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s-brant · 3 years

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Angels Roll Their Eyes (2/2)

(gif: @toesure) (PART ONE)

Summary: Hurricane Agatha approaches Kildare Island during the aftermath of the eventful Fourth of July party. JJ and Y/N are determined to continue avoiding each other after what happened at the party, but John B has other plans for them.

Warnings: Smut, strong language, angst, implied physical abuse, depictions of anxiety/panic attacks, and sickeningly sweet fluff.

Word Count: 24k

A/N: Here we goooo! To celebrate the trailer dropping today, here’s part two to Devils Roll The Dice. If you haven’t read the first part, I suggest you read it and come back so this makes sense. This one has all the drama and spice, so buckle up! Thank you for the love and support on the first part. Let me know if you enjoyed this and have fun, cause I had a blast writing it.

Hurricane Agatha.

It was the first thing she heard about as soon as she woke up yesterday to the sound of her phone blaring with an obnoxious tone that reminds her of waking up too early in the morning for work or school.

Her sleepy eyes couldn't make out who was calling, so she pressed the button to answer and lifted the phone to hear her mom's voice squawking through the speaker at her about the hurricane projected to hit the island in the middle of the night tonight.

The problem is, her parents are out of town this week, leaving her all alone to prep the house and endure the storm alone. And for someone who flinches whenever she thinks she hears the sound of thunder in the sky, that is the worst it can get.

It's a fear her friends are conscious of. One time when they were out on the HMS Pogue, a quick summer storm started to drift overhead and it took all of her self control to not fall into a blind panic when thunder began to rumble above. John B was already steering them back in the direction of the Chateau but she knew it would do nothing to calm her nerves until she was back inside of the house.

The anxiety was starting to become too overwhelming when JJ sat down beside her and threw his arm over her shoulder. It was their first month of knowing one another, so the casual friendly gesture made her jump at first and turn her head to look at him, but he acted like everything was normal.

The next person to notice was John B. With JJ currently out of commission, the only person she thought to call to help her prep the house for the incoming storm was him. Since they never got hurricanes up where she used to live her whole life, she needed someone who's been through a couple to help her while her parents weren't home.

That's how she ended up here. Sweating bullets in the front yard of her house as she unloads the contents of the van with John B was not how she envisioned her Saturday night to go, but she's glad she has someone who's willing to help.

In the past five months of being with the Pogues, she's learned that it's lovely to have friends. She never used to have any before she moved, so in situations like this or when she got so drunk at the party, she never would've had anyone to be there for her. It's quiet moments of kindness and companionship like this that make her realize how much better life has been on the other side of uprooting everything to move here—self-inflicted boy drama and all.

The sandbag on her shoulder sends a growing ache through her back muscles with every step she takes to follow him up the length of unpaved dirt path up to her front door. As usual, he makes it look way easier than it is, and it almost makes her want to laugh at how different they are.

Most of her new friends are effortless, naturally picking up anything they decide to try at while she is inept by comparison. It's part of what attracted her to JJ in the first place. He may have his insecurities the same way every other individual does, but in her eyes, he has nothing to be insecure of. Even when he wipes out on a wave and appears out of the water with sand clumped in his salt-kissed strands of blonde hair, he manages to make it look cool.

"What are you smiling about?"

John B's laughter makes her look up from where she concentrated on the dirt path to see him looking back at her. He stands at the entrance to her house with the rest of the sandbags they carried up placed meticulously in front of the door to prevent water from entering the house. They did the same thing with the back door an hour ago.

Is she smiling? She hadn't even realized her expression changed from one of exhaustion and fear at the dark clouds closing in above to a grin, so her face instantly drops in guilt. After running out on JJ for the second time two days ago to go to work, any mention of him from their friends has left her drowning in shame.

She can't recall the bulk of her memories from the night of the Fourth of July party, but she fills in the gaps between those flashes of memory with what their friends told her about it.

Thanks to her overindulgence, there are holes poked in the fabric of her memory.

It jumps from her last fully sober moment of seeing JJ across the room with the kook girl to dancing clumsily with Kie to the floral scent of her makeup wipes that she can't attach a specific visual image to.

Then, she can remember waking up with a start in the middle of the night to throw up in a pot beside the bed while he held back her hair. Before John B explained it, she was quite confused after waking up about how she somehow got from being jealous over JJ flirting with another girl to waking up in the same bed as him.

She grunts as she plops the last sandbag down into place and decides to take a seat on the steps leading up to the door.

"It wasn't anything special," Y/N says and watches him come down to sit next to her, "I was just thinking about taking something so I can pass out and avoid having a panic attack over this stupid storm."

Unlike JJ, she isn't that skilled of a liar. It's obvious to anyone who knows her well when she does it based on the way her eye contact begins to drift away and her voice raises in pitch when she speaks. She's too honest with her friends to handle keeping secrets from them, which is why it's been so difficult for her with everything that has happened recently. Not only does she lie to the Pogues, she also avoids them by association in the process of trying to avoid JJ.

Regardless of how obvious her bluffing is, John B doesn't call her out on it. Instead, he focuses on a different part of what she said.

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay alone? I know your parents are out of town till next week..." he trails off into concerned silence.

The tip of her sneaker hangs off of the edge of the bottom step and absentmindedly digs a line into the dirt as she takes in his question.

Being alone when she's prone to panicking is a recipe for disaster. Anxiety and loneliness have a relationship similar to that of a weapon and ammunition. It takes very little for her to fall down the rabbit hole of obsessive thinking and break down into a hyperventilating, fearful mess, especially when no one else is there to tug her out of those dark thoughts.

Most of the time, the people who help her with that are her parents. If they're home during one of these episodes, she'll come stumbling downstairs to them from her room for help, and they'll do everything they can to bring her down from hysterics. Her friends, on the other hand, have yet to witness her have one of those moments.

"Having people with me helps, you know? But it is what it is, I'll just try to cope the best I can and hope for the best."

He nods, and though he's a portrait of understanding, she wonders if he finds it as juvenile and stupid as she does.

Logically, she knows that this anxiety is something many people experience. She understands that it's something that is mostly out of her control but can't help but tear herself apart over it.

She thinks to herself, What kind of weirdo can't sit inside during a thunderstorm or hurricane without losing their shit? Why am I not the one in control of my own mind when this happens?

Do her friends think similar things? Do they think it's as pathetic as she does, or is she just paranoid that they pick her flaws apart as much as she does? And, of course, she wonders what JJ would think if he saw her panic like that. He may have seen her start to become anxious on the HMS Pogue, but he hasn't seen her panic panic before, not in the way that her parents have, and she wonders if he'd think less of her for it.

Right when she's about to change the topic and steer him away from a chance to think of how ridiculous she's being about the approaching hurricane, he says something that makes her look back over at him.

"Then come spend the night at the Chateau. I can distract you. We can play board games and shit."

"Really?" she asks.

The idea of anyone wanting to waste an entire night playing board games and possibly signing themselves up for having to talk her down from a panic attack makes her heart melt.

"Yeah, why not? You need a friend tonight. You know any of us would do anything for you. You're like my little sister, dude, we'd all probably hack off a limb if we thought it'd help you. Especially JJ."

John B's last second name-drop is designed specifically for where he wants this conversation to go. Underneath the need to get his friends back to normal, he does feel a little guilty for having to do this. She thinks he's only offering to let her stay with him to help her—and he is, even if there weren't a rift between her and JJ, he'd still offer—but he has a different reason.

"Right," she says softly. "Speaking of which...is he gonna be there tonight?"

With how often he escapes his house to spend a night or two in temporary safety at the Chateau, it's not an unfounded assumption. He and John B spend more time together than any of them because of this, and when she goes over to hang out, she knows that he and JJ often come as a package deal.

He tries to play it cool and not give up anything that could make her suspicious of him, looking off at the van parked in the driveway as he takes a second to collect his thoughts. It's never easy for him to deceive people he cares about, even if it's for their own good. It wasn't easy when he invited JJ to spend the night a few hours ago with the knowledge that he'd soon invite Y/N too either, but he managed.

As always, Pope is the brains behind this operation. He was the one to suggest inviting them both over to wait out Agatha together when the three of them put their heads together to come up with a solution to their oblivious friends' drama. After JJ stormed out of the house the morning after the party, they knew they had to do something about it. This was what it came to.

"Nah. I offered but he said he's staying at home until this whole thing blows over."

He isn't sure why she buys into it.

She knows JJ well enough to know that he would literally rather eat glass than be trapped in a confined space with his dad for an entire day. Perhaps it's only because it's what she wants to believe. She wants to believe that she won't have to see him again tonight after everything that happened. How can she handle having to tell him why got so drunk that night and made an ass of herself? She can't bear to tell him all of that unnecessary drama started because she was jealous.

What right does she have to feel that way? He isn't hers. They aren't together, and she thinks it's quite obvious that he doesn't want a relationship out of whatever it is they have together. It was one night. She has no right to be mad at him for flirting with other girls because of it.

"Then I'll definitely be taking you up on that offer. Thank you," she says.

The old wooden stairs make a squealing sound when she stands to make her way inside to gather her things for the night, but the feeling of a warm hand gripping her forearm stops her mid-step. Her eyes follow down the length of her arm back to where he sits, glancing at her with this knowing look in his eyes that makes her want to turn and hide.

"When are you gonna talk things out with him, Y/N?" he asks. "He misses you."

Since the party, no one has had the courage to burst her bubble of pretending not to care until now, but now that someone has, all of her bottled up emotions stir inside of her at a simple concept she hadn't considered yet.

JJ misses her.

For the first time since they began this stupid game of cat and mouse, she is confronted with how desperately she misses him back. So consumed with the task of concealing everything that happened and trying to avoid him, she hadn't acknowledged that all she ever really wants is to be with him lately.

She misses his jokes and the way he looks at her when she giggles at them. She misses his smile when they play fight on the HMS Pogue. She even misses when he dangles her over the edge of the boat as a means to end the wrestling match, making her squirm in his strong hold as he threatens to toss her overboard.

But what she misses most of all is how he never lets her fall in. It's something about the way he looks at her as he pulls her back onboard, how time itself seems to stop in the moment between when he's still holding her and when she feels her feet touch the deck again.

Then, they'll suddenly want nothing to do with each other for the next half hour.

JJ will make himself busy forgetting the way her hands felt holding onto his shoulders for dear life, burning the memory of her palm prints into his skin for the next few hours. And she'll try her hardest to forget that charming smile and the feeling of his arms around her. But it won't work, not really, and when they're both laying down to sleep at night, they'll have one thing keeping them awake.

She takes a second to internalize what he said and avoid exposing the effect it has on her to hear it before asking, "Did he tell you that?"

The sky overhead grows darker and darker by the second, but she has yet to notice it due to the topic of their conversation. With JJ involved, her attention shrinks to a tunnel leading only to him. There's no room for anything else but the audacious idea planted in the back of her mind that he might miss her as much as she misses him.

"No, he didn't," John B admits, and right when she's about to say more in response, he cuts her off, "but hear me out. I've known him since we were kids, so I can tell when things aren't right with him, and ever since your relationship with him got complicated, I picked up on some weird vibes."

Y/N doesn't give anything away with how she reacts. He can't tell if she's about to bolt like JJ did or stay to talk and open up to him. All she does is cross her arms over her chest and lean back against the railing.

"Weird in what way?"

"Weird in a way that makes me think you two have to talk it out before you ruin your friendship. I've never seen him act this way over a girl."

That doesn't surprise her. He has a reputation for chasing after any girl available to him, something the Pogues have gently teased him about, and it factors into why she doesn't want to have this dreaded conversation with him. She doesn't want to sit there and listen to him tell her that she was just another one of those girls to him.

Going for broke and being honest about what he thinks of their situation is a better strategy for trying to get her to talk to JJ than the other way around. John B can look back on what happened the morning after the party and see where they went wrong in their approach of trying to get him to talk, but she's less unpredictable and turbulent than he is. The fact that she's hearing him out is enough proof of their differences.

She sighs.

"I know we need to talk sooner or later, but it's hard, you know? I'm so embarrassed of how everything went down at the party, even though I was too fucked up to remember most of it, and I just—" There's a brief second that lapses between when she stops and when she starts again where he can almost see her working through it in her head. "I don't wanna get hurt."

John B's face falls at the mention of the party and her feelings surrounding it.

"You have nothing to be embarrassed of. You drank too much but who cares? The only person who should be embarrassed about that night is the guy that tried to take advantage of you."

That part is the most fuzzy in her mind.

She can remember what led up to it and the moment she saw JJ pull him away from her, but she can't remember anything about the interaction itself. It wasn't as if he did anything to her—not yet—but the thought of it alone makes her skin crawl because she's seen that before. She's been the JJ in that situation, pulling a wasted Touron away from someone who thought nobody would be looking out for other people at the party, and she knows how quickly those situations can escalate past "harmless" flirting.

The sound of JJ shouting at Tyler echoes in her mind as she reaches for any remaining memories left from the party. He said it right after he punched him, when he was starting to rush forward to follow him onto the ground and pin him there.

"If I see you near my girl again, you're fucking dead! You got that?"

She doesn't remember realizing that he called her that at the moment. She was confused and upset and all she wanted to do was stop him from getting himself in trouble, so she pulled him away from hitting Tyler again without realizing what he said. And even now, she tries to avoid acknowledging it. She reasons with herself, telling herself that he was pissed off and didn't mean it, because if he did, why hasn't he told her how he feels yet?

Y/N looks up and sees how dark the converging clouds have gotten in the time since they began working on prepping the house for the hurricane, so her next words are shakier than usual.

"I guess you're right." She pushes off of her spot against the railing. "But can we not talk about JJ tonight? I kind of wanna hang out and forget about the rest of the stuff I've got going on right now."

This makes him feel a pang of guilt inside of him for the ulterior motive he's kept hidden from her for the duration of the conversation, but he knows it's for the best. Even if her and JJ's inevitable conversation goes in the wrong direction and they don't end up mending fences, it's better that they let it out sooner than later. If they wait any longer, it'll make it worse, and he knows that they're stubborn enough to keep this childish game going for another week or so.

So, he keeps her in the dark for now and offers a kind, "Sure, that's cool with me," despite knowing how messy the night will soon become.

A smile pokes at the edges of her mouth, making the sides of her eyes crinkle, and she extends a hand to help him up from where he sits.

"Now," she says as they make their way inside the house for her to pack a bag, "are you ready to get absolutely crushed in Monopoly?"

It started to rain before they left her house, and by the time they pull into the driveway of the Chateau, it's pouring down on them with violent winds whipping droplets at their faces hard enough to hurt.

The rapid pace of her pulse beats with such an intensity, she can feel it in her head. They shouldn't have taken so much time at her place before heading over here. While she was packing, they talked and dilly-dallied the whole time, and now they pay the price for it.

If she knew that it would start this soon into the night, she probably would've hurried things along sooner, but it's too late. She's already starting to feel that tightness in her chest and each breath of air feels less satisfying with every inhale. It's not so bad that she loses complete control of herself, but it's getting there, and she can't express how badly she doesn't want to lose her shit in front of John B.

The passenger side door is slammed shut by the force of the wind behind her, the noise becoming swallowed up in the rest of the budding storm, and she stifles a sound of surprise that escapes her in reaction to it. They're lucky they made it here in the first place. Any later in the night and they probably would've had to take refuge at her place until it blew over.

She decides to focus on how the edges of her white sneakers are swallowed up by the muddy earth on her way through the front yard to distract herself. It stains them a deep brown color and simultaneously washes them clean from the rain coming down from above, which she'd probably be annoyed about if she weren't such a nervous wreck. But, because she's too busy keeping her backpack raised over her head to shield herself from the rain on her way up to the front door, it's not high up on her list of priorities.

Since both the screen door and the door behind it are unlocked, she doesn't hesitate to come bursting into the house as she usually does.

Y/N lets out a deep breath, feeling that telltale tension in her chest and shoulders, and laughs at the sight of John B running in as she kicks off her shoes. His t-shirt is speckled with rainwater, and his hair is saturated enough with it to stick to the sides of his face after he crosses the threshold into the Chateau.

The sound of her laughter makes JJ's heart stop from where he stands in the kitchen.

"There was an umbrella right on the dashboard, why didn't you take—"

Her heart might as well have stopped just as abruptly as the sentence she was in the middle of saying when she turned and saw him standing there.

Maybe they're both a tad too dramatic, but it takes a full few seconds for them to stop staring at each other in surprise. He looks like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide with surprise like he was caught doing something he shouldn't even though all he was doing was grabbing a beer from the fridge.

It's been two days since they last saw each other. For him, the last glimpse he got of her was when he peeked through the blinds to see her pedaling away on her bike to go to work, but hers was somewhat different.

The last time she saw him, he was asleep. Their legs were tangled together underneath the sheets and his face was smushed against her chest, allowing her to feel the soft puffs of his exhales on her skin every few seconds. It's a wonder that she managed to slip away unnoticed once she remembered she had work that morning. He was holding her closely, so closely that she found it hard to discern where she ended and he began in the dazed, hungover headspace she woke up in.

It's when the conversation she had with John B on the front steps of her house comes back to the forefront of her mind that she puts together what's happening right now. Now that they're here, it's far too late to leave. With how aggressively the wind and rain batter the area surrounding the house, it's obvious that they're not going anywhere.

It seems to click with them at the same time, because JJ turns to look at him only a half second after she does.

Y/N says, completely serious, "If you did what I think you did, I'm gonna kill you."

Before either of them can think of doing anything, John B shoots out from the doorway and runs past her in the direction of the hallway where his bedroom is.

"Gotta catch me first!"

They both chase him, JJ hopping over the back of the couch to run after him, but they end up coming to a screeching halt at the shut door right when they hear the lock turn and click.

Neither of them knows what they were planning to do when they caught him, cause it isn't like they'd hurt him, but they bang on the door nonetheless. The sound is drowned out by the sound of the wind and rain pounding the outside walls of the house, picking up speed, and for a second she wants to kick the door open.

She shouts, "John B! Open this door!"

The last thing she wanted tonight was to be trapped in a house with the one person she didn't want to see. Doesn't John B realize how embarrassing it is for her to be around him when she knows that he's gonna reject her? He may have said something about JJ never acting so weird over a girl before, but he's wrong. There's no way JJ actually wants her...right?

"I can't hear you, this storm's kinda loud!" he yells back at them through the locked door. "Maybe try again later!"

Neither of them wants to acknowledge the other. In fact, they don't even want to look at each other right now, so all they can do to stop themselves from acknowledging the elephant in the room is continue trying to get answers out of John B. What does he think that locking them together in the Chateau for the night will accomplish other than make them ignore their own drama and team up to plot their revenge on him?

Though he's significantly less angry than she is, JJ pulls the doorknob enough to make the door whine on its hinges and pleads with their friend, "This isn't funny, John B. Open the door."

"Not until you guys stop being immature and talk to each other."

She furrows her brows at him even though he can't see her, saying, "It's none of your business. You can't just trap us here cause you think you know what's best for us."

The sound of thunder rumbling above the house makes her flinch, hand shooting out to latch onto JJ's arm on an instinct she couldn't consciously resist. Feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her palm and the fingers clutched around his wrist sends shocks of familiar electricity up her body. Touching him always makes her feel hyperaware of herself, leaving her to wonder if he can sense her pulse picking up or notice how her breathing pattern turns uneven.

With that being said, it's safe to say that the night they spent together took that sensation of electricity and hyperawareness to a height it hadn't reached before.

That time, it wasn't a brush of their hands or an arm over her shoulder, it was the epitome of physical closeness. She couldn't handle it. He was so sickeningly sweet with her, yet, at the same time, he knew all of the right times to be commanding and in control too. There were awkward moments at first, sure, but once they became comfortable with each other, it was game over.

And whenever they've touched since, she hasn't been able to get those memories off of her mind. It's less prevalent now, since she's only holding onto him out of fear, but it's still there underneath it all—the unfiltered desperation of the lust in his eyes, the low noises that escaped his parted lips, and the strong pair of hands that pinned her hips down on the mattress to give him the leverage to really give it to her at the intensity she begged for.

It's pathetically easy for her to be sucked right back into the vortex of emotions, memories, and fears that haunt her whenever they touch, but he brings her back out of it just as easily when he speaks.

"You okay?"

John B was as good as forgotten by him as soon as he felt her jolt next to him and grab onto his wrist like she was hanging from a ravine and he was the only thing preventing her from falling. It makes him feel like a fool, but even when they're ignoring each other, the urge to comfort and protect her from anything that displeases her never disappears. He'd literally fistfight Zeus if it meant there'd be less thunder to scare her.

If he weren't hiding behind a locked door to avoid their wrath, JB would probably be calling him a simp right about now.

The concern on his face is so pure and unaffected by any of the chaos that surrounds them, both physical and emotional, that it makes her stomach turn with a sick feeling. God, he really does care about her. Why does that scare her? Why doesn't she want to believe that he cares? Why is she so set on believing that he wanted nothing more than a quick fuck from her?

Her eyes turn down to see their connected hands, realizing all in one moment what she did and pulling her hand away as if she were burned.

"I—Yeah," she stops, looking up at him, then back to the closed bedroom door, "I'm fine. You know how it is, it's just the storm."

They're both left with no choice but to face the music after days of avoidance that had no good reason behind it other than the respective doubts and fears they have. Yet even now that they're standing here, unsure of what comes next, they're hesitant to say or do anything that might disrupt the illusion they've created in the week and a half since they first ruined their friendship for good.

It feels as though the tension that has been boiling between them is coming close to turning explosive and all it will take is one tremor of their self-control for it to spill over.

Every feeling they have feels so contradictory. They want to but they also don't. They almost do it, then hesitate and decide to ignore each other for days. At the party, this tug of war game was at its peak for JJ when she was telling him about her jealousy and cuddling up to him, but he couldn't do it then, not when she was drunk. And by the time he had a whole night to think it over and see her biking away, he didn't want to risk it.

She looks away from him, hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" may ring true for once, and says to John B through the door, "Whatever, have fun. I won't hold JJ back when you finally come out of there though."

He won't actually do anything to him, maybe just a non-serious fight that'll end with her walking in on them rolling around on the floor trying to wrestle each other, but she likes to fuck with him anyway. For the dick move he just pulled, she thinks he can withstand a little teasing.

Without anything else to say, Y/N turns and walks off to make herself useful elsewhere—anything to distract from the buzzing, anxious energy that surrounds her from both the hurricane and being forced to confront JJ. She tries to play it cool though she is anything but at the moment, allowing herself to grimace once her back is turned to the blonde boy still standing against the wall in the hallway.

Maybe if she keeps pushing this false sense of normalcy, it'll work. It worked when they both started pretending things never happened between them initially after they had sex, so who's to say it can't work now?

All they have to do is get through the next 12-24 hours without talking and all will be well. Right?

They tried.

They truly tried to get through the night without inciting chaos within the Chateau, but, for these two idiots, not inciting chaos is a task easier said than done. Not only was John B much more stubborn with staying in his room than either of them bargained for, he didn't even attempt to speak to them for the first five hours and they were left with nothing to do but find new ways to avoid talking to each other.

It was simple in the beginning.

She went off on her own and sat with her headphones in to drown out the sounds of the storm.

With her eyes fluttered shut to block out anything but the sound of The Cure blasting into her ears, there was no reason for her to have to worry about anything once her nerves began to settle. Since the songs drowned out any sound and all she could see was darkness behind her closed eyelids, she was able to drift away with the distraction of the music.

The thing is, after a while, she started to see pieces of him in every song she skipped to. She made it a full minute into Just Like Heaven before a supercut of her most treasured memories of him began appearing in her head. Fade Into You? Skipped as soon as the first dreamy lyric flooded in through the tangled cords of the headphones. Cloud 9? Forty seconds in. By the time Dirty Little Secret came on, she decided that her playlist was mocking her.

The headphones were out of her ears, hastily wrapped up, and stowed away in the small pocket of her overnight bag before the chorus of the song could hit. Thankfully for her, JJ wasn't looking when she ripped the headphones out and put them away in a huff, so by the time he turned to see her again, she was laying down on the couch to "nap"—meaning she laid awake for another hour and cursed John B for making her endure this.

While she was daydreaming of a John B voodoo doll, JJ was worried about her.

Yes, the topic of their relationship/friendship/situationship/whatever-the-fuck-it-is was bombarding him against his will every five seconds, but not without him coming back to his concern for her. A small sound of thunder on an otherwise perfect day was enough to make her zone out and start getting antsy that day on the boat, so he didn't want to know how bad it could get during a time like this.

He tried to play it cool, and, in all honesty, his remaining scraps of sanity lasted a lot longer than hers. Four and a half hours passed, then, as the storm began to do its worst on their town, the power flickered out and left them in complete darkness. At that point, John B was passed out in his bedroom, so he didn't care nor notice when they had to find a few candles and stumble through the dark.

Somewhere along the way, having to search through the dark house for candles to light and place around the living room led them here...he isn't quite sure how.

JJ can hardly open his eyes enough to see through the rain that pounds against him the second he runs after her through the back door. The wind is so aggressive and unrelenting, it almost sends him stumbling a few steps when he follows her blurry figure a few paces behind where she tries to flee the house in a panic.

"Get back inside!" he shouts as he picks up his speed to catch up, "Y/N!"

The part of him that isn't focused on the pure physicality of trying to see and move through the stormy weather is utterly overwhelmed with fear. Not for himself but for her. She's deathly afraid of mild storms, let alone hurricanes, and yet she ran through the back door when he tried comforting her through an anxiety attack. One would think that she wouldn't want to go directly into the thing she fears the most, but what sent her running for the hills wasn't the panic itself, it was him.

It's hard for her to think rationally in this state, but all she knows is that he was there, he was saying all the right things and holding her, and she couldn't do it. The fear began to blend to one centered around both him and the storm. The hours of useless distractions and ruminating in her thoughts built up to this point of contention, then it snapped.

Between the thunder, his voice, and the voice in the back of her head that was urging her to confess her feelings and do as John B advised them to, it became too much. Maybe it was the most idiotic split-second decision she made without any regard for logic or reason or her safety, but she bailed. For the third time, she couldn't handle the pressure and ran from him.

The only difference is that he couldn't let her leave this time.

He gasps for air against the streams of water flowing down his face, soaking his hair and making it hang in his eyes to obstruct his view more than the weather already has. It happened so fast, neither of them are wearing shoes. His feet sink into the muddy yard with every stride he takes in his frantic pursuit of her and it frustrates him no end because of how it slows him down.

There's endless dangerous possibilities with her being out here. She could be knocked over into the marsh by the wind, or stuck and hurt by a piece of debris—merely thinking about it makes him call out her name louder in the hopes that it'll wake her from her panicked trance.

After trudging through the mud all the way to the edge of the yard, he finally manages to get to her.

"What are you doing?" JJ shouts, turning her around and grabbing onto both of her arms as if one gust of wind would sweep her away if he didn't, "You're gonna get hurt!"

Stumbling backwards in the direction of the screened-in porch that surrounds the back door, he uses their difference in strength to tug her away in the direction she came out in. The rain makes it difficult to keep a firm grasp on her, and she almost slips away a couple of times when the wind picks up enough to make him too unsteady to hold on.

His arms slip around her waist for a better grasp on her the closer they come to reaching the house. The last thing he wants is to almost get her back inside and lose her at the last second. She isn't thinking rationally right now with the panic she feels taking full control of her responses. He knows firsthand how it feels to be thrown headfirst into a panic attack, he's been in her shoes before and knows better than anyone the lengths your irrational mind will go to if it means survival. And for whatever reason, her response is flight, not fight.

The door to the screen porch takes all of his effort to open against the power of the wind blowing it back against the house.

He grits his teeth as he forces it open, one arm secured around her midsection, and helps her in before he slips inside too. The second he lets go of the door, it's sent slamming back into place and rattling in the frame behind them, but he doesn't spend anymore time on it other than the few seconds it takes to lock it. As soon as it clicks with him that they're safe—most importantly, that she's safe—he whips around to face her with a cold rage flowing through his veins.

"What the fuck?"

She stands in front of him with water pouring off of her in rapid drops onto the rug, and there are no thoughts in her head outside of the ones telling her to leave. Her tears blend in with the droplets of rain so seamlessly that he wouldn't know she's crying if not for the sound of it.

In between her rapid breaths and sobs, she yells back at him, "I was scared, okay?"

"Why'd you run out into the storm if you—"

"I wasn't afraid of the storm, I was afraid of you!"

The silence that follows is louder than anything they've experienced. Nothing can rival it, not the thunder, the rain, or anything can drown it out while he stares at her in shock. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted as he reaches for something, anything, he can say in response to that, but there's nothing. For once, he is absolutely speechless.

Things got awkward between them in the initial aftermath of last week, but not like this. There was never an instance where he felt like there was nothing left for him to say to her to fill the uncomfortable silence that always brought forth memories of them together until now. Until she said the last thing he wanted or expected to hear.

His anger subsides as he picks over what he did in his head for anything that could've made her feel unsafe.

Before it evolved into him chasing after her through the hurricane, he noticed how terrible it had gotten for her when he lit the first candle. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her chest began to rise and fall faster with each second that passed. He could see it on her face that things were getting worse, but, now that he thinks of it, it got worse once he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder.

It felt like a dream sequence in his head, so hazy and faraway now that it's over, and he was so stunned by what she was doing, he didn't run after her until a few seconds later. There was a delay in which he stood there in surprise and tried to process what the hell just happened to no avail. Though it wasn't very long, he remembers it feeling like eternity tucked into the cramped space of four seconds.

JJ's voice is softer than she's ever heard it, asking into the void of the near-darkness that encloses them, "What'd I do?" And it breaks her heart in half to hear him sound so concerned, so terrified of the idea that he did something to hurt her when all he did was try to help. "I never meant to scare you, I swear. I know how bad it can get sometimes, and I know we haven't been talking but I'd never try to hurt you if that's what you thought..."

His thoughts run rampant with the possibilities of what she was thinking at the time, and he realizes that he can't stand the idea of her thinking anything badly of him. He never cares about what people think, but, fuck, he loathes the idea of her having any ill feelings toward him.

Y/N immediately starts shaking her head, her face scrunching with the emotion and incessant tears.

"I know you'd never hurt me. I was scared because..." she stops herself mid sentence, catching it right when she was about to admit the one thing she promised herself she wouldn't.

But the need to say it doesn't go away this time. Usually, once she catches herself she comes to her senses and realizes how foolish it would've been to confess, but this time is different. This time, the urge to speak her mind and tell him everything sticks around. The words left unsaid creep up her throat, thrashing and begging to let out after months of being pushed aside.

The look in her eyes is strangely reminiscent of the way she looked at him the night they hooked up, almost yearning in its nature, and he couldn't be more confused. She's scared of him, but she's looking at him like she did when she was two seconds away from jumping his bones. And if he didn't do anything wrong, why was she afraid enough to face her worst fear in order to avoid him?

"Because what?" he asks.

That frustration from when they first stepped into the porch hasn't vanished, it only took a backseat once she said she was afraid of him, not the storm, and he can feel it stirring up again. He's tired of not having answers. He's tired of mixed signals and loneliness and unrequited love. Most of all, he's tired of her running away all the time. At this point, he questions whether or not it's worth it to expose his feelings to her and suffer the consequences.

John B was right. This isn't healthy for them, nor is it healthy for them to put their friends through this along with them, and it might be better to not be friends than to stay this way forever. At least that way they wouldn't be wishing for answers that would never come for the rest of their time together.

She decides at this moment that this has to be said before it gets worse, before she runs away again like a scared, immature child and ruins everything.

"Because," she has to shout over the lightning that cracks down on the earth down the street, something she would be trembling in fear over if she weren't so focused on him, "I've been in love with you for a couple months and it scares me more than anything, even this stupid fucking storm! And I've tried so hard to ignore it because I know you don't feel the same way, but you touched me and I just"—a soft cry escapes her—"I couldn't do it anymore."

There it is.

After months of ruminating over it and hiding everything, he knows, and her immediate feeling after she says it isn't what she thought it would be. She expected trepidation and regret, but what she finds on the other side isn't either of those, it's relief. Her dad often tells her when she's nervous about something that the anticipation is worse than the thing itself, and that has never been as true her as it is now.

However, some of the nerves return with the time that passes after she spoke in complete silence. Much like the delayed reaction he had to her running out of the house, it isn't as long as it feels to her. It's a short span of time that it takes for her words to process with him, but it feels like an eternity that he stands there with his head facing the floor in quiet contemplation.

Her heart sinks.

This means he doesn't feel the same way, doesn't it? If he were the one telling her he loved her, she likely would've leaped into his arms and said it back, but he stays where he is.

Then, after what feels like forever, she thinks she sees him start to smile and feels like she's losing her mind. It's quite dark out here, so there's only a limited amount of light to allow her to see his features, but there's no doubting it when a flash of lightning floods the porch with a split-second of harsh light.

