected.
Max's eyes flashed, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "I thought it wasn't a date?" he asked carefully.
Good, at least he had some emotion. "Oh, so I'm only allowed to kiss him if we're on a date?"
"I didn't say—" He cut off, pressing his lips tight together and exhaling slowly. "You said it wasn't a date."
"Why do you care either way?"
"Is it a date or not?" he ground out.
"It's not." She took her hair down from the ponytail as he sighed with something like relief. "But it could be in the future."
"What, so you'll kiss him because I won't kiss you?"
"If I kiss him, it'll be because both of us want it," she said. She knew she was being silly, maybe even a little stupid. But he was acting as though he were doing her a favor. As though he were somehow honorable, a gentleman even, because he refused to do what she now knew they both wanted.
"Y/n, I can't—"
"A word I'm sure you're not used to saying about yourself," she muttered under her breath.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, an edge in his voice.
"I didn't know that 'can't' was in your vocabulary is all." Looking at her phone to check the time, she cleared her throat. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to change."
He hesitated while she opened her makeup bag. "Do you want to kiss him?"
"Why do you care?"
He visibly bristled. "I don't want you to get hurt."
"Does he have a reputation for hurting women?" She picked up her hairbrush, and had brushed out her hair completely before he finally answered.
"No." It sounded like it hurt him to say it. "He's nice."
"Then you don't have to worry."
"Where are you going?"
"Oh, no." She laughed humorlessly. "You don't get to ask that. Now please, I have to change."
He stared at her, looking annoyed and irritated, his jaw still twitching. Then, with a huff, he turned to open the door. And froze when he saw the dress hanging from the hook. "Is… That's what you're wearing?"
"Oh my god, Max, you're starting to sound like a jealous boyfriend."
"I'm not jealous," he snorted.
"And you're not my boyfriend," she snapped.
She waited for him to turn around and restart their argument. Altercation. Whatever it was. Instead, he muttered something under his breath and snatched the door open. Went out, closing it. And sounded perfectly normal when he apologized to Kevin and resumed the movie.
Y/n was still annoyed even after changing and doing her makeup. She fussed over her hair, unsure whether she wanted to wear it up or down, finally leaving it down. She was fully aware that she was putting more work into her appearance than she would have if Max hadn't said what he had, and still knew she was being silly and stupid. Hadn't she just told herself nothing could happen between them?
Yes, but maybe if he hadn't acted as though he were doing an immense favor she wouldn't be so upset. I wouldn't want you to lose your job. Indicating that if he kissed her and they were found out, his job was secure.
"Sanctimonious prick," she muttered while she spritzed perfume on her wrists and rubbed them together. As she exited the bathroom the outer door of the room opened and Ellie came in, her jaw dropping when she saw her.
"Holy shit babes, you look amazing!"
She smiled, doing a turn for her friend. "You think so?"
"His jaw is gonna be on the floor the whole time. Holy shit, milf alert." Ellie whistled softly, waving her hand as though overcome with heat.
Y/n giggled. "Thanks."
The movie was ending and Kevin oohed and aahed over her dress, telling her over and over how pretty she was. Max stared at her, his jaw set, but said nothing, looking away and starting to clear up the remains of the snacks.
"Isn't she pretty, grote maat?" Kevin asked.
And even though her back was to him, she felt his gaze. Glancing over her shoulder at him while she fastened her necklace, she watched his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh. "Very pretty, kleine maat."
"You're supposed to tell her," Kevin whispered. "Always tell a lady she's beautiful. Right, aunt Ellie?"
"That's right, buddy," Ellie said proudly. She gave y/n an odd look, silently asking what had happened, narrowing her eyes when y/n merely shrugged.
"Because women are pretty all the time," Kevin went on and y/n smiled. At least she was doing something right…
After fastening her earrings she turned from the dresser, breath catching in her throat when she found Max staring at her. Vaguely aware of Ellie telling Kevin to wash his hands so they could eat the dinner she'd brought, she squatted, getting her heels from her suitcase, along with her shawl.
"Je bent mooi," Max said.
She met his gaze as she rose to her feet. "What's that mean?"
"You're beautiful," he whispered.
"Thank you." And though she knew it was catty, she couldn't help the words that slipped out of her mouth. "Do you think Logan will like it?"
His jaw twitched. "He'd be stupid not to."
"That doesn't answer my question," she practically cooed, slipping on her heels.
He made a sound of disgust in his throat. "He's annoying and dumb sometimes, but he's not stupid. So, yes, I think he'll like it."
"Look at you, hyping me up." She wasn't stupid either, she could hear and feel the jealousy. Good, she thought, getting her small handbag and transferring her few necessities to it.
"Is he picking you up?" Max asked. "Or are you meeting him somewhere?"
"Are you gonna stick around and question his intentions?" she scoffed. "Because if so, I'm meeting him."
"I just—"
"Do you want some pasta, Mister Max?" Kevin asked as he came out of the bathroom with Ellie.
"Ah, maybe next time," Max said after clearing his throat. "You eat some for me, hm?"
She wanted to be mad that he was so good with her son. Proclaim they could only ever be coworkers, then turn around and continue to be her son's favorite person. It wasn't fair. But she didn't want him to be mean to Kevin. So she smiled, fixing her shawl while Max told Kevin he would see him at quali tomorrow, wishing she could stay mad at him but that was impossible, especially when he lifted her son up and gave him a tight hug, telling him he'd enjoyed the movie.
"Can we watch another one day?" Kevin asked hopefully and y/n drew in a breath, prepared to say they couldn't ask Max that, he was too busy.
"Of course we can. You pick the movie and we'll watch it next week?"
He gave Kevin another hug then gently encouraged him to eat his dinner, smiling and saying goodnight to Ellie. Then he turned to her, and she felt an unexpected heat ripple through her as his eyes slowly looked her up and down.
"Thanks for coming," she murmured, walking him to the door.
"I enjoyed it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "For the most part."
"Kevin had a great time."
"Yes. And that's all that matters."
Ouch. "Goodnight, Max."
"Enjoy your dinner with Logan."
"I will."
He rocked back on his heels, exhaling harshly. "I'm…" He cleared his throat. "Goodnight, y/n."
She closed the door and bit back a whine. Stupid, stupid, stupid—
"Talk tonight when you get back?" Ellie asked gently, watching her while she fixed Kevin's plate.
"It's nothing," she insisted, double checking that she had everything in her handbag. Phone, ID and passport, room key, lipstick, mirror. "Just being stupid."
"You're not stupid, mama," Kevin said anxiously.
"I know, thank you. Sorry. Just feeling stupid."
"But you look so pretty," he told her.
She smiled, sighing as she crossed the room to kiss his cheek. "You're the best son in the world, you know that?"
He giggled, rubbing the lipstick from his cheek. "And you're the best mama."
"Only because you're the best son," she insisted.
"Do you like Mister Logan?" he asked suddenly, scrunching his face when she fastened the bib around his neck.
"He's nice. But he's just a friend."
"But." Kevin's lips poked out in thought. "He's taking you on a date."
"Dinner. You know how you miss Cotton?" She took a napkin and cleaned the smudge of lipstick from his cheek when he nodded. "He misses America sometimes. It's kind of like when you pet the cats on your walks."
"Ohh…" Kevin nodded with all the understanding a three year old could muster. "So he's gonna pet you?"
She blinked, instinctively reaching to swat Ellie's arm when her friend choked back a giggle. "Not exactly," she groaned. "We're just gonna talk."
Ellie was still giggling ten minutes later when Logan knocked on the door. "Sorry, sorry," she gasped when y/n shot her a glare. "I'll behave."
"That'll be the day," y/n muttered under her breath as she went to open the door. "Hey," she greeted warmly, smiling up at him.
He was dressed in slacks, a button down, and a jacket. His smile faded a little as he stared at her, and she saw his throat move as he swallowed. "Whoa. You look great."
"Thanks. You do too."
She let him in so Kevin could say hi, ducking into the bathroom to fix her lipstick and remind herself that it was just dinner. Logan was just a friend, or at least would hopefully be a friend. Saying goodnight to her son, she felt her shawl slipping, ignoring Ellie's knowing look when Logan immediately reached to catch it, his hands gentle as he draped it over her shoulders. Just dinner. Just dinner with just a friend.
But when they walked down the street to the restaurant, which was just around the corner, and his hand brushed hers she told herself it was alright. And when he slipped his hand protectively over hers she didn't pull away. In the restaurant when Lando and a few others called out to him she hung back, blushing when Logan gently tugged her along to greet his friends.
"Didn't know you had a date tonight, mate," Oscar commented, nodding to her in greeting.
She could have corrected him. Could have announced to everyone that it wasn't a date. But Logan's bashful chuckle warmed her and she smiled. "We American's have to stick together," she said, enjoying Logan's laugh.
"You know, England is an ally," Lando said with a smirk.
"Still haven't forgiven you for taxation without representation," she sighed.
"That wasn't me," Lando defended while the others laughed.
"Your ancestors though," Oscar told him.
"They were doing what they thought was right? How am I at fault now?"
"You opened your mouth," Carlos said with a laugh.
"C'mon, babe, our table's ready," Logan murmured, hand slipping to the small of her back.
"Enjoy your date!" Oscar called after them.
"I hope you trip over your independence!" Lando yelped when Oscar elbowed him.
Laughing, y/n let Logan guide her to the other side of the dining room, where they were thankfully shielded from the table of drivers. He held the chair for her and she thanked him while the waiter handed them the menus.
"I'm sorry about that. Oscar and Lando… I should have told them it wasn't a date," Logan said once they were alone.
"It's fine," she assured him. "I mean, technically, it is a date."
"I guess so. I just don't want you thinking I'm making it out to more than it is."
"What is it?" she asked.
"Two friends, hopefully. Spending time together." He looked up from his menu. "Probably should have taken you somewhere more casual, huh? This place makes it look like I'm trying to impress you."
She hadn't thought of it like that. "…Are you trying to impress me?"
"Do you want me to?"
Their eyes met and she slowly inhaled, thinking over what the best answer would be.
So you'll kiss him because I won't kiss you?
Do you want to kiss him?
She exhaled, sending thoughts of Max as far away as possible. "I think I do."
He looked relieved and oh, so handsome in this light. "Then I might be trying to impress you a little."
"You're doing amazing so far."
taglist
@spookystitchery | @halleest | @lyannesworld | @llando4norris | @kravitzwhore | @younxii | @silentreader128 | @samantha-chicago | @mrsbrxkkxr | @cmleitora |
#f1#f1 fic#f1 x reader#f1 imagine#max verstappen#max verstappen fic#max verstappen x reader#max verstappen imagine#my writings > mv > rulebreaker
132 notes
·
View notes
Note
Omg could you write abt the reader being old ‘friends’ with bakugo before he joined the lov and one day the reader goes home to find him drunk in her apartment waiting for her saying how much he missed her or whatever and it gets spicyyy
tyy ❤️❤️
TW...? Swearing, Sex (Oral, Unprotected), Alcohol Consumption.
He looks horrible.
His hair is rough and stained dark with dirt, clothes tattered, and you can see a bruise peeking out between the hole in his jeans.
"The fuck are you doing here?"
Your voice comes out shaky and uneven as you stand before him, practically looming over him as he sat on your couch.
Bakugo doesn't look at you, instead staring down at his hands, holding the bottle of vodka he'd almost completely emptied. "I... I-"
"You what?!" You harshly spit out, fists clenched by your side.
It takes everything in you to not start raining insults and curses down at him. You can only stare in utter disappointment at how he'd turned out.
All the opportunities he'd had at UA, all his accolades and dreams, gone down the drain once he'd left. And he had the guts to end up looking so desolate?!
It makes you mad how pitiful it all was. Bakugo, the Bakugo that you'd always admired and looked up to, ending up this way - dirty and drunk on your couch after running around with the LOV for 5 years.
"Look at you!" You yell out, snatching the bottle of alcohol from his hands and slamming it down on your coffee table. "You look disgusting! Look at your hair, your clothes - when was the last time you even showered? Are you homeless - you look-"
"This morning."
"What?" You pause your ranting, blinking down at him and still raging.
He sniffs, raising a hand to scratch at his chin. "The- I showered this morning.... I promise." His voice is hoarse, his words slightly drawn out.
You let out a sigh, crouching so you were at eye level with him. "What are you doing here, Bakugo?" You ask softly, lips stretched downwards in a frown.
"I- I just..." he begins, uncharacteristically stuttering and slurring as he speaks. "I didn't know where else to go."
You glance at the vodka on your table, then back at Bakugo. "You're not a drinker." You simply say before standing and making your way to the adjacent couch. "What are you doing here, Katsuki?"
He perks up, lazy eyes instantly locking on to your own. "I- I haven't been called that in so long."
You frown, arms crossed as you sat down. "You look like shit, you know that?"
"I kno-"
"You've been gone for 5 years." His expression falls again. "It's not even like you were failing at school- you weren't! You were actually a top student- you had everything lined up for you, Katsuki! Everything! And you left, and this is all you have to show?!"
"I'm sorry."
"You left us all, disappointed everyone; your parents, your teachers, your classmates, me! And you didn't care! You threw us all away without a thought- not one back then and not any in all the years you've been gone-"
"But I did think about you." He cuts you off quickly, sad eyes boring into your angry, teary ones. "Every day, YN. If nothing else, I thought about you...."
You pause, glaring at him as he kept speaking.
"Liar." You whisper.
"'m not... I promise." He replies.
It hurts even more knowing he thought about you and never bothered to come back.
"That's why I'm here," he continues, standing from the couch and shakily making his way to where you were sat. "I- I missed you, YN... I wanted to see you and-"
"And show me what you turned out to be?" You hiss at him. "Why would you come back to me like this?" You sharply stand, looking up at him with so much hurt and anger. "You're drunk, and you're so roughed up and- Katsuki, you're a mess."
"I know- I know." He swiftly grabs your hands, holding them together tightly in his own. "That's why I came to you. I need you to fix me."
"Fix you? Are you hearing yourself?"
"Please...I don't want this anymore. I- I'm tired, please. I'm just... I don't know what else to do, who else to go to, you're the only one I can think about." He speaks with more vigour than you'd seen all evening, his grip getting tighter as he leaned closer to you.
"I can't-" You begjn, trying to force the words out your tightening throat. "I can't help you, Katsuki." You force through, words loud and trying so hard not to let the tears fall. "You're too far gone. What am I to do with you?"
"Too far gone?!" The suddeness of his yell has you flinching away, which in turn makes him tighten his grip, holds you in place so you can't move too far away. "It's still me, you know? It's always still been me. I'm still here-"
"Doesn't that make it worse? That it's just you- and you're just a monster."
Your words cut deep, silence running in its wake for a few moments before he's leaning closer, so close you can see the lines of his lips, his pores, his eyes so clear.
"Do I look like a monster to you?" He asks softly.
"Yes."
No.
It's not true. He looks like 6 years ago, when you were both back in school, and he was the unfairly strong, brooding kid who sat right behind you in class. And knocked on your room door every night at 5 pm so you could study together. And who quite nearly beat you up every time you doubted yourself, felt like you didn't belong, who forced you to feel like you were in the right place.
He looks like a years ago, the same boy who'd have found you and beat the crap out of you if you ever defected, who you know would take you back in if you ever decided to come back.
"Please... you're the only person I want to help me," Katsuki whispers to you, so different from his old brazen self, and you don't know if it's the alcohol or the time that's made him so. "If not you... there's nowhere else I can go."
And you can't help but cry, tears streaming down your face as you pull your hand away and wrap your arm around his shoulder, your head on his chest, holding him and crying.
"Why did you leave me?" You sob softly into him, body relaxing into his hold as both his hands let go of yours to hold on to your hips, keeping your body pressed against his. "Why wasn't I enough to make you stay?"
He breathed out, arms wrapping tightly around your body. "You're enough to bring me back." He whispers into your hair, "You're enough to keep me going, to make me believe it doesn't have to end like this... you're enough- for me."
You sniff softly, and he leans raises a palm to your cheek, cradling your face softly. "I've missed you," he whispers, "So much... please believe me. I've missed you."
He begins pressing his lips to your hair, then he's on your forehead, both hands now on your cheeks. You're still sniffling when his lips come down to your nose, and you're still sniffling when he pulls away to stare at you.
It's a quick, intense look before he's crushing his lips against yours, his fingers digging into your cheekbones, his mouth hungry and desperate as he devours yours.
It's been years since he's kissed anyone... and never with such need. He holds your face close to his, like he's scared you'll disappear once he let's go, and he refuses to come up for air, refuses to let his lips leave yours for too long.
And you're not much better, your hands tightly fisted into his thick, ugly shirt, keeping him close to you. You've stopped sobbing, not like you could when he swallowed every sound so greedily.
You spend what feels like hours just kissing, like it's an art form, some sort of nourishment for you two.
But then he's pushing you towards the couch, and you're quick to start undoing the buttons of your shirt. You're still clothed when the back of your knees hit the couch, and Bakugo's impatience has his mouth coming down on your neck, his hands snatching at your shirt and ripping.
But you don't care enough to reprimand him, not when you're releasing soft moans and sighs as his hand engulfs your left breast, kneading and squeezing. His technique is crude, but his desperation turns you on.
He's messy and hungry as his hands touch you all over, your waist, your back, your ass after you both manage to get your bottoms off.
He hastily pulls his shirt over his head and throws it carelessly the moment you tug on it, and then his lips are around your nipples, sucking on them and twirling them around with his tongue.
"Katsuki..." You whisper into the air, back arching and fingers in his hair as he kisses down your sternum. "I've- I've missed you so much."
"Me too," he's standing up, and you're still lying on the couch, resting on the back as he pulls your knees up, "So much." You feel his breath against your clothed cunt, hot.
"Don't leave me again," You whisper, and he's slowly pulling your panties to the side.
"I won't," he tells you as his tongue slides along your folds.
He makes you cum once on his tongue, and then twice more; when he fucks you on your carpet, and then when you ride him on the couch.
He's not so sweet with it, his hands harsh on you and his lips desperately marking his presence unto your skin. But you love it that way, you love how you can feel him so deep, how his eyes watch every inch of you.
You love it when he cums and fills you, when he's moaning your name, every nickname he's ever called you in the past, telling you how much you consumed his mind.
There's no way he's leaving again, and there's no way you're letting him.
#bakugo x reader#bakugou katsuki x reader#bakugou x reader#bakugou katsuki#bakugou katuski x reader#katsuki bakugou x reader#mha bakugou#bnha x reader#bakugo smut#bakugo fluff
69 notes
·
View notes
Text
and the songbirds are singing like they know the score - part i.
"If Bradley squints his eyes, he can still make out the little five-year-old that he once knew who thought that he put the stars in the sky and cried when she found out that Jake’s real name wasn’t Hangman." or Quincy Bradshaw is growing up and no one knows what to do about it; especially Bradley.
a/n: in light of father's day, enjoy part one to bradley's precocious daughter making a re-appearance and jake seresin being reasonable for once. part two will be posted soon! the angst will be resolved, don't you worry!
It happens in between the end credits and the black fade-out screen.
The piercing sound of the phone ringing snaps you and your husband out of your near comatose states on the couch, seemingly entranced by Molly Ringwald’s whining (which only she can get away with because she’s fucking Molly Ringwald, of course) for the entirety of Sixteen Candles.
“Holy shit,” Bradley swallows, leaning up to sit entirely straight. His movements jostle you, causing you to wince at your cheek unsticking from its glued spot on his right pec.
You smack your lips and sigh, trying to wake yourself up. The obnoxiously mechanical sound the phone makes causes your ears a subtle pain, and you silently curse your husband for refusing to remove the landline phone that sits glued to your kitchen wall.
“It serves a purpose,” he had reasoned. “Don’t kill my dream of having a rotary phone.”
And the conversation of uninstalling a 1970s landline phone from your new house was lost in the abyss of cardboard boxes and cheerios on the floor from your then beyond spunky and energetic three-year-old daughter.
So while it sticks out like an eyesore amongst your “lived-in” and perfectly curated home, you often forget it’s there... except on occasions like this when the sporadic ringing shakes your eardrums and tightens the ever-present rubberband around your temples in the worst way possible.
Bradley sits with his elbows on his knees, almost trying to muster up the strength to deal with the nuisance of the ringing phone. He sits for a second and sighs before hearing your body shift.
You smush your face into a pillow; the constant ringing making you want to tear your hair out by the second.
“Bradley!” you whine. He pats the part of your calf uncovered by your shared throw blanket with an unspoken tenderness.
“Sorry,” he timidly apologizes.
He stands up; his left knee making an impressive “crack” before swiping his phone off the coffee table on his way to the kitchen.
You turn the TV off and lie in the complete darkness of your living room. The illumination of the moonlight through the glass windowed door in your kitchen shines its way to the floor in front of your couch. You have half the mind to yell to your husband to close the blinds that line the backdoor before your voice catches in your throat.
No one ever calls the landline. Very few people even have the phone number for the landline outside of Maverick and a few close family friends. Besides, anyone who needed to reach you had your cell phone numbers anyway.
So who the actual fuck is calling your landline at 11 PM on a Thursday?
You hear Bradley yank the phone from its place on the wall and exhale with a huff. After sixteen years of being together, you know that huff is his tell of being annoyed.
“Hello?” he gruffly answers. His irritation makes the question sound more like a monotonous statement.
“Bradshaw –”
Jake Seresin is on the other end of the line. You can recognize his voice from the other room with his cadence even though you’re not on the phone with him. Having “mom ears” does that to a person, you suppose.
