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nonokoko13 · 3 years

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Child!reader being adopted by spy x family characters

Like I said in my previous Ted talk about me rambling I had imagined some scenarios in which certain characters would adopt a kid and why; adding some more stuff. I made up my mind and decided to write for myself.

I think it's really specific but I believe not all characters would be moved by the same default child so I almost created a concrete type for each one; plus it's more fun. Unless specified the reader would be six in each one

I won't put any of them raise their child with another existing character apart from the Forgers, because they're the only canonic marriage and without it wouldn't exist the series, unless specified. If you want "x ship raising a kid together" or similar you can ask for it

Idk if I'll write more about this but enjoy!

Yuri Briar

How you met

His life moves around his job and Yor. There would be few occasions he'd interact with a child; maybe when he babysits Anya

Unless is required to approach a kid. He'll be more into adopting once he has known further about the child's life and under which conditions they live

Remember the university students that used dogs as bombs? Animals aren't the only ones used by bastards to unleash or win a conflict

So in one of his missions he discovered the trashy traitors were using toddlers as their mules to move the merchandise, either drugs or weapons. Unfortunately for them the Operation is successfully sabotaged by his team

That's when he found you

Without living relatives or documents that clarify where you came from everything indicated that you grew up in that environment, probably sold from an early age as a slave

A quiet, reserved kid waiting to answer a few questions before social services took you to an orphanage

Yuri would be assigned to this task, if he didn't already offered himself first

Somehow he managed to open you. Starting with simple questions, talking about himself so you were more comfortable; perhaps even taking you to a walk and stopping to get an ice cream if you wanted

The desire of returning him the favor by working hard reminded him of himself when he told Yor he'd study to make the world better

Which makes him impatient to hear the useless pleas of those bastards when he began to torture them

Once he obtained all he needed he said goodbye to you and returned to headquarters more eager to do his job than he initially had

All would have ended there if you didn't have initiative

Surprising you following him back home, you clung to him before he could ask how you got there

Saying you could be useful, that you would help him with everything and be a good kid in an attempt to make him let you stay there

Then he started to think

Having a child would be useful: with Yor babysitting you he would have information about Loiloi, snitching on him for any suspicious activity or getting access to his secrets. But would he be okay using a child?

Although looking at you made him surrender. Even if his plan wouldn't go like expected he'd be making something good for you

Plot twist: You made him believe he thought that on his own to then accept his deal in exchange for adopting you.

Of course, you will help him to get the love of his life like he desired, but you never said it would be the so-called Yor

Why breaking a family when you could make your own? Even isolated kid would realize how creepy was his obsession with his sister

Instead, you could help him to get rid of it, that would be your favor. And in exchange you could get more

You could get him a fake partner to enroll yourself in Eden. You could get education, a family, and if you liked Loiloi and auntie enough you would make sure dad didn't sabotage their marriage. You didn't see nothing wrong with your logic

Everyone wins, right?

General headcanons

At first he may not be sure what to do

He doesn't want to bother her sister but he wants to do his best. Due your lack of energy, common in children, Yor can't give him more than the basics

He reassures you that there's nothing wrong with it though. You are just calm and quiet while others were more talkative and neither of those behaviors were worse or better than the other

He's the first in falling with parenthood out of all the options, and pretty soon than expected for the sadist lieutenant

Your smile, your face after falling asleep, your tiny hands reaching his... he's crying help

You have him wrapped around your tiny finger. Although you don't like to get advantage of that

You genuinely want to help him. Because the whole thing of dad replacing Loiloi is a no-no

You don't realize how creepy it may sound your way of thinking to others. Fortunately they can't read your thoughts so you exterior makes people think that you are simply introvert or shy

Another problems came along with that

You know how to talk, which you don't is basic human interaction

All this comes from long before, so apart of school subjects you'll receive etiquette lessons Yuri teaching someone how to behave is the irony peak

Prepare yourself, now that he loves you is surely to say there's no scape for the affection

Of course, he'll contain himself if you don't want physical affection, but eventually you won't be able to say no to his puppy face

Headpats, hugs, kisses in forehead, kisses in cheeks, kisses to heal the wounds and make you feel better, more hugs, piggybacks, holding hands, cuddles, did I mention headpats?

Did you understand the lesson? Great job! Can you jump rope two times in a row? Impressive! Christmas is near? He'll move land and air destroying any obstacle in his path until he gives you the best gift he can afford!

It would be suffocating as hell if you weren't touch starved, or love-starved in general. Actually it helps after years of cold-blooded treatment

Yuri hates Lottie, but he accepts his help for therapy if because you need it

Please calm him down when someone offends you before he commits murder

I think the encounter headcanons gives you an idea of why he initially adopted you

Part of it was because either you reminded him of Yor. Nothing in particular, in his view both shines and need to be protected neither of you need that but that's his view so ok Yuri

If Yuri adopted a child I'll be inclined to think he melts quickly

Yuri's little prince/princess®

Neutral pronouns could help you to get away with crime one day. The suspect is a girl? Ain't see any girl here

If you tell him to choose a new name for you he'll cry for real. A new name is also a new life and you want him to have that honor for you is just a name

You would end up with a name that means night

I headcanon Yuri had the most acute fashion sense than the rest of his family

When they were young their parents dress them but once they died Yuri was in charge of choosing clothes because Yor didn't care, he ended up influencing her that's why Yor always looks gorgeous

So if you want to go shopping he's your man

Anything you want to wear is fine but let him dress you and I assure you stupidly cute outfits and mainly cottage core aesthetic clothing until you change your mind. It goes for seasons and events too so your closet will be really diverse

Proud father that brings with him at least one picture of you anywhere he goes. "Have you seen my baby? Now you have been blessed you're welcome"

I wanted to write about Forgers/Briars interaction and more but this section is already too long maybe I'll do it in the future

Fiona Frost

How you met

To prove she's better wife than Yor she accepted the challenging Operation Strix no one gave her green light to that because she didn't ask permission either btw

Following his dear master's steps she searches a kid that can read and write in dreadful orphanages where she doesn't have to give many details

One would think she would choose the best option she could find to increase the possibility of getting 8 Stellas asap

And it will be correct if she had found any better option than you

You proved to read and write and yet she was debating whether keep searching or not

Unable to keep still, clumsy, simple-minded, loud, easily excited, too talkative, inattentive... The list went on and on and she had only knew you for five minutes

Attempting to return you to the orphanage made things worse. You wrapped your arms on her leg and left your lungs with your cries Not attracting attention to herself: done

She calmed you with the lie promise she hadn't thought in that and led you to what would it be your house

In the journey you saw a bunch of elderly people in a chess tournament

Leaving you with cartoons before you cry again; she met with a really angry Handler and describe her the situation waiting for advice. Sylvia took a deep breath before answering

"Have you ever interacted with a kid before? Or seen one? Do you know what a kid is?"

"I see infants on the streets every day, I was one once too. You haven't seen a kid like this before"

"I doubt it but let's continue"

Sylvia tried to dissuade her of her idea of the perfect candidate telling her it was the normal behavior of a child, more after growing without any role model to teach you

Not to mention the terrifying "advise" of dropping her strict plan minute-by-minute schedule plan she had in mind

Suddenly her words enlightened her

Searching the most suitable child for the role of mother would make the road too easy

As candidate for the best wife she ought to be ready for motherhood since her future offspring's traits wouldn't be able to be selected just like any other mother can't

Her mother's duty was raise you, an average talentless creature, to be a strong kid that would be the proud of any mother wishes she had!

Challenge accepted

Back home she activated all her senses when there wasn't any signal of you in the flat

Remembering the park you passed by on your way home she went there due a hunch

There you were, playing with an old man. She was ready to drag you home if necessary but she stayed in silence watching you play

The man was in trouble. If he ate your knight your bishop would eat his, but he couldn't risk to move the Queen of King's side because your last rook would eat it. No matter where he looked his pieces would be eaten or held until you made checkmate

With resignation he knocked his king down and reached out for a handshake, witnesses clapping at your victory

As soon as you saw her among the crowd you ran to give her a hug and explain her everything you had been doing since she left

"Mommy look look! The first pawn I ate was in D4 but then he ate mine with the pawn he had in c5, I decided to let my pawns in 2A and 2H so if he tried my rooks with his I could ate them and—"

"Where did you learn that?"

"A doctor said it was good for me. Something about needing concentration and therapeutic and I tried and I liked! Then I didn't want to learn the names but the chessboard reminded me of pieces of chocolate bar and that helps!"

A doctor...

Thinking about it, you could be a suitable option after all

General headcanons

She wanted a calm, tamed kid

Instead she got you

At first she tries to change your antics. Realizing it's impossible she went with plan B and canalize your energy in activities that entertain you and by the end of the day you're tired

But you're beyond her understanding

Constantly changing your mind, you got bored quickly. The only thing you don't seem to get bored is keep talking with her

More impossible is make you study

About anything, everywhere at any moment. From what have you drawn and what does represent all the elements to explain all you've done since the last time you met

Which was 20 minutes ago but you can last an eternity talking about it because you beat about the bush before remembering what you were saying and starting all over again. It's the story that never ends

Surprise hugs. Her first instinct is stopping you (you don't surprise her but still) or wonder what's the intention behind it; eventually she just let it goes and becomes better at knowing when you're going to "attack"

Something starts to connecting the dots

Impulsive, hyperactive, talkative... Could it be you have some kind of attention deficit?

Investigating the medical history discovers that your last doctor thought the same. Probably that's why he recommended you to play chess

She takes you to the hospital she works to make sure, where you always maintain a conversation with a very kind man who comes with his daughter to see the same psychologist you have

Mister Forger has a sandbox and toys! It's always fun to visit mommy's friend. Hope you can enter to school and meet his daughter too

It's almost 99% sure you have ADHD–combined presentation. Still, Fiona's not giving up on you

She finally found something you didn't get bored of: dancing

In your eyes Fiona's attitude is just though love. She never yells at you when she gets mad, and she wants you to study hard to go to a good school

Deep down she must love you a lot like you love her! Oh baby

Her conditions for adopting a kid were 1 Not illiterate 2 A girl so she could call her Twyla

She changed her mind. Saving that name for her future first daughter she let the second requirement aside too when she adopted you

Don't let that fool you she would think of a Twilight related name anyway

From the end of her conversation with the Handler on, your name would be Dusk. No like you complain, thinking how sweet it was she wanted to rename you now you were a family

"In case that your last family tried to search you" LIAR

"Don't worry mama, I don't think they'll do!"

First time of many she wouldn't know what to say, she gave you a headpat and immediately regretted it when you started to jump and scream for something she thought it was meaningless

Franky

How you met

He yawned; getting up earlier everyday to open the tobacco store he had as facade wasn't the most exciting thing one could dream of

With their back against one of the store's walls certain sleepy gremlin have had forgotten their deal. For some reason you passed by his store since the first time he saw you. What it was, the fifth time you were there?

"Stop appearing on here, people will think that I sell tobacco to children! Do you know the trouble you would put me in?"

"I don't care what people think!"

He reached into his backpack, pulled out a lunch box and showed the inside: a sandwich, a juice and a fiber and chocolate bar

"If I give you this you'll leave?"

You looked at the lunch box, then at him, at the lunch box again and nodded.

"Can I stay–"

"SHOO!"

You ran away, yet he doubt you were going to keep the promise. Now he had to get himself more food

Another day in his miserable single life started. Selling cigarettes, reading something when there was no people...

Twilight came to pick the details of the next infiltration he had to commit that day. With his stupid handsome face, blond hair and blue eyes which made any lady to melt

No one except him knew how inept he could be

"Franky, you're thinking aloud again"

"That's the only way you know how men like me go through because of you"

"I already told you love it's not something I have interest in"

"Livi it's nit simithing I hivi intirist in said the married family man"

"It's–

"Say it's for the mission again and I burn all the data I've collected"

"Look, some men may be more appealing to women than others and vice-versa, it's all about tastes. But you're intelligent, kind, and a good man; I'm sure somebody will appreciate you"

Heading to his chores, Franky watched the agent walk until his silhouette disappeared

Goddammit, he was a good liar. Hopefully that would be true

During the evening some dames passed by, buy tobacco and leave. Not even looking at him twice

Knees on the ground he raised his arms to the sky and begged God for female's attention

"What are you doing?"

No, he didn't refer to that female's attention God

"What are you doing here?"

You handed his lunch box. "How nice of– why there's money inside? Is this a bribe? How did you get it?"

"Do I ask you about why there's always weird people that comes to you and leaves after you gave them something else than cigarettes?"

"........Touché"

Somehow you ended up taking a walk, chatting or arguing about anything

Then he took you back home. You were near, around the corner was your house, there you stopped

"It's late. Your family is going to get worried if you don't go home already"

"I don't have one"

"Why do you say that?"

"I'd prefer to live on the streets. Mom is mean, she keeps me to get money, but she doesn't want to spend time with me. Only her new boyfriend does because he says I'm a pretty girl, but I don't like him"

He looked at you with an expression you were unable to understand

"Has he done something to you?"

"No, well... He stares at me and asks me if I need help when I'm taking a bath, but when there's someone else he doesn't act the same. His way of talking to me or caress my face makes me nervous but mom calls me liar. I'm not a liar, I don't like to be there"

You wondered if you had bothered him because his lack of response and apologized, when you felt his hand taking yours

"You're right, living on the streets seems better than living there"

"I was thinking in have dinner somewhere and then go home, but I don't like to eat alone. Would you accompany me?"

General headcanons

After that time you didn't came back to that house

He had to talk with social services, with the officers that knocked his door, with a judge in order to have your temporary custody. But he wasn't letting you go back

There may be no evidences in your case, but his contacts helped him to find girls that met him. One was willing to talk

Twilight's intervention helped to accelerate the process. Your mom was still pending trial, but you were safe

During your time together he noticed more things about you than through the investigation he did

Your sweet tooth, your love for frogs

Taking you to the park became a thing

Soon he discovered how you attract ladies. They found you adorable, although the first time a lady approached you sarcastically asked her if she didn't know any other compliment

"Or is your vocabulary that short miss?"

When he asked you why did you that he also discovered one of the things you disliked the most: being pretty

You don't want to be liked by how pretty you are. You learned to write well before five, you are good at football and passionate about myths but people just talked about how cute you are and do almost anything you wanted because of it

Of course you liked compliments, and stated you were fine if daddy thinks so too. But it makes you angrier when people interrupt your family time together only to ignore him because of you

In fact, you're more than comfortable with taking advantage of that with people you dislike

He thinks your charm comes along with the way you expressed yourself as well

In one occasion that a group of moms talked with you he was so nervous that ended up bragging a lot about his "hobby" as inventor

"You must be glad to have such handyman at home!"

"Yes, but I think his parents are better because they created him"

*Biggest aww you have ever heard*

"How did you do that?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean with what do you mean. That cheesy line was smoother than... Umm... it was too casual!"

"But I mean it? I'm happy you are here so I can be with you"

Ugh. So unfair how you always come with genuine speechs like those without realizing their critical effects

Instead of see him as a date option somehow he became a member of the mommy's club

Your name could be whichever you wanted

I mean, he wants you to forget about your past so you can overcome it but he's not changing your name unless you want to. If it makes you feel better he can help you

But you had already decided when you brought the topic. Since you like mythology you went with Freya, a name you liked and it matched with Franky

He's touched. He would have said something ended in "ie" or "y" like Winnie, Minnie...but your choice sounds better

Along with Twilight you're his love master, although you don't have experience you're still good teacher

Always ending the failed date giving him a pat, if she gave him a chance in the first place

"You'll do better next time daddy"

Because of paragraph limit I have decided to do it in two parts; second part coming soon. Hope you liked it!

#spy x family #sxf headcanons #yuri briar #fiona frost #nightfall #franky #frankie #child!reader

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edwardskhakipants · 3 years

Text

Forks, Washington. August 2004.

Esme and Carlisle stood in the middle of their grand living room, waiting for their five vampire children to arrive. Alice arrived first—prompt as usual. She settled herself gracefully onto the tufted sofa Esme had recently acquired, only to be immediately jostled by Emmett who heaved himself onto the cushions. A breath caught in Esme’s throat—she had lost many pieces from her beloved collection by that action—but it looked like this one was still in one piece. For the moment. Jasper took Edward’s normal spot in the only armchair, forcing Edward to wedge himself between Alice and Emmett.

“What?” Rosalie grumbled as she perched on the armrest of the couch beside Emmett, “Are we having another one of those How to Respect the Telepath in Your Life meetings again?”

“No,” Edward answered, fully aware of the intent of this meeting since it hatched in Carlisle's mind two days prior. “But there’s never a bad time to bring that up. Christ, Emmett, if you’re going to have a song stuck in your head for over seventy-two hours, the least you can do is learn the correct lyrics.”

Emmett’s eyebrows knit together, asking his brother a silent question.

“It’s ‘mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido,’” Edward answered.

Emmett’s brow furrowed doubtfully.

“No.” Edward shook his head, answering Emmett’s thoughts. “Why would he eat a beetle?”

Emmett grinned playfully and tilted his head towards Edward.

Edward wasn’t amused. “You know what it means.”

A silly grin plastered on his face, Emmett elbowed Edward in the ribs, silently egging him on.

Edward’s eyes darted to Carlisle, then Esme, and he shifted in his seat. “Sexual desire,” he muttered.

Emmett howled with laughter and clapped his hands once, “Wow, Eddie! You’re just going to say that in front of Esme!?” Edward scowled as Emmett’s bouts of laughter echoed through the room.

Esme ran a hand through her youngest’s ginger hair. “Boys,” she warned, and Emmett sucked in his laughter.

“Our meeting today has to do with all of you,” Carlisle began.

“We simply wanted to go over the rules of attending school with you kids before you start your second year at Forks High School,” Esme explained, unfolding and re-folding her hands in front of her. “There are already whispers, and we don’t want those whispers to turn into rumors.”

“I thought the only whispers about us at school were whether or not Edward liked girls,” Rosalie said, earning an eye-roll from Edward.

“No,” Alice chirped,” Some kids think we’re a cult.”

Jasper leaned back heavily in his chair. “We haven’t heard that one since the Seventies.”

“Kids are getting more creative these days.” Emmett nodded appreciatively.

Esme held up one, delicate finger. “Which is why it is best to take preventative action.”

Carlisle took the floor. “We thought a few reminders would be helpful before you started your first day of your second year,” Carlisle said. “We don’t want another incident like the one we had at the end of last year.”

Every head in the room turned towards Emmett.

“What?” Emmett threw up his hands in exasperation, “The water gun fight was the senior prank—I wasn’t the one who brought them to the school. Hell, I wasn’t even the only student who got suspended!”

“That’s true,” Carlisle agreed, “but you were the only student to shout, ‘Sit down, kids! Daddy’s gotta tinkle,’ and shoot the stream of the gun from your crotch.”

Jasper snickered—the sound was immediately silenced by a single raised eyebrow from Esme.

“I still don’t see the problem,” Emmett continued, “That’s not necessarily a vampire thing.”

Edward—who often mistook himself as the third vampire parent rather than the youngest son—sighed, “Yes, but it brings unnecessary attention to the family. Which is the first rule: do not bring attention to yourself.”

Esme ran her fingers through her son’s hair once more, “Yes, darling, you are especially good at keeping to yourself.” Edward’s eyes widened, despite Esme’s gentle touch, already aware of where her point was headed. “So much so, that I have been given the names of several child therapists to help my son through his depression. One was recommended for his exceptional work on spotting and treating the early signs of sociopathic behavior.”

Esme grabbed her son’s chin and forced him to look at her. “You have to talk to other people.”

Knocked off his high horse, Edward flinched back from Esme’s hand. “Friendship with humans never bodes well for us.”

“We’re not asking you to create lifelong friendships with humans,” Carlisle clarified, “We are simply asking you to be likable.”

“A nearly impossible feat for Edward.” Rosalie grinned. The comment went unnoticed, save Edward’s slight flinch. But the quick, little tick was satisfying enough for Rose.

“Look at your father,” Esme gestured towards Carlisle, “At every hospital he works at, he goes out of his way to ensure he is well-liked among his colleagues. He forces down countless lunches and coffees, solely to make sure they’re comfortable around him.”

Carlisle took over. “And your mother, a beloved member of her gardening club and a prized member of the PTA.”

“And neither of us have rumors started about us, and do you know why?”

All five teenagers grumbled the ingrained response. “Humans don’t want to spread rumors about people they like.”

“Exactly.” Esme nodded.

“I try!” Alice whined, “But Edward never lets me talk to any humans.”

“That’s because every, single thing that is about to come out of your mouth is incriminating. You might as well walk around with a neon sign that says, ‘I’m a psychic vampire’.”

Alice scoffed, “Is not!”

“You wanted to tell Nihal Howard not to audition for the musical.”

“And he broke his leg on opening night,” Alice challenged.

“You were going to tell Christiana Ward that pink was not her color.”

“And she lost prom queen to Ashley Kirby.”

Jasper put a comforting hand on his wife’s knee. “Maybe try not to meddle so much, darlin’. Natural relationships, first.”

“They would have been!” Alice wailed, “I would have played it cool and casual and made friends and you all would have seen it! But everyone’s hurt and I have no friends at all because Edward won’t let me try!”

Edward rolled his eyes.

Carlisle suppressed a heavy sigh. “You have to let your sister try, Edward.”

Edward’s mouth fell open. “You cannot seriously be siding with her on this!”

But Carlisle stood his ground. He and Edward stared at one another for a few seconds, engaged in a silent conversation. In the end, Carlisle tilted his chin and Edward slumped back. Victorious, Alice used both pointer fingers to jab Edward in the side several dozen times at vampire speed.

Rosalie flipped her golden locks over her shoulder. “I don’t know how you all struggle so much. I have no issues with becoming well-liked at school while remaining inconspicuous.”

“Oh yeah, you’re so inconspicuous,” Edward grumbled, now extra-petty that he had been called out two times in one meeting. “You dress like you're on your way to brunch at your second husband’s country club in Beverly Hills and you make out with your foster brother. The perfect picture of discretion in Forks High School.”

“At least I don’t dress like a sad, old man.” Rosalie grimaced, disappointed in her comeback. The light, humorous insults that were required in family situations were Emmett’s forte; Rosalie’s insults were meant to emotionally cripple a person.

Edward sat up in his seat on the couch and turned to face Rosalie. “I think you missed the main takeaway in that you make out with your foster brother.” Edward turned back. “I can read your minds, and I still don’t understand what made either of you think it was okay to bring your relationship to school?!”

Emmett smiled, unperturbed. “It’s hot.”

“It’s disturbing,” Edward disagreed.

Esme frowned, “You kids don’t really do that, do you?”

“Would it help if Jasper and I became an official couple too?” Alice suggested. Jasper perked up at the idea of being able to hold hands with Alice in public again.

“No!” Edward yelled at the same time Emmett and Rosalie muttered their acquiesce.

“It wouldn’t seem as weird if there were two couples,” Emmett agreed.

Edward dug his fingers through his hair. “Oh my god!”

“...maybe not, kids,” Esme intervened, but was ultimately ignored.

“So should we come out today like it happened over the summer, or make a little show out of it?” Alice asked Rosalie.

Rosalie waved a hand in the air. “Oh, it’s way more fun if you play up the theatrics.”

“A little more realistic, too,” Emmett agreed.

Alice looked to Jasper for his opinion. “It might be better if we were discreet about it,” she said. “Like we knew it was wrong, but we wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of our love.”

Jasper scooted forward to the edge of his seat. “Or we could let it be quiet and drawn out. Let others see our mutual pining, and root for us to be together.”

Gazing deep into the golden eyes of her soulmate, Alice sighed, “I love that.”

“If people wanted us to get together, it would normalize Emmett and Rosalie’s relationship.”

“Or Rosalie and Emmett could stop,” Edward suggested, bitterly. “That would be normal, too.”

“Oh, Edward,” Alice patted his shoulder, “You’ll find love someday, too.”

“That is not at all what bothers me about the situation.”

Carlisle made the decision for everyone. “Rosalie and Emmett, break up at school. Alice and Jasper, remain friends and siblings.”

Disappointment filtered into the room through Jasper.

“I heard that,” Edward grumbled at someone’s thoughts.

“You were supposed to,” Rosalie shot back.

“We are also initiating a new rule,” Esme brought the room back to the conversation at hand, “No more correcting your teachers.”

A chorus of complaints rang from the couch.

Esme clicked her tongue, “I’m tired of defending you all from entirely preventable issues. I have emails from curious teachers wondering why my foster daughter is taking French 101, when she already appears to be fluent.” Esme looked at Rosalie, who immediately tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “Or why my son, at the tender age of sixteen, could not only deadlift three hundred pounds in his first weightlifting class, but also give his coach tips on improving his posture.”

Emmett glanced over at Edward before he realized Esme was, in fact, addressing him. “What!?”

Jasper snorted. The sound was a mistake, for it brought Esme’s wrath onto him. “And not to mention the emails from not one, not two, but three teachers warning me that my foster son has an intimate understanding of the mechanics of a point fifty-eight caliber rifle-musket.” Esme held out her hands, almost pleadingly, “How does that subject keep coming up, Jasper?”

A noncommittal grunt was the only answer Jasper had for that question.

“No more,” she commanded. “You can get good grades but keep your extra knowledge on any subject to yourself. Whatever your teacher teaches is all you know. Understand?”

“But what if we—” Edward started.

“Understand?” Esme repeated.