Oh God, why is he smiling? What does it mean?

Much to her frustration, the first thing he says after her confession isn't much help in making her understand his feelings either.

"Why didn't you just talk to me?"

Why? The voice in the back of her mind asks incredulously. Is he seriously asking why? He ignored me too. He didn't want to talk about it either, so what else was I supposed to do?

Maybe she was undeniably worse when it came to the avoidance and lack of communication, but he could've reached out to her too. They both could've. Instead, they spent day after day waiting for the other to make the move and pushed the tension further and further until it finally broke. Now she's waiting for him to hurry up and reject her so she can move on with her life.

She shivers from the wind blowing at her wet skin through the screens separating them from the outside world, crossing her arms over her body to hug herself. His eyes follow her movements down to the breaths that are slowly evening out without her realizing it. It turns out that confessing your love for the guy you've been crushing on since the day you met him is a hell of a distraction.

"I thought you wouldn't wanna hear me being all emotional and shit over a one time thing. You've literally never had an actual relationship before. And that's fine," she rambles, "I'll be okay eventually, but that's not who you are and there isn't a problem with that. I just caught feelings when I shouldn't have."

In her defense, she isn't making baseless assumptions about him, he hasn't had a relationship before. His love life hasn't ever really revolved around love itself, it was mostly comprised of random chicks he'd meet at parties or at the beach during the summertime when tourists come to visit the island. Out of all of them, he's the last one the Pogues would expect to fall in love with someone and commit to a relationship, but then...

He looks over at her with a swell of emotion within him that he's never felt before. It wasn't like he hadn't known before now. He did. He even said it out loud to himself that morning after the party, but this is when it feels the most real. Now that she's said it to him, he doesn't feel so stupid for toying with the four letter word in the back of his mind for the entirety of the past week.

In all honesty, he was the last person he would've expected to fall in love with someone this quickly too. He thought he knew himself better than this. He thought he could keep himself hidden away and not let anyone close enough to see him—the real him, faults and feelings and vulnerability included—but she proved him wrong. In walked Y/N with her pretty smile, teeny bikini bottoms, and oddly strong opinions on Ratatouille, and he stood no chance.

This sudden crescendo of emotion only continues to grow when he watches her shiver, soaked to the skin, across from him and decides that he never wants to deny himself of her again. Those feelings of inadequacy that forced him to question his relationship with her may not have gone away, not by a long shot, but they can't stop him anymore. Nothing can.

Like a light flickering to life in this swirling, stormy darkness, she hears JJ's voice asking her, "What if it is who I am?"

It was said so softly, she nearly lost it beneath the rain and wind. But it was not said with a lack of certainty, which is why she questions if she heard him correctly. He sounded so sure of himself that it feels too good to be true. After his reaction, or lack thereof, to her telling him she loved him, she accepted what was coming and this was not it.

"What?"

He doesn't miss a beat.

"You heard me." There's a pause. "Maybe I needed to meet the right girl."

There is no way he's saying what she thinks he's saying because if he is...if he is then that means the tears and frustration have all been for nothing because he loves her back. But if he loves her, then what was with the kook girl? Was it to make her jealous, or is she misinterpreting him right now and he was flirting with that girl because he doesn't have real feelings for her?

"JJ..." she trails off, looking down and thinking to herself how thankful she is that it's too dark for him to fully see how nervous he made her, "don't do that."

Partly, he should feel offended that she'd think he'd toy with her feelings like that, but he isn't. He's too busy wondering what on earth made this poor girl so insecure to think that someone has to be joking to confess their love to her. It makes him wonder if anyone wronged her before she moved here, and he feels that switch of impulsive anger inside of him flip at the thought.

But that anger has nowhere to go, so it shifts into something different—a need to spend every waking moment of the rest of their time together proving to her that she doesn't have to be so afraid. Does it make him a hypocrite? Probably. It wasn't too long ago that he was telling the Pogues how much he didn't deserve to be with her, but he doesn't see himself the same way he sees her. In his head, he has reasons to believe he doesn't deserve her love, but how could she ever think that herself?

He steps closer to her, the movement something so natural and unconscious to him that he doesn't recognize he does it until he hears her breath hitch in the back of her throat. They were already close enough to reach out and touch each other if they wanted to, yet now it's the kind of closeness that wipes the slate of her mind clean with nothing else but the thought of him there to stay.

He starts to say, "I'm not fucking with you, dude, I'm being serious—"

"Then prove it."

Oh.

The sound of his unfinished sentence lingers on the tip of his tongue as he blinks away his surprise at what she said, though it was less of a statement and more of a challenge. What the challenge is, he isn't too sure, but he thinks there could be a couple of meanings there.

The fire in her eyes when she looked up at him is one he recognizes very well, it stars in one too many of his daydreams that center around their secret night together. She rose to the occasion without fail and matched his chaos every time, and that steely-eyed stare is reminiscent of it.

Yet, the sexual undertone isn't the only part of it to be discovered. There's a clear meaning there for him to actually prove it, to put his money where his mouth is, grow a pair, and tell her how he feels with no room for confusion. No more miscommunication, running away, or insecurity getting between them, just a clear cut confession like hers.

His hand runs through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes and keep the wet strands from dripping down his face. It helps him see her a little better too, grounding him to the moment and calming him at the dimmed sight of her expectant, wide eyed gaze.

There were a million versions of this whenever he let himself imagine admitting it. He only let himself picture it on the worst days, days like the one two days ago when he went home to his dad, ending the night by cleaning his own cuts and inspecting his own bruises in his locked bedroom. He did it to distract himself from wanting to storm out of the room and finally kill the son of a bitch after years of suffering in silence.

JJ closed his eyes, shaking with anger, and dreamed of how he'd tell her. There were versions with long speeches that were far too sappy to exist outside of the realm of his imagination. There were versions with him burying the words between friendly jokes to play down the extent of his feelings too, but he thought it worked best in its simplest form.

So he puts it as simply as it gets, lips fighting a soft smile as he crosses the space between them and rushes in to kiss her. It's charged with an accumulation of the pent up love, anger, and sexual desire that has been repressed until now, resulting in something utterly explosive.

He stops for a second to whisper, "I love you too," into her parted lips, and she finally lets herself go at the sound of those words.

Forget that they've only known each other for five months, when you know you know. This is the real deal. This is the kind of feeling that possesses every accessible inch of her heart and she'd never be open enough to admit that to anyone but him at the moment, but neither of them minds that. It's such a new, rapidly developing feeling that they want to protect it and keep it close to them for the time being.

His arms twine around her waist, tugging her the last bit forward and leaving no space between their bodies this time. The sudden movement draws a sharp gasp from the back of her throat and sends her hands out to brace themselves on his shoulders. The sound of the gasp that disappears into their connected mouths only fuels him on more. It makes him more eager with how he touches her with his hands drifting down the plane of her back, one of which playfully slipping beneath the hem of her soaked shirt in a way that makes her smile into the kiss.

He knows exactly what he does to her. He can sense it in the small reactions that would often go overlooked if it were someone less familiar with her.

It's easy to tell by the way she completely surrenders herself to him, letting out these soft little noises she doesn't even realize she's making when he takes control of the interaction and kisses her like he's starved for it. In a way, he is starving for affection and attention from her. He never knew it was something he needed so badly until he got it, and now he never wants to go without having her again.

That's why it doesn't surprise him when she starts getting antsy after a moment or two, especially after keeping away from him for days.

Her hands run down the length of his chest over the soaked t-shirt, taking a quiet victory in how his stomach flinches inward in response to her exploring touch, and she could swear his next exhale trembles as she continues lower. Never once does she break the kiss, which, by the way, has gone past the point of being passionate and straight to downright needy, but her concentration does falter. The perfectly paced rhythm of her mouth moving with his is interrupted when she touches him over the fabric of his shorts.

Those plushy soft lips go on an exploration of their own too. Leaving him with the first opportunity to catch his breath in minutes, she dips her head beneath the sharp edge of jaw in pursuit of the sweet spot she remembers reducing him to a grabby, moaning mess the last time they did this. It doesn't take her long, not if the tightening of his arms around her and the satisfied hum of a moan she feels vibrate beneath her mouth has anything to say for it.

He loses himself in it for a second or two...okay, fine, maybe ten.

The separate sensations combined spark a flame inside of him that burns so hopelessly for whatever she'll give him. His mind sends him images of them together, both real memories from their first time together and imagined fantasies he only let himself visit in his dreams, and he realizes how thinly spread his self control has become lately.

First, it's the thought of her from last week, thoughts of her gasping, writhing, and begging beneath him that makes his cock throb under the teasing contact of her hand through his shorts. But then he's brought elsewhere. Then, though he hasn't thought of it since the day after the party, he thinks of the mix of jealousy and anger he felt when he saw Tyler with her.

He remembers being sane one moment and charging across the room like a madman the next. He remembers how it felt to watch another person's hands slip under her dress, how it felt to see someone else try to kiss her the way he had, and this raw wound of a memory is all it takes to spur him into action.

It happens so quickly, she doesn't even notice what's happening until he has her scooped up in his arms with her legs around his waist. She doesn't even have the chance to voice her surprise or crack a joke at the expense of his neediness before he reconnects their paused kiss with enough force to make her teeth ache in the collision.

JJ's rings are colder than ice, digging into the flesh of her thighs as he holds them with a tight grip and blindly takes the few steps necessary to reach the back entrance of the house. His wet handprint smudges on one of the cracked-open glass doors and sends droplets of water dribbling down the surface. The teardrop of rain zig-zags at the swinging motion of the door on their way in, only changing course again when he nudges it shut behind him a little too loudly.

"Wh"—her question is cut off by him laying her down on the rug-covered floor in between the couch and coffee table—"What if John B wakes up?"

His first thought was to bring her into the spare bedroom, but then he realized that it shares a wall with John B. Then, he considered the pull out couch but realized that would be louder than the room adjacent to their friend's. His only conclusion was this.

It isn't nearly as romantic as either of them would've pictured, but they're not exactly picky either. They're so desperate for it, they'd likely do it on the porch in the middle of a hurricane if there weren't another option. And in their own weird way, they make it romantic.

There's no one else she'd rather risk rug burn for, and that is the peak of romance.

"John B sleeps like a fuckin' rock," JJ says, "and it's own his fault for trapping us here anyway."

He follows her down onto the floor without a second thought, not even looking up to see if they woke their friend with the sound of the door shutting behind them.

Hovered above her, he looks particularly captivating in the flickering candlelight. The fire burning in one of the three-wick candles they scoured the bathroom cabinets for brings out the warm hues in his blonde hair and highlights every edge of the angular face that looks down at her. The porch was far too dark for her to see him in all of his near-perfection, but this is enough for her to notice a multitude of things.

His slicked back, wet hair allows her to see his features better and the way he looks at her...it's enough to make anyone feel red in the face. How hadn't she see it before? She knows it was denial, but, somehow, she used to overlook the small hints along the way like how he looks at her like she's the only thing that makes sense to him. For the first time in a while, she allows herself to embrace the idea of being loved without looking for something to justify her fears surrounding it.

The sound of her voice brings him out of the mesmerized trance he fell under at the sight of her.

"I've missed you," she says softly, "like a lot."

The sweet admission slows him down for a second, making him stop to ignore the distracting desire that she sparked to life a moment ago and take the time to cherish this moment of rare serenity with her.

It's a wonder that she hasn't even acknowledged the storm raging on outside since they've come back in. It's all thanks to him, of course, since she's been too focused on everything happening between them, but it surprises him. It makes a sense of pride flare up in him on her behalf for being capable of forgetting something she fears so much.

But, on the other hand, it reminds him of how distraught she was right before their conversation/argument on the porch shifted from her panic to the topic of their relationship, and he can't help but hesitate a little.

"I missed you too." The hand he isn't using to support himself above her cups her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. "Are you okay though? You were just crying and I don't wanna make you—"

"Yes."

It was so said so quickly, there was zero hesitation. It's not that it doesn't surprise him that she's as eager as he is after what started to happen out on the porch, but it does make his eyes widen a little. His mouth curls with a slight grin. It's the kind that never fails to make her stomach fluttering and light with butterflies.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm okay, and I promise I'll let you know if I'm not," Y/N clarifies.

"Okay."

There's a short moment where all they do is look at each other with a complete loss for words to convey what they feel right now. It isn't as awkward as it would've been prior to tonight. Before they confessed their feelings, they wouldn't have been able to look at one another for any longer than a few seconds without needing to walk away to break the tension. Now, things have changed. They don't feel the need to conceal how much they care anymore.

They're still the same bickering duo they've always been with the added fun of being head over heels. She never used to understand how some people could let their feelings for another person drive them crazy, but it's done more than make her crazy this past week. It made her jealous, obsessive, and somehow happy too, and no one has ever made her feel so many varying emotions in her life.

Her fingertips graze the stretch of skin between where his cargo shorts sit on his hips and his shirt rides up the side of his torso, and he swallows thickly at the feeling.

"Do I make you nervous?" she asks.

Her lilting, smooth voice is enough to soothe any nerves he could possibly have. It's as if hearing her ask that paired with the hand teasing the waistband of his shorts pulled him back to the place he'd been before when she was teasing him over his clothes.

He answers honestly, his head going fuzzy with the crushing desire that courses through him, "Not as nervous as I make you," and closes the space between them again.

The cheeky comment doesn't go unnoticed by her, not one bit. It makes her face heat up in embarrassment that is purely instinct after having to hide her feelings from her for so long. Maybe after they've been together for longer, it won't make her blush every time he acknowledges the effect he has on her out loud, but that day isn't today. Today, she goes hot in the face from a sole second of his attention, let alone this.

JJ lets his hand climb up the length of her torso as they kiss as if they have all the time in the world, as if their best friend isn't sleeping less than twenty feet away from them, until it flattens at the base of her neck. It doesn't curl around her neck and squeeze, nor does it do anything but remind her how much she loves the feeling of him touching her, the large palm of his hand simply stays draped over her throat to flaunt his ability to sway her nerves.

She's pretty sure if it were anyone else, it wouldn't work, but he's JJ for fuck's sake, and the quiet display of dominance sends an exhilarating little thrill rumbling through her. It isn't anything over the top or exaggerated like some people would do in an attempt to stake a claim over the person they love, just a simple gesture that they both know the meaning of.

She's his. After five months of friendship, two months of silent pining, and a week of sexually confused hell, she's his, and he'll never let her forget it.

The wind rattles the windows over the couch with its force and she notices that his hips grind into hers at the sudden sound. Even in the midst of such a heated moment, it's downright cute how he still makes an effort to distract her from what she fears. And, boy, does it work.

Their panting breaths in the brief seconds they allow themselves to break away from each other are the only sounds audible in the small living room. The storm drowns it all out for now, including the noises that start to leave them from the steadily building pleasure of their bodies moving together.

She can feel how hard he is through the layers that separate them with every absentminded thrust that brushes the fabric of her panties up against her clit each time. It leaves her breathless and wondering, despite already knowing, what it'll feel like when he finally slips inside of her again.

They both fantasized about it in the time they spent apart. Neither of them would dare deny it, least of all JJ. It actually became frustrating after a while because she started to become the only scenario he could conjure to get himself off when he had a rare moment of privacy. His fantasies, all stemming from the night that was so perfect, he began to question the reality of it, linger in his head.

The best part of his fantasies were the parts of them based in truth, and if he knows anything about her when she's in this state, it's that she's needy. Her tongue swipes along his bottom lip in a silent urging to let her deepen the kiss, and he complies without a second to spare, willing to entertain her every whim so long as she keeps being so good for him.

He revels in her muffled squeak of a moan when he presses down on the sides of her throat at the precise moment his hips grind down to meet hers. She can't keep herself still for any longer than a half-second, always meeting his movements halfway and unknowingly doing another thing that will be the death of him.

She leads his shirt up his body without having to second guess herself, knowing that he's always on the same wavelength as her no matter what. This was how it was the last time too. Anything she did, he was already one step ahead, and tonight isn't much different. By the time her hands ball up the dripping cotton fabric, JJ is lifting the hand off of her neck to reach for the neckline of the shirt and help tug it off.

There's a sense of urgency in everything they do. Charged up with frustration and jealousy that brewed within the days they spent apart, there's nothing to stop them from reducing themselves to a pair of panting, impatient lovers too consumed in each other to care about the outside world.

The sopping wet fabric is thrown beyond her line of sight and lands on the hardwood floor with a 'thwack' that accompanies their cacophony of moans and gasps, and she whimpers at the sight of him. It may have to do with the fact that he's guiding their bodies together at a cadence and pressure perfect enough to make her legs tremble, but seeing him like this does nothing but aid the sensation.

Golden skin glistening under the candlelight, tendrils of half-dry blonde hair falling into his face with the lazy effort of his movements, and a stray raindrop that squeezed from the wet shirt dripping down his chest...she's not gonna make it out of tonight alive, is she? In her memory, she knew he was a sight to see in the midst of a heated moment, but, fuck, memories do not hold up beside the real experience of it.

Y/N is so caught up in his seemingly endless beauty, she doesn't notice him peeling her damp denim shorts off of her hips until they're halfway down her legs, and the only reason she does notice is because he must shift his position to do it. Suddenly, the budding feeling that stirred from their needy antics is plucked away and left to ache for more in the absence of him between her thighs.

Her middle and index fingers hook around the front of his necklace to pull him back down to her, but he doesn't budge at first. He's too busy trying to rid her of her shirt to care.

It was too much of a distraction while they kissed for him to resist slipping it off of her when he got the chance to. Much to his frustration when he first realized they were trapped with each other, she's braless underneath, and it's only worse now that the t-shirt is soaked to her skin and clinging to every delicate curve.

Once the clothing gives way to the canvas of her bare skin, he submits to her urgency and follows her down by the fingers hooked around his necklace without any qualms.

As soon as they resume, it's as if they never stopped to begin with, and they start to realize how seamlessly they fit together as the seconds elapse. Neither of them are actively thinking about it while he dips his hand into the front of her panties, but it is in their subconscious.

It's a revelation of sorts, an ah-ha moment where it hits them both in a sweeping realization that it was obvious from the day they met. They should've known sooner, they should've dropped their pride and admitted it as soon as the first inklings of desire began to pop up, but they didn't. Instead, it washes over them now and they let the current take them away together.

Her mouth falls open against his cheek at the feeling of his fingers swiping through the arousal that pools in her underwear for him, dragging the wetness over his fingertips and spreading it up to brush fleetingly against her clit. It's a split-second of a touch that it makes her hips lift up off the floor on their own accord to seek out more. It makes her dig her nails into the skin stretching over his taut shoulder muscles in a wordless plea for more that he doesn't indulge her in at first.

He makes her earn it from him without having to say a single word. He touches her, but he doesn't touch where she wants or ease his fingers into her to satisfy the need she feels yet. It's a blessing and a curse that he manages to turn her on to such an extent. He does it for her like nothing else can, so much so that she's noticed a distinct difference in how it feels when she's alone versus when they're together. When she's alone, it can tend to feel like active effort, but when she's with him, it's as natural as the urge to breathe.

His smirk is felt against her skin the entire time she begs for it through the revealing actions of her body—her hips jerking up toward him, her chest pressing tightly to his, and the sound of her murmuring, "Please," in a breathy tone that could stop his heart.

"Tell me what you want," JJ says, every word constrained and tight in a way that tells her he's a lot less composed than he lets on, and "accidentally" swipes his thumb over her clit again. "Talk to me, baby."

She almost forgot in their time apart how much of an effect he has on her, but this is the best reminder of that she could possibly imagine. If she could, she would find a way to bottle the feeling he gives her and keep it with her forever so that, no matter what happens between them, she'll never have the misfortune of forgetting him.

What he said simultaneously melts her heart and frustrates her to no end because he knows! He knows damn well what she wants from him and won't give it to her unless she asks for it, and she hates herself for loving it. She hates herself for enjoying the flushed-face embarrassment it brings to her cheeks to be so open with him about what she needs.

She swallows the lump in her throat and tries to focus through the clouded landscape of her head to speak to him. It's hard to concentrate when he's above her like this, touching her, calling her pet names, and looking at her like that.

With his lips worshiping the sensitive skin along her neck, she finds it hard to choke out the words, "I want you," into the humid air that has infiltrated the house.

It's not a lie. Anything regarding her wanting him or any related feeling is no longer something she can hide anymore, but they both know it isn't exactly what he wanted. No matter how it took his breath away to hear her say it, he was seeking something more specific. He was aiming to make her ask, maybe even beg, for it. They're both too impatient to wait and based on how wet his fingertips are from barely dipping into her, he can tell she's as eager as he is.

It's been thirteen days too long since the last time they allowed themselves to meet this way, and neither of them wants to let it happen again.

She was nearly trembling with the urge to go to him whenever they were together in the company of their friends, unable to think about anything except for how badly she wanted him. All the while, he appeared so unbothered, especially on the night of the party when he flirted with someone else, that she didn't even believe he felt the same way back. Thankfully for her, she couldn't have been more wrong.

He clicks his tongue and says, still teasing her with light touches that never linger in one place for too long, "That wasn't very specific."

Part of her should know that he's about to do something based on how he withdraws his head from its cherished place in the crook of her neck, but she's too caught up in the anticipation and seeing his face for the first time in a minute to think about it. How dare he look so good? She could cry in frustration, although she might actually already be tearing up a little with the rush of neediness hitting her in its full force.

Never has she felt so turned on by so little physical contact before. It usually takes longer for her to get to this point, whether it be alone or in the past with previous partners, yet all it took was being kissed, touched, and being given his undivided attention and now...She realizes she's in trouble. He has her in an emotional and sexual chokehold at this point, and she fears that no one can compare.

"I want—" her voice is snuffed out in an instant when he eases two fingers into her, "Oh!"

So that's why he pulled away from her neck to look at her.

It was worth abandoning the mark forming on her neck just to see the expression on her face shift. She gets this cute look when anything overwhelming starts to happen where her brows scrunch a little to create a soft wrinkle between them as her mouth drops open in a moan. And after ten steady minutes of doing nothing but some over the clothes action and painstaking teasing, this is as overwhelming as it gets without it crossing the line to being too much.

It never occurred to her how much larger his fingers are compared to hers until now. This type of pleasure is like an itch only someone else can scratch to her, she feels virtually nothing when she does it to herself, but when he does it, it's like an explosive being set off inside of her. Especially with the thumb that sneaks up to circle her clit without stopping to tease her again, she is putty in his hands at this point.

Every smooth stroke of his fingers into her reaches a spot she can never quite find on her own, and she can feel the cold bite of rings when they're buried into her to the knuckle.

It's a surprise every time, even when she knows to expect it. Like a delightful chill running up through her body and down her spine exactly how it's intended to. It strikes an idea in her head for when he eventually pulls them out of her, conjuring the image of her sucking them clean for him just for the sake of imagining what it'll do to him.

With that idea tucked away in the back of her mind, he's the center of her world right now. All she breathes, thinks, and feels is him. Whether it be the sight of him, or the feelings he's giving her, or even the taste of his kiss that still lingers on her tongue, it connects to one common thread.

"What were you saying?" JJ asks, and she wants to wipe that smirk right off his face.

It's virtually impossible for her to piece together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence detailing every filthy idea she has for him, but she tries. It takes another moment or two of her succumbing to the rapid incline of pleasure that he gives her, watching her in wonder through any greedy buck of her hips or gasping inhale that makes her head loll back onto the floor.

At first, what she wanted to say was that she wanted him to touch her, to do anything more than the fleeting touches he gave before. Now, she wants more than that. Now that she's drawn in closer to the eventual high that's to come, she doesn't want it to happen like this. She wants to feel closer to him than this, wants to feel him throb inside of her and fuck her with all of the urgency and desperation that has accumulated in their time apart.

That's why her hands start to grab at the belt loops of his shorts to tug him closer by them, meeting his gaze through the hazy bliss of his fingers pumping into her. It's not enough.

"Please"—she keeps pulling him closer to her, so close that there's hardly any space left to cross, and he revels in her desperation—"just fuck me already..."

Internally, JJ is losing his shit.

Though this was what he wanted, what he coaxed out of her with the teasing and the pretend sense of a nonchalant attitude on his part, it hits him harder than he expected it to to hear her say it. It's not necessarily the act of begging itself either, it's the fact that she's the one doing it. She may have been jealous of the girl at the party, but she had nothing to worry about. Not in the slightest.

Before her, he never thought he'd fall for someone this way. It's not like he had a hatred for love or anything, he understood the appeal, it simply wasn't his thing.

He was perfectly content with his only form of companionship being his friends. Then, she came along and changed it. So to hear her say something like that isn't just breathtaking, it's the kind of thing that makes his heart ache for her. It hits him precisely where she wanted it to, and he has never felt as consumed with love the way he does now.

JJ can do nothing to stop himself from pouncing on her at this point, like some animalistic form of himself has worn down the restraint he used to keep himself at bay.

The loss she feels when his fingers slip away from her is an emptiness she mourns at first before she realizes what's happening. He pulls away slightly to reach down between them for the front of his shorts, and their hands clash as they both frantically try to undo them together. The rings adorning his fingers glisten when they catch the light and remind her of the thought that popped into her head when she first felt their coldness against her skin.

That idea paired with the promise of what they're trying to accomplish in their uncoordinated attempt to get the rest of their clothes off makes her want to press her thighs together. Her hands abandon the task of undoing his shorts for the sake of ridding herself of the last layer that separates her from him.

Her most embarrassing old pair of brightly colored panties, courtesy of past Y/N's questionable decision to trust her mom to buy some on her behalf, are hardly a sight to behold. They're the kind that come in a value pack from Walmart, vibrant blue with the word, "Tuesday," printed on the front of them, and she could hide her face into the rug in shame if she weren't so determined to get them off. Of all the days to wear the day of the week undies her mom accidentally got her, of course she chose today.

By the time she reaches for the waistband, he has pushed his shorts and underwear down his thighs and comes back to her with just as much excitement as he left with, but when he helps her tug her panties down her legs, he laughs. Apparently, he had also been too eager to touch her to notice what was written on them before.

"Cute," he breathes out through a laugh, then adds as the cotton fabric slips over her knees, "Pretty sure it's not Tuesday though."

"If you tell anyone, I swear I'll—"

He cuts her off, "Whatever you wanna threaten me with won't work, chances are I'm gonna be into it."

Her eyes are alight with a certain fire he's had yet to fully lure out of her. Even her voice is slightly more airy and seductive as a result of it.

"Promise?"

JJ grins down at her as he finally tosses her panties aside with the rest of their clothes, "Cross my heart, pretty girl."

His hands grip her thighs and tug her down the rug to him with a quick jolt that snaps them out of the playful nature of their back and forth teasing. No matter how lighthearted of an interruption it was, the mini-conversation might as well have never existed for how easily they fall back into it again.

She watches with her forehead pressed against his as he strokes himself a few times, then drags his tip, messy with precome, through her wet heat. And though she watches it happen, her body still arches into his when he lines up with her and sinks his hips forward.

She anticipated it, but she still gasps and digs her nails into his biceps at the sensation of him pushing into her. Neither of them bothers to worry about the obvious lack of a condom—it was discussed the first time around when he offered and she told him it was okay. He's often the one to silence the alarm on her phone warning her in its title to, "Take your birth control or else, bitch," while she searches her bag for it anyway, so he trusts her.

Both of them prefer it this way enough to risk the minuscule failure rate of the pill anyway. It's more intimate, closer, and they can both feel the warmth of each other in a way that would've been somewhat muted with an added layer between them. It makes the feeling of him entering her all the more gratifying as she tenses up around him in reaction, drawing a groan from where his parted lips brush against hers.

She lifts her head off of the floor as much as she can to capture his mouth with her own and stifle the sonorous sound despite the storm doing a better job of it.

It seems that every blast of wind and roll of thunder is in their favor tonight, so much so that he isn't even worried about getting walked in on. It's not a thought in his head at this point, the only thought he's capable of having is this. Forgive him for being shortsighted, but he doesn't give a shit if John B notices or hears what's happening when he's buried inside of her so deeply.

His hips are flush with the backs of her thighs in a matter of seconds, and right when he pauses to give her a breather, he feels her shake her head ever so slightly against where their faces are pressed together.

The touch of her hands on his hips is not timid by any means, it's commanding. Her palm prints singe an indelible claim into the surface of his skin as she guides him to start moving without a second spared to dwindle the discomfort of him filling her up. It's less like a pain and more of a pressure blooming from the insistent presence of him, not so overwhelming that it's painful, but it's an effort to breathe evenly and the only thing that'll ease this transitional moment is to continue.

At first, their bodies start to rock together lazily as though on autopilot. They'd hardly be conscious of the fact that they're doing anything if not for the initial sensations of heady ecstasy that flash like the sparks of a lighter in response to their movements. As soon as he felt her hands coax him into action, he sighed happily and surrendered himself to the instinct of wanting to move.

The merging of their bodies is less of the aggressive rutting motions they'll surely succumb to once their current pace is no longer satisfying, but that doesn't make it any less intense. She's partly sure that this is one of the most vulnerable moments either of them has ever had when it comes to sex, and it wouldn't work if it weren't them together. No other person could consume her the way he does, taking up every unoccupied space of her soul until there's nothing left but the silent begging of her heart for him.

Their kiss is messy when it breaks to allow them the chance to suck down a couple breaths of air, saliva shining on his lips in between the seconds it takes them to come crashing back together.

It's loving enough to rot her teeth with its sweetness, a slow but impossibly deep grinding of their hips together that continually presses the tip of him into that sweet spot inside of her, but it takes a turn.

Not only do her hands shift from his hips up to the sides of his waist to get a firmer hold on him, the kiss starts to become vigorous, almost hungry, in search of something more. The dreamlike sequence of the first moment or so they spent slowly fucking under the warm hues of candlelight starts to unravel to reveal the baser instincts that guide them forward.

"Fuck, you feel so good," he whispers the praise into her mouth.

As soon as the words are said, he can feel the effect it has on her. The hands braced on his waist pull his body closer to her at the same moment that she involuntarily squeezes down around him, making the smooth drag of his cock against the velvet-soft heat of her walls even tighter than he thought possible.

The sudden feeling of it makes his first returning thrust much harder than the last. He jerks forward into her with none of the restraint he's retained for the past few moments, and her reaction is nothing short of perfection, at least from his perspective. He watches her throw her head back in a moan, hips bucking to him in pursuit of more, and feels the tips of her fingernails digging crescent-shaped marks into the unmarred skin along his waist.

"JJ!" she gasps in surprise, and if her initial reaction weren't enough to spur him on in a frenzied state of desire, this is.

He almost forgot how intense it had been the first time. Their confessions of love preceding this made them both somewhat softer and sweeter in their approach when they started, but he knows how she likes it.

Nobody would expect it from her. He's another story entirely, especially considering how much John B and Pope know about him, but her? He didn't have any in depth conversations about it with either of them, so none of their friends know how dirty she is.

But when you start to tease it out of her, she's got a side to her that makes his blood run hot. Considering how polite she is, he sure as hell didn't see it coming. For fuck's sake, she's the kind of person who'll apologize to a chair if she bumps into it. With that in mind he never thought she'd be the type to demand such things of him.

Just like that, with one moan of his name, it's like she flipped a switch in him that they forgot was there in the first place. It'll never stop surprising him how little it takes to get him going when he's with her, and he doesn't see that changing no matter how long they spend together in the future. Just a touch from her is all it takes, so it's needless to say that the sound of her calling out his name was more than enough.

Those slow, deep movements he made to sink into her again and again have turned rapid and rough, but still controlled enough to have a semblance of precision to them, hitting in all the right places.

"I bet," JJ speaks lowly, "that you want John B to walk out and see us right now."

She doesn't want to admit how much of an instantaneous effect those words have on her, but the feeling of her clenching around him as she bites back a moan completely betrays her. Partly, she worries that he'll take that the wrong way and think it has something to do with John B when it has nothing to do with him at all, but he doesn't. For the spare second of thought she's allowed to have before her mind goes hazy again, she notes how much more eager he is on the upstroke of the next thrust.

Noticing how right he was in his assumption about her liking the risk of getting caught jumpstarts his heart and makes everything he does rougher. She can sense that he's starting to lose control over himself and is acting on instinct alone.

It makes her much more sensitive to everything he does, and all she can do is cling to him and enjoy it as she takes in everything he says and does. It's hard to pick one thing to focus on between the switch up in pace and what he said.

"You want John B to know you like getting fucked like a slut, don't you?"

She could get off on the sound of his voice alone. Hearing him say stuff like that kills her, it makes the swirling bliss that builds in the pit of her abdomen with every thrust he gives her triple in its extremity.

Her legs are tightly wound around his hips to keep him as near to her as possible, her hands sliding up around his waist to keep a steady grasp on him while he pounds into her. The rug scratches at her back enough to make it sting alongside the immense pleasure building in her, but she doesn't care. When blended with the good sensations, the pain underscores the addictive feeling of him inside of her, fucking her exactly how she asked him too.