“Why the fuck are you calling my house at 11 PM?” Bradley snaps.
You’re wondering the same thing, but you’ll have to talk to him about being so rude and huffy. Jake may actually need something, after all.
“Well, you weren’t answering your fucking cell and neither was your wife so I had to do something.”
Bradley rolls his eyes and looks back into the darkened living room. He’s been more on edge about you lately.
“You can’t miss me that fucking much to be spamming my phone with calls,” he sighs and leans his back up against the wall. He notices the open blinds on the back door and walks to close them before he’s yanked back by the phone cord.
“Don’t cream your pants. I don’t like you that much.”
Bradley lets out a soft snort in amusement before he remembers that he’s supposed to be annoyed. He opens his mouth to ask Jake what exactly it is that’s so damn important and can’t wait until tomorrow morning when he’s beaten to it.
“I have Quincy here in the passenger seat and she’s beyond unwell.”
The statement sends Bradley into panic mode instantly. His voice catches in his throat and he can’t recall a moment he’s had where he’s felt like he’s had to force the breath out of himself like this.
He lets out something between a huff, a cough, and a wheeze before remembering he can’t make a huge show of himself right now because it’ll also throw you into panic mode.
“What the fuck do you mean she’s not well? Jake, where the fuck are you?” he whispers into the phone, trying to cover his mouth as much as possible so you can’t even read his lips if you tried. “Is she okay? What’s –”
It doesn’t take a genius to know that Bradley is panicking. Even Bradley’s beyond intoxicated and passed out seventeen-year-old daughter sitting in the passenger seat of Jake’s truck could piece together that her father is nothing but a raging ball of anxiety at the moment, and Jake is positive that his friend is growing another patch of gray hair as the seconds pass.
“Oh. . .fuck, I guess I should’ve phrased that better,” Jake admits. His truck comes to a halt at a spotlight and he glances over at his goddaughter. “She’s fine. She’s drunk as shit right now, but I’m on the way to drop her at yours.”
Bradley can feel the obnoxious orange ball of anxiety inside of him shift to a tumultuous rage-induced scarlett. His hand tightens around the phone cord and he has to stop himself before he yanks it out of the wall. He’s gotten angry like this before, but it never was angled toward his daughter.
Never toward his sweet, precious girl. Never toward his amazing Quincy.
But she knows the rules (and she chose to break them) and she knows what was told to her (and she snuck out anyway) and she knows that it’s dangerous to be that drunk (but yet she’s passed out in Jake’s truck).
And if that isn’t both nerve-wracking and frustrating, Bradley doesn’t know what is.
“Put her on the phone,” he speaks lowly.
Jake gulps, knowing that he’s in one of those moods. Bradley doesn’t express anger as often as he expresses annoyance, but an angry Bradley is never someone he wants to be around. And from the way that Quincy made it sound when she called him to come get her from some random party in the middle of nowhere thirty-five minutes away from her house at 11 PM on a school night, he knows her ass is being had tomorrow morning by both you and Bradley.
There’s absolutely no way his goddaughter is coming out of this unscathed.
“Dude, she’s obliterated right now and I think you talking to her is just gonna make it worse.”
“And I don’t give a fuck. I said, put her on the fucking phone now.”
Jake shakes his head and rolls his eyes as Quincy begins to stir next to him in her seat. He’s always been the person she’s called whenever she was in trouble. He always got the first hug whenever she was brought around. He’s always been her source of comfort outside of her parents and he’s never minded it because being around her is easy.
It was easy to carry her around whenever she asked when she was little. It was easy to give in and let her sit in the cockpit of his grounded aircraft with him and let her play with the buttons when her dad and Papa Mav refused. It was easy to pick her up from school at midday and take her to lunch. It was easy to bring her back gifts from wherever he was deployed and even easier picking them out because she’s a sucker for meaningless trinkets.
It was easy to be her godfather and she’s a smart and relatively easy kid, but Jake has never been prepared for this part.
Because doing what’s best for her is hard, and he realizes that when he can feel his friend wanting to put him through a wall over the phone.
“No,” he speaks and he can hear Bradley let out a small gasp at the denial of his request, “She fucked up bad, Bradley. I’m sure she knows and you can have it out with her tomorrow morning, but right now, she’s not in any place to be screamed at and made to feel worse. You’re her dad and m’not tryin’ to take that away from you –”
Bradley scoffs, “What exactly do you fuckin’ know about raising kids, Jake? Huh?”
Jake grimaces and decides to take the brute of Bradley’s anger. Better him than Quincy, he figures. Besides, he knows Bradley doesn’t mean any of it. . . At least he hopes he doesn’t.
“You obviously can’t be a dad because you just wanna have fun and dick around all the fucking time. Buying them fuckin’ candy and letting them off scott-free doesn’t do shit. You don’t have what it takes to raise a fucking person.”
Jake doesn’t know why, but part of him gets that prickly feeling in his chest. Usually, every insult rolls off his shoulders into oblivion and he gets off on making people angry and being able to put on the facade that he really couldn’t give a damn if he tried.
But this one hurts because he knows that Bradley is right in some regard.
He’s a runner and he lets people down. He’s nearing fifty (and God, he never thought he ever would) and has never even bothered to settle down. And he’s made peace with himself a long time ago that he doesn’t deserve a wife or a family or kids because he would never be able to love them more than he loves himself; more than he loves his career.
To hear one of your closest friends admit that to you openly, to know that someone outside of you sees it too, makes his heart stop momentarily and forces him to feel the ache of the words meant to stab him in the chest.
“I understand,” he swallows. He knows arguing with Bradley isn’t the right thing to do at the moment and never will be. “I’m still not putting her on the phone. We will be at your house shortly.”
The line goes dead and Bradley is overcome with a wave of anger that drowns him like a tsunami. He knows what he said was shitty and that he has no right to do that to someone who he considers a close friend, but he just can’t help himself.
He knows no allies when it comes to his daughter.
The sound of the plastic phone slamming into its rightful place on the wall alarms you and part of your heart hurts for Jake.
Jake has no concept of boundaries and has no limit to the absurdities that he often commits, but Jake also has the biggest heart that gets overshadowed by his equally big ego. You know the words uttered to him by your husband have knocked him down in ways Bradley isn’t the slightest bit aware of, and you start to silently cry for him because you know he won’t do it for himself.
You force yourself up from your deepened spot on the couch and waddle your way to Bradley in the kitchen. The tears streaming down your face only fuel your need to make it right and to stand up for Jake and his quietly hurt feelings.
You don’t know the full of what happened, but you heard enough to know that no one deserves to be spoken to that way. Bradley is upset (and he seemingly always has this cloud of gloom hanging over his head), but that gives him no right to be so cruel.
The mama bear feelings are only amplified by the thirty-nine-week bump on your frontside making you tilt forward more than you usually do. Jake is a big boy and you know he can handle himself and that this situation has nothing to do with you, per se, but the lack of kindness surrounding you currently is stuffy, and you’d do anything to break the barrier to actually breathe.
You try and stifle your cries and wipe your starry eyes before you approach your husband; silently cursing how cold your feet are and longing for the day when you can put your socks back on yourself independently.
He stands with his hands against the wall and his head drooped between them. It’s a look of defeat; a showcase of hopelessness and frustration mixed into a burly mess of indigo and violets from the moonlight and dark sky peeping into your kitchen windows. Despite the darkness surrounding him, you can see the pink flush on the back of Bradley’s ears that has traveled to the tops of his shoulder blades.
The anger is rampant and on the verge of explosion. Seeing your sweet Bradley like this is a sight rarer than a double rainbow. Part of you knows you shouldn’t poke the bear, but Bradley knows he shouldn’t speak to people like that. Compromising your morals is something you’ve never let yourself do and being bone tired and thirty-nine weeks pregnant is not going to change that.
Something’s gotta give, and you decide that it’s going to be you.
His head pops up the second he senses your presence. He knows that something is off with you after your lack of announcement. His home and heart had been preoccupied by two of the most chatty (and rather heavy-footed) women for the past sixteen and a half years. Silence is not welcomed in abundance in the Bradshaw household.
As if he didn’t have to suck in his sharp breath of frustration seconds prior, he turns to you and opens his arms. The darkness hides your tears and aggravation, but he knows that it stands next to you as an unwelcome visitor.
Part of you wants to indulge, but an overwhelming portion of you houses irritation that won’t let you bite.
This night was supposed to be one of peace and tranquility. You’re coming up on week three of rest allocated by your maternity leave and you finally feel like the walls in your house aren’t closing in on you. Bradley’s light load of scheduled hops and paperwork has helped with giving you company earlier in the afternoons before you have to make room for your second daughter. The way that she’s sitting on your bladder and constantly kicking your ribs in the middle of the night throws the hope that she’ll be calm and sweet out of the window and opens the door to the reality that she’ll be a carbon copy of her older sister.
“What’s wrong?” you grumble, sending Bradley a scowl. You ignore his open arms and head to the fridge. You slam the carton of orange juice down on the counter and swing open the cabinet door to grab yourself a glass.
Bradley furrows his eyebrows in confusion and lowers his arms in defeat. His feet drag him closer to you subconsciously. The thought that you moved away from him because you wanted space doesn’t cross his mind.
“Nothing,” he leans his hip against the countertop, eyes scanning the thin stream of juice being poured into the glass. His nose wrinkles as you flash your eyebrows at him. That was always his tell of hiding something.
He knows you can clock it. He just really doesn’t want to argue right now.
You take a gulp from your glass while rolling your eyes. “Don’t lie to me. I know it was Jake.”
“Doesn’t mean something is wrong.” His shoulders slump before he closes the refrigerator door. You had been extra forgetful in this stage of your pregnancy.
Your lips mouth a reflexive, “Thank you” before you huff. Being lied to was something you never appreciated; especially when you know how bad Bradley is at doing it. Besides, you know that he knows you have heard quite a bit. The pointlessness of his actions starts a kindling of rage in your belly.
“Well, that’s funny because you’re telling Jake he doesn’t know how to be a parent over the phone?”
“I didn’t say that.”
His spine straightens and his cheeks spill a baby pink hue that starts to spread to the tips of his ears. You think he looks just like your daughter even though you can’t see the fullness of his face. Your eyes start to twinkle before you remember that you’re pissed at him. The serious face holds a standstill.
“Don’t play dumb. Do I need to say the exact words for it to ring a bell? ‘You don’t have what it takes to raise a fuckin’ person.’ Seriously, Bradley? What the fuck is your problem?”
He winces at the agitation in your voice. Hearing it being said by someone other than him makes him realize how fucked up he was to say it; let alone even think about saying it to someone as dear to him and your family as Jake. Your hands heavily place the glass in the metal bottom of the kitchen sink and your heavy footsteps storm past him back to the living room.
Bradley reaches out to grab your wrist and spins you to look at him. His hands envelop yours and place them flat on his chest. He sighs before dropping his head as if he was a puppy that had just gotten scolded.
“You’re right,” his eyes scan your face but refuse to peer into your own, “I have no right to talk to people like that.”
You let him hold you as your annoyance shifts to a denotation of shocked nerves that leave your heart sprinting like crazy in your chest for air. You’ve always been somewhat easy to work up, but your nerves have been oversensitive as of late.
Penny and your mother call it your mother’s intuition maturing, but you like to call it a nuisance. Although the first baby you’ll be giving birth to will make her way earthside in a few short weeks, your first baby will always be the chunky eleven-month-old with blotchy pink cheeks and abundant sass you met on Halloween sixteen years ago.
Bradley’s steady hand rubbing soothing circles on your back does little to help you differentiate the present and the imaginary. You aren’t sure how much time has passed or if his soft caresses continue on your spine, but you’re damn sure of what your gut is telling you.
Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.
“Is she okay?” you ask him.
The words uttered make the world stop turning for the millisecond it took you to speak.
You know deep in your heart that she’s not okay; that she hasn’t been for a while. Your bright and bubbly baby turned angsty and moody Senior in high school had happened overnight, it seems. What was once excited chatter at the dinner table about school and friends and club soccer and yearbook committee soon became absent, and the sound of silence from a missing spot at the dining table with you and Bradley had become the norm.
It became extremely noticeable in the last few weeks of her Senior year; calls of truancy being made to your home phone and numerous talks about possible grounding if she didn’t get her act together becoming more and more frequent.
Her attendance sucks but her grades remain stellar, so the idea of punishing her falls flat on its face whenever it gets brought up. You both have always known how intelligent your daughter is. You just wish she didn’t know it so well to know that you and her father are bluffing.
And to be totally truthful, preparing for a new and unexpected baby hadn’t been part of the plan. You know that you’re not Quincy’s mother in any sense of the word, but you’re her mom and have been for as long as she can remember. Looking for your face in the school pick-up line and at soccer games and honor roll assemblies had always been her normal, and the fact that she had to share that with something embryonic (as she would call it) that hadn’t even graced real outside world oxygen (again, Quincy vernacular) was not something on her bingo card for her Senior year of high school.
Your absences from these things, the things that are important to her but she’s far too stubborn to admit how much they actually mean out loud, were felt this year. She was raised understanding and kind but has inherited the sensitivity of her father’s heart. You know how much this entire pregnancy has deeply hurt her, and the guilt swallows you whole.
The abyss of her unverbalized pain looms like a fog in every corner of your mind. Guilt has a funny way of turning all emotions into its twin.
“I mean, yes? But she’s in for it once she steps foot in this house,” he grumbles. The meteoric thumping of his heart in his chest soothes you, but you know that the adrenaline pumping through his veins to move the muscle at lightning speed is sourced in anger.
“So she called Jake?”
Bradley scoffs. Your face is buried in his chest, but you know his huff of annoyance was accompanied by an eye roll.
“Tried to use him as her ‘get out of jail free’ card. Knows that shit doesn’t work so I don’t even know why she did that.”
You stifle a laugh and pull back to look at him. “I’m sorry I was so mean earlier. Didn’t mean it,” you whisper and he grins. Apologies have never been your strong suit. He would argue that you’re more stubborn than your daughter and Maverick in that regard.
“I’m sorry I was such a dick. Know you don’t like when I get like that.”
There’s no need for acceptance. You have him wholeheartedly the same way he has you. Verbally accepting each other’s apologies has long been a thing of the past; especially when you feel like you share each other in ways that no one else on Earth would be able to understand; two halves of a whole – husband and wife.
Your hand lightly taps his chest before you scoot past him to return back to the living room. From the digital numbers of the oven light in the kitchen, you know that it’s nearing midnight. You and Bradley had never been “good sleepers” (and now that you’re thinking about it, neither is Quincy), but you figure that you should get as much sleep as you’re still allowed. God knows that the new baby will be all Bradshaw and will probably be the worst sleeper too.
Bradley hears your heavy footsteps trudge up to the bedroom and the soft suction of the door frame signifying that you’re about to lay down for the night. He wants nothing more than to join you and revel in the peace; remind himself to breathe and of simpler times when it was just you and him, but it had never just been you and him because it was always you and him and Quincy.
The ache in his stomach returns at the thought. He has to put himself back in the mindset to put his foot down and let his daughter know that what she had done was incredibly unacceptable.
It’s not like he’s mad at her for choosing to act her age for once.
He had always worried himself sick after parent-teacher conferences because all of her teachers would comment on how mature his daughter was, but how that maturity often caused her to isolate herself. She had always been bright but at the expense of never wanting to play imaginary games with her classmates because she didn’t see the point in “pretending.” He had always thought that it was his fault; that exposing your baby to the History Channel and retired veteran chatter at the bar during the day made her not like other kids.
And it’s not like he wanted her to be a certain way or that he was scared of her being “weird” or that she wasn’t living up the the expectation of what he thought having a kid would be like.
Bradley had just wanted her to be kind and to feel loved, and he knows from experience that it’s hard living life when you don’t feel like the former nor do you ever feel the support from the latter. He knows a life of isolation and a sharp tongue that spears a bleeding heart. The last thing he ever wanted was for his daughter to know the same.
Nevertheless, he’s still angry. Angry? Enraged? Pissed?
Disappointed.
Bradley had seen the signs as much as you have of your daughter’s downward spiral through the duration of the school year. He ignored the phone calls of truancy and let them go to voicemail and held his breath and his tongue when she answered a question he asked her a little too harshly. He ignored the attitude and the slamming of doors and the glow of her bedside lamp being on well past 2 AM most nights.
Bradley ignored all of it because confronting it and her made it real, and facing the reality that she’s growing up and will no longer need him is something that he will never be prepared to do.
He takes deep breaths and grabs his water bottle off the counter, unscrewing the top and taking colossal sips. His therapist had given him a printed list of techniques years ago to help him manage his anxiety. If he can’t control the speed of Jake’s truck driving down the interstate to his house, he can control the pace of the icy chugs sliding down his throat.
Bradley wipes his mouth with the back of his arm and places the metal water bottle down on the counter. He paces back and forth before he realizes that pacing always makes him more anxious. His feet carry him back to the living room where he sits on the edge of the couch and balances his elbows on the tops of his thighs.
All that can be heard is the subtle tick of the large wall clock hanging above the mantle and the soft buzz of cicadas in the backyard. The silence is cut in half by blinding headlights beaming their way through the curtains that line the front window and the roar of an engine.
He doesn’t jump up to unlock the door like he usually would. His thoughts are still maniacally bouncing around his skull like a ten-cent bouncy ball. Besides, he doesn’t even know if he dares to face Jake after he had spoken so horribly to him such a short time ago.
The old Bradley, the one who was still hurting and lonely with no wife or kids or family, wouldn’t have given a damn. Fuck Jake and fuck everyone else.
But this Bradley, the one who is a dad and a husband and a friend and a son, gives a damn and he gives such a big one that he feels nauseous.
The headlights flick off and the engine is killed. The silence that resumes is so instantaneous that he can almost fool himself into believing that everything is normal. That his daughter is upstairs fast asleep in her room and that her godfather is fifteen minutes away at his own house. He prays Jake won’t knock on the door and disturb it again. Jake never knocked on the door anyway, so he might luck out, he figures.
But Bradley underestimates how nervous Jake is about this whole thing and soon enough, the sound of his friend’s knuckles rapping on the dark green wood that is the entity of his front door.
He holds his breath as he opens it.
He sees Jake, twenty years older than when they finally put their past behind them and became friends, and then he sees his daughter, meek and saddened and slightly drunk.
If Bradley squints his eyes, he can still make out the little five-year-old that he once knew who thought that he put the stars in the sky and cried when she found out that Jake’s real name wasn’t Hangman.
The Leemoore sweatshirt she has on is three sizes too big and does little to make her look like a high school partygoer, so he knows she has a riskier top beneath it. There’s no doubt Jake probably made a pit stop at his house to give it to her before bringing her home.
Jake knows that Bradley hates secrets, so her sneaking out and also having a second secret wardrobe stashed beneath the floorboards under her bed would not make for a welcome guest upon her coming home after getting busted. The sweatshirt at least bought her a little time.
“Hey,” Jake speaks, finally slicing the tension with a greeting. His left arm is looped through his goddaughter’s and she leans on him heavily to prevent herself from falling.
“Hey,” Bradley says back. His face is stern. Jake knows he means business.
“I’m sure this isn’t how you wanted to see me next.” Even though Jake is kind of pissed and anxious, there still remains a glimmer of humor within him. The complaint of many ex-girlfriends had always been how he never took anything seriously (and his serious lack of commitment too, but that’s an issue for another time), and he knows that it’s a blessing and a curse.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Bradley grabs his daughter’s free arm and helps Jake maneuver her inside over the steep ledge of the front door and to the asylum of the living room couch.
Quincy’s eyes are wide open and her brain is moving in slow motion; scanning her surroundings but not being able to focus on one thing before her eyes are caught by the presence of another. She had never been drunk before in her life and the copious amounts of vomit that had spewed out of her mouth tonight discouraged her from trying to speak. Any thought of opening her mouth made the muscle memory of puking prevail.
The rational part of her brain knows that her father wants to wring her neck, but she silently prides herself on calling Jake and kind of doing the right thing (even though she knows the right thing was not sneaking out and getting fucked up on a Thursday, to begin with). Her dad will forgive her and spending time with Jake was always fun. She just vows to make sure that she’ll never puke in front of him again because he turned green at the sight of her hunched over on the side of the road.
Quincy lands on the couch with an incredible lack of grace. She bounces and almost slips off again, but sticks her foot out to help support her. Her vision is blurred before she focuses on the sight of her dad with the deepest frown on his face and his hands on his hips. Her eyes follow a horizontal line next to him and see Jake worrying his lip in between his teeth. A hiccup falls out of her mouth and she rushes to close it before her body can register a solution to the nausea plaguing her currently.
The silence between the three of them is unforgiving and she can’t remember a time where she had felt so. . .embarassed.
Here she is, about to get the scolding of her life in front of one of the adults she admires the most. All she had ever wanted was to be seen as a grown-up and it’s clear to her now that the men in front of her think anything but that.
“You got anything to say?” Bradley huffs. His glare sharpens the more he takes in his daughter’s appearance.
The silence he’s met with kindles a fire in his belly that shifts the anxiety he feels to the beginning of an obnoxious anger.
Quincy can’t answer verbally because she knows she’ll throw up. She can’t shake her head to answer him either. The room is spinning and the spiraling shadow cast by her vision will undoubtedly make her throw up too. She can’t even feel her lips and anything she has to say will not be an answer worthy of her dad’s appreciation. She fucked up big time and now she has to reap what she’s sown.
Her dad scoffs. The room inflates with tension from all three of the living room’s occupants. Quincy closes her eyes. Jake holds his breath. Bradley bawls his hand into a fist.