The five teenage vampires understood, even if they didn’t want to.

“I believe that all five of you will graduate from Forks High School!” Esme cheered.

The kids stared back, unable to muster the zeal Esme had over the prospect.

“Meeting adjourned!” Carlisle announced, and faster than fast vampire speed, the kids bolted from their seats.

Esme was able to get in a few more reminders as her children flitted around the house and filed out to the silver Volvo. “Remember to buy lunch with cash and not your credit cards. Emmett, please do not joke about being mauled by a bear. Do not address your teachers by their first names—I don’t care if you’re older than they are, Edward. Alice, please wear something a bit more causal, pet.”

When the house was finally empty, Carlisle pulled Esme backwards into his chest and began massaging her temples. The gesture wasn’t needed, but any touch from her husband was always welcome.

“Do you think they’ll listen?” she asked her husband.

“Not a chance.”

#this bad boy had been swimming around in my head for awhile #please enjoy #my other fics havent been cullen centric enough for me lately #so i had to do something #twilight fic #twilight fan fiction #and thank you to the editing queen edwardsmate4ever for beta'ing for me #youre a queen

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mc-lukanette · 3 years

Note

Omg I am loving your dreaded string of fate au this is such an interesting take! As always your writing and ideas absolutely amaze me You are such a wonderful writer! If it isnt too much of a bother could we get some more writing for dsaf? Either way I hope you are staying safe, taking care of yourself, and that overall life is doing you good.

Thanks, everyone! And sure, you can have more!!

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[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Luka wasn't sure why Marinette had called him over that day. As far as he knew, she was busy with projects, though he wouldn't complain about spending some time with her.

Still, he found himself tensing and steeling himself up as he walked up the stairs to her living room. The hum of her sewing machine could be heard as he got closer, reminding him of clothes, which led to the thought of thread, which then brought his mind to the red string of fate wrapped around her neck. His last venture as Viperion seemed to have improved his sensing, so now he could see someone's red string even if the person on the other end wasn't nearby.

Needless to say, he wasn't looking forward to it with Marinette.

He closed the living room door behind him, then went up the staircase, knocking to let Marinette know he was there. The sound of the sewing machine stopped, and he heard her footsteps come closer followed by the slight creak of the trapdoor.

Marinette's face was revealed to him, offering him a smile, and Luka tried not to stare too much at the red string still tied around her neck. He swallowed, but smiled back at her, which was genuine enough even if he was uncomfortable.

"Come on up," she welcomed, holding the trapdoor up for him. He nodded and walked up the rest of the stairs, hearing the trapdoor close behind him as he took a look around the room. He felt Marinette's eyes on him, but she voiced her thoughts before he could wonder about them.

"You didn't bring your guitar?" she asked.

He glanced at his back, then at her, having no way of telling her the real reason why he'd chosen not to bring it. "Yeah, I didn't. Sorry, did you want me to play for you?"

"Oh! No, it's okay—I mean, of course I love it when you play for me so I always want—but I understand!" She thankfully dropped the subject there, turning away to return to her seat. "You can make yourself at home or help yourself to the fridge downstairs if you want anything!"

"Thanks," he said with a smile, heading over to her chaise lounge and taking a seat on it. Even with Marinette's chair turned away from him while she used her sewing machine, he could still see the red string dangling off the side, though it faded into full transparency before it hit the floor.

In truth, he'd left his guitar behind to force himself to use less music and more words. He didn't want to hide behind it to try and ease his situation or make himself more comfortable with everything. The situation the love of his life - and more importantly, his friend - had gotten into through no fault of her own was horrible, and no matter how uncomfortable he was, he couldn't have been any more uncomfortable than her being strangled by fate itself.

He watched her, waiting for a lull in her work to ask, "Did you need anything?"

"Hm?" She looked over her chair to meet his gaze.

"I'm happy to be here anyway, but I didn't know if you needed me for something," he clarified.

"Oh." She understood. Waving a hand dismissively, she assured, "No! I just invited you here to hang out—" She gestured to her sewing machine, her eyes a bit shifty. "—with me, while I was busy but totally happy and relaxed and everything!"

Her wording was inherently suspicious. His eyes scanned over the room, noting the projects littered about that seemed so plentiful. He supposed he hadn't exactly been subtle in his concern for her, but he wasn't sure of exactly what tipped her off or made her feel like she had to "prove" her happiness to him.

Besides, he knew better, and he knew her. Even with the smile she gave him, her brows were furrowed and twitching, a tiredness to her eyes that definitely didn't show what he would call "happiness."

He gave her a nod anyway, not wanting to call her out when he was still piecing things together himself, and he didn't want to confirm her worries if she was merely suspecting that he felt that way.

He leaned back while she returned to working, his hand on the cushion underneath him as he considered what to say. If Sass was right in his beliefs, then Luka indeed had the power to change Marinette's fate, though there wasn't any specific method of how. He thought back to all of their conversations, wondering what he would've done differently if he'd known beforehand and trying not to get bogged down by "what if"s or blame himself for it.

He stared silently at the back of Marinette's head, remembering the day at the ice rink when he saw the same thing. She'd been running away, or more specifically running towards Adrien after he'd encouraged her to do so. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but from what he gathered from interactions he'd either seen or heard about, it hadn't gone anywhere. Maybe it hadn't even gone well at all.

Maybe he'd made a mistake?

Luka's mind grew heavy with the thoughts, his body falling back to lay down on Marinette's chaise. He didn't regret doing what he felt was right, but now he wondered if his wording could've been better.

"You should probably go over and talk to him."

He hadn't exactly been thinking at the time - a lot had happened that day - but he noted that he could've asked her how she felt. He could've questioned her on if she really wanted to go after Adrien. It was possible she'd wanted to go home on the subway with him, but was convinced to chase Adrien when he brought it up. Luka just imagined Marinette seeing Adrien and Kagami together, the red string tightening around her neck and then loosening when she was presented with the prospect of going after him.

He felt like he was the one being strangled, just thinking about it.

"Luka?"

He looked up, surprised, seeing that Marinette had stopped sewing at some point and had come to sit on the chaise lounge with him. She hovered over him, concern written across her features and the red string taunting him with its mere existence. Luka knew by now that she was very worried about him, and trying to wriggle or half-lie out of it wasn't going to convince her. He'd just really thought that she would've been sewing for longer.

He also jolted up into a sitting position upon realizing that he probably looked like he was making himself too comfy on her chaise lounge. She didn't seem to mind at least.

"...Marinette," he said slowly, trying to put his thoughts in order. She leaned closer as a sign that she was giving him her attention, and he continued, "Do you know why I let you go that day?"

She tilted her head and he belatedly caught that he hadn't been specific, still too lost in his own head. He opened his mouth to clarify, but realization struck Marinette before he could speak, her brows raising in recognition.

"Oh!" she gasped. Though the conversation was sudden, she didn't seem to mind rolling with it. "Um, yeah, I wondered about that sometimes. I mean, I knew that you knew that I—but I didn't know that you—but if you didn't back then, I—"

"No, your song was definitely in my head, even back then," he confirmed casually, smiling as he added, "Since the day we met, remember?"

She blushed at the mention of his confession, but nodded. "Y-yeah." Then, seeming to rethink the moment with that information in mind, she asked, "...Why did you let me go then?"

His eyes flickered to the red string, then back up to her face. "I want you to be happy, Marinette, no matter who it's with. I thought that Adrien would do that, but I hope I didn't make you feel like you had to go after him."

She blinked, the thought having seemingly not even occurred to her. She averted her gaze, her eyes darting around at nothing in particular. "Is...is that why you were looking like that?"

He didn't answer, but that was answer enough for her.

"Oh, Luka," she murmured sympathetically. "I—well—" She shifted uncomfortably. "—I shouldn't be talking to you about this. It'd be wrong when my feelings are so messed up. You..."

He shook his head. "You can talk about Adrien if you want. I'd be happy if you relied on me more."

He meant it. Even regardless of his fate sensing, he wanted Marinette to feel comfortable talking to him, even if it was about her love problems. He didn't want their relationship to be changed because of his feelings for her.

"Even more?" She raised a brow, the concept confusing her, but she didn't question him further. She hesitated, rubbing her cheek in thought, then dropped her hands to her lap and twiddled her fingers. "I-I don't know; about Adrien, I mean. I—" She sighed, giving a halfhearted shrug. "—he's not interested in me. He likes Kagami, but the girls kept telling me that I shouldn't give up on him because of how hard I tried." Then, stiffening, she waved her hands and rapidly assured, "N-not anything against your sister, of course! That's just what happened—and—" She huffed in frustration. "—it feels like I hit a wall, and I'm not going anywhere. Adrien doesn't notice me and I can't talk to him and... I'm tired."

Luka nodded silently to let her know that he was both listening and sympathetic towards her plight, also not wanting to interrupt her.

"Of course I tried hard, but Adrien and Kagami seem like they're good for each other and they should be happy together. Just, whenever I think of giving up or not trying, I..." She raised a hand to her neck in a gesture that he immediately understood. "It hurts, and Alya's always trying to get me together with Adrien no matter what I say. Maybe she knows best and maybe she's right, and that's why I always end up in crazy situations with him. Plus, everyone..." She looked away, her voice not having the enthusiasm one would imagine her next words would go with. "...everyone keeps saying we're made for each other."

Luka clutched his leg to ground himself while struggling to keep a straight face. He'd certainly never heard that one before, but it stung like his neck did just thinking about it. His lips pressed together, trying to contain his emotions, but he couldn't help blurting out, "No one's made for anyone."

She blinked at him, shocked, but he didn't take it back or apologize for saying it so suddenly. He recognized the fact that he was talking about destined love being nonexistent when he himself knew that "fate" was very much a real thing, but his actual opinion on the subject hadn't changed. As far as he was concerned, fate's "opinion" was about as valid as anyone else's when it came to someone else's relationship.

"No matter what Alya, or even Rose, say about you and who you love, Marinette, all that matters is you and who you want to play for. You deserve someone who makes you happy." He paused, lamenting the reality that she really hadn't gotten to think about it. "Does Adrien make you happy?"

He saw the string tighten, Marinette opening her mouth to respond before she seemed to stop herself. He felt like apologizing, but knew she wouldn't understand even if he did. She frowned, staring down at her lap and appearing conflicted with herself, so he reached out and carefully hovered his hand over her shoulder in a show of comfort. She glanced at his hand, noticing the gesture, but didn't immediately give him any sort of permission.

Then, to his surprise, she brought her hand up, gently grabbing his wrist and lowering it so his hand was placed perfectly on her shoulder. She didn't even let go, keeping his wrist held like she needed his hand there.

"...Luka," she whispered, her voice shaking, "I—no, you'll laugh, or think I'm crazy."

He squeezed her shoulder, not hesitating to insist, "I won't. I'm here for you, Marinette."

She finally met his gaze, and he saw a vulnerability there that wasn't there before. She was nervous, whether of his potential reaction to whatever she had to say, or something else entirely.

She took a breath, her fingers tightening around his wrist as she composed herself. The silence stretched, though he could tell that she was steeling herself up.

"The—the Adrien pictures," she began, tossing a pointed look to the wall where they were. "I don't remember putting them there."

He kept his expression schooled, not wanting her to overthink his reactions. Careful and quiet, he asked, "What do you mean?"

"I-I mean, obviously I started putting them there, back when I first met him," she admitted, "but I took them down. They'd been down for a while."

Luka could confirm that. He'd been to Marinette's room before when she'd been sending in their Kitty Section audition to Bob Roth, and the pictures weren’t there.

She continued, "I-it hurt when I did it, but I did, and I threw most of them away. But then—when I wake up sometimes, they're back, and I don't remember putting them up. I-I mean, maybe I did but I just don't remember it? I stay up late sometimes and I won't remember falling asleep, so it might be like that, you know? I-I know you're not exactly like me and I'm sure you don't sleepily put pictures on your wall but..."

He smiled as best as he could, even though he was hurting inside. "I know as well as you do that creativity doesn't have a schedule."

She managed a smile in return, but it returned to a frown as she dropped her gaze to her lap. "A-anyway, I can forget things, but it's never been that bad, and sometimes they'll be gone for a while but then they'll be back a few days later. There's just—there's no other explanation, so it has to be me, right? I-I don't know if it's a sign or what, but if it is then I don't know what it's telling me? Because whenever there are a lot of pictures—" She made a vague gesture with a wave of her free hand, cringing as she added, "—something humiliating always happens. That usually gets me to take them down again, but then... well, you know." She rubbed the back of her neck with a hand, blushing in embarrassment. "Sorry, I probably sound crazy. I-I swear, I'm not trying to—"

"I believe you."

Her mouth halted mid-sentence, hanging open as she stared at him.

"I believe you, Marinette," he repeated, giving her shoulder another squeeze. He didn't need any further detail to know what happened, as there was no way Marinette would take down those pictures and then put them back up the next day, or even the day before that. It didn't make any sense, and while he hadn't seen the wisps of fate move things or brush them aside, he had seen them trip Marinette, meaning they had some level of physical control. It explained it all: the convenience of the pictures appearing and disappearing, as well as the amount of them there'd be.

"T-thank you," she murmured, her lips briefly moving to form extra words but nothing coming out. She looked shy, possibly from admitting something she hadn't told anyone before, but she at least wasn't so nervous anymore.

"You don't need to thank me," he assured, "but you're welcome. Just know that you can tell me anything."

She ducked her head, peeking up at him to ask, "How much do you want to know?"

"Whatever you're comfortable sharing with me," he replied.

"Everything?" She'd said it quickly, as if she'd blurted it out, but she didn't panic afterward. She merely looked at him, hope in her eyes.

He nodded without hesitation, wanting her to be certain that he meant it. She searched his gaze for a few more seconds, one last shred of doubt remaining, but he knew he'd convinced her when her body relaxed and she smiled at him with her whole heart. Her grip on his wrist lightened, her hand sliding off and back down to her side. He pulled back as well, his heart a mixture of emotions but mostly just happy to see her happy.

"I..." She turned away, facing her trapdoor. "I'm going to get some snacks first."

He watched as she pushed herself up, then stood as well to follow after her. "Do you want any help carrying them?"

She looked at him, confused. "You don't have to."

Instead of responding with the obvious - that he wanted to - he simply replied, "You're not alone anymore, Marinette."

He didn't need to elaborate for her to understand. He let himself get lost in the warmth of her gaze, hoping that he might see it more one day if he could ever get her string removed, even if her warm gaze would end up being for someone else.

#au: Dread String of Fate #Dread String of Fate: writing #Flower Arrangement Shipping #Pro LukaMari #Lukanette

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helloalycia · 3 years

Text

teenage dirtbag [two] // wanda maximoff

summary: your crush begins to get more intense for Wanda, ensuing awkwardness between you both

warning/s: none

author's note: so glad you’re all liking this, here’s part two! 🥰

I knew it was a dream as soon as it began. Dreams never tricked me as I always detected something didn't feel right and figured out it wasn't real. But that was my only 'talent' with dreams, as everything else was left down to my subconscious. I couldn't control them, break away from the script or deviate from the scene in any way. I just knew when it wasn't real.

Admittedly, it took a little longer for me to recognise this one was a dream compared to others I'd had. It just seemed so normal as I headed into Chemistry class, seeing other students filing in and joining their partners. Mr. Hale was at the front of the class, occupied by his laptop and the projector, and it felt like any other day at school. The lights were off and the blinds were closed slightly, leaving the room in darkness except for the light from the board.

"Are we watching a film or something?" I asked Wanda as I set my bag on the desk beside her, earning her attention.

She looked up from her notepad and smiled widely, blue eyes sparkling in the darkness. "You're here, you took forever!"

"You saw me two lessons ago," I teased, taking a seat beside her.

She moved closer to me, hands immediately moving to my left one, playing with my fingers mindlessly. It felt right at the time, but I knew deep down that this wasn't real. In what world would this happen?

"Still," she mumbled adorably, before meeting my eyes. "We're watching some video about the periodic table."

I hummed, glancing at Mr. Hale as he struggled to pull up the video.

"Thank God because I couldn't be bothered doing work," Wanda added with a sigh, before moving closer to me, leaning on the palm of her hand as the other held mine still. "D'you think you can cover for me whilst I sneak in a nap?"

I stifled a laugh, moving closer and admiring the way her eyes changed colour in the light from the board. "I'm sure you're supposed to be paying attention."

She scrunched her nose, an uninterested smile on her lips, and it made my heart flutter.

"Fine, I'll cover for you," I gave in easily, before pressing a kiss to her nose.

She giggled quietly and when I pulled back, she leaned in and kissed my lips. Her free hand moved to the back of my neck as I rested mine on her lap, closing my eyes and falling into her without question. Okay, so yeah, definitely a dream, but I wasn't complaining.

"If Miss Maximoff and Miss Y/L/N can kindly stop making out, then we can begin the lesson," Mr. Hale announced, breaking Wanda and I's kiss.

Some of the class snickered as we separated from each other's hold, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. He gave us a fed up look.

"Thank you," he said, before erupting into a speech about today's lesson.

When he started the video, I leaned forward on the desk to get comfortable and felt Wanda do the same, leaning her head on my arm and continuing to play with my hand. I smiled to myself, kissing the top of her head gently before getting comfortable. It all seemed too good to be true, but God was it a nice thought.

When I woke up the next morning with butterflies in my stomach, I groaned loudly. I knew I'd screwed myself over. I was in too deep. Dreaming about Wanda was not good, not good at all...

And it definitely didn't help when I showed up to class that same day, approaching my table and an already-seated Wanda. Just a dream, I told myself as I took a seat. Not real. And not a big deal.

"Good morning," she greeted when I sat down and pulled my books out. Her usual picture perfect smile was on her lips as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "How are you?"

Trying my best not to think about my dream, I gave her a small smile. "G-good, yeah."

Fuck me, why did I stutter?

"You sure? You seem distracted," she noticed, making me swallow hard and look away from her piercing gaze.

"Yeah," I managed to say without stuttering once again. "Just tired. What about you?"

"Same," she said with a breathy chuckle, her leg brushing mine under the table and making me freeze. She didn't seem to notice as she continued, "I stayed up late binge-watching Netflix. Probably the wrong choice, but here we are."

I bit my lip to contain a laugh, relaxing a little. It was just a dream. She wasn't that bad. I was fine!

Class started and Mr. Hale was explaining something about doing a practical experiment today, but if I'm being honest, I was barely listening. Stuck in a daydream, I was wiggling my pen in my right hand and staring at the display behind Mr. Hale's head mindlessly.

Suddenly, a warm hand rested on mine, pressing it to the table and stopping me from shaking my pen. I shit you not, my heart stopped when I saw Wanda smirking playfully at me.

"D'you mind?" she asked, clearly finding my wiggling pen distracting.

All I could think about was how soft and warm her hand was, and then I became aware of her bare leg still brushing against mine – she just had to wear a dress today, didn't she? – and then the fact that she was still staring at me with amusement dancing in her eyes. My dream from last night returned to mind as she was still yet to remove her hand and I was lucky I managed to find my words as I choked out a response.

"S-sorry," I said, frozen in place, yet again, by Wanda's presence.

She snickered, shaking her head at my dismay, before finally letting go of my hand. I licked my lips nervously and let go of my pen, but not quite finding the energy to move my hand. I could still feel the warmth of her hand lingering on mine and, oh God, this was getting worse by the second. Why did I have to have that stupid dream?!

Clearly distracted by my own stupidity, I failed to realise that Mr. Hale had let us begin with our experiment, whatever that may be as I wasn't listening. Wanda was nudging me slightly, bringing me back into reality, and said something about getting lab coats and goggles whilst I got the bunsen burner.

I watched her leave and massaged my head, telling myself to get my act together. I was not the stupid cliché of a girl who acted nervous around her crush. I was better than that, goddamn it.

After getting the bunsen burner, I hooked it up to the gas tap as Wanda returned with our lab coats and safety goggles. We both put them on before Wanda gave me a knowing look, humoured smile tugging at her lips. I was beginning to hate (love) that look.

"You totally weren't paying attention during that, were you?" she asked, but she definitely already knew the answer.

"'Course I was," I played it cool, before wandering over to the handout on our desk. "We're doing an experiment."

She chuckled as I distracted myself with reading the instructions.

"So it says the first instruction is to boil some water in a beaker," I said with a nod. "Seems easy enough. Just gotta get a beaker."

My mouth went dry when Wanda hunched down on the desk, reading the paper between us. I hoped she couldn't hear how fast my heart was beating in my chest.

"You think you can manage that one?" she teased, glancing up at me with that same playful smirk on her lips.

Her eyes twinkled with mischief, similar to the one her twin possessed on a regular basis, and I'd never felt more stuck in place in my life than I did now. Without thinking, my gaze lowered to her lips and I realised then and there how badly I wanted to feel her lips against mine for real. She was so close I could move forward a mere few inches and feel it, but I didn't.

"Y-yeah, I'll get it now," I stumbled out, before literally stumbling over the stool as I made a move to leave.

I tried to ignore the way her gaze followed me and instead focused on getting to the beakers without passing out. To my relief, Y/BF/N was also collecting a beaker for him and his partner, too. When I stopped by his side, he looked up to see who it was, then smiled.

"You alright?" he asked, sensing my panic.

I shook my head frantically. "Definitely not. This is really bad, Y/BF/N."

Y/BF/N furrowed his brows, making me give him the look, to which he eventually followed what I meant.

"What happened?" he asked, trying (and failing) to hide his amusement.

I made sure nobody was nearby or could hear us before admitting, "I had a dream."

He raised his eyebrows suggestively, making me slap him on the arm quickly.

"Not that kind of dream, you perv," I clarified, before sighing. "But a dream. About you-know-who. And it threw me off and now I can't seem to act like a human."

He snorted as he tried not to laugh. I glared at him, shoving him again, making him laugh out loud.

"I'm sorry," he defended. "It's just– you've got it bad."

"Very helpful." I narrowed my eyes.

"Look, it's new which is why you're all awkward," he said knowingly, collecting his beaker. "It'll eventually pass when you get used to it. Until then, try not to do anything stupid."

"Too late," I mumbled under my breath.

He patted me reassuringly before leaving. I grabbed a beaker and turned around, deciding to take it easy. I'd get over it. I always did. I wasn't stupid. Yeah, I wasn't stupid. I had this!

But that thinking immediately went out the window when I approached our workspace and saw Wanda leaning on the desk, looking over the handout with thought. Her hair was pulled back for safety reasons, exposing her tensed jaw and pursed lips. She was wearing her lab coat over her black, knee-length dress and I'm not gonna lie, she looked extremely sexy today because she was wearing matching black knee-high boots. I gulped.

God help me.

—

You'd be relieved to know that my crush on Wanda died down after a while. Not in the way that I no longer had a crush on her – God knew I was overflowing with feelings for her – but in the way that I was getting a lot better at hiding it.

Which was perfect for when I saw her with her dick of a boyfriend. You'd be surprised how many times he kept popping up. And when he did, I always seemed to want to strangle him.

This time, I was working my new part-time job at a pizza place in town. Y/BF/N was keeping me company on my shift by taking extra long to finish his pizza so we could talk at the counter. I was drying some glasses as we spoke when the door to the parlour opened and the bell jingled, signalling new customers.

"I believe that's your cue," Y/BF/N teased, making me roll my eyes playfully.

My gaze wandered to the door where I saw a small group of teens walking in and finding a seat. It took me a second to realise that it was actually Wanda and her friends, including her boyfriend, who were looking for a table. My eyes widened with surprise as she looked around. Her eyes found mine and an excited smile appeared on her face as she waved to me.

"This just keeps getting better," Y/BF/N said when he saw Wanda heading our way, thankfully without her friends.

I pinched him before straightening up and plastering my best customer service smile on my lips. Wanda stopped before me, smiling between Y/BF/N and I.

"Hey, guys," she greeted brightly, to which Y/BF/N smiled in return, before looking my way and making my stomach flip at how pretty she looked today. "Y/N, I didn't know you worked here!"

"Yeah, it's kinda new," I answered coolly. "Gotta get that extra money, right?"

She nodded before grabbing the tip of my cap on my head and wiggling it, letting out a laugh. "You look adorable in your uniform, I must say."

I forgot how to breathe as she let go of my cap, her eyes still glittering with joy. Y/BF/N tried to hide his laughter as he sipped his drink, meanwhile I felt my neck heating up with embarrassment.

"Th-thanks," I got out nervously. I know what you're thinking – I said I got better at hiding my crush. And I have! I just– why did she have to put me on the spot like this?!

"I should get back," she said after a moment, pointing over her shoulder towards her friends. "But it was nice seeing you. Are you serving us?"

I nodded, regaining composure. "I'll be over in a minute. Give you chance to pick something."

"Awesome," she said sweetly, flashing me a final smile before heading back to her friends.

I released a shaky breath when she left, taking my cap off and massaging my head momentarily.

"I feel like she flirts with you just to see what happens," Y/BF/N said with amusement.

"It's just her personality," I mumbled, before putting my cap back on and taking a deep breath. "Time to work."

I continued to do my job as usual, thankfully not being affected by Wanda's presence, and took their orders. It was pretty uneventful as I served them their food and continued to hang with Y/BF/N by the counter. Every time I'd look over at her out of bad habit, I'd feel uneasy at the sight of Nate having his hands all over her. I mean, obviously he could – he was her boyfriend – but admittedly, I was a little jealous. I tried to ignore the feeling by busying myself with other things.