Looking up at him when he's like this is simply unreal. There's no other way of describing it in her eyes except for that. He's so stunning, she's inclined to believe that he isn't even real as a means of explaining it. This shouldn't be real. It should be one of her daydreams while she steals covert stares at him as they hang out with the Pogues, but it isn't. She can't wrap her head around it.

Those strands of hair that were damp from the rain are mostly dry as they fall into his eyes with the force of his movements. The sight of him alone, set aside from the rest of it, is enough to make her writhe beneath him and claw at his back in tandem with another thrust that sends her jolting against the rug.

He takes one of his hands up from where they both held her hips for leverage to weave his fingers into the roots of her hair.

He demands between the panting breaths and moans that flood the limited space between them, tugging on her hair, "Answer me."

She instantly blurts out the words, "I want him to see us." The feeling of him tilting her head back by the fistful of hair he has wrapped up in his hand is her persistent reminder to concentrate enough to continue, and she bites down on her lip to contain a moan before speaking again, "I want him to know..."

Her cheeks burn with the mere thought of it, let alone saying it out loud. He's the only person she'd ever let in on this intimate side of her, the side that makes her crazy when she hears him say stuff like this. The reason she feels so comfortable doing this with him is that she knows he understands her. It's as if he can read her mind without even having to try, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.

It wouldn't matter if the topic of their exhibitionism were any other Pogue or a stranger, it isn't about who it is, it's about the thrill attached to the concept of almost getting seen during such a heated moment. In all actuality, John B is probably snoring face down into his pillow right now with no care for what's happening out here, but he knows what it does to her when they push the boundaries of decency this way. It's the same rush he gets from stealing random, useless things every so often, it's the thrill of getting away with something.

The hand tangled up in the roots of her hair sneaks down between their colliding bodies to rub her clit, and her mouth drops open to take in a shaky breath.

The sight of her beneath him is undoing in and of itself. Head tilted enough to expose her neck to him, chest rising and falling rapidly with her breaths, and breasts bouncing gently with the momentum of their actions—seeing her this way makes his thrusts ramp up into more of a frenzied, uncontainable pace rather than one with the same control and cadence as before. But it's mostly the eye contact that kills him. She doesn't dare to shut her eyes the entire time, as if she can sense that he'll tell her to look at him again the second she does.

"You want him to know what?" he asks, and she knows he won't let her get away with not saying it.

She whines, utterly helpless to the climax starting to build inside of her, "Please."

What she's pleading for, she isn't quite sure, but he can tell by how she's acting that she's starting to get closer, and he wants nothing more than to tease her with the impending chance of her orgasm.

"If you wanna come, you're gonna have to do a lot better than that."

Just like that, he withdraws his hand from between them and leaves her desperate, blindly grasping for the peak she was so close to reaching, she could almost feel it already.

With JJ rocking into her at a relaxed, slower rhythm, the pleasure hasn't disappeared completely. It's there, but she can sense the feeling of her orgasm receding as quickly as it had creeped up on her as soon as he slips his hand out from between them.

It's instantly clear to him how desperate she is as all of her previous shyness surrounding having to admit this to him out loud withers away in seconds. She isn't beneath begging again at this point. He could tell her to crawl across the floor to him and she'd happily do it for the chance of touching him. It's pathetic but true. As much as she has him wrapped around her finger, he has done the same to her and she isn't afraid to admit it anymore.

Her hips jerk toward him in search of the familiar frenzy they were in before that sent her to the brink of climax, but he is impressively stubborn. Despite the fact that it physically pains him to dial it back again, he tries to keep the signs of his own frustration at bay. She knew what she had to say to get what she wants, so he'll only cave when she does.

This time around, she doesn't give a fuck about how badly she blushes or the voice in the back of her mind telling her she should keep this side of her to herself. This time, the one thing she needs to do to prompt her to open her mouth and speak the dirty words he asked her less than a moment ago is look at him. One second of staring up at him and here she is, driven mad enough to say or do anything to get him to pick up where they left off.

She says between the soft noises and breaths coming from them both, clinging to him through every slow but deep thrust that sends sparks ricocheting through her body, "I want John B to know I like getting fucked like slut." Her voice is breathless, and he hangs off of each word as she pauses, looking up at him with a challenging attitude swirling in those pretty eyes. "So stop being a tease and fuck me like one."

His jaw clenches at the bratty statement, one he's too far gone to resist at this point, and right when he's about to respond to her, she speaks again.

"Either that," she says, and a deceptively sweet smile crosses her kiss-swollen lips, "or I can go ask him to—"

She doesn't even get the chance to voice the rest of that thought before he's set into motion.

The hands on her hips flip her over with such casual strength, all she can do is yelp in surprise at the sudden movement that blurs the living room in her peripheral version until she lands with her hands and knees pressing into the rug. He was so swift in pulling out of her and tossing her onto her front like she was nothing more than a rag doll, she hardly had the time to take a breath before she ended up here.

There's hardly any time between when he pulled out to flip her over and when he returns to her again, but it feels like an eternity for them. The few second transition might as well be a few years as she feels his hands guiding her body where he wants it, pushing down on her back until it arches just so, and falls down onto her arms. But as soon as she gets situated, she feels a pair of hands yanking her arms away from where they were braced against the floor and put them behind her back.

It's only then, when he has an unflinching grasp on where he keeps her wrists behind her back with one of his hands, that she is met with the relief of him sinking into her again.

Y/N's jaw goes slack, and she cries out into the rug that her cheek is pressed into as he gives her no chance to adjust or catch her breath before resuming the brutal pace they kept a moment ago. Mentioning anyone else but him doing this to her was the quickest way to get him to snap, so it's safe to say that she's getting what she wanted. After all, she did what he asked, it's fair that she gets rewarded for it.

Amidst the sounds of the storm waging war on the landscape outside of the house, the one thing she can hear over the buzzing pleasure that drowns out her senses is the sinful blend of sounds they create together. It's the sound of their bodies merging, his name falling from her lips, and the curses he makes under his breath that never fail to drive her a little wild.

The hand that isn't holding her arms behind her slides down the length of her curved back until it wraps around her throat to pin her down, and her reaction is everything he could ask for. Seeing her rock back against him to meet him halfway makes his grip on her wrists tighten enough to turn his knuckles white.

Her hair is spread in endless directions in a fan around her head, and he can only see one side of her face from where he kneels behind her, but that glimpse is more than enough. Brows scrunched in pleasure, mouth dropped open in a gape as soft 'uh's and 'ah's escape her on the upstroke of each thrust—she's a mess right now. A beautiful, perfect mess.

"Oh God, JJ," she moans between her rapid breaths and the strong hand constricting her neck, "I'm so close. Please, just let me come."

It took virtually nothing for her to be pushed right back to the edge of the peak she was at less than a minute ago. It took a mere half-minute of this and she's once again reduced to incoherent pleas for more and shaking with no control over herself. Her legs tremble with the effort to keep herself up in this position, and she isn't even the one doing most of the work. In all fairness, this change in position has made the intensity triple. It's deeper this way, and with how harshly he slams into her, it's as though she can feel it in the base of her abdomen.

It's the enjoyable type of pain, however, not the bad type. It'll surely end up with her being sore tomorrow, but she can't hide how much she loves the painful pleasure of how rough it's getting. Being denied an orgasm when she was so, so close to it was initially disappointing too, but it was worth it. If the build up to what would've been her climax before was a spark, this is a flourishing fire spreading through her with no chance of smothering the flames.

He lets go of her throat and taps the side of her jaw in a silent request that she picks up immediately, letting her lips fall open to suck his fingers into her mouth without a second of hesitation.

The taste of her arousal on them is faint, but still there, and it occurs to her that she thought about this earlier before things evolved into chaos. Her tongue swirls around the tips of his fingers as he starts to pull them away in what feels like the blink of an eye to her, leaving him to remember what it felt like when her lips were once wrapped around a more sensitive part of him a week and a half ago.

The one other time he let himself remember it was when they were on the boat with the Pogues, yet that wasn't really of his own volition. It was hot out, so Kiara bought ice pops for them and his mind wandered far from where it should've stayed.

Shining with her saliva, his fingers are pulled from her lips with a soft 'pop' in pursuit of that sensitive collection of nerves at the apex of her thighs. She just needs is a little push to go over the edge, and when he slips his hand down her body to rub tight circles onto her clit, she loses whatever remnants of control over herself she had left.

The steady rhythm of her hips moving back against him falters as she is overwhelmed with the separate sensations culminating into one and giving her the push she needs to come. Her entire body tenses up in anticipation, and since she's pinned to the floor with her hands behind her back, she can only lay there and savor the feeling as it hits her.

After what felt like ages of having it build and build within her, then having it taken away to start the process over again, finally being given a release is a relief beyond any she's felt before.

It's so consuming, it takes away her ability to think of anything outside of how it feels to dissolve into the shockwaves of euphoria rushing through her. Every pulsing wave is prolonged by him, not even through the peak of it does he let up on his precise touches and unforgiving thrusts into her that turn a typical orgasm into the most intense thing she's ever felt.

She's melting in his arms through it all, and as if the change in position didn't make it worse, her involuntary spasms leave him hanging on by a thread.

JJ collapses onto her, barely having the chance to keep himself propped up on his arms as he lets go of her wrists and falls forward onto her sweat-slick back.

The heat of his panting exhales raises goosebumps in its wake where his face is buried into the curve of her neck, and he whines at the impossibly tight feeling of her squeezing around his cock through the end of her climax. Those sounds he doesn't realize he's making have her writhing through the aftershocks, answering with a sound of her own that almost makes him come instantly.

For that reason, he makes the decision to pull out and flip her onto her back.

At this point, she's so dazed and fucked out that she doesn't register any of it until she notices the hollow absence of him inside of her, but it doesn't matter when his face appears through the partial darkness above her.

Despite how sensitive she is right now, the sight of him makes her hands reach out blindly to pull him closer again. They're frantic in their need to get back to one another, grasping and clawing until he finds his way back to her in less than a second, hiking her legs up around his waist with a touch that is somehow demanding and tender at the same time.

It's only when he's inside of her again that it occurs to her why he rolled her onto her back again, and it makes her want to kiss him until her lips turn numb. It may be undeniably hotter to pin someone down and fuck them hoarse, but, no, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be able to look at her, to see her face, and the thought of that has her biting back a sudden confession of love. She isn't sure why she doesn't say it right away, since it isn't like they haven't already done it, but she keeps it to herself for a second first.

It's different now. It's not less passionate or frenetic. It isn't as if he isn't being as rough with her as he was before, but they can both sense a shift in the energy between them as soon as he reenters her. It's less about the pursuit of pleasure and more about the feelings they've kept hidden away for so long. It's a simultaneous realization that hits them a little late after they initially confessed their feelings for each other: this is reality. It's real, and when she touches him this time, he isn't going to disappear if she opens her eyes.

The realization of what happened tonight had yet to hit them until right this second, but now that it has, they move forward with a sense of sentimentality that remained partly dormant before.

If there's anything JJ dislikes, it's being vulnerable. The idea of letting someone in to see every part of him, including the parts he doesn't want to see of himself, has always terrified him after years of being made to believe he's undeserving, yet he isn't uncomfortable right now. Somehow, he feels safe with her. Sex has never been something so emotional for him until now, until her, and he doesn't want it differently.

Their bodies are drawn in close, her arms thrown around his neck, and he's so close, he can feel the muscles leading down past his lower abdomen contract with the inevitable approach of his orgasm. She can sense it too in how he acts.

When he gets close, he becomes clingier and lets his feelings get the better of him. His hands squeeze at her hips, sliding up her sides and back down to hike one of her legs up high around his waist to press deeper into her. He can't bear to allow his touch to stay in one place for too long before exploring another part of her, wanting to memorize the delicate intricacies of her body in its entirety.

It's as if she can read his mind too, cause even when she's sensitive enough to gasp when he pushes her thigh to her chest and throws his remaining energy into fucking her at a satisfying pace, she understands what he needs. She knows to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, to tug on it gently until the light strands are taut from his scalp. She knows to lift her head off of the floor enough to trail tender kisses along his face, his jaw, his neck—anywhere she can access.

"Come for me," she says into a kiss placed on the edge of his cheekbone, reeling in overstimulation as she jolts with his quickening thrusts, "I want to watch you..."

Hearing those words, paired with the kisses and fingers pulling on his hair, does it for him. It doesn't take more for his hips to falter and jerk forward into her a final few times before he comes.

Their foreheads press together as they cling to one another for stability, though it's mostly JJ clinging to her while she watches in adoration, and she has to bite her lip to contain a moan at how it feels. The aftershocks of her orgasm have yet to fade as the feeling of pulsing warmth inside of her makes them stronger, reigniting the fire she felt a moment ago if only for a second.

There's a closeness to this situation that they hadn't felt the last time, and they know it has everything to do with what was said before this happened. The sex itself feels like a dream sequence in her mind now that she's coming down from it with him, moving together slowly and gently beneath the candlelight until they ride out the ends of their highs. It was like they were put under a trance by each other, and now that it's over, the first thoughts that come to mind are of what comes next.

It's not the sole topic on their minds though. They're more focused on catching their breath from where they lay, tangled up together, on the living room floor. As soon as the very last of his orgasm faded from him, he fell onto her without a single ounce of energy left to spare. He's careful not to crush her, but, for the most part, he relaxes on top of her and lets his head rest on her heaving chest.

Strong arms slip down to loop around her waist, and she sure that she couldn't get him to release her if she wanted to, which she doesn't.

But they can't stay like this, not for any longer than a few moments anyway, since they don't know how if John B might wake up and come out of the safety of his bedroom after hours of leaving them to their own devices. JJ was right. He's out cold, but for as much as it turned them on in the heat of the moment, neither of them finds getting caught by him as hot with the clarity of their rational minds coming back to them.

He's the one to break the silence.

"As much as I wanna stay like this, we should probably move in case John B wakes up."

The sound of his voice settles in her with the effects of a sedative. It calms her more than anything else could, especially with the added comfort of him cuddling her so closely. One of her hands strokes through his hair and pushes the damp tendrils of sunshine away from his face as he cranes his neck to look up at her. And, for fuck's sake, what else is she to do except admire him?

His cheeks are dusted pink in a way they often are when he spends too much time outside without one of his hats shielding his face, and she thinks he's never looked better.

Ever since they became friends, she's had this theory about him. In the unrealistic landscape of her overactive imagination, JJ didn't come to this world the way the rest of them did. To her, it seems impossible that someone so good, even in his worst moments, could've come from someone like his dad.

So, in idle moments where she would watch him on a day out with the Pogues or daydream about him, she decided that he's the sun.

She imagines he was created in those breathtaking but brief moments where the sun meets the horizon atop the ocean and washes the sky with a vast array of colors. She likes to think he's the incarnation of it. Golden, warm, and bright for everyone but himself, he keeps the world light for her and their friends without intending to.

Some days are warmer than others too. Some days, the light is dimmed by another bruise beneath his clothes or a bad run-in with some kooks, but today is not like that. This moment is eighty-five and sunny with a balmy breeze. Looking at him right now feels like basking in the sun, and she'd burn here forever if he let her.

Without realizing she zoned out, she jolts when he pinches her arm to rouse her from her ridiculous thoughts. He has this dopey half-smile on his face that nearly draws her back into them again.

"You know what they say," he says, "if you take a picture..."

Her soft laughter invades the room, filling his heart with this light, fluttery feeling that always finds him when she's near. His smile grows as she playfully shoves him and reaches above their heads for her wet shirt to cover up with just in case. Odds are, their friend isn't waking up at the exact moment before they seclude themselves to the spare room and get dressed, but she doesn't wanna take that chance.

"I wasn't staring."

She was totally staring. But who could blame her? When someone looks at a person the way he looks at her, how could they ever stay away?

"Whatever you say."

JJ keeps smiling to himself while he pulls his underwear and shorts up his legs and waits for her to be decent enough to sneak past John B's bedroom to the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

The clothes are soaked through with rainwater, so they feel quite uncomfortable to slip back on, but they merely redress enough to be covered. She stole his shirt to avoid putting her shorts back on, the hem of the grey tee hanging right at the tops of her thighs when she walks. As soon as she slips her panties back on and picks up the rest of their cold, wet clothes, that's the cue he needs to scoop her up and take her away.

Y/N curses under her breath in surprise at feeling her feet being plucked off the ground, but she relaxes again once she's settled in his arms, realizing that it was just him who snuck up behind her and lifted her into his arms.

She doesn't say anything on the way to the bathroom. Instead, she lays her head on his shoulder in exhaustion and finds herself staring at the mark she left behind on his neck.

It's a deep, purplish red against the backdrop of his tan skin...the Pogues will surely notice the next time they see him. And while it will make her blush, it won't make her scared as it once would've. There may be a lingering sense of doubt and insecurity within her, but she wants this with him. Even if it means being teased by their friends or dealing with the jealousy of watching kook girls and tourons at parties hit on him, she wants this.

By the time the shower is spraying the rainwater from her hair and washing her clean of sweat sticking to her skin, she realizes that he isn't saying anything either, but she doesn't think it's out of any awkwardness or miscommunication. There's truly nothing to say, at least for now.

Though they didn't have the chance to talk in depth about everything yet, neither of them thinks of that right now. All they know is that they're together, whether it be officially or not, and it feels good. For once, something in his life feels right, and he lets himself enjoy it in silence.

The shower is a cramped space when shared between them and the wet clothes they have draped over the back edge of the tub, but they make it work. It's not like they mind anyway.

They bump into one another whenever they do so much as breathe, and the white walls echo the sounds of her giggling when he tries to tickle her. She leans her head back against his chest and lets out a laugh with shampoo dripping down the front of her face, and he'll be damned if he ever heard a sound as intoxicating as that.

It's a little weird. He's never been as soft and loving with a person before, and he has already felt overwhelmed in the lulls of quiet between them when he's given the chance to think about it.

When she washes his hair for him, insisting that she must return the favor after he so kindly washed hers, he was struck with the same mixture of wanting to simultaneously lean into and pull away from her that he felt the night of the party.

The warmth of the water loosens his sore muscles, washing suds of the green apple scented shampoo over his shoulders and down, down, down until it circles the drain beside his feet. All the while, her fingertips are delicately tracing over a healing bruise on his torso. Those pretty lips of hers are painted in a suppressed frown that she can't hide from him.

"Are you okay?" Y/N asks.

His instant reaction is to fake a smile, to brush it off and distract her as he usually does, yet he doesn't. He forces himself to remain neutral and not push her away.

"Happens all the time," he murmurs, shrugging and averting his eyes to reach for the soap off on the ledge.

The hands holding either side of his waist tighten as he tries to turn, pulling him back to her with more strength than he knew to anticipate from her. Their chests gently collide back together beneath the stream of water, and she can feel his breathing catch for a second or so in response.

The fact that their relationship has changed doesn't change how she handles this aspect of his life. Their new confessions don't have an impact on the part of his life he never wants to let anyone see, so she isn't going to force him to talk about it because they're trying out this whole relationship thing now. He has hard boundaries that she knows not to push sometimes. That's the way it is, and it might change as they grow closer but she knows to accept it for the moment.

As soon as he hears what she has to say next, he could crumble in relief at the realization that their new dynamic doesn't change anything.

"I didn't necessarily mean...that...I meant generally, you know? It's just that—" she sighs, "you shrink away a little when I hold you, and I wondered if I was making you uncomfortable."

Before she could finish the sentence, JJ was already thinking of what to say to prove her wrong, because that's not it. That's not what it is, and if she thinks she's done anything wrong, he'll do anything to convince her otherwise because it isn't her. It's him.

It's his dad lingering in the darker trenches of his mind, commanding his fear and attention so that even when he isn't physically present, he's still here. Part of why he denied wanting her was because he knew these types of things would arise in the beginning, that there would be difficult adjustments to make and conversations to be had, and he didn't want her to leave him as soon as she was faced with one of these things.

He shakes his head.

"You didn't do anything."

The feeing of her chest rising and falling with his begins to steady him after a moment of allowing the initial hesitation to dissolve. His internal reaction to her touch is the mental incarnation of a flinch. It's him waiting for the other shoe to drop and expecting her to do something, to hurt him, before his mind catches up with his heart. But once he realizes everything's okay, he loves it.

"It's kinda embarrassing, but I guess when you touch me, I'm expecting something else," he says softly, scared that if he speaks too loudly, everyone in the world will know how weak he feels.

She should've figured, but hearing him say it is different than wondering what the reasoning behind it is. Hearing him admit it after months of strict avoidance on the topic is a sucker punch to the gut.

Both times they had sex, he was too distracted and thoughtless to get caught up in that part of himself, but it's when the bliss of the afterglow disappears that it creeps back in. That's why he could always handle touch when it came in that context. It was his way of obtaining what he wanted without having to face this side of it—a temporary fix to a greater web of issues.

But there's nothing temporary about her. He doesn't want her to leave him, not without him resisting the urge to beg her on his knees to stay and at least remain his friend, so there's no choice but to face these momentary challenges head on.

She pauses for a second, thinking, then says, "You don't have to be embarrassed about it, I get it. We'll just have to take it day by day then. We can take it slow, and you'll let me know if it gets to be too much, okay?"

It's hard not to be shocked by how well she's taking it. A lot of people probably wouldn't feel too great after someone they love tells them they expect to be hit whenever they touch them, yet she's taking it in stride.

Things are back to normal as soon as she sees the grin on his face.

"So, you're saying you're gonna be trying not to throw yourself at me all the time?" JJ asks, then clicks his tongue as though in thought. "I give you a week. Tops."

Her eyes go wide as she looks at him. She holds her hand over her heart as she pretends to be scandalized by such an accusation, but they know it's true. They both can't keep their hands off of one another, which is why it confuses him. How can he want to reject and enjoy her touch at the same time? Sure, the discomfort disappears after the first split-second, but the fact that it happens in the first place annoys him to no end.

She rolls her eyes and tries to hide the fact that she's giggling as she reaches for the soap.

"You're a little shit, you know that?"

He doesn't miss a beat, saying back, "Yeah but I'm your little shit, so I feel like that says more about you than it does me."

While he's too busy rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of his hair, she smiles to herself at what he said.

Hers.

Nobody has ever been hers before, or proclaimed themselves as belonging to her as proudly and casually as he just did, and her heart melts over the sweet sentiment he didn't think twice about.

Less than a day ago, she was agonizing over her relationship with him and trying to ignore how powerful those feelings for him were, and now they're here. She no longer has to steal glances when he looks away or hide how jealous she feels when other girls flirt with him. To finally let the tension disappear is an immense weight off of her shoulders.

The rest of the shower is as quiet as the start of it was, and that comfortable silence continues through from when they're drying off and redressing to when they hit the mattress in the spare bedroom with tired sighs.

After the day they had, the mere suggestion of sleep is enough to make them start yawning, so being able to slip beneath the sheets and rest their heads almost sings her to sleep instantly.

Their bodies are laying in the exact outlines of where they laid the night of the party, the only difference this time being their mindsets. This time around, they aren't holding themselves back from anything, and it's most evident in the little things. Like how she doesn't turn around to shield her face from him, instead laying with her head propped on the other end of his favorite pillow.

They're so close, their noses brush if they make any slight movements, and this would be enough for him to submit to the urge to drift into sleep if not for the fact that he feels her jolt when thunder rumbles loudly outside of the window.

Much like his own fears being pushed to the side amidst their desire for each other, her anxiety about the storm wasn't on her mind until they laid down to sleep.

She was so wrapped up in him and everything that happened between them that she didn't have the time to think again until now, until she hears the violent patter of rain against the roof and feels her stomach drop at the sound of the thunder. Suddenly, she's not the one reassuring him about his fearful reactions, it's the other way around.

His warm hand takes hers, snatching it up as though he's worried it'll disappear if he doesn't take it quickly enough, and she lets him. Her eyes flutter shut with the release of a slow, deep breath, and she lets the presence of his hand in hers bring her back to earth.

JJ asks into the darkness, "Can I take you out on a real date?" After a beat of silence, the comforting sound of his voice returns to her. "Not that this isn't fun, but I think you deserve a little more effort than John B's living room floor."

A short-lived chuckle escapes her—a win as far as he's concerned. It's difficult to lure her head from the clouds when she gets this way, and it isn't like he has much experience with calming her during these moments either, but that sounded good to him. It sounded like she wasn't thinking about the increased pace of her heart or the howling wind outside.

He was planning on asking anyway. However fitting of a first night together this was, he wants to take her out for real sometime soon. He doesn't have much money for it, like at all, but they can come up with something special together, even if it's similar to the same shit they usually do together. As long as it's time alone together, they don't necessarily care if it's a perfectly traditional first date.

The tip of his thumb rubs comforting circles onto the back of her hand in the brief time it takes her to respond, stroking the soft skin as if to tell her that everything's okay. It seems to say, I'm right here. Nothing can hurt you. And it might make her crazy, but she believes him. JJ could take her back out into the eye of the hurricane at this very moment and she'd still believe his unspoken promise of not letting her into harm's way.

"Of course," she says, then pauses, and the sound of her sleepy voice hardly reaches his ears when she speaks again, "...I'm sorry I avoided you for the past few days. I was scared to tell you how I felt but I shouldn't have left that morning."

The memory of waking up in his arms is fresh in the forefront of her mind, so much so that she can remember the way his breath felt where it exhaled in warm puffs onto her skin.

In the first few moments of consciousness, it was peaceful.

She laid awake for a minute or two to count his breaths and soak in the comfort of being cuddled up next to him, wishing she could stay there for hours. It wasn't until another moment passed that it clicked with her where she was and what was going on between them recently, and that was what prompted her to slip away from the bed to get ready for her day at work.

It was the second time in a row that she left him in that bed with nothing to wake up to but the cold absence of her body between the sheets he slept under, and he can't deny that it's part of why he holds onto her hand so tightly tonight. Even though she's promised him otherwise, he can't help but think she'll be gone by the time he wakes up. At this point, he's struggling to stay conscious. She can see those pretty eyes drooping more and more by the second, yet the hand holding hers doesn't loosen its grip.

He takes a deep breath and scoots closer to her, keeping his one hand in hers while the other arm drapes itself over her waist, and he can feel her relax into the touch.

"It's okay," he says.

It's easier for him to adjust to so much physical contact when he's the one initiating. He knows that's why she only reached out to hold his hand. If she had it her way, she would've already been cuddling with him as soon as they laid down, but he likes that she gives him the space to initiate it. In the ways it counts the most, she cares about him more than anyone else has.

The touch in itself is his way of accepting her apology. However, truth be told, he already forgave her for it before knowing his love was reciprocated could be a possibility.

Right when she's about to fall asleep, the screen door slamming open and shut with the wind on the back porch makes her whip her head around to look over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. It seems like every time he successfully distracts her from it, the storm finds new ways of reminding her of what's happening outside of the safety of the Chateau.

There's the sound of a barely audible, sharp inhale, then her whispering into the dark room as she looks at the closed door, "I can't believe I went out into that. What the fuck was I thinking?"

It's beginning to close in on her again; the sounds of the storm, the sense of being trapped no matter how safe they truly are, and the rising tidal wave of anxiety that picks up speed the more she tries to will it to stop. This is the part where she tries to relieve it in some way, usually by smoking weed to sleep or going to one of her parents so they can help her through it, but she can't help herself right now.

Debris was being picked and tossed around in the wind like it weighed nothing when she was out there, she could've been knocked into the marsh or struck by a piece of debris.

How could she be so stupid?

Not only could she have hurt herself, she could've hurt JJ knowing that he'd likely follow her out into the storm to bring her back inside, and the thought of him being hurt makes the tension in her chest heavier. Her breathing picks up speed, the anxiety starting to snowball out of control when—

"Hey, look at me," JJ says, reaching up to turn her head to face him, and she damn near crumbles in relief at feeling his hand cup her cheek. It doesn't make it all disappear, but it provides a momentary comfort that she doesn't take for granted. "You're safe here. You know damn well I'll do anything to protect you. I mean, shit, dude, if I have to go out there and tell that rain to fuck off, I will."

This draws out a laugh from her, chest stuttering with the happy sound through the tears glistening in her eyes, and he never wants to stop hearing it. His thumb swipes away the first teardrop that falls before it can slip over the apples of her cheeks. I'm Her quiet cries and shaky breaths continue for a while after the laughter disappears. For a second or two, he watches with his thumb still wiping her tears away and hopes that it'll be enough to comfort her, but it can't do it completely.

He pulls away from her to get up from the bed with an idea popping into his mind, but upon hearing her whine at the loss of contact with him, he pauses to say, "I'll be back quick, don't worry."

The remaining humorous side of her left wonders if he's actually gonna go tell the rain to fuck off, but he's just opening the bedroom door to trot out into the living room.

A candle burning on the coffee table illuminates the space for him, guiding him straight to the forgotten backpack she left slumped against the arm of the couch hours before their relationship was changed for the better. It takes him an instant to get there and back with the bag in hand, and he's digging through it for a second before climbing back into bed with her.

If anyone else rifled through her bag, sifted through her personal belongings, and dug her phone out of it, she'd probably be annoyed, but she never is with him. She's inherently protective of her things, but JJ can do whatever he wants and it has always been that way. It should've been the first warning of what was to come.

He pulls the sheet back over his body and scoots up close to her, trying to resist the urge to retreat at first when he maneuvers her to lay with her head on his shoulder. It should trigger the flight or fight response that often alarms in his head, but he's able to push it away.

She's so vulnerable right now, so gentle and in need of the warmth of another person that he isn't as intimidated. It's not that she couldn't hurt him if she wanted to right now, she could, but he knows her. He knows that the last thing she'd ever want to do is hurt him, so he has to remind himself of that and give himself the permission to enjoy the physical intimacy of her touch. The part of him that questions if he even deserves it can't reach him now, not when he's so focused on her.

"Thumb?" he asks with the phone held out expectantly.

The screen is less than two inches from her face, so she has to push it back slightly, but she flattens her thumb to the button without further hesitation.

When he unwraps the pair of headphones from around the palm of his hand and plugs them into the charging port, she realizes why he left in the first place.

When she was facing away from him, eyes shut and headphones in to distract herself with music earlier, he was stealing glances at her every so often. He tried to keep away from her for the most part. It was difficult though, especially knowing what she said about being jealous the night of the party and knowing how scared she was of the hurricane. He couldn't help but keep an eye on her, for both his own selfish needs and his worry for her.

He keeps an arm tucked around her, pressing her body into his while he pops one of the headphones into her ear and the other into his. The thing is, her eyes aren't trained on the screen like his are once he starts looking through her vast collection of not-so-legally acquired music for a song that suits both of their tastes, they're trained on him.

Their taste in music tends to diverge in certain ways and overlap in others, so there's always a fifty/fifty shot of him liking what she plays when she's the one picking the music. That is why he smiles to himself and halts the endless scrolling in its tracks to hover his thumb over one song.

He obviously heard it before she played it that one time, but it's different for him now. They were riding together in the backseat of the Twinkie on the way to the beach with John B, Kie, and Pope when they let her take her turn to play a song.

That's how it is with them, the driver goes first, then it goes to the front seat passenger, and so on and so on until they make their way back to the beginning of the rotation. It was her turn when she picked this song, and it could've been the song, or the sunset shining through the window, but he felt as though his heart exploded when he looked at her in the middle of it.

He remembers feeling confused, confused as to why he couldn't catch his breath and why he suddenly adored the song he only heard casually a couple of times.

It was her. It was everything about her. The soft hum of her voice murmuring the lyrics, too shy to actually sing them in the presence of anyone else, was too delicate for the others to appreciate over the sounds of the van. He heard it though. He clung to it and admired her, so unashamed in his staring that he didn't realize he was doing it. It wasn't until she noticed that he stopped.

"Do I still have ice cream on my face or something?"

Her fingers came up to wipe at the corner over her mouth, and the action sent him turning his attention away quicker than he knew he could move, pulling the lighter out of his pocket to fiddle with as he mumbled, "Yeah, but you got it off now."

The cheery melody of Just Like Heaven bursts out of each headphone into their ears.

How did he know? How is he constantly reading her mind without realizing it?

This was her first song on the couch that she couldn't stand to sit through without thinking, naturally, of him when confronted with the topic of love. Somehow, it's like he knew that, and instead of feeling exposed and scared he'll know her feelings like before, she feels loved.

She is never skipping this song again.

"Go to sleep," he murmurs, clicking the screen off and resting it on his stomach.

It takes him a short thirty seconds to fall into an easy, calm pattern of breathing that tells her he isn't asleep, but soon will be. But she's fighting her sleepiness to continue looking at him. His eyes are fluttered shut, hair messy on the pillow, and she'd want to reach up to kiss him if he weren't trying to fall asleep.

Instead, she settles for matching her quickened breaths to the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand and shuts her eyes along with him.