Here it comes.
Bradley opens his mouth; words like venom sitting on the tip of his tongue. Quincy closes her eyes and braces herself for the yelling that she knows is coming.
“Hey, let’s table it for tomorrow. Yeah?”
If Jake wasn’t already her favorite, now he certainly is.
Bradley turns to him. His cheeks are tomato red and his wrath sitting in the base of his throat. He has half the mind to come unglued on him before he remembers the pit of guilt from earlier. The putrid watery feeling of guilt dampens his vocal chords. His sentences dig a grave in his voicebox.
Jake is right.
His daughter can barely sit up straight and you’re upstairs trying to sleep. There’s no point in waking the entire house and having a one-sided screaming match with someone who will only have the faintest memory of what happened the next morning.
Bradley lets out a hefty breath of air that he hadn’t even realized he was holding in. Jake claps him on the shoulder in silent praise for his decision to drop it. Never would he have ever thought that Jake Seresin of all people would be the one discouraging him from being a total hothead.
“Thanks for bringing her home, man. Sorry about – you know –” he attempts to apologize. Apologies to you rolled off his tongue like water rolled off waterfalls. They just didn’t have that effect when it came to other people who weren’t you.
“Don’t sweat it. Wouldn’t be stickin’ around if I took half the shit you say to heart.”
It’s not funny but Bradley laughs. He doesn’t know if it’s a feeble attempt at repairing the hurt he had done earlier or if it’s to absolve some of the fury that was sitting unleashed in the room, but he’s never been more thankful for Jake in that moment.
Bradley starts to walk Jake to the front door and back out to his truck. Despite being the flashiest and cockiest person he knows, Jake has had the same car for close to twenty years. The silver F-150 had seen many drunk Bradleys and many drunk yous. He just wished that his daughter wouldn’t have been a passenger on the faux “drunk bus” too.
He’ll never admit it, but part of him is jealous that Quincy called Jake instead of him. He wants to classify the feeling as betrayal, but he knows that it’s just envy. He knows that he would’ve called Maverick at this age instead of his mom. It’s a teenage rite of passage and nothing personal.
“Look, it’s late and I know you’re pissed but she did the right thing. The party got busted, you know. And she uh – her friends were drinking, like a lot, and wanted her to get in the car with them,” Jake pauses, making sure Bradley is hearing the case of positives he’s building for Quincy, “She said no and then she called me.”
Bradley nods his head and the tension in his shoulders starts to relax bit by bit. He’s oddly comforted by his daughter’s morality despite committing the precipice of what makes up an immoral teenager to get herself in this damn situation anyway.
“Most kids don’t do that and I know she isn’t most kids so uh – don’t go too hard on her tomorrow?”
The open door of the truck makes a high-pitched dinging noise as Jake’s legs sit half situated on the seat and halfway steady on the ground. The soft yellow light emitting from the streetlights tints the world in a sepia hue.
“Can’t promise that. She’s in some serious shit.”
Jake chuckles. “Serious shit or not, that’s still your baby. She needs you more than you think, you know.”
The car door is shut and the engine is cranked. Bradley pats the hollowed metal of the truck as a “goodnight and goodbye” send-off as Jake backs out of his driveway and into the street. He watches as he rounds the corner to the stop sign before the image of his friend’s truck draws smaller and smaller and smaller until the image is microscopic.
Bradley finds his way back inside and sees his daughter lying on her side with a throw blanket swallowing her figure.
He heads into the kitchen to grab her a glass of water and some Advil to set on the coffee table. Bradley doesn’t recall being hungover so much as just sick to his fucking stomach the first time he drank, but he leaves it for her just in case. His eyes catch the bottom cabinet that houses the popcorn buckets and mixing bowls and grabs the largest one to serve as her “catch-all” puke bucket for the night.
As he settles everything and makes his journey upstairs to your shared bedroom, he hears the wet wretch of what cannot be mistaken for vomiting. His heart harbors empathy for his little girl, but his brain garners no sympathy for her. Some sick part of him is glad that she’s throwing up because it’s a consequence that he doesn’t have to impose on her. She had done it to herself.
“That’s what I thought."
He turns off the bedside lamp as he lays down next to you. You don’t stir from your deep sleep. The house is finally quiet and everything as is it should be.
Bradley just doesn’t like the fact that this kind of peace is tainted with the fact that Quincy is growing up and that there is nothing he can do to stop it.
#bradley rooster bradshaw x reader#bradley bradshaw#rooster bradshaw#rooster#bradley bradshaw x reader#bradley bradshaw fanfic#rooster x reader#rooster top gun#rooster x you#top gun#top gun maverick#miles teller#rooster bradshaw fanfic#rooster bradshaw fic#rooster bradshaw x oc#rooster fic#rooster fanfic#bradley bradshaw x oc#rooster x oc#rooster angst#dad!bradley#quincy bradshaw#the one where i rotted away in my childhood bedroom and remembered how awful being 17 was
57 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thanks for the Sub (ksj) | Chapter Four
Pairing: Camboy!Seokjin x Gamer!Reader (afab)
Rating: 18+
Word Count: 19.5k
Release date: June 11, 2024
Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, camboy au, gamer au, comedy, crack, slow burn, coworkers/boss/friends to lovers, an exploration of adults in their late 20s/early 30s
Summary: As you spend more time with Seokjin, the threads seem to be even more tangled than before. Memories of the past threaten to ruin everything that the two of you have. Are you sure this is what you really want anyway?
Chapter Warnings (Oh god bear with me in this): angst, miscommunication (sorry sorry sorry we need it for the plot), cursing, alcohol, insecurity and self doubt, sexual harassment online and offline, pet names, fat!reader (we love to see it), sexual fantasies in the form of oral sex/face riding, Seokjin gets hard like 3 times (pretend to be shocked), masturbation, references to menstruation and first time sexual fantasies/masturbation, lingerie, sex toys, boundaries & lack of boundaries, references to poorly written novels (derogatory), verbal abuse from family members, gaslighting
a/n: Hi. I know it's been a while. Thank you for your patience. This week especially has been rough as my family lost one of our pet cats unexpectedly, but I wanted to put my best foot forward and share this chapter with y'all to enjoy our Seokjin's return! I hope you enjoy this chapter and that its length will tide you over. I have a special festa treat planned with another chapter for y'all this week, and I promise it'll have been worth the wait. Enjoy! -h
SpringDay: He didn’t leave a note
Wonu15: Was he supposed to?
SpringDay: No, but…idk
Wonu15: Then why are you upset if that wasn’t in your agreement
SpringDay: IDK!!!!!! Because we talked about things? At least, a little bit? And he saw me cry and he held me.
Wonu15: But did you ask him to stay the night? Did you ask him to leave you a note?
SpringDay: No
Wonu15: Well
SpringDay: I know!!!! I get it!!!
Wonu15: Maybe you should tell him
Wonu15: That you’re in love with him
SpringDay: Fuck you
“Ugh!” You exit your chat app and toss your phone across the covers as you roll over in your bed, inhaling the pillow that now smells of Seokjin.
He was here. Last night. He held you in his lap on your bed. He moved your furniture around for you. He stayed until you fell asleep. And even after that for a bit longer. You’d felt a chill, possibly as he left the bed, and it was enough to wake you.
It was still dark, but the sun was creeping in slowly. Enough that you could see his slightly mussed hair sticking up in the back, a yawn escaping him with a sigh as he idled in the doorway, almost like he was hesitating before he left.
If you didn’t know any better, you would think you dreamed it all up, but as soon as you heard the door click shut behind him, you found yourself curling around that warm spot in your sheets and falling back asleep.
And that’s where you’ve been for most of the day, savoring the feeling of him in your bed or standing in the kitchen slightly hungover as you finished off the rest of last night’s pizza. You’ve apologized to your followers for skipping last night’s stream, promising that you’ll make up for it tonight.
Your stomach clenches a bit at the idea of an encore performance from the last time you were live. Maybe Seokjin could come over and hang around while you get started? At least for a little bit?
He probably has better things to do than hang around your place.
True. You had monopolized so much of his time last night, and it didn’t even amount to an actual stream. It’s selfish to assume he has nothing better to do than to sit around and monitor you to make sure you don’t succumb to peer pressure.
You need to be an adult and do this on your own.
With a sigh, you hoist yourself up out of bed and over to your computer. Everything you went over yesterday feels like a blur. At this point, you’re not entirely sure what you’re supposed to do. You remember he mentioned something about utilizing wishlists as a monetary solution to some of the more unhinged followers.
If they have money to spend, let them spend it. But don’t compromise your morals to do so.
Is that something he encounters often? It has to be. You wonder what streaming was like for Seokjin at first, all the ways he compromised himself for his followers. Is the dominant persona he exudes even authentic? What if he’s more submissive or even plain vanilla and just doing all this for the money?
You can’t say you’d blame him. That last stream had you feeling as though you were sitting on the blade of a knife as you debated what the extra cut of money could bring you. Your heartbeat pounds more heavily in your chest, a few beats feeling like they’re piercing into your throat.
It feels awful to know the way money has made you so powerless. And now here you are, about to force yourself onto a stream for some extra bucks in this month’s payout.
How does Seokjin do it, really? You don’t want to pressure him into talking about it. Not when you two aren’t intimate like that. But you can’t help but wonder why and how streaming, much less streaming sex, doesn’t tear him apart each time.
You wish you could ask him.
Your reminder on your phone alerts you and you groan, forcing yourself away from the desktop and into the bathroom to shower. In your hamper, you spot Seokjin’s pink button down that he’d lent you last night.
It felt like a piece of armor then, shrouding you from the chill of anxiety. Even now, as you lift it up to your nose, that comforting and fresh smell of his detergent begins to settle the sourness of your gut.
Maybe you could do this alone, after all. Just, with a little encouragement from a friend.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” someone said.
“I am not!” Another voice. A deeper one.
“You asked her if she wanted to fuck!”
“I did not! I asked if she wanted to come over and eat ramyeon! That’s all that it means!”
“No, no hyung, he’s right. That’s not at all what it means.”
Words. Seokjin was hearing them flurry around him, picking up the tail end of whatever story Namjoon was telling the group. But he wasn’t really listening. He was too tired. He had napped for about an hour in his office earlier, though it was unintentional. He was sitting at his desk, placing a produce order when he felt one of his eyelids shut. Then the other. The next thing he knew, someone was banging on the door saying the register was jammed and they needed the key.
He had left your apartment late. Right when the sun was beginning to rise. And he probably wouldn’t have even left then if it wasn’t for the fact that you finally had rolled off of him after about an hour of you sleeping heavily on his chest.
You talk in your sleep, he learned. Not a lot, but in little murmurs, usually yes or no spilling out of your mouth with ease. He was grateful for them, because otherwise he would have fallen asleep with your body slotted against him perfectly, the weight of your head and arm on him just enough to tumble him into a state of safety.
Both too late and too soon, you moved, rolled onto your other side. And then Seokjin left.
He debated leaving a note so you would know he wasn’t bailing, going so far as to find a pen and notepad from the kitchen fridge to write on, but then he knocked sense into himself. Notes were for people who left after hookups when unsure whether or not they were welcome to stay the whole night. You’d invited him over, sure, but as friends. You would have of course expected him to leave after you fell asleep, as that was the agreement. Right?
Seokjin had danced around your living room for ten minutes, pacing back and forth, looking like a crazy detective searching for clues. What would he even say in it? If he left one would you think that he’d expected you guys to have sex?
So he didn’t, he tossed the notepad on the side table as he grabbed his things, aware now that his button down had gone missing since you changed into your pajamas, but he didn’t have time to look for it, and didn’t want to further snoop through your stuff to reclaim it.
By the time he left, the sun was up, and he had just enough time to rush the few blocks to work. Besides that nap, he hadn’t slept at all last night.
And now he was on Jungkook and Taehyung’s couch, a beer magically in his hand that he didn’t remember getting while his friends apparently talked about…ramyeon?
“–clearly your fault you choose to pretend you’re so old and stay out of touch. Seokjin-hyung knows what that means, don’t you hyung?”
Who was talking to him? He grunted, hoping whoever it was would let that be enough of an answer.
“Hyung?” Jungkook. That’s who was talking to him.
Seokjin blinked. His contacts felt like sandpaper in his eyes.
“Don’t bother with him. He hasn’t had a single sip of that beer since he got here and has been zoned out staring at that wall for about thirty minutes,” Yoongi said, moving from Seokjin’s periphery into full view.
“Are you okay?” Namjoon asked gently, clearly concerned but also possibly using this moment to help redirect whatever teasing he was facing.
“Just tired,” Seokjin responded.
“Oh yeah, you had to work today. And you were at Y/N’s to help her with her stream last night, right? How did that go by the way?” Jimin asked.
“What stream?” Seokjin asked, confused. And then he remembered. That was the whole point he had gone over there in the first place.
“Um, you know, the one that you went to her place for?” Jimin’s eyebrows knit together. The rest of the group craned their heads in Seokjin’s direction, curious.
“She, um, she didn’t end up streaming.”
“Then, what time did you leave?” A broken, awkward silence fell over his friends as Seokjin shifted in his seat.
It suddenly felt oppressively warm in here, and heat creeped up his neck as he tried to string words together.
“I think like…7?”
“So you got there, only to turn around and leave? So why didn’t you sleep last night? You look like shit,” Taehyung added unhelpfully.
Yoongi rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Is everyone really this clueless today or are you all fucking with me?”
He pushed himself up from the beat-up leather armchair, his usual space during their hangouts and sauntered over to the small bar Taehyung and Jungkook had right off the dining area. He took his time, uncapping the bottle of whiskey Seokjin presumed they kept mostly for Yoongi’s benefit, and filled one of the highball glasses left out for him.
Once Yoongi started drinking whiskey, everyone knew to prepare themselves for an evening of his contemplative and sometimes unfiltered ranting. This was when his self-proclaimed ADHD seemed to shine best.
“Honestly, you guys still don’t see it do you.”
“See what exactly?” Seokjin asked, finally awake enough to formulate sentences.
Yoongi studied his glass for a moment and in a final decision plucked the entire bottle from the bar and brought it back to his group of friends. He groaned as he sat back in the chair, like it was painful to do so on his bones, like he was the age of Seokjin's father and not merely thirty.
Yoongi knocked back his first glass of the whiskey, smacking his lips afterward.
In the corner of his eye, Seokjin saw Jimin roll his in annoyance.
“Can we get to the point?” He asked.
Yoongi shot him a look, and then placed the glass down on the coffee table.
“First of all, Taehyung-ah, he didn’t leave early. Hyung here left late. As in this morning. He was obviously out all night.”
Namjoon snorted. “Hyung, this isn’t a detective drama. We all kind of figured.”
“I didn’t,” Taehyung objected.
“We know,” Namjoon chuckled and turned his attention back to Yoongi. “Ok, oh wise one, what is it that we all seem to be missing?”
Yoongi pouted, but he recovered his dramatic flair. It was something everyone knew to give him the space to perform, the odd pause in his quiet nature usually a sign that he needed attention and didn’t know how to ask.
“Well, when you put it that way, maybe I won’t say.” A slight smirk cracked through Yoongi’s façade.
“Did you guys sleep together or something?” Hoseok blurted, which had an immediate rush of blood to Seokjin’s head as he flooded with embarrassment.
“No! God, no we didn’t!” He didn’t want to mention that yes, technically you slept with him, just not in that way.
“Pfft, relax. Of course he didn’t. You think this guy will be looking all mopey after he finally gets laid again? No, he’s going to have that stupid dopey grin he always had with…you know,” Yoongi recovered the attention of the room, Soon Yi’s name unsaid but stirring a bit of unease among his friends. Yoongi and her had been particularly close during the period of Seokjin and her dating, having been his roommate for quite some time. He’d learned to weave his life around Soon Yi’s presence, over time warming up to her during the days he returned from class to find her studying on Seokjin’s bed and waiting for him to come home. Since the breakup, he’s always refused to say her name.
“Ah, the dopey grin, I almost forgot about that.” Jimin’s warm voice filled in the gaps where Yoongi’s sudden coldness cast, sitting himself on the edge of the leather armchair as he plucked the glass of whiskey Yoongi had just poured from his hands and gulped it down.
Yoongi glared at Jimin, but it faded quickly as Jimin winked back at him. He was clearly trying to lighten the mood, and Yoongi took the bait, softening back into Jimin’s outreached arm that began rubbing circles down his back.
“I’m right here,” Seokjin said lamely, but his friends ignored him. He put the beer up to his lips and let it flood into his mouth. It was warm. Gross.
“Do you think he’s going to start doing that thing again where he’s late for everything because he’s too busy having sex with Y/N all the time to manage his time better? Because that was annoying,” Jungkook complained.
Seokjin spluttered, choking on the beer. “Wh-what?!”
Everyone laughed, including Namjoon, who gave Seokjin a sympathetic look. “I think now that he streams all the time, his time management skills have improved.”
“Besides, it seemed more like it was Soon Yi who was causing that issue. She was chronically late for everything. Is Y/N late for things?” Hoseok added.
Seokjin blinked. How did this conversation even get to this point?
“What the fuck is going on?” He asked, exasperated.
Yoongi chuckled, stepping back into his guiding elder persona with ease. “You’re down bad for Y/N, obviously. We are just trying to be supportive.”
“I am not!” He argued, the heat of embarrassment now turning into anger.
“You are too,” Taehyung argued. “I’ve seen you at work with her a few times. You are always staring at her like she’s the most delicious thing you’d ever eat. You want her so bad, hyung.”
Seokjin glared at Taehyung. “Just because I look at her sometimes doesn’t mean I am in love with her.”
“Okay Namjoon, I take it back. You’re not a fucking idiot. Or maybe you still are, but Jin-hyung takes the cake as the biggest fucking idiot here.” Hoseok said, a humorless laugh flying from his chest. “Wow. No one said you’re in love with her.”
Seokjin’s face flushed.
“Aww, don’t be embarrassed hyung!”
“Yeah, you don’t have to tell us all your secrets.”
“Did you have sex though?”
“Taehyung-ah!”
“What? You’re the one who asked in the first place!”
“So?”
“So, I know you’re curious too. I want to know which one of his porn star moves he pulled out of hiding. Did he Full Nelson her or was it purely missionary? Nah, nah, he’s too dirty for that. Hyung, did you Full Nelson her?”
“Wait, what’s a Full Nelson?”
“It’s a wrestling move,” Namjoon said.
“It’s a sex thing!”
“No. You’re making that up!”
“Hyung, is that a sex thing?”
“Yah! Shut up!” Yoongi said, and four pairs of eyebrows shot up as Namjoon, Hoseok, Taehyung, and Jungkook broke away from their conversation to come back down to Earth.
Seokjin’s hands were sweaty and he jostled his leg anxiously as his friends composed themselves.
“Sorry,” Taehyung mumbled.
Jimin sighed, finally pulling his hand away from Yoongi’s back.
“Maybe we should let Seokjin-hyung speak,” he suggested, gesturing to his anxious friend.
Everyone nodded sheepishly.
Seokjin took a deep breath, not even sure where to begin.
“Well, I…First of all, Y/N and I really didn’t have sex. She had a panic attack over the possibility of me being gay for some reason. Er, well not me being gay but asking the question. And that seemed to be something for her that opened the floodgates to an entire larger panic attack. So, after I cooked us jeon, we just kinda hung out and ditched the idea of the stream. And then, she did fall asleep on me for a bit.”
The memory of you this morning flooded his thoughts, how your hair skimming across his arms as you shifted your head gave him goosebumps. Or that your scent had invaded his clothes, his nose, so much so that he could just picture you and the soft, sweet smell would manifest around him.
“Oh, oh hyung.”
“Don’t look at me like that!” Seokjin shrieked as Jimin frowned.
His friends all sat quietly, sipping their drinks. Taehyung awkwardly stood up, stating he needed to use the bathroom before he exited the room.
“When did it start getting this serious for you?” Namjoon asked.
Seokjin’s eyebrows knit together. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We aren’t serious. We aren’t even together.”
“He means when did you start having feelings for her hyung? I know we said that none of us were accusing you of being in love with her, but are you sure that it’s just about sex, or friendship, or whatever it is you keep saying it is?”
Love. That word felt like fire in his brain. He couldn’t possibly love you. Not when he barely knew you. Not when he only just stood in your apartment for the first time, saw you asleep on him. What Seokjin knew about love was something faded and dusty, shoved under his bed in an old shoebox and hard to name. It had been so long since he felt the early feelings of life with Soon Yi.
Soon Yi. That was love, wasn’t it? The hot poker of constant chaos, being whisked away from one thing to another with pleasure and delight. Wasn’t that supposed to be what love was? He remembered ripping apart magazines with her in her dorm room to make a large collage that she created from top to bottom. All the colors swirling around them as they shredded page after page and refit together. Things clashed, patterns divided themselves into a kaleidoscope around her room. That was how Soon Yi was. A kaleidoscope of every color Seokjin had ever thought imaginable.
And she was like that for him too, when she laid underneath him that night, her body wrapped around his in every way imaginable, thrown from the bed to the floor as they christened every surface of that space imaginable.
With you, things weren’t able to be defined by colors. Instead, all Seokjin knew was that the heaviness and the intensity of first love wasn’t at all how he experienced you. No, you were like a fire that ignited in him, and he knew it. Scorched away every faded bit of that box under the bed and licked your flame along every part of him.