Wanda's friends were being a little noisier and rowdier than I'd liked, but it wasn't particularly busy so I saw no need to shut them up. Yeah, in hindsight, maybe I should have.

Clearing a table after some customers left, I balanced a tray of glasses in my hand and headed back to the counter. But on the way, a football came out of nowhere and got launched at my chest, making me drop the tray onto the floor with a loud crash. The rowdiness from Wanda's table ceased momentarily, as did the chatter from other customers, and I looked up to see Nate and his friends watching me, trying to suppress laughter.

"I am so sorry," Nate called with anything but guilt.

"Shit, Y/N, you okay?" Y/BF/N said, racing to my side in an instant.

I nodded, clenching my jaw, and bent down to clean up the mess. My boss must have heard the commotion as she came out from the kitchen and saw what happened, putting two and two together.

"Right, all of you out," she ordered without questioning anything, looking to Nate and the rest of the table. "We don't tolerate that tomfoolery here."

They groaned their complaints, but I didn't bother looking up to see, instead focusing on cleaning up the mess. Luckily for me, the tray took most of the hit rather than my chest, so unlike last time, I wasn't hurt.

"You're lucky I'm not charging you for the broken glasses, honey," my boss continued to scold Nate as he walked past, grabbing his football.

I saw feet shuffling past me, presuming it was their table leaving, and focused on picking up the large shards of glass and putting them on the tray. Y/BF/N helped out, even though he didn't need to, and I smiled at him as he knelt opposite me doing the same.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry," Wanda's voice grabbed my attention, making me look up. She had a guilty frown on her lips as she looked between the mess and I.

I stood up, shaking my head. "It's fine. It's–" But I stopped speaking, instead letting out an exhausted sigh. "No offence, but your boyfriend is a dick."

She pressed her lips together, not saying anything. I felt bad for saying it, but this was the second time he'd hit me with his stupid ball. It was true.

"I should clean this up," I mumbled, avoiding her eyes. "See you at school."

She opened her mouth to say something, but decided against it. I knelt down and continued to clean up, hoping she'd walk away already. This was awkward enough as it was.

"See you guys at school," she finally spoke, making me pause. "Sorry, again."

Y/BF/N bid her a goodbye before she left for good. I let out another sigh, deciding not to say anything as I continued cleaning up. It would never make sense to me why someone as lovely as Wanda would be with someone as obnoxious as Nate. I guess I'd never know.

—

Since that lovely incident at the pizza parlour, things had been a little distant between Wanda and I. Mostly on my part if I'm being honest. I couldn't help it – the whole situation had been uncomfortable and embarrassing, making it impossible to return to how we usually were.

This meant that Wanda was the one to come to me and check in, which I definitely wasn't expecting.

I was at home one afternoon, hanging with my older sister who was staying with us for a week. She'd moved out a year ago, getting her own place a few towns over, so I missed her presence a lot. I took advantage of her weekly visit by having a catch up as we played basketball in the front drive.

Disclaimer: none of us were good at basketball, but the hoop came with the house and it was simply tradition for us to attempt to shoot baskets as we had a catch up. Only, this time, as we were talking, a loud car engine pulled us from our chat and we both spun around to see an unfamiliar car parking up.

"That must be mum's customer," Y/S/N realised, holding the basketball underneath her arm. She glanced at me with a quirked brow. "You think we're gonna get roped into helping?"

"Most definitely," I answered with a chuckle, and just on cue, our mum opened the garage door behind us.

She was a florist and had a large pick-up delivery for a customer today. Apparently they were a good friend, so she had the flowers delivered to our house and they were waiting in our garage until now.

"Can you girls give me a hand?" she asked my sister and I, motioning for us to go to her. "I'm gonna say hi. Just start bringing the crates out, yeah?"

We both saluted playfully before watching her go to the customer's car. My jaw dropped when I saw who it was – Wanda's mum. And to top things off, Wanda and Pietro were both with her, the three of them getting out of their car and greeting my mum with smiles on their faces.

"You cool?" my sister asked, nudging me slightly.

I closed my mouth, straightening up. "Yeah, yeah, duh."

She gave me a funny look but grabbed a crate and began to leave it in the drive for the moment. I swallowed the lump in my throat and did the same, knowing both Wanda and Pietro were approaching us after my mum pointed them our way.

"Y/N, hey," Wanda said, stopping before my sister and I. She gave my sister a friendly smile before looking to me with nervous eyes. "It's good to see you."

I tried to say something – anything – but my words got stuck in my throat and all that came out was a weird noise. Partially because of the awkwardness between us at my fault and partially because of how pretty she looked in her sundress.

"Hi, I'm Y/S/N," my sister cut in, noticing my quietness. She gave me a sideways glance before looking to the twins. "It's Wanda and Pietro, right?"

"Yeah," Wanda said with a smile, eyes lingering on mine before looking to my sister. "We're just helping our mum out to load the car."

"I'm the muscle," Pietro joked, lifting his bicep, making Wanda roll her eyes jokingly.

"Okay, muscle, you can come help me get these out the garage," my sister played along before looking to Wanda and I. "You guys okay to load the car?"

Wanda nodded. "Sure thing."

Y/S/N grabbed Pietro, who shot me a friendly smile, before leaving Wanda and I alone.

"Your sister seems nice," Wanda tried to make conversation as we both grabbed a crate and took it to the back of her mum's car.

"Yeah," I agreed uncomfortably. "She's just visiting."

Wanda hummed in acknowledgment, neither of us knowing what else to say. We walked past our chatting mothers before setting the crates in the back of her mum's car.

"Are we okay?" Wanda asked suddenly, as soon as our hands were free. I looked to her and saw she was debating something internally before looking to me. "I mean, I know we're okay, but I just– I feel like you've been off since, well... since Nate threw that ball at you."

My neck heated up with embarrassment as I cleared my throat; my eyes fell to the flowers in the crates.

"I really am sorry," she apologised again, resting a hand on my forearm, sending shivers up my spine. "He can be such a jerk sometimes. Does stuff without thinking."

"You don't need to apologise," I said, finally lifting my eyes to meet her anxious green ones. And I meant it – Nate's idiocy wasn't her fault and it was harsh of me to make her seem like it was. I sighed, knowing my distant behaviour would end here. "We're good, Wanda."

She still seemed uncertain. "You sure?"

I gave her my best smile, hoping she knew I meant it. "I'm sure."

Her tense shoulders relaxed and a relieved smile spread across her face. "Okay, good. I'm glad."

She held my gaze and I just knew my heart was beating too fast to be useful as she did. She was just so beautiful.

"You know, the whole point of splitting into teams was to be done quicker," Pietro's voice interrupted our staring contest.

He stepped between us, glancing between us with amusement, before setting a crate in the back of the car.

"Right, yeah, we were just on our way back," I said, smiling sheepishly.

Pietro smirked. "No harm no foul, princess."

I was taken aback slightly as he called me that, and even more taken aback when he plucked a flower from the crate and offered it my way.

"For you," he said, half joking and half serious.

Unsure what to say, I accepted the flower. "Er, thanks... I think."

Wanda crossed her arms behind him, eyes narrowed in his direction. I wondered what she was thinking, but never got the chance to ask as their mum's voice called out to us.

"Pietro, I paid to use the bouquets," she said with mild distress, "not so you could ruin them."

His cheeks flushed as he called back, "Sorry!"

I tried not to laugh as the three of us headed back to get the rest of the crates, being sure to set the flower to the side. We ended up filling her car with the bouquets before facing our parents as we bid them a goodbye.

"They're lovely, Y/M/N," Wanda's mum was complimenting the flowers. "Thank you again."

My mum patted her back. "Anytime, dear." She looked between the twins and my sister and I. "Thank you all for helping out."

Y/S/N and I smiled her way as Wanda's mum nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes, thank you!" she added, looking to Y/S/N and I. "It's so great to see you all together. Especially you two, Wanda and Y/N. It's nice to know you're good friends after so long of barely speaking."

Wanda's face was beginning to turn pink as I'm sure mine was doing the same.

"Yes, I agree," my mum said with a smile. "Anyway, we won't keep you any longer. Good luck with the banquet!"

Wanda and Pietro waved goodbye to Y/S/N and I before joining their mum in the car. I followed her figure subconsciously, butterflies floating in my stomach until their car was gone.

"Damn, I really missed a lot," Y/S/N said when they were gone, wrapping an arm over my shoulder and tugging me closer. "You're crushing hard."

Instantly, I looked to her. "What? What are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes, letting go of me. "So we're playing that game. Okay. I'll bite."

As she began to walk away, I chased after her. "What game? Y/S/N? What are you talking about?"

She merely laughed and allowed me to chase her, wondering how the hell she knew of my crush on Wanda. Was I that obvious?

#wanda maximoff au #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff imagine #elizabeth olsen #marvel #mcu #marvel imagine #mcu imagine

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baobaojng · 4 years

Text

push and pull (jung jaehyun)

jung yoonoh (jaehyun) (idol jaehyun) x (fem! foreigner) reader - idol!au

themes: angst, fluff, smut

summary: you never expected to meet Jaehyun when you study in Korea, let alone fall in love with him. so when you’re faced with the dilemma of the reality of your life - and even more so his, the battle seems difficult to overcome.

notes: kind of established relationship (the timeline’s fucked but haha joke’s on me), reader and jaehyun are honestly super angsty, unprotected sex (wrap it up in real life to stay safe)

a/n: i wrote this on a whim for the past two days and aaaaaaa enjoy

wordcount: 10,152

There are two things Jaehyun always clarifies whenever all the guys were huddled around in the practice room.

“Yes, I’m sure nobody saw me sneak out of the dorms last night. I checked.” Jaehyun usually puts a hand up as if he’s exorcising Taeyong, who usually was very concerned about these kinds of things. This was the first thing that he always pointed out, the other guys knowing that Jaehyun probably went out (in the wee hours of the night) the most. Paps could snap photos at any given time in any given situation, and if anyone caught them sneaking out at night - new outlets and gossip sites would probably kill them in the morning with rumors and scandals.

Which brought Jaehyun to the second point, when Mark and Johnny would expectantly cross their arms together in a teasing manner. “And no, Y/N and I aren’t dating.” No matter how many times he said it, they always hoped that he’d finally say you were dating.

After all, majority of the time he snuck out to see you.

This time nobody pressed him for any more questions, especially since he volunteered to order and pay for the Chinese food they were going to eat. An attempt to avert the guys’ attention elsewhere.

Exhausted after dancing the same part of their choreography for the umpteenth time, Jaehyun checks his phone for any notifications. Hoping that somehow you’d have texted him, but texting him first was something you rarely ever did anyway. He didn’t even know why.

Sometimes you wonder if you’ve been imagining things. Being in Korea for the past couple of years to study (which was a real ridiculous decision knowing you were in for learning how to speak Korean and understand foreign culture while in university), having a pretty good paying part time job, and being friends with kpop idols.

It was a pretty fair thing to think at first - out of the millions of possibilities of how, when, and why you were going to somehow meet celebrities you’ve been following and supporting for years.

You met Mark and Johnny first, the two deciding on a break that day and go out to try a quiet café one of their seniors suggested. Just because it was a little bit more hidden, kind of preferential for idols who just wanted to relax in a space that wasn’t the SM building or their dorm.

Becoming a barista was something you always wanted to try out as a side job anyway, having learned some bar tricks from your cousins growing up. It wasn’t so far off from it. The job paid pretty well too, considering the fact that you were a foreigner and that it was really just a side thing for you to earn money so you could live more comfortably. To your luck, the place your former college dorm mate recommended for you to work with was a low-profile café that targeted audiences like Johnny Suh and Mark Lee. You’ve seen some celebrities come in before, but mostly the actor types.

It was a really quick acquaintance established when the two of them got to the café. You looked a little shellshocked to take their orders because you knew exactly who they were, and they found it a little interesting to find someone like you working behind the counter. Mark ordered twice and Johnny went back and forth with the Korean and the English jokes because it was fun to meet someone new in a place that was as pleasant as the café.

They came in almost every three days from then on, making the same order (after Mark tried almost everything off the menu to make sure he had a favorite), sitting on the same place, and leaving on the same time.

Of course your mind drifted off to many places, thinking about how it seemed so normal and casual for them to treat you like an old friend. For the most part you thought of them in the same way, but a little part of you remembered that they were customers (well, celebrities) and you were the lucky part-timer that took took the afternoon shifts after your classes.

Your existence probably didn’t bother them as much as they did you.

Just when you got used to the normal digital noise of people entering: Mark’s obnoxiously loud hollering to greet you and Johnny’s really lame attempt at trying to ‘step up his intercultural humor,’ they came in with somebody new one time around.

“I’m just getting the usual today, Y/N.” Johnny patted at his stomach, as if you understood the odd relationship he had with his stomach - he fondled it very carefully. A tale of self love that disturbed you just a little bit, but now you were expectantly looking at Mark.

“Sheesh, I don’t know man, I’m probably gonna upgrade sizes on my order today. I haven’t eaten since this morning.” Mark complains to Johnny as you take note of that in the touch screen computer.

Jaehyun awkwardly stood there not really knowing what to say, and you couldn’t bring it to yourself to look at him directly either. But you knew who he was anyway, you’ve probably seen so many pictures of him on the internet to know how he looked like and where his mole was on his cheek. Your peripheral vision wasn’t failing you, and it definitely never has in your lifetime.

While the other two were bickering about food portions, Jaehyun cleared his throat out noticing that you’ve been hovering over the computer screen because you were waiting for them to complete their order. Mark and Johnny were comfortable with you, and Jaehyun felt out of place.

“Just a large iced Americano.” Jaehyun asked in Korean, a little slower and a little bit weirder. He noticed how chopped up his syllables were, but only because you were a little too pretty to be taking his order and because he wasn’t sure if you could understand him. His members outright spoke to you in English.

“Have you eaten?” You boldly asked him referring to Johnny and Mark’s debacle on food, assuming he probably wanted something to eat with his drink because that’s how his members ordered.

He became a little flustered, picking up on the impressive Korean accent you had when you responded to him in Korean, the honorifics perfectly done too. In the same instant his stomach grumbled, and he realized that the answer to your question was no - he hadn’t eaten anything all day actually. Even forgot to eat the apple he brought into his and Jungwoo’s room.

“I— uh,” he continuously stammers, his right hand gripping his left shoulder as a mannerism. Obviously he’s a little overwhelmed by the food choices on the menu. You just flash a little smile to him as encouragement, not even directly looking his way. “What’s your favorite?” He asks and it throws you off a little, you wouldn’t have expected him to ask for a recommendation.

You have to look at him now to be a little more respectful, and when you do— god. Jesus, god, Christ. What was it you said about seeing many photos of him online anyway? Nope, wrong. The millions of photos online didn’t do him any justice whatsoever. He was just unreal in the flesh.

“It’s a little embarrassing.” You’re the one flustered, feeling your cheeks heat up because he’s looking right at your eyes. Meeting your bias in your work uniform wasn’t the ideal situation, it made you feel like putty.

“I’ll take that though, whatever it is.” He hands you his black card (which you find out he does because he offered to pay for everyone’s food, and because he wanted to show off to you), and your fingers brush for a split second. A breathy giggle leaves your lips and you ask him to do the necessary things to have the food credited to his card.

“Thank you.” You mumble under your breath before giving his card back, the three deciding to sit where the two would usually sit. You got to making the drinks while your co-worker served their food to them, a little hyped up that the ‘Cherry Bomb’ dudes brought another member this time around. At this you laugh a little, trying to make a clearer working environment for yourself because your first encounter with Jaehyun had you a little bothered.

It was one thing to say that nobody should have fazed you by now, but you felt like a high schooler - weak at the knees and slowly losing confidence. Stealing the shortest of glances over at Jaehyun, catching him look back at you. Although maybe it was just a trick of your imagination.

But you weren’t imagining things, Jaehyun found himself in a brief state of confusion ever since he saw you when he entered not more than fifteen minutes ago. Having crushes was definitely normal, but you had this very inviting feeling about you.

Mark seemed to notice that Jaehyun was completely out of the loop with the dumb topic Johnny offered onto the table, following where his hyung’s eyes flickered to every few seconds.

“Y/N’s cute, huh?” Mark says, but it sounds less like a question than it’s supposed to be. He knows that Jaehyun never really seems interested in meeting other people, it was probably half the fact that Jaehyun maintained an unamused face in whatever circumstance, and this was a rare instance.

Jaehyun knows he’s caught, but he pulls off the realest fake cough he can. “Yeah, she seems cool.” He plays off like it’s nothing and the other two understand what the answer means even beyond what Jaehyun meant. He was interested.

This time when you try to steal a glance, all three of them are looking at you. But you decide to shoot daggers when you make eye contact with Johnny and Mark, knowing like hell they were intimidated by you at this point. You’ve threatened them jokingly countless of times before for making fun of you or making too much noise, but they always were so genuinely scared. You see the way Jaehyun’s dimples appear when he laughs as he sees his members flinch at you squinting your eyes at them.

“Hoobin,” you call over to your co-worker who was just about to serve the food to the three guys you were having an eye battle with, “I’ll take over, I think you should take an early time out today.” It was a bold decision, and thankfully Hoobin didn’t think twice after being bribed with having to work less. There was no room for you to hesitate, and for some reason you felt a little more confident.

After that you take their food over to their table, Johnny inviting you to pull up an extra chair from the unoccupied table behind. Mark tells you to stay more than five minutes because they “miss you” (as if they don’t see you at least twice a week,) which causes Jaehyun to kick him discretely under the table. That afternoon, Jaehyun sits silently as he eats what he presumed to be your favorite thing off of the menu (which he decided has become his new favorite food order as well) - listening to you talk about your life. Details about how you’re doing well in class these days and this part time job not being much of a hassle.

It was a little unnerving, having him be quiet there. You weren’t so sure if he was uninterested or maybe he didn’t care who you were. All that wasn’t supposed to matter, but something in the back of your head told you that your first impressions should matter. Especially when it came to him.

When you leave to greet the guy taking over the night shift, Jaehyun briefly compliments your food choice because he was looking for some sort of way to say good bye and thank you.

“It’s really no problem,” you chime in, “I’m pretty surprised you liked it.”

Well, Jaehyun was too. He wasn’t the kind to really indulge into something, and he had a feeling that he probably liked it because he was more interested in trying to relate to you.

Johnny and Mark end up not shutting up about how he was so lovestruck by you, even when they got home to the dorms.

Since then Jaehyun came by more often, and to his relief he went there alone. At first always just getting a coffee and quietly sitting down where you could see him, and where he could perfectly see you. Sometimes coming in with Mark and Johnny, and the rare occurrence that they dragged along Yuta and Jungwoo (who quickly became your friends, to Jaehyun’s own disappointment - at not being able to articulate any sense of bravery when he saw you.)

But then he got more attentive and took note to arrive five minutes before your shift ended. The first time he did that, he asked you to stay behind to just have a drink with him because you technically weren’t working anyway.

You couldn’t say no, even though you didn’t know what he was asking you to stay for. Only two minutes of awkward silence passed until he took a crack at a lame joke to fill the air, the two of you ending up bursting with laughter just because it was that bad. Somehow, spending the rest of the afternoon up till the evening just discussing all kinds of things with each other. Leaving the details of your personal lives away, but Jaehyun had no intention of not knowing; he took his chance at asking for your number because he liked talking to you. Even if it meant talking about the milk froth the steaming machine created, and how the smell of coffee when he entered the room always soothed him.

You were a bunch of nerves waiting to be spilt out. The idea of hanging out with Jaehyun was fun, but mostly scary.

Being friends with Jaehyun felt a little too much like hiding a secret. Like that time when you got that tattoo and tried to hide it from your mother, scared she’d see when you were too comfortable lazying around the house.

Every time you fell into comfort hanging out with Jaehyun, a voice at the back of your head always reminded you that your relationship wasn’t normal. You had to lay low, be more careful, never a moment where you weren’t vigilant about your surroundings.

Of course it wasn’t normal, definitely not normal for you. There were things you could only plan through words because it meant a lot of risk actually going out to try them in public.

The reality didn’t really bug you that much before; you could say you were content with his company, having so much as prolonged hours with coffee or him going to the cute little studio type apartment you rented near your school’s campus. Now, it was a little bit more bothersome.

Mostly because you swear that it’s the easiest thing in the world— to fall in love with Jaehyun. It was great talking to him, behind what you were used to seeing on camera he’d say things you wouldn’t have thought he’d ever say. Jaehyun had knowledge woven into him in everything he ever mentioned, he tried even in times when he was unsure. There were conquests in his eyes, the way his face would light up in that stupidly handsome dimpled smile. You wanted to try them all, you were sure as hell you wouldn’t hold back if you were given the chance.

But the hard parts of reality always kept you from gambling, from telling him how you felt even though you were sure that he had a good idea of your feelings anyway.

The two of you were having red wine on your living room floor despite the cold of the apartment. He came over about an hour and a half ago, drenched by the rain on his way.

Jaehyun rested his head on the couch, and you notice that his hair is still damp. He’s staring at your ceiling while a sigh leaves his lips.

“You alright?” You ask him, straightening the way you were sitting on the floor.

“Yeah.” He answers anyway, although you know what the fake tone implies. He isn’t.

“Really? You won’t tell me that you aren’t fine?”

It’s not that he doesn’t want to, in fact he’s sure that he always tells you when he feels a little off the rails. Honestly it’s a little hard to trace back the time when he got so comfortable with you, it feels like the two of you just melted into each other’s worlds without ever noticing that you have. Every dumb text and every sneaky hang out.

“I guess I just don’t want to have a heavy conversation with you for once is all.”

You laugh a little, “I don’t care if we both end up screaming and crying, Jae. If you don’t feel good I definitely want to know. How many times will I tell you that it’s much better if you started talking about how you feel?”

Getting rid of that habit was a little hard for him; getting used to always presenting himself on camera as somebody who barely flinched. Somehow it seeped through to who he really was, and it was something that frustrated you when he first talked about this. Bottling up the way he felt just because he thought he needed to be perfect just angered you. You found yourself deeply concerned about him detaching himself with the reality that nobody could ever be perfect, but nobody had to be either.

“I swear this time it’s okay.” His dimples appear in a passive smile, but you playfully shove his arm in response. Careful not to spill any of the wine from his glass to your fluffy grey carpet.

“Liar.” You accuse as you roll your eyes.

To him you look all cute when you’re annoyed. He was going to prolong this for as long as he could; it made a squeezing sensation just between his heart and his lungs. He’d be dumb to say that he didn’t feel anything for you, because he did.

Jaehyun felt a plethora of things.

He felt happy every time he saw you, no matter how rough you claimed to look - even when you admitted you were far too insecure to present yourself to him. Once you called him when you were far out drunk, telling him you believed him to be directly made by God (if there ever was one.) He felt sad when he had to go. When time would have him leave you, because he had this incessant need to be around you for as long as it could. He felt angry too, knowing he wanted to give you so much more. He knew he didn’t just want to be your friend, but what he did for a living prevented him from giving you these things. Possibility of rejection aside, he knew he couldn’t just be around you whenever he wanted and whenever you needed.

“I’ll tell you when I feel like I’ve understood myself.” He promises, admitting you’re right.

That was good enough for you to brush it off; if he didn’t want to talk about it then you wouldn’t press him any further. You weren’t in the mood to put up a fight either, and maybe it was something you wouldn’t understand.

Finishing the wine that filled up half of your glass in one go, you turn to look at him. Not catching how he watched you down the whole thing like a mad man, he tenses because he knows something’s up. You hardly ever shoot down alcohol like that unless you were calming your nerves.

You had something to say, it was the reason why you called him over to hang out in the first place.

“I’m leaving soon.” It’s quick and simple, maybe the one line you chose that delivered the most impact when you were going over how to tell him. You found out you passed the semester a few days ago, and this meant that you had to leave Korea now. A job was already waiting for you in New York - somewhere you always planned on going after you finished up Fashion Design in Seoul. Truth be told, you never expected to pick up friendships— never expected to meet and be as close to Jaehyun when you decided to work in a café. But it became your reality, and the truth of your temporary time in Korea was catching up to you.

“Huh?” He only makes a sound, a little confused when you see his canines just through where his mouth parts. Eyebrows brought together by the lack of context.

“I mean I’m graduating in three weeks, just after other students fix their reconsiderations.” You explain holding in a breath for what you were about to say, even though you’ve practiced it about a hundred times in the mirror, “but after graduation I’m leaving Korea.”

And there it is, the bomb was dropped.

Jaehyun’s mind would like to pretend like he didn’t understand what you just said. In fact he even wanted to play dumb just so you could tell him this was a terrible joke, but you were looking at him the way you always looked at him when you were vulnerable - when you were being completely humanly honest with him.

He doesn’t say anything, not sure how he’ll react. Instead you begin rambling to fill in for the silence, a bad habit you always had. “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out anymore, I’m not sure how good bye’s are supposed to work,” he doesn’t gloss over what you say, “the possibility of us maintaining this friendship thing is very low anyway.”

“Is that what you think of me? I’d just let go quickly, is that it?” He’s a little hurt; it’s the first time you’ve ever assumed anything of him that actually hurt.

“No,” you shake your head, “but you aren’t the type to forget what life is really like, and who you really are.”

He’s a little burnt, maybe because he knows exactly what you mean. The whole idol thing he got into was consuming. People he used to know were distant, it was even harder to keep up friendships and contact family, they’d meet people all the the time and have them come and go. If anything there was a lot of insecurity and pressure about the way he acted, the way he looked.