By the time the song reaches its end, she thinks he's asleep, but she still whispers, "Thank you," and feels his arm squeeze around her body in response.

The next songs fade into white noise at this point for her, drowning out the storm to the point where she begins to forget it's happening out there.

Maybe they can be each other's safe place when things get rough. After all, he handled this wonderfully considering his lack of experience with her anxiety and she never pushes him on his plethora of unsorted issues, even when she wants so badly to be the one to initiate the touch.

She never makes him think she pities him, or wants to "fix" him like so many partners with savior complexes who will never try to understand how it feels often do in these situations. With each other, maybe it doesn't have to be so complicated anymore, even when they have those inevitable arguments here or there.

The last thing he does before allowing himself to be dragged under is brush his lips on her forehead in a tender kiss. And when he eventually wakes to the rising sun shining through the windows in the aftermath of the violent hurricane, she's still there.

Tag List: @jjjmaybank, @its-simply-fanfiction, @naughtydild0swaggins.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank smut #outer banks #obx s2 #obx #fanfiction

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animepopheart · 3 years

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Wonder Egg Priority, Episode 7: The Scars to Prove It (or, Love for the Moms, the Cutters, and the Drunks)

Wonder Egg Priority (WEP) has felt like the successor to Puella Magi Madoka Magica in many ways throughout its run, but in episode seven, it almost went full Madomagi by driving the stakes to their utmost height—to the death of one of the main characters. But as has been consistent with WEP, what it did instead, after some moments of true worry, is to instead deliver hope in the face of pain, resolve against overwhelming circumstances, and strength in weakness.

The series returns to Rika Kawai’s story in this episode, which starts with her turning 14. And on her 14th birthday, after leaving her hungover mother halfway asleep at the bar she works at and which they call home, Rika opens up to the rest of the girls, explaining that she doesn’t know her father (it could be any of five possibilities, or even more) and her mom won’t reveal any further information about him. As she trashes her mom, Neiru and Momoe are incredulous, which only drives Rika away from them. And though Ai goes to comfort her, Rika is in a terrible state of mind as she enters her next fight.

This was a difficult episode to watch. They’ve all been somewhat hard since the series never shies away from brutal and violent situations impacting young people, but I found myself squirming especially here as Rika’s cutting takes center stage. At one point, she decides to cut herself and it seems certain she will, before her turtle-like partner, Mannen, prevents it from happening.

Challenging, also, is how strained Rika’s relationship is with her mother, who’s life revolves around drink—alcohol both pays the bills and helps her forget how miserable her existence is. And in the midst of all the bad behavior in this episode—the usual Rika talk, her mom’s alcoholism and neglect, and the selfishness all around, one begins to feel deeply sorrowful for the Kawai women. Yes, Rika is often obnoxious, but her family life is in shambles, and she still exhibits goodness, including a curiously gentle relationship with Mannen. And Rika’s mother is a tragic figure, used by men and quite on the road to an early death, it would seem, unable to lift herself out of the gutter as she tries, in her own sloppy way, to protect and reach out to her daughter.

It’s in this hopelessness that Rika turns again to cutting, and then finds herself tempted by something even more dangerous. Her foe this time is a religious leader who led the egg, a follower who continues to believe in him, to commit suicide as a way of “connecting” with the universe (Heaven’s Gate, anyone?). Rika decries the ghoul as a charlatan, but is confronted with her own weakness when the egg shows her own scarred arm to Rika, revealing that she can tell that the latter cuts just like she did. And then she explains that Rika can be released from this pain.

The scars, evidence of what Rika does to cope with her pain, now become the weakness that they truly are, revealing how hopeless she feels, and how powerless she is against the mechanizations of her family life. And defeated, she’s about to allow herself to be killed when a surprising savior comes along—a turtle. Mannen attacks the spiritual leader, to Rika’s surprise as well, until she remembers that he has imprinted on her. Rika is Mannen’s mom, and as he did when he prevented her from cutting, Mannen is again protecting his mother.

The conclusion that Rika reaches is unusual but inspiring. She understands, in this moment, the need to protect one’s mom, finally admitting to herself in a de facto way that maybe her mother is in need of love, too. It’s funny to consider the need that mothers have for love since culturally and socially, they’re always seen as the providers of it. But of course, they need it in return, especially when they falter. My own mother is sick right now, and I think of the support I need to give her and the lack of that I’ve provided through the years.

Warning: Screenshot involving cutting after the jump.

My mother was a good one, however. Rika’s, on the other hand, has struggled with the charge, which reminds me of a story from one of my favorite books, The Ragamuffin Gospel, about another bad parent—a far worse one, in fact, and a real one. I’ll quote part of the passage from chapter seven:

“‘Our daughter Debbie wanted a pair of earth shoes for her Christmas present. On the afternoon of December 24, my husband drove her downtown, gave her sixty dollars, and told her to buy the best pair of shoes in the store. That is exactly what she did. When she climbed back into the pickup truck her father was driving, she kissed him on the cheek and told him he was the best daddy in the whole world. Max was preening himself like a peacock and decided to celebrate on the way home. He stopped at the Cork ‘n’ Bottle–that’s a tavern a few miles from our house and told Debbie he would be right out. It was a clear and extremely cold day, about twelve degrees above zero, so Max left the motor running and locked both doors from the outside so no one could get in. It was a little after three in the afternoon and…’

Silence.

‘Yes?’

The sound of heavy breathing crossed the recreation room. Her voice grew faint. She was crying. ‘My husband met some old Army buddies in the tavern. Swept up in euphoria over the reunion, he lost track of time, purpose, and everything else. He came out of the Cork ‘n’ Bottle at midnight . He was drunk. The motor had stopped running and the car windows were frozen shut. Debbie was badly frostbitten on both ears and on her fingers. When we got her to the hospital, the doctors had to operate. They amputated the thumb and forefinger on her right hand. She will be deaf for the rest of her life.'”

Max—a real person, mind you—was a successful, well-liked man, but his drinking problem led to an unconscionable decision and profound failure as a parent. And yet, this book is about grace, an idea which to humans feels unjust, but which has the power to change hearts and tear down walls, sometimes literally.

Could Max be given grace? Could Rika’s mother? If not directly, she’s done her own physical damage to her daughter in the form of those cutting scars (difficult and perhaps triggering images below). As mentioned earlier, the egg that she’s helping knows her pain and insists that letting go of everything, including life itself, is the way to peace. After all, to a young, suffering girl, what else could these scars mean?

But in the midst of giving up, in the moment that she actually capitulates (and this episode takes you 99% to the edge, both in the cutting scene and in the apparent death scene), Rika experiences something powerful. She experiences grace.

Have you ever been challenged to forgive someone when you don’t want to, when you feel completely in the right? Maybe it’s easy for you, but perhaps it isn’t. The girls surrounding Rika experience differing degrees of this with her sometimes maniacal and often hurtful behavior. Ai forgives easily. Momoe gets fired up and then equally seeks to make peace. And Neiru…well, Neiru holds onto “justice” more than love (setting up what I imagine will be the most powerful transformation in the series of all, in true Homura fashion). But in the moment that Rika is about to give her life, the girls yell out their love for her, even Neiru, and then more profoundly, without any hesitation, Mannen puts his own life on the line to stop the death from occurring. Rika has already given up, but this turtle hasn’t—not for his mother, whom he loves very much.

And experiencing that love from a different angle, Rika is changed just a bit. She begins to see her weakness as a “mother,” failing her turtle-child, and thinks of her own mom who is overwhelmed by hurt and a failure as well. And if just a little—for as the final scenes indicate, it is just a little—the path toward forgiveness begins.

But a little bit of grace is like a little bit of a flood—its power overwhelms, and it defeats the enemy, whether that means bitterness, a physical person (or manifestation of one), or the devil himself.

When Rika returns from the event, having killed the cult leader monster, it’s interesting to note that she isn’t a wholly different person. She’s changing little by little. And her scars remain. In fact, as she admits, she probably will cut herself again. But strangely enough, those scars now represent something different. They show someone trying—failing, yes, sometimes considerably and maybe very often—but trying, and only able to try because love was shown her, and through that, she is now able to show love as well.

You may have such scars in your life, physical or emotional, battered by the world and by people. I hope that you can develop relationships that help you heal as well, and that you’ll also remember that there are other scars which are meaningful to you, but which you cannot see on your person, scars that were borne out of a desire to heal you. Christ took the piercings, on his head, hands, feet, and side, so that while your heart and flesh may be cut, your soul need not be. And through his wounds, you may be healed.

The grace offered through Christ is one that, as he explains about everlasting water at the well to the Samaritan, for now and through eternity. The egg seeks peace forever by dying, but Jesus, unlike the cult leader, died for us so that we may not have to. He took the nails, the cross, and the spear so that we don’t have to inflict pain on ourselves and receive the punishment of our actions against him and others. He is our scar.

That’s grace. That’s the power that it has. And it can reach anyone—even a terrible dad, an alcoholic mom, a tempestuous child, and, and most significantly and personally—you.

If you’re suffering and in pain, maybe self-inflicted, we encourage you to explain such to a parent or trusted adult and ask for help. It’s a difficult first step, but one that will help you begin recovering. And we also advise that you turn to Christ for help—in prayer, community, and scripture. He provides people to us that will aid us in our times of need, as well as himself and the Holy Spirit if we are believers.

Additionally, there’s a scene in this episode where triumphant, Rika concludes that cutting is okay. That’s said in the context of her moving forward bit by bit and forgiving herself for her failures, even the upcoming ones. That’s an important lesson, though we must certainly be careful not to let it be a license to continue cutting with impunity.

Wonder Egg Priority can be streamed through Funimation. Read more of our articles by signing up for our weekly newsletter.

#wonder egg priority #rika kawai #wep #pmmm #Christianity #tw cutting #blog

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taexual · 4 years

Text

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (14)

jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: it’s time they got down to business… or isn’t it 😳

words: 6.2k

chapter fourteen

You spent nearly the whole Saturday on the phone with Inna – because she refused to let you hang up until you gave her a play-by-play of last night’s party (and all that happened after) – and, by the time you finally ended the phone call, you were half-deaf from all of her—supportive but rather alarming—screaming.

And then, before you were ready for it, you and Jungkook had another Sunday night dinner at his parents’ house.

Admittedly, you thought you’d feel uncomfortable seeing his parents again after having learnt that they gave the push that convinced Jungkook to cut his ties with you off, but this feeling only clouded your mind for about fifteen minutes – or, in other words, for the period of time that it took for Jungkook to arrive from his house to your dormitory.

By the time he got here, all that was left in your mind – and in the air around you as soon as you opened the door to let him in – was ease. Routine.

Like you were supposed to spend every Sunday night with his family, holding hands with him under the dinner table. Like this wasn’t somehow weird or unusual, or even awkward. Like this was how it’d always been – with no seven-year-long gaps – and how it was always supposed to be.

Even touching Jungkook after the last time you’d seen him was, most surprisingly, not at all different from touching him before your last conversation. It still caused lighting bolts to explode inside of your stomach, and you were used to the sensation by now.

The only difference was that now you knew.

And knowing allowed you to truly come back to the life you were once a part of.

It felt like the last time you’d been to his house, you only allowed yourself to set one foot in, holding yourself back in case this would all go wrong and hurt you, but now you were ready to try again. Now you were ready to go into it with your whole body – open chest and all.

Sure, the possibility of getting hurt was still there – even if it didn’t feel like it when Jungkook joked about how his mom was more excited to see you than him – but sometimes you had to believe—not just hope—that nothing bad was going to happen, in order to make it true.

And truly nothing bad seemed on the horizon as Jungkook – true to the promise he’d made earlier this week – took you to the ice cream shop near his home as soon as dinner was over so you could pick up some desserts for yourselves. You found the chocolate-chip cookie-flavored ice cream – the one he knew you loved – and all was bliss.

“What is it with you,” you asked him when the two of you walked out of the shop and Jungkook was happily licking two different flavors on his cone – strawberry and mint, “and these flavors?”

“They’re good together,” he defended, pushing his cone towards you. “Want to try?”

You scrunched your nose. “No. I’ll stick with my chocolate—”

“Boring.”

“Hey,” you gave him a look, unaware of the chocolate around the corners of your lips and how utterly irresistible it made you look to him, “you’ve been picking the sweetest flavors of ice cream ever since we were kids. Don’t call me boring if I choose to postpone my diabetes diagnosis.”

“Neither of us is getting diabetes,” he said, absentmindedly extending his hand to wipe the chocolate from your lips and then sucking his thumb into his mouth.

You forgot what you were talking about for a moment as you looked away from him, your face burning hot at the sight, but your hands freezing cold from the ice cream.

Jungkook didn’t notice and carried on.

“Do you remember when we used to collect those wooden popsicle sticks for no reason when we were kids?” he asked.

“I—yeah, I remember,” you said, taking a distracted bite your ice cream and then wincing when your temples froze. “I-I’m pretty sure we had a reason, though. You said you wanted to build a Trojan horse.”

“Oh, that’s right!” his face lit up just like it did that day when you were eight and you told him you’d help him build it. “I never had enough patience for a project like that. Why did you get on board with it?”

“Because you were really excited for it,” you replied as nonchalantly as you could manage – even though you could see it in his eyes when you looked at him, he did not think this was nothing; it was important to him – and then hid your face in your ice cream again.

Jungkook watched you for another moment, his heart beating peacefully but his mind buzzing with memories. You always ate your ice cream the same way – nearly all of it at once – ever since you were a little kid. He’d always made fun of you for it – not cruelly, because seeing the exhilaration in your eyes and your ice-cream-covered face always made him feel inexplicably warm inside – but now he wanted to grab your hand, stop you, and clean your lips with his own.

“I still have the popsicle sticks in my room,” he said while his ice cream melted in the paper cup in his hand.

“You do?” you asked, turning to look at him and making his suffering so much worse when you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “Why did you keep them all this time?”

Jungkook was glad you’d reached the gate of his house because that meant he could turn his back to you as he fumbled with the lock – it wasn’t a complicated mechanism, he just needed to look at something else for a bit – and tried to get his lungs to function properly again.

“I don’t know,” he said, finally opening the gate. “I guess I was hoping to still build that horse one day.”

You scoffed at this – Jungkook gave you a dignified look in return – and lingered by the gate for a second before you realized that he’d stopped to let you enter first.

“I’m not mocking,” you explained in response to the look on his face. “It’s actually great that you kept it.”

His mouth dried up when he closed the gate and turned around to walk towards the house before noticing how warm your gaze was. Then, to avoid you reading through him and figuring out what he was feeling, he stuffed a mouthful of ice cream into his mouth.

“It is?” he asked with a slight lisp and then hissed as the freezing sensation went straight to his brain.

“Yeah,” you nodded, a more wary look in your eyes now that Jungkook was in pain from the self-inflicted brain-freeze. “It shows that you’re waiting until you’re mature enough to be able to invest your time into something that requires a lot of patience.”

Jungkook exhaled shakily – you assumed it was from the cold – and lead you past the impeccably-kept bushes in his front-yard, and towards the entrance into his house.

“Yeah, no,” he said, finishing his ice cream in a few large bites that must have very literally frozen his throat. He tried not to let it show as he said in a very breathy voice, “I don’t think it’s that deep.”

You shrugged your shoulders, slowly finishing your own ice cream as you brought your free hand over the vines that ran alongside the front wall of his house. “Maybe you don’t realize it.”

“Or maybe I kept the sticks because they reminded me of you.”

You stopped in front of his porch steps, unsure if you heard him right.

Swallowing the final bite of the chocolate-filled waffle cone, you looked at him in confusion – that was easy to mistake for disbelief, “hmm?”

Jungkook climbed up the steps – two at a time because he was always too impatient but, this time, also because he felt like he’d spoken too soon and he needed to put more distance between himself and you – and did not turn around to look at you until he fished his keys out from the pocket of his jeans, and unlocked the door.

“Yeah,” he said then, only giving you a glance as he opened the door and nodded his head inside, waiting for you to walk in first. “I still have a framed picture of us from middle school on my dresser.”

“Really?” you asked, looking at him even though he was now obviously avoiding your eyes.

There was even more surprise in your voice and it stung – you shouldn’t have been surprised about the fact that he cared enough to keep pictures that immortalized your friendship; but you were, and that was his fault – making him feel more self-conscious than he already was.

“Yeah,” Jungkook said and, smiling nervously, he stretched his hand behind his neck to scratch a nonexistent itch. “You want to see it?”

“Oh,” you were still standing on his doorstep while he was inviting you to his room. “Sure, yeah.”

You’d been to his room before – many times, in fact – so you hated the way the hairs on your skin stood up in anticipation. This wasn’t supposed to be any different from any other time you’d been in his room – was it? – and yet, you couldn’t help but remember that this was what you’d told yourself the last time you’d been there, too.

You two weren’t even the only people in his room that day – to celebrate the end of middle school, he’d invited his whole class – but, in your memory, everyone else was blurred and so dim that, sometimes, when you thought back on that day, you weren’t sure anyone else was even there. Or anywhere, for that matter. It’d felt like it was just you and him.

Clearing his throat, Jungkook suddenly brought you back to the present – and helped you realize just how hot your body was in spite of the excited shivers that ran down your back when you remembered his invitation – and you blinked before staggering inside.

Unaware of the several trips down memory lane that you’d taken while simply standing by his door, Jungkook extended a hand for you to take – and you took it, the movement automatic, as though you were in a well-rehearsed dance – and lead you towards the staircase.

You walked into his father on your way up the stairs, but he was on the phone so he merely gave his son a nod – and a smile for you – and then went on his way.

“You know, usually,” Jungkook said, sneering at the dismissal from his father, “parents would tell their kids to keep the door of their room open.”

Shivering again – but acting like you were most certainly not affected by the feeling of his palm against yours – you cocked an eyebrow at him.

“They would,” you said, licking your lips in an unconscious attempt to conceal the effect his not-at-all-innocent observation had on you, “but you’re twenty-three years old.”

He peered at you over his shoulder as he lead you down the second-floor hallway – nearly tripping over his feet when he saw you lick your lips – and then turned towards his room.

“Yes,” he said, “thank you for the newsflash,” and, stopping outside of his bedroom, he explained, “I meant, my parents never said that sort of thing to me. Not once.”

“Oh,” you caught on and lowered your eyes. “So, you brought a lot of people over, then?”

Jungkook smirked – you didn’t see this at first, but, when you raised your head again a minute later, confused by his silence, the smirk was still there – obviously very pleased to hear the not particularly well concealed shades of jealousy in your voice.

“None, actually. You’re the only one of my friends who’s been here,” he said then. “And I’ve already told you, I’ve never dated before.”

You were still unsure if he was pulling your leg. “Well, you don’t have to be dating people to bring them over to your—”

He pulled you into his room by your hand, not letting you finish your question. He closed the door and, this time, you two were really the only people here.

“I’m not like that,” he told you then, “but I understand where you’re coming from.”

You weren’t sure what you were asking him when you spoke, “you do?”

“Yeah,” he said, putting the paper cup of ice cream – that was as empty as your mind when Jungkook kept on holding your hand even though, now that you were in his room, there was no reason for it – on his desk, and then leaning against it to look at you. “It’s a nice campus tale, me constantly having girls over. But the only times I did sleep with someone, I didn’t do it in a place I lived. Nothing against that, I’m just a private person in that way, I guess.”

“Okay,” you nodded your head once and turned away from him, choosing to watch the starved pigeons, which crept around his backyard, through the window. “That sure makes your reputation better.”

Jungkook snickered, reluctantly letting go of your hand – but only because you were unconsciously pulling away from him – and attempting to explain, “I don’t mean to say I have sex outside—”

“No, I-I…” you cut him off – your flustered state intrigued him further – as you walked over to the dresser that he’d mentioned before. “I get what you mean. It’s an interesting version of “don’t shit where you eat”, but—”

He laughed, the sound taking you by surprise and cutting you off.

“I didn’t think of it that way,” he said, his eyes glistening with humor. “But the saying fits, I guess.”

He plopped down on his bed as he said this and the conversation about how many people he’d slept with had run out – which was good, since you hadn’t braced yourself for a discussion about your experiences in this particular area.

Instead, you took a minute to take the rest of his room in; it had changed so little since the last time you’d seen it. But it was the picture – that was right there where he said it was – that really took you back to the time when you spent nearly every afternoon in this room.

Jungkook smiled as he watched you reminisce, but not because he liked to see the way your features softened as you admired the picture from your childhood, but because you fit in this room far better than he did.

“Are you here a lot?” you asked as if having read his mind.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you told me you moved out a while ago…” you said, “and the room looks just as I remember it, so I just—”

“Oh. No, I’m—I’m not here a lot,” he admitted. “But I do come when I visit my parents.”

“Which is once a year?”

He acknowledged the jab by pursing his lips and retorting, “a lot more than that now that I have you with me.”

You hummed in response but your mind was already elsewhere as you pointed at the ceremoniously locked nightstand in the corner next to his bed, “what’s this?”

It looked so eccentric and out-of-place – not the stand itself, but the chain that ran along both sides of it, a trusty lock in the middle – that you couldn’t help but feel curious.

Jungkook, however, leaped on all fours and crawled over his bed to guard the nightstand with his hands – as if you were Cyclops and were about to burn through the stand with a laser beam from your eyes – a defensive look on his face.

“It’s nothing,” he said even though this was obviously the most interesting piece of furniture in his whole room, “just a decoration.”

“With chains—?” you tried to ask but Jungkook jumped back to his previous position and patted the spot on the bed next to himself.

“Come on,” he said. “Sit. Do you remember the last time you were here?”

He knew this was the only way to change the topic – and the defeated look on your face confirmed his expectations – but, when you remained standing across the room, he patted the bed again, more eagerly this time.

“We celebrated our graduation from middle school with the other kids,” he said because you didn’t show any other sign to let him know whether you remembered or not. Jungkook could feel that you did, but, regardless, he still continued, “we played Truth or Dare. Remember?”

It was ridiculous he even had to ask that. Some days – and even more frequently now that you were talking again – your middle school graduation was all you could think about, even all of these years later.

“Barely,” you replied but you both knew it was a lie. “It was a long time ago, lots have happened since—”

“Someone dared you to kiss me,” he said with an innocent expression on his face – because he was just refreshing your memory – but it was quickly replaced by an amused grin when your eyes widened in surprise – not because you were shocked he’d said it, but because saying it aloud conjured up a much clearer image of that day; probably because now you knew that the memory of that day was as fresh in his mind as it was in yours.

“Sure,” you said, laughing weakly to hide how warm your hands, your face, and your whole body was. “That was a thing that, uh… happened.”

“So,” Jungkook was grinning but it was only an attempt to conceal his own anxiety – if he stopped grinning, he was going to have to handle the rapid beating of his heart inside of his chest, and he wasn’t quite sure how to do that just yet. “Truth or dare?”

The question sobered you up from the intoxicating memory and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“We’re not fourteen and in middle school anymore,” you said. “What are you doing?”

“Come on,” he urged you again, “truth or dare?”

You knew better than to insist he dropped this – there were barely any people more demanding and frustrating than him; you couldn’t even name one – so you didn’t waste your breath trying.

Groaning because you knew he wouldn’t be pleased with your answer – just like you weren’t pleased with him even suggesting this game – you said, “truth.”

Jungkook smiled knowingly because – just like you’d predicted – he was absolutely expecting this and had, therefore, prepared accordingly.

“Who was your first kiss?” he asked without wasting a second.

God, this was going to be a long night, you started to realize. Now you weren’t sure if the ice cream was even worth it – maybe you should have left after dinner.

Meeting his expectant gaze, you tried your hardest to convey all of your hatred for this game through your eyes – but Jungkook wasn’t watching them, he was watching your lips as he waited for your answer – and then you finally said, “you.”

You were almost expecting triumphant fanfares to go off somewhere outside of his house but, instead of that, Jungkook’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, indicating that your answer had surprised him – even though it really shouldn’t have; you may not have been his first kiss, but you had never even wanted to kiss anyone who wasn’t him.

He was obviously going to inquire about this further – but what was there to ask, honestly? – but you were categorically not going to let him.

“Truth or dare?” you fired.

Jungkook closed his mouth, decided – begrudgingly – that this was a fair play, and then, true to himself, replied, “dare.”

“Show me your mysterious nightstand.”

He looked disappointed and more than ready to refuse – good, now he knew how you felt – but got up from the bed nevertheless.

He walked over to his desk first and got a singular key out from under the fake-bottom of the top drawer – courtesy of his Death Note phase – before slowly sliding it into the lock on the nightstand across the room. Turning it until you both heard a pleasant click, Jungkook took the chains off and huffed as he looked at you before doing anything else.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting to see inside so you couldn’t brace yourself for anything but, as Jungkook opened the door of the nightstand, you realized there was no possible way for you to prepare for this anyway.

There were piles of pictures inside – polaroids, of you and him at the lakehouse your families used to rent out every summer – old cut-outs from the school newspaper, showing you, as the president of the Student Council, and the principal of the school. There were the old dog tags you two had gotten together at a fair one spring – because he kept accidentally ripping every friendship bracelet you two ever had – and there were the remote-controlled cars that you’d gotten him for his tenth birthday – you’d been saving up for them that whole year.

Scanning the contents of the nightstand – while Jungkook watched you, biting his lip – you noticed that he had a copy of almost every single movie you’d ever shown him – the DVD of The Sixth Sense, of course, resting at the very front – and, more than that, he had post-it notes glued to all of them with notes ranging from as obscure as, “She said it’s good” to direct quotes from you, “She said I would like it because it’s violent enough to keep me at the edge of my seat but it also has meaning. She smiled a lot when she told me about it.”

And then, as if your heart wasn’t already beating fast enough, you saw the popsicle sticks on the very bottom of the nightstand. Most of them were just scattered there, long forgotten, but some were glued together in what was supposed to be the base of the Trojan horse you two had never gotten to build.

You pulled back, feeling like every time you inhaled, a new memory returned to you, each heavier than the one before. When you finally removed your eyes from the mementos of the past and looked at him, your chest was so full, it was weighing you down.

“You—” you started but the words got lost on their way out of your throat. You tried again, “you kept all of this—”

“Of course,” he said, closing the nightstand now that you weren’t looking at it anymore – he didn’t bother with the chain – and then returning to his previous spot on the bed. “I couldn’t bring it all with me when I left the house because I didn’t know where I was going to go. And I couldn’t leave it all hanging around my room because… well, because I didn’t want my parents to turn the room into a home gym and throw everything out.”

“B-but why—”

“Because it’s important to me,” he replied, knowing what you were going to say, “because these are the things that you and I did together. It’s us. You and me. I kept everything that reminded me of you.”

His words soothed the old wounds but it opened up new ones, too, because, in the seven years that you didn’t have any contact with him, you’d done everything you could to erase him from your life completely – throwing anything that reminded you of him out, until your room and your whole house was void of any connection to him – while he did the complete opposite and attempted to preserve as much of your past friendship as it was possible.

“My turn,” Jungkook said, his voice shakier than it’d been before. “Truth or dare?”

You didn’t want to play anymore. You felt like you physically couldn’t play anymore.

“Jungkook—”

“Truth or dare?” he repeated, more persistent this time.

Sighing because this was hopeless, you replied, “truth.”

He shook his head. “You can’t pick truth twice in a row.”

You should have seen it coming and yet you still felt a pang of annoyance that completely broke you out of the blissful state the contents of the nightstand had put you in before.

“Yes, I can,” you protested. “You just watched me do it.”

He didn’t give in. “That’s against the rules.”

“There are no rules in this game.”

“Yes, there are.”

You rolled your eyes. “Who made them?”

“Me,” Jungkook said, crossing his legs to find a more comfortable position. “My house, my rules. You can’t pick truth twice in a row.”

“Fine, you dick,�� you replied – he almost smiled at the name – and settled, “dare, then.”

It was almost funny, really, how easily the words came to Jungkook as he dared you, “kiss me.”

If you’d have turned your head to the old clock on his wall by the desk, you would have noticed how the arrows had stopped – they stopped long before tonight but, in that moment only, they showed the right time. Almost as if Jungkook wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting to say this to you. Everything in his room had been waiting, too.

Jungkook thought you’d do it -- he thought you’d turn your head, look away. Look for an excuse to back out of this.

That’s why he didn’t kiss you but gave you an opening to do it yourself, using the game as an excuse. And, in the quiet moment that passed, he waited for your eyes to leave his, refusing the opportunity. But they never did.

You didn’t think you could tear your eyes away from his yearning gaze – just like gravity prevented you from floating off into space, the force of his eyes prevented you from pulling away. Instead, they pulled you in.

And so you kissed him again, seven years later.

It was just a touch first – you barely registered the feeling of his lips against yours – but, before a chance to pull away even presented itself, the touch melted, locking your lips together.

He tasted like the strawberry mint gum he kept in his car.

He tasted like the flavor of the ice cream he’d picked today.

And, although you’d refused to try it when he offered outside of the ice cream shop, you couldn’t deny it when you were kissing him – strawberry and mint went so incredibly well together.

He tasted like the best friend you’d day-dreamed of kissing before you went to sleep at night.

He tasted like everything you’d ever wanted.

And, belatedly, the triumphant fanfares did go off somewhere in the distance – although it could have just been the sound of your hearts, calling out to each other through your chests – but the only sound you could hear clearly was the sound of his mouth moving against yours as he deepened the kiss, standing up on his knees on the bed and gently pushing you forwards until you landed on your back and he was leaning on his elbows on either side of you.

There were many things you knew about Jungkook – your knowledge coming from all of the days you’d spend together as children – but there were also several things that you didn’t know.

For one thing, you didn’t know what his kisses felt like when there was no one watching.

And now you did as his tongue tenderly brushed against yours, growing more impatient by the second, until you had to hold onto his chest with one hand and wrap the other one around his neck to prevent yourself from completely melting under him.

Furthermore, you didn’t know how long he’s waited for this.

And now you did as his warm body pressed against yours, freezing cold and almost screaming in the parts where he couldn’t physically touch you.

Kissing him felt relieving because you’d waited for this, too, and uselessly tried to convince yourself that you didn’t need his arms around you as much as you did.

It felt freeing because now you could finally admit to yourself how much you’d wanted to kiss him and have him catch his breath against your neck before bringing his lips back to yours again.

But it also felt dangerous because you couldn’t stop – you didn’t want to stop – and, not being in control of your surroundings and, most importantly, of yourself, was something that you knew would have dire consequences. You needed to prepare for this beforehand, consider every possible outcome and—

But then Jungkook pushed one of his thighs between your legs, kissing you harder—deeper—and you no longer cared about being in control of the situation.

Sighing into the kiss – until he nearly passed out because he’d imagined this before and, for half a moment, he was afraid this was all happening in his head again – you abandoned all of your inhibitions and held onto him tighter, kissing him back with matching intensity.

And that moment – the one moment when you gave in to him completely – was precisely when someone knocked on his door.

However, even though you had both heard it, neither of you reacted to it, your mouths not pausing for a moment and his fingers never leaving the spot under your shirt – right above your waist – where they’d come to rest.

A moment later, you thought you’d only imagined the knock – the sound was already so far away in the distance, it didn’t even feel like you’d really heard it.

In his case, precisely because this – kissing on his bed in his childhood room – was actually real and not just a figment of his imagination, Jungkook simply assumed that everything else had to be happening in some other world where he wasn’t kissing you. In a world that didn’t exist. In a world that didn’t matter.

And so, naturally, he didn’t pay attention to any foreign sounds, focusing on the feeling of your skin, your lips, your touch, you, instead.

But then the knock came again. Shameless, truly, because it had to be obvious what was happening inside; it was impossible not to hear someone knock on the door of a room that was as empty as Jungkook’s bedroom.

This time, you both paused. But Jungkook – who hadn’t lived with his parents in a long time and, therefore, couldn’t remember their habits – was curious if, perhaps, the knocking would go away if unanswered, and so he went back to kissing you a second later.

Much to his—and yours—irritation, however, it didn’t seem like the knocking was going to stop. If anything, it started to get more intense and your hand – the one that pulled him closer to you by his shirt – ended up having to push him away slightly.

“Jungkook?” his mother’s uncertain voice reached your ears, but when you saw his face when he pulled away from you, you felt like you may as well have imagined that sound, too, because the sight of his puffy lips and wide, blown-out pupils made you lean forward to connect your lips again, if only for just a moment.

Jungkook was convinced you hadn’t yet grasped the effect you had on him; he couldn’t just stop kissing you out of the blue like that. And so he leaned back in, pressing his lips to yours until he felt you kiss him back. And then you broke the spell by turning your face towards the door as you tried to speak.

“It’s your mom,” you said, completely out of breath. “You should open it.”

Growling with frustration, he pushed himself off of you and climbed off the bed, not giving you a second to get up and make your activities less obvious before he was throwing the door open a lot more aggressively than he’d intended.