The way he so easily complied with you last night, despite the fact that he knew it would be bad for you both to be so close. Letting you lie on him while he sat there hard just by breathing in your sweetness. How his body responded like this was some first love despite the fact that it wasn’t, and he found himself changing the rules of his life every single time a sigh left your lips. That couldn’t be love, only fascination, only primal, sexual curiosity.
He’d admit his crush, but love? There was no way this could be it.
“No,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m…I’m not in love with her.”
“But–” Jungkook began, but Jimin silenced him with a look.
“No,” he repeated. “I’m not in love with her. I have a crush. And we’re friends. And yeah, I am really really ‘down bad’ for her like Yoongi said. But it’s not like that.”
Jungkook rubbed his eyes with the back of his fists, sighing in clear frustration.
“Alright, hyung,” Jimin said gently. “Alright.”
Just then, Seokjin’s phone pinged, and his heart plunged right into his stomach.
You were live? Now? Without him there?
That wasn’t in your agreement anyway. You agreed to help her stream. You helped her. Now she doesn’t need you.
That little bit of knowledge felt like a twisted knife, but he ignored it anyway, rapidly tapping the alert on his phone that led him to the app.
“What’s that about?” Hoseok asked.
His other friends repeated the question, filling the room with a hum of curiosity.
“Shut up!” he snapped, clicking the side button to turn up the volume.
“–and yeah sorry about not streaming last night. Time kind of slipped away from me. But I plan on making it up to you guys, I promise.” Your voice echoed throughout the living room, hushing Seokjin’s friends as they hunched forward to see what was the cause of his sudden irritation.
“Is that…?” Yoongi began.
“Yes,” Taehyung said as he waltzed back into the room, patting his damp hands on the back of his pants. “That’s her.”
“Oh, oh okay I get it now,” Namjoon said. “Leave it to hyung to be down bad for someone who dresses just like him.”
What? Seokjin squinted at the screen, taking in your appearance: your hair was loosely curled around your face, some juicy pink lip gloss that he knew tasted like strawberries (he’d smelled it on you before) glazing your mouth, and a black lace bustier that was barely being covered by a pink linen button down was peeking out. One that looked exactly like the one he was wearing last night.
“Because that is my shirt,” he replied, dazed.
“What?” Jimin said, hurling himself across the coffee table and yanking the phone from Seokjin’s hands.
Jungkook followed behind Jimin, resting his chin on his friend’s shoulder as he squinted at you on the screen. “Can we make it any bigger? I can’t see shit from here.”
“No!” Seokjin protested, but it was clear he wouldn’t win this argument.
“Wait, why does she have your shirt?” Yoongi asked as Jimin and Jungkook fumbled with the television setup to cast the stream.
Seokjin glared at his friend. Hoseok laughed, sliding into the spot next to him and offering him some shrimp chips.
“Who cares? The better question is why is she wearing it on her live stream over her lingerie?”
“Ah, true.”
Yoongi turned to Seokjin expectantly, like he would somehow know the reason. Honestly, he wondered the same.
You weren’t ready for this. You two had barely covered the basics yesterday. Why were you streaming when the arrangement was between the two of you to do this together? Did you just not want his help anymore? Or did all the talking and your panic attack yesterday make you rethink things?
What if you had really wanted him to leave last night or your emotions got the best of you and you regretted everything? Seokjin could feel the spiral of his thoughts starting to unwind as he tried to figure out what the explanation for this stream was.
“A-ha! Ok, we got it,” Jimin said as he clicked through the series of menu permissions to cast a larger version of you onto the screen.
You were reading your comments, lightly gnawing on your lip. Nerves, he realized.
“Oh, uh, yeah, we can play the same game as last time. We didn’t quite finish, did we?” You said, rolling your neck and flexing your shoulders. As you did, your breasts thrust further toward the camera, plush skin Seokjin dreamt of shoving his face into so many times now fully on display for all his friends.
“Oh, fuck,” Jungkook said from somewhere in the room. Seokjin had no clue. He couldn’t break his gaze as you giggled at something in your comments. He felt heat head south from his face.
“Jesus hyung.” Hoseok said. “I don’t know how you get through a workday with her without getting hard.”
“He doesn’t,” Taehyung added unhelpfully.
He heard the air behind him shift, before a soft thwack and Taehyung’s responding groan informed him that someone had thrown a pillow at him.
“Okay, so new rules,” you said.“From now on, if any of you say something super perverted, you’ll be unable to comment until the next stream. I’ll have my mods ban you from commenting. The only way you can get on my good side again and get yourself unbanned during a stream is if you fulfill something off of my wish list I added. You can type #springwishes and see all I’ve put on there. Sound good?” You smirked at your camera, a little bite of confidence spreading through you.
Seokjin’s chest clenched, a tiny bit of relief washing over him as he saw you get your bearings, the comments spamming that hashtag for the link to your wishlist, which he’d advised you to make as a form of incentive and distraction during moments when you felt overwhelmed. If people were getting into deep waters with a topic, you could always redirect to the wishlist, making it more of a prize for your viewers to partake in versus punishment.
“Alright, so let’s do this,” you said. “Game on.”
Maybe he was overreacting. In the last hour he and his friends spent intently watching your stream, you seemed to navigate your chat a little more with ease, or at least with redirection.
Yoongi had nodded off in his chair despite the earth-shattering moans your game was crying out as you tripped different combos. You were getting better at the game, and as you finished another level that gave you the prize of some more very not safe for work photos by your “girls”, a heavy yawn escaped through your lips.
Maybe you didn’t need his help after all. For what it’s worth, you seemed to be settling in comfortably to your performance aspect of the role, sometimes twirling bits of hair in your fingers, earning yourself half a dozen new subs and a few new things from your wishlist.
“Wow, we’re making good progress,” you said, reaching for your water bottle and pouting at your screen as you sipped from the straw.
The comments had become more mild during the game when you were fully immersed. Seokjin had been monitoring them closely, seeing your mod Wonwoo diligently screening spam out of the comments.
But now that your attention had shifted, they were being flooded once more with people vying for your attention.
Str3amballzak: Wanna fuk those tits
(Str3amballzak has been banned from the chat room)
Lickemup: sit on my face
(Lickemup has been banned from the chat room)
“And so it begins,” you said sarcastically, sipping more water from your straw as you switched your camera view to just you instead of the game.
(Str3amballzak has fulfilled wish list item number 7: new streaming headphones)
Str3amballzak: worth it
“You guys are working hard at getting yourself permanently banned,” you said, rolling your eyes. “But thanks I guess.”
Str3amballzak: ur welcome baby
Str3amballzak: ever do private streams?
“No, I don’t do private streams Mr. Ball Sack. Or Ball Zak? Anyway, do you want to go in time out again?”
Str3amballzak: fine ill behave.
Str3amballzak: daddy just wants to spoil u
Str3amballzak: u should put some other toys on that wish list ;)
Heat flooded Seokjin’s face as he read the chat messages fluttering by. This was going south quickly.
“Not your baby,” you said with a scoff. “And no thanks daddy. I’m good.”
“God, these dudes are gross. Is this the same kind of comments you get, Seokjin-hyung?” Jungkook asked.
“At first, kind of. But not much anymore. On occasion someone will try to dom me from the chat, but there’s a tip feature for that,’ he responded, eyebrows furrowed as he studied your face for any discomfort. Annoyance, sure, but you could handle that. His hands still hovered over his phone, ready to intervene in a moment’s notice.
(Lickemup has fulfilled wishlist item number 3: electric kettle)
Lickemup: something to keep you warm if it’s not my tongue in your pussy
(Lickemup has been banned from the chat room)
(Lickemup has fulfilled wishlist item number 0: mystery gift)
Lickemup: loophole?
“Oh,” you said, eyes going wide. “I…I didn’t know that was an option.”
Seokjin didn’t either. And he certainly didn’t know what a “mystery gift” was. What he did know was that this wishlist would mail you anything without giving away your address. But that meant it could be anything.
Uh oh.
User27271: wanna cum on your face
(User27271 has been banned from the chatroom)
(User27271 has fulfilled wish list item number 0: mystery gift)
User27271: hope you like pet play
(User27271 has been banned from the chat room)
User8008s: stroking my dick to your pretty face rn
(User8008s has been banned from the chatroom)
(User8008s has fulfilled wish list item number 0: mystery gift)
User8008s: 💦
“Jesus Christ, guys,” you said weakly as the chaos of the loophole began to take over your chat, dozens more accounts flooding the comments to do the work around, plunging into the raunchiest of comments before being banned, then fulfilling some mystery gift before being banned again, this time for good. Seokjin looked at the view counter in the corner. It was rising exponentially.
He could see how quickly your control was leaving you, the glassiness of your eyes and shakiness of your voice as you fought to reel in your chat leading you toward the verge of a breakdown.
“Is there any way to turn that feature off?” Jungkook asked helplessly, his eyes wide as another onslaught of cyber attacks began.
“I don’t know, I didn’t even know it had this option,” Seokjin said, his voice tight as he helplessly watched you begin to shrink away from the spotlight he had spent hours with you yesterday practicing to do the exact opposite in.
You pulled the shirt tighter across your body, and that seemed to spring him into action: you there in his shirt, this chaotic chat undoing the work you’d done in a matter of minutes. Fuck those people.
“There has to be something we can do,” Jimin said, and Namjoon whipped out his phone, searching up the parameters of the wish list site you had used.
“Tell her to just have her mods turn the entire feature off in the meantime,” Hoseok said, tapping his foot anxiously.
Seokjin nodded, typing the message into the chat box.
JokeJinSeokjin: Turn off your the gifting feature
But his comment was lost in the slew of the chat. He knew there was no way you would see it.
“She definitely isn’t going to see that!” Taehyung groaned.
“Call her, hyung. You have her number,” Yoongi said, his voice gravelly from just waking up.
Right, a phone call. He could do that.
Seokjin opened his contact list and dialed your number. He knew you kept your phone on silent during your stream, but in a moment of luck, you looked down, where he assumed your phone was at and hastily pressed the accept call button.
“Hello?” Your voice sounded like a wild echo through the TV; the sound delay was just enough to warp you.
Seokjin stood and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t even bother turning on the light, something about the isolation away from his friends and the darkness feeling like a comfort, like you two were in your own little world and not being put on blast in front of thousands.
“Turn off your chat commands. Now,” he ordered.
“Oh, uh, I don’t know how,” you said, then groaned. “Guys please I don’t want any of this. Get it the fuck together.” You paused. “What do you mean who am I talking to on the phone? It’s none of your goddamn business.”
“Y/N,” Seokjin warned. You needed to stop engaging.
“I know! I know, okay?” you snapped, and Seokjin nodded, even though you couldn’t see him. You took a shaky breath after a moment. “Are you watching?”
“I was but I needed my phone to call you so I’m not right now. Why? Is something happening?”
“No it’s just–never mind. I have set myself on away and muted so I can unlink this option. Wonwoo is turning off the chat completely for me.”
“Good,” he responded and opened a browser window, typing in his query. “Okay I looked it up and you need to click the right toggle in your stream settings and scroll down until you see ‘outside links’ and then–”
“Slower, please!” You said exasperated.
“You can always turn the whole stream off,” he said gently and you huffed in response.
You paused for a beat. “I don’t want to. I was fine before this whole thing started. I want to do this.” You sounded like you were on the verge of crying. He knew this meant a lot to you. So much of the first few stream’s success determines your future. He knew this. Saw it happen in his own online presence. If you lost a lot of followers tonight, you’d probably not regain them. And then your payout at the end of the month would be a fraction of what you were receiving.
“Okay. Yes. Then let’s take a deep breath,” he said, taking a deep breath of his own for you to follow. He heard the soft inhale through the receiver, and smirked.
“Now let’s get you all set up. See that toggle on the right?”
You hummed a response. “I think so.”
“Okay, now go down. You see the external link options?”
A pause. “Can’t you just do it for me?” You whined and Seokjin laughed.
“I could but I’m across town at a friend’s house. It would be easy if you do it yourself.”
He wanted to kick himself for saying that. Because he would be out the door in a heartbeat, would Uber or sprint toward you. But by the time he got there, it would be too late. Too much chaos was happening at once, and this needed to stop now.
“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to keep you—“
Seokjin clicked his tongue. “None of that, now. Focus.”
If he did show up at your house to help, he also knows what would happen next. After the momentary panic was over, you would be pissed that you didn’t handle things on your own. At work, however big the mess, you were always insistent on doing it yourself. Here was no exception.
After a few clicks he heard a gasp. “Got it!”
“Good job, princess. You did well.”
“Oh…thank you. Not without your help though,” you said meekly.
He knew you were running out of time. In a few minutes, you’d be back to kick ass in your stream, and life would go on. So he chose his next few words carefully.
“I thought you wanted me to be there for your first stream.”
“I..well…I did, but I felt guilty and like I had to stream tonight. I didn’t want to bother you, but it looks like I did that anyway, huh?”
“You’re not bothering me, ever. You asked for my help with this.”
“And you did! You helped so much.”
An awkward silence fell between you two as Seokjin thought. He exhaled roughly.
“So, what now? Are you just trying to get rid of me or something? Did I do something wrong?” His voice shook, the hurt he tried to conceal penetrated through the evenness of his tone.
“No! No it’s not like that,” you said quickly. “I just, I feel like I had to.”
“Had to what?”
“Stream. I felt bad and like I owed it to them today.”
“Why?”
“I…I don’t know really,” you said softly. “Because I’m desperate for the cash. And that sounds awful I know. But I want to make sure that when summer term comes around, I am ready for it financially. And my parents have been calling me a lot and I just…I’m sorry. Are you mad at me?”
He could hear the edge of your voice as you got more worked up, your last word cracking slightly like you were trying not to cry.
“No, no I’m not mad, Y/N.”
“Are you sure? Because I know you are helping and you already are spending time with me and it’s not like you don’t have other things to take care of! Like you had to work this morning and I got a text from Mino saying he caught you asleep in your office snoring. I didn’t tell him it was because of me, but god, if I could get this shit together, your services wouldn’t be necessary.”
“I’m not mad. Really, I think you’re trying to find reasons for me to be mad at you but I’m not. And don’t worry about my sleep schedule. It was one night out. I’m not that old for one night not sleeping in my bed to ruin my entire life.”
You hummed in response.
“Listen, Y/N, I chose to stay out all night knowing I had to open today. You might be persuasive but you aren’t that good to manipulate me into anything. I was there because I wanted to be there. Okay?”
You hummed again.
“I need some kind of verbal acknowledgement other than ‘hmm’.”
“Sorry. Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I was listening!”
“I know you were, that’s not why I’m asking.”
You sighed. “Fine, okay I am not manipulating you. You wanted to be here.” You paused. “Seokjin?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know if I can go back.. Like, what do I do? I’ve already been gone for ten minutes and Wonwoo is blowing up my texts and…” Your voice broke, and he could hear the quiet sound of you crying.
“Hey, breathe, princess. It’s okay. You can always just turn your computer off. The people watching were assholes.”
“Not all of them,” you muttered back. “God what is wrong with me?”
Seokjin turned on the light to the bathroom. His clothes were crumpled, heavy circles under his puffy eyes and disheveled hair making him look like some washed up finance guy. Honestly, he looked a lot like how he used to back when he did work in finance.
“Nothing is wrong with you, and you know it. You’re perfect. A mess, and really bad at remembering to put the pickled radishes back in the fridge when you’re done with them, but that’s still pretty great all things considered.”
He heard a chuckle on the other end. “Yeah, I’m such a winner. Ugh, I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Let me help, then,” he offered.
You took a deep breath. “Okay, what do I do?”
He chuckled. “I’m not going to decide that for you. That’s something you need to figure out. But, I’ll give you a few options. First, you can just shut your computer down completely and not apologize, not explain yourself. Your chat and any good subscribers that you actually want to have around will understand. You’re forgetting that there were thousands of people watching, and the loudest ones were the trolls, but they weren’t the only ones there.
“The other option,” Seokjin cleared his throat. “Is that you can go back out there, finish the stream, leave your comments off, and do what you want to do. I can’t guarantee it’ll be as lucrative but you will at least won’t be engaging with those idiots anyway.”
He let you mull it over, opening the medicine cabinet and rifling through his friends’ things. Eyedrops, god, his eyes were on fire from these contact lenses. He had a pair of glasses in his work bag, but they were a little old and frankly kind of stupid looking.
“Okay, I think…I think I want to try again. And like you said, I’ll keep the comments off this time.”
“That’s my girl,” Seokjin sighed as he squirted some solution into his burning eyes. Then he paused. “I mean, uh, you know. Good job.”
You chuckled on the other end. God he really needed to monitor himself better. Something about his conversations with you were becoming less careful by the hour.
“Thanks, I know what you meant. And thank you again.”
You paused again. “Is there something wrong, Y/N?” Seokjin asked.
“Well, it’s just. I want to do this, I do. But I’m not. God I don’t know, it's like I’m frozen in place. I just feel like there’s so many things I need you to show me before I get good at this.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. How to be sexy without ruining my career, how to just dust everything off and get back out there. That’s what you do all the time! With uh, with work and everything.”
Seokjin chuckled a little. Dusting things off was hardly something he was good at, but he did know how important it was to get back out there. He wasn’t quite sure what you’d meant in relation to work since that wasn’t really a space for it, but that wasn’t his focus. Instead it was on something else.
“You…think I’m sexy?”
“Oh, uh…yeah duh. Don’t let it go to your head though, everyone thinks that.”
Seokjin could think of quite a few people who didn’t think that, actually.
“Fine, fine, I’ll let it slide. And you’re right, it is important to just dust things off and move on. But that’s just one thing that I want to show you. There’s so many other things for you to learn.”
So many things. He felt proud knowing that you were doing this on your own, even after this hiccup; it meant that you were doing exactly what he’d tried to teach you yesterday. Even if you faltered once. It was impressive. And he couldn’t help but think of how much you were going to grow from this experience, how many doors it opened up for you, for both of you to forge a stronger connection. He wanted to show you all sorts of things, not just with streaming, but with him. How after seeing your apartment and couch with a dent in it, he wanted you to create a dent in his couch as you read books from your collection. Or that even in his large chef’s kitchen he had in his luxury apartment, he could stand side-by-side next to you prepping more carrots for other foods.
Maybe cake this time. And when you inevitably spilled ingredients all over the place like you did at work, globs of cream cheese frosting on your cheeks, he’d laugh and find it endearing as you always were, and try not to think about your tongue doing more naughty things to him as you lick it off of your fingers. How you clearly had a little stubborn bratty streak in you that liked to tease and tempt him, and without a doubt you would spend an extra long and thorough job making sure he had a front row seat to you sucking your fingers into your mouth. Just like how you knew you were sitting in that apartment of yours right now, his pink shirt wrapping around your large perfect tits. What were you wearing on the bottom of that ensemble, even? That bustier that was so goddamn tantalizing. Did it have matching panties? Were you wearing those too? He knew you well enough to know you were probably wearing some kind of jogger bottom since people didn’t get to see your fantastic ass in the camera view.
Good. That was something Seokjin didn’t have to feel jealous of. They could get their fill of your breasts on this stream, but he knew what that soft tummy looked like, how those strong, thick thighs looked in leggings and joggers and most recently, tiny pajama shorts. Thinking back to last night, the way those hiked up your thighs to your little panty line, how soft the skin looked. Would your thighs be just as soft if they were straddling his head? He could only imagine how delicious they would look after he left little nip-marks on them, suckling the flesh just enough to hear your breathing increase, to get you shifting all needy and antsy as you got more needy and impatient. Just as he would want you so that you would rub that wet pussy right on his face and–
“Are you still there?” you said, and Seokjin’s breath caught in his chest, causing him to cough.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” he rasped. He heard you chuckle low in response, and fuck. Something about how sexy your voice sounded had his cock throbbing. “I got, uh, distracted. What did you say?”
“Oh….uh, never mind.” You paused. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but your voice flooded through the receiver again. “I don’t want to take you away from your friends any longer. I think I’ve got things for now, but thank you again.”
His heart sank with disappointment that absolutely should not have been there. “Ah, right. Of course. Well, then I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Um, on second thought,” you said suddenly, and his ears pricked up. “Do you…do you think you could come by just in case things get out of hand again? Do you want to? If not it’s okay but––”
“I’ll be over in thirty minutes,” he said eagerly.
Seokjin was already throwing open the bathroom door and barreling down the hall, his friends all shifting from the TV where your away message was cast and onto him. Jimin’s eyebrows raised in question. Taehyung grinned at his friend devilishly, winking and nudging Jungkook.
“Okay,” you breathed, relieved. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Mhmm. See you soon.” Your voice sounded lower, huskier. If there was any ability to think anymore, he would think you were trying to sound sexy and flirty.
“Yes, okay. See you.” As he hung up, Seokjin felt himself smiling at his phone, his heart feeling a bit fuller, more awake.
“I’m uh, I’m going to go over there. There’s some stuff she wants me to keep an eye on,” he announced.
He looked over at his friends. Namjoon attempted some form of polite nodding and understanding, but it quickly broke as everyone else erupted into laughter.
“Yah! What is it now? Were you guys eavesdropping or something?”
“We were,” Yoongi said between breaths, “but it wasn’t like you were having a particularly interesting conversation.” He dabbed tears from his eyes.
“Except the part where you called her princess. Phew you’re whipped.” Hoseok added.
Seokjin rolled his eyes, reaching down into the couch to find his keys that had been eaten by the cushion upon his arrival. “It just slipped out.”
“Yeah, well, you might want to take a breather before you head out, hyung.” Jungkook avoided eye contact with Seokjin, a blush rushing to his cheeks.