He brings his fingertips to scratch over the nape of his head as if he’d be able to claw out answers, or maybe a good response. “Doesn’t mean that I should lose you.” The coarseness of his voice seeps through.

You shrug, sliding your empty wine glass somewhere you wouldn’t knock it over. “People lose other people all the time.”

“You’re really trying to make yourself seem that disposable, aren’t you?” He eyes his glass, the red liquid swirling along with his subtle movements. He can’t find it in himself to look at you, but you’re lucky enough to feel small - not wanting to deal with the scrutiny you were expecting to feel if he did look at you. If he looked at you now and if he tried to memorize every pore, it would make it feel final.

“Jaehyun,” you use his name, swearing to yourself before that you’d rarely call him this so it would set the tone if you were trying to be serious about something, “I got you into trouble the other day because you snuck out again. No, actually I got you into more trouble than what’s good for you.”

“But I don’t mind that; I’m willing to get in trouble for you even if I get scolded for it.” He admits. For you. Words that probably don’t mean what you think they should, but they do.

“See you’re not so good at thinking about how you also get hurt, Jaehyun. Don’t you think about how hard it’ll be for you if you keep doing that for other people?”

He hisses. “I just told you that I don’t care about that.”

Your legs awkwardly shift around, “but I care about that.”

“If you cared about me enough then you wouldn’t mind it, because you know that spending time with you like this makes me happy.” Jaehyun bites down on his lower lip, suppressing a confession from making it any further off his mouth. “I don’t want to be afraid of losing someone, that isn’t the way to live.”

Compared to how he’s holding back, you can’t just help but take advantage of the wine buzzing through from the back of your eyes to the bridge of your nose. Closing your eyes hoping like the dark will swallow you alive after you say it, you shut them tight.

“I think I love you too much to resist saying no.”

It’s not an instance. It feels like years.

It feels like you’re on a rollercoaster with no safety belt on while you brace yourself for the worst. The plunging silence of all the different memories you’ve associated with Jaehyun. The different scents of expensive perfume he bought, the kind that wouldn’t go away even after he showed up after a work out session. How his ears and his knuckles turned a deep shade of red when it was cold outside, winter season passing you by through worn out coats and you’re lame attempts at teaching him how to wear scarves. His tragic attempts at small talk, never knowing exactly what to say - but always saved by your inability to shut up when faced with anything awkward. The deep honey amber of his voice, each uncomfortable slip of the tongue when he mispronounced things and got embarrassed. Those stupid songs you heard in the background that always somehow reminded him of you from those moments on.

It takes these long seconds for you to prepare to lose him. And maybe it’s what you want; if he decides to reject you know and turn you over like a criminal taken down, maybe it would mean that it would be easier for you to leave him.

The rejection doesn’t come, only the pensive silence of his shock.

He’s still trying to process things. Because you could have said ‘I love you too much as a friend,’ but he also knows you don’t use the word love lightly. In fact you’ve argued about the word multiple times. Accusing him of being too loose with the term. Back then he could easily say that he loved his grey bedsheets, that he loved gardens and clay potted plants. But now, after knowing your perspective on the word, he could only really say he really liked them.

He loves his family, his band members, his cat. He loves his piano, loved his hands. He loves the fans. And he loves you.

It’s his turn to down the rest of his drink, and somehow the last drops taste bitter at the end. Maybe because the wine had become warm, and his throat’s burning with the words he wants to say.

“Do you love me the way I love you?” Is not exactly how he planned to confess, but you look at him with teary eyes because you don’t need for him to say it twice to know what he means either.

Yes, you think. You loved him to the stars, to where your heart used to cry at sweet nothings of Instagram fan videos of Jaehyun even before you met him. You loved him as a stranger, a fan, an avid fan. You loved him even more now, as a man who breathes air as any other would (which surprised you at first, you thought gods never needed oxygen - but this one did.) You loved him as a real living fixture of bone, skin - imperfections you looked past.

His lips don’t taste like much aside from the wine, the rare instance that he gets you to drink the red kind and you’re doing this. Kissing him past your faintly stained teeth.

But you can feel his warmth, especially now that his hands have lead you to sit on his thighs - calloused fingers tracing back and forth through your jaw like the first time they’ve ever grazed on skin. Your fingers tread along his damp hair, bunching them up similar to how it looks when stylists slick his hair back for him.

Yes. He knows your answer is yes, because he’s never been kissed like this. So much unspoken gentleness, quiet excuses and hushed moans through and through sending goosebumps along his arm. He’s never been kissed in a way that held words. Nobody had ever kissed a confession into his tongue, never with the swirling and nibbling across the lower lip.

He doesn’t think he’s had time to kiss like this either. Jaehyun knows a lot, he’s touched a lot. But always in the quiet of secret, always rushed plans - thinking about how to not get his members into trouble, how not to make a stir in the public eye.

Jaehyun wants to forget the world in your kiss as he finds himself drowning into yours in a matter of a kiss. No— he knew he dipped a toe into the water when you asked him if he ate that day he first met you. And he dove right under all at once when he realized he couldn’t get enough.

Hands are traveling over your waist, your arms wrapping around his neck so delicately. He thinks you are what beauty demands when you two catch your breaths to look at each other, a smile cracking onto your features when you realize how sappy this all is.

“We need to learn how to stop holding back.” You suggest, and his eyes beam at you.

“Honestly we tell ourselves that all the time, we tell other people that way too much too. It’s just that we’re to scared to let go and just do it.” He says in a deep whisper. “So you love me, huh?”

You want to flick the sly look he has on his face, “don’t push it.”

“But you just said we should stop holding back.” He traces the bone of your jaw, just near where it tingles by your ear.

“We might end up saying I love you too much that we might get tired of saying it.” Lame excuses spill from your mouth, things you don’t mean just pop up into your mind because you’re nervous as hell.

By the first week, Jaehyun proves you wrong. Neither of you grow tired of saying I love you, it seems like you can’t go on not saying it at least once every hour. You can’t get enough of skin on skin in every second you’re together.

And it’s sinful as much as it is innocent, rough as it is loving. The first time he goes too far, tugging at the waistband of your cotton shorts - the too big neckline of your sweater exposing collarbones.

His hands recoil, not wanting to rush you into anything. But you find that you don’t mind, if it’s him then there’s no reason to hesitate.

“Take me,” you whisper, his eyes sincerely looking into your own in case he can find any trace of doubt, “take all of me.” His stupidly manly chin clenches along with his jaw.

Love is a whirlwind and you’re leading him to sweet chaos. Lips on lips like every kiss is the first. He hovers above you so gently, only enough weight to press your heart enough. You feel like you’re going to explode.

Clothes are let go like shedding second skin - but with no pain, no pauses.

You are the first to be completely naked, lying beneath him in the warm dim lighting of your lamp. Only his torso is exposed, and you can’t say you haven’t seen the expanse of skin in posts on the internet - but seeing it only inches away from your own heaving chest makes it look so unreal.

On instinct you try to cover your chest with your arms, but Jaehyun gently pulls them apart.

His thumbs slide from your shoulders, reaching the hardened peaks of your nipples. Jaehyun’s touch lingering a little longer at the swell of your breasts, mesmerized by something he’s seen a lot - but only because it’s you.

“You’re making this impossible for me.” The voice he speaks in is ragged, enamored by how your chest also irregularly rises and falls.

“What do you mean?” You pause, but get caught in surprise when his wet tongue licks at your nipple. A gasp leaves your lips and he responds with an innocent smirk.

“It’s enough that you love me,” he plants a kiss at your shoulder blades, “enough that you let me love you,” another one on your right breast, “but you want to give yourself to me like this too?” he nuzzles into your chest. “Y/N, are you even real?”

He asks you like you haven’t already been asking that question for millions and millions of times, but he doesn’t know that.

When you respond with only an ‘I love you,’ he still doesn’t believe you’re real. Even until he inserts a finger into your core, curling them as he watched your tensed muscles relax under his touch. Adding in another finger, his thumb massaging your clit - only your moans and your sighs fill his ears.

You’re every sensation, every taste he wants on his tongue.

“Jaehyun.” You gasp over and over as he pumps in and out, fascinated with what only his hands can do. Although you’re on a cloud in paradise, feeling your nerves tense up with every centimeter of movement.

“Yes baby?” He coos as he feels you twitch, trying to resist the overwhelming sensations he’s providing. Not stopping until he feels your walls tighten and tighten around his fingers, your hips moving uncontrollably. With the pace he’s going, you find yourself cumming already.

“Jaehyun!” Your back arches, and he rubs at your overstimulated mound just to ogle at you. You feel whole when he slips inside of you after your almost limbless feeling attempt at taking off his sweatpants, feeling up every expanse he was setting in. He’s big, bigger than what you would have thought. “Fu– Fuck!” You curse under your breath, hissing at his girth.

“You’re so,” he grunts as he starts to move, but your pussy has a vice like grip and it won’t seem to adjust to his size, “so so good.”

There’s an impossible adjustment in your core, but he hits your sensitive spots just right. He seems to pull out more and plunge in deeper - becoming bolder with movement. You try your best not to close your eyes and look at his pair of diluted brown ones. Jaehyun’s got his mouth in a tight line, a dimple popping out as he tries to contain his grunts. The pace your heart beats is impossibly fast, and you wonder why even now that you’ve given all of yourself he makes you feel this way.

Even through the way he cups his hand over your hair, stealing kisses every chance he can get, quickening his pace until you’re moving the bed - somehow he causes this unbearable fluttering in your chest.

“I love you.” You whisper and he halts, catching you off guard. But he thrusts again, kissing any spot of skin his lips could find at the same time.

“I love you.” He repeats even as he runs out of breath. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” The vowels and consonants blend together until in your state of pleasure, the phrase starts to deconstruct - to make less sense. But your hips are arching into his and your fingers are crumpling at the fine linen sheets.

It would be the second time you were cumming, grabbing onto the taut muscles of his forearms clenching around his cock in your convulsions.

This made him go even faster, filling you up with his cum and softly laying against you. Grunting at the sensations.

That night he cleans the two of you up, wanting to snuggle up next to you for the rest of the night.

It’s in love, being in awe about loving someone you still thought was universes and galaxies away. It’s in love of him, the gentle caresses of lamp light upon his face - shadows of his lashes casting on his cheeks. It’s in love of you, the most unexpected kind of person he found completion in.

Somehow the two of you forget that you’re running out time.

Guilt is still a foreign concept to you.

It’s something you think about when you sneak out of Jaehyun’s dorm room after a night of making love (after kicking Jungwoo out to sleep in Taeyong’s room, of course.)

You stare at his peacefully sleeping figure, his arms lazily fishing out for your body and you silently thank heavens that he reaches out for a pillow and thinks that it’s you. Because you look at him like this, you look at the mess the two of you have made, and you remember the ‘I love you’ he told you tonight and what it truly implied.

For the past few days of this second week, he’s been telling you he’d do anything for you. Before the prospects of time were realized the two of you were blinded: him by his own selfish denial of wanting to try, and your generous want to wait.

Until you reminded yourself of who you both were. He would never give this life up, you thought thinking about how much he loved what he did. Singing, dancing, performing - being somebody he constantly tried to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild through all the criticism he received. He still loved it; you’d see that shine in his eyes whenever he talked about his job. How he wouldn’t trade it for anything. And you out of all people would know the feeling of loving something you did. And though you’ve thought of the possibility that he would give it all up for you, you didn’t want to make that choice for him.

Imagining him in the future regretting choosing you instead of chasing his dreams.

You think, sure, maybe if you loved someone enough you would consider giving up all your dreams - everything you worked hard for. Being with the person you loved seemed important enough, although you probably wouldn’t say that you were happy to give up the thing you wanted to pursue.

And of course it was different for Jaehyun, it was different by magnitudes.

“I love you, you know that - right?” He asks you by the end of the second week, although he hasn’t been keeping track. His hands are tracing random patterns on your arms as you lay on the couch with you head on his lap.

All the two of you seem to do is talk about love, and deep down he has to admit that it’s his sneaky way of trying to convince himself that you’re always going to be together. Because when you say those three words back to him, the ribbons of skin that creases with your smile tantalize him.

You just nod, too afraid of making him misunderstand you. For all you know he’s ready to jump ship, but you don’t want him to because he has more oceans to explore.

This is your newfound best friend, formerly only really acquainted with: insecurity.

You wonder if you’re the first he’s ever looked this way to. After all, he’s trained to be charming - trained to always look the part of the ‘first love’ persona he has to carry around. You wonder how easy it would be for him if things didn’t work out between the two of you; thousands of girls came pouring onto him anyway.

The feeling made you small, your mind treading through all kinds of green monsters that didn’t actually exist.

It was a little ridiculous, comparing yourself to every other possibility available to him. He could have anyone he wanted. Someone who was prettier, someone who was Korean - maybe they’d understand him better, or an idol - maybe they’d be the perfect combination.

“Fuck.” He whispers into your ear, as he ruts his cock into you. His right hand is tugging at your hair and you’re carelessly panting in pleasure.

You were barely undressed, only covered in one of his very old sweaters. And he wasn’t much naked either, still wearing the hoodie he wore to the studio.

Apparently practice was tiring today, and they got an ear load from the managers about not meeting some kind of quota. You were feeling a little bit annoyed by graduation preparations for the day, so the two of you found yourselves exhausting frustrations onto each other.

Pressed up against his warm white skin like this, you wonder how long you can make this last in your memory.

Convulsing in overstimulation, you choke out some sobs as your hands messily search for something to grab. His thighs, his arms, any inch of him. Like you were grabbing out for something to take with you when you inevitably have to go.

You want to memorize all of him that you can. When he whispers praises into your ear, when he grunts and uses a little bit more force when he cums inside of you. But also when he kisses at the base of your neck when he’s done. When he only wants to cuddle for the rest of the night and talk about all that’s weighing on his chest.

“Baby?” Jaehyun whispers when you stir in his grasp as the two of you cuddle up in bed.

Being honest is not in your cards, but you remember what you told him fifteen days ago about not holding back. And you think that you were an absolutely overly positive liar.

“Yuno.” His name is course when it leaves your lips, and it doesn’t go ignored by him. “How are we going to make this work out?”

Eyebrows knitting together in confusion, he doesn’t let his confusion go unnoticed. “What?”

You offer him some pathetic semblance of a smile as you slide your fingertips slowly on his arm. “I’m still leaving for New York, you know?” You want him to react differently. In fact you want him to get angry or disappointed, you want him to let go of you so that you won’t have to deal with him letting go of himself just to manage a relationship.

But he doesn’t.

“I know.” He kisses at your temple, “actually I’ve been thinking about it.”

“What’s there to think about?”

Jaehyun hums, “just say the word and I’ll drop everything for you.”

You manage to free yourself off of his grasp within seconds, turning to face him in disbelief. “Jaehyun, no,” you plead with him through the look in your eyes, “don’t.”

“Why?” He looks even frustrated, because just like you - this isn’t the reaction he expected.

“I don’t want you to leave this all behind just because of me,” you feel the tears in your eyes form already, “you love this job, even if it’s too much at times. Jae— you were made to be up there with the stars.”

“Babe,” he takes you by surprise by wrapping his arms around you again, thinking it will

stop the tears from falling from your eyes but it only makes it worse because now you’re crying into his chest, “I just love you, okay? It feels like it’s all I’ve known, and I don’t want to see you this way.”

You’re sure his shirt is left damp by your tears, and you cry even harder because of how stupidly in love he is. Maybe he’s as stupidly in love as you are.

You’re probably the most insensitive, most selfish bitch to ever walk the planet.

That’s what you think the day after when you’re at the airport - bawling your eyes out like a child who’s lost their favorite toy. You have so many bags packed up and you leave in an hour.

You texted Jaehyun earlier today and told him you’d be busy until late because of graduation preparations, but that was a huge lie. Actually you decided not to attend the graduation ceremony and just get your diploma sent out. When he told you he loved you last night you knew it was dangerous for the two of you now, so you thought to clear out your apartment with the help of your co-worker Hoobin and and a few other friends - then book the earliest flight to New York that you could. The place hiring you was eager to have you in anyway.

The goal was to make sure you wiped out any trace of yourself, just so Jaehyun wouldn’t be tempted to find you.

Months pass by and you haven’t heard a single from Jaehyun, and truth be told you’ve been trying to avoid everything related to Korean Pop music altogether.

You think that you don’t deserve to hurt, or even miss him. You don’t deserve to yearn for a stupid text or a stupid letter. This is what you wanted. Blocking any form of contact you had with him and the guys and made sure nobody from university gave away your information no matter how much they’d bribe. You checked in once in a while with Hoobin if any of the boys still went to the café, and apparently it was only Johnny and Mark who came around.

No one spoke a word about you, no one ever asked.

Disappearing from the face of the earth like you were some ghost. You were able to do it.

New York was different, a little louder. The structures of buildings were definitely different, but you got used to getting around after a month.

Once in a while you’d go on your usual social media run through and see a video of Mark or Taeyong, and you’d skip as fast as you could in case Jaehyun’s face would appear. They would look different in photos - hair colors changing.

On accident you saw a photo or two of their recent comeback because one of your co-workers was into k-pop and you just couldn’t avoid it.

A picture never hurt anyone, but you learned that it could. You saw Jaehyun again in the photos, this time with hints of green in his locks. The world itself seemed to be turning against you when you’d see him in fashion magazines, as if he was shoving it in your face.

Guilt is no longer a foreign concept to you, and each time you’re reminded of him it hurts you so much.

He looks better lately, you think. Although the bags under his eyes say he hasn’t been well rested, but you aren’t around to tell him to get some sleep anymore. He seems to be working out more, the muscles really making themselves prominent under his favorite black shirts. He’s gotten way more popular individually too, and it’s something you think he’s always deserved anyway.

In your head you try so hard to reduce Jaehyun back into a handsome face popular online in a completely foreign country, maybe if you disassociated your relationship with him it would be easier to cope with having to see his face once in a while when you didn’t mean to.

You hope he’s forgotten about you, you hope he’s not as messed up as you are. In fact, you hope he’s decided to hate you with every fibre of his being. You hope he’s found somebody else who’s a much better fit, someone who can be his best friend and his lover.

Work has been good, great even. You’ve already been offered a few shoots to be in charge of in the Spring editorial of the magazine.

“Hey Y/N, a client specifically called for you last night but you already left so I just gave them your cell. They might be calling soon, is that alright?” The girl at the front desk tells you when you get to work that morning, you just nod quickly because the coffee you picked up on the way to work might spill.

True enough the phone at your desk rings about thirty minutes later.

“This is Y/N Y/L/N, how may I entertain you?” You greet casually, getting rid of the pumps you were wearing on your feet as you relaxed in your office chair.

“Hey, my favorite barista.” The very voice you know as Mark Lee’s is very recognizable, and you’re tempted to hang up but you don’t.

“Hey Mark!” You say, a little too enthusiastically, but he sounds like he doesn’t hate you so maybe this was the right mood to set.

“Don’t ask how I got your office number,” he chuckles, “it was so easy to google search your name because it’s on the homepage of the website for the place you work.” He already reasons out but you laugh it off.

“Yeah it’s fine, it’s comforting to hear an old friend’s voice.” You assure him. “So, you want some clothes done or what?”

He laughs and you try to listen in if there’s background noise, you wonder if he’s in his dorm room alone or if he’s with the other members. “Actually no, not really, but if you still have one of those jackets from your catalog two months ago then can I order one? It was lit.” The word choice is casual, so Mark.

“Oh yeah, just send me over your measurements and I’ll get one custom made.” You take note with one of your post its, “but why else would you call me?”

“You know, Jaehyun hyung.” He clears his throat because you know Mark Lee can’t handle more than three seconds of anything awkward.

You dread this conversation already, “what about him?” You bite your lip like you’re ready to get scolded, but thankfully Mark isn’t like that.

“Look, I know you haven’t heard from us and we haven’t heard from you. None of us know if you’ve moved on with your life, but I’m like sure Jaehyun hyung’s still a walking train wreck about it. We all know that he has no plans to move on.” He admits.

“I’m not doing any better here either.” It’s pretty self-explanatory, and Mark knows it means you still love Jaehyun.

“Yeah, I get that. The two of you are just really dumb you know?” It’s like he finds this a little entertaining.

“Why’s that?” You want to ask him, because you doubt he’s going to give any useful advice.

“Your idea of the best possible scenario is making him leave you behind to pursue his own path, and his idea of the best possible scenario is dropping everything for you and to follow you wherever you are. But hasn’t it occurred to the two of you dumbasses that it will work out if you leave each other be? It only matters if you two love each other even if you’re miles away.” He blurts out in one go and you’re pleasantly surprised, “just call him or call me first when you’re ready. You can trace my number back so just do that if you want to.” He hangs up before you can say anything.

You almost choke on your bagel when you see NCT 127 on morning television the day after Mark called you. Yep, you knew you should have put the cream cheese; this bite was hard to swallow now that you were watching them.

So you rush into work again, same hot coffee in your hands as you make your way up to your office floor. Thank god you could hide in the privacy of the office space you had, working in the company meant that they gave you free space to be able to make clothes and relax.

Except when you get there you find out that your concept of having a safe space was completely destroyed. Safe spaces didn’t exist when the things you were running away from

were chasing you from inside your mind. In this case it was made even worse; the thing (person, to be technically correct about it) you were running away from came in the form of Jeong Jaehyun.

He’s just staring there at you, green highlighted hair and all. Same suede shoes, same black shirt, and same olive green jacket.

“What are you doing here?” You’re choking on words but he still stares at you like how Patrick Verona looked at Kat Stratford in that poem reading scene in 10 Things I Hate About You. A look you’ve never thought a guy would ever give to you - but hey, Jaehyun was. In a bittersweet way, he could play that tole.

“Have you eaten?” He pushes your queries aside but he still looks at you like that.

“I almost asphyxiated on a bagel a while ago, actually.” Because of him, you just add in your mind.

“And now you’re drinking coffee?” He chuckles to himself as his eyes shamelessly scan to more than just your coffee cup, “aren’t you tired of that stuff?” You know he remembers that one time you said you were never going near a coffee bean ever again that one time you were tired from your part time job.

That organ in your chest aches, and when you answer with silence it hurts even more.

Why wasn’t he screaming at you?

Why didn’t he look like he was angry?

Why wasn’t he telling you that you were a heartless bitch?

Why was he just standing there looking at you like the first time?

Coffee cup forgotten as you set it down on your desk, Jaehyun standing there looking frozen. He can feel the shift in your posture too, like the two of you have perfected the art of reading each other’s body language.

“This is the part when you tell me you hate my guts, you know?” Your words are teetering uncomfortably, and you’re suddenly hyperaware of all the goosebumps that line your skin.

“I don’t hate you,” he sighs and you notice that he isn’t even running low on patience, nothing angry nor negative replaces his demeanor. Jaehyun remains to be warm, even as you stand far apart. “Why would I ever hate you?” He asks.

When you find it a little bit hard to breathe Jaehyun continues to speak. “I haven’t seen you in so long and you look a bit different in appearance, but I could never be mad at you. I haven’t heard your voice in months aside from the videos I kept in my phone, but I could never resent you. Y/N, I’m standing right in front of you in New York fucking City and I know I don’t have it in me to think a single negative thing about you. I love you even if you’re difficult like that.” He takes five steps forward, but he’s still about ten steps too far away.

Everything rational about you, everything that tells you that this is a mistake shuts down. You want to dissect every single thing about Jaehyun and make all kinds of most probable assumptions about him, but now you know you’re awfully wrong. Every fear you’ve fabricated in your head is the exact opposite thing Jaehyun would have ever done.

“When you disappeared, I knew where you were. I cried like a loser all the time, but I thought that if this was what you wanted then I’d try my best to give you that. Maybe we jumped on way too quickly when we realized we were in love and we stopped thinking logically, but I had so much time and space to think. This time I’m sure about what I want, and it’s still you.” He finishes, taking ten slow steps toward you.

Now you’re a mess of tear works. What kind of man would hang onto love for so long without being sure if your love had also stayed?

“You’re not supposed to want me anymore.” It sounds like you’re sobbing on your words.

He scoffs, but only because it’s ridiculous how much you want him not to love you. “You’re all I want, you’re all I ever want.” His fingertips find their way to tuck your stray strands of hair behind your ear, and your head tilts to face him - his figure towering against yours. While you’re aware you probably look like a whole mess, he looks at you like you’re the most precious thing his eyes have ever lain on. “You can tell me you don’t love me anymore and I’ll try to move on, but I know I can’t. Or you can tell me you love me and we can make this work without putting our own lives on hold.” He proposes, and you sniffle.

“Of course I still love you,” you punch softly at his chest, frustrated that he could love you like this, “I could have ended up in the North Pole and I know I’d still love you.” You cry even harder, but he wraps you up tightly in his arms - your head buried in his chest.

You relish in this comfort, the familiar beat of his heart and the warmth he exudes. You feel at home again.

“Don’t leave me again.” He asks of you and you nod quickly.

“God, we’re so stupid.” You mutter, tears are still falling from your eyes but at a slower rate.

“I can’t say it’s stupid if we took the time to learn.” He looks so proud of himself at his attempt to sound wise, but you take your small hands and smooth it over his jaw. Thumb on the dimple that peeks when he smiles down at you.

“I’m sorry.” You tell him, but he nods ever so slightly.