“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you two were back yet,” his mother said, seemingly unfazed by her son’s obvious frustration. “I just got the pie out of the oven, so the dessert is ready. Your dad and I were waiting downstairs, are you two—”

“We got ice cream,” he reminded his mother in a surprisingly gentle tone – even if his body remained stoic – and then glanced over his shoulder at you. “Unless you’d like to grab a slice?”

“Uh, I—thank you,” you said, standing up from the bed and desperately attempting to fix your hair while still remaining polite, “but I still feel full from the ice cream. A-and your dinner was wonderful, too, of course.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” his mother smiled at you and then gave her son a nod. “If you feel like getting tea with us, we’ll be in the kitchen, okay? Sorry I barged in on you like that, you didn’t tell me when you came back home, so I didn’t—”

“Yeah, sorry,” Jungkook said, still in a hurry. “We ran into dad, though. He knew we were back.”

“He did?” this seemed to surprise her. “Huh. He didn’t tell me.”

Huh, indeed. Maybe his father had his own ways of making sure Jungkook kept the door of his bedroom open.

“Well, no matter,” his mother added. “I’ll leave now. Sorry again!”

She smiled at you once more before she walked back to the staircase. You couldn’t tell if her eyes had been glittering because of the few glasses of wine that she’d had with dinner, or because she was able to tell what had been going on in this room before she came in.

Or maybe she was just happy that you were both home, safe and sound, and hanging out in his room – just like back in the day.

“Well,” Jungkook said after closing the door of his room. He wasn’t trying to conceal his disappointment, “that was my mom and her perfect timing.”

You chuckled. “Ah, she could have come in later. That would have been worse.”

“Yeah?” he liked to hear that you’d been imagining what could have happened later, as he walked back to you. “What do you think we’d have been doing?”

“Anything,” you replied, ignoring the fratboy in him but allowing his arms to comfortably wrap themselves around your waist. You replied to his smile with one of your own but did not dare to close the distance between you, only choosing to carefully rest your hands on his shoulders. “Do you know what time it is?”

Jungkook groaned, knowing that you must have understood his mother’s arrival as a sign that it was time for you to go home. “No, don’t start with the time!”

“What?” you asked, surprised by his agitation. “Why not?”

“Because it’s always the time that interrupts us,” he said, knowing how pointless it was but still cursing the time, the place, and almost the entire universe. “The night always ends before I’m ready for it.”

“Are you ever ready for it?” you asked but, in all actuality, you were asking him something else.

“No,” he said, answering both of your questions. “I’m never ready to leave you. You could stay over, you know.”

He’d once called you the most ambitious person he’d ever known, and yet there was nothing you wanted more than to stay here. Stay for a night. For however many nights it was possible.

But there were too many things to think about, too many outcomes to consider. You’d barely grown used to your relationship as old-friends-who-were-fake-dating before you kissed – mostly unprovoked and largely because you wanted to, not because he’d dared you to – and opened up the door to a whole new world.

“I…” you spoke, swallowing slowly. You knew you were someone who had to learn how to maneuver the magical carpet first, before hopping on it and flying away. That was who you were. “Thank you. But I think it’d be best if I went home tonight.”

Jungkook nodded, knowing and fully expecting you to say this. He wasn’t going to object because you’d already taken a huge step—a leap, really—over your own self when you responded and kissed him, and he didn’t want to pressure you into giving in and making any similar decisions before you were ready, no matter how much he wanted you to make them. No matter how much he wanted you.

But he was still going to give you a hard time about this. Because that was who he was.

“Leaving me wanting more, yeah?” he teased.

“Not leaving you,” you said. “Just leaving.”

He loved the way this sounded like a promise – and he would keep replaying your words in his head until the next time he saw you – but he didn’t show it, taking you by the hand instead.

“Let me take you home then,” he said and then threatened, “you should know before we go, though – I am fully determined to make you feel bad for abandoning me when I needed you the most.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” you replied, making him smile in appreciation before leaning in to press a quick—almost chaste—kiss to your cheek.

He pulled away to open the door of his room and then walked outside, taking small steps and deep sighs, his theatrics always very sharp.

“Off I go,” Jungkook began, “starting my journey of loneliness—”

“Is that from a song?” you asked, interrupting his improvised monologue as you followed after him.

“It’s from my life,” he replied shortly. You tried to suppress your laughter and he continued, more dramatic now that he’d noticed he was entertaining you, “off I go, into the dark cavern of solitude. All by myself, all over again...”

Each one of your involuntary giggles only encouraged him, so Jungkook kept this up all the way to your dorm and then he found a way to keep going over text messages, spamming you with his Shakespearean delusions until you threatened to block his number if he didn’t stop.

And then, after testing you for another half an hour, he finally did stop and went to sleep – alone, but with the memory of you that was so strong, it was like you were there with him.

keep reading | masterlist

#bts reactions #bts college au #jeon jungkook #jungkook smut #bts smut #jungkook #bts fanfiction #fanfiction #bts imagines #bts x reader #college au #jungkook x reader #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook college au #jungkook fanfic

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drawlfoy · 3 years

Text

Wonders of Ohio P.9

masterlist

requests are closed, but please read this first :)

if you want to be tagged, send an ask or message me!

pairing: draco x reader

request: nope, my original shameless self insert idea lmao

summary: american high school senior y/n y/l/n is in for the ride of her life when their exchange student is...a bit strange (but very hot). NOT a nonmagic AU, though you already knew that if you’ve read part 8 ;)

warnings: swearing, mentions of a break in, concerns about a home intruder, objectively the most fluffy scene we’ve gotten so far in this series (hehe), draco being fucking obnoxious and moody (did i mention swearing?)

a/n: ayoooooo so here’s part 9, as promised. i’ve started getting back into the hp universe more and more, so i should probably be picking up my writing soon. i’ve been feeling more myself again!! which is super awesome. i don’t think many people read this series anymore (or my author notes in general but i don’t blame yall) but i’m having a lot of fun writing it, so i’m going to keep going :)

music recs:

puppy princess -- hot freaks

loverboy -- A-wall

linger -- the cranberries

tags tags tags: @gruffle1 @missmulti @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell @writeandtranslate @erisdogwood @loveissupernatural @sycathorn-slush @big-galaxy-chaos

word count: 3.8k :)

Y/N couldn’t help but wonder if Draco deliberately waited until the last minute to tell her family that he was leaving so he could evade her questioning. She tried to talk to him later that evening by knocking on his door, but she was met with complete silence.

Draco was ignoring her, and she didn’t get why. She’d promised to not tell anyone--even begged for him to trust her and essentially swore on her life--but he still wasn’t acting normal. Perhaps he didn’t want her to badger him with questions about the magical world.

Or maybe this was an excuse to get away from her.

Y/N swallowed the second possibility and locked it away somewhere out of sight. He’d left without a single word more to her (not even a congratulations for getting into a top 20 school, that loser) and never even bothered telling her when he’d return. And maybe that was the nicest part of it--she could pretend like he was never coming back.

As attractive as that option was, she had to admit that there was a Draco-shaped hole in her passenger car seat every time she drove to school. And in the kitchen when she was studying. And everywhere else he’d once touched.

“Why do you think he went back?”

Y/N took a break from reviewing her Art History final exam notes to look up at Lizzy. “Maybe something happened with his dad or he wanted to spend his holidays with his family? It’s probably not that serious.”

“Speaking of his dad, I tried to look up his name and see if anything came up,” Lizzy began. Y/N felt her heart jump into her throat. “Don’t you think it’s kinda sus? I haven’t found anything for him. It’s like he’s been completely wiped off the face of the earth. Do you know anything about it?”

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s any of my business.” Draco’s franticness when she found out lingered in the back of her mind as she chose her words carefully. “I’m sure if he’s a genuine political target, they’ve just scrubbed the web clean of him, being a minor and all.”

“But don’t you think it’s funny that he’s apparently so important but there’s no evidence of him or his father ever existing?”

“Lizzy.” Her voice was firm. “It’s entirely possible that his real name is different. And either way, it’s not our story to uncover. He’s entitled to his own privacy, and if he doesn’t reveal his true identity then we need to respect that.”

“Oooookaaayyyyy, Mother,” said Lizzy. “You’re so fun. You know that, right?”

“It’s my job.”

After the close brush with Lizzy, Y/N avoided the topic of Draco with her friends like wildfire. At the back of her mind, she registered that that was probably more suspicious, but when Sylvia asked her about him during lunch, she finally spun up a story.

“I told him I liked him,” she told everyone, the words stinging her throat. “He doesn’t feel the same way. I just would feel better if we dropped it.”

Her friends reacted immediately with sympathy, telling her that it wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t see her for what she was worth. Somehow, this made her feel worse. She didn’t even need to tell him her feelings to know his thoughts--he didn’t see her as anything but a “muggle”, or whatever he called them. She never stood a chance.

Y/N spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering how things would’ve been different if she was a witch. She didn’t know anything about his world (apart from the fact that they really had a stick up their asses about people knowing of them) but she somehow craved a place in it. Would Draco feel differently towards her if she was magic?

It was probably better if she didn’t pay too much mind to it, but she couldn’t let the thought go. Every time she shut her eyes at night, the memory of waking up next to Draco replayed in her head, over and over. She would’ve sold her soul to have gone back to that. Would things have been different if she had just...not found the letters? She was driving herself crazy digging through all her interactions with him. There’s no way she was imagining things, and judging by the surprised reactions of her friends when she told them he didn’t reciprocate feelings, she wasn’t the only one who thought something was there. If he was really so disgusted by her and her people, he wouldn’t have let her sleep in his room, in his bed no less.

As December wore on, her mind began to be occupied by another feverish stream of thoughts. If she didn’t already feel like she was going crazy over the Draco problem, she was going completely insane over the fact that she was misplacing things like crazy and forgetting the most basic of things. It seemed like it was almost every day that she was forgetting where she put her keys (even though she could’ve sworn she’d hung them up by the door) or getting home to find the door already unlocked even though she was sure that she’d locked it behind her. It would’ve creeped her out, but she was really off kilter. It just wasn’t right having Draco away, and the sense of dread she got every time she went by her room just threw her off balance. What if she still had lingering sickness from whatever magical infliction she suffered?

He really should’ve stuck around to watch after me. Just in case.

Another thing was bothering her--a name she saw pop up in the pouch from when she went through his letters. It was a small portion of his collection, and she didn’t even think to examine it until after he took them back from her, but she noticed that the name “Pansy Parkinson” came up more than once as a return address.

Her mind immediately jumped to the worst--Draco was madly in love with another girl, a magical girl, and traveled back home with the express purpose of declaring his neverending devotion for her and complaining about that rat Ohioan muggle that he had to spend his days with.

Y/N knew it wasn’t healthy, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t quite shake it. The fact that he’d no doubt grown up around girls that would be suitable for him to date was making her physically ill with jealousy, which was probably the most embarrassing part of her feelings for him. Nevermind how much time she spent fantasizing about how soft his hair felt or how his stupidly pretty fingers would feel grazing her skin--she couldn’t even cope with the idea of him existing with other women that were honestly a better choice to him.

That Christmas was surprisingly bleak. Being an only child always made for a quiet house during the holidays, but the expectation she held of having Draco there set her up for disappointment. Her house felt empty.

“Do you think he’s coming back?” Y/N asked her mother as they did the morning dishes together.

“Well, I assume so. Why wouldn’t he? He was scheduled to spend the entire year with us. I think that if he’s changed his mind we would at least know by now.”

“What if he’s still deciding?”

“Why, miss him already?” Mrs. Y/L/N’s tone was teasing, but she felt her cheeks grow hot.

“Quite the contrary. I’m just wondering if I’m about to become the pampered only child again or if I’m going to need to go back into the unglamorous life of sharing the spotlight.”

“Y/N,” her mother tutted. She’d stopped doing the dishes.

Y/N made a point to evade her knowing look. “Mom.”

Her mother took a breath before answering. “Nothing. As a matter of fact, I did get a letter from him a few days ago. He’s scheduled to return the second week of January, right before school goes back.”

“Oh,” said Y/N. No matter how hard she tried, there’s no way her relief wasn’t visible.

“How’s that for your Christmas gift, hm?”

“Mom!”

“Hey! Hey, it was a joke,” Mrs. Y/L/N said, throwing her hands up in a “no can do” sort of gesture. “I know that you’re good friends with him is all. Unless…”

“Mom!” Her cheeks were all shades of red.

“All I’m saying is that he seems to enjoy your company.”

“Stockholm syndrome, I’m telling you.” Her explanation of what that meant was on the tip of her tongue before she stopped herself. There was no reason to--the only person who would need that explained to them was no longer on the same continent as her.

“Whatever you’d like to think.”

The snowstorm hit them without warning, two days after Christmas. Her parents had left for the night to attend a charity auction, but unfortunately for Y/N, by the time that they realized that their daughter would be snowed in, the roads were too dangerous to drive on. Y/N begrudgingly agreed to do all of the things they told her to--get the generator ready, make sure the fireplace was prepared, and locate all the candles in the house.

On any normal day, she wouldn’t have been concerned in the slightest, but she’d felt uneasy in her house ever since the night of the break-in, and now that this was the first night she’d have to spend alone, her heart was pounding at the thought of having to sleep in an empty house. Especially if the power was out. Especially when whoever broke in was still on the loose.

She locked up at dusk, making sure that every entry to her home was completely sealed shut. The generator was in the basement, all set up in the case that the lights went out. She’d located all the bottled water in her house in case the pipes froze, and she finally retired to her room to relax.

The sense of dread that hovered around Draco’s room was gone, thankfully. The overall feeling of creepiness was just beginning to lose its jarring sting, but she’d never quite been able to shake how many things she misplaced in the beginning of the month.

She busied herself with mundane activities--she cleaned out her closet, organized her drawers, read, changed her sheets, and finished the last of her homework--but nothing could distract her from the gnawing inside of her. The hairs on the back of her neck constantly stood up, even when she was tucked away in the corner of her room, nestled into her blankets. The tingling was akin to what she felt when she walked into that antique shop on homecoming night--the same night when Draco helped her off her feet and narrowly kept her from throwing up all over Heather.

Looking back on it, she realized that when he grabbed her wrist, he must’ve done something to quell her nausea, something magical. There was no way her carsickness could’ve been able to disappear so quickly.

Her soliloquy was interrupted by what sounded like footsteps outside. Before she could assess the situation and decide what she was going to do, a boom sounded off in the distance and she was all of a sudden bathed in darkness.

Y/N froze.

Someone was most definitely outside her house, but thankfully she’d locked all the doors. And, thankfully, the boom told her that her fuse box hadn’t been messed with. A tree had probably just fallen on a transformer.

But those small comforts still didn’t change the fact that she was no longer alone--and not only that, but no longer alone without power.

Her thoughts were interrupted once again by banging on her front door. Y/N jumped, just barely managing to clap her hand over her mouth to muffle her shriek. She’d seen enough horror movies to know that alerting someone that you were home wasn’t the smartest move. She’d have to be strategic.

Heart pounding out of her chest, she crept out of her room and down the stairs. The power outage was quite lucky, she realized, as whoever was outside couldn’t see in. The moon only cast a slight light as it reflected off of the snow, so she was going to be able to see the person outside before they would see her.

She squinted from her perch by the base of the staircase. She could make out a silhouette, a tall and lanky one. The weak moonlight reflected off a very light head of hair, and Y/N was struck with a feeling of familiarity.

No way...

Y/N stood frozen for a few seconds as she heard the person knock on the door again. A muffled version of a familiar British voice said, “Is anyone there?”

Throwing all caution to the wind and praying to any higher power that was listening to her that her suspicion was correct, she pushed down on the doorknob and swung it open.

Her heart stopped.

“Draco? What are you--”

Before she could get another word out of her mouth, she was pulled into the tightest (and snowiest) hug of her life. One of his arms wrapped solidly around her waist, the other reaching further up to her shoulders to hold her closer. He was tall enough in comparison that he could rest his chin on the top of her head while she cautiously clasped her hands around him, breathing in the same soft pine scent that she knew so well.

When he finally let go of her, she noticed that his face was decidedly less pale than what it had been when she first opened the door. At a loss for words, Y/N just made her way behind him and shut the door to keep the storm from blowing any more snowflakes in. She noted that Draco was shaking.

“You’re okay,” he said, his voice low and quiet.

She grinned. “Yeah. Believe it or not, I’m not that scared of the dark.”

He didn’t look nearly as amused, wringing his hands out in front of him instead of meeting her eyes.

“You’re going to freeze to death if you’re gonna just stand there in soaking clothes,” she chided. “And what are you doing back half a month early? I know you must’ve missed me, but I didn’t expect you to miss me THAT much.”

He rolled his eyes, bringing Y/N the comfort that the sarcastic asshole was still in there. “We need to talk.”

“No, what you need to do is get changed into dry clothes,” she said. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but until we get our generator working, there’s no heat...and I’m not sure if the Ministry is going to like it if I let you die on my watch.”

Even though he didn’t normally laugh at her jokes, he seemed especially solemn when she said this. It became very clear to her then that he regretted his brief display of affection.

“What are you doing, just standing here? Shoo! I don’t want to see you dripping snow all over the rug.” She waved him off until he made his way up the stairs, still eerily silent.

Once she was sure he was actually getting dressed, she made her way to the kitchen where she started heating up the water. She’d never been more thankful for the fact that they had a gas stove instead of an electric one.

The tea was almost finished brewing by the time that Draco was back downstairs, perched awkwardly on the couch. She’d never seen his sweater before--it was in a rich forest green with a silver crest of a snake.

“Are you going to tell me whatever is going on? I’ve never seen you like this before,” asked Y/N as she handed him the mug that she knew to be his favorite.

He took a sip and waited a bit before responding. “I found out some things while I was away.”

“Is that it? Must’ve been something pretty interesting for you to come in here and act like I’m your long lost love or whatever.” She took careful note of how his cheeks were especially pink, but it must’ve been because of the cold.

“I shouldn’t tell you everything, but I think you should probably know the gist of things,” he began. “First of all, I figured out why I couldn’t use the Obliviation cube on you. Also, you have to consent to an Unbreakable Vow.”

“A...what? Care to elaborate? Like, at least a little? Why didn’t it work on me?”

He sighed, a sharp breath of air that left his lungs in a huff. “Because you stumbled upon a very important box that can bestow the gift of magic onto anyone. And since you did something in your dream to try and open it, it permanently took root in you. I tried to reverse it, but there’s always going to be an imprint of magic on you.”

“Sick. So I’m a witch now? Like you?”

“No.” His tone was sour. “No, you’re not. For that to work, there needs to be a ritual actually completed by someone magical. That’s why you got so sick--because you would’ve needed me to help you through your dream sequence and open up the box. So, now that you’ve essentially pushed yourself into the magical world uninvited, I can’t use anything on you that’s catered towards Muggles.”

“Rats,” said Y/N. “That’s no fun. What about the whole part about my safety? And what’s that vow thing?”

“Apparently someone really, really wants that box,” Draco told her. “It doesn’t just give muggles the gift of magic--it can also give current wizards powers that are otherwise completely unavailable to the rest of the population. In the wrong hands, they could wreak havoc on the world. And I’m almost positive they think you have it.”

“Oh…” Everything started falling into place. “So, the break in? That probably was them right? And, uh, let’s say if you feel like maybe someone has been in your house while you’ve been gone? Like, that’s something I should be worried about, right?”

“Is that happening to you?” His face looked significantly more pale.

Y/N was tempted to tell him no--just to ease his nerves--but something in his look told her that she needed to be truthful. “Um, kind of. You know how I can be forgetful, though. It’s just little things, like sometimes I come home to find that the front door is unlocked when I’m sure I locked it, or I can’t find little things like my car keys and my phone, but it’s all easily explained.”

“I never should’ve left,” he said, tucked his knees up to his chest. “I should’ve known that that was Merlin’s Box.” He swallowed, meeting her eyes with a gaze that looked so forlorn that her heart ached. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey, all we have to do is tell them I don’t have the box, right? And then they’ll leave me alone.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I assume so, but if they didn’t find the box when they originally ransacked your room and they’re still hanging around, I don’t know what to do. That’s why I can’t obliviate you, the proper way that we use on wizards, because I can’t always be there to save you. Once I’m gone, you’re going to have to manage on your own.”

“Please, Draco,” said Y/N. “People will always talk a big game, but once I pull out my pepper spray it’s over. I can take care of myself! I didn’t need protection while you’re away.”

He smiled then, a small one that seemed more sad than anything. “You sound like me. When I was younger.”

“You probably don’t even know what pepper spray is. What’s that vow thing?”

“You have to promise that you won’t say anything that would reveal what you know about me and my world,” said Draco. “I need to find a wizard to say the incantations, but it shouldn’t be too hard. I ended up telling the Ministry what happened--I’m not going to get sent away as they have a clear record of me at least attempting to wipe your memory and they agree that you need to be able to protect yourself. Unbreakable Vows are just really intense promises. If you break it, you die.”

“Is that your way of saying you don’t really trust my word?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s required by the Ministry. If you don’t comply, then you’re going to be completely obliviated and then you can have as much fun as you’d like trying to run from whoever that criminal is without even knowing why they’re after you. Oh, and without me.”

“Then why are you even offering the vow? Don’t you want to go home?”

Draco took a long drink from his mug. “I still have a sentence to carry out. If I go back home, I’ll get sent to the same prison that my father is being held at right now.”

“A...sentence?” Y/N stared at him. “I know you mentioned a punishment, but a sentence?”

He remained silent and refused to meet her eyes.

“Draco, what exactly did you have to do?”

“It’s none of your business,” he snapped. The sudden switch of tone made Y/N start, but he was unwavering in his scowl. “I’d prefer to not think about it.”

“But...Draco…” Y/N cast her gaze to the ground so she didn’t have to see the no doubt furious look in his eyes when she continued to push. “How bad? Do you think that maybe whoever is after me might know that I don’t have the box anymore? And that they might be trying to seek revenge against you for whatever it was that you did instead?”

He didn’t respond.

“Think about it. That would explain why I was untouched this whole time that you were away when they were still keeping tabs on me.”

With a pronounced bonk, he set his mug down on the coffee table. “I’m going to bed.”

She managed to get one more look at his face before he spun around to head up the stairs and was shocked to see what was etched into his face--anger, yes, frustration...and also shame. Unmistakable shame.

final a/n: weeoooooooo i’m like 3 minutes early...this is a monumental moment for my blog. let me know what you guys think (if there’s still people sticking with this series fjkds;al). i am going to go back into my hole and work on some math hw (wonders of ohio y/n vibes...i have low key become her trying to roleplay as a stem girl). the plot is going to thicken and hopefully there will be more fluff soon. i honestly didn’t want to add the hug bc i do want this to be slow burn but it has come to my attention that this is now about 30k words long and i haven’t given y’all so much as an inkling that draco has feelings/anything will happen between them so i gotta give you something to hold you over fjdska;

#draco x reader #draco imagine #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco x you #draco malfoy x you #draco x oc #draco malfoy x oc #draco malfoy #draco #dracotok #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x y/n

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julemmaes · 3 years

Note

Oksy so don’t feel like you have to do this but nesta and the kids go out grocery shopping and they bump into THOMAS FUCKING MANDARY and Nesta gets super overwhelmed but she’s got the kids and shit so she pretends she’s fine

But later cass comes home and the kids tell him what happens.

(and maybe they have a talk on important stuff about being with someone who loves you and if someone hurts you they don’t love you and it’s beautiful Idk)

Loving And Caring

Nessian modern au set in the The Seven Of Us universe (masterlist)

acotar next gen fan fiction

A/N: This is the reason I’m gonna fail my English exam, so please enjoy:)

The children’s ages: Ezra is 11, Cal is 6, Nora is 3 and Celia is 2. Andra is kinda not born yet.

DON’T COME FOR ME FOR BEING SLOW AS FUCK OR FOR WRITING SUCH ANGSTY PROMPTS. I HAVE 70+ IN MY ASKS BOX AND THEY’RE ALL SO ANSGTY

Word count: 8,185

"I want it!"

"I don't-"

"No, I want this!"

"I said I wanted it first."

"You did not!"

"Mom!"

Nesta Archeron had been called many things in her life. Daughter first. Then sister and friend, woman. She had been appreciated by all the professors she had had the honor of meeting during her studies, who had called her the best in her classes. She had finally found someone who had sincerely called her love and then wife, and she would not give up that last acquired, very important title of mom for anything in the world, but-

Right then she just wanted to strap her kids to the cart and run.

Walking down the cereal aisle, she ran a hand over her swollen, ready-to-burst belly, realizing that she would have to trip and fall on her bump if she wanted to end the problem for good. The baby girl, for whom they still hadn't chosen a name, would be born in a few weeks, and if she didn't get rid of her, too, she would never find peace.

She giggled - or at least she thought she did - at those morbid, disturbing thoughts for which many people would surely have her locked up in a mental hospital, if they found out how often she admitted to wanting to abandon her children.

It had been such a tiring day. She had been home from work for a couple of months now, this fifth pregnancy was breaking her down physically and mentally. She was at the end, in her eighth month, but she would much rather have the last baby out and inside the cart with her sisters by now.

Celia and Nora were babbling something in their imperfect language, and Nesta's heart clenched for her little men at the thought that they would be outnumbered in a few weeks. She and Cassian had experienced that feeling only three years before, and yet she still hadn't forgotten the terror she had felt at the idea of her children turning against them.

They had created a small army.

Casting a quick glance at Ezra who was sneaking something into the cart, she huffed. If the others noticed that he had put a package of junk food in the basket, that would be the end of it.

Moments later, in fact, Cal was looking at the colored bag in the still empty cart with suspicious eyes, and Nesta wasn't going to wait for the fight over who could buy the most junk food that day to begin.

"Ezra, put the snacks back," she said rubbing her hands over her eyes.

Celia mumbled something as she sat inside the cart, and Nora, silently settled next to her, nodded, as if she understood what the other was talking about. It shouldn't have shocked her, but Nesta never ceased to be amazed by that way of communicating that only the two of them understood.

Ezra's icy eyes turned sad when he looked at her and he pouted, "But mom I need them for snacks for school."

Cal looked at him with a furrowed brow, "No you don't. I need them." then he turned to Nesta, "But I don't like these, can I have those?" he asked with a bright smile pointing across the aisle with a wave of his arm.

She leaned forward, sighing and not answering him. Nora looked up at her and reached out her hands toward her mom, letting her know she wanted to be held, but Nesta was aching.

Cal and Ezra hadn't stopped bickering for half a second, and Celia had cried all day because she wanted her dada. Nora had stayed in Nesta's arms the entire walk to the grocery store, and one way or another she knew she would have to carry her all the way back home as well, despite the unbearable back pain. It was less than two kilometers, but with a pregnancy running out and only one hand to restrain any possible child who threatened to throw themselves under the cars whizzing by, it became more mental work than physical.

When Nesta smiled lovingly at her, trying to make her understand that she couldn't hold her right then, Cal burst into tears.

Her daughters' little heads snapped up at their brother, and Nesta cursed herself for deciding to do something as stupid as taking her four young children to the grocery store on an evening when they were all visibly on edge and stressed.

"Dear, what happened?" she asked without even an ounce of concern in her voice. She knew full well that it was just a tantrum. She got confirmation of that when Ezra replied in a whiny tone that they couldn't both buy snacks, or they wouldn't know how to carry them home. At that point Cal's cry became a proper scream and Nesta had to close her eyes to avoid the judgmental stares of the people passing by.

She brought her hands to her temples, massaging her forehead in circular motions, and when she thought she could handle it without throwing up on each of her children, she leaned against the cart, circling around Ezra and crouching with no small amount of difficulty in front of Cal. One hand on her back and the other still clinging to the cart, she grunted as she put one knee on the ground. She felt Nora's little hand rest on hers as she began to speak, "Listen kiddo, we're all very tired and now your brother is going to put his snacks down too," she explained, giving Ezra an inquisitive look over her shoulder. The eldest son rolled his eyes, but he had Celia hand him the package and snortingly put it back. Cal sobbed, sniffling, and Nesta laid a hand on his shoulder, massaging his arm. "How about we read a book together tonight before bed?"

The boy's face scrunched up in a grimace of sadness, "But I want snacks." he sobbed louder. Nesta bit her lip, knowing full well that the fat tears on his cheeks weren't really for the snacks and that she couldn't give in and let them all buy something or she'd end up with two bags full of junk food to carry.

Cal hadn't slept that afternoon, as had everyone else, because of Celia's endless crying, and she hadn't wanted to take her afternoon nap until it was too late and Nora and Cal had gotten out of bed to go play in their rooms. At that point Nesta had been forced to let Celia go, but she knew that had meant agreeing to spend an evening with frustrated and not-rested children.

She was about to respond when a couple of older ladies walked by them, casting an annoyed look at Cal. Nesta would have liked to respond with an ugly hand gesture, but she couldn't do it in front of her children.

In that moment of distraction she hadn't realized that Celia had also started calling her and now, casting a quick glance at her daughter, she felt a very bad feeling sink into her stomach at the sight of the little girl's tear-filled eyes.

She looked at Ezra, taking a deep breath, and noticed that even the oldest of her children seemed bothered by the course of action Nesta had taken. She felt tremendous guilt at seeing that the only one of her children who didn't seem disappointed or angry with her was Nora.

It all got worse when one of the two ladies who had just passed her said loud enough so she could hear her, "I don't understand why some people don't stop with their first child. It's obvious she can't even handle one, listen to her screaming."

Nesta felt the emotion grow in her throat.

"When someone isn't born to be a parent, it shows immediately. She's one of those awful mothers who doesn't know how to take care of her children." the other added.

Nesta caught her breath, fixing her gaze in Cal's. Celia was crying by now, spluttering to be picked up as she tried to keep her balance inside the cart.

She wasn't going to answer. She wasn't going to answer.

"Let's go home." she whispered suddenly, laying a hand on the small of her back and pulling herself up with a tremendous effort, a twinge of pain went through her legs and back, "Cal, dear, we'll buy the snacks another time, for now we'll just take the bread and milk, tomorrow come back with daddy and take whatever you want, okay?" she spoke quickly, in a high, steady voice so that all four of them could hear her. She just hoped they didn't hear how desperately she was trying not to burst into tears over what the ladies had just said.

Cal nodded, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his shirt and immediately stopping crying. Ezra looked thoughtful, but he too had stopped pouting. The only one who still looked upset was Celia, who followed her by walking inside the cart, moving where she stood.

Seeing the little girl's red face and dripping nose, arms outstretched toward her, Nesta heard only the words "awful mother" repeated in her mind.

With a knot in her throat and a cry that she was sure would break free as soon as she stepped into the house, Nesta pushed forward, bumping the cart with her belly as she picked up Celia and placed her on her side. The little girl immediately stopped crying, resting her head on her mother's shoulder and cupping her tiny hand over her shirt.

Now, beyond the emotional wound that had just been inflicted on her, Nesta could feel the pain in her back growing with every step she took. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to stop a sob that threatened to break that composed attitude she had.

Everything hurt so bad.

Cal was running in front of them all, stomping his feet on the ground and making the little lights on his shoes glow. Ezra was walking beside her, one hand on the edge of the cart as he mouthed off to Nora, but he had to stop when Nesta froze in the middle of the aisle, taking an abrupt breath. She brought a hand to her belly, feeling the baby move and kick, only adding to the pain.

"Ezra, love," she breathed, stepping aside and holding Celia against her side, then asked between her teeth as the baby continued her assault inside her, "could you push the cart?"

He nodded, his face lighting up as if she had asked him to take control of a ship.

Celia began to squirm on her side and Nesta had the urge to drop her, not voluntarily, but it all hurt so much that her body was begging her to sit up, to take all that unnecessary weight off her arms.

At the idea that she would have to walk home she felt her eyes grow heavy with tears.

She put Celia back in the cart, breathing a sigh of relief as some of the pain eased in her lower back. Nora was now standing and smiling at Ezra, who was struggling to see where he was going past his sister.

Nesta looked up just as Cal hopped out of the aisle and fell to the ground, crashing into someone's cart. Or rather, as someone ran over him with their cart and slamming him to the ground.

She didn't even think about it as she started walking as fast as her body would allow towards her son, leaving the other three behind. By the time she reached him, Cal was standing there laughing in amusement and was running his hands over his pants to get the dust off his palms. Once she made sure he wasn't hurt, she was ready to yell at whoever had dropped her son, ready to take out all her frustration and doubts on the stranger, when she heard a voice that sent chills down her spine.

"Nesta Archeron?"

She moved her head so fast she was surprised she hadn't snapped her neck, but her brain didn't have time to process the pain the jolt had caused her, because there standing before her was Tomas Mandray.

She couldn't believe it.

Any thought of yelling at the stranger vanished like an echo in her mind.

How was it possible that he was there?

"Is it really you?" he asked her with wide eyes and an incredulous smile on his face. He circled the cart, shifting his gaze to Cal, and Nesta felt the overwhelming instinct to grab her son and hide him behind her. When Tomas reached out a hand toward him, ruffling his hair, she felt vomit rise in her throat. They had to get out of that place immediately. "I can't believe it." he voiced her thoughts, "Is this yours?" he asked looking into her eyes again.