“And why is that?” Seokjin asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Because your Big Dick Daddy boner is so incredibly obvious right now that I’m not sure it’ll be you keeping an eye on Y/N when it’s more likely she’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
Seokjin looked down and as if on cue, his dick twitched. He tried to adjust himself. His friends roared around him, even Jimin trading his careful composure in for hilarity as he threw himself to the floor.
“Fuck you guys.” Seokjin said as he headed toward the door.
“Not us, but maybe you tonight!” Taehyung called. “I’m sure Y/N will be singing ‘Hey Daddy’ when you walk in!”
Seokjin was already out the door, but he could hear the first few bars of the Usher song playing, and despite himself, he smiled.
When Seokjin arrives, you have already explained to your chat that if they want to have any privileges at all, they’ll stop being asshats. That is a boundary you can more easily create, something less wavering than the control needed to essentially domme your chat.
You’re not a domme. Not even close.
“Be right back,” you say to your screen, kicking on the away message. You glance at your phone. Only about twenty minutes left until you’re ready to end things. Hopefully not too long to make Seokjin wait.
“Hey,” you say, opening the door. His dark hair is disheveled, bags under his eyes. He looks like hell. You fight the urge to immediately turn him around and send him back home.
He’s tired but his smile is still adorable and wide as he steps into the door of your apartment, discarding his shoes.
“Hi,” he says softly.
“Thanks for coming. I’m going to wrap my stream up soon, but I was thinking maybe we could debrief after?”
He nods and plops himself down on your couch like he’s been here dozens of times before, not just once.
“Yeah, of course. I’ll just be in here if you need me.”
“Are you going to watch the stream?” You ask, suddenly feeling self conscious. It’s one thing if Seokjin watches your stream when you’re not there, but the idea of him seeing you in lingerie and playing some sexy game is kind of intimate.
You in lingerie and his fucking shirt, that is.
“Well, I thought about it. It’s probably the only way I can really understand what’s going on in case you need me. I’ve brought my earbuds so you don’t get feedback from the other room or have to hear your own voice delayed. So we should be good.”
The idea of earbuds does sound a little bit more practical and distancing.
“Okay, yeah. Oh, and um, about your shirt…” Seokjin looks down from your face, scanning your body with his eyes. You feel heat lick over the places his gaze follows, down your collar bone and the curve of your hips and back up to the swell of your breasts that spill over your bustier. This is where his stare hovers for a moment, and it’s almost maddening, like he’s undressing you with his eyes. It stirs something deep in your core, pricking your nipples a bit to start becoming hard. The lace of the bustier is too thick and it’s lined to avoid exposing anything, but it doesn’t matter.
Seokjin is looking at you like he wants to eat you, and it’s turning you on impossibly fast.
“Keep it,” he offers after a moment, his eyes flitting away from your chest. His ears are turning slightly red. “It looks good on you.”
“Thank you.” It’s all you can offer in response. You clasp your hands together in front of you, the soft linen of his shirt skirting around your naked thighs. The shorts you wore to bed last night were all you could find to throw on with this getup that were clean and comfortable enough for a few hours of streaming. They’re a bit too short, but you figured no one on stream would see them.
You didn’t really consider that Seokjin would see them again, or really ever, and now you’re realizing how much skin you are showing.
“I’ll uh, get back to it I guess,” you say and Seokjin nods, now appearing more engrossed in setting up his phone with the stream than talking to you about it or paying attention to what you’re wearing, or the lack of it.
You scoot off to your room, shutting the door quietly behind you and sinking down into your chair.
You hit the settings for the away message to turn off and unmute.
“Alright, we are winding down for the night. Thanks to everyone who stayed with me to the end, I appreciate it.”
Your comment section responds in kind, with thanks for you continuing to stream through the chaos.
“Before I leave, though. I figured we can play a few more levels of the game. We have to make sure Candy has enough magic wands to unlock the special bonus game. Although, can I just say that picking wands was a weird choice? Don’t you normally just need one to get the job done? Why not something else, like different shaped dildos or something. Honestly, a little more variety in size and shape can’t hurt.”
After a few seconds of delay, you hear a boom of laughter in the living room. His laughter is infectious, and it blooms a large grin on your face.
“So here’s the plan. I’m going to unlock this bonus level tonight and then we’ll see what the hype is about during the next stream, okay?”
The chat has calmed itself, and you’re glad you tested having it turned back on instead of totally following Seokjin’s advice earlier. Maybe his streams still function if he doesn’t have his comments on, but you know most of your royalties are given from moments of engagement; your parasocial relationship with your subscribers is based on more conversation than the actual thing you’re doing. It’s how you’ve gotten this far without being good at video games. No one seems to care when you get stuck on the same level each time if you at least have engaging conversation.
JokeJinSeokjin: I’m hungry. Do you want me to order jjajangmyeon?
You smirk at your screen and nod, then answer a few questions your chat has initiated.
“Why did I decide to do a Late Night stream? I needed to change things up. You guys all started to follow me after Wonwoo’s stream and I feel like there’s only so many games I can play with the same kind of commentary before we all get sick of it.”
JokeJinSeokjin: What about mandu? The delivery minimum is way too high so we need to get something else.
A chuckle leaves your lips and you nod again, redirecting yourself to the chat once more. Someone asks how you’re feeling about continuing streaming in this way.
“Uhh, I would say that most of the streams so far have been a little crazy, right? It’s…doing this is hard. I’m hoping the more I do it the more things will start to chill out. I’m sorry to anyone who was offended by the comment section earlier. I didn’t mean for things to get so out of hand.”
JokeJinSeokjin: Food is ordered. Will be here in 30. 😋
Springin2Luv: @ JokeJinSeokjin who are you? I thought you didn’t have a boyfriend S.D.?
Your face heats as you prepare for the onslaught of drama this will cause, but then you’re shockingly surprised at Seokjin’s response.
JokeJinSeokjin: Just a good friend to make sure S.D. is fed and for another stream.
JokeJinSeokjin: Anyway 28 minutes until food time so hurry up and finish this level!
You laugh. “Well, you heard the man, let’s get back to the game.”
Twenty eight minutes later exactly, Seokjin knocks on your door. “The food is here! I’m starving. Are you done yet?”
You put the game on pause. “If you were watching the stream like you said you were, you would know that I’m not done with this level and am in fact stuck.”
“Well excuse me for not staring intently and absorbing every detail when I’m this hungry. I’m going to open everything and eat it all before you!”
“Go right ahead! You’re the one who wanted it so badly,” you call back, teasing. Though the second you finish the sentence, the warm smell of the crispy dumplings wafts into your room, Seokjin lightly creaking the door open and fanning the delivery bowl in your direction.
He raises an eyebrow, challenging you as he takes one bite into one, mocking before his face contorts into pain.
“Aish!!! It’s fucking HOT,” he yelps, and he drops the remaining dumpling back into the bowl, some of the green stuffing spilling throughout.
“Well yeah, what did you expect!?”
“Not for it to be so goddamn burning hot!” He fans his tongue for good measure, and you can see even from your desk the slight red tinge some of his taste buds have taken.
“There’s ice in the freezer. I’ll wrap this up now,” you sigh and shoo him away before turning back to your screen. “Well, you all probably heard that exchange, so I’m going to pause here. Sorry we didn’t get to beat it, but I’ll try again next time.”
You read over some of your farewell comments from your chat. But one really sticks with you.
Babybibi: I feel like I know that voice from somewhere.
Your stomach drops, but you remain composed, pretending you don’t recognize the comment. It never dawned on you that Seokjin’s fans could really be anywhere. Does he realize that? Is that why he safely stayed out of the camera’s reach? You’re not sure.
By the time you have signed off, Seokjin has managed to plate both of your meals and get you drinks from the fridge. He’s plopped a throw pillow onto the floor to sit on at the beat up coffee table so you can sit in your regular couch spot.
“I learned my lesson with that couch yesterday. It eats people.”
“Oh yeah yeah, I know. Thank you, this looks great.” You blow on one of the mandu before popping into your mouth. Even after arriving ten minutes ago, it’s still crisp and hot. Meaning however hot it was for Seokjin must have been volcanic. “How’s your tongue?”
He pouts, sloshing some ice water around in his mouth before opening it to stick out his pink tongue. “It hawtsth,” he says with his tongue still lolled out.
You chuckle. “Oh poor baby, do I need to kiss it and make it all better?”
Seokjin shifts a little at the question, and you realize immediately the error in what you’ve just suggested. An image of the two of you drums up in your mind, you sucking each other’s tongues, an ice cube swapping from one mouth to the other as it melts. Nothing about this is even intimate; it’s just pure filth. And based on the matching redness in Seokjin’s ears, it’s clear his brain has gone somewhere similar.
He finally rolls his tongue back between his plush lips and you sit awkwardly, suddenly unable to remember how to function.
Seokjin makes the move to end the awkward pause, taking his chopsticks into his grasp and pulling out a large glob of noodles, shoveling it into his mouth.
Right, food. Your stomach gurgles at the prospect and Seokjin raises an eyebrow at you as he chews, his eyes flashing down to your stomach.
“Eat,” he instructs, so you do, following his commands to finish your dumpling and move on to your generous pile of noodles.
How is he able to just push past the awkward and not have it freeze him in place the way it does with you? As you slurp your food down, you can’t help but study him, so effortlessly comfortable to sit in silence in your apartment after playing games about sex workers.
You shouldn’t be surprised, you guess. Because Seokjin is a sex worker. He’s incredibly nonchalant about all of what you’re doing, no judgment to smudge this dynamic.
If your old friends, or even your parents knew about you doing this, what would they think?
Nothing good, you assume.
It’s not that you were raised in an environment that was all helplessly ignorant about sex and bodies. You’d had sex. Your parents sat you down when you had your first period and explained every single detail about the human body and reproduction to you. It was painful and scientific, so divorced from the intimacy of what sex really is that it didn’t present itself to be much of an interest or issue until, well, you felt the first licks of desire.
Those started as dreams. Ones where you would be heavily kissing and exploring the body of whoever you were crushing on at the time. The first one started with Wonwoo, after having spent all summer at the library memorizing the thin curve of his upper lips as he squinted to read the books in front of him. You would feel the heat of your core shifting you in your chair as you grew more intrigued, more curious about how his lips would feel on yours, what he would taste like. How his soft hands would feel if he actually held yours, not just the accidental brush when you would walk side-by-side back toward your neighborhood, where you would drop him off at the shop before slugging your way back through that sticky, angry heat that only added more to your discomfort.
That was the first summer you started masturbating. And it was so awkward in some ways, trying to learn what you liked and how you liked it but also wondering why you liked it, why you liked Wonwoo in a way that was no longer so innocent and picturesque but scarier, more real.
Your parents caught you, probably as every parent does at some point and just pretends they didn’t notice. Yours, however, made it clear that they knew. And while they never said anything beyond mentioning it once or twice, it felt humiliating. As if you were supposed to be above attraction and sex and pleasure. It was more in how your parents acted after this point that has given you enough insight to imagine how they would react if they knew what you did now.
No direct words spoken, just blank, glaring looks and sneers. Just them ogling you like you had told them you murdered someone. Shame, in all the nooks and crannies of what it is.
As for your friends, besides Wonwoo, they’ve all moved on. You had been so curious as a teenager, and wanted to know so much more. Yet, no one ever talked about sex. Some of them had dated through teen years. All of them dated someone in college except you. Sex was happening all around you and yet it was some forbidden topic. Even with Wonwoo after a while. You have a feeling you would have a next to near impossible time explaining what you are doing to those friends, and if Wonwoo wasn’t a streamer, you’re sure he wouldn’t fully get it either.
But Seokjin understands. This is his life, this is so natural to him that he can sit in front of you after a long day and lazily smile with the knowledge that you are wearing lingerie underneath his shirt.
“What are you thinking about?” He asks thoughtfully, and you blink, realizing that for the last few minutes you’ve been watching his gorgeous full lips, studying how his tongue peeks out to wipe away some of the sauce.
“Lips,” you answer in your haze.
“Ah,” he chides, and you blink away the memory.
“What?” You ask.
“Well, my lips are some of the best of them.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Given how long you were staring at me, I would bet that you were thinking they are. Don’t worry Y/N, go right ahead and get a good look.” He winks.
“You’re so full of yourself.”
“Well, at least I’m full of something. I haven’t seen you take more than a few bites of food. Quit stalling and eat your damn dinner.”
“You know, you’re pretty bossy.”
“I guess that’s why I’m the boss.”
“Time and place. This isn’t the restaurant. Maybe it’s my house and I call the shots.”
He gestures around. “Well then, by all means. What are your commands.”
“For you to stop being a tool.”
Seokjin cackles. “Oh, that’s an insult I haven’t heard since middle school.”
“Well, is it any less efficient? I think it serves its purpose.”
“I think you’re still stalling.”
“Fine!”
You twirl a large pile of noodles around your chopsticks and shovel them into your mouth. “Thewere. Hawppy?”
“Immensely so,” Seokjin says, his eyes twinkling.
You don’t have the fight in you to argue anymore. The warm, savory noodles are so chewy and delicious, and the salt on your tongue is reminding you how deplenished you are from the energy of the stream.
You eat in silence, until the heaviness of your limbs has scattered to mostly just the heaviness of your full stomach.
You lean back against the sofa on your final chew, groaning when you’ve finished.
“Ugh, that was so good.”
“I told you. I’m a genius for suggesting it.”
“You got lucky and picked the best place in this neighborhood.”
Seokjin scoffs. “Excuse you. Might I remind you of a humble restaurant that is also technically in this neighborhood?”
“And does this place serve jajjangmyeon at one a.m. on a weekday?”
“No.”
“Then my point still stands,” you say.
Seokjin sighs and then follows up with a yawn that you can’t help but catch.
“So, debrief time. Before either of us fall asleep.”
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You can go home and rest. I can’t imagine you got much sleep today.”
“Hardly any at all, but you can’t get rid of me so easily.” Seokjin smirks. “Let’s talk about the stream.”
“Well, you caught most of it.”
“Yes, and I think it’s worth talking about.”
You mull it over for a minute, how you felt as the onslaught of gifted sex toys seemed to flood the chat, the overwhelm not really of the thing itself but the assertion over a boundary you were trying to place. Why was this so hard for you to do?
“I think I still feel so much like an imposter. I don’t know a lot about gaming, but I’m gaming. I’m not at all sexy enough to have a stream that does sexy stuff, so I feel like I’m just…” You shrug.
He opens his mouth, but then stops himself, nodding for you to finish.
“I don’t know, I just don’t want to fall for the pressure of being what everyone wants me to be. Which is, this role of the fat funny streamer. Like, every single trope in fiction has the side friend be fat and funny as some comedic relief. And because people wanted me to stream because I was so ‘funny’. Or they just see me as something to fuck because if I’m not completely sexless I have to be basically a pocket pussy for someone. All so I can make money. It’s so fucked.”
“But…you aren’t just a character in fiction, Y/N.” Seokjin reaches across the table, grazing his thumb over the back of your pinky knuckle. “You’re real. You feel things. You feel this, don’t you?”
You nod.
“So if this is the choice, to keep streaming for some financial goal, then who is it you want to be? You’re sure of what you don’t want, which is a good place to start. But what next? You have a choice.”
You pause. You have a choice.
In all of this, has it ever really felt that way? From the start, streaming was so rooted in financial stability. And because of that, it’s been so much heavier when you are forced into a performer role that you don’t want to partake in. It never occurred to you that you could actually control any of it.
But you suppose that’s what Seokjin does when he streams. He gives his audience some version of himself that he has a say in, control over.
“I…I guess I don’t know. I have never really thought about this being a choice.”
He nods, then stands, stretching his arms over his head. “Maybe that’s where you start. Trying to figure out who it is you want to be. And owning her. Whoever she is. Whether she wants to be funny or sexy or a combination of the two. If she wants to give up streaming and find another thing, or go full steam ahead and become the top streamer on the internet. You get to decide.”
After dinner–and trying not to stare at your breasts– Seokjin helped you wash the dishes, talked a bit more about your plans for the next stream, and then he left. He knew he was risking another impromptu sleepover and after your debrief, he wanted to make sure you had the space you needed to sit with the idea of choosing this for yourself.
He knew all too well how important that was. Two years ago, in the same position, it was something he also had to decide: which parts of him stayed with him when he streamed and which parts he hid so he could keep them for himself. It wasn’t an easy choice. He still felt it creep up sometimes when he streamed, constantly vigilant of the words leaving his mouth so he didn’t ever give too much away.
Even when his friends were in the chat, he tried to not call attention to them by name. Similar to how you were on your stream. He wished he could be honest with you and tell you that this part never gets easier. Regardless of how much you wanted to share with others, there was the unfortunate reality that in order to maintain any sense of discretion and honor on the worldwide web, regardless of the type of streaming, the boundary between you and your audience would always lead to disconnection and loneliness. Conversely, you also were not ever going to be totally private and anonymous again. At some point, there was a tipping point where you would never again just be you. The digital footprint was permanent.
And in this limbo, as time moved on and winter finally melted into Spring, the pressure was on for Seokjin. He considered telling you that he was a sex cam streamer. He had felt it on the tip of his tongue that night, but in the many nights that have since followed, fighting against the decision to just tell you so you could move through it and potentially build a more realistic and relatable plan based on his own experiences and the potential betrayal you might have felt when you learned of the ways he wasn’t at all morally superior for doing things for money. Would you judge him for wanting better for you?
Moreover, would you be able to live with knowing that your friend–your boss– did gay sex streams? It just felt too delicate at this point to bring up, so Seokjin shoved it down inside of him, just like he did with his audience every time he hit the countdown to go live.
And unfortunately, in the last few months he’d only streamed a handful of times, which resulted in a significant decrease in engagement and therefore, income.
But between working at the restaurant and then coming over to sit in the other room as you streamed, his time was limited.
He was tired. You streamed late into the early hours of the morning, and unlike him, you didn’t work full time. On the days you did have the early shift in the morning, you somehow seemed rested, clearly used to the chaotic structure of your regular gaming streams that might have occurred the night before. You’d decided to do a brief pause on late night themed streams until you had a better game plan. And to the surprise of both you and Seokjin, your followers were supportive. So you would stream regular games in the late night slots on occasion, and Seokjin would sit on as an honorary mod despite the exhaustion. Granted, those nights you often fell asleep before Seokjin had even left your apartment, and he would gently nudge you awake as you drifted off on the couch, prodding you to go take off your makeup and looking on fondly as you thanked him sleepily before crashing on your bed.
One day in early May, though, everything that was delicately woven into the balance of things began fraying at the edges.
Seokjin had woken up to a grateful text from you thanking him for coming over the night before, and had sent a follow up invitation.
You 7:59AM: You can say no, but do you maybe want to go get dinner tonight when you’re done with work?
Seokjin 8:00AM: Of course I’m going to say yes. Any suggestions where?
You 8:15AM: What about that restaurant that you told me about?
Seokjin 8:17AM: The Mediterranean one? With a month-long waitlist?
You 8:18AM: Shit. I forgot about that. 😓
Seokjin 8:19AM: Wait a second. BRB
Seokjin 8:32AM: Ok I got a reservation for 10:30. I know that’s pretty late but that’s all I could get. Kitchen closes at midnight though so we should be fine.
You 8:32AM: HOW???
Seokjin 8:32AM: Head chef went to school with my brother.
Seokjin 8:33AM: They weren’t that close. If they were, we would probably have an earlier time.
You 8:33AM: I don’t care! I’ll just eat before I go. It’ll be a fourth meal type of situation
Seokjin 8:35AM: We can also go somewhere else
You 8:36AM: NO. 😡 Do not take this away from me. I already decided what I want from the menu. We are going.
Seokjin 8:37AM: LOL. Ok. I’ll come get you before? 10?
You 8:38AM: 👍
Seokjin smiled to himself, finally getting himself out of bed and ready for the day. He had a lot of work to do. When he opened his emails to get started, he saw an email from Worldwide Handsome. He opened it, his stomach sinking as he processed the words.
Dear User Jin,
We at Worldwide Handsome appreciate the streams you have trusted us to host for the last two years. In this last financial quarter, we have successfully increased our outreach to new targeted consumers, both from members of the LGBTQ community and their allies. In part, we have you to thank for this success. Your continued participation in WWH’s Partnership program has taken us to new heights for pleasurable camming and stimulation experiences. Among our competitors, we have maintained our position as one of the top pornographic live cam websites, with your stream being one of the most engaged with to-date.
However, in the last two months, the algorithmic engagement of WWH’s live shows has significantly plummeted. In conducting market research, we found that in this quarter, we have had a staggering 11% decrease in consistent viewership, subscription renewal, and ad revenue. While there are many contributing factors, it has come to our attention that one overlapping factor might be one of the major contributing factors to this financial loss. In most of our data, it was User Jin’s channel that demonstrated the largest risk among our partners, primarily due to your lack of consistent streaming over the last few months.
While we are grateful for your continued dedication to Worldwide Handsome, we regret to inform you that should your channel continue to trend downward in market data over the next 30 days, we will terminate your contract with us as Partner. If this should happen, we still welcome you to continue utilizing the basic features of Worldwide Handsome. You will still retain a generous commission rate, the ability to publish past livestreams to your channel, stream clipping functions, gifting, and more. If you would like to learn more details about the basic features provided with Worldwide Handsome, please visit the FAQ page on our website.