“I understand.” He shushes you by closing the distance between your lips, and your heart feels stuffed.

Flying from New York to Seoul and back again is tiring, but you weren’t complaining.

The stylists that worked with Mark really liked the jacket you made for him (yes, he really did actually order one) and asked where he got it. A few arrangements later and you’ve graduated from a part time working barista, to foreign exchange student in fashion school, to a trusted collaborative designer for the boys’ clothing.

Maybe the greatest acting gig you were ever going to pull off— pretending not to be dating Jaehyun whenever the other staff members were around.

This time the boys were in the office you had in Seoul, getting measurements taken for their comeback outfits. But everyone else was lounging around in the big couches because they were done, so you were left with your boyfriend in the section where you kept your fabrics.

“Stop making my job harder.” You complain as you wrap your measuring tape around Jaehyun’s thighs.

But he smugly lets out a whistle, “you weren’t on your knees when you were measuring the other members’ pant sizes.” He teases, but he’s right - you were on your knees only for him.

To spite him you place your cheek on his thigh to pretend like you were going to do a better job if you switched up your position. “Babe, I know more about your inches than anyone here.”

“Yeah?” He’s excited.

“I even use my mouth so you can slide it in—“

“Woah, guys, language.” Johnny barges in and you immediately pull away and stand up, and Jaehyun’s just as disturbed.

“Yeah we can hear you, you know.” Mark remarks behind Johnny.

“Well then can you please warn us that we’re audible before I make innuendos about sucking off my boyfriend?” You cross your arms at the two boys who just came in, chuckling to themselves.

Jaehyun rests his chin on your shoulders from behind you, wrapping his arms upon your own.

“We made this union happen.” Mark argues, and you continue to send daggers through your eyes.

Jaehyun kisses at your cheek and Johnny and Mark make sounds of disgust, enough to make them scramble away when you kiss Jaehyun’s cheeks back.

The two of you laugh, catching each other’s eyes when you get lost at your close proximity.

“I love you.” You both accidentally say at the same time.

And like always, you pull each other in.

Fin.

#jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun smut #jaehyun imagine #jaehyun scenario #jaehyun fluff #jaehyun angst #nct angst #nct fluff #nct smut #nct 127 imagines #nct scenarios #nct 127 smut #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun imagines #jung yoonoh #jung jaehyun

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arvinsescape · 3 years

Text

Time and Space.

A/N: Another angsty one that won’t have a part two, i’ve left it down to readers interpretation as to what happens next. I enjoy writing more angsty fics and i enjoyed writing this. I hope you all enjoy! There is also some slight POV changes in this so if i missed any you/she’s that needed to be corrected i apologise.

Summary: Tom's been distant and it reaches its breaking point.

Warnings: Swearing, so much angst, mentions of mental health being affected.

W/C: 3K

If someone had told you a year ago that on your next birthday you’d be sat crying into your drink you’d have laughed at them but would they have been wrong? No. Here you were crying into your drink and violently sobbing while Tuwaine rubbed your back and tried to calm you down, it wasn’t working.

Harrison was furious with his best friend, he couldn’t be more angry if he tried. He’d promised her he was going to be here and where was he? Well if he’d pick up his fucking phone Harrison might have an answer for the sobbing girl. Tuwaine was utterly lost, he had no idea how to make her feel better.

You looked at your phone for what felt like the millionth time that night, nothing from him and it was 12.01am the day after your birthday. He hadn’t said happy birthday and he hadn’t seen you on your birthday, not spared you a thought in 24 hours. You knew something was wrong, something you couldn’t quite get a grip on, he’d become distant.

“Hey.” You said as you approached him, he was sat on his phone, he didn’t even look at you. “Do you wanna do something today?” You asked and he huffed quietly.

“Not today, love.” He’d answered and it felt cold, withdrawn. He still hadn’t looked at you.

“Okay, then I’m gonna go out for a bit.” You said and he hummed not looking away from his phone.

“I applied for a promotion today.” You said over dinner, he was yet to say anything to you.

“Nice.” He said. It sounded like he didn’t mean it. No further questions as if he wanted the conversation to be over.

“I’m kinda nervous for it.” You said hoping to keep the conversation going.

“You’ll do great.” He said as he got up and left the room.

He’d been nothing but distant over the last couple of weeks and last night he missed a dinner date, he apologised, although it seemed half arsed and didn’t give a reason. You knew he wasn’t cheating because Harrison had texted you to apologise that he kept Tom out, but Tom said nothing about it. You got up and couldn’t help the brim of tears in your eyes.

“You okay?” He asked as you sniffled.

“Yeah.” You mumbled as you sniffled again and rubbed your nose.

“Okay.” He said as he made his way out the door. You cried for the first time in those couple of weeks. You knew he wasn’t cheating so did he just not love you anymore? Were you an inconvenience? Your mind ran at a thousand miles an hour thinking over all the reasons he was being so cold.

It only got worse, one missed dinner date turned into three so you stopped organising them. He never had a reason for missing them and the last time he’d done it didn’t even pull and apology from him. You folded your arms over the table and stuffed your face into them as you cried harder and Tuwaine wondered how that was possible.

Tuwaine watched as she sobbed her heart out in the middle of a bar not caring if people were looking or not. He pulled her into his chest as she sobbed harder, the tears instantly wetting his shirt but he didn’t care, he was heartbroken for the girl in his arms. He looked at Harrison as Harrisons nostrils flared before he abruptly stood from the table and made his way outside.

“Hey, shh. Come on Y/N, it’s your birthday.” Tuwaine said to her and she didn’t respond, probably didn’t hear as her crying was so loud, he was almost in tears himself watching her break apart in his arms. She shouldn’t be in his arms, this should be Tom comforting her but fuck knows where he is.

Harrison pulled up Tom’s contact one last time before he decided that he was going to go over there and rip him a new one. He placed the phone to his ear as he ran his hands through his hair, surprisingly Tom picked up after the third ring.

“Hey mate.”

“Where the fuck are you?” Harrison growled down the phone.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked confused.

“Of course you forgot. You really are a piece of shit.” Harrison laughed sarcastically, his heart was well and truly broken for the girl inside.

“Forgot what? Are you gonna just keep insulting me or tell me what I’ve done?” Tom snapped and Harrisons nostrils flared as his anger bubbled further to the brim.

“Where’s Y/N?” He asked.

“I don’t know she wasn’t home when I got back.” Tom answered almost as if it meant nothing. No concern. No fucking anything. Harrisons anger completely boiled over.

“It’s her birthday you absolute fucking bell end. She’s sat in the middle of a pub crying because you couldn’t keep yet another promise. You really have outdone yourself.” Harrison said and he heard Tom curse at the other end of the phone.

“Shit, tell her I’ll be there in ten.” He said.

“Don’t fucking bother. You have done more than enough. I’m bringing her home soon and you better just fucking leave her be.” Harrison said.

“No disrespect mate but this is my relationship.” Tom snapped and Harrison laughed at that.

“Is it? Does she know you’re still together?” Harrison bit back, he was beyond angry.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Tom shouted back at him.

“If you don’t know what I mean by that Tom I’m not fucking trying.” Harrison snapped as he put the phone down. He stormed back into the pub, his anger having risen to a point of what he thought was no return until he saw Y/N again and all anger dissipated as he watched her cry into Tuwaine’s chest that should have been Tom’s.

You couldn’t control yourself as you cried, so many thoughts running through your head. You had to go home eventually but that meant back to Tom, maybe, if he was there. You would ask to stay at one of the boy’s house but their house was your house and it was far too late to call anyone else. Maybe you could get a hotel for the night, you didn’t want to speak to Tom tonight, not after this.

“Y/N? I’m gonna take you home okay? I’m gonna give you my room and I’ll sleep on the sofa.” You heard Harrison say as he crouched down next to you.

“But what if Tom’s there?” You sobbed back and he took your hands in his as you pulled away from Tuwaine.

“If you don’t want to speak to Tom tonight you don’t have to.” Harrison said and you nodded as you both stood. Tuwaine grabbed your things as Harrison guided you outside and flagged down a taxi. You managed to compose yourself a little as you sat in the taxi.

“I don’t think he loves me anymore.” You said and Harrison sighed. Harrison wasn’t sure he could answer this, Tom hadn’t said anything but he was sure acting like he didn’t.

“Let’s just get you home and we can talk about this tomorrow okay? You need some sleep.” Harrison said as he pulled you into his side. At some point the crying had taken a toll on you and you let the exhaustion pull you under and you let silent tears fall.

Harrison was aware she’d fallen asleep and a part of him was happy about it, she wouldn’t have to face him tonight. He was so angry that Tom hadn’t seen the heart break in her, she’d become distant herself, lost in her own thoughts more often. She wasn’t enthusiastic anymore and anyone with eyes could see she was slowly breaking so why hadn’t Tom?

Harrison paid the driver as he carefully moved her out of the taxi, carrying her bridal style up the driveway. He noticed the living room light on and he sighed, Tom was waiting. Tuwaine unlocked the door as he made his way upstairs and as Harrison kicked the door shut gently Tom came in.

“She okay?” Tom asked and his heart broke as he took in the state of her, she looked so tired, almost broken, she didn’t have that same peaceful look on her face that sleep normally brought.

“Don’t.” Harrison gritted out as he started to make his way upstairs.

“Harrison sh-“ Tom began to say and Harrison spun round to look at his face.

“Don’t you fucking dare wake her up. I’ll be back down shortly.” Harrison gritted out and Tom nodded as he watched his friend carry his girlfriend upstairs and into his room. She shouldn’t even be crying but here she is and Tom should be comforting her but here he is.

Tom sat on the living room sofa as his leg bounced waiting for his friend to reappear. He was aware he was in for an argument. He’d just been so stressed recently and he’d taken it out on her and he felt awful, he hadn’t noticed the change in her but seeing her tonight and she was only asleep made him realise how much he’d fucked up. Harrison entered the living room as he shut the door and Tom instantly shot up.

“What did you get her?” Harrison asked.

“What?” Tom asked with furrowed brows, he wasn’t sure where this was going.

“For her birthday?” Harrison clarified.

“I forgot.” Tom swallowed as he watched his friends nostrils flare.

“Fucking brilliant. Do you know what she said to me tonight?” Harrison said as he crossed his arms over his chest and Tom shook his head, he couldn’t find his voice.

“She said ‘I don’t think he loves me anymore’ and she fucking believed it.” Harrison said and Tom felt his heart shatter. He knew he’d been distant and he knew he wasn’t being fair to her but he never once thought she’d believe he didn’t love her.

“I do.” Tom said as he felt his tears, he had really fucked up.

“I couldn’t tell her that, Tom.” Harrison sighed as he felt his anger wash away all of a sudden, he was just left with a sadness in his chest over the situation. “I couldn’t stick up for you because you haven’t given me a reason to make her believe otherwise.” Tom’s tears slipped down his cheeks at that, had he really been so cold?

“I’ve just been so stressed, I didn’t mean to be that way.” Tom said and Harrison sighed again as he ran his hands over his face.

“But you were and you didn’t see what it was doing to her. Fuck, Tom we picked up on her changes weeks ago.” Harrison said and Tom nodded as he sniffled. He felt like he had a whole in his heart that was only going to be made bigger once he spoke to his girlfriend.

“I’ve really fucked up Haz, I need to speak to her.” Tom said as he cried.

“Not tonight Tom please, just let her sleep.” Harrison begged as he placed a reassuring hand on his friends shoulder and Tom nodded as he said goodnight and made his way upstairs, he was scared this was going to be the end, that she wouldn’t forgive him for this. He collapsed onto his bed tossing and turning, thinking about what the morning will bring until he eventually fell asleep.

You woke up and your head was pounding from the tears you’d shed last night. You felt awful and as you turned to the bedside table you saw that a packet of painkillers and a bottle of water had been left with a note.

For your head. Me, Tuwaine and Harrison have gone out for the day so you two can talk. I’m here if you need anything, Harry.

Harry hadn’t been able to make it last night for legitimate reasons and the boys must have filled him in this morning. As for Tom, you still had no idea why he couldn’t make it last night. You swallowed the painkillers and drank the bottle of water before making your way into the bathroom. You looked at yourself in the mirror after you finished brushing your teeth and you were shocked by the sight.

You had horrendous bags under your eyes and no life in them. You looked tired, completely drained of energy. You almost cried again at the sight of yourself but you were sure you legitimately couldn’t cry again, you felt numb after your breakdown last night.

You took a shower and let the water wash your tear stains away along with everything else. You felt ready to talk to Tom now, more prepared than last night, you were sure you had no more tears left for him. You loved him, god did you love him but this wasn’t working at the minute and you came to accept that when you were in the shower. His feelings had changed and there was nothing you could do about it, sometimes it happens and you had to accept that.

You realised that you’d have to go back into your shared bedroom in order to get changed and you mentally prepared yourself one last time before you opened the door and there he was sat on the edge of the bed. Your heart broke slightly at the sight of him, he looked tired, like he’d hardly slept. You silently got dressed as neither of you dare say a word until you heard Tom sigh.

“Y/N/N, I’m so sorry.” He said and his voice broke as tears made their way down his face.

“Why weren’t you there?” You asked, voice tired, devoid of all emotion. Tom sobbed before he answered, he knew this would break you heart, you on the other hand weren’t sure if you had any heart left to break.

“I forgot.” He said and shame laced his tone. He prepared himself for the shouting but it never came you only nodded. The lack of emotion from you was frightening Tom to no end.

“Do you still love me?” You asked, you needed to know. You watched as tears fell like a waterfall down his beautiful face. You were right in assuming you had no tears left because usually the sight of him crying would cause some of your own tears, but not right now.

“I do. I love you so much princess. I’m sorry, I’ve been so stressed lately and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have.” He was still sat on the edge of the bed as he dropped his head into his hands and cried again. You stood still in your position across the room. Normally the nickname would fill you with happiness but right now it was hitting a brick wall. Your heart slightly lifted to hear he still loved you but you still needed space.

“Please can we talk about this? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I really do love you and I mean that.” He said.

“That’s first time you’ve said those words in a while.” You spoke as you realised.

“What?” He furrowed his brows as he looked at you.

“I love you.” You replied, voice still void of emotion. You were speaking as if you were listing off a fact file.

“I’m sorry.” Tom shook his head as he sniffled loudly before burying his head in his hands again.

“I’m gonna go stay with a friend.” You said as you slowly started to pack a suitcase.

“What? No, baby, we can fix this. You don’t have to leave.” He panicked as he frantically looked at you. You sighed as you continued to pack.

“Tom, I’m tired and I’m drained. I need some time away.” You said honestly as you zipped up your case after having packed what you’d need for a while.

“Please, Y/N don’t leave me.” He pleaded with you as he stood. You sighed again, you’d been through this in your head, you needed time, both of you did.

“Tom, I need some time away from you okay. I need time to think and to process the last seven weeks.” You said.

“What if you don’t come back?” He panicked as he made his way over to you, taking your face in both of his hands looking straight into your eyes. “I love you so much, please don’t leave me. We can talk about it.” Tom was pleading with you now and you felt your first tear fall as he swiftly swiped it away with his thumb.

“Tom I love you, I really do. But we need space and then we can talk okay?” You said.

“But what if you stop loving me?” Tom worried and you smiled as you placed your hands over his.

“A part of me will always love you and I mean that.”

“This feels like a goodbye.” Tom cried.

“It doesn’t have to be, but we need time and space right now. That’s what we need, when I’m ready to talk I’ll let you know.” You said through a sad smile. “I love you.” You said as you placed a sweet kiss to his lips which he instantly returned, his tears mixing with the kiss. You pulled away from him as you grabbed your case.

“I love you so much, please don’t forget that.” Tom said as you made you’re way out of the door.

“I won’t. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk.” You softly smiled at him and he returned it as you shut the door and made your way to your car.

#tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland one shot #tom holland x reader #tom holland angst

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sweetteaanddragons · 3 years

Text

Innocence

Nolofinwe’s first thought was that Feanaro had sired another son and neglected to mention it.

A second thought dismissed this as ridiculous, given a moment’s comparison between the age of the child (halfway to adolescence) and the length of time Feanaro had previously been able to resist announcing that he had another child (half a breath).

His second thought was that Curufinwe had sired a child, but given that then he would have had to miss both a birth and a marriage announcement, he was inclined to doubt it.

“I did say Atar was unavailable for a reason,” Pityo said helpfully from behind him.

“No,” Nolofinwe said after another moment of stunned silence spent exchanging stares with a bright eyed and half sized Feanaro, “you said, and I quote, “Atar is unavailable for - reasons.” Forgive me for assuming you were just trying to get rid of me.”

Feanaro had hopped up to perch on the scarred wood of his much abused workbench, presumably so he could continue the staring contest from a more equitable position. “Why do we want to get rid of you?” he asked. “Who are you, anyway?”

Nolofinwe blinked.

He wasn’t quite sure which sentence had hit him harder. It was probably better not to think about it.

“He doesn’t know who I am either,” Pityo in a voice that was clearly trying to substitute manic cheer for sanity. “I think an experiment went wrong.”

“How do you know it went wrong?” Feanaro demanded. “Maybe I was trying to do this.”

Well, at least some things hadn’t changed. “But we are accepting the premise that this was an experiment.”

Pityo looked helplessly around Feanaro’s workroom, with its profusion of strange tools, unidentifiable substances, and suspicious jewelry, as if to ask, What else could it be?

“That’s what the - my notes say,” Feanaro said, and the stumble revealed the first hint of uncertainty in this whole mess. “I think.”

Nolofinwe snatched up the closest sheaf of papers.

It immediately became apparent why Feanaro had not been able to make that statement with any more certainty.

“He’s developed another system of writing,” he said blankly. It was not quite a question. “Wasn’t coming up with one enough?”

Feanaro brightened. “I made a new system of writing? What’s it like? Will you show me?”

“It’s not a whole new system,” Pityo said at the same time. “It’s just his code. I suppose . . . “ And he gestured helplessly again, this time at his miniaturized father.

“I recognize some of it,” Feanaro said defensively. “And I figured out some of the rest. I’m sure I’ll get it eventually.”

“He’s stuck like this until he can decode his own notes?”

Pityo shook his head. “Curufinwe should be able to decode it. Probably. He taught it to all of us, it’s just . . . been a while.”

“He said I have seven sons,” Feanaro said. He sounded enormously impressed by this information. “Are you one of them?”

It took a lifetime of controlling his expression in court not to choke.

“No,” Pityo said, sounding horrified.

Nolofinwe was not particularly eager to hear how one of Feanaro’s sons would explain him.

“I’m your brother,” he said. “Nolofinwe.”

He was not at all prepared for the way Feanaro glowed.

Or for the way Feanaro flung himself off the worktable and wrapped himself around Nolofinwe like the octopus Arafinwe had once shown him.

Before Nolofinwe could react, Feanaro had already clambered up, tiny limbs jabbing into Nolofinwe and awkwardly pulling at the jewels pinned to his court finery, until Feanaro had secured himself firmly on Nolofinwe’s back, pointy chin digging into his head.

“There,” Feanaro said triumphantly. “Now I’m taller than you again.”

“Again?” Nolofinwe asked, automatically adjusting his grip on Feanaro’s legs to keep him from falling. He was abruptly thankful that Pityo had managed to dig up some child sized clothes before he got here.

“You’re my little brother,” Feanaro said matter-of-factly. “I’m taller than you.”

Nolofinwe was, in fact, about a hands-width taller than Feanaro, a fact that he was privately and perhaps bit embarrassingly proud of.

He resisted the urge to share this fact with his currently younger half-brother.

This bit of maturity was helped by the fact that he was still processing the look on Feanaro’s face when he had found out who Nolofinwe was to him.

He took a deep breath. “Back to our most urgent concern,” he said. “If Curufinwe is the only one who can translate these notes, where is he?”

Pityo bit his lip. “Out with the others, probably. We were all helping Makalaure set up for his performance at the festival tonight. I just came back to grab something and found . . . “

“Me,” Feanaro said, small arms temporarily squeezing tighter in their grip.

“Right,” Nolofinwe said. He resisted the urge to rub between his eyes. “I don’t suppose you have any idea why you were trying to make yourself younger in the first place? I assume you intended to keep your memories while you did so, but that still doesn’t explain the rest of it.”

“That’s obvious, isn’t it?” For once, Feanaro’s voice wasn’t smug, just matter of fact. “I was probably trying to figure out how to make other things younger and just tested it out on myself.”

“But why? We already have the means to preserve items - “

“But not animals,” Feanaro said, one arm releasing him so he could wave it excitedly. “Or we don’t, at least, and I bet you don’t either. If I could make this work, then people could have horses or cats that they’d never have to lose.” His voice was passionate with excitement for a project that wasn’t even really his, and for all the distance and anger between them, Nolofinwe didn’t have to wonder even for a moment why.

“But did you have to try it on yourself first?” he asked instead even though, rationally speaking, it was a waste of time to direct the question to Feanaro just now.

“I don’t think he did,” Pityo said. “There’s a loaf of bread on the table that I’m pretty sure was stale this morning, and when I opened the door to come in here, a kitten ran out. This was just . . . the next logical step.”

Nolofinwe gave him a flat look. Pityo jerked his chin up stubbornly.

Feanaro tugged on the collar of his robes to regain his attention. “Aren’t you even a little impressed, Nolo? I turned back time!”

“Of course it’s impressive,” he said, automatically reassuring. It had the benefit of also being true. “It’s just also insane.”

Feanaro was apparently not bothered by the second part of this because he settled back down almost immediately, pointy chin once again burrowing into Nolofinwe’s shoulder.

Pityo looked about to protest, but apparently he didn’t want Feanaro’s pointy chin any closer to his own shoulders because he kept his objections to himself. “Look,” he said instead. “I’ll go get Curufinwe and bring him back here to start working on things. I would have gone earlier, but I couldn’t leave him alone.”

And the last thing they needed was for word of this to spread around Tirion, which went unsaid.

Technically, of course, he was one of the people such word would have been kept from; there were a half dozen plans that could be pushed forward in the court with infinitely more ease with the knowledge that Feanaro would not be interfering for the foreseeable future, and Pityo knew it.

But it was hard to think of that while Feanaro was clinging to him like Nolofinwe’s own children had been too old to do for ages. And if Pityo hadn’t trusted him not to turn the situation to his own advantage, he at least trusted him enough to look after Feanaro now that he knew.

That was something.

So he just nodded, and Pityo took off like a deer with the whole hunt of Orome behind it.

When the door swung shut behind him, Nolofinwe turned his head so that he could better see Feanaro and said, “You’re taking this very well.”

He’d waited in case Feanaro took that as he cue to start not taking things well; he didn’t think the situation would be in any way improved by Feanaro bursting into tears in front of his son.

But Feanaro just shrugged. “It’s an adventure!” he said with a blinding grin that faded a bit into thoughtfulness. “And I’ve seen my notes in here and . . . and some of Amil’s tapestries upstairs. It looks like a house I’d have.”

And of course there was no reason to be concerned, Nolofinwe supposed; Feanaro was safe, there was no reason to suppose he’d ever be anything other than totally safe. This was Aman, not long ago Cuivenien, but still.

He supposed the world had changed since Feanaro was a child after all because he still couldn’t quite suppress a thrill of vicious vicarious unease. Feanaro in his right mind would not want to be this vulnerable, especially not in front of the half-brother that he now seemed for inexplicable reasons to adore.

But Feanaro was now squirming down from his place on Nolofinwe’s back. He let him down quickly, and Feanaro circled around and reclaimed his perch on the workbench, face suddenly very serious.

“Those weren’t the only things I saw upstairs,” he said. “I saw the bedrooms too.”

“Oh?” Nolofinwe said, at a loss as to why this, of all things, would upset a child-sized Feanaro.

Feanaro’s shoulders were tense. “I saw my bedroom,” he clarified, and when this still provoked no answer, his chin jutted out. “Don’t play stupid with me,” he insisted. “I saw. It was my bedroom, just mine. Something happened to their mother, didn’t it?”

His voice shook over the word “something.”

It probably said something too that he said "their mother" and not "my wife," but given his current age, mothers were probably an infinitely more comfortable topic, even considering the history of his own.

Nolofinwe sat down beside him. “Nothing happened to Nerdanel,” he said gently. Feanaro perked up just a little at the extra information he had just inadvertently provided, so Nolofinwe gave him some more. “That’s her name. She has hair just as red as Pityo’s, and she’s a sculptor. Her workshop should still be here. Have you seen it?”

Feanaro shook his head.

“She’s the best in Aman,” Nolofinwe said, and it was no empty flattery. “She’s gone to visit her family, that’s all. Nothing bad.”

“She went to visit her family, and she took everything with her?” Feanaro said skeptically.

Nolofinwe had come here hoping to discuss a few details of the festival with his brother before he went to push his case for the new university's funding in court. He had prepared for that. He had not prepared how to discuss the difficulties in his brother’s marriage with a child who wasn’t familiar with any possible difficulties in marriage beyond death.

“You had a fight,” he admitted.

Feanaro considered this. “Did I win?”

“That depends on how you define winning,” Nolofinwe said dryly. “But regardless, she is very much still alive.”

This seemed to satisfy Feanaro. At the very least, he moved on. “So how much older than you am I?” he asked, and there was a strange look on his face now.

Nolofinwe didn’t really see how the answer could do any harm, but something about the look on Feanaro’s face made him wary. “You had already started your apprenticeship when I was born,” he said, leaving at least a little ambivalence in case he needed it later.