This... he was talking about Cal.

She couldn't find the words and continued to stare at the man in front of her with wide eyes - scared eyes, if you knew Nesta, if you knew where to look. And Tomas knew it. Tomas had always known it.

She heard Ezra reach them, and then something slammed into her side. She didn't need to lower her head to catch a glimpse of Nora's little pigtails of black hair or hear Celia's amused giggle.

Tomas snorted a laugh out of his nose, crossing his arms over his chest, "Are they all yours?" then moved his gaze to her belly to bring it back up to her breasts and Nesta wanted to say something to him, to insult him, to hit him, to take him away from her children, but she felt her heart pounding in her throat and the air couldn't reach her lungs.

That tone-

That tone wasn't of someone who was happy to hear that you'd made a new life for yourself after they'd managed to destroy you completely. It wasn't the tone of an old friend who you hadn't seen in years and who you're about to agree to hang out with and tell them about everything that happened in your lives.

No, it was the tone he had used every day, every hour, when he needed to belittle her, when he needed to make her feel insignificant, worthless.

"Mom?"

Nesta turned her head so slowly toward her son, blinking, that she must have seemed like another person entirely. No longer the proud, strong woman she'd shown everyone for years on that side. Ezra had one eyebrow arched, as if wondering what was going on, and was clasping hands with a jumping Celia.

She didn't have the energy to turn around, to look at the man who had pushed her to the bottom of the barrel and destroyed her, but she managed to throw out a weak, "Kids we have to go, we're not taking anything." then turning to Cal, she took his arm, pulling him towards his siblings, "Let's go."

She felt Tomas' eyes creeping over her like slimy hands. She could still remember the last time he'd touched her, when she'd gone over the edge, offering herself to him to avoid yet another fight or worse.

For that, when his true hand tightened around her wrist, pulling her slightly to let her stay there, she flinched.

"Nesta."

She spun around, bringing her free hand to her belly for protection. When the little girl inside her kicked again, making her groan through her teeth in pain, Tomas smiled in a way that made Nesta hope she was anywhere but there.

"Is she kicking?"

And then it all happened quickly. She couldn't move, couldn't pull away, as the grip on her wrist tightened and Tomas pulled her closer to him and placed his other hand on her stomach, next to hers. A soundless sob escaped her control and her breath labored as she felt his fingers move over her shirt.

She was going to throw up.

She gave a tug so hard that the twinge of pain started at her wrist and reached her elbow, but she was free. She smacked the hand on her, taking several steps back and bringing Cal with her. She had started pushing the front of the cart, trying to position it in the direction they had come from.

She met Ezra's gaze for a moment, before her son's eyes slipped behind her, on Tomas' figure.

"Ezra." she called to him in a firm voice. Four pairs of eyes snapped in his direction. That was the tone of a tired mother issuing orders to her children at the end of the day, "Eyes on me."

She didn't want anything of Tomas's to come into contact with her children. She didn't want him to contaminate them the way he had contaminated her.

She lifted Cal off the ground and the child quietly let her pick him up without too much of a fuss. She didn't feel the strain at all as she pulled him high enough to put him in the cart with the girls. Looking at her oldest, she hoped she could secure him like she was doing with the other three, but he was too big to fit in the cart himself.

Before she could tell him to follow her without saying a word, Tomas spoke again.

"What a beautiful name, Ezra," she felt the venom bind each letter.

Ezra was about to turn around, probably to thank him, as she and Cassian had taught him, but Nesta squeezed his shoulder, "Keep looking ahead and walking, I don't want you talking to him."

"Always so fucking obnoxious," Tomas spat at that point.

Nesta froze in her tracks. She could feel him following them as he tortured her. Ezra froze beside her, tugging at her sleeve to get her attention.

Always so obnoxious. You're useless, worthless. I'm the only person who will ever be able to put up with your bullshit. You'll never find anyone else.

She felt the panic rise, the agitation for one of her children to realize how uncomfortable she was at that moment. She closed and opened her hands on the cart's handlebars, hoping to relieve some of that tension.

"I'm amazed to see you with so many children," he continued, creeping up beside her and stopping in front of her cart, blocking her way with his. She looked up at him, feeling the air scratch at her throat. He had aged, she could see it in the features around his eyes, his mouth - he had aged and yet still had the same look. "I didn't think you'd ever date again after I left you."

I left you. She wanted to tell him. I had the courage to leave.

She didn't answer him, straightening her back.

Tomas smirked, lowering his gaze to her daughters and his smile widened even more.

"Don't look at them," she snapped, still maintaining her composure.

The man looked up at her one more time, "They'll be just as pretty as their mother when they grow up." then looked at Cal and Ezra, sliding a finger over the edge of his cart. "Who's the father?"

"Dada." muttered Celia, flapping her little hands.

Nesta wanted to recoil at the sound. She didn't want Tomas to hear her talk, didn't want him to watch them. She didn't want them breathing his same air.

"It's none of your business and now move over," she whispered to him. All she could think about was the fact that she had to get her children out of there as soon as possible. Therefore, when he didn't move an inch, she added. "Please."

Tomas laughed. He laughed, leaning his head back and clutching his hand around the mesh of her cart. "Nessie Nessie," he clicked his tongue on his palate, a remnant of laughter in the tone of his voice that made the woman's gut tangle, "I haven't seen you in so long. I want to know everything."

"Please." she repeated, as her eyes filled with tears. His own widened slightly, surprised to see such a reaction in her. She didn't care if he saw her weak, she didn't care if she had to get down on her knees. He was keeping them trapped, and Nesta knew he wouldn't let them leave until he squeezed even the last drop of sanity out of her.

If Ezra still realized what was going on, she didn't know, and it scared her even more. Cal was looking at her and looked worried, probably having never seen her so shaken in her life.

She was about to beg him a third time. Beg him to free her from whatever that game was that they were stuck in at that moment, but someone said her name. Ezra looked behind them and Nesta saw the shadow of a smile on his face, prompting her to turn around in turn. A choked sound escaped her throat as she bit her upper lip to keep from bursting into tears, and a wave of gratitude washed over her.

"Miss Archeron," the man smiled at her. Drakon Cretea had been Nesta and Cassian's neighbor for years now. He and his wife Myriam had babysat their children so many times that they were their go-to people. In fact, Celia and Nora had snapped to their feet at the sound of the voice of the acquired grandfather they loved so much.

Nesta didn't waste a moment turning the cart so that it faced Drakon. The children, Ezra included, began to cheer happily at having met a familiar face, and Nesta allowed herself to look over her shoulder.

With such relief that she thought she might collapse to the ground, she saw that Tomas was already pulling away, and as he turned the corner, pulling into another aisle, she took a deep breath through her nose, closing her eyes.

She had made it.

***

Cassian was exhausted.

He had spent the entire day grading exams for first-year students with his aide, and it was as if he could see the letters behind his eyelids every time he blinked. It was much more feasible to work in the university library, where he didn't risk being interrupted by a child every five minutes, but he only tried to do it once or twice a month during exam sessions, knowing full well how exhausting it was for Nesta to keep up with all the children together until late in the evening, especially now that Andra was about to arrive.

"Andra." he murmured into the silence of his car. Nesta kept telling him that they weren't sure that would be the name of their fifth child, but Cassian didn't care. He just needed to name his wife's belly when talking to his daughter.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he turned off the car in the driveway and stepped out, stretching his arms up just enough to make his back crack.

Glancing at the watch on his wrist, he huffed. It was too late for his girls to still be awake, but maybe he'd be able to say goodnight to Cal and Ezra.

He had warned Nesta that he was going to be late, and she had simply replied that she would leave dinner ready in the kitchen for when he returned.

Opening the front door, he immediately saw two little dark heads popping up from above the couch. Cal was already running at him when he closed the door behind him and jumped on him as soon as he had put his stuff down, "Dad!"

"Kiddo!" said Cassian throwing him into the air.

Cal laughed waving his arms, "Sssh," he scolded him still laughing, "the girls are sleeping."

"Oops," dad made a guilty face, stopping their game and putting Cal down.

Ezra was too focused on watching TV and wasn't paying the slightest attention to Cassian, but he walked over to the couch anyway, lowering himself just enough so he could leave a kiss on his hair, "Hi love." he murmured to him.

The little boy's head snapped toward him and with a crooked smile on his face and his pajama collar in his mouth, he said, "Hi dad."

Cassian scoffed amused, ripping his pajamas from between his teeth, "How many times have I told you not to eat your clothes?"

"Sorry," Ezra said, not sounding sorry at all.

Cal had gone back to lying next to his brother and they both seemed too caught up in the cartoon to pay any attention to it, so he went into the kitchen, loosening the tie around his neck and praying that Nesta had cooked something good - though the opposite was quite unlikely considering the woman's innate cooking skills.

He moaned with delight when he realized it was the meatballs she always made when she didn't feel like cooking and, taking the plate, he headed back to the living room. He plopped down in between his sons, taking the pajamas out of Ezra's mouth again and offering them both a meatball.

"So, what have you guys been up to today?" asked Cassian with a full mouth, slipping off his shoes and placing his feet on the coffee table.

First Cal and then Ezra told him in full detail about what they had done at school and then about the fact that none of them had slept that afternoon. Cassian was surprised to find out that Cal could still stand up without getting any rest.

When they got to the point where Nesta had taken them out walking and they had made it all the way to the supermarket, he had stopped them.

"Guys come on," he looked at them with incredulous eyes, "I told you to keep her home."

It was true. Lately Nesta had been pushing her limits when the doctors had told her to exert herself and stress as little as possible. With childbirth imminent too, it was risky for her to walk around without any other adults.

Ezra had the decency to look guilty, "I know, but-"

"We also met a weird dude," Cal interrupted him.

Cassian looked at him taking on a confused expression, "Weird?"

"Yeah, he knew mom," Ezra nodded, looking at the TV and talking thoughtlessly. He was bowing his head slowly and Cassian unconsciously extended a hand towards him, shutting his mouth before he could start chewing on the fabric once again. He looked at him at that point, continuing the story, "Mom was all weird, though."

"Weird." repeated Cassian.

"Yeah, weird." repeated Cal in turn, then chuckled, "He even hit me with the cart."

He and Ezra laughed together, remembering how Cal had fallen on his bum, but Cassian's thoughts were elsewhere. Clearly the fact that someone had rolled his son with a cart must not have been traumatic or painful, or Nesta would have called him and Cal wouldn't have been there laughing, but the fact that they had described her with an adjective like "weird" had him on high alert.

"Do you happen to know the man's name?" asked Cassian, pulling himself up and setting his plate down on the coffee table, keeping his gaze on his hands.

Ezra shook his head, "No, also because mom didn't talk to him much and then Drakon showed up."

"Oh, yeah," Cal repeated excitedly, his eyes glowing, "then Drakon showed up."

Cassian was on his feet before his youngest son had finished speaking. He started up the stairs to go upstairs, where he hoped he would find Nesta awake, but warned the two little men that he would go change and be back down to them in a jiffy.

With a strained expression and a bad feeling working its way through him, he walked down the hall, opening the door to his daughters' room slightly. Both Celia and Nora were already fast asleep, and Cassian felt a smile break out on his lips... his little gems. He couldn't believe yet another one would be arriving soon.

He closed the door, making sure not to make any noise, and then headed to his room, praying that Nesta was okay and that his children had misunderstood everything.

He heard her before he even entered. He could picture her pacing back and forth through their room, muttering about what was bothering her at the moment.

He took a deep breath, ready to fight whatever demons there would be to fight that night together, and tightening his hand around the doorknob, he lowered it, pushing himself into the room.

Nesta stopped short, both hands wrapped under her belly to help support that extra weight she was always complaining about.

The second Cassian's eyes found hers, her expression completely transformed and a desperate sob broke the silence that had formed between them.

"Nesta." he said as if someone had just sucked the air from his lungs. Reaching for her with two quick strides and wrapping her in his arms, Cassian heard all kinds of emotion in his wife's crying.

When he stroked her back, Nesta let go a wail of pain and he immediately pulled away, still keeping his hands around her elbows as much as her cold hands tightened around his forearms.

"God, Nesta what happened?"

She only cried harder, loosening her grip on him when she was sure he wouldn't pull away. She managed to say between sobs, "Everything hurts."

Cassian felt as if the floor has cracked open beneath them. "Is it the baby?"

Nesta's eyes went wide, probably only realizing at that moment what state he'd found her in, "No, she's fine." then, seeing his increasingly worried expression, she added, "I promise the baby's fine."

Cassian sagged at little, reducing his lips to a thin line, gently pushed her towards the bed to get her to sit up, but Nesta shook her head, taking short, overly fast breaths, "I can't."

Cassian paused, taking her hands and trying to restrain himself from asking her who they had met that afternoon that had managed to trigger such a reaction in her. There was no way she could have been in that state just from being tired.

"I can't." repeated Nesta sobbing and looking into his eyes. "Everything hurts, Cassian."

He sighed, closing his eyes. Seeing her in this state was nothing new unfortunately. With four pregnancies behind them and everything they'd been through in the years prior to their marriage, it wasn't unusual for either of them to be in such a condition.

He opened his eyes, trying to keep a firm tone, "How come you can't sit down?"

"If I sit the pain gets worse." she said between choked breaths.

Cassian furrowed his brow, wanting to yell at her about how stupid it had been of her to go walking that afternoon, but he restrained himself. "Have you tried lying down?" he proposed.

Nesta shook her head again, "Any position hurts my back or my legs," she explained.

"Tell you what," he began hesitantly, taking both of her hands, "why don't you put on those super pants that support your belly - or I'll help you put them on, it's no problem," he added quickly when he saw the pain in her features, "and then I'll give you a leg massage while you're standing?" he said smiling at her coyly. Nesta sniffed, nodding slowly. "And when sitting doesn't hurt anymore or is bearable you get on your knees on the bed or lean against the keyboard and I massage your back too, are you up for that?"

She squeezed his hands to let him know she was okay with everything, so Cassian smiled at her, returning the squeeze and starting to pull away from her to go get the leggings, but Nesta's eyes went wide and a few tears rolled down her cheeks, "Where are you going?"

Cassian grimaced worriedly.

Why hadn't she called him if she was feeling this bad?

He moved back as close as he could without crushing Andra between them, "I was just going to get my pajamas, Nes, and your pants." he placed a hand on her face, stroking away the remnants of her crying. Then he sighed, pushing her forehead into his and keeping his eyes open as he whispered, "I love you."

She repeated it quietly, almost a sigh.

He undressed quickly, slipping into his pajamas with equal haste as Nesta stood motionless in the center of the room, waiting for him to return to her.

"Listen," Cassian began, kneeling in front of her as he helped her out of the pajama pants she was wearing, "the boys told me you met someone today." he forced himself to look at her, when the grip on his shoulder suddenly tightened. Cassian studied the reaction he'd elicited from her and bit the inside of his cheek, seeing how Nesta had frozen and put her foot down. He took a deep breath, giving her knee a little tap to let her know she needed to get it back up, "They didn't tell me who it was and I don't think they know, but I got some ideas and I want-" he swallowed loudly, thinking seriously about what might have happened if his doubts were real, "If it's Tomas, I want to know if you're okay." he said in a lower voice, looking at her from under his lashes. Nesta didn't answer.

He had managed to get both of her feet into her pants and was pulling them up gently, trying not to hurt her. He had to pull up the skirt of the robe she used during all her pregnancies when none of her pajamas fit anymore, uncovering her belly and left a gentle kiss on her skin, smiling at his daughter, "Hello my little sunshine."

He felt Nesta shiver and thinking it was from the cold he hurried to cover her belly with her pants and then pull her nightgown down.

He looked at her more seriously than ever as he settled on the floor in front of her so he could massage her into a comfortable position. He was about to speak, to ask her again how she was doing, but she beat him to it.

"What did you do today?" she asked in a weak voice.

Cassian closed his mouth, bouncing his legs, pondering whether to insist that she spoke or let her distract him with that question. He decided for the latter, even though his wife already knew very well what he had done that day, "This morning there was an exam of Ancient History for the first years." he began to speak while pressing his thumbs on her left thigh. Nesta was leaning her hands on his shoulders. "I have to be honest, I've never seen exams as crappy and ignorant as this session's," he continued while keeping his gaze fixed on her face. "It's like people stopped studying all of a sudden and thought they could pass my exams by learning the bare minimum."

He shifted on her other thigh and Nesta snapped forward, groaning softly as Cassian touched a particularly numb muscle.

"Sorry." he smiled at her, "Then at lunch I stayed in the faculty with Gwyn and Luc, and by the way, they asked me if you'd be okay with organizing a lunch this weekend, with everyone?"

Nesta rolled her eyes, "I can't even walk, let alone plan a lunch with everyone," she pointed out to him in an irritated tone.

Cassian chuckled, "I'll let Gwyn know you told her to fuck off nicely."

"Yes, thank you," she replied to him. But then she bit her lip, thoughtfully, "But if they want to do something at her or Elain's that's fine. I can also cook, but not here, please, I don't feel like tidying up afterwards." she looked into his eyes with a pleading look.

"It's okay, it's not a problem," he shifted to her calves, "Although, if the only problem has to be the fact that you don't feel like tidying up, you know I wouldn't let you."

Nesta grunted, "I don't want you to do all the work yourself."

Cassian let out a puff of air through his nostrils, "You can't be the only one working hard in this house Nes, let me have some of the glory too." he joked.

"But I'm not the only one." she said in an overly serious tone, "You're always at work and I know you're working overtime, filling in for your colleagues, don't think I haven't noticed," she scolded him. Cassian lowered his head, feeling his cheeks turn red. "And I'm here at home and I can't work and I've been like this for months now and even before that with Celia-" she sighed, bringing a hand to her face, "I just wish I could help you bring something extra home."

Cassian stopped massaging her leg, surprised at what he was hearing. He moved away from her, enough so that he could stand up without bumping into her stomach and then looked at her, shaking his head, "What on earth are you talking about?" he asked, "Nesta you're raising our children. You're doing a much more tiring and exhausting job than mine ever will be." he pulled himself upright, "True, it's just as rewarding and enjoyable to be able to stay home and watch our children grow up, but you're the biggest help I could ever get right now. We don't need money right now."

"But-"

"No buts." he said arching his eyebrows and pushing her towards the bed, "Do you think you can sit?" she nodded pensively and let him help her up onto the mattress. "Nesta what you're doing is admirable and I'm sure not everyone could handle it as well as you can."

Nesta stopped in the middle of the bed, turning to look at him with a shocked expression.

Cassian was just as shocked. That she didn't realize how much she was actually helping him was beyond comprehension.

"I can only get by because you're there," she murmured, looking away, "I'd never make it on my own."

"And no one expects you to make it, Nes." he said stunned. He really couldn't understand where all the doubt was coming from, "You don't have to make it on your own and you're not doing it on your own."

He had her settled so that her back was to him and she was turned to the wall. He placed his hands over her back and began to make concise circles on the bottom, applying pressure where he knew the pain was most concentrated. Nesta's head fell forward in relief.

"You really don't think you're helping me in any way?"

"No, I-" she froze mid-sentence, "It's not that."

"Then what is it?" he asked, using his knuckles to massage her shoulder muscles.

Nesta groaned softly, "It's just that I wish I could go back to work and read all the books I want and I wish I could feel tired and be able to let my kids cry without anyone telling me what to do and how to do it. I wish I could move without the terror of going into labor at any moment and-" she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "I wish I wasn't so hormonal right now."

He could tell that her thoughts were all over the place.

There had been other such crises during Celia's pregnancy. The fear that they wouldn't measure up as parents to so many children. They were in constant thought that they were not giving them enough, that they were teaching them the wrong lessons. Cassian had received some nasty comments himself about how they were raising their children, and he knew right away that someone must have said something to Nesta that day.

They had always had stronger, more heartfelt reactions on her, and now that she was pregnant it was all much more altered.

"What happened today?" he asked her under his breath after a few moments of silence.

"No one slept, I didn't have a moment's peace and then we left and walked to the mall. I had to carry Nora all the way there and-" her voice broke on the last sentence and Cassian stopped his ministrations on her. He laid both hands on her back, getting as close as he could, letting his hands slide down her hips and then over her belly, until his chest made contact with her back and Nesta pushed back against him.

She dropped her head onto Cassian's shoulder.

"And?" he murmured, spurring her on.

"Everything hurt so much, Cass," she replied in a watery voice, "It was like I was being stabbed in the back and I couldn't put Nora down because she'd start crying."

A sharp twinge of pain shot through his chest. He began to gently massage her belly and shortly after he felt her small hands settle on his, pushing harder, "No one would try to say you're a bad mother just because you don't pick up your daughter when you're hurting."

She didn't answer.

"Celia?" he asked.

"Ezra and Cal held her hand the whole way, she walked so much," she said with a half smile on her face. "When we walked in they immediately started acting up and then they started crying and I couldn't take it anymore and these ladies said I was an awful mother and it's true, Cassian." she jerked in his arms as she said those last words. He only held her tighter, taking a deep breath. "Who is the mother who can't calm her own children when they cry? Her own children." she shook her head, running a hand under her eyes.

He couldn't see her face, but he knew she had started crying again.

"Nesta listen to me." he whispered to her, kissing her shoulder and then the tip of her ear. "You are the most loving and caring mother I know. Your children are perfectly healthy and you've never let them lack for anything. You've never raised your voice to them. You've never threatened them or grounded them-"

"I'm not a monster," she muttered.

"And more importantly," he said smiling and holding her tighter, "your children are happy."

"But Cal today-"

"Cal is downstairs watching TV with his brother and he's been telling me about his day and he's the happiest kid ever," he interrupted her, "Just because he threw a tantrum and cried a little doesn't mean you're not a good mother."

She sighed and nodded, though she didn't look convinced.

Cassian continued to stroke the spots on her belly where he knew her skin pulled the most, her hand still on his playing with the wedding ring on his finger when Nesta said, "I saw Tomas today."

Cassian froze behind her, holding his breath. He'd known it, but hearing the fear in her voice now as she said the name of the man Cassian hated most in the world didn't stop him from wincing.

"He bumped Cal with the cart and knocked him over and I didn't realize it was him until he called me," Nesta continued.

When Cassian spoke, his voice came out much harsher and tighter than he intended, "Did he-" he cleared his throat, "Did he say anything?"

"No, he-" Nesta brought both hands to her stomach, shifting his. She moved uncomfortably in his arms and Cassian loosened his grip on his wife, realizing she wanted to move. He grabbed her by the hips, trying to pull her up so she could turn toward him, and when she was finally sitting up with her back against the headboard of the bed, she sighed. "I saw him, Cass, and I froze." she said under her breath, looking into his eyes. "He touched Cal's hair and it was like he was touching me, again, and I completely froze and then the baby kicked and he touched my-" she took a ragged breath as her eyes filled with tears. When she spoke again, her voice was so weak that Cassian had to appeal to every ounce of his reasoning not to get up and go find Tomas to kill him.

He took her hands, remaining silent as a revolting feeling took over his body. The idea of Nesta being touched by that filthy man made his guts turn. The idea of his children-

A choked sob brought him back into the room, "And I wanted him to go and stop looking at Ezra and Celia and Nora and I could only move when Ezra called me, but he followed us and blocked our way. He asked me about you, wanted to know who you were, and it was like going back in time and I couldn't- I couldn't, Cass-" Nesta brought a hand to her chest, her eyes and mouth wide as panic appeared in her gaze and air struggled to reach her lungs.

Cassian squeezed her hands, speaking softly, "Nesta, it's okay." a sob from her, "You're all home." he murmured starting to massage her palm, "You're home with me."

Her breathing became even more erratic and she shook her head, closing her eyes.

Cassian closed his eyes as well, "I'm sorry you had to see him again and I'm sorry you couldn't move, but it's understandable, sweetheart." he was trying to keep his tone of voice relatively low, to calm her down, but it was proving difficult for him as he viewed Tomas watching his daughters. "He shouldn't have touched your belly. He shouldn't have just touched you at all. And he shouldn't have gotten close to Cal or Andra." he seethed. "And if I could I would go to him and rip his hands off." he let slip as he imagined the terror Nesta must have felt at that moment.

Nesta sobbed and the sound broke Cassian's heart, "I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sorry."

A pang of pain tightened in his chest as his face turned into a mask of controlled anger, "Don't ever apologize to me, please," he whispered, "Not for this stuff."

"But I couldn't do anything, even after all this time-" a hiccup broke the sentence, "He still has all this power over me. It's not fair."

It's not fair.

Cassian nodded, biting the inside of his cheek, "You're right, it's not fair." he squeezed her hands lightly, telling her to look at his face. She quickly did so. "You're not with him anymore. You're free. You don't owe him anything, just like you never owed him anything." Nesta took a shaky breath, stopping sobbing. "You have a family, you're a wonderful mother and wife. And you deserve all of this."

Nesta's eyes went wide, realizing where this was going.

Cassian took a deep breath, "You're not worthless, you're not hopeless or useless." he closed his eyes as Nesta mimicked him, breathing deeply in turn. "You are a strong, independent woman, it doesn't matter how much he said otherwise. It didn't matter before and it doesn't matter now. It's just meaningless words.

"I know you, Nesta, and you are the light of my life. The light of every person in this house. The only thing that keeps us going." he whispered in a weak voice, as Nesta leaned forward toward him and cried silently.

Cassian moved closer to her on the mattress so that she could rest her forehead against his chest, his shoulder, wherever she wanted, for support.

He had repeated those words to her so many times over the years. He didn't think he'd ever have to do it again, certainly not after so long that they both knew Tomas had moved to another continent entirely.

"I know you and you're nothing like he describes," he encircled her shoulders with arms when Nesta let go of a particularly loud sob. "You are the exact opposite of what he says." he kissed one temple, stroking the hair on her back.

She shivered in his arms, "I know." she whispered against his shirt.

Cassian managed to force a smile onto his lips, even though she couldn't see it, he knew she would hear it when he spoke, "I'm proud of you."

"Why?"

"Because I can only imagine how hard it was for you to see him again, and although I would have appreciated a different approach to everything that happened this afternoon, you handled it perfectly and our kids are fine." he passed his hands over her shoulders and pushed her away from him so he could look at her face. "And it's okay that you broke down now, it's normal. I'm glad you told me about it. Thank you." he spoke against her lips.

She smiled, breathing a laugh through her tears, "I love you."

"I love you." repeated Cassian, sighing. He cupped her cheek, brushing a thumb under her eye, before kissing her. No rush or force, just pure, raw emotion as their lips caressed in a desperate kiss.

acotar taglist (if you wanna be added or removed just send me an ask or dm me)

@sjm-things @kris10maas @awesomelena555 @sannelovesreading @queenamydien29 @ireallyshouldsleeprn @messyhairday-me @ncssian @observationanxioustheorist @my-fan-side @booksstorm @maastrash @sayosdreams @thedarkdemigod @courtofjurdan @thewayshedreamed @ladywitchling @nahthanks @archeron-queen @sleeping-and-books @bri-loves-sunflowers @thegoddessofyou @ghostlyrose2 @claralady @queenestarcheron @oop-theregoesgravity @perseusannabeth @simping4bookboisngrls @anne-reads @fantastypenguins @laylaameer01 @thalia-2-rose @darkshadowqueensrule

#nessian #TSOU nessian fic #TSOU #the seven of us #nesta archeron #cassian #nessian baby #nessian child #nessian children #nessian angst #nessian fic #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf #a court of silver flames

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cheryblossomdreams · 3 years

Text

A Discussion About Dramione

This is a very difficult ship in the HP fandom, alongside others like Drarry etc.

However, I think there is something to be said for it regardless, since I’ve seen a lot of anti-Dramione content with some valid points and a lot of non valid ones too, so I suppose I’d like a try my hand at rebuking some of them.

1. Dramione shippers romanticize abuse and bullying.

At first glance, it certainly looks that way. Draco Malfoy was a racist, petty, spoiled bully that jumped on every opportunity to bully Hermione Granger and her friends. He is not a good character. In the Dramione fandom, no one claims he is a good character either. Instead, the Dramione fandom recognized the canon potential for change in Draco and uses that to shape their fanfics. The largest majority of the fandom (There do exist those really young fans that don’t quite yet understand everything that will blindly defend him or create extremely problematic fanart, but they are truly a minority) acknowledges entirely all the wrongs Draco has committed, and they are many. Actually, in most Dramione fics, the writers go to great lengths to process the part of DHr’s past that was filled with hatred and insults. You can find examples of this in the fic Measure of a Man by @inadaze22. Also to the point, most of Dramione fanfiction is written and set in a time many years after the War, after their school years, where they’ve both grown, matured and become adults, changed by time and what they went through, so it is a null point to say Dramione shippers romanticize bullying when their content is almost always set in a time where Draco is no longer a bully and Hermione is no longer a victim.

What the Dramione shippers like to emphasize is the fact that even though Draco used to be a horrible person, he had changed and grown past that, owned up to his mistakes and is now a different man. That’s what the stories they write are about. He had the potential to change already established in canon that he used later through his life to become someone better Hermione could eventually forgive and love.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a Dramione shipper that would say that while they were still in school they should’ve gotten together. Absolutely not. The content most of the Dramione fandom creates is always set post-canon, at a time where Draco’s changed and grown up from who he used to be, and Hermione recognizes his change and forgives him.

She certainly doesn’t have to forgive him, she doesn’t owe him anything, but part of Hermione’s bravery and overall character is that she would have been able to forgive him when she realized he’d changed. Plus, he saved her best friend’s life at a critical point in the war and, even though he did nothing to help her because he literally couldn’t have, which is something I’m pretty sure Hermione would have been grateful for, even a little bit.

The Malfoy family saved Harry’s life TWICE in HP, in both extremely critical moments in the war (Draco lying at the manor, Narcissa lying to Voldemort), which is something Hermione wouldn’t have been able to just ignore and pretend like it never happened, because that’s not who she is.

There probably is a very small percent of the Dramione fandom who create problematic content, but every fandom and every ship has toxic shippers, besides they are simply not the majority.

2. Dramione shippers use Hermione to redeem Draco.

The redemption arc Draco got in HP is extremely flimsy at best, especially considering the amount of damage he’d done prior. He saved Harry’s life, yes, but he did nothing to protect either Ron or Hermione, so personally I wouldn’t harp on about that being much of a redemption arc at all. However, I don’t think any Dramione shippers use Hermione to redeem him. In the Dramione content the things he did wrong and the hurt he inflicted is something Hermione recognizes and then, through the story, eventually chooses to leave behind. Besides, she doesn’t have to redeem him, since we know from canon he’d grown out of his beliefs eventually, privately at least if not publicly (more on this later).

3. Draco had a choice in how to act, if he really didn’t believe in blood supremacy.

No, he didn’t. Let me break it down why.

When he was 11 years old and first coming to Hogwarts, he was too young to understand the beliefs his parents ingrained into him were wrong and harmful, he simply didn’t have the mental capacity to comprehend that. He was a child that hung to every word their mom and dad said and he acted accordingly.

As he grew up though, started going through puberty and maturing, he would’ve realized that blood supremacy is wrong. Let’s say this realization came when he was 14. Lucius and Narcissa weren’t with him at Hogwarts, so if he changed his behavior to reflect his new realizations, they wouldn’t have known, right?

WRONG.

Do you really mean to tell me that if Draco Malfoy, only son and sole heir to the Malfoy family, an extremely wealthy, influential family in the Wizarding World and its politics, part of the sacred 28, well respected and with a high status in society, suddenly started being kinder and friendlier to Muggleborns and Halfbloods, people wouldn’t talk? People wouldn’t wonder, get suspicious? That such news wouldn’t reach his father, who’s got eyes and ears everywhere (evident by the fact he was able to bribe someone in Hogwarts to buy his son a position on the Quidditch team). And how do you think Lucius Malfoy, a devout Death Eater, would have reacted to receiving such news? What do you think would have happened to Draco when he came home that summer?

Draco was never abused and I doubt Lucius would start then, but I am positive he would’ve been disowned, for betraying the values his family had upheld for centuries. Lucius is a staunch blood purist and he absolutely would cut all contact with his son (disown him) when news reached him Draco was making nice with Muggleborns and Halfbloods.

And Draco knew this, he knew how strict his father was, he knew how deeply he believed in blood supremacy and he knew the consequences for stepping out of line and being anything less than the perfect son.

What would a 14-year old kid do being disowned? Homeless essentially?

So, even if he had realized the wrongs of his beliefs and renounced them, he couldn’t have done that publicly, and certainly not with Hermione Granger or Harry Potter much less, seeing as Harry Potter is the nemesis of the man his father believes in.