Once again, we are grateful for your ongoing support over the years. We at WWH are grateful to you and the many other streamers who continue to make sex a global artform that we can proudly stand behind. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Sincerely,
Worldwide Handsome Partners
Dropped from the partner program? His partnership with the website was what provided the groundwork for any sort of financial stability while streaming. It not only provided consistent scheduled payouts, but the commission retention was one of the highest in the industry. People were desperate to be part of the partner program, even if it belonged within the confines of gay sex streaming. And until this quarter, Seokjin had been leading the trend, securing his place within the company. But now, because of his neglect, it was being threatened out from under him.
On top of it, the money pit of the restaurant was at it again; a sewer line bursting a few blocks away had caused flooding and an electrical malfunction a month ago, which resulted in a transformer blowing and frying his computer with all the records. His parents had been tech savvy enough to digitize everything, but clearly not enough to have learned to back up things onto the cloud instead of leaving them on the harddrive.
For the last few weeks, he’d been shuffling documents back and forth between his laptop and the new system, begging his father to learn how to sign a PDF through some YouTube tutorial that only resulted in his father taking a fuzzy picture of the document in a poorly lit hallway of the cruise ship and sending it back over this morning with a text:
Here you go! Hope this is okay. Probably won’t have a connection for a while. Talk next week.
It was not in fact okay, and Seokjin was now considering just forging his father’s signature to get the new insurance forms authorized as soon as possible. The financial burden of what the restaurant was doing was starting to feel more like damnation and less of an investment. With each week drawing nearer to his parents' return, he began worrying that they wouldn’t be able to handle all the things that had become urgent needs.
He had a month to get it together. Otherwise, he could kiss both of his careers goodbye. With his father just adding to the slew of problems, today he was at his wit’s end. He was beyond stressed and in desperate need of release.
Which is why when he logged onto Worldwide Handsome after a particularly frustrating call with the electrical company, he found himself falling naturally into his old persona easily.
“I needed this,” he said to his audience, watching the bottom of the screen as the numbers slowly trickled in. It wasn’t nearly as many people as he had gotten accustomed to seeing you entertaining during your stream nights, and for some reason that felt intimidating to Seokjin. How you were able to secure an audience without needing to get naked, one that was flexible with you in ways that his audience could never be. He felt a tinge of jealousy at the thought.
BGood4Daddy: Missed u pretty boy
He watched the comments flit by, many of them taking on the same sub-dom dynamic he usually played as. Some asked where he’d been, but most of them were just horny messages begging for him to act out their fantasies.
His stomach twisted. Somehow he’d forgotten this was how things went.
“Missed you too. Missed all of you. It’s been crazy lately,” he said. He palmed himself casually through his slacks, trying to convince himself to get into the mood.
The tips started to slowly trickle in, starting to meet the bare minimum goals for Seokjin to begin stripping.
That’s one thing about his audience he’d always be able to count on. They would always ensure that he had enough of a payout to take his cock out.
He chuckled at the comments, starting to wind up as he removed his shirt, and then unzipped his slacks.
XMasterX: you’ve been a bad boy. Sir needs to punish you for leaving us for so long.
“Is that right?” Seokjin challenged. “Well, then if I’m just going to be punished, maybe it’ll be better if I leave.”
The threat had the desired effect; Seokjin’s tip jar began to fill up faster, the view count starting to increase back to a somewhat decent viewership.
Good. This was good. Soon he could get all of this over with and secure himself back into good standing with the website and his subscribers.
Within a few minutes, the tip jar announced that the first two milestones have been unlocked: take off shirt and take off pants.
“Eager are we?” he teased, slowly slipping his shirt over his head. He’d managed to get back to the gym in his apartment complex this week, but even if he hadn’t, it’s not like he wasn’t still toned from all the heavy lifting at the restaurant. With all the electrical issues, he’d been helping pull industrial heavy equipment away from the walls for the electrician to prepare to install a new grounding wire, and those weren’t particularly light.
The comments lit up with the praise, usernames old and new beginning to flash across his screen. He smirked.
“I know you’ve waited a while, but maybe you should sweat it out a bit. Show me how much you missed me.”
It felt so natural to say this, something he knew you hadn’t felt comfortable doing in your streams, but you’d tried a few times. He’d found it cute when you’d done it, almost like it was a gentle request. But for him now, this was about anticipation and tension, letting his viewers fall back into the world of fantasy he used to cook up every few days. This was a place of escape, where Seokjin was left behind and Jin took control.
The tip jar shook, the animated coins piling in.
He popped the button of his pants. Slowly. He smirked at the camera, reaching down and squeezing himself. He wasn’t hard, but he wasn’t small, and that was still part of the fantasy: the grand reveal that people had to work for. He often chose to work under the assumption that everyone was new in the chat, that this was a new experience for voyeuristic eyes. While he knew that wasn’t necessarily true, for all he knew someone could be stumbling into the chat room, unknowing to his body and the pleasure he was so willing to give.
Someone like you.
His cock twitched at that. He’d expected this fantasy to get a bit old for him: the idea that you would come across his stream and stay for the whole thing. It had been the fuel for his fire a few months ago, but so much had changed now that you were friends.
But now that he knew more about you, all the little details, fuck. That just made it seem even more real. He could see you in your small room, his shirt draped over you safely while you strutted around in those tiny pajama shorts.
He unzipped his pants, kicking them off at the ankles and sitting back down in the chair.
You’d be doing the same thing, he thought. Those shorts riding up those thick thighs he now knew exactly the weight of as they’d rubbed against his. They were so soft, all of you so soft. And he knew you’d shove them down quickly, annoyed that they got in your way, pouting a little bit that he wasn’t there to tug them off of you.
“Fuck,” Seokjin said. “I don’t know if I can really take it much longer.” It was true, his cock was hardening quickly, and the need to touch himself was growing heavier with urgency.
His chat sounded off, various commands to wait or to go for it. It really didn’t matter. He wasn’t there for them tonight. Even though maybe he should have been, maybe the risk was that if he didn’t comply, there would be no great reward.
mapl3stor33 tipped $3000: Welcome back. Give us a good one. You can always pay us back for it 😉
Seokjin smiled, his most loyal subscriber popping up with a generous tip. Yes, this was where he thrived, wasn’t it? Isn’t this what he was good for?
2 milestones unlocked from another viewer, this time selecting from some of the few dozens of options programmed into the menu to help guide the stream: cock ring and edging, no cumming.
God, why did he allow for there to be guided sessions? Why didn’t he lead the stream this time like the one he did a few months ago? That was the one where he’d cum all over himself after pretending to blindfold you.
Now, he knew even more about you, how the curve of your ass felt shifting against him. How soft your hair was when it tickled his arms while you slept, little whimpers escaping your mouth that he knew he could easily draw from you again when he got the chance. You’d look so pretty with a blindfold on, shivering in the warm light of your bedroom, mouth open and desperate as he lightly touched around your collarbone, down your sternum and between the valley of your tits. You’d been so bad about teasing him in those sexy little bustiers and corsets lately, and it would be nice if he got to tease you for once.
His cock ached through his briefs, asking him to end the torture, to free himself into the open air and stroke until he came thinking about all the ways he wanted to torture you with pleasure.
But with another tip coming in, this time adding the detail of a vibrating cock ring, Seokjin knew his fantasies would not be leading him to be satisfied tonight. At least not in the way he wanted.
Twenty minutes later, after playing into the game of begging and whining and falsely pretending he was going to cum to ensure he was edging, he came. A pathetic, unsatisfying dribble that wept out of him and hardly amounted to the sensation he felt earlier. He’d tried to think of you, but there was a block. Too many people watching, too many people demanding things from him. Instead of just cumming, it became aware to Seokjin how much of a performance these streams always were; the ring light setup ensured people could see every angle. He knew how to make attractive faces when he orgasmed that would leave everyone with plenty of imagery for their own personal fantasies later. He knew how to pretend to be more turned on than he was, and to force vibrators and dildos into proper angles to ensure he came. It was all part of the show.
One that he hadn’t taken part in for quite some time. When he masturbated last night in the shower, he caught his reflection in the vanity mirror. He saw how his face contorted, how his body would buck and writhe without his control as he came against the shower wall, how in some ways, there was something objectively unsexy about how he came, no glossy angles to make sure his chin didn’t pull into different skin pockets, no ambient lighting to capture the ridges of his body. Just the pure experience of orgasming as a human being and nothing more.
As he wiped up his mess, he decided to do a little chat with his subscribers.
At least he didn’t moan that one person’s name like last time.
Oh yeah. Jin what was that about? You have some girlfriend we don’t know about?
I thought he was gay. This is a gay site!
You must be new here. He’s straight.
Oh :(
Maybe he’s been too busy fucking her to come play with us.
I bet it’s boring sex. Who needs to do streams when they’re getting laid. You better tell her to satisfy you, or one of us will have to come show her how she could do better.
“Yah, enough of that,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t have a girlfriend. And I don’t want to talk about what happened that one time. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again. Anyway, I’m tired. Time for bed. I won’t make you wait as long for next time. Bye!”
Ugh. What an awful stream. If it was going to be like this all the time, maybe he should have actually considered letting the website shut him down and take the cut.
But then how would you get everything taken care of with the restaurant.
He sighed. Is this how you experienced streaming too? He figured as much. His stomach tugged, disappointed he couldn’t talk to you about it. You always debriefed your streams with him, especially if you felt a little shitty during one. Now, because he was keeping this life of his separate from his life with you, he had no one who would understand to talk to about this. All he could ever do is provide support to you, but not you to him. It was still just as lonely doing this as it always had been. Only this time, Seokjin knew that it didn’t have to be this way. That some people could reveal other parts of themselves to get kernels of support when needed.
But that wasn’t going to be him. He was alone in this. And as he dragged himself to bed, feeling sorry for himself, he didn’t notice that he left his phone on silent.
“Detective? Are you there?” The svelte redhead approached my desk. I could see through the cameras that she helped herself to snooping around. Whatever she was gathering from my notebooks, it was a trap.
Any good detective knows not to leave his mess around. Any clues she was trying to gather from this dark, dark world, they would be nothing compared to reality.
Reality is darker. Betrayal, people thinking they know me because they know my past.
I light a cigarette, inhaling deeply. The smoke swirls around my head like a cloud. It’s cloudy here in Seattle, and that promise of heavy rain reassures me. He’s going to try to move the kitty tonight, and I’m not about to let him use her as a distraction.
She leans her large, milky tits over my desk. She’d look good there, spread out across it. I’m sure she knows too. Any dame like her would know what she’s worth. A tempting distraction, but I am too good to fall for it.
“God what the fuck even is this?” You exit out of the screen on your tablet, the cover mocking you for even considering it. Whatever the hell you were expecting from Clues to My Heart’s raving 5-star reviews, this wasn’t it. This was a pile of absolute garbage.
And it isn’t serving its purpose of distraction. You are still imagining the main character as Seokjin, only Seokjin in some twisted, fake machismo, desk set smutty nightmare of a book that is so full of plot holes and clichés that you know you can’t stomach it further. Reading an awful romance novel is clearly not the answer to escaping the awful feeling in your stomach.
You delete it from your library and sigh, staring at the shelves of your apartment, debating if you really want to read something or just go to bed and let yourself cry.
He stood you up. He stood you up and you looked the hottest you ever looked. This was going to be your attempt at connection, at knowing for sure that you were on the path toward something more intimate than friendship.
But now, it was clear: whatever expectation you had for the two of you, it might as well be dead and buried with whatever body this stupid book is trying to solve the murder of.
You tried calling him multiple times. His phone just rang on and on as the clock shifted from 10:15 to 10:30 to 12:00. For a moment, you thought maybe you got the date or time wrong. Maybe instead of tonight as in today he thought you meant tomorrow?
Or maybe he lost track of time by finding a dog outside of your apartment, and then he had to go find its owner so he never had the chance to tell you he’d be late.
But more realistically, maybe he just doesn’t want to see you and this silence is meant to be interpreted as a boundary. Seokjin is definitely the type who would feel bad rejecting you when you come onto him, and would apologize to you despite the fact that he’s not guilty. It’s happened before, in the kitchen incident.
Even if it’s not that, it’s the fact that you carefully selected an outfit for tonight, a silky black slip dress that you are terrified to wear because there’s no part of you that you can hide. The slippery material will highlight every curve, every line (especially panty lines), and every droplet of moisture that you might dribble or sweat out.
But in the last few months, you’ve been trying to do one thing every day that scares you. Today, it would appear you were going to go for two. And now, you are dealing with one terrifying thing that might just be worse than the first two: rejection.
It’s humiliating. You know you’re going to go to work tomorrow and will have to see him knowing that there will be some awkward confrontation or avoidance game. You’ll have to speak to him. He’ll probably call you into the back office and let you down gently. Will reinforce the fact that he’s your boss and that things have gone too far or some bullshit.
And then, just like how you’ve been cut out of the lives of people who meant something to you, it’ll happen again, as it always does.
1 Year Ago
It’s raining so hard that you can’t see the road, but you’re trying to drive through it anyway, trying to make it home in time so you won’t miss it. You got out of work late; you thought being a substitute teacher wouldn’t come with all the extra grading, but you were wrong.
A year ago, the elementary school nearby shut down, and with it came the layoff of all its teachers. A stupid idea, really, because that meant an already over-enrolled school was forced to shuttle its students across town to the other elementary school, doubling its student body without doubling its teachers. Somewhere in the thick of it, you were looking for a job, living in your parents’ house trying to float from one career to the other.
Your friends around you were moving; Wonwoo was already in a new time zone, making an upward move in every area. His former girlfriend-turned-fianceé worked in HR for a tech start-up and easily navigated getting him in as a coder. They had just secured a penthouse with a gorgeous view. His life was locked together. Your other friends, it seemed, had moved on in their lives as well. Two of them already had children and were married. Two more were engaged. Everyone else was jetting across the world on expeditions to places with sandy beaches and bottomless drinks. And there you were: mid twenties, desperate for change.
So when you saw the banner across the elementary school advertising a need for substitute teachers, you decided you were desperate enough to try. And as it turned out, you loved it. There was something magic about working with young children, seeing how they developed new ideas you would never in your adult dreams try to fathom. But to them, to fly across the world on a magical escalator or hippo was a true possibility and you wanted part of you to have that same freedom to dream of the impossible. Their creativity inspired you to push the boundaries of life and dream of more.
Not to mention, it also landed you a boyfriend. One day while you were substituting for the gym teacher, nervously handing out kickballs to a bunch of fourth graders for class and praying they didn’t knock each other’s teeth out, someone stepped into the gymnasium and padded his way over to you, looking for his youngest sister to take her to a dentist appointment. And not too soon after, you and Do Woon had your first day date, which turned into a night date, and then a breakfast date. It was more like a 3-day date where the two of you spent the entire weekend rolling around in his sheets. You only managed to escape that awkward conversation with your parents because they were out of town for the weekend. If they had known any different, you would probably have died from embarrassment.
Teaching has given you a lot of great things. But with that care comes a cost. You are now late for your father’s surprise birthday party and trapped in an insane rainstorm.
You weave around fallen tree branches, trying not to obsess over the clock as the minutes roll smoothly into each other, knowing that by now, the surprise portion of the party is over. They’re probably eating cake now and reminiscing on his milestones. Your mother is probably chatting to your aunts and uncles about the renovations they’ve made to the main bathroom. Do Woon is supposed to be there, and if your instincts are right, you’ll be getting engaged tonight.
It would be the perfect opportunity. All your family is there ready to celebrate, and your father who hates being the center of attention will have all the pleasure of dumping the focus onto you.
Do Woon has been acting odd the last few weeks. You’ve been pretending not to notice, especially when recent conversations have been skirting around topics you two used to discuss regularly. You have a trip to Bali planned for the fall, which he once said is where he would want to honeymoon. He’s given very few details about this trip since he booked the flight almost three months ago, and you suspect that’s because he doesn’t want to give any spoilers about the honeymoon suites or couple packages you both looked over when you decided this was where you wanted to vacation. You’re not sure you have enough time to plan a wedding in six months, but if this is what Do Woon wants, who are you to say no?
Since the start of your dating, he’s been thoroughly engrossed in a very specific timeline, and had no issues telling you so: he wanted to date for about a year, get engaged, get married (wherever you wanted, he insisted), have a honeymoon on some beachy shores and get started with making babies. He is the eldest of six. He wants a big family.
You’ve talked him down from that number over the last few months, having him promise instead you will see how things go and will take it as it comes. While he wasn’t entirely pleased with that compromise, you think his agreement is a good enough answer. But that’s how Do Woon is. He plans his life down to every meticulous detail. Which is why even if you don’t think you can pull off planning a wedding in such a short window of time, you know he can.
So tonight, you think it’ll happen. And unfortunately for you, you’re going to look like absolute rain-soaked garbage, the perfect accompaniment to your shitty day.
The once neatly wrapped gift next to you is now soggy from the downpour. You didn’t check the weather before heading into work today and left your umbrella in the car. It rolls around on the floor in front of the passenger seat, completely dry and mocking.
At work, you found out that they’re continuing to make staffing cuts despite the shortage, as many families have chosen not to enroll in the school next year, instead moving their children to private schools closer to their homes or homeschooling. As desperate as they were to hire you, the work you put into the year you’ve been here is now about to just melt away.
You don’t know how much longer you’ll have a job.
You anticipated this, of course, spent most of the fall applying for graduate programs. Of the ten applications you submitted, you’ve been waitlisted in two places: the local university here and the more modern (and urban) program not even remotely close to this place. You’d hoped when you sent those applications that things would be getting more serious with Do Woon, but it had only been a handful of months. You weren’t sure where the two of you were going. And now, you are hoping for the local program, not wanting to give up on your dream of teaching if it means you don’t have to.
Your phone lights up in the darkness of your car. One more missed call from your mother. But you’re so close, almost to your neighborhood. You know how poorly this is going to go.
As you take a final turn, making your way down the street, you see the street has started flooding, barring you from your block. It’s no use, either. You can see on the block after yours that those crossroads are also flooded. The only way to get home is to do so on foot. So that’s what you do, park your car on the non-flooded side street, prop the sodden gift under your arm, grab your umbrella and head into the rain.
The thing about thresholds is that they are a place where you exist in transition. From the street, you can hear a hum of music but don’t know the exact tune. You see faces lit by the warm lamps of your dining room, and can make out your uncle and your father’s boss. But you can also hear the rain thrumming on the roof, smell the Earth as the rain hits the soil. There’s the chill of the wind cutting through your damp clothing. The moment you step into the house, you’ll be someone else. A daughter still, but also someone else’s future wife.
The warmth of the house touches your face when you step in, the loud voices you’d heard from the other side of the door now having owners: your aunt yelling at your young cousin not to touch something, the sharp guffaw of your dad’s best friend.
You take off your soaked shoes and walk into the dining room. The cake has been cut, neat squares leaving only globs of frosting leaves behind on the golden tray. The neapolitan ice cream is abandoned and melting into an unappetizing brown sludge. Empty beer cans stack up on the table’s other end.
Your stomach gurgles. You’ve barely eaten all day. But you know that will all happen soon. There’s time for cake and celebration after you see the birthday boy.
You find him in his favorite lounge chair, foot rest out as he relaxes and listens to some story one of his co-workers is telling about a client.
“I’m telling ya, she had this massive tits that would knock over everything and everyone. So I says to her one day, you know what I says? ‘Ma’am, now pardon me for sayin’ so, I’m a respectable fella, but I think you might need to get a car blinker.’ And she asks me why and I says to her, ‘Because when you’re turnin’ around, we then’ll know to duck!’”
A roar of laughter bellows through the room, your father smirking at the story as he sips his beer. Ugh. You saunter over to him, fanning a smile across your face.
“Hi Dad,” you say, and face the rest of the guests. “Hi everyone.”
“Y/N! What the hell happened to ya, kid. Rainstorm getcha?” Your father’s boss asks.
You give an apologetic nod. “Yes, I was caught in it. Left work late. The road is flooded so be careful when you leave.”
“I drove over in the truck, so I’m fine,” he responds, sucking down the rest of his beer. “Ah, all out. Can I get you another Birthday Boy?” He nudges you with his elbow roughly. “What about you, hon?”
“I’m, I’m all good. Thanks,” you say awkwardly, trying to ignore the way he’s looking at you up and down salaciously. This man is older than your father, is standing next to your father and behaving this way. It makes you want to strip your entire skin from your body and wash it in the washing machine.
“Suit yourself. I’m gonna get some more of that cake anyways. You coming, Bill?” Bill, the apparent co-worker who was bragging about his evident sexual harassment, sighs.
“Yeah, yeah. Well, if I don’t see ya, happy birthday again. Thank your wife for the dinner. It was great. And it was good to see you too,” Bill waggles his eyebrows and walks behind you through the foyer and into the dining room. For a brief moment, you swear you feel him cup your ass in passing.
“Where have you been?!” Your mother’s voice carries across the room. You whip your head to search, finding her walking into the room from the back entrance to the kitchen. She must’ve been cleaning up because the front of her blouse is wet.
“I was working and I had to stay late. And then the storm happened and I had to park down the street. I’m sorry.”
“Well because of you, we awkwardly stood around for well over an hour waiting for you to show up and get everything set up so when your father walked in the door it would actually be a surprise. Which it wasn’t, by the way. He recognized Carl’s truck out front and I guess that was the big giveaway. You were supposed to help me with this, Y/N!”
Your father looks at your mother and sighs. “It was really no big deal. I hate surprises anyway.”
“For a milestone birthday like this, you could use the surprise,” she asserts.
“Well, I got one anyway didn’t I?” He says sharply, standing up and walking out of the room. The gift in your hands feels like dead weight. You set it down onto his chair.
“What happened?” You ask.