Feanaro’s shoulders slumped a fraction, but he recovered quickly, leaning forward eagerly. “But I started that young, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he admitted. “You’d finished it before you were of age.”

Feanaro nodded, calculations running behind his eyes. “And I bet she didn’t have you right away,” he said, fingers tapping quickly, like a count. “They would have waited.”

“That’s . . . true,” he said warily.

“So it won’t be much longer then,” Feanaro said cheerfully. “From my perspective, I mean, I know it’s already handled here.”

Cheerfully?

Feanaro had apparently noticed his confusion because he rolled his eyes. “I’m not an idiot,” he said with a deep scorn that was far more familiar than any other expression he’d worn that day. “I know where babies come from. Atar couldn’t have given me a brother on his own.”

“Two brothers,” he said blankly. “Arafinwe - “

Feanaro grinned. “Even better.” But the grin faltered quickly. “Did she - blame me? When she came back, and you turned out alright, did she think it was my fault?”

When she came back.

He had wondered, earlier, just how old Feanaro was.

Too young, apparently, to know of his father’s decision to remarry.

That explained . . . a lot.

Feanaro’s face had crumpled in the face of his silence.

“Of course not,” he said. “Of course not, she would never blame you.” He wrapped an arm around Feanaro and pulled him closer.

Feanaro’s shoulders shook. “You don’t have to lie to me,” he said, stubbornly not crying. “I’m not a baby.”

“She didn’t blame you,” he invented wildly. “She blamed Atar. But she forgave him, as Arafinwe obviously proves.”

It came out almost naturally. It would have been entirely naturally if it hadn’t belatedly occurred to him just how much trouble he would be in if Feanaro asked the obvious follow-up question and demanded to see her.

Thankfully, at that moment, the muffled sound of the door to the house banging open rang out, followed quickly by the door to the workshop slamming open in its turn.

Curufinwe ran through first, and Fenaaro’s jaw dropped at the older reflection of himself.

For his part, Curufinwe’s eyes were immediately drawn to the tears still trembling in his father’s eyes. Thunder clouds immediately began to form on his face.

Maitimo was a slightly calmer presence behind him, but his face was still flushed from moving too fast in formal robes in the summer heat. “Uncle,” he said, inclining his head. “We appreciate your assistance.”

Curufinwe opened his mouth. Maitimo very firmly snatched the relevant papers from the workbench and steered him to the other end of the workroom. Curufinwe went, though he kept sending rather understandable glances back toward his Atar.

Maitimo was gentler when he approached Feanaro, kneeling so that they were at eye level. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Maitimo. Did Pityo tell you who I am?”

“You’re the one with all the letters in your room,” Feanaro said, a little warily.

Maitimo’s mouth twitched up in amusement. “That’s right.”

Curufinwe was in sweat stained work clothes, but Maitimo’s were finer; he must have visited court before going to help Makalaure. Regardless, there were jewels glinting around his neck, and Feanaro, perhaps inevitably, was drawn toward them.

“Did I make those?” he asked eagerly, successfully distracted from his earlier distress, eyes tracing the chain of gold framed rubies that looked like sparks from a fire that wrapped from Maitimo’s shoulder to his waist.

Maitimo’s smile widened. “You did,” he said. “They were a gift for my first appointment of any real substance at court.”

Feanaro’s attention turned to Nolofinwe’s own court finery and the sapphires twisted into the silver circlet in his hair. “Did I make that?” he demanded.

Nolofinwe resisted the urge to wince. “You did not.”

That was no crime, of course; it was just that this piece in particular was very pointedly not made by Feanaro. It had, in fact, been made by a Vanyarin smith who had been trumpeted as their very best, and while the Vanyar were not generally known for their smiths, some had boasted that he could challenge even Feanaro’s skill.

Commissioning the piece had been a statement, a declaration that he was not ashamed of his Vanyarin heritage, that Feanaro’s supremacy was not unchallenged, that -

Well. A lot of things. Wearing it was also always a very deliberate jab, and it was one he had been wholeheartedly in favor of this morning.

But he couldn’t tell that to the painfully earnest Feanaro of right now.

“You’ve made me others, though,” he said, which was actually true.

There was the delicate silver bracelet that had likely been a long forgotten statement of some kind that Feanaro had gifted him upon his birth. He still had it tucked into a corner of his jewel box despite the fact it was now far too small to be of any possible use. There was the necklace Feanaro had presented to him when he was still very small, and Nolofinwe had been dragged out to Tol Eressea for the first time. He had been terrified of the shadows there and of the sky so dark that stars could peek through, and Feanaro had presented him with a chain of jewels that glowed when his tiny hands squeezed them. There had been a more formal piece too, a diadem, when he reached adolescence and was formally presented to the court. Feanaro had given it to him shortly after he confessed in a tense whisper to his nerves.

There had been a handful of more minor trinkets too, but those had trailed off after that last diadem. Feanaro had been . . . distant, frequently, in his youth, but that had often been a matter of physical distance as much as anything else, and the vast gulf in their ages. When that distance had been crossed, he had been - kind, in that fierce way of his, especially when Nolofinwe had felt weak and most in need of him.

It was when Nolofinwe had proven himself strong that the tension between them had truly arisen as a force in its own right instead of merely an echo of their parents’ lives. Childish fears of the dark had melted, and a gift for persuasion and rhetoric had sent him on a meteoric rise in courtly influence in their place.

It had not meant the end of gifts, exactly; Feanaro had as much desire to appease their father as Nolofinwe did, and so the gifts had continued at all appropriate occasions. It was just that they were never from Feanaro’s own hand anymore, and with only a few small exceptions, he strongly suspected them to have been selections of first Nerdanel and then Maitimo.

But there had been one exception, even to that. It had, ironically enough, been presented to Nolofinwe shortly after he had first worn the set he was currently draped in.

Unlike every other piece Feanaro had ever given him, the chains had been gold. Most of the jewels had been blue, glowing with a faint light, like the light of the Mingling reflected on the ocean, but the centerpiece, the largest jewel, had been like blood spreading on the water.

A violent image, but still beautiful.

It had been a statement, just like Nolofinwe’s own commission, only he had never been entirely certain of the extent of the statement involved. That it had been a defense of Feanaro’s superior craftsmanship was certain, and also a point it was difficult not to concede. The piece looked like a song given form, and it was difficult to tear his eyes away from it when it was in sight.

The rest of it, though - and there surely must be a rest of it - was less certain, and so for the most part, Nolofinwe left it quietly in its box.

Just this once, though, it surely couldn’t do much harm.

“If you’re still like this tomorrow, I’ll wear it then,” he promised.

Feanaro’s dark mood vanished for a moment before being replaced by new urgency. “We can’t wait that long! I have to be older again by tonight.”

Tension immediately reentered the room.

“Oh?” Maitimo asked with forced calm. “Did you see something concerning in your notes?”

Feanaro shook hs head. “No, but Pityo said Makalaure’s concert was tonight, and he said I couldn’t leave the house until I was back to normal, so I have to be back to normal by tonight, I have to.”

Maitimo smiled as the tensions slowly drained out again. “I’m sure he’ll understand, just this once.”

But Feanaro shook his head fiercely. “Atar always comes when he says he will,” he said firmly. “I have to do the same thing.”

“You can help me decode these if you want,” Curufinwe offered. “It would go faster.”

Feanaro hesitated a moment, but an encouraging smile from Nolofinwe sent off him quickly.

Nolofinwe looked after him for a long moment before turning back to Maitimo. “I hate to do this to you,” he said in a low voice, “but I do have other matters to attend to before the festival begins. If there’s nothing else I can do . . . ?”

“Of course,” Maitimo said. “Let me show you out.”

“Good,” he said, rising. “There’s a few things you should probably know . . . “

He explained his lies with a hint of guilt as Maitimo showed him to the door, but if Feanaro's eldest resented them, he said nothing of it.

He should at least say goodbye. He knew he should. He would be late to see Atar if he did, but Atar would never hold it against him, especially if he explained the cause.

He just - couldn't.

. . .

He hadn’t wanted to leave, exactly, but with both Feanaro and his sons pouring over the notes, Nolofinwe had little doubt the issue would be resolved quickly.

He simply preferred not to be standing right there when it was.

He had no idea whether or not Feanaro would remember what had happened. He wasn’t sure which alternative would be worse.

Either way, he would return to find things largely unchanged by his absence. He had resisted the urge to tell the king what had happened. They would have to if things persisted, of course, but he truly did not think they would, and in the meantime - it felt like a betrayal, as absurd as that was, to reveal Feanaro's joy at what could have been to anyone else.

Perhaps that was why as he dressed for the concert, he couldn’t quite help his hand lingering over a certain box.

It wasn’t quite what he had promised, but it was probably the best he could do.

And it was, after all, almost certainly the finest he owned. It was a shame to let a few complications keep it hiding in the dark.

. . .

(The concert is out in the open, great flocks of elves streaming through the festival streets to gather around the stage. Nolofinwe walks with his wife on his arm, waiting for the first golden note.)

(It is struck just as the Mingling starts. The light shimmers as it dances off the jewels on Nolofinwe’s chest.)

(For just a moment, through the crowd, he spots Feanaro, once more only a hand’s width shorter than Nolofinwe’s own height.)

(Feanaro does not approach him.)

(But his gaze catches on the dazzling jewels, and just for a moment, his half-brother smiles.)

#feanor #fingolfin #fic #silmarillion #de-aged

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trouble-off-grid · 3 years

Text

Keep you safe

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CW: Blood, death

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When Techno had awoken he was not surprised to find himself alone in his cave. Tommy has always been prone to adventure, often leaving early to explore their surrounding area. So seeing the little figure no longer on his chest when Techno awoke didn’t shock him. He trusted his pseudo-brother not to get into too much trouble, at least not this early in the morning.

Unfortunately for him Tommy had never been very good at staying out of trouble. He was out in their surrounding territory, making his way over to the fresh river he knew was nearby. He had always loved the river and would often force Techno to take him as nearby animals would find their way there for water and Tommy was able to gaze at them as they did so. It seemed the river was always at peace and Tommy wasted no time in throwing his body onto a large rock and bathed in the sun. Closing his eyes he let himself get lost in the peaceful sounds of the river and nearby animals.

It was this that presented him with the first sign of something being wrong. It seemed a hush had fallen over the forest as even the birds seemed to silence. Tommy sat up with a frown, stilling as he scanned the forest edge for any potential threats. Not immediately spotting anything he slid off the rock and slowly creeped into the forest careful to keep his footsteps light as he did so.

The further he went he almost convinced himself nothing was wrong and that he could just return and brag to Techno about how brave he was making sure nothing was wrong within the forest. To his left he heard noise loud enough to snap him out of his thoughts, head snapping towards the area. He debated going close as it seemed the noise was coming from the edge of Technos territory and the elder never liked when Tommy got too close to the edge without him there for protection.

Steeling his nerves he turned away from the direction he knew would lead to home and made his way towards the noise. A grin stretched over his face as he figured Techno wouldn’t be upset if he never knew what Tommy was about to do. With his mind made up he trekked through the foliage with ease keeping his footfalls silent as he did so as the noise became loud enough to decipher what it was.

What first appeared as nothing more than indecipherable sound soon turned into words. Tommy felt himself freeze as his brain processed what he was hearing, humans. Now it might seem hypocritical of Tommy to dislike humans when he himself was one but despite being the same race he had never found a comfort in them that he did with Techno. The giant piglin had shown Tommy what family truly was supposed to be and gave him a chance when no one else would even spare a second glance at the boy.

So hearing humans in front of him only served to sour his mood as he approached them to get a better idea of what exactly he was dealing with. The logical part of his brain that sounded suspiciously like Techno told him to just return home and let Techno deal with these strangers. He snuffed out that thought quickly, Tommy was a big man and he didn’t need to bother Techno when he was already here and was just as capable of getting the humans to leave.

Finally, he was right in front of the group, being careful to stay out of sight as he glanced at them. The first thing he noticed was that it was a decently sized group, with more people than he would have originally thought. The second was that they had a decent amount of weapons on them. Now he’d like to believe they were just normal hunters who unknowingly entered a piglins territory but the give away was the shiny armor they all had displayed. Each member seemed to be done up in a fancy display of armour only leaving their helmets off.

There was no denying, these were kings guards, and they weren’t just hunting for animals, they were hunting Techno. The king believed Techno to be no more than a mindless beast when that couldn’t be further from the truth, it was always the knights who attacked first while Techno was just defending what he cared about. It was time Tommy returned the favor.

He glared at the knight who was currently sharpening his blade, he couldn't just sit by and let this happen. Tommy stood from behind his cover and started walking towards them making sure they could hear him approaching. As soon as the group took notice they stood on guard and Tommy had to stop himself from breaking his calm facade as they pointed their weapons at him. “Fellas, fellas, no need for that, we're all friends here,” He put both hands up trying to show he meant no harm.

“What is a kid like you doing out here?” What looked to be the head knight spoke out.

Not going into this with a plan besides trying to get them to leave he felt his palms start to sweat as he spouted out the first thing he could think of, “I want to be like you! A knight, I mean,” he clarified.

Chuckles broke throughout the group, the same guard as before tried to muffle his laughter yet amusement remained clear on his face, “You? A knight? You’re nothing more than a scrawny little kid”

Blood rushed to Tommy's cheeks at the jeering, even though he was lying it still hurt to be laughed at. The guard didn’t even know how hard Techno and him worked to get some meat on his bones, if he thought he was little now he should have seen Tommy before he met Techno. Faced with humiliation Tommy resorted to what he always did when embarrassed, yelling, “I could be a knight! I’m the biggest man there is and could beat anyone in a fight!”

The man's eyes seemed to glow as he sneered, “Is that so?” He seemed to lean in closer as he said the next words, “Even the blood god?” It seemed all laughter had stopped at just the mention of the infamous name, of course he was referring to Techno but Tommy was one of the few who knew his real name.

Keeping up the facade a smirk grew on his face as he answered, “Please, even the blood god is scared of me, it's why he doesn’t go in this area”

The tension seemed to leave the air as it was replaced by amusement, “And how would you know that, hmm?”

Tommy had to restrain from rolling his eyes at the question, reminding himself that the goal was to get the knights to leave, “All of this area is mine and never once have I seen the blood god so clearly you have the wrong place”

“On what rights do you have to claim this area as yours?” He questioned.

“On the rights of finders keepers, I claimed this area as mine therefore it's mine,” In truth the area was Techno’s but that wasn’t information they needed to know.

The guard let out a huff at his response, “Well no matter, you’re with us now, might as well make use of you” By this point most guards had gone back to what they were previously doing before the interruption.

Tommy may not have thought this out, he didn’t want to stay with them he was just trying to get them to leave! “I really think you’ve got the wrong area, big man.”

“Well then, there should be nothing for you to worry about.” Before Tommy could ask him what he was on about he felt someone grab his wrists from behind and they pressed their knee to his back forcing him to fall to the ground, wrists still captured in the unknown person's grasp.

He stared up into the eyes of the knight in front him and could see a dark gleam in his eyes as he crouched down to be eye level with him, “You said you wanted to be a knight? Well this is how you can help us out, nothing like live bait to encourage the blood god to reveal himself.” He felt his mind buffer at what had just happened before finally his brain processed what was happening, he was going to be used as bait against Techno.

Oh Techno was going to be so mad when he found out Tommy willingly walked up to his now captors.

In his defense this wasn’t how he planned this interaction turning out. The knight seemed to take his silence as fear and grabbed him harshly on his shoulder dragging him up with him as he stood. He was then pushed into the person behind him, “Go tie him up, and make sure you draw blood,” there was no sympathy in his voice.

“Wait wait wait, you really don’t have to do this,” It wasn’t that he was scared of Techno, he knew Techno would rather lay his life than hurt him, he was more scared of what would happen if the hunters did manage to get the jump on him. Techno was always protecting Tommy and Tommy just wanted to return the favor and look how that turned out. With his hands currently being tied together behind one of the thinner trees leaving him trapped to it.

He could deal with this until Techno inevitably showed up; it may have been uncomfortable but it certainly wasn’t the worst. At least until a blindfold was forced over his eyes and a gag shoved into his mouth. “Sorry kid, it’s nothing personal,'' Tommy really began to struggle, now fueled with the panic of losing his sight, he tried his best to let his displeasure be known with how he was trying to curse out the knight despite the gag.

The knight's cold grip was firm on his wrist before an unbearable pain shot up his arm. He felt his breath stutter at the sensation of a knife swiftly cutting up his arm, even though it only took a second for the skin to cut, the pain remained a pulsing fire. It’s nothing personal, the knight claimed, Tommy was tied up and bleeding out but it wasn’t personal right? Bullshit.

Finally the knight released his wrist and Tommy flinched as the rope touched the open wound, the feeling of it making the wound sting all the more. “It’ll be over quick,” is all he was offered before the sound of the knight's footsteps left his hearing, leaving him all alone in the forest with nothing to do but hope for Techno to come before the blood loss.

Tehno had just finished tending to the land, making sure the livestock and vegetables were kept up with before he realized something was off. It was too quiet, and with Tommy around things were never quiet. It wasn’t unlike Tommy to go running off but he always came back soon enough, either to bother Techno or just be in his company. He looked around, sniffing as he did so, and confirmed that Tommy wasn’t just hiding nearby trying to surprise Techno.

Looking to where the sun was he saw it was just barely starting to get dark out and while more likely than not Tommy had just lost track of time it made him antsy that it was going to be dark soon and the boy's location was unknown. He couldn’t help but to be protective over Tommy, he was just a little runt and the piglin would do anything to keep his pack safe.

The more he thought of reasons Tommy might not be back yet the more he felt his instincts lead him to action. Soon enough he had caught the faint scent of Tommy and though it was old, clearly from this morning, it was still prominent enough for the piglin to track. Techno found himself unsurprised that he was led to the river, he couldn’t help but smile at the fond memories this location brings. But he was on a mission and couldn’t get distracted until he was sure his ward was safe. The smile slipped off his face as he kept going, a soft frown replacing it as he found the scent heading towards the end of his territory.

Techno’s eyes dilated as what once was a comforting scent was tainted by the distinct smell of iron. The piglin tried not to run when near the runt as to avoid any accidents but this would have to be an exception as Tommy was still missing and definitely bleeding. After that it took no time at all for the giant to reach his goal, spotting Tommy, his family, his pack, tied up and bound like that made Techno see red. Even though Tommy couldn’t see due to the blindfold he definitely heard the giant's footfalls as he was trying to move his head to gauge where the noise came from, Techno’s heart only broke more when Tommy attempted to call out to him.

“I’m here Tommy, I’ve got you, you are going to be okay, I promise.” The giant descended onto his knees, and gently reached out to his brother, tapping his knuckle on his shoulder to let him know Techno was there. Tommy leaned into the contact feeling safe just by the piglins presence and Techno couldn’t find himself to remove his hand using his other to carefully reach around to cut the ropes that bound the boy to the tree.

Right before he could, he felt a prick in his shoulder and looked to see a minuscule arrow lodged in his shoulder. A growl reverberated through his chest as he looked at the area where the offended arrow had come from, spotting a soldier perched with a bow. It seemed with the first hit the rest of them took that as their sign to attack as well. His eyes glowered dangerously at the attackers, easily able to knock down any who dared to get too close, “Are you the one’s responsible for this?”

Though Techno had asked, it was clearly a rhetorical question as everyone was aware of who was guilty of restraining the teen. “We’ve come to best you, blood god!”

Technos head snapped in the direction of the voice and based on the appearance spotted what seemed to be the head knight. With a speed no human could ever hope to match, Techno had reached down and snatched the guard right off the ground, holding him in a fist tight enough he dropped his sword as he was raised. He bared his teeth at the tiny enjoying the look of panic on his face, “Best me? You can’t even hurt me.” There was no mercy as Techno slowly squeezed the life out of the guard. As a reaction all the guards started up again with more vivour but Techno felt no pain, even when one succeeds in hitting him, the attacks are nothing more than an inconvenience to the giant.

It was hearing Tommy whimper that brought him out of his rage, looking over to see where Tommy was previously standing; he was now sliding down the base of the tree. Dropping the nuisance from his hand, not caring of how he landed, he paid full attention to Tommy. Once again dropping to his knees in front of the boy, this time using his arm to encircle him as to make sure nothing could get to him. Without any interruptions he finally was able to cut the rope, freeing Tommy.

Tommy for his part immediately went to take off the blindfold with his now freed hands and it was then that the source of the blood he smelt earlier was shown. On Tommy’s left arm the vein was clearly cut open, blood oozing out as there was nothing to stop it from doing so. Blood was getting all over the young one’s clothes as he moved from untying the blindfold to the gag. Techno couldn’t stop the concerned rumble that produced from him if he tried, seeing his pack hurt like that was making his instincts scream. At the noise Tommy finally looked up at him a lazy smile covering his face, “How’do” he slowly spoke, eyes hazy.

“Oh God, okay, Tommy I need you to stay awake for me alright?” Panic filled his voice he reached out to his little brother noticing how Tommy seemed to absentmindedly follow his movements. Going limp as Techno gently scooted Tommy until the human was fully sitting in his hand. Using his teeth he ripped a piece from his cape and handed it to the boy, “I need you to wrap that around your arm for me, okay?”

Tommy mumbled something that was too quiet for Techno to hear and slowly started to wrap his arm, occasionally flinching from the pain. Techno brought him close to his face just barely nuzzling him with his snout, “You did so good, I just need you to do one more thing for me okay?” Going cross eyed as he watched the boy nod his head he continued, “I need you to keep talking okay? Tell me about what animals you saw at the river.”

“I sawa..deer, it looked tobe..female causeof her…horns..I guess just allthe woman…flock to me.” Despite the slurring Techno let out a relieved sigh, even when dealing with blood loss, Tommy still managed to stay, well, Tommy. Slowly bringing his hand down, Techno cupped it against his chest keeping Tommy tucked close, no could hurt him from there.

Making sure he could still hear mumbling coming from the runt he slowly stood back up, turning around to stare down at the people responsible for Tommy’s current state. All softness left his face as he looked at the knights, replaced with a steely glare that if it could, would already have them six feet in the ground. They were all in one area, surrounding their captain to see if he was alright. Good, this would make Techno’s job easier.

These humans had come into Techno’s territory planning to kill him and not only that but they had hurt Tommy and as they were about to learn, no one hurts Techno’s family. The giant piglin felt no pity as he finished off the guards, easily wiping them out with just one step. They received a death too quickly for Techno’s likening but the life he was holding in his hands was and always would be more important.

Bringing Tommy back up to his face he couldn’t help but to sniff Tommy, trying to find any other spots on the smaller that were bleeding. At the insistent air blowing over Tommy he couldn’t help but to let out a little laugh at the feeling, Techno’s face brightening greatly as he heard the noise. “I knewyou’d save me,” with his uninjured arm he patted Techno on his snout, blue eyes staring into red.

Techno started to purr as he gently squished Tommy against his cheek, knowing just how much the teen liked the sound and at being able to have his pack so close to him, “I’ve got you Tommy, I’m going to keep you safe” and Tommy full heartedly believed he would.

#gt mcyt #mcyt gt #giant!techno #tiny!tommy #trouble writes #I really hope ya'll like this #There wasnt enough big brother Techno #bedrock duo #bedrock due my beloved #Part 2 anyone?

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youmarin · 3 years

Text

Ch. 00 Pt. I : To-Not-Do-But-Actually-Do List | JJ Maybank × fem! reader

a/n : I wrote this between last night and this morning. It's not my first time writing fanfic but it is my first one of JJ Maybank. I always delete my works thinking they ain't good enough. Hopefully I won't delete it this time and when I get some breaks I can keep writing. Anyways to whoever stops and reads: Thank you very much and enjoy the story!

tw: underage drinking, smoking, slight mention of anxiety (it's barely there).

There's a small conversation in Spanish but I clarified what is being said.

word count: 3.0k+

You were studying for an upcoming test. It was Friday evening and you were sure nobody liked to study on Friday evenings just when the school week had come to an end. But you had nothing better to do. Well, you were invited to a kegger by your friends, which you were seriously considering going to since you already knew the material and didn’t know what to do now. But you were unsure about parties. One goes to have fun, right? But fun usually means getting drunk, high or hooking up. And you weren’t about to do any of them. But you figured it wouldn’t hurt to put in practice your socializing skills.

You told your parents you were going out for the night. They looked at you oddly, but didn’t say anything, only wishing you had a good time, telling you to be safe and to call once you got there, once you were on your way back and if something came up. Of course, they also asked who you were gonna be with, where were you gonna be, if someone was going to pick you up, who would bring you home. The whole interrogation.

After taking a shower and dressing up, you called your friends hoping someone could give you a ride. Luckily for you, your best friend hadn’t arrived yet and was close by. He was always late for everything so you kind of figured that’s how it would be.

“Hey pretty lady.” , he smirked at you as you got on the bike behind him, arms around his torso, “What made you change your mind?”

“Got bored.”, you answered simply.

“That 's weird. You're not one to get bored. But guess we’re actually having fun tonight so let ‘s go!” he answered, hyped as ever, you chuckled as he drove off to the beach.

You lost sight of him as soon as you stepped on the beach. And that's on having fun tonight together, huh. “So, now what?” You asked yourself looking around for some familiar faces. You managed to spot some of your friends among the crowd but they seemed to be having fun engaged in conversation and you didn’t want to burden them. Yeah you had just arrived and you already were starting to regret coming, and being surrounded by a squirming crowd, all dancing and moving around wasn’t helping. You made a haste turn and gasped when you felt something spill over your top.