By the time he reaches 15 and 16, Voldemort is already at full power again and living in Draco’s house. Now things get even worse. After Lucius fails to get the Prophecy in the Department of Mysteries, Voldemort decides he has to punish him for his failure by having Draco take the Dark Mark. By this point, Draco had abandoned ideas of blood supremacy, but at this point, what the fuck is he going to do? Refuse The Dark Lord? The Darkest Wizard in all of Wizarding History? The guy who is living in his house AND holds the lives of him AND his entire family hostage? Who could and would murder Draco’s mother and father and Draco himself if Draco disobeyed? The man who murdered a person right on Draco’s kitchen table and had Nagini swallow them whole?

Even if all of that wasn’t true, and it is, how’s a 16 year old kid going to fight off a house full of seasoned Death Eaters, proficient at the Dark Arts who will use Unforgivables on him, plus Voldemort himself, plus a giant terrifying snake?

At that point, Draco is left with literally zero choice but to take the Mark and obey his mission to murder Dumbledore.

He hatches several plots to kill Dumbledore, all of which fail. When they stand at the Astronomy tower, even Dumbledore himself calls all of his plots halfhearted and weak. Dumbledore offers him help, but Draco is very clear in his regret of the things he’d done and the fact there’s no going back now.

‘I have to do this, I have to kill you, or he’s gonna kill me.’

AND

‘What do you know about me? I’ve done things that would shock you.’

(I’m paraphrasing here, these aren’t the exact quotes).

At which point Snape shows up and kills Dumbledore in Draco’s place because of the Vow he made to Narcissa.

Any way you look at it, he really didn’t have any choice, even if he did at some point during school renounce his beliefs and grow past them.

4. He tried to kill Ron.

I’ve seen antis blame Draco for this one, which is a bit ridiculous. He did not. He had madam Rosmerta poison a bottle of wine, which he sent to Horace Slughorn, hoping Slughorn would pass it onto Dumbledore. Filch hadn’t noticed any traces of poison in it, because he is a Squib, he also didn’t doubt a shipment from Rosmerta, and so he just gave it to Slughorn. Slughorn kept it around and then later he was the one to offer Ron a glass of that wine. In Draco’s plan, Ron wasn’t ever even mentioned nor included in any way. It had been an unlucky coincidence for Ron, and Draco couldn’t have possibly known that Slughorn would hold onto the wine, that Ron would ever be around Slughorn OR that Slughorn would offer Ron that same wine. Sufficed to say, Draco never attempted to murder Ronald Weasley.

5. He did nothing while Bellatrix tortured Hermione.

We’ve been over this, what could he have done? He had saved Harry’s life earlier, but that one lie couldn’t of spared Ron or Hermione, their faces were too recognizable, even if Harry’s wasn’t.

A room full of Death Eaters, some of the cruelest, most dangerous ones mind you (Bellatrix Lestrange) and he’d be 17, if I remember correctly, still not even an adult, plus at this point in the war even more powerless (considering the fact the Malfoys had fallen out of favor with Voldemort, evident by the fact Lucius tells Draco that if they deliver Harry Potter to Voldemort, all would be forgiven).

What did you expect him to do? Leap into battle and try to fend off dozens of Death Eaters, effectively betraying the Dark Lord in the process and single-handedly getting his entire family killed, if not even himself?

Would you have done that? No, of course not.

6. Draco Malfoy is not redeemable.

Now Draco’s “redemption arc”, if it can be called that, is a powerful moment but it’s flimsy. JK didn’t really ever intend for him to be redeemed or liked either, but let’s take a look at it anyways.

It is canon that Draco stopped believing in blood supremacy at some point during their school years, though we can’t know exactly when.

How can I say this, when his behavior never indicated that?

Well, I’ve already been over why he couldn’t have suddenly changed his behavior, now let’s go through how I can claim it is canon.

The scene where Draco lies to everyone about Harry’s identity.

That moment could only exist IF Draco didn’t believe in blood supremacy anymore.

Think about it, if Draco was devout to Voldemort and his beliefs like his father, he would have had no problem or conscience to tell everyone ‘Yes, this is Harry Potter, hand him over.’ It would have been favorable to him if Harry died.

And let’s be clear, if Draco had said the truth in that moment, Harry would have died. He was captured, wandless (his is broken, when they escape the Manor he steals Draco’s), Ron and Hermione captured as well, he was entirely helpless and surrounded by powerful Dark Arts wizards and witches who would lead him directly to Voldemort the moment they got confirmation it was indeed him and that would have been it. Voldemort would have killed him. Voldemort would have won.

But that isn’t what happened.

Draco looked at Harry, recognized it was him (evident by a later scene where Harry straight up says that. “Why didn’t you tell her? Bellatrix? You knew it was me, you didn’t say anything.”) and at first, still unsure what to do, asked why Harry’s face was like that, and he’s told Harry just came in like that.

Draco says “I’m not sure.”

At that point Lucius grips him and tells him that if they gave up Harry Potter to Voldemort all would be forgiven, Bellatrix brings him closer to get a second look.

Draco knows all the consequences of what he’s doing at this point, he knows what he’s risking, the literal lives of everyone he loves, and what does he do?

He still lies.

‘I can’t be sure.’

It’s a powerful moment for his character, BUT it’s not enough for redemption. The amount of pain and hatred he’d spewed for 6 years (I say 6 years because The Golden Trio wasn’t attending Hogwarts for year 7) is not redeemed by this one instance. His actions, letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts, likely torturing people on command of the Carrows in 7th year, are not redeemed by this moment, even if he did save Harry’s life.

However, though this instance doesn’t constitute redemption, it is telling of the fact Draco has changed, and changed significantly from the hateful, angry, spoiled, racist brat he used to be, which gives him potential to grow up into a different, better man.

Whether JK intended it or not, the way that was written makes Draco Malfoy more than redeemable, if not for the duration of the books, then later through his life.

Being a horrible person at one point in your life does not make you forever evil, does not mean you can not ever change. To prove this, I’d like to humbly request you to watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSH5EY-W5oM

Voldemort’s regime is very similar to Hitler’s Nazi movement, so this video is very fitting to my point and HP in general.

Here’s another three:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0vS0qvYo0&list=TLPQMTcxMjIwMjBZfqJdkbbQJw&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4gly9n9RBo&list=TLPQMTcxMjIwMjBZfqJdkbbQJw&index=3

If you don’t have time to watch, let me sum it up for you.

The first video chronicles the story of a man who’d been part of the Neo-Nazi movement, managed to leave it behind and become an activist and overall an amazing guy now.

The other three links chronicle the story of Daryl Davis, a black man who’d attended KKK rallies and even met with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK Roger Kelly, somehow despite all odds became friends with him and eventually managed to get through to Roger Kelly to the point where this man (The leader of the KKK on a national scale) stepped down from his position and left the Ku Klux Klan.

That’s real life, something like that happened, truly happened, but Draco Malfoy is irredeemable?

PLUS, Draco is hardly the first case like this.

Take James Potter as an example. James was also a rich, racist, privileged white boy, and a bully. He’d bullied Snape severely, even set up a “prank” with his friends that would lead to Snape getting attacked by a WEREWOLF, putting him in mortal peril, with great potential of killing him, that required then a rescue operation.

James attempted murder, or if you don’t want to go that far, he set up a situation that quite possibly could have gotten someone killed, and he got to mature and grow past his behaviors and redeem himself, fall in love with Lily and have a wonderful son.

Why couldn’t Draco change when James had?

In conclusion, I think there’s a big diifference between what the Dramione fandom actually is and what antis think it is.

The heart of the Dramione fandom is about growing and changing and maturing and forgiving and falling in love despite the differences of the past.

It’s not about romanticizing bullying or toxic relationships, life is not black and white people, people can change and grow from their past actions and people can also forgive and move on.

There’s plenty of examples in the books of Harry and Ron mistreating Hermione and they all move past those instances (obviously that can’t be compared to what Draco did, I’m just making a point here).

I do acknowledge that the Dramione shippers have some bad apples among them, some problematic people that take it all too far, but honestly, every fandom and every ship has bad, toxic people so you can’t really use that against them.

All in all, things aren’t the way antis always present them, there’s a lot more gray there, and I hope this entirely too long post helped some of y’all see that.

#dramione #dramione discourse #pro dramione #a defence of dramione #anti dramione discussions

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spicysoftsweet · 3 years

Text

Chapter 13

Masterlist

cw: nsfw, timeskip

“Mmm.”

A soft moan of pleasure left Kumi’s lips as she continued to roll her hips slowly, a smile on her face as she leaned forward, letting her palms glide up her partner’s chest. His eyes seemed to glaze over with lust still as he looked upon her breasts, and she giggled.

It truly was nice to be with someone who definitely loved you more than you loved them, she thought fleetingly, then attempted to banish the idea from her own mind.

Perhaps it was an unkind thought. She liked the guy she was currently riding enough; Seiichi was nice to look at with heavy-lidded eyes, shaggy dirty blonde hair and an easy going smile, and he had been attentive and caring to her through these last couple of years as they futzed through medical school together.

At graduation just a couple weeks ago, he’d asked her how she felt about the two of them becoming official and she’d avoided the question, and he’d known better not to bring it up again. Kumi considered that he’d perhaps ask again now, now that she was hovering above him and his hands pressed firmly around her waist and she could feel her stomach coil tighter and tighter the longer they moved together.

He didn’t just like her more, he liked her too much for her comfort, she’d realized.

“Kumi, I-” he began, cheeks flushed, but then she’d cut him off abruptly.

“I’m moving back to Tokyo-” she blurted out, right before she felt herself snap and let out a strangled cry as she climaxed and promptly collapsed onto him. She could barely see his look of distress as he took in this sudden news, his cock softening inside her almost immediately, but she could feel the quickening pace of his heart.

It was an asshole move.

“You’re what?” He asked.

Kumi shifted her legs as he slipped out of her, then rolled over to the side so that she was staring at the ceiling and not at him.

“I’m leaving this weekend,” she repeated, cheeks still warm as she recovered from her orgasm. The pensive, slightly amused look on her face was unchanging, as though she had simply told him about a funny dream she’d had, and Seiichi, who had thought he was making some progress all these years realized all at once that he’d never even cracked the surface of her frozen heart. The idea of him having wasted his time so thoroughly aggravated him suddenly.

“Were you ever going to fucking say anything?” He hissed. “Or did it just hit you spur of the moment to say something like this?”

She turned towards him, noting his now red-faced and angry expression, and placed a hand on his cheek, caressing it softly. There was something akin to pity in her look, but not love.

“I didn’t think it was important,” she replied simply.

She could have left it at that, and Seiichi may have calmed down and even considered bargaining with her - trips back and forth maybe, a vacation here or there, she just had to tell him that she still wanted him, in some capacity, and it would still be alright.

“You are important to me,” he said and attempted to mirror her action, but frowning, Kumi moved backwards and quickly made her way off the bed, redressing herself.

He watched her with anticipation, anxiety choking the words in his throat as she got ready to leave.

After an unnecessarily silent period of time, she turned to him and smiled widely, something unnatural and painful and flat all at once.

“I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same way.”

---

“Why did you decide to become a doctor?”

Kumi hated this question every single time it was asked. The truest answer was when my middle school boyfriend died in a gang fight in front of me, mostly due to self-inflicted injury that could have been preventable if only I had the skills, but it wasn’t exactly the answer that earned her points with anyone. If anything, it only invited more unnecessary questions.

Instead, she offered something generic like, “I’ve always had a passion to take care of others and found that I was interested in the science of the human body and thus pursued my passion in this way.” It was sufficiently true, she figured, even if it wasn’t as exciting a reason.

The interviewer seemed to be impressed enough with the lackluster response, as she expected. Her grades were excellent, after all, so this interview was somewhat of a formality. The only thing that worried her was whether or not she was ready to move back to Tokyo for residency, and decided after very brief contemplation that she was.

It had been so many years since that event had happened, after all. She couldn’t possibly still be hung up on the past.

People died all the time; years of medical school had taught her this. She could prevent some death but not all.

When she’d received the residency position, she was excited as the program was top rated in the country for emergency medicine training, but then recalled that she likely had no one left in Tokyo. Her parents had long since moved to the United States permanently along with her grandmother who had taken her in charge up until she’d started college, and her brother, many years older, lived on the other end of the country. They weren’t close, even if she had wanted to be.

She had no one left. She’d even briefly wondered if she could bring Seiichi with her, and realized it would be too cruel to use him in this way. Seiichi would remain in their city, pursuing specialization in pediatrics, so his goals and her goals wouldn’t be compatible anyway.

Why Tokyo?

Her mother hated even the idea of moving back there, and she’d had to reassure her repeatedly that more than ten years had passed, so there was no way she’d return to that dark place she’d been in the latter fourteenth and entire fifteenth year of her life.

“Are you sure?” Her mother pressed.

“Yes, mom,” she reassured her. “I won’t even be living on the same side of the city.”

And I’m past it, she thought.

With that, she moved to a small apartment in Tokyo alone on a Saturday morning and started her first day of work as a newly minted doctor that very Monday.

The first day was busy and the emergency department was as busy and as hectic as she should have expected being in a major city, but she survived after putting in her hours, clocking out sometime between 13 to 15 hours after the beginning of her shift, exhausted and with no one to go home to. As she sat on the train, trying not to let her tired eyes glaze over, she downloaded a dating app, swiped left and right on a couple of strange faces then sighed loudly.

It was a dumb idea to meet men if she was going to have no one to call in case of an emergency.

Kumi made it to her new home, hopping into the shower, and changing into soft shorts and a pajama shirt immediately before preparing some instant noodles for dinner. She made a mental note to buy some real groceries sometime this weekend. She then quickly texted a message to her parents to tell them her first day had gone well.

She would be fine.

As she ate her meal in silence, her mind flitted to Kaksi for a moment. She wondered how she was doing. Should she contact her? They hadn’t spoken in over a decade. Did she miss her? Was she even still in this city?

She finished her meal and shook off the thought of digging up past relationships. She wouldn’t want to burrow too deeply and be hurt by what she found.

---

Kaksi rested the ends of her chopsticks on the dark blue and white hashioki in front of her. Then her brown eyes wandered outside, enjoying Tokyo’s skyline through the large glass windows of the private room she shared with her friend. Blue eyes studied her features quietly, while slender fingers brought the white chopsticks to rosy lips.

“Did you not like the food?”

“Oh, I did,” Kaksi replied in a soft voice. “I’m just not very hungry.”

Senju didn’t say anything for a moment. By now she had memorised all of Kaksi’s habits, which made it usually easy for her to pick up on her emotions and thoughts.

“Are you nervous?” she asked before taking a sip of her drink.

Kaksi smiled.

“I guess I am.”

Was this moment shared together their goodbye? As much as Senju preferred not to dwell on the future, she couldn’t ignore the inevitable change that Kazutora’s return would bring into her life. She had made a mistake, growing too comfortable treating Kaksi like she was hers when she was someone else’s all along.

Senju had never met Manjiro Sano despite the similar lifestyle they shared but back when Kaksi would still talk about him, she compared them a lot. Brahman’s leader used to believe she was nothing like him, the idea of ever leaving Kaksi behind unthinkable to her but now she wondered if the reason behind their fall out wasn’t just Mikey trying to spare his own feelings, something Senju failed to do by falling for her best friend.

She had been foolish to think Kaksi would fail to keep her promise. While they had shared more kisses that they could both count and uncovered the secrets to each other’s body in between almost forbidden confessions, Senju still wasn’t the one Kaksi wished to have by her side, or maybe she did. It had felt like she did so many times and it still felt that way as they walked out of the expensive restaurant too close to each other.

Kaksi’s hands were always so cold but Senju liked to warm them up. Tonight however the brunette wouldn’t let her like she had been doing for the past months. Senju was being selfish again, she knew. Kaksi couldn’t say no, not to her, not when she would give her those pleading blue eyes or slide her hand around her waist.

“Sen,” she said, irritated and distancing herself from her best friend.

But this time she had to say no.

“I don’t think I can do it, Kaksi.”

Kazutora would be out of jail in a few days and Kaksi had already planned out a future for them, one that she had desired ever since they had promised to never leave each other’s side back when they were children. It was unfair that she couldn’t preserve what she had built for the past years but if it wasn’t her then who would watch out for Kazutora? There was an obligation Kaksi felt to him, one that she felt like she could never get rid of but this was also what she wanted.

“I don’t think he would be happy in Tokyo,” she told her.

Senju rolled her eyes at her answer. Why was it that Kaksi always had to make her life revolve around him?

“Aren’t you happy in Tokyo?” she asked, voice louder as her irritation grew.

“I need a change of air.”

“Do you need a change of air or do you think Kazutora needs one?” Senju replied. “Because those are two very different things.”

“I think we do.”

Senju stayed quiet for a moment. She wondered if Kaksi could see that what she felt was beyond jealousy. If Kaksi didn’t want to stay by her side that was fine by her, as painful as it was but she wished her best friend would choose herself instead of someone else sometimes.

“You know, you can’t make decisions for others, Kaksi,” Senju reminded her. “You can only make decisions for yourself.”

Kaksi chuckled but it was irritation that she felt.

“This is not how I want things to end between us before I leave for Osaka,” Kaksi told her.

Then you could just stay, at least.

“I don’t think there is any other way for it to end,” Senju admitted, her blue eyes not hiding a sadness she had been containing for too long.

Kaksi fell silent, not sure about what she could say if this was really how they were meant to say goodbye to each other. Senju took a deep breath.

“I hope Kazutora and you enjoy Osaka,” she said with a genuine smile, contrasting with the disappointment and sadness she felt moments before.

But she meant those words. Maybe she was the one who didn’t get it, maybe this was what Kazutora desired and maybe this was something only Kaksi could offer and wanted to offer. There was nothing rational about feelings after all but even after experiencing all of those emotions, Senju couldn’t help thinking only a bit of madness could explain Kaksi’s behaviour sometimes.

If she did get it though. Then there was only one thing she needed Kaksi to remember even though she was choosing Kazutora right now and had planned to always do so.

“But if you don’t then come back to me in Tokyo.”

Kaksi’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of Senju’s smile. She couldn’t smile back but she nodded as she watched her walk away, in a direction she wouldn’t follow this time.

---

“You said you grew up in the city, right?” The girl situated beside Kumi asked, turning slightly in the booth of the bar. The man sitting directly across from her, who from the beginning of the gaokon had seemed to have set his sights on her, perked his ears up.

“I thought you were foreign!” he asked, and she flashed her most charming smile in response despite mild irritation, accepting a drink from her coworker as she spoke.

“Nope, I’ve been here since early childhood. Briefly moved just outside Kyoto in my teen years, but I guess technically Tokyo is my home,” she explained.

The young man before her nodded, leaning just close enough that she began to grow uncomfortable. She couldn’t tell if the man’s interest was related to an expectation that she’d put out more readily than the other women on this date, and just because of that, she was determined not to spend the night with him. Instead, she focused her attention on the girl behind her who was also desperately trying to avoid eye contact with another guy who had latched onto her.

This group blind date was a bust.

Kumi didn’t feel too bad about it, however. She would appreciate anything that allowed her not to think about work. An adolescent boy had come in earlier in the day with a stab wound, and despite the fact that this was not the first time she’d seen injured children or the sequela of gang violence, perhaps the fact that she was back in this city made it such that the event had unearthed some trauma. She found that her hands shook as she stabilized the teen and for a moment, she thought she had even seen a flash of Baji in that young boy and temporarily forgot how to breathe.

That couldn’t happen again.

She should be over it. She had to be.

“Would you like to meet again?” The man whose name she’d long since forgotten - Tadashi? Satoshi? - asked her at the close of the evening, when she’d made it sufficiently clear that she was just interested in going home.

She should have said no, but instead she politely exchanged phone numbers with him, fully intending to block him in three to five days.

But who knew when she’d be lonely again?

---

A week later, Kumi could get over the haunting visage of the young boy who looked everything and nothing like Baji, but she couldn’t get over the sudden talk of gang activity on the news she let play in the background while she reviewed medical publications.

A horrific truck accident, involving a young woman about her age, had taken the news by storm. Listening closer, she heard a name that sounded familiar but not recognizable.

Hinata Tachibana.

It felt like a name she should remember, but she figured they might have interacted before she had relocated for high school, and most of the things and people from before then were essentially blocked out of her memory.

But not the name Toman.

Kumi perked up, sipping onto her tea and folding her legs beneath her as she sat on the couch, finally setting her paper aside, now that the television had caught her interest. There were no real suspects, but the death was thought to be related to this group, as were a series of other random execution-like killings. Kumi took a look at the still image of the young woman’s face, eyes wide, noting that she definitely looked familiar to her, like she’d seen her at least once or twice a long time ago. She couldn’t imagine her having done anything wrong or any act that would anger someone enough to order her death.

Toman doesn’t kill. Toman doesn’t do real crime, she thought.

But times had changed, and maybe they did do real crime now. She wondered briefly if Mitsuya was still part of Toman. What had become of Mikey and Draken, and the rest?

Did Kaksi know what Toman had become over the years?

Kumi unconsciously reached for her phone beside her to call, then caught herself. She hesitated for a moment, letting the sudden wash of anxiety run through her, then shut off the television instead and returned to her reading.

Let sleeping dogs lie, she thought, and she spent the rest of her night, minding her own business, minding her future.

---

She wouldn’t have broken if not for her dream that night.

“Bambi, you don’t ever stop crying, do you?”

Kumi’s eyes jolted open at the sound of that voice, the mischievous laugh she remembered from her childhood, even if it was richer, an evolved version. It couldn’t be, could it?

But she was no longer in her room. Instead, she was somewhere warm and blindingly bright, where her eyes could barely adjust, and her body felt… lighter?

She rose to a sitting position, shielding her watering eyes from the light, only to be startled by a warm hand taking hers, interlacing their fingers.

“Kumi-chan, look.”

Her eyes opened again, and this time, rather than light unfocusing her, there was a man before her, with a face that was foreign yet oh-so-familiar, crouched down on one knee and still holding her hand gently.

Fangs grinned back at her, and she gasped.

“K-Kei..?”

Her voice came out no more than a squeak and suddenly in her heart she was fourteen again, and her lip started to quiver as she repeated his name again.

What did this mean? To be looking at him again, a him that was no longer dead just days before he turned fifteen, whose dark, wavy locks were even longer and whose face had aged just as much as hers, but with the same fox-like brown eyes that she’d fallen in love with a decade ago as part of a sharper angled, handsome face?

She repeated his name yet again, heart thumping and tears welling up in her eyes, and he cupped her face in her hands, using his thumbs to wipe away her tears.

He frowned.

“I didn’t mean to make you sad,” he said, a pensive look on his face. He sighed, and Kumi felt his lips press onto her forehead. Warm, soft lips that felt every bit as real as she did, and it only made her hurt more.

She was hallucinating. All of this was impossible, whatever this was.

So why did it feel so real?

“I miss you so much,” she choked out.

A decade had passed, and here she was. Conjuring up an image of Baji as he could have been if he had lived, something that may not be real. She wasn’t even sure he’d look like this - might he have cut his hair, or gotten his teeth fixed? How did she know what his voice would settle to be like in adulthood, and if this soothing baritone in her ears was anything close? How did she know he would grow to this height he now stood at, towering over her once he’d pulled her to her feet and pressed her head against his chest? How did she know what his arms would feel like wrapped around her? Would she actually have felt this safe and warm?

Would he have still cared for her, had he lived?

“I miss you too.”

She sobbed harder.

“How can you miss me when you’re dead?”

He paused, and let a hand stroke through her hair.

“Pretend.”

Almost shocked, she pulled back and looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He smiled sadly at her and shrugged.

“Pretend I’m still here with you. I’ll stay with you till morning comes,” he promised. "I can promise you at least this much.”

There’s a point where it’s easier to live in the delusion, and it was at this point, where Baji leaned in to kiss her, then embrace her in a way they never could in life. They drank deeply of each other throughout the night, connecting with each other physically and emotionally, and the young woman hoped that the cursed morning would never come, where she’d have to give up on this dream or vision or delusion or whatever the fuck it was, and return to reality.

But alas the dead cannot commune with the living forever.

Kumi woke up in a cold bed where Baji was no longer inside her or beside her or with her, and there was nothing that remained but messy bed sheets, dampness between her legs and unrelenting, fresh pain in her heart.

She brought her knees to her chest, and felt new anguish for the first time in years. Birds chirped outside her window to welcome the dawn and light seeped through her window, and on this cool Saturday morning, she had regressed to the same child curled up in blankets, encountering heartbreak for the first time.

Why?

Why couldn’t she get past this?

Her father had said it first. It’s just a boy.

And here she was, a grown woman, who no longer could love, hanging on desperately to a ghost.

Kumi’s phone alarm went off suddenly - she’d forgotten to turn it off - and she reached for her phone, her whole body shaking like a leaf. She was pathetic, despite the fact that she so desperately wanted to be strong.

And thus, the moment she quieted the alarm, she dialed the only person who could understand the pain she felt. Even if it was selfish. Even if it had been a decade.

She didn’t expect her to pick up, but she did.

“Kumi?”

The familiar sound of Kaksi’s voice made her want to weep in a different way. Relief rushing over a wave.

She sucked air into her lungs and smiled, warm, thankful tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Kaksi, I missed you so much.”

#baji x oc #kazutora x oc #tokyorev #off target effects #collab fic #mae.writing #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers imagine #tokyo revengers #longfic

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sxveme-2 · 3 years

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blueberry pancakes // bucky barnes

MASTERLIST

Description: A single mother. Juggling being a mom, a full time pediatrician, and a difficult ex who believed now would be the best time to finally be a father. A soldier ripped out of time. Ex-assassin turned superhero. Learning how to balance a new domestic life with handling demons of his past, while facing the trials of the future. a love story began over something as simple as chocolate chip pancakes with hidden blueberries.

Disclaimer: I do not own any original Marvel characters! All canon plots and canon characters belong to Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios. This is an original work. You may not publish it anywhere else

Status: Edited

Note: Takes place after endgame. I have elected to ignore Tony's death and Steve's leaving. Did not happen. Quick Reminder! My works are only published here, AO3 and on Wattpad, thank you.

Chapter Three: The One With the Wallet

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 1511

The nights that Lily spent alone were always the hardest for her to handle. She'd spend her day busying herself with miscellaneous activities in order to keep her mind off the empty house around her. Whether it be sweeping the floors, vacuuming the carpet, cleaning dishes that were probably already clean, whatever it was. If it kept her mind off the fact she'd be asleep alone in the house with only her dog...she'd do it.

But today...things just didn't work out like that. There were no dishes. Lily could practically see her reflection on the hardwood. The carpets were as soft as a cloud. She'd walked Joey twice already, and the dog then passed out in the living room with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. She scrolled through Netflix about six times, even made herself spinach puffs from scratch. And still, it was only 4pm.

Glancing down at the screen of her phone, she let out a gentle sigh. She figured she may as well spend some time out in the city. She's lived in New York State her whole life, and lived specifically in New York, New York, for 15 years. And yet she'd never done anything really tourist-y in ages. The last time she walked the streets of New York by choice was when she and Genevieve first moved out from Long Island. Those were the days. Living in an old and dingy apartment with Gen. Her only stress being school and balancing a part time job.

Lily lived like that for around two years or so. And then she met Scott. However, everyone knows how quickly her life had changed after that.

Grabbing her keys and purse, Lily bent down to press a gentle kiss on the top of her sleeping dog's head before sliding out the front door and locking it behind her. Would she wander the dirty streets of the city? Probably not. But she would for sure be stopping in to pester gen as she juggled running the cafe. Maybe even snag a few pancakes to indulge in during her nightly read. Who knew? All that the blonde knew was that she would definitely be grabbing at least one of Gen's infamous blueberry muffins.

-----

Around five, Lily felt herself grow weary of the hustle and bustle of the city. She had stopped into a few stores to take a look around, specifically the m&m store to pick Hunter up some chocolate, the Disney store, and just a few small boutiques. Making her way down the packed streets, Lily found herself out front of Gen's cafe. Letting out a soft sigh with a slight grin tugging at the corner of her lips, she pushed through the door.

The young girl's dark green eyes scanned around the room as she watched customers laugh over coffee, share a pancake, or just indulge in the tasty sweets that her best friend made her living making. Giving a small wave to a few of the wait staff, Lily maneuvered to the back, where with a furious intensity, Gen sat on a stool, icing a doughnut. Knocking on the wall to alert the fellow New York native of her presence, Lily made her way over.

"Well well, what did little ol' me do to deserve two trips by the infamous Lily Osborne today hm?" Gen teased while moving her work to the side, "Couldn't stay at home any longer?"

"Nope. If I took Joey out on another walk I think he may have gone into cardiac arrest," Lily chuckled while taking a seat down on a stool, dropping her bags, "I always hate when Hunters goes back to Scotts. The house feels so empty without him."

"I can imagine. Why don't I stay over tonight? Keep you some company in that basic suburban home of yours, hm? Sound like a plan, Doctor Osborne?" Gen grinned, nodding over to two bottles of wine beside the fridge, "Picked those two puppies up on my break. Figured it's better if I drank them with someone else, instead of just myself."

"Oho is that all I am? A buffer to keep you from turning into a raging alcoholic? Also, mind throwing some blueberry pancakes in a container for me?" Lily teased while snagging a chocolate chip out of the container.

"I thought you were aware of this?" Gen joked, before looking past Lily to one of the waiters pushing the door open, "Yes Elijah?"

"The man who called earlier about his wallet just showed up, where'd you put the thing?" the dark haired worker asked, dark eyes glancing down briefly towards Lily.

The blonde blushed ever so gently at the look, before turning around so her back was towards the male. She spotted the dark leather casing of a wallet and slid her arm out, pulling it into her grasp before standing. Lily pulled her purse over her shoulder and picked up the plastic bag her son's chocolate snack sat in, gripping it in her opposite hand.

"I'm heading out...I'll take it to him, what does he look like?" Lily asked as she brushed past Elijah, turning towards the seating area of the cafe.

"He's got long hair and a beard," a gruff voice commented from beside her, the small screech of a bar stool being scraped against hardwood echoing through the space, "and is wearing leather gloves."

Turning her attention to where the voice was coming from, Lily found herself face to face (or more so face to chest) with the same man she had seen earlier with her son. Bucky, right. That was his name. He was taller than lily had imagined, and more beefy in the chest then she could see from many tables over and under a clearly oversized jacket. But up close? The man looked like he could rip lily apart with his bare hands, and not even break a sweat. Granted...he was a supersoldier. She was sure he probably could actually do that, jacked or not.

"Oh! Sorry," Lily mumbled as she extended her arm with the wallet at the end, "I was leaving so I figured..." her voice trailed off, a familiar feeling of excited nerves bundling up in her throat. Letting out a deep breath before taking a small step back, after the cool sensation of metal danced across her fingers.

Lily remembered Hunter raving about how cool the Winter Soldier's metal arm was. How it was so strong it could tear car doors right off their hinges without any resistance. By remembering this, Lily’s suspicions were confirmed. He totally could rip her in half if he wanted to. But according to her son, the Winter Soldier was timid in real life. But how would she know for sure? She didn't know who he was.

"It's okay...thanks," he mumbled softly, seeming to nibble on his chapped bottom lip, "You were here earlier right? With the cute little guy?"

Lily nodded gently, fumbling with her fingers as her mind raced in an attempt to find a way to quickly exit this social situation. If she wasn't familiar with someone, it was rare to hear Lily speak. Being a talker was never one of the timid girls personality traits. She mostly kept quiet and never tried to go out of her way to spend time with new people or large groups. They made her nervous. She didn't trust people. She had seen what they were capable of doing.

A tap on her shoulder pulled Lily out of her self-inflicted panic mode. glancing behind her, Elijah stood with the paper container filled with blueberry pancakes for Lily. Giving a gentle smile, the blonde mouthed a thank you before turning back towards the man who seemed to have not moved a muscle since the two began talking. Or more so, he mumbled and she stood there dumbfounded. It wasn't much of a conversation.

"So...what'd you get?" the man asked, glancing around as if he too, was thinking of a way to either get out of this conversation, or at least distract himself from the seemingly terrified girl in front of him.

“Blueberry pancakes..." Lily laughed gently, biting down on her plush bottom lip, before her phone rang from inside of her purse. Sending a quick thank you to the good lord above, Lily excused herself from the awkward conversation, only catching a quick remark about how they were his favourite.

Pushing out into the humid air of New York in September, Lily pulled her phone out and answered quickly. A quick sigh of relief escaped her lungs as she turned away from the cafe and back towards where her car had been parked for the past hour and a bit. Finally, thankful she could get away from any possible chances of awkward run ins.

"Hello?" Lily spoke quietly into the phone as she unlocked her car, sliding into the front seat.

"He was totally eye fucking you." Gen's voice sang out as her bluetooth automatically connected from Lily's phone.

"Shut up! Be at my place at eight, weirdo."