Your mother walks closer, looking around the room to ensure no one else is listening. “Your father is being laid off. He found out today. And then when Carl and Bill and all them showed up, they kept talking about it. Turns out no one else in his department is being laid off. Just him.”
Your stomach sinks. Your father supplies most of the income that your family needs to stay afloat. He’s not expected to retire for a few more years. Which means if he gets laid off, he’ll lose a few years’ worth of extra employer contributions to his retirement fund. And his boss and co-workers being such assholes to rub it in? Fuck them.
This wasn’t how you expected any of this to go.
“Oh god. Poor dad.” Your mother nods.
“Yeah, what a birthday. And you weren’t even there to share it with him because you were too busy to be here when it was the only time we needed you to show up. So thanks for that.”
Her words are like knives. You feel yourself being sliced open from all the guilt. She’s not wrong. You’d been the one to organize most of this party, to convince her to follow through with it. And you missed it. People around you have begun departing, shouting happy wishes to your father. All his unwrapped gifts sit on the coffee table next to you, colorful paper pulled open. You missed the entire thing.
“I didn’t mean to,” you try, but you know it's useless. Your mother waves goodbye to one of the neighbors. It’s stopped raining enough to not be a constant heavy click against the windowpane.
“Well you did anyway. It is what it is. Now are you going to disappear on me during clean up or are you going to help me?” She begins to weave the discarded wrapping paper out from under the gifts, setting them into a neat pile on the coffee table.
“I’ll get a trash bag,” you offer, and make your way through the house into the kitchen. Every surface is riddled with stacks of paper plates with balloons on them and plastic forks and spoons. A large yellow tupperware bowl idles by the sink, some vinegary salad now mixed with remnants of every other food from watermelon to potato chips. It’s the first thing you dump into the trash bag.
You follow the garbage, in and out of the half bathroom and dining room, back to the living room when you notice someone is missing.
“Mom,” you say. “Where’s Do Woon?”
“Was he supposed to be here? Because I didn’t see him.”
“He didn’t come?”
“No, Y/N. Unless he is hiding upstairs in your room for some reason, I have not seen him at all tonight.” She dumps a pile of plates into the trash bag. “Think you can handle the rest? My feet hurt and your father and I need to discuss some things.”
“Sure, I am just surprised he didn’t come. I thought–”
“God, honestly. For two seconds can you not think about yourself? It’s not your birthday.”
You fall silent, nodding your head as she steps out of the room and goes to find your father.
Something must be wrong, you think. You reach into your pocket and grab your phone, checking it for messages from Do Woon.
There are many missed calls from your mother, but none from him. Strange. The last time you talked was today. You had reminded him what time the party started. He didn’t respond, but he read the message, and you were satisfied with that.
You select his contact info and hit the call button. After a few seconds of ringing, it goes to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me. Not sure what happened tonight, maybe you got stuck in the storm. I know I did, it was crazy and I missed the entire party. Today’s been awful. But uh yeah, call me back when you get this. Love you.”
Maybe he is stuck in a work meeting? He does work late, sometimes unexpectedly, putting in extra hours at his office until you are getting ready for bed.
You shoot him a text.
You 9:02PM: Hey, missed you at the party. Are you working late?Read 9:02PM
Immediately you can see he has opened it. But after ten minutes, there is no response.
You 9:12PM: Everything okay? Read 9:12PM
You clean up the rest of the trash in the living room, tying off the bag and stepping outside. It has stopped raining. The world looks glassy as droplets fall from the tree limbs and refract the streetlights. You walk over to the trash bin, the glaze of cold water running down your hands as you deposit the bag in. You grab the mail.
No acceptance letters. For some reason that feels like the cherry on top of the shittiness that is today. Your mother’s bitter words, your father’s exhaustion, the weather’s chaos weaving into your insecurity. It all feels like some horrible dream.
You need Do Woon. He’s not much of a talker, but he is a good listener, and after a good ranting session, he’ll usually fuck the sadness out of you so you don’t have to think and afterward you’re usually too tired to do anything but sleep. That’s what you need right now.
Where is he? It’s been a half hour and no response. Maybe you’re being paranoid and soon he’ll call and poke fun at how worried you seemed. Maybe he’ll be mad that you are interrupting a work meeting. But today has been awful. And all you want is to hear his voice.
So you call him again, and this time it goes immediately to voicemail.
You 9:38PM: What is going on? Read 9:38PM
You 9:39PM: Please answer me. I’m getting worried. Read 9:39PM
You 9:39PM: Babe!
Message failed to deliver.
A glow falls onto the damp earth around you. You look around for the source and then up. As the rain clouds break apart above you, you realize you’re standing in the light of the moon.
He never called back. That was the end. When you think about it now, there were some vague signs of distancing, but it never amounted to anything that made sense. There, then gone, Do Woon cut you off one day and never looked back.
Much to your embarrassment, you didn’t handle the situation well. That night, you tried calling him three more times, only to receive a message that the number you tried to reach was unavailable. You’d considered driving to his apartment, but as the night wore on, you started to put the pieces together. He didn’t want to talk to you. He’d blocked you, and you didn’t know why.
For the first month after the ghosting-turned-break-up, you tried to get intel to figure out what happened, how you had so royally fucked up your relationship that he didn’t even want to tell you to your face. Unfortunately, most of your friends you’d made that year were through him, and with him cutting you off, so did most of your friends.
Your parents were sympathetic, to a degree. You were given approximately two days to mope. And then you were told to start looking for better jobs in case you, like your father, would be laid off.
“It’ll be a good distraction, I think!” Your mother had said. “Nothing says get over a relationship better than starting a new job.”
You and your father passed job postings back and forth for the next week. You were less than thrilled with the job market. Sure, jobs existed, but none with your skillset or interests or desired pay. To gain anything you would have to make a choice to lose something else, and it twisted your gut at the prospect.
But, in the midst of the heartache, came your rejection from the local university. It was for the best, really. You knew you only wanted to study there because of Do Woon, and without him being part of your life it didn’t matter anyway.
And just as you were at the end of your optimism, ready to let hope die and surrender to the dreamless haze, an email came in with an acceptance into the final university. A big city laid before you to explore.
Things snapped into place. You finished up the school year and told your parents you were moving out.
And now you’re here, in an apartment all to yourself, attending your dream program (or at least trying to) and learning how to cook a halfway decent meal. An apartment that has you rotting on a couch as you try to remind yourself that what happened with Do Woon was a fluke, and not anything you did wrong. And it certainly isn’t some sign that you’re doomed to repeat the same fate again.
You’ve learned in the last few weeks that he’s engaged to someone he met through a matchmaking service. In his profile picture, his future bride is holding an ultrasound photo and he has his hands on her very large belly. “Coming this summer: our own ray of sunshine” the caption reads.
You can’t imagine him ever saying that. He always hated cheesy things. But that’s the surprising thing about all of this: you also never expected him to ghost you and immediately start seeing someone else.
He was a fluke in the timeline. Not a rule, right? You know this. You know not everything happening once means you’re doomed to repeat it forever.
But why is that all you can think about with Seokjin?
You went to work this morning, and he said nothing. No, he probably won’t disappear into the abyss because he manages this place. But when his parents return, will he then? Is he just biding his time before he vanishes?
You hope not. God, you really hope not.
The day rolls on without a word between either of you. Maybe this is how it should be, you think. Two people. Uncomplicated. Not tied to each other by strands of anything.
Fate. This is how it works. It brings people together and then it pulls them apart.
©2024 by jooniperbonsai
28 notes
·
View notes
Text
RISK PART II
pairing: mafia!harry styles x singer!reader
summary: Harry is in town for some.. less than legal business, and you're a local singer trying to get your foot in the door, and also planning your wedding. And maybe Harry is a little too interested in you.
warnings: cursing, mentions of death, i think that’s it??
-
At the end of the show, the band disappeared from the stage, and Niall and Harry busied themselves at the bar.
Jodie was the first one to come out.
“Hey, baby,” she greeted Niall with a grin, going up to press their lips together. “Hey, H. Enjoy the show?”
“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “You guys were.. good. Didn’t know you could sing.”
“Oh, trust me, neither did I. It was Y/N’s idea to get me to do it. She’s been singing since she could talk. She’s pretty fucking good, too.”
“Yeah, first time we met Jodie wanted her to do karaoke and she kept saying she ‘wasn’t good’. Then fuckin’ busted out some Taylor Swift song like it was nothing. Speaking of, where is she?”
“Oh, she’s still in the back. She said she’d be out in a minute, she just needed a sec.”
Niall’s brows furrowed, “She good?”
“I think so. She didn’t seem off. But I think she knows Connor didn’t show and y’know how she gets.”
Niall’s eyes rolled at the mention of his friend’s fiancé.
“You don’t seem to like him much,” Harry commented.
“I don’t.”
“Why’s he so bad?”
“He’s jus’ an asshole to her sometimes. And usually, Y/N’s the first person to bite your head off about being a bitch to her. But whenever Connor does it, she just…”
Jodie finished for him, “She lets him. Plus, he’s super controlling. He wants her to quit the band once they get married so she can, like, be a housewife. And that’s literally her worst nightmare, he just doesn’t give a shit.”
“Yeah,” Niall nodded. “And the reason we moved in with them is ‘cause a few years ago—“
“Ni. Shut up. Y/N would be pissed if she found out we told someone. It’s bad enough as is.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Harry eyed them suspiciously, “What’d he do to her?”
“.. If Y/N wants to tell you, she will. But don’t bring it up or push it,” Jodie explained. “She’s normally pretty… unbothered, I guess. But she just.. is sensitive sometimes. And do not, under any circumstances, point out Connor not showing up tonight whenever she gets here.”
“Yeah, so switch the conversation. She’s comin’ over,” Niall rushed out.
“Uh… so, what’d you think about the show!” Jodie exclaimed, overly loud as you appeared behind her, grabbing her shoulders.
“Hello my favorite slut,” you greet Jodie.
“Aw, hello, my whore.”
You grin at her.
“What about me?” Niall pouted.
“You’re our favorite whore. But only for Jodie,” you shrug. Niall smiles as if he actually cares.
“Uh.. Y/N, this is Harry. Harry, Y/N.”
“Oh, yeah. We, uh.. met this morning. He scared the shit out of me.”
Harry gave a half smile and raised his brows.
Niall laughed, “‘Course he did. He’s nice, I promise. He doesn’t bite.”
“.. I’d hope not?”
“It was a joke, asshole.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t funny. Asshole,” you mock him.
You can see Harry laughing out of the corner of your eye and it makes you smile, just a bit.
Harry takes a bite of the food they’d apparently ordered, “Who writes them?”
“What?” you ask, hoisting yourself up into the barstool next to him. You ask the bartender for a beer.
“The songs. Who writes them.”
“Oh,” you nod. Hesitate. He notices. Watches.
“Well, that answer definitely clears things up.”
“No. Sorry— I… I write them.”
“She just gets embarrassed ‘cause she thinks they suck,” Niall interrupts your awkward conversation.
“Which they don’t,” Jodie also interrupts.
You roll your eyes at them, “Thank you, peanut gallery.”
“So, what’re they all about?”
You were, honestly, surprised he was even looking in your direction. Whenever a stranger talked to him, he seemed exceptionally uninterested. When you talked, he was practically staring into your soul.
“Uh.. just… life, I guess?” you shrug with a laugh. You didn’t exactly wanna specify the fact that half of the breakup songs were about the man you were about to marry, and they were all recently written.
He shrugs, and it seems like answer enough for him. For now. It’s enough to hold him over until he gets curious again.
The bartender hands you the beer, and you give a grateful smile.
“You didn’t strike me as a beer girl.”
“Yeah, well… I’m full of surprises.”
You cringe as you say it.
“That was not as cool as you thought it was,” he laughs.
“Yeah, I realized as I said it.”
He opens his mouth, but is cut off by your phone ringing loudly on the bar top.
“Sorry,” you give an apologetic smile as you flip your phone over. You contemplate smashing your head against the bar as you read the contact information.
Connor❤️
“Of fucking course,” you roll your eyes, swiping to answer the call, “gimme a sec.” You give Niall and Jodie a signal before walking towards the front of the bar. You step outside as you speak, “Hello?”
“Y/N, where are you?”
“I told you, I’m at a gig. You said you were coming. Where are you?”
“I’m at home. I don’t wanna go to another dumb gig.”
“I— first of all, that’s rude. Don’t speak to me like that. Second of all, do you think I want to sit around and watch you compete fucking video games? No. But I do.”
“I don’t care—“
“Yeah, clearly.”
“You just need to be home soon.”
You scoff, “Yeah, okay, dad. No. I’m with Jodie and Ni and their friend. You’ll be fine at home without me. Or— and this is just a thought, so hear me out — you could’ve shown up and hung out with us.”
“You’re always at some stupid gig! When do we ever spend time together?”
You sigh, “I try to spend time with you, babe. You’re always on your phone or playing games. You always say you wanna spend time with me when I have a gig, but when we’re both free.. you wanna be anywhere but around me.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Okay, but that’s what it feels like. And.. I mean, it hurts my feelings. We’re getting married, and you can’t even be in a room with me for ten minutes?”
“That isn’t true—“
“It is, though. And yeah, maybe some of it is my fault. I do have a lot of gigs, but we’re finally getting noticed! It’s exciting, and I— I wanna share that with you, but you don’t really care.”
“You’re making this into something bigger than it needs to be.”
“Then stop fucking calling me when you skip my gigs and interrogate me!” you snap. “Just— don’t fucking call me, or talk to me, unless you want to do it without belittling and invalidating me. Bye.”
You scoffed as you hung up. You have to repeat your mantra to yourself as you inhale. I love him, I love him. We’re getting married. He’s just moody sometimes.
-
You walked back up to the bar, feeling a lot better than you had before. Jodie grinned as you approached, wrapping an arm around you.
“Hey, sexy! Where’d you run off to?” she asked.
“Asshole of the Month called,” you rolled your eyes.
“Remind me why we’re marrying him if we call him Asshole of the Month?” Niall asked.
“Okay, first of all, we aren’t marrying him. I am. Second of all.. shut up. He’s sweet most of the time.”
Jodie gave you a deadpan look.
“… Sometimes.”
…
“Okay, barely. But when we’re alone, he’s sweet, I swear! He’s just moody sometimes.”
Jodie shrugged, “We’re not judging you, babe. Just want you to be careful. We don’t want another—“ her eyes flicked to Harry, “uh… situation.. to happen, y’know?”
You look to him as well, before looking back again Jodie, “I know, and I appreciate it. But seriously, I can handle myself. I promise.”
“M’kay. Now, go sit down and get shitfaced!”
“Sir, yes, sir!” you jokingly salute her before resuming your position next to Harry.
“She hath returned,” he joked.
“I hath,” you grin before wincing.
“That was awful.”
“I’m aware. Don’t talk about it.”
“Never even happened,” he grinned.
“See? I knew I liked you,” you smiled, turning to the bartender, “can we get a round of shots, please? Thank you!”
“Phone call that bad, huh?”
“No,” you respond quickly. Too quickly. He doesn’t believe you, and it’s obvious. “No,” you repeat. “It’s just… he gets mad over things that aren’t even happening, and won’t let me explain myself. It’s just.. annoying.”
“That sounds annoying. You should punch him.”
You laugh at the absurdity of his words, “What? No. No! What? No.”
He shrugs, “Your loss.”
“… Are you— should I call the police?”
“I’m joking, babe, relax.”
“… You aren’t very.. how do I say.. good at it.”
“Gee, thanks,” he rolls his eyes.
“You just told me to punch my fiancé!” you exclaim.
He just grins at you, taking a sip of his drink. There’s a lull in the conversation, but it isn’t awkward.
“What’s the tattoo for?” he suddenly asks.
“Hm?” you hum, turning your gaze back to him.
“The tattoo. On your wrist.”
You glance down. “Oh. It’s for my older brother. It’s.. uh.. his birthday in Roman numerals.”
“.. Why the angel wings?”
You hesitate. You debate whether you wanna make it awkward.
“I mean… I’d assume it’s obvious, but.. he died. A few years ago. I was seventeen.”
“.. Oh.”
You fold your lips into a line and glance away, “Yep.”
The silence is awkward now.
“.. The weather is crazy—“
“Yeah! I mean—“
-
When the night came to an end, you and Jodie clambered into the Uber driver’s car. Niall and Harry, however, hovered outside.
“Hey,” Niall said, grabbing Harry’s arm to prevent him from walking away.
Harry turned, a confused look on his face.
“I just.. wanna say thank you.”
“… For?”
“What’d you think I was gonna do?” Harry laughed, “Threaten her with a gun?”
Niall sighed, “For being nice to Y/N tonight. She gets.. really upset when Connor doesn’t show, and she normally just ends up leaving straight after. Bur.. she seemed like she was having a nice time with you. So.. thanks.”
“I mean… yeah. You’re not exactly nice. So.. thanks.”
He rolled his eyes, “Yeah. Sure. She’s.. sweet.”
“Yeah. Which is surprising, ‘cause—“ Niall stops, like he wasn’t supposed to say that.
“.. It’s surprising because what?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” he rushes out. “I just.. Look, I don’t wanna say anything, because she hates when people know, but.. she’s just been dealt a shitty hand in life. Like… your life, plus my life.. hers is still probably shittier.”
“Ni, what the fuck happened to her brother?” Harry asks.
“I.. how do you—“
“You told me, dipshit. And she has a tattoo for him.”
“.. Right,” he nods. “Forgot about that. I.. H, seriously, I can’t say. She hates when people know about.. the shit that’s happened. Like. Hates it.”
“Why? It can’t be that bad—“
“The same way you hate people being sympathetic, she hates pity. She doesn’t want people to be nice out of pity. She doesn’t want to get gigs out of pity. Seriously, I got her ice cream on her brother’s birthday and I almost died. She’s scary.”
Harry rolls his eyes, “She’s, like, the nicest person on Earth.”
“Until she’s mad! Seriously, wait ‘til you hear her and Connor fighting. She’s, like, female Gordon Ramsey.”
“.. What the f—“
“‘Ey, Ni, babe—“ Jodie shouts from inside the car. “Get in the fucking Uber before we ditch your asses!”
“Jodie!” you shriek with laughter. “Be nice!”
“Someone’s gonna call the fuckin’ cops! They look like they’re plotting murder!”
You tilt your head as you stare at them. “Oh.. yeah, nope, I see it. Get in the car, fuckers!”
-
When the Uber dropped the four of you off, Harry went to the guest bedroom and pulls out his laptop.
Would Niall kill him for what he was about to do? Probably. Was it a huge invasion of your privacy? Yes. Did he care? …. Unclear.
He opened up google and typed into the search bar.
Y/N L/N Brother.
God, Niall was gonna kill him if he found out about this.
-
a/n: sorry if this sucks i have a migraine & the whole thing deleted. so.
#harry styles fluff#harry styles x you#harry imagine#harry oneshot#harry styles fanfiction#styles#x reader#mafia!harry styles#mafiarry#mafia harry styles#mafia harry#mafia au#singer!reader
31 notes
·
View notes
Note
if you're still taking questions,,,, if Porter had won, what do you reckon he would have used his powers for, after the whole restoring his clan to glory and all that shit was taken care of? and how is Jace dealing with his boyfriend being off in the astral plane or wherever the fuck gods actually live?
oh i am always taking questions about starbreaker <3
i honestly truly believe that porter would be bored without jace. i think he would have fun at first and smite people who he felt wronged him and raze elmville to the ground yadda yadda but then he’d be like okay. so what now.
he’s too prideful to admit that he could possibly have made a mistake, and too power-hungry to let go of his newfound godhood, so in his mind, there’s really only one solution.
jace probably spends a lot of time immediately after porter’s ascension feeling angry, betrayed, foolish. after all of this, he’d truly been nothing more to him than another pawn, another stepping stone to reach his ultimate goal. even still, he prays. he curses porter out and in the same breath vows to worship him forever. and sometimes, just sometimes, he’ll hear a whisper in his head, feel hot breath against his neck, and he knows that his god is listening.
it’s a few months after the battle at aguefort. jace has since moved back to fallinel, a place he never saw himself returning to—but when your home is destroyed by your vengeful ex-boyfriend, you don’t have many options left.
he’s curled up on his couch, nursing a drink and watching the fantasy bachelor, when he hears a knock on his door. he ignores it the first time, but then it becomes more forceful, and jace finally pulls himself away from the television with a groan. he’s tired, rubbing the liquor and sleep from his eyes, as he opens the door to see—
“porter?”
“in the flesh, little star.” porter grins at him, eyes a swirling pit of fire. his skin glows from the inside out, looking more like lava rock rather than the pure stone it once had resembled.
jace just stares at first. he doesn’t know whether to kiss him or punch him or fall to his knees. but porter breezes past him through the entryway—has he always been that tall?—and makes himself at home on jace’s couch.
“missed you, starshine,” he says, looking up at jace—though, they’re still nearly eye level to each other. “i have…a proposal for you.”
and porter ends up granting jace immortality, the powers of a saint, a holy priest, so that they’ll forever be by each other’s sides. he doesn’t really give jace the chance to decline, but even if he had, jace knows he wouldn’t have. after all, they’ve always been a duo. why stop now?