“Oh dammit.” The boy cried over the spilled drinks. Some had gotten on his T-shirt too. “I mean shit, I’m sorry dude. It was kinda your fault too though.” You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help but smile as you looked up. “Oh shit. Sorry Y/N.”

“You’re great with apologies, Maybank.” He smiled back, but he grimaced seeing your ruined shirt. You noticed and looked down, the thin fabric of your blouse letting into view your bra. You crossed your arms over your chest trying to make it better, looking up at him again and smiling awkwardly to try and hide your embarrassment. But he could make out your flushed cheeks and your discomfort. He felt his own cheeks get warmer at the fact you caught him staring and that you crossing your arms definitely didn’t help.

“I try my best. Care for a drink?” He offered you the one cup that didn’t spill over you. You scrunched your nose and nodded your head hesitantly, reaching for it. “Actually, can you wait here for a sec.?” You nodded again and there he left you, looking around awkwardly waiting for him to get back. You looked at your drink, swirling the liquid in the cup, questioning if you should drink it. You had never drinked before. And you were alone, well, JJ was with you but you didn’t know if he was actually coming back or if he had just grabbed the opportunity to spare you from your embarrassment. You took a sip, making a face - there goes the no drinking thing you were talking about- and you saw JJ approach, eyes squinted looking for someone. He spotted you and smiled as he came to a stop in front of you, holding a drink and a sweatshirt. He offered the sweatshirt to you “Here.”

“Oh, um, thanks.” He held your drink as you put his sweatshirt on. It was like two sizes bigger. You extended your arms making a silly pose and he approved, making you do a little spin.

“Never seen you around one of these before. Didn’t think it was something you liked.” He started walking, you by his side.

“I actually don’t like it. You just bumped into me right when I started to panic about being here.” You said jokingly although it was actually the truth. JJ let out a laugh. “But I thought I might do something different tonight. Get out of the comfort zone, you know?”

“And how’s that going?” He questioned, you could see a smile hidden by the rim of his cup. You smiled.

“Not bad. I’m actually talking with someone, I had my first drink…” You said, and downed the last of said drink. “Not a fan of them to be honest.” you made a face and blinked a few times, not liking the taste.

“No way.” He said incredulously. You nodded, letting out an affirmative sound. “ What would people think of me for corrupting Y/N Y/L/N?”

“So bad of you.” you played along. “Nah, it’s just one drink. As long as you drink moderately it’s fine. Also I could’ve refused, so you’re not corrupting me.” You shrugged, then widened your eyes because of all your blabbering. “I went too deep on that joke. I'm sorry.” You smiled nervously, smoothing your hair. He just laughed.

“That ‘s fine. You have no idea how much shit I can talk. My friends are shutting me up all the time. Wait- Not that you were talking shit- Oh God.” It was your turn to laugh about how conflicted he looked. He smiled and calmed down seeing that you didn’t take it wrong.

There was a beat of silence before he spoke up again, “So… You wanna go somewhere more quiet?” The question caught you off guard. He sensed your hesitation and rushed to explain. “I mean, since you don’t really like parties. Thought you might want to head over to somewhere else? You don’t have to if you don’t want to. “

You nodded, “Wait, but what about you? I don’t wanna make you leave.” you worried

He brushed it off. “There’s always more of these.”

So you both went further down the beach, the sounds from the party heard from a distance. You sat down and saw him take out something from his pockets. “Do you mind if I burn one?” You shook your head. He lighted it up and took a hit, slowly letting the smoke out after. You caught yourself staring, and he also caught you, showing you a smirk, “You probably haven’t smoked before either, right?” He said mockingly. You pushed him jokingly, then overthinking about if you weren’t getting too confident around him. You hadn’t spoken more than a couple times before.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Such a good girl.” he cooed, “I shouldn’t be the one to make you drink and smoke in the same night but, who’s better than me?” He offered you the blunt.

“Yeah right.” you answered sarcastically, and once again hesitated but took it from his hand - there goes the “no smoking”. The same night, in less than an hour. You just need to hook up with someone and you shall check out your To-Not-Do-But-Do List-. You looked at it and proceeded to put it in your mouth.

“Easy there.” He warned as you inhaled the smoke. You coughed it out, laughing as he caressed your back, trying to ease you.

“Whoah.” you blinked a few times as you tried to get used to it. And that's how you spent the rest of the night there talking and smoking. Usually you had trouble making conversation but with the help of the alcohol and weed you were more easy going tonight, mostly talking nonsense and laughing at everything, which had JJ glancing at you with an amused smile. “Yeah, she definitely had never smoked before.” He saw as you scrunched your nose, suddenly, and smelled his sweatshirt that you were wearing. “I smell like weed.” You said, disgusted. Apparently, you forgot you were smoking. “And I’m wearing a boy’s sweatshirt.” Your eyes widened as you lifted your arms and looked at the sleeves of his sweatshirt as they dangled when you moved them around. “My parents are gonna kill me. Twice!” You cackled almost hysterically, which made JJ burst in laughter too at the sight of you.

It was a little past midnight and after running out of energy, you had fallen asleep profoundly, leaning over JJ, your head resting on his shoulder. He didn't bother to wake you up at first, being very comfortable with how you two were. But then he almost fell asleep too and it was pretty late so he gently tried to shove you awake. “Y/N.” you grunted, and tried to ignore him. “Y/N we have to go. It 's late. Don’t wanna fall asleep here for some creep to come and kill us.”

“You can fight them.” you mumbled. “You look like a very brave courageous prince.”

“Do I now?” He looked at you, trying to hold back a smile. “Yeah this prince you’re talking about is lacking money. And sleep. So let 's go.” He helped you stand up. You made eye contact with him and your eyes widened. “What now?” he questioned, amused.

“Your eyes are very pretty.”

“Oh you’re gonna make me blush. C’mon, I can give you a piggyback ride until we meet with John B.” In fact, he did blush a little by the intensity of your gaze. Not that you would notice being as you were right now. You fell asleep again almost immediately once on his back, your head resting on top of his. He almost dropped you when you got too relaxed and your grip around his shoulders got a little too loose. He hoped John B hadn’t left. He didn't feel like walking all the way to the château. He figured you’ll stay with them. He didn't know where you lived and even if he did he wasn’t about to drop you off high out of your mind.

“Hey, I was looking all over for you. Kie and Pope already left.” John B started as he looked at your sleeping figure being carried by his friend, his curious eyes making the question for him already but he spoke nevertheless, “You’ve been with her all this time?”

“Yeah. She’s out like a light. And she doesn’t look like it but she’s starting to feel heavy so let’s get to the Twinkie. Also, have you seen my backpack? I thought I left it around here." He started to make his way to the van, John B keeping his pace.

“ Yeah, I grabbed it when I started looking around for you." He said before saying what he really wanted to say at that moment, "Listen, man, I know you… Are JJ, " He missed the puzzled look JJ was giving him, "Like the JJ Maybank. Big time player. But Y/N. Out of all people? How did you even get with her? We actually know her and it would suck to hurt her feelings.”John B kept going, just astounded with how far JJ could go.

“We didn’t do anything of whatever you’re imagining.” JJ squinted his eyes at him. “I bumped into her and we stayed together after that, we chatted, drinked, smoked a little…”

“You let her smoke? Since when does she smoke?”

“Since today man, I don’t know. And it’s not like I forced her to do it. She can make her own decisions. Also she was with me so it’s not like something would have happened to her.” John B raised a brow, “At least nothing that she didn't want.” He opened the sliding door of the van. “Just help me out, dude. Geez, you’re supposed to be my best friend bro. Wouldn’t hurt to show a little trust.”

“Precisely because I am your best friend is why I care about it.” He helped JJ get you inside of the van.

“If someone was looking at us they would say we’re kidnapping her.” John B stated as he made his way to the driver’s seat and started the Twinkie. JJ took a seat, while you laid there sleeping, your head resting on his lap. He made sure you wouldn’t move and smack your face with the van or fall to the floor. When they arrived at the Château, they both helped you out of the van and got you inside the house. JJ went to bother a sleeping Kie, asking her to help you get changed out of your clothes, though he thought you looked cute with his sweatshirt on.

_________________

You woke up, slightly disoriented but well rested. The smell of food reached your senses. Stretching, you looked around and saw you were sleeping next to Kiara Carrera. How the hell did you get there?

“Goodmorning.” she said, startling you.

“Good- Morning?” You stared at her. Kie saw the confusion in your expression and smiled. Teasing a little wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“Did you enjoy last night?” Kie asked, and purposely got a bit closer, looking at your lips.

“What?”

“You don’t remember?” she clicked her tongue. “That’s a shame though.”

“What? No! No. I do remember.” Kie raised a brow, “ No, I was with JJ-” you stopped yourself, “Not! Not in a sexual way.” You rushed to explain. Sheepishly, fidgeting with your hands, you looked up at her again. “Did we really…” God,I thought I was straight. I mean, I am straight. Kie is really pretty though. God you just had sex for the first time and you don’t even remember, you shook your head to stop the nonsense that were your thoughts at the moment.

At that point, Kiara couldn’t hold it anymore and started laughing at the conflict you were having in your head, your troubled state written all over your face.

“You two! Come and get breakfast before we eat all of it. And Kie, stop messing with Y/N.” You heard John B and JJ shout from the kitchen. You were really hungry, now that they mentioned food. And it smelled really nice earlier. You both got up and went to the dinner table, where you found JJ fixing up a plate for you. He motioned for you to sit. “Goodmorning.” He said, giving you a smile. “You good?”

Nervously, you greeted him back, nodding. You probably made some trouble for them last night, especially for JJ. You all sat at the table, chatting and recalling stuff from last night. Guess you still were straight, and didn’t hook up with Kie. She was just taking advantage of you not being able to process anything too well before eleven in the morning and making fun of you. You were enjoying yourself but,

“I should be going home.” you said, excusing yourself.

“I can go with you. Also, your phone went off a few times this morning while you were sleeping.” JJ mentioned casually as he stood up after you.

“You don’t have to do that.” You told him but he brushed you off, saying it was no problem. “Oh my God, my phone! I mean, my parents! They’re totally gonna kill me!” The other two held their laughter towards your distressed face and JJ grimaced as he motioned for you to follow him and you went to the room he always stayed in. He gestured towards your clothes and your phone. He had washed your clothes earlier after he woke up. When you looked at your phone’s screen, you saw all the missed calls you had from your mom, your dad, even your brother. Your stomach dropped.

“You didn’t tell them you were going out?” JJ asked.

“I did! I just never said I was going to stay at someone else’s place!” As if on cue, your phone went off again. You both looked at each other and you answered, already grimacing at what was coming.

“Hey ma’.”

JJ frowned, your voice sounded different for a moment. Then he heard a loud voice from the other end of the call, most likely your mom’s. He couldn’t make out what she was saying because it was in Spanish? and she was talking way too fast in a hysterical tone. He looked curiously as he heard you both.

“¡No! Mami estoy bien. Es que se hizo tarde y me quedé en casa de Kiara.” You lied, saying you stayed over at Kie’s as your mom asked you who the hell was Kiara. “Una amiga, ma. Perdón que no dije nada. Ya voy para allá. Sí, sí, bye.” You sighed. “I’m grounded.” you fake smiled and looked over at JJ. He gave you an apologetic look. “Well I don’t really go out much.” You laughed nervously. “I should go. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you guys.”

“Yeah, yeah, no I mean, not at all.” JJ answered awkwardly, a hand brushing his hair back as he smiled at you nervously.

They let you take a shower and change back to your clothes before making your way out. You thanked them, and both you and JJ made your way out of the château and back to your house. You decided to walk, since it wasn’t too far. You stopped a couple houses before yours, telling JJ that going back after staying out the night without telling anybody and coming back home with a boy was just you asking to get yourself killed. He laughed, telling you that he understood.

“I have no problem introducing myself to them. Since I am indeed very brave and courageous and all.” He teased, trying to see if you remembered what you said to him last night. You did remember, but did your best to play it off as if you didn’t, feeling kinda embarrassed. He laughed it off when you looked at him as if you didn’t know what he was talking about, a little hurt but he wouldn't make a big deal about it. You were high as a kite anyways. “Forget it.” he finished with a sigh. “See you around?” He asked, hopeful

“Sure. See ya around.” You gave him a hug, then started to make the rest of your way back to your house. You turned to look at him once more and gave him a smile and a small wave. He smiled and waved back. It would be hard to take that smile off his face for the rest of the day.

#obx fanfiction #obx #obx jj #obx jj x reader #obx jj maybank #jj maybank

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kaepop-trash · 3 years

Note

Hey can you do a drabble with johnny where y/n and him share there kinks in a pillowtalk and even though they are timid (?) at first they encourage each other to speak.

And can you make it fluffy? Or like i dont mind how you make it i trust your writing style anyway😂😊😊😘😘

This started a whole discourse between me and two other people on what we think Johnny’s kinks are so genuine gratitude to you for that. After careful consideration, I came on these. This was very fun to write. I really wish people were this comfortable communicating in real life. I wish I was this comfortable communicating in real life.

I want you to picture this happening after the costco scene in Unintended Consequences, that is important to keep in mind. Thank you for saying you have trust in my writing because it makes one of us. I hope you like this!

Johnny looked up when the door of his bedroom opened, smiling when she walked in. She returned his welcoming smile with a tired one.

“I can’t believe you’re still awake.” She dropped her purse beside the door, “I’m sorry, the meeting lasted longer than I anticipated. We were supposed to go for dinner.” She sighed.

Johnny shook his head, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” He took his laptop off his lap and placed it on the bed. “You’re here now, that’s all that matters.” He slipped out of bed, smiling at the way she fluttered her eyes away to the floor at his words.

Johnny definitely enjoyed how she looked when she was flustered a little too much.

"Are you hungry?" He asked.

She groaned, "No I was chewing on these crackers from a basket somebody gave me at the office. They were actually really good." She recalled.

"I'm famished." Johnny smiled as he came up to her.

She gave a look that was somewhere between surprise and apology. "You haven't eaten yet? It's midnight!" She sighed. Johnny shook his head. A small smile tugging at his lips from her reprimand, "I’m going to take a shower and then we’ll eat okay?”

“Why are people sending you baskets?” Johnny questions as they ate the food Johnny ordered hours ago. She turned to look at him, holding back a smile. With a suspicious gaze, Johnny picked up his phone.

“It’s your birthday next week.” Johnny snorted once he checked the date.

She laughed, “Remember last year?” The look on his face made her laugh some more.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” Johnny sounded offended, “I was still on thin ice with Sooyoung then. Imagine how it felt when she told me it was your birthday and I had no clue.” He sulked making her bite back her laugh.

“She only told you because she knew I wouldn’t.” (Y/N) shrugged, shoving more food into her mouth.

“Why?”

“Just.” She shrugged again. “All my friends live in different cities, you and I were barely on our second month; so I didn’t really do much about it. It’s just another day to me anyway.”

Johnny hummed with sarcasm, “That’s why you were sitting on your couch eating ice cream and watching HBO?” He clicked his tongue, disappointment clear on his face.

Her brows creased, “Hey! Nothing wrong with eating your favourite flavour of ice cream and watching your favourite show for the ninth time.”

“Yes.” Johnny sat back in his chair, patience written all over his face. “But we could have done that together.”

She chewed on her lips at that, before clicking her tongue. “You came over anyway!” She laughed, “With cake and that lemon chicken I really like. You’re the best boyfriend.” She puckered her lips at him and made kissy noises from across the table making him scoff. “It was the middle of the week! I didn’t want to be a bother, so I didn’t tell you. It’s whatever.” She dismissed the idea. “Don’t be mad.” She gave him a cheeky grin. "I'm yours for the day this time." She promised.

Johnny huffed, “Just watch.” He pointed his fork at her, “This time I’m going to go all out.” She groaned at the promise, making a smirk lift his lips. “So many gifts, (Y/N). Just watch.” He threatened. “So many.”

“Johnny.” She whined.

“No, see.” He sat up in his chair, his eyes glinting. “I know you better now. I know exactly what to give you.” He sounded very sure. "So you don't have to be self-righteous."

“And what’s that?”

“Things you want but put off buying. Like that kitchen knife you were eyeing at the mall. Or those scented candles.” He recalled with such impeccable memory that she would refuse if she wasn’t so touched.

Johnny drew his lower lip in with his teeth, thinking over something and then letting it go, “I’m also getting you some things I want.”

“Like what?” She raised a brow.

He gave her a secretive smile, “You’ll see.”

She grimaced, “Why so many?”

“Because I want to.” Johnny got out of his chair, picking up their empty plates. She got up and followed him towards the kitchen, “You never let me buy you anything! Your birthday is an opportunity.” He put the plates in the sink, giving her a chaste kiss on her temples. "And don't say you can get it yourself or I'll add another gift to my list." He said like he read her mind.

She bit her lips, “I let you buy me food.” She protested softly.

The incredulous look Johnny gave her made her giggle. “Basic nourishment, (Y/N). What a standard you set.” He huffed.

“You’re into that aren’t you?” She said softly.

Johnny stopped just as he scrubbed the first plate, turning to her. “Nourishment?” He scoffed, amusement painting on his face. “As a general rule of life, yes.”

She rolled her eyes, “It pleases you, giving people things?” She clarified.

“I guess.” He said slowly, looking back at the plate.

“You even got Mark an xbox for something you refuse to tell me about.” She scoffed.

Johnny smiled to himself, “That’s between him and me.” He wiped his hands after finishing his chore.

She hummed, “So I was right.” She said to herself mostly. When Johnny looked up at her in question, she bit down on her lip. “Last week. At costco?” Her heartbeat sped up a little as she recalled the afternoon.

“Oh.” Johnny blushed and looked away, a sight that was delightful to experience. “Yeah. I mean,” He paused, letting out a short laugh. “I thought I made that obvious.” She could tell he was trying to be nonchalant, but his cheeks were already turning pink.

“What else?” She questioned.

“What else what?” He turned around to face her, pulling her into his chest with a quick tug at her waist.

“What else are you into?”

Johnny gave her a devious grin, “So we’re doing this now?”

She looked down to his chest, “I mean. A year is long enough for us to discuss what we’re into. Sexually speaking.” Her warming cheeks made her look lower, to her own fingers.

Johnny hummed, tightening his grip. “Since we’re discussing this. Let’s start with you.”

That made her look up at him, “I asked you first!” She protested. “You should start.” She narrowed her eyes.

He nodded, “Come to bed at least, we’re both very tired.”

They both lay on their sides, watching each other. The soft light of the lamp above their head illuminated his face, his eyes covered by the shadow his hair left.

Johnny’s eyes shifted to the mirror on the wall opposite his bed, “I like watching you in the mirror sometimes. Watching us, I mean.” When his eyes came back to her, she could tell he was being careful. It made her heart flutter.

“I’ve noticed.” She smiled.

Johnny laughed, flipping over to look at the ceiling, “You’re making me nervous.” He groaned, running his hand through his hair. “I’m very vocal in bed. So I enjoy that in a partner too.” He nodded to himself.

“Like telling you how good it feels?” He questioned.

Johnny flopped his head to the side to face her again, his hair landing on his eyes, “Exactly.” The look he gave her seared her skin, “Also what you want me to do. I’m into verbal affirmation.”

She hummed, “Got anything I wasn’t already aware of?” She raised a brow.

Johnny grinned sheepishly, “Your turn. I’m trying to ease into it.” He winked, “What does my baby like, hmm?” He reached out to lace his fingers through hers, rubbing his fingers on his palm.

She chewed on her bottom lip, “There’s something about the way you run your fingers through my hair.” She fluttered her eyes away from his, focusing instead on his fingers. “Actually, fingers in general. Very nice, very attractive.” She lifted his hand, inspecting it.

“I’m flattered.” Johnny chuckled, “What else?” His voice came out rougher.

Her heart hammered in her throat, “Sometimes, when you’re cross at me.” She turned to look at him, an embarrassed laugh emitting from her lips. “You sound too good scolding me, Johnny. I didn’t know I could be into that.” She huffed, sounding a little annoyed at the notion.

“Now this. This I knew.” A smile tugged at his lips.

"I like taking control sometimes." Her cheeks felt too hot, "Especially if I can be on top." She kept her eyes on his palm.

"Oh." Johnny's voice dropped a little more. "Wow." He huffed, "Okay."

She looked up at him with an amused look in her eyes, the eager nod he gave her giving her the confidence to continue.

"I also," She paused and took a breath. Her exhale came out as a flustered laugh, making her smile.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Johnny grinned.

“I’m not!” She interjected, "Just give me a moment." She groaned, closing her eyes and ignoring her now burning cheeks. "I want to sit on your face." She scrunched her face, lifting a hand to hide it.

Johnny laughed loudly, the sound making her let his hand go to shove his chest.

"Don't laugh at me, Johnny!" She whined, "I'm going to go home. This is the worst idea I've ever had." She risked taking the hand off her eyes to find him grinning at her affectionately.

"You're so cute, (Y/N). That's not bad at all. It's so hot, I'd do anything you want me to know, baby." He brushed his knuckles on her pink cheeks. "You can tell me anything." He mumbled.

"I know!" She defended, "I know." She groaned. "This is just–" She paused, sighing. “This is just new to me.”

“Kinks?” Johnny gave her a skeptical look. She kicked his shin, making Johnny laugh.

“Communicating about them. I just thought,” She took a nervous breath. “I want you to be comfortable with your desires, you know?” She came a little closer to him. "I wanted to know what you like.

Johnny looked over her face, “I am very comfortable with how much I desire you. Too comfortable, in fact.” He raised a meaningful brow, biting back his smile.

“No.” She took another breath, thinking her words over once more. “I have a suspicion.” She breached slowly.

“No (Y/N),” The serious look on his face made her pause. “Mark and I are just friends.”

She snorted, making Johnny grin. “That’s very reassuring. But,” She reached out to put a hand on his chest. He hummed when she did, the sound reverberating in his chest against her palm. She kept her eyes focused on the way her hand rose and fell against his chest, “Sometimes I feel that you’re too careful with me. I don’t know whether it’s because of the fact that I haven’t had too many partners or because you’re afraid I’ll freak out or something.” She looked up with wide eyes when his breathing seemed to rise, her hand moving more rapidly. “I could be wrong. It’s just something I was wondering.” She looked away again, losing her nerves.

This time Johnny put his fingers under her chin, lifting it to meet his eyes, “Hey. You can tell me about anything you wonder in passing, hmm?” His eyes glowed in the dim light, she nodded. “I am gentle with you. I guess, some of it is because I am nervous of how you’ll react. But mostly because I love you. I want to treat you so well, like I believe you deserve.”

“What are you nervous about?” Curiosity took over her hesitation as she finally felt her questions being answered, “I can assure you, that you can’t break me in half.” She added with a snort, a smile playing on her lips.

Johnny mirrored it, “I know.”

“Then?”

“I mean,” Johnny paused, “I guess.” He sighed. He rubbed his face with his hand.

It was strange to see Johnny flustered about something. It was rare, and it never failed to catch her off-guard. Between the both of them, Johnny was comfortable being the one always sure about things; he was the one who not only knew what he wanted, but was enviably vocal about it. She did her part and waited patiently for him to find his words.

Johnny laughed, “You always do this to me.” He groaned, turning back to face her with renewed certainty in his eyes, “There is a laundry list of things I am so tempted to do to you. But I would never want to make you uncomfortable. I guess,” He paused again.

When she laughed at the repeated phrase, he joined with a pained one. “You’re laughing at me.” He groaned, the irony not lost on him.

“Only because I think you’re so cute.” She tugged at his t-shirt, leaving a kiss on his nose. He scrunched it, as if to protest, but it only cemented her statement.

He trapped her in his arms, pecking her lips a few times with a smile. “Exactly. I think I like being cute around you. I want to be your cute, domestic boyfriend Johnny. I didn't think I'd like that role as much I do and I was worried–”

“That I would stop thinking you’re cute if you spank me?” She scoffed.

Johnny squeezed his eyes shut, taking a strained inhale.

She reached up to leave a soft kiss on his eye, “We can always try it.” She said softly. His exhale was equally strained. “And other things." She hummed, "Doesn't mean we lose the comfort we have. If anything, I want you to be more comfortable. Which is why I wanted to know. You’re always holding back. I see it in the way you look at me sometimes.” She kissed the other lid, “I just want to know what it is. Be honest with me.” She kissed his forehead, “Trust me, so I can show that I trust you.” Johnny sighed at those words. “I don’t want your restraint.” She murmured against his cheek.

“You really cannot say that when you take it as a personal challenge to pull away all of my restraint. You’ve been doing it since we met.” He opened his eyes, chiding her.

The smile she gave him at that, shy but unapologetic, made him think that today would really be the day he would tell her of the things he only thought of mid-week when he missed her touch a little too much.

“See.” She smiled against his cheek, “That’s my kink.” She reached a hand out to rest on his neck, nails dragging up into his hair. Johnny shivered at the action. "I just love it. Pulling your restraint away from you slowly, watching you try so hard to keep your self-control together. It's so hot watching it fall apart." Both their breathing matched, heavy and eager. "You're so hot."

"Wretched little thing." He mumbled into her neck, making her skin erupt into goosebumps.