#okay i got carried away w this one sorry#starbreaker#jace stardiamond#porter cliffbreaker#every time i type jace it autocorrects to have this feels deliberate at this point
24 notes
·
View notes
Text
It was @local-pr1nter who planted the Theatre Kid Mondo Owada idea into my head
Anyway
Here's the character list for who's who in my Danganronpa x Hamilton musical AU thing
Hamiliton Musical of 78' AU
Alexander Hamilton - Kiyotaka Ishimaru
He wasn't going to audition at first since he's never watched Hamilton before, but after a mandatory movie night watch with the entire class so they could 'study' the musical, he decided to try out for Hamilton himself
Taka absolutely loves Hamilton's passion and drive throughout the musical. He doesn't like the occasional cursing (and actively despises the affairs, both emotional with Angelica and physical with Maria), but he tries to look past it because it's all just an act afterall. He wouldn't actually curse if he were picked for the part (and definitely would not cheat on any future love interests)
He studies Hamilton HARD. Just as hard as the homework and topics that are discussed in class. He watched the entire musical 6 times over just to make sure he knew everyone's lines, moves, and personality. It doesn't matter that he was only going to be playing Alexander Hamilton, he still needs to know everyone else's lines too
Sayaka is his biggest hype man when he was practicing his lyrics before the rehearsal. Did he stumble over a line? That's ok, practice it a couple of times with me then try again! Can't hit a particular high note? Try this method she learned during a routine practice she was doing with her bandmates! Nervous before the audition? Look to the side of the stage, she'll be right there smiling and silently singing with you!
Hina is also like that, but with the dancing parts. Need advice for singing and dancing at once without getting tired quickly? She's got him, here's a technique she learned from swimming competitions!
Don't get me started on how loud they (and Mondo) screamed when Taka got the lead role. You would've thought there was a fire, or someone was attacking the school
He's still not over the cursing thing, but he'll manage! Somehow...
Aaron Burr - Mondo Owada
You thought he screamed loud for Taka? Wait until you hear what he did when he found out about his own role
He cried. Very hard.
It was almost scary how expessive he was after finding out he was gonna play THE Aaron Burr
"KYOUDAI! TAKA! KIYO! OH MY FUCKING GOD! TAKA! TAKA! TAKA TAKA TAKA TAKA! WHERE'S CHI? OH MY GOD! I GOT TELL CHI TOO! OH MY GOD!"
This man's happiness could not be contained
He practiced his ass off though so he definitely deserved his role. He was right there with Taka for the 6 viewings (plus the movie night viewing) of Hamilton
After just watching the musical, he started practicing singing. Considering he already knew the musical like the back of his bike before this, it didn't take much practicing to get every single line down for... Hercules Muligan.
That's right! He auditioned for Mulligan! Not Burr.
He definitely didn't think he was good enough to play the Narrator of the musical so the supporting friend of the MC will have to do.
He chose Mulligan mostly because of the man's lines. He sings in, like, 3 songs and most of the lines were about fighting, having sex, getting drunk, or being a spy. Cool ass guy with a cool ass voice. Right up Mondo's alley
The dancing was pretty simply to figure out too since it was mostly background choreography that he already memorized when he was 13. When he was back at home with Daiya, belting out the lyrics and dancing stupidly in the middle of the living room
After the wave of initial excitement, he realizes the responsibility that comes with being the narrator and the MAIN FREAKING ANTAGONIST AND HAVING TO 'KILL' HIS KYOUDAI OH GOD HOW IS HE GONNA DO THING?? BURR HAS LIKE 3 SOLOS AND A 2 WHOLE DUETS WITH HAMILTON AND SO MUCH STUPID DANCING AND-
Eliza Schuyler - Sayaka Maizono
No-one was surprised by this to be honest. Considering Eliza is the other lead besides Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, it would make sense to choose someone who knows exactly how to carry the show when needed
Sayaka practiced pretty hard so she could be Eliza. No offense to the other girls, but she was practically born to be the main Schuyler sister! She's the best at singing and acting since she already has the experience so all she really had to focus on is practicing the lines (and Jesus does Eliza have a lot)
Of course, she celebrated with her bandmates after breaking the news to them. Not everyone in the group knows Hamilton that well, but they still had some fun having a karaoke party and singing the songs
She did have to plead with her manager to get the month and a half off of concerts to go to the practices. It took a lot of compromising (along with some promises that her fans would surely pay to come and see her), but eventually, the crabby old man agreed on the condition that she does some in-between photoshoots to make up for her otherwise radio silence towards her fans
Sayaka immediately began practicing her lines with Taka after finding out about her role. It's a little awkward to pretend to be in love with him, but they end up laughing about it throughout the rehearsal whenever they have to be affectionate towards each other, so that helps a bit
Angelica Schuyler - Aoi Asahina
Hina decided her role through the process of elimination. She doesn't want to be Eliza since she knows Sayaka is going for that role (and she would KILL as the Female Lead!). She doesn't want to be Maria or Peggy since there's only 1 song that they sing in, and she wants to dance and sing as much as possible! (These strong lungs and athletic limbs are made just for that, and they will NOT be going to waste!) Angelica is perfect! She's in a couple songs and is one of the main-side characters, she also has a whole solo where she gets to sing as loudly as possible about two of her friends! The context of the song might not be positive, but when has negativity ever stopped Hina?
She joins in on the practice sessions that Taka and Sayaka hold and joins in on one of the re-watches with Taka and Mondo
She, of course, has one on one sessions with Sayaka to improve her vocal cords. Going from loudly screaming the lines to passionately singing the lyrics
She practiced her choreography with Taka and Sakura, she asked Chihiro to join as well, but they ended up denying while poorly hiding a giggle
They're hiding something...
Oh well! Hina loves secrets so she'll just wait and find out with everyone else!
It doesn't really have to be clarified that she celebrated when she got the part! She was so so so so so excited to be Angelica!! Yayayay! Not only does this mean that she gets to sing and dance with her friends, but she'll also get to brag to her family about a fun new skill she learned! Or maybe she should keep it a secret until the big day? Oh, she doesn't know, she might just explode from the excitement!
She put all her excitement into the swim competition that she had a couple days later, and it won her first place! Yay!
Peggy Schuyler - Kyoko Kirigiri
Kyoko definitely wasn't planning on auditioning for any part. She'd much rather be on the sidelines with Toko
That plan changed quickly when Makoto wouldn't shut up about her being someone- ANYONE- so he wouldn't have to be alone in his small part (If he even got the part, his luck is kind of wonky sometimes)
She finally lamented and auditioned for Peggy. No practice at all, just went for it.
She was present for one of the watch throughs and watched the musical again on her own. The first watch was used to analyze how the characters act and interact with each other, the second was to analyze the plot and movements of the characters. She deduced that Peggy has the second least number of lines of any female main-ish character, (The first being Maria Reynolds and there is no way she is 'seducing' Taka on stage in front of people she most likely knows.) her movements aren't terribly complicated either and whenever Peggy is on stage, she's overshadowed by others, so no-one really pays attention to her. That role is perfect.
Kyoko simply smiled when she read the casting list and saw that she received the role of Peggy. Not only would this make Makoto less nervous, but also practicing for the musical wouldn't take up any time because Peggy is only present in 4 songs and speak briefly in 2.
She has cases to work on and she'd rather not let practicing get in the way of that
George Washington - Sakura Oogami
This may seem like a weird decision, but Hina and Taka thought it was a great idea that someone as stoic and wise as Sakura to play someone as respectable (and tall) as George Washington
It didn't take much convincing as she holds respects for him (and might've been a little intrigued in being in the musical)
It did take a bit of practicing since Sakura's way of talking is more slow-paced while Washington's lines are fast-paced
She is just as resilient in training her mental muscles as her physical muscles though, so the practice is welcomed with honor
All the practice definitely pays off as she finds her name 8th down on the cast list
A smile and a nod are the reaction that the stoic Oogami gave at this revelation... Then a gasp followed as Hina also read the list and basically tackled her from behind in excitement
Hina then went on and on about how amazing Sakura was going to look in Washington's waistcoat and trousers and how amazing she was going to sound because Washington's voice is amazing, and Sakura's voice is amazing and Hina loves all of the parts where Washington sings and now it's going to be even better because she'll get to listen to her girlfriend sing and-
Sakura was not let go of for another 4 hours, but she did not mind one bit
If she wasn't already excited for practice, then she definitely would be now with Hina's bouncing, bubbly excitement radiating all over the place
Thomas Jefferson/Marquis De Lafayette - Yasuhiro Hagakure
Gonna be so honest, I originally only picked this because of Hiro looks
And I'm going to go on a whim here and say that the judges (Who I'm going to say now were teachers like Chisa and maybe some eager volunteers from V2 and V3) at the audition also took Hiro's appearances compared to Lafayette and Jefferson in to account when casting people
Hiro did have some really good accent skills, probably from having to hide his voices whenever someone he scammed bumps into him
He's pretty good at fast talking too, probably also from him having to think of quick excuses on the fly for when he also bumps into someone he's scammed
Both of those qualities are needed to be Lafayette along with being silly and everyone knows Hiro is like the goofiest goober around when he needs to be
He's also witty, engaging, and very sarcastic when needed which are all the qualities needed to be Jefferson
Hiro had both characters down, he loved both of them, but he couldn't decide which one to do. He tried asking he crystal ball, but that just 'told' him that he would vibe as either. So, he consulted the cards, who also told him that he'd be fine as either
He auditioned as both Lafayette and Jefferson since that would amplify his chances of getting at least one of them. He sung a bit of Battle of Yorktown for Lafayette and Cabinet Battle #1 for Jefferson
The audition judges couldn't decide which they liked best so they decided he would follow in Daveed Diggs' footsteps and give him both roles to play
He looked at the cast list, he got there after everyone else with Leon because he had detention, and cheered, attempting to fist bump Leon, but Leon seemed upset. He let it go and went to tell Taka instead
He knew he would get at least one of the roles! Afterall, it was in the cards!
John Laurens/James Reynolds - Leon Kuwata
This man went straight for Alexander Hamilton with absolutely no practice
Well, that's not completely true. He practiced a little bit in the shower and sung Hamilton's parts in Helpless with Sayaka one time
He actually did pretty good despite the very minimum amount of practice
He stumbled on a couple words, he auditioned with My Shot, but ultimately made up for it with his dancing and charisma towards the judges
That's most likely the reason why they gave Leon the part of John Laurens. Laurens is Hamilton's bestie up until his death, he doesn't have too many wordy lines, and he's mainly there to hype up the crowd/his friends. He's perfect for Laurens!
Which is so not perfect for Leon since he's gonna have to watch as whoever gets Hamilton sweeps Sayaka off her feet while he sits back and literally cheers him on!
He goes back to the judges and tells the main judge, and the only one he can really find in this big, old school, Chisa (as nicely as he can) that he doesn't want to be Laurens. He uses the excuse that he feels as though he should be in more of the musical. Chisa agrees and tells him she'll see what she can do!
Cool! Now all he has to do is go serve his detention (Which he may or may not have gotten for racing toy cars in the hall with Hiro and making someone trip) and come back later to see his name right next to Alexander Hamilton
...James Reynolds? Wasn't that the abusive husband? That's not what he meant by 'being more in the musical'! This guy only had like 2 lines and one's about calling his wife a whore!
Leon was left so much more upset than before; he didn't even notice Hiro trying to fist bump him or him leaving. He was seething when he realized that Mr. Hardass was taking his spot at woo-ing Sayaka, the exact same Hardass that gave him detention.
Now he had to pretend like he was really happy for Ishi-Ton and Say-Liza while also remember all these new stupid lines for not just Laurens, but also Reynolds
Hercules Mulligan/James Madison - Byakuya Togami
Literally only got these parts because of his deep voice
He did not audition for Mulligan or Madison, he auditioned for Aaron Burr. Why not Hamilton himself? He did not want to be seen as a protagonist; he sees himself as more suited to be the antagonist, and he did not want to have to fake not 1, not 2, but 3 romances with women he did not have a lick of feelings for.
Aaron Burr is level-headed until he started acting like that fool Hamilton, he thinks his plans through to a detrimental level, and he only mentions a love interest for a couple minutes before focusing on his life plans again. He was the perfect candidate for Togami to stand in as.
He did not practice any dancing but did multiple different private practices for his vocals. He auditioned with Wait for it as it did not require dancing so he could focus on his lines for the pitiful judges that watched him. He did perfectly and was left to wait for the confirmation.
He wanted to wait for all the idiots to clear away from the cast papers, but an unexpected squeal from the overgrown, meathead who was raving about getting his part made him push everyone else out of the way to see if what the big baby of a biker was saying was true. It couldn't be true; Aaron Burr was his part.
...There had to be some kind of mistake! He scanned over that sheet 3 times to find that the dreaded papers were not lying. He was not Aaron Burr; he was Hercules Mulligan and James Madison. Madison he could respect, the man is sophisticated and responsible both in history and in the musical, but Mulligan is a short, angry brute! That is the person suited for that currently over-emotional biker, not Aaron Burr!
He turned to tell that stupid biker that just as the meathead was rushing off to find the little tech student.
Damn it all.
He went to instead lay out his fury with Chisa, the main judge, in a not so polite way. It didn't seem to affect her though. She simply said that she could give those parts to someone else, and he could work in the back with Fukawa...
He dialed the number of his private vocalist to inform them of the change in lines he would have to practice.
King George - Celestia Ludenburg
She too practiced in private.
Of course she was going to go straight for the King, who else would befit her?
It didn't take much singing to convince the judges. Her voice is powerful, condescending, and sarcastic. Perfect for King George!
She will not be spitting like he famously does, but besides that, she already has his part in the bag.
She didn't have to go check the list to know she got her part, but it was worth getting all dressed up to see Togami's hissy fit at his cast reveal
Maria Reynolds - Junko Enoshima
The cheating, the manipulation, the groveling, the despair of a broken marriage caused by her, how could she pass that all up?
The part wasn't hard at all to get down, she was already basically a natural actor.
She practiced only for a stupid older sister's benefit. Poor Mukuro was so nervous about her small little part that she had to practice her chosen part over 30 times (It was definitely because Mukuro was nervous and not because Junko kept laughing and pointing out every little mistake she made)
Her part also came with the added bonus of getting to feel up Mr. Stick-in-his-ass without getting detention. In fact, she might be praised for the added realism
She didn't check the casting roster until really late at night, unfortunately missing the RichMan™'s breakdown, to avoid everyone else for her poor sister's sake (MukMuk is such a big baby, she swears)
She got the part (Yay) and so did her sister (Boo)
George Eacker - Mukuro Ikusaba
She didn't have that many lines, but she just kept messing up during practice for some reason
Luckily, she got them right for the audition (or she hopes she did, Junko didn't say anything so she must have done good)
She wasn't going to audition for any part, just work with Fukawa in the back, but then Junko said she'd be perfect for the part of the murderer of Philip Hamilton and asked her to try out for it
She couldn't deny her little sister, could she?
It was nerve-wracking, but the list had finally been posted so regardless of her nervous-ness, she would have her answer once she went to check the papers.
Junko had to end up dragging her to the papers late at night because she couldn't bring herself to go
She got the part, yay.
Charles Lee - Makoto Naegi
He wanted to be in the musical to support his fellow classmates while also not having to memorize many lines as he might end up forgetting them out of nervousness
Charles Lee, George Eacker, and Samuel Seabury were all good choices. Samuel would be hard though, because he and Taka would have to be singing over each other and he might not be able to say his lines at the same time as him. Especially because of how loud and intimidating Taka can be
He decided to eliminate him and focus on the other 2 options. They both had relatively short parts so auditioning with both of their songs wasn't met with any restraint from the judges
He figured, with his luck, he had to get one of the parts and if he didn't, because that was still definitely a possibility, then he could help Toko with backstage work full time
Luckily, he got Charles Lee. Unluckily, Byakuya decided to take his anger out on him by ranting about 'The Giant Oaf' as he referred to Mondo for almost an entire hour
That's ok though, Makoto is always up to support a 'friend' in times of distress!
Samuel Seabury - Hifumi Yamada
He originally was just going to work backstage with Fukawa Toko-dono but at the prospect that his Mistress is going to be centered as royalty and there is a commoner whose sole role is encouraging the Town People to worship her, he immediately started practicing for the part of Seabury
He was pretty good, even putting on his Manly™️ Voice while auditioning
Because of his impeccable performance, (and the fact that no-one else auditioned for that part) he was almost immediately given the role
Mistress Ludenburg even praised him for his role! (Then ordered him to make her some tea to celebrate)
That's all the main characters sorted I think so next post will be all about how each song and the practices for that particular song went. As expected for the class of 78, there will be lots of shenanigans (and maybe even some fanart to go with it if I can figure out how to draw some of these characters)
○
○
○
○
○
Hold on, there's someone I have forgotten!
Philip Hamilton - Chihiro Fujisaki
Chihiro practiced with Sayaka privately, which was super awkward at first, but they eventually got over it
They wanted to surprise everyone by being in the musical! They know it will be really hard because they'll have to preform in front of everyone in a pretty major role, but that's what the practice is for. They've been getting physically stronger with Mondo, so it's time to up their emotion and mental strength (along with their vocal strength because they have a pretty small voice)
They were really nervous about preforming just in front of the judges, but that's ok because they did it and that's all that matters
They didn't even get a chance to look at the casting roster before Mondo came barreling into them announcing his role. Getting to see the unabridged happiness and excitement from Mondo almost made up for being crushed in a back breaking hug.
After the initial excitement, they then had to listen to his anxieties about all the lines and dance movements he's gonna have to remember before joking that they wouldn't have to do that themselves since they didn't audition for anything. Mondo will not admit that he stumbled to keep up as Chihiro pulled him down the hall (not running, just speed walking as they did pass Taka on the way) back to the casting papers
It took a minute as they specifically requested that their name went on the second paper and not the first so the likelihood of anyone finding their name on accident was low, but they sure did find it... and they were almost immediately put into another crushing hug. They may have gotten stronger and used to Mondo's physical affections, but the bear hugs are something they don't think they'll ever get used to
They leave off telling everyone else, they'll figure it out during practices
Alright, that's everyone! Any other minor roles that weren't assigned to anyone is picked up by other Ultimates that aren't in the 78 class (maybe some of the class of 77 helped) like the background dancers or the prop and set movers. Toko doesn't get a role, not because I don't like her because I absolutely do, but because:
1. I could not find a role that fit her comfortable
2. Realistically, she would not and could not perform in front of potentially 100s of people (Most of whom are made up of the classmates' family and friends, along with Sayaka's fans who came just for Sayaka)
3. She would not want to risk Syo coming out in front of hundreds of people. She would rather have her come out while backstage because then someone could notice and get her away from the stage area more subtly and without worry
She's content with having to pull the curtains or just motioning for props to be sent out to the stage.
This entire performance is going to be put on in a sort of hall, think of a graduation ceremony kind of hall. Despite the huge school and its amenities, they could not fit all the props, characters, and costumes along with 100+ people anywhere in the school comfortably. The school funds the renting of this hall though since this is for a festival. The festival will be happening at and around the school where some students will also be selling tickets for the musical and then there will be an announcement, signaling that the musical will start in an hour. All guests will then move to the hall, get their tickets taken, and take their seats.
#danganronpa#danganronpa trigger happy havoc#kiyotaka ishimaru#mondo oowada#mondo owada#sayaka maizono#dr1 maizono#danganronpa hamilton#hamilton musical#Hamiliton Musical of 78' AU#trigger happy havoc#class of 78#aoi asahina#sakura oogami#sakura ogami#yasuhiro hagakure#leon kuwata#byakuya togami#Can you guys tell I don't like Byakuya?#celestia ludenberg#chihiro fujisaki#Can you guys tell I love Theater Boy Mondo?#Daiya Owada Lives BTW#That will be prevalent later#kyoko kirigiri#junko enoshima#hifumi yamada#makoto naegi#mukuro ikusaba#I hope I characterise them well because I'm kinda bad at that
30 notes
·
View notes
Note
The women in One Piece have actual arcs and character development, while women in most other major shounen are just sorta there so the author can add fan service.
There's a genuine level of EMPATHY you can actually FEEL for them. And it's not just liking them because they have honkadonkas. Even the VILLIANESSES are compelling. Most Shonen, the women are there either as a supporting role friend, because they're in love with the fighting obsessed mc or because they're like...a sister role. They aren't more complex than that.
Big Mom had uncontrollable power from a young age and if I understand correctly, ate her mother figure along with her childhood friends by accident and never truly understood WHAT happened or WHY.
Boa Hancock and her sisters were made slaves and perpetuated a 'curse' if they were viewed naked; sheerly to hide the fact they were bearers of Slave Scarring.
Shirahoshi the Mermaid Princess was literally Rapunzel'd not out of malice-but for her LITERAL own protection because she was harassed from DAY ONE by a highly highly undesirable stalker and was incredibly naive and overly sensitive because of it
Nico Robin's HOME EXPLODED. Like fucking. Kaboom. Geneva convention violation to the MAX. Fucking BOOM. And was labeled a criminal. as a CHILD. *a CHILD.*
Chiffon was abused for the crime of resembling her sister and still managed to stay strong, found love in a fantastic husband, has a kid and still is her own independent character with her own motives and morals.
Wanda's a personal favorite even though her screen time is limited. Mainly because her shape as a character design is so good and also happy mink greetings is a lick lick.
Also Carrot is growing on me as a character. It may be Bunny Bias, but she's a good good gal.
But yeah despite how a lot of the One Piece women are drawn (hondonkas the side of watermelons) they at least have depth to them, they have morals and beliefs and quirks and faults to their personalities.
20 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
rittzbuilds
virtual interior design
cachmuavietlottonline
Nền tảng vietlott uy tín
oldsoulvirgo
don't forget the happy thoughts
jonessketchbook
✨️Jonesys art✨️