She smiled against his chin, "There's also that isn’t there? The difference in our general stature." A short breathless laugh left her when Johnny groaned, the sound shooting down into the depths of her belly. “What is it about it? I was always curious.” She pulled back from. Somehow looking into his dark eyes and finger-dragged hair was worse than being close to him.

“I just lose my mind over it.” He breathed out the confession, “You're so small, so precious." He laughed at his own words. "That sounds ridiculous out loud but," He chewed his bottom lip sore, her eyes settling on the now swollen flesh, "How your hands fit into mine. How you fit into me.” He paused, dragging his teeth over his lower lip again. “When I’m inside you.” He closed his eyes again, his breathing rapid.

She felt herself rub her thighs together. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. She wanted to know these things about him, because was started to fall in love with him. She wanted to see every part of him and reassure him about it. Soothing the small doubts she knew her wildly confident Johnny still held. Instead, the room felt charged with the growing tension.

“Yeah?” She encouraged him.

“You take me so well. You swallow me with your pretty little cunt.” He groaned.

It was her turn to close her eyes, her breathing joining his in pace. This wasn’t at all how this was supposed to go, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind.

“There’s also something,” He continued. “That I think you’d like.” He granted her the mercy of closing the space between them again. She opened her eyes, waiting for him to finish. “Sometimes I think of how it would feel to have my fingers wrapped around your pretty neck.” He hummed, raising his hand to brush his thumb against her throat.

“Fuck.” She grumbled, “Johnny how could you possibly think I’d mind any of these things?” She sounded the cocktail of exasperation and arousal she felt. “Do all of those to me. God you’re absolutely insane for thinking I’d be adverse to any of these.” She whined, squirming as her body searched for friction. “I thought you’d say you want to hang me from the ceiling or something.”

Johnny's laugh sounded more like a pant. "No, nothing that intense." He brushed his thumb over her clavicles. "I think the furthest I'll go is a foot fetish." He sighed.

Her eyes blinked open, "You have a foot fetish?" She asked, surprised. Johnny gave her a nod. "Now see that one I'm going to judge you for." She put a finger on his chest, finding her volume again.

Johnny bit back a smile, "Why does that get such an extreme reaction?" A short laugh bubbled up his throat.

"Are you going to make me send you pictures of my feet?" She furrowed her brows, but her eyes betrayed the humour.

"Not if you don't want to, no."

"But you'll look at them? Like in a sexual way?" She questioned.

Johnny smirked, "How do you know I don't already? You have nice feet. Especially when you paint your nails or wear heels." He took the finger she put on her chest and bought it to his lips.

"That's a little weird I'm not going to lie to you baby." She scrunched her nose.

Johnny scoffed, "So you can like my hands but I can't like your feet?" He raised his brows at her.

She chewed on her lips, caught in the trap of his words. "That's a fair point. I guess you can keep that, then." She gasped when he took her index finger between his teeth, biting down just hard enough for the blood pool into her stomach.

"Don't knock it till you try it, (Y/N)." He warned, his tongue grazing against the flesh now imprinted with the mark of his teeth.

"What exactly am I trying?" She raised a brow.

"One of these days, I just might show you. For now, we both need to sleep." He dropped her hand.

She looked at him, dumbfounded. "We aren't having sex?"

Delight gleamed in his eyes at the indignation in her voice. "Tomorrow." The single word was a bond.

She groaned, too tired herself to put up a fight. "Absolute tease." She rolled her eyes, "That should have made it onto your list. Probably worse than the feet thing, as well." She huffed.

Johnny laughed again, pulling her closer to him till his chin rested on her crown. "I love you so very much." He sighed, the words making her chest bubble like a freshly popped can of soda.

She nuzzled into him, the action significant enough to make him smile. "I hope me thinking your feet are sexy isn't the deal breaker because I don't want to lose you." He mixed the heartfelt words with a lighthearted jab, something very quintessentially 'Johnny' to do.

"You wish you could get rid of me that easy, big boy." She shoved him lightly, "You're my daddy now." She tried to joke but Johnny groaned.

"Stop saying that." He warned, "I was hoping we'd go for brunch tomorrow. So we need to sleep."

"Such a father thing to say Mr. John Suh." She teased further.

Johnny chuckled into her hair. "Okay, enough. I didn't tell you all of those things just to be teased." He whined.

She shuffled to look up at him, "That's exactly what you signed up for with me." She pecked his lips once, "Good night." She smiled against them.

Send me an ask about a character from one of my fics in a scenario and I'll write a drabble.

Character from: Unintended Consequences

#johnny scenarios #johnny drabble #nct johnny #nct #miscellaneous #unintended consequences #johnny #nct 127 #nct scnearios #nct drabble #johnny seo #johnny smut #nct smut

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whimsicallyreading · 3 years

Text

Dark Roast, No Sugar

“Last night I woke the hell up. I realized I need you here, as desperate as that sounds, yeah.” - Jon Bellion

Masterlist

Chapter Nine-

Aelin showed up to the police department in a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt. She didn't even bother putting on the new-ish sneakers she owned, opting for the ones with holes because they didn't squeeze her feet. It wasn't the first impression she wanted to give, but you deserve a little forgiveness when making a whole-ass human.

Leaning over the dash of the car, she presses a friendly kiss to the side of Chaol's face. "Thanks for the ride, boys."

His cheeks redden, and Dorian leans as much of his body as he can into the front of the car, "No sugar for me?"

Aelin laughs and kisses his cheek good-naturedly. "Feel less left out now?"

"Much better," the corners of his happy smile dim, his blue eyes dart to the doors of the precinct. "Are you sure you don't want me to call you a lawyer, Aelin?"

Chaol nods his agreement beside him, his hands clenching the steering wheel despite the car being in park. "Do you want me to go inside with you?"

Aelin feels a bubble of warmth blossoming in her chest. Their worried faces and eagerness to help her- it was almost enough to warm an assassin's heart. "Don't worry. They just need me to clarify a few things in my statement. Nothing serious. Paperwork issues."

Dorian and Chaol had shown up right as she was walking out of the front door of The Stag. When they realized she was leaving and offered her a ride... Aelin couldn't say no. Not with how her feet were aching.

It took some more reassuring, but they finally agreed to let her leave their caring grasps.

Fenrys met her at the door with a smile, "Hey, Baby Mama. Looking beautiful."

Aelin is surprised to find she's genuinely happy to see him. She can't help the toothy grin he brings out in her. "I'm well. How are you this morning, Fen?"

Fenrys lights up at the nickname. "I bought us some donuts. We have a hard day of work ahead of us, and I figured we would deserve a treat in advance."

Donuts sounded phenomenal and vastly improved her outlook of the day.

He steers her through the PD, and several heads turn to stare as she passes. Aelin didn't particularly care. Whatever they thought they knew about her, they probably didn't.

When they finally reach Rowan's office, they find him slumped over a laptop at a desk piled high with neatly stacked papers. The room is minimalistic. Only necessary office items were visible—no personal effects, knickknacks, or pictures of any kind adorning the space.

Rowan himself is also in his usual state of neatness, minus the dirt she could see staining the underside of his nails. He must have been gardening this morning.

Aelin doesn't bother with greetings. She grabs a chair opposite him and sits down. The last few days, she'd been feeling more drained and quick to tire. At first, she attributed it to the baby getting larger and demanding more of her body's resources, but now Aelin started to think that she caught a bug galavanting through the night.

Fenrys set a blueberry donut and a cup of hot tea in front of her. Bless him. Aelin mumbles her thanks before stuffing her mouth.

Rowan shuts his laptop with a snap and replaces it with a yellow notepad. "Alright, Aelin. I need a name. Who do you think is doing this?"

"When is Aedion getting released?" She says around a mouthful of glazed blueberry.

Fenrys slumps into an office chair at a tinier desk in the corner of the room. "This afternoon."

"If all goes well at this meeting," Rowan tacks on the thinly veiled warning. "I need a name."

Aelin leans back in her seat and takes a deep breath. There was a strange heaviness in giving his name. As if speaking it would materialize him into existence in front of her. Her goal when she moved to Ornyth was to forget about him and push her old master as far from her mind as she physically could, but she supposed it was naive to think he wouldn't come looking for her.

This wasn't just for her, Aelin reminds herself. Aedion would benefit from this conversation.

"His name is Arobynn Hammel. He's thirty-five, red hair, grey eyes, and an utter asshole." Aelin lays the name of her childhood tormentor out on the table. A bad taste sours her mouth.

Rowan tosses the notepad to Fenrys, who relays what she said to the paper. He looks at her over his desk with an unreadable expression. "What is your relation to Mr. Hammel?"

"Why?" Aelin chuckles as if the stress is trying to escape her with each half-hearted chuckle. "Do you want to know if he's my baby daddy?"

"Yes," Rowan and Fenrys say simultaneously.

Aelin's smile falls, and she scowls at both of them. They didn't know better, but she still felt insulted.

"He isn't, but I suppose he probably would have liked to be. Make sure to underline that," she points at Fenry's pad of paper. "Arobynn raised me. I don't think he was legally a foster parent, but he is who I was given to in the shuffle after the occupation."

Rowan dips his chin. Green eyes focus on her intensely, as if he's trying to absorb and commit her every word to memory. "How old were you when they put you in his care?"

"Eight," Aelin breathes out, a sharp tingling of grief comes with that admission. "I lived with him from the time I was eight until I turned nineteen."

"Why do you suspect him of producing and distributing Synth?" Rowan asks the nail-in-the-coffin question, and Aelin has to bite back old instincts to lie and conceal this information. It makes her feel vulnerable to expose Arobynn.

Vulnerability isn't an emotion she handles well. After all, when you bare your neck to someone, it becomes within their power to cut their throat.

"I've seen where he makes it, and I oversaw some of his high-risk contracts and dealings with the distribution," Fenrys chokes beside her, but he smothers it with a cough. Even Rowan looks a little taken back, eyes narrowing.

"At what age did you start assisting with his-" he struggles to find the words. "-His business practices."

Aelin blinks, "Eight."

This time, neither of them covers their reactions. They both freeze in their seats, an air of disbelief hanging over them. Aelin feels a chill and tugs at the hem of her shirt, wishing the sleeves were longer.

"What?" Rowan is the first to break the tension.

"I was displaced in the occupation," Aelin begins the watered-down version of her sob story. "I was carted into Adarlan and placed in the care of Arobynn Hammel. Within a couple of months, he was already using me as a mule to get orders across Rifthold. He trained me in various skills to carry out larger jobs, along with a few other children."

"There were others?" Rowan looks saddened by that tidbit.

Mentally Aelin wants to laugh.

Of course, he would be upset at the prospect of other good children suffering from such a fate.`Ones who had the potential he thought she lacked.

If only he knew what bastards they all grew up to be, and she by far was not the worst of them.

Fenrys' eyes were gleaming with more pity than Aelin was comfortable with because, unlike Rowan, she knew it was directed towards her. Gratefully he didn't dig too deeply. Instead, Fenrys picked up the next question. "Can you name the others?"

Aelin bites her lip, leg fidgeting under the table. "Tern Fletcher, Archer Flynn, Adam Mulligan, Lysandra Ennar-" she swallows past the lump in her throat. "Samuel Cortland and myself."

"Lysandra was involved?" Rowan leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. He hasn't looked away, barely blinked, since the questioning began. Aelin feels naked as his eyes seemed to be raking in her every movement.

"Not-" she tries to think of how to phrase it in a way that respects her friend's privacy. "She wasn't involved in the same capacity I was."

"Are the others you know still working with Hammel?" Rowan asks, and Aelin gladly lets them move the conversation away from Lys. She wasn't comfortable digging into her friend's wounds when she wasn't around.

"I suspect Mulligan, Flynn, and Fletcher. They were extremely loyal, and as of the last time I saw them, very active in the business." Aelin fondly remembers the beat down she laid on Archer before their parting words. He sold them out, and she hopes for his sake that they never run into each other again.

Fenrys looks up, "What about Samuel?"

"What?" Aelin flinches, the question taking her back.

"Samuel Cortland," Rowan reiterates. "You named him as one of the employees in Hammel's custody but implied he's no longer active in the business. Where is he then?" He leans forward, and Aelin wishes she could shrink back. "Would he be willing to speak with us?"

"Children." Her voice comes out as gruffer than she intends. "We were kids. Not employees. It wasn't a mutual agreement. None of us could consent to what became of us."

Aelin is surprised by the emotion that makes itself known. She swallows back the tears that want to fall and stuffs her trembling hands under her thighs. The implication any of them had a choice in serving Arobynn was disturbing and utterly wrong.

The taste of skin between her teeth, blood crusting under her nails, and being surrounded in pitch-black darkness consume her. Aelin suddenly feels more ill than she had this morning.

"Of course, Aelin." Fenrys placates. "That's understood. We just need to know where Samuel is. He could be very useful to the investigation."

"Dead," Aelin throws the word out like a dying fish on the table. "He died."

It hurt to say that. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes. Sam dying was worse than talking about Arobynn. A million times worse.

Aelin tries to swallow the lead rock in her throat. Arobynn didn't deserve to be known. His legacy was of blood, abuse, and control. It belonged in the sewer alongside his corpse.

Sam, on the other hand, deserved to be known. He abandoned by the system, forgotten by his family, and still chose kindness above all else. Sam's story deserved to be told, and it killed Aelin that it hurt her so much to share it.

"How did he die?" Fenrys prods delicately.

"What?" Aelin asks dumbly, heart accelerating in her chest.

"How did Samuel die? Any details you can give are beneficial. and you agreed to cooperate." Rowan reminds her sternly.

Mala save her, she couldn't go into detail about how she found him. She couldn't. Aelin feels blood rushing up to her head, and the room seems to sway.

"Sam. He liked to be called Sam-" Is all Aelin manages to choke out. "Excuse me."

Pushing herself from the desk, she shakily bolts for the office door. Their complaints are silenced as the glass shuts behind her. Outside, Aelin can feel the trembling beginning in her hands and spreading up her arms.

Sweat beads on her forehead in the oppressive heat of the building, but when she rubs her face, it feels damp and cold to the touch.

Aelin frantically strides down the hall, eyes darting around madly for a bathroom door. Nausea was creeping up her throat, and she really didn't want to throw up in someone's trashcan. She knew she was moving quickly, that someone might see her and become alarmed, but anxiety made everything feel like it was moving in slow motion.

A dainty hand grips her elbow and tugs in gently. "Follow me, dear. I can help you."

Aelin's head is swimming, and she allows the calming voice to steer her back in the other direction. When the person pushes open the bathroom door and Aelin sees the navy blue stalls, she rips her arm away and falls to her knees before the porcelain bowl.

Long, slender fingers pull her hair back from her face and rub her shoulders as Aelin loses her breakfast. "You are okay," the voice consoles—a hand massages up her spine and soothes the aches there.

Aelin's whole body is shuddering now. Her stomach rolls over itself, and the muscles of her diaphragm are quaking with exertion. She doubts she could get to her feet if she tried. A strand of drool hangs from her lips, and Aelin would be humiliated if her head wasn't still reeling.

Gouged eyes. Bent fingers. Blood on her lips.

A wad of paper towels appears and dabs at her cheeks, which Aelin hadn't even realized were wet with tears. She failed to notice that her body was shuddering under the intensity of the sobs coming from her. The woman continues to pat her cheeks and nose. Then to her mortification, it swipes at the spit hanging from her mouth.

Mala end me now, she mentally pleads.

Aelin looks up to find a woman with raven hair and onyx eyes looking at her sympathetically. "I'm sorry, dear. I don't mean to overstep. I've been where you are before. Please don't be embarrassed."

Opening her mouth, Aelin makes to apologize, but another crackling sob breaks from her chest instead.

She's just tired. Tired of being sad. Tired of feeling sick. Tired of being unable to even say his name without breaking down.

Arms wrap around Aelin's shoulders and tug her into an embrace. She allows her face to burrow into the woman's blazer as the grief racks through her body.

"Oh, sweety. It's going to be alright. I promise whatever is going on right now will work out." Fingers rake through Aelin's hair soothingly. It turns her to jello in the woman's arms. Her presence was just so motherly in a way that Aelin sorely misses.

She holds Aelin tight until she's calm enough to hold a plastic cup of water without dropping it. The woman helps her stand and wipes the mascara smudges off her cheeks with a damp towel. "There you go," she tosses the towel in the trash when she deems Aelin presentable. "Brand new, again."

"Thank you," Aelin breathes out at last. "I don't even know what to say."

"Say nothing," the woman waves her hand. "I've been pregnant before. Hormones. Nausea. It isn't an easy ride, dear. Besides, no one comes to a police station for a good reason." The woman pulls a stick of gum from a purse sitting on the sink and offers it to her. Aelin accepts it gratefully.

"Has anyone told you that stress isn't good for you?" Her kind eyes bore into Aelin worriedly. "You look very pale."

"I've been told. Many times." Aelin rubs her forehead, an ache already forming there. "I just don't have much of a choice."

"What's your name? I'm Maeve." She smiles and extends a hand for Aelin to shake.

Aelin takes the hand, happy that they aren't trembling so badly. "Aelin."

"Do you have any name ideas for the baby?" Maeve's eyes glance down towards the slight swell of her belly a little wistfully.

Names? Aelin periodically forgot that the human growing inside of her would pop into the world and require such a thing. It was a far-off event where she had plenty of time to accommodate for things in her head. In reality, she was halfway through her fourth month.

Time was ticking.

"No. I don't have any ideas yet." Aelin admits.

Maeve pats Aelin's shoulder kindly. "That's just fine. Ignore my curiosity. You have plenty of time if-" she emphasizes, "you take better care of yourself."

There is a knock on the door. "Aelin, are you alright?"

Rowan.

"Yes. I'll be back in a minute," Aelin says through the door.

She waits until his footsteps echo back down the hallway before she makes towards the exit. Eager to leave the bathroom and the memories of her awkward breakdown with it. "Thanks again. Really. I appreciate it."

Aelin truly meant it despite the utter humiliation she felt.

"Let me walk you back to Rowan's office?" Maeve asked. "It's easy to get turned around in this building."

They walked in a comfortable silence back to the office. Maeve's demeanor is so tranquil it surprises Aelin when the demure woman pushes the door open without knocking. "I have a delivery for you boys."

"Chief?" Rowan stands up, confused.

What? Aelin blinks and turns back to the woman, noting the black and whites and the metal badge on the breast of her blazer. The same blazer Aelin had just cried on.

Blood rushed to her face, and her brain curdles in her skull. Of course, it was the law of Orynth whose arms she just broke down in. Adarlan's Assassin reduced to a ball of hormones clinging to the chief detective of Terrasen like a baby clinging to its mother.

"Has she caused trouble?" Rowan's eyes glint with steel.

If you've done anything to degrade me to my boss, the deal is off.

"Not at all. We ran into each other in the bathroom and had a lovely chat," Maeve brushes an invisible piece of dust from Aelin's shoulder. "I will let the three of you get back to business. You are in excellent company."

Aelin's lip quirks. Just the opposite. She loves me. Congratulations, you are already reaping the benefits of my presence.

"Oh, and Fenrys?" Aelin looks at Fenrys, who is actively ignoring them. "The reports you promised are late. Have them to my desk by the end of the day, please."

"Will do, Chief." Fenrys' reply is dry and lacks his usual pep.

Aelin notes the worried glance Rowan throws him, but he swiftly covers it with an expressionless mask. "I will make sure he gets it done."

What was that? Aelin tries to pry an answer from Rowan, but he avoids her look.

When Maeve leaves, the tension eases from the men's shoulders.

"You are trouble," Rowan tosses at her without venom.

Aelin picks up the cup of tea she left at his desk, glad it's still warm. "Yes, but only the best kind."

"We haven't laid out a single plan for weaseling out Arobynn," Fenrys makes an irritated face at them. "If either of you could focus for ten minutes, we can do the rest of the questioning later, but we need to start throwing out ideas."

"Did Rowan piss in your tea in the last ten minutes I was gone?" Aelin shoots back, not appreciating his sudden attitude.

"Thirty," Rowan says. "You were gone for thirty minutes. That's why I came looking for you. Also, ruining beverages is your thing, not mine."

Damn, had she been gone that long? A glance at the clock confirms he was correct.

When she turns back to Rowan, there is almost something like worry in his eyes? That couldn't be right, Aelin rubs that aching side of her head again. She needed to stop reading so deeply into things.

"We can continue with questioning later," Rowan announces. "Fenrys is correct in saying we need to start making plans. You've given us enough to work with for now."

They sat back in their chairs, pulled out more notepads, red pens, and sticky notes. Together, Aelin helped them form a list of potential places Arobynn would be laying low. Hotels, rental homes, and vacant manors. He had a taste for luxury Aelin knew he wouldn't sacrifice for anonymity.

Test results were still running on the Synth. Technicians had let them know it showed highly abnormal properties compared to average street drugs, and they promised to send them an extensive report when they were through.

Rowan had hushed any potential news stories about The Stag shooting. He didn't want anyone who may know Celaena to catch wind and start snooping around. Aelin was his best lead, which afforded her a certain level of discretion he acknowledged.

They didn't know about the Bane patrolling her block at night, keeping their eyes on the streets for unusual activity.

The clock ticked, and the light beaming through the winders grew warmer as the afternoon trickled away. It was nearly five o'clock when Rowan declared then done for the day, and Aelin was utterly exhausted.

"Come on," Fenrys offered her a hand to help her stand. "I can drive you by the prison. Aedion should be getting checked out as we speak."

"Thank you," Aelin accepts the help. Her feet ached, and she felt entirely drained. It was good Fenrys was offering a ride, or she'd have to call Dorian to come and get her.

Together, the three of them made their way to the parking lot. Conversation between them was sparse but not unpleasant. They'd fallen into a rhythm at some point while working together. It helped break up some of the awkwardness between her and Rowan.

Aelin hustled a little bit when she spotted Fenry's luxury car. She wanted to claim the front seat before Rowan did. Her gut couldn't handle the stress of riding the back.

Her fingers barely grazed the polished handle when Fenrys started yelling.

Arms wrapped around her waist, and Aelin's face throbbed as it found itself slammed into the asphalt. A loud explosion rattled her ears, and chunks of debris went flying through the air. A thick foggy smoke started filling the air, and she immediately started choking on it.

A dense weight lifts off her back, and hands grab her shoulders, rolling her body to face the clouded sky instead of the ground. Rowan is in her personal space immediately. He's speaking to her, but no sound is penetrating the ringing in her ears.

His hands are running along her arms, the side of her face, checking for injury. Aelin tries to ask him if he's alright, but he doesn't seem able to hear her either.

Suddenly, Fenrys is there, and he's grabbing them both by the arms. They are moving away at a sprint. Fenrys is yelling, but the smoke is stinging her eyes, and even seeing is becoming hard.

There is another explosion, and Aelin can feel the tremors beneath the soles of her shoes as the three of them hit the ground once more.

People are pouring out of the precinct. Aelin spies Cheif Maeve at the front of them, ordering people out of the building. Red and blue lights reflect off the smoke, and she knows that ambulances must be on their way.

Rowan is lying beside her. She hadn't noticed the rips in the back of his suit jacket at first, but there were long gouges in the material, and smoke wafted off a couple of scorch marks. The fact he'd thrown himself over her body and shielded her from the explosion was only starting to register when something warm squeezed her hand.

Are you okay? Green eyes were scouring her body for wounds.

I'm fine, Aelin assures him. She's more concerned about the spots on the back of his suit growing wet as he bled.

"Someone blew up my car," Fenrys is gaping at the spot where his vintage ride used to be. All that remained was a roughed-up frame that was lit ablaze like a campfire.

"Gods," Aelin breathed out, the ringing in her ears dying down. "I almost died."

Rowan hadn't let go of her hand and made no move to do so as his eyes fixed on the burning car. "That was meant for us."

He didn't have to elaborate for Aelin to understand. Whoever had placed the bomb hadn't been targeting her, but Rowan and Fenrys. They arrived and left work together. The bomb wasn't there when they got to the precinct this morning, so someone must have placed it while they were inside.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Fenrys runs a dirty hand through his hair.

Sirens wailed as paramedics filed into the parking lot. Other detectives and officers were starting to approach them. Firefighters approached the car with extinguishers and began to tame the burning fire.

Aelin didn't have an answer. Just the sinking feeling that the game they'd entered into had more players than she'd thought.

Here is part one of the mass updates! Thank you SO much for reading. I’ve gotten so much feedback and love on this fic it’s been so wonderful 💚

I do have an ✨IMPORTANT QUESTION✨

Would you all prefer I have tag lists specific to certain fics or an overall tag list for ships? So one tag list for all of my rowaelin fics, one for all my quinlar fics, or would you like me to keep it as I have been? Please let me know! ✨

Tag list- Let me know if you would like to be added or removed. :D ( names in bold won’t tag)

@thisismylibrary

@highladywhitethrone

@bee55

@royalsqueeze

@rowaelin-cressworth

@booknerdproblems

@sjmships

@ladyfireheart-and-buzzard

@wordsxstars

@rowaelinismyotp

@courtofjurdan

@emmiesbook

@killian-me-slowly

@miserablemusings

@aelinchocolatelover

@booksbqueen

@flamingveritas

@tomtenadia

@fromthelibraryofemilyj

@loudphantomdragon

@in-love-with-caramel-macchiato

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@charlizeed

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@live-the-fangirl-life

@ghostlyrose2

#coffeeshopau #rowaelin #throne of glass #angst #aelin #fanfic #rowan whitethorn

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