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puckyess · 4 years

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4 Times His Teammates Said “I Love You” + 1 Time He Did | Ryder Donovan

S/o to @penaltbox for being my favorite brainstorm partner and encouraging the hell out of me. Inspo: @that-fandom-stuck-in-your-head

I found the one TikTok that was deleted, so now all TikToks are linked!!

** FEEDBACK IS APPRECIATED **

Words: 7.5k

Shay Donovan

You weren’t allowed to have favorites on the team outside of Ryder, but if you did it would be Shay hands down. The relationship you had with him was like that of a brother. He watched out for you and you for him. You’d play the part of his best wingwoman and he supported your relationship with his brother. You’d fight like siblings too. He knew exactly which buttons to press and you knew how to get under his skin. You knew each other well and this is what made you two Ryder’s worst nightmare. You constantly ganged up on him with his brother. You were able to get Ryder to do/fall for just about anything and that made you Shay’s favorite secret weapon.

The boys had some free time this weekend and wanted to make the 5 hour drive to Duluth to spend it on their boat since it would probably be one of the last times they would get to do so with the season ramping up. Ryder’s annoyance for you and Shay began promptly at 6 a.m. He was not a morning person and you definitely weren’t either, but Shay insisted you both get up early so that you get to the boat at a decent time in the day. He did not however, set his alarm for 6 a.m., rather 6 p.m. and was awoken by his brother’s shouts to get out of bed. You, on the other hand, were just running late because you thought you could get ready in a shorter amount of time than was realistic. By the time you and Shay make it down to Ryder, who already has the car packed and ready to go, he’s huffy. “You guys know I hate when you tell me a specific time and then you show up late”. “Well this should be a fun trip, right Rizzer?”, Shay speaks up with fake enthusiasm. You shoot Shay a look from the front seat as a signal to shut the hell up, to which Ryder appreciates.

The first hour is pretty smooth, not a whole lot of talking going on in the car. Everyone just appreciating the sunrise, or at least that’s what you thought until you glanced in the backseat and saw Shay sound asleep. At your “awh” Ryder moved his eyes from the road to the rear view mirror. “So that’s why it’s been so peaceful”. Even though you laughed you gave Ryder’s hand that was on your thigh a light squeeze. “Don’t be so grumpy Rydes. This is going to be a fun weekend, I just know it”. He can hear the smile in your voice without even looking over and he knows you’re right, flashing you his signature bright smile of his own.

As if he knew he was being talked about, Shay begins to stir. The quietness is disturbed immediately upon his awakening. He takes over the AUX and the road tripping can finally begin. Him and Ryder argue over music, whether to play alternative or country and which has more of a summer vibe, until finally a summer playlist, containing both is chosen. You pick up your phone, scrolling through some Tiktoks when you find one you just have to send to Shay. You watch as he gets the notification and opens it immediately. The music is broken up, replaced with the voice of a guy saying, “Send this to someone you don't like. You look like a rat, and you are so fat. I would be so sad, if i looked like that”. You’re dying laughing in the front seat at the offended look on Shay’s face and the death glare he’s receiving from Ryder. “I hate you” is all Ryder spits out, as this is a regular occurrence in any car ride. You love how you can get Shay in trouble without even really trying and how Ryder only yells at his brother when you’re the one who sent it to him.

The rest of the ride is spent on the highway and though you love the singing of the boys in the car with you, you’re getting pretty bored just watching the trees pass by so you say, “Let’s play a game!”. They both look at you like you’re 12.

“What? It’ll be fun I promise”. They shoot you skeptical looks, but ask what the game is anyway.

“It’s like license plate bingo kind of. You see the type of car first, you call it out and then you get to punch whoever you want”, you say with a shrug.

“Ooo, I like this game”, Shay says rubbing his palms together as he studies the list of “rules” you sent him: Slug bug, no punchbacks. PT Cruiser, get a bruiser. Tacoma, put you in a coma. Kia, wouldn’t wanna be ya, could be substituted with kia kick. Big truck, no luck. Subaru slap. Jeep jab. Honda hit. Train, feel the pain. You read them out loud to Ryder so that he can play too while he drives. Ryder shakes his head as you continue down the list, clearly not as impressed as Shay was.

“Where do you come up with this stuff, Y/N?”, but he agrees to participate nonetheless.

The rest of the ride is now much more exciting, everyone on high alert for a vehicle that would allow them to inflict pain on a passenger. You and Shay are admittedly better and much more active in the game since Ryder has to also pay attention to the road. As a result, he also ends up taking most of the hits, both from you and his brother. Everytime you would excitedly jab him, he’d give you puppy dog eyes. He was easy pickings, as he was right next to you, but the sad eyes did make you choose Shay as your target a little more often.

After Shay slugs Ryder in the arm for about the fifth “Kia, wouldn't wanna be ya”, his personal favorite, Ryder expresses his annoyance for the game. “This is abuse. I can’t even play right since I’m driving. The only person I can hit is Y/N, and unlike some people”, he says, shooting you a look, “I don’t enjoy hitting my significant other”.

You just roll your eyes at him, but Shay is quick to jump in, unhappy that Ryder is squashing his fun. “Awh can widdle brudder not take a few punches? You’re going soft, Ryder” Shay says with his fake baby voice.

You know it grates on Ryder’s nerves like no other so you call the game quits before they engage in an argument in the small space. Luckily, you were just pulling into the drive leading to where the Donovan’s call home. Getting out of the car Shay throws an arm around you, “I liked our game, Y/N. Very fun. We should play it more often”.

You all enter the house long enough to drop off the bags and pack some snacks for the boat. Shay leans over to you. “Want to see something funny?”, he asks with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. You raise your eyebrow at him in response. “I’m going to get Ryder in trouble with only four words”, he promises. You use your hand to gesture him on to whatever it is he has planned.

“OW, Ryder! Ryder, stoppp!” He suddenly yells. Ryder, who was digging through the fridge, turns around, giving Shay a confused look as if to say “Wtf”.

“Ryder, seriously! Stop!”, he continues yelling.

“Knock it off!”, their mom calls down from upstairs. Ryder’s clued into what’s happening now, giving his brother a little shoulder check as he passes him to drop the strawberries on the island, just in time for his mom to come around the corner.

“Ryder stop!”, Shay yells at his brother one last time for good measure.

“Seriously, Ryder? You two are home for not even two minutes and you’re already trying to test my patience? And with a guest in the house. Did I teach you boys nothing?”, she reprimands her sons and you have to hide your smile as Shay’s plan plays out accordingly.

She’s bringing you in for a hug then and eventually her two sons the same. She catches up with the boys for a few minutes, but knows they’re impatient to get to the boat so she doesn’t chat for long.

Once she leaves the room you turn to Shay, “I have to say, I’m impressed. I didn’t think it would be that easy.” Shay has a very pleased smirk on his lips.

“I used to do it when we were kids, all the time. Good to know it still works now too, isn’t that right, Rydes?” he says nudging his brother.

Ryder looks back and forth between you and his brother, shaking his head. “You were in on this? You two are the worst. I’m about to drive back to Wisconsin and leave you both here”, he says with a huff.

Unfortunately for Ryder, your antics with Shay weren’t finished yet. While he was driving the boat, Shay had found a Tiktok that he wanted to make, but he needed your help to do it. You were lounging at the front of the boat when Shay brought it to you, explaining his plan.

“Okay, so I’m going to sit over there and just act like I’m on my phone, but I’m actually going to be filming. You’re going to put your fingers like this”, he says showing you his thumb and pointer finger touching like in the ok sign, “and then tell him to do that on his chin, but put it on your cheek. “I want to see how many times it’s going to take him to get it right. My bet is 5. You in?”.

You felt bad goading your boyfriend like that, but you knew he was the perfect victim for it. You loved Ryder, but he was a little slow to catch onto things sometimes. The punchline of jokes? Not his thing, he’d get it a few seconds after everyone else and even then, sometimes you weren’t really sure if he even got it then. It was a wonder how he played such a fast paced game and came up with chirps on the fly. Mulling it over once more, you finally nodded your head. “Yeah, I’m in, but $10 says it’s going to take him 8”, you say with a wink.

Shaking on it, he says, “I like the way you think. You have a deal”.

Getting up you go over to your boyfriend, trying not to feel guilty. “Babe, I have a test for you”, you say as innocently as possible.

“And what is that?”, he asks, giving you his full attention.

“Put this,” Showing him the same sign Shay showed you, “on your chin”, demonstrating for him, placing the ok sign on your cheek.

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Is this a tiktok or something?” he asked, looking around for your phone. Your eyes widened with fake offence as you pointed to your phone over on your towel. “Babe, do you see me filming? My phone is way over there. It’s fine. Just put this on your chin”, you said, once again demonstrating for him.

He looked around, still suspicious. “You’re not going to hit me right? This isn’t another one of your ‘beat up on Ryder games’?” You shook your head, promising him you wouldn’t even touch him. Satisfied with that, he gave in to your request, like he always did and copied your actions. Meanwhile, Shay was trying his hardest to remain camouflage but his brother’s predictable actions were making it very difficult to not start laughing behind his phone.

You repeated your phrase again, “Put this on your chin” and he again mirrored your movements, putting his ok sign on his cheek and looking at you expectantly. You tried again, enunciating the “this” as you watched him. He again put his fingers on his face.

You tried not to laugh, repeating the phrase, trying to clue him in as you said the words slowly this time. “Put this on your chin.” He studied you real hard this time, but copied your placement exactly with his ok sign on his cheek.

You tried again, “Put this,” showing him your ok sign in front of his face and speaking slowly, “on your chin”. This time the poor boy grabbed your wrist, bringing your ok sign to HIS cheek and waiting for your approval. This time you had to let out a little chuckle and as you glanced over at Shay he was ready to bust a gut trying to hold back his laugh. You tried to compose yourself, as you tried to get your boyfriend to do the simple task.

“Put this on your chin” you practically yelled at him. Even though he was frustrated with what you were saying, he had a big smile on his face because you did. “I’m not fucking stupid” he said through laughs and grabbed your hand with two hands this time and put it on his cheek.

You were really laughing now, pulling your hand away and trying one last time. “Ryder. Put this. On your chin”, you said hoping this time would stick. But nope. The boy really put that okay sign on his damn cheek and really had the audacity to look at you to say he did it right.

You took a deep breath, trying to catch your breath from laughing so hard. “On your chin”, and he just looked at you, processing what you just said and then finally his hand shot to his chin and he started laughing again. “Oh shit”. You started cheering for him and Shay practically exploded from his spot as he fell to the floor laughing.

“Oh my god. That was too good. I’m so posting this”, he said between laughs.

“I believe you owe me 10 bucks, Shay. Pay up”, you responded with your hand out.

Ryder once again was stuck looking between you and Shay. “You set me up!” he accurately accused. “And you BET on it? You bet against me?” he said, turning to you. Seeing the hurt look on his face you felt bad.

“Rydes I didn’t bet against you per say, I just guessed how many times it might take you to catch on to what I was saying. I love you though”, you say as you run your fingers up and down his arms at an attempt to get him to forget your tricks. He’s not pleased with your answer though.

Now you’re pouting and sticking your lip out at him, throwing Shay under the bus. “It was Shay’s idea!”.

“Dude!” Shay exclaims.

You roll your eyes at him, “Oh like he didn’t already know”.

The slight frown on Ryder's face had turned into a small smile as he spoke to Shay. “I can’t believe you turned my own girlfriend on me. You guys are being extra annoying today”.

“It’s all for the tiktok, bahd” Shay answers with a shrug, unbothered by his brother’s annoyance.

You, however, spent the rest of the afternoon trying to suck up to Ryder.

“I hate you,” you said as you passed Shay to get to the cooler to fetch Ryder a drink for the fifth time as part of your penance. Shay just grins up at you, shooting you a wink. “I love you too, my little partner in crime”.

---

The following weekend you’re out with the guys, walking down State Street and a car passes your group. Shay glances at you and then Ryder and an ear splitting grin takes over his features. Lightning fast he hits Ryder, yelling “Lamborghini, hit you in your weenie!”.

You stop in your tracks as your boyfriend doubles over in pain and you double over in hysterics. The guys, as well as the few passerbyers who had heard Shay’s outburst look on in confusion.

As you finally catch your breath you move to help your still struggling boyfriend. You crouch down so you can see his face as you ask if he’s okay, but his grimace tells all. There’s nothing you can really do for him but let him breathe it out so you stand back up, high-5ing Shay. “That was pretty good,” you say shaking your head at the memory of what just happened and your road trip from last weekend.

“How long did it take ya to come up with that one?”.

He proudly announces that he’s been thinking of new ones to add to the list all week.

“Whoever introduced you two was a real idiot and is 100% regretting that decision” Ryder says from his still bent over position. You only offer your hand to help him stand straight in response.

Shay’s animatedly trying to explain the game to the boys, who all seem very excited to play. They spend the rest of the walk to KK punching each other and calling out the phrases as they search the cars lining the sides of the road. You walk a few steps behind them with Ryder leaning on you for a little support and maybe some protection.

“You’ve really created a monster now” he sighs, watching the boys.

All of a sudden he strikes your arm. “PT Cruiser, get a bruiser!”, he hollers and takes off down the street, suddenly fine. He looks back at you with a big grin.

You shake your head, “Smooth, Ryder Donovan, smooth” and you chase after him.

Mike Vorlicky

Being in a group chat with a bunch of hockey players meant that you were no stranger to your phone blowing up with nonsense, but you knew the boys were at practice, as Ryder had left for it 15 minutes ago, so when you heard more pings from your MacBook- 4 in a row to be exact - all from Mike, you knew something was up. Quickly checking your phone, your brows knit as you read the succession of messages, confirming your suspicion that something was definitely up.

“Y/N! SOS.”

“I know you have your phone, I NEED YOU”

“Come on my ass is about to be shipped back to Edina”

“Y/N! I hate to do this, but Ryder got hurt on the way to practice. I mean like really hurt”.

The messages didn’t make sense, but the last one had you calling Mike immediately.

“Oh, thank God-'' he answered, but you cut him off, wanting to know about the status of your boyfriend.

“What happened? How is Ryder? Where are you?”. The pause on the other end of the line had your heart beating in your ears, filled with anxiety and worry for your boyfriend, at least for a moment.

When you heard “Dude she’s gonna kill you” from Cole in the background, a different emotion filled you.

“Mike Vorlicky, what the HELL is going on?”

Despite the anger and annoyance in your voice, Mike still let out a smug chuckle. “I knew that last one would get you to answer your damn phone. But listen-“

“So he’s fine? Nothing happened?”, you asked just to be sure.

When Mike lets out a nervous chuckle you release the breath that you had been holding. “I should hang up on your ass right now, Vorlicky. You can’t just-“

“No seriously, Y/N this is important. You can yell at me later, but will you pleaseeee, pretty please with a cherry on top please bring me my practice jersey? I was serious about coach shipping me out. This is like the third time. He’s gonna bench me next game and my parents are coming to this one...”.

Even though you were extremely pissed off at him for even speaking into existence your boyfriend getting hurt, you also couldn’t deny him or any of the boys when they needed your help and he knew that. After letting out a groan you asked him where the jersey was and made your way over to his dorm. Getting into his building was scarily easy and the jersey was surprisingly right where he said it would be, laid out on his bed. It’s a wonder how he forgot it.

Minutes later you were pulling up to the practice facility and walking through the glass doors that led to the rink. You were met with cool air and smiling faces. As the boys noticed you began to head your way, but not before Mike rushed over. He was coming so fast he barely had time to stop before he hit the boards and wrapped you in a hug, “I love you so much right now I could kiss you” he said, taking the jersey from your hands.

“Don’t even think about it, Vorlicky” Ryder called to him as he made his way through the boys to give you a quick kiss before the whistle blew signifying practice starting, just in time for Mike to slip the jersey over his gear.

Owen Lindmark

Cooking had never been your thing, still having never really gained that skill even after living on your own. But as much as it was not your best quality, it was even less so for the boys that were about to come crashing through your door any minute. Dating Ryder was amazing and equally as amazing were the 20 other boys who’ve you’ve come to call close friends that came along with him.

You had just gotten an air fryer and were excited to test it out. You’d been promising the boys you’d cook for them for weeks and figured what better time to do so than now. They had a big rematch coming up that weekend against PSU anyway so you had told Ryder to invite some of his teammates over for a mini team dinner.

You were pretty impressed with yourself you had to admit. Not only had you planned a full meal and dessert, you had timed it perfectly so that everything was just about finished as you heard the door unlock.

“Honey, I’m hooommee”, Shay called out as he dropped his bag in the pathway of the others behind him.

You shook your head as you stirred the marinara sauce one last time, knowing that the pet name bugged Ryder even though it was a movie line and he was so obviously joking.

“Dude it smells amazing in here”

“What’re we having?”

“I’m starving”, and curses could all be heard as the crew continued to pour into the apartment, the noise and chaos level instantly rising.

You cleared your throat and very dramatically tapped your spoon on your wine glass to gather the boys’ attention.

”First of all, everyone is to wash their hands before eating, please and thank you. Salad is already on the table. You guys can grab yourselves a plate, the pasta is over by the sink, the sauce is right next to it and then the chicken’s already been cooked in the air fryer so it follows your guys’ diets (kind of) and parmesan melted on it so you can just put that on top of the pasta. I have bread in the oven that I’ll bring out when it’s done. Oh and dessert for when everyone’s ready”. You barely finished your spiel before the boys were shoving each other to get in line.

Shay of course had battled his way to the front of the line, claiming seniority, Mike unsurprisingly behind him, followed by Lex, Owen, Cole and Dylan. For being as large as Dylan was, he had been easily bullied to the end of the line. Ryder stuck around, wrapping you in a hug and placing a sweet kiss on your forehead.

“You’re amazing for doing this. The boys haven’t shut up about it all week. You really went all out didn’t you, babe?” He asked with a proud smile on his face. His little acknowledgment coupled with how proud he looked made you blush. You knew he wasn’t lying about the boys obsessing over this meal either, as you had been receiving daily texts from each of them about it.

“Don’t get too excited, you haven’t even tasted anything yet. What if it’s the worst Chicken parm, you’ve ever tasted in your life?” You asked pouring on the dramatics. It was your first time using the air fryer after all, you had no idea how it would turn out and you were a bit nervous, but had warned the boys ahead of time that they may be ordering pizza instead.

Your disclaimer was countered by moans coming from the living room, a chorus of them actually. You and Ryder share a look before busting out laughing. “I guess there’s your answer for ya.” He replies, followed by a “No one better be having sex out there”.

You shoo him along so that he can eat with his friends and you can grab the bread out of the oven. After slicing it and putting it on a plate you deliver it to the vultures in your living room and prop yourself on the armrest of Ryder’s chair, rubbing his back as he eats.

The boys don’t stop gushing about your cooking as they continue to shovel food in their mouths. “This is seriously- the best meal- no, scratch that- food- I’ve had in months”, Cole says between bites.

“Hey, I just made you that really good burger and Mac cheese thing last week and you gave it 5 stars!” Dylan protests.

You and Owen lock eyes and instantly start laughing. “Dyl, did it come in a red box with a glove on the front?” You ask, still giggling. His eyes light up, happy that you recognize it and he nods.

“Dude, that’s Hamburger Helper!” Owen howls.

“And an insult to Y/N’s cooking”, Alex chimes in.

”Even this salad is more gourmet than Hamburger Helper, sorry bro”, Cole adds.

At this point everyone’s laughing at Dylan’s expense, yourself included. He’s immediately apologetic, hoping he didn’t truly insult your cooking, which just eggs the boys on assuring him that he did in fact insult you.

“Yeah, that’s like comparing Wayne Gretzky and Shay in hockey, but for cooking”, Mike chirps, feeling the need to get involved.

”Nice one Mikey. Dylan fucks up, but let’s roast Shay”, Shay retorts.

You grin, loving being a part of the relaxed banter that’s going on but wave them off. Dylan attempts to grumble out his weak defense, claiming that he’s from Canada and didn’t know about Hamburger Helper, just making you giggle harder.

“Okay, okay okay,” you say in an attempt to calm yourself and the room down. You were wiping tears from your eyes. “I’m going to go get the dessert so you clowns can get out of my apartment”.

Once in the kitchen you opened the cabinet by the fridge and felt around for the plate of brownies you knew you’d hidden up there so that the boys, specifically your boyfriend, wouldn’t pick at them before dinner. You felt a pair of hands on your hips. You had expected it to be your boyfriend, but with his body slightly pressed against yours you knew it wasn’t him.

“Need some help?”, the voice confirmed your thoughts. It was Owen.

“Please”, you said, accepting his offer.

He grinned once he pulled the plate down and saw the perfectly proportioned brownies. You had used one of those baking pans that had individual brownie shapes so that every piece had four edges, the best part and Ryder’s favorite.

“I love these, my mom makes ‘em like that. Smart to keep these hidden from Ryder”, he says with a wink. Though his tone is light toward the end with the little chirp at Ryder, you don’t miss the hint of sadness that laced his voice in the beginning. And he doesn’t miss the look of concern on your face either.

He puts the plate down and leans against the counter. “I love you for doing this tonight. I really can’t thank you enough. I needed this, the laughs, the home cooked meal”, he confesses, running a hand through his hair.

“Missing home a little extra?” You ask, knowing exactly how he feels.

”You could say that. I know the guys and I don’t say it enough, but we love you and appreciate how much you take care of us and keep us sane. What you do for Ryder is obvious, but stuff like this that you do extra for us, making a really good dinner and dessert, always letting us hang out here, and come to you with our problems. It means a lot”.

Not really having words for all that he’d just told you, but wanting to show him you really did care for him too, you wrapped your arms around him and gave him a good squeeze.

“Awh, O. I don’t know what to say. You and the boys are like family to me. You always have a second home here.” The sentimental moment is broken up by Mike shouting about dessert and someone telling him to shut up and stop being rude.

“I guess we better get this dessert to the boys so they can get out of your hair”, he says grinning.

Before letting him go you pull back and say, “Tell your mom I said hi when you call her later”. He picks the plate of brownies back up and you make your way toward the rowdy group occupying your living room.

“You know me too well. But I surely will let her know. I’m sure she’ll appreciate you keeping me alive”, he says with a chuckle.

Dylan Holloway

Everyone was huddled close together in the dimly lit booth as it came down to just Roman and Dylan, each with two fingers on the full pitcher in the middle of the table. The two boys were half out of their seats staring each other down. Roman had a smug smirk on his face as he watched Dylan sweat it out across from him, his mind clearly going a mile a minute.

The guys had just swept PSU and were definitely feeling themselves tonight. They decided to opt for the usual celebratory tradition of KK and Fingers, a game that Dylan was historically terrible at.

It was Dylan’s turn and he was still shaking his head, both at himself for overthinking a simple drinking game and at Roman who was continuously chirping him, which was not helping him decide. He only hoped the winning luck of the night would continue as he began counting down, “Three, two, one - two!”, Roman yanked one finger off the pitcher as Dylan left his two on, for a total of three fingers.

The team erupted as Dylan threw his hands in the air, “Fuck! I always lose this stupid, fucking game”.

“Drink up, bud!”, Roman chided him, pushing the pitcher closer to him on the table.

Dylan just groaned and stared at the full pitcher of unknown alcohol with a grimace.

“Come on, Dyl, you know the rules. Or at least you should, you’ve lost enough times by now”, Shay chirped from behind him. You felt bad for the guy because Shay wasn’t wrong. Of the handful of times you had watched and played the game, Dylan had lost all but maybe twice.

“You’re right Shay, maybe we should spice it up this time, eh? What do we think boys?” Mike suggests with a devilish smile and a rub of his palms. You don’t miss the look that he shares with Roman and your eyes narrow in on the boy who suddenly has a mischievous look in his eyes.

“Dylan, I dare you to go ask that girl for her number”, he challenges, nodding toward a blonde who had been looking over at the group.

Following his gaze you notice who exactly it is that he pointed out and you choke on your drink. You want to stop Dylan before he makes a fool out of himself, but he easily gulps down the pitcher and quickly makes his way over to the girl waiting for him. You can’t get your words out as you’re sputtering and coughing from your drink.

When you finally catch your breath you give Roman a shove and hiss “Fuck you Ro. What’re you doing? Aren’t you talking to that girl?”. He doesn’t answer, just shrugs as he watches on with a smirk plastered on his face, as if he knows exactly what is going to happen. Ryder nudges you in confusion at your little interaction with his teammate. Moving closer to him you filled him in on the unknown drama that was going on. “I played wingwoman for Roman a couple weeks ago so that he could pick up this same girl. Of course with my 90% success rate, he got her and I guess kept her. He’s been texting me about her all week”.

Suddenly understanding, he said “You have to go save D. The guys will never let him live this down” and you knew he was right. A freshman hitting on an older guy’s girl? Even if it was on a dare and even if her and Roman were just talking, it would still be embarrassing on Dylan’s part and chirp content for the team for the weeks to come.

So with a flip of your hair and a pat to Roman’s head you strode over to where Dylan was flirting with the blonde. He was really pulling out all the stops trying to earn this girl’s number, you had to give him that. You would even say that it actually appeared to be going well, but judging by the look that was on Roman’s face, you knew it wouldn’t end well.

“Excuse me, mind if I borrow him real quick? No? Ok great, thanks! I’ll give him back in just a second!”. You gripped his wrist with both hands and all but yanked him off the barstool until he was stumbling toward you, very confused. Once you were a few feet away, you steadied him with your hands. He was clearly annoyed with you.

“What the hell, Y/N? what’re you doing? I need to get back there. Things were actually going well”.

“And you will, D just listen to me for a second. I’m trying to help you here”.

“Help me? What’re you talking about?”.

“Dylan, Roman’s been talking to that girl for weeks now. He’s just trying to set you up because he knows she won’t actually give you her number because she’s with him so you end up coming back to the table empty handed and the guys can chirp you for weeks about trying to get with Roman’s girl”.

Realization washed over his face as he took in the situation. He glanced over at Roman’s now displeased but confused face and back at the girl who was seemingly waiting for him to return to the empty seat next to her.

“Whatever you have to do to get that number Dylan Holloway, do it. You can’t come back to that table empty handed, got it?”. He nodded furiously. “Good boy. Now go charm her pants off!” And with that you sent him on his way and returned to the group, all of whom were looking at you with quizzical faces.

You just shrugged it off saying, “He just wanted me to check if he smelled like beer. I guess she hates that stuff, only drinks Claws.” With that, Roman shoots you a look, knowing that was a load of shit and a jab at him. Her hatred of beer and love for white claws had been one of the many “fun facts” he had shared with you over the week. His attention turns as the guys erupt once again in cheers as the girl plants a kiss on Dylan’s cheek and sends him back to your table. He smiles victoriously as he stops in front of Roman. “I hope you don’t mind sharing your girl, she seems pretty into me”, he says and drops the napkin with her phone number on it on the table in front of Roman. The “ooos” and hollers from the boys are golden, but pale in comparison to the look on Roman’s face. Ryder fist bumps him and Dylan leans in to give your hand a squeeze, “I love you so much for that. The look on his face? Totally worth it. Really saved my ass. I owe you”.

Ryder wasn’t one to overuse the phrase “I love you”. He held great value in those three words and reserved them for times when it was just the two of you or for when the moment deemed necessary. Today was one of those moments.

He had gotten home from practice early to find you out on his balcony wrapped in a blanket and your computer on your lap. He hadn’t thought much of it as he shed his bag and went to wash his hands and make a snack, but the door was cracked and he could hear a familiar laugh that wasn’t yours. He stopped what he was doing and listened for it again. As if right on cue, his baby sister’s laugh found his ears. He debated with himself whether or not he should make his presence known. Curiosity eventually winning out, he decided to wait it out and see what his two favorite girls were talking about. He’d be lying if he said his heart wasn’t ready to burst at seeing you voluntarily FaceTiming his baby sister.

His snack forgotten, he sat himself on the couch out of view and just listened and watched. He watched the way your hair fluttered with the breeze, how you focused your attention on the girl on the screen, and nodded your head in agreement with whatever she was saying. He watched the way you interacted with his sister and couldn’t deny the feeling that was consuming him.

Even more so he watched the way Clara’s face lit up as you spoke to her, a look he’d seen before, one she reserved for her big sister. It was one of idolization, respect, and love. He watched her smile and her head tip back as she laughed with you like you were her best friend. Mostly he watched as the two of you had become part of each other’s lives in a way he hadn’t even known.

He listened to the beautiful sound of your laugh mix with hers and to the way both of your voices were so animated with each other. He listened as you spoke naturally with her, your kindness genuine instead of just treating her as some little kid. He knew she hated that but had unfortunately had her share of heartbreak by girls who only used her to get to him. He hated that he had caused her any kind of pain, but loved that you had somehow found a way to right his mistakes. He knew right then and there that he’d never take you away from her and she wouldn’t let him.

His thoughts were broken up by you reentering the apartment.

“Having a stalker moment there, Rydes?”, you ask him with eyebrows raised.

Deflecting the question, he clears his throats and instead asks what you guys were talking about. “Didn’t you hear the whole conversation already?”, you tease him. He just rolls his eyes, so you divulge as you pull stuff out to make dinner.

“We were just checking in. She was making sure you were still alive, taking your vitamins, treating me right, our usual. She had some drama stuff, but V is busy getting stuff ready for the baby so she didn’t want to bother her. Oh, and we’re planning your sister’s baby shower! Well, Clara’s in charge but she wanted my opinion on some details”.

The feeling he had before as he watched you two only intensified as he discovered what you had actually been talking about.

“What do you mean your usual?”

You’d stopped adding ingredients to the pot as you looked up at him, realizing you had just let Ryder in on something you hadn’t planned on. “Um. You know how you FaceTime Clara every week? Well uh, I do too...that’s ok right? That’s not like weird?”

He processed the information you had just told him. You actually took the time out of your busy life to get in touch with his sister every single week and were asking him if that was ok? He hadn’t even imagined you doing that, but you continued to amaze him. The smile he gave you was so warm and full of love. “Of course that’s okay. I love that you do that and I’m sure she does too. I saw the way she looks at you, you know. The same way she looks at V.” Your heart swells at his comment and you almost start crying on the spot.

“So she’s coming to you with drama huh? Anything I should know about?”. You laugh and default to “girl code” aka Ryder doesn’t get any deets. Despite his best efforts, including puppy dog eyes, he doesn’t get anything out of you.

“You’re MY girlfriend, you can’t let my sisters convert you to their side already” he whines.

You laugh and respond with “Well would you rather I convert to your brother’s side? I’m sure Shay could pitch a good argument.” He looks offended that you’d even say such a thing and grumbles out a “no”.

After he’s decided he’s done pouting he comes around the counter and wraps his arms around you from behind, nuzzling his face into your hair. “You told Clara I treat you well, right?” He questions, still thinking about your conversation with her. You’re surprised to detect nervousness in his question and that he’d even ask that. Turning in his arms you answer him, wanting him to see the conviction in your face when you say “Of course, Ryder. You don’t ever need to doubt that, baby”. He looks relieved and surprises you again with a confession.

“Good. I want Clara to see how she should be treated. What good love looks like, a healthy relationship, ya know?”.

Tears start form in your eyes and it takes you a second to find your voice. Eventually you do and you gently pull his face down to yours, running your thumb over his cheek. You melt over the way he leans into your touch. Even though your voice is barely above a whisper, it’s strong as you tell him, “You’ve made me the happiest I’ve ever been. You show me what love is everyday and inspire me to be better for you and for me. You are such a role model to her Ryder. When she looks at us, I promise you all she will see is genuine, pure love.”

His heart is beating so hard as he absorbs your words. He takes your wrist and pulls your hand to his lips. He kisses your palm then cups your face in his hands, bringing your foreheads together. His own eyes are glassy and throat thick as he tries to put what he’s feeling into words that will convey the same amount of strength and emotion. “Every time I think ‘she can't get any better’ you surprise me. Well not surprise me because I’m not surprised you get better, but- fuck! I can’t get my words out right now.” He can feel you smiling and takes it as a sign to keep going.

“What I’m trying to say is you keep loving me and showing me that you love me in new ways that I didn't even know existed. You’re always taking care of me before games, after games and practices. Even just asking about practice and my day and coming to my games, waiting up for me after road trips. The highs of winning and you right there with me are amazing, but what I love most and what are even better are when you sit there and watch us lose, me lose and you just know how to deal with me afterwards. I can’t tell you how much it helps me to have you hold me after a game or offer dessert or just let me bitch about it. The lows are better because you still want me after. Like even if I couldn’t play hockey anymore, you’d still want me. You still believe in me to do better next game. You inspire me to be better. Off the ice especially”, he takes a deep breath then and as badly as you want to say something, you don’t interrupt him knowing he still has more to say.

“You’ve shown me what it feels like to be loved. Really, truly loved. You take care of my friends, regardless of what they need and you do so out of the goodness of your heart. Watching you with my family, I can’t ever imagine you being anywhere else but a part of my family, Y/N. The fact that my favorite people in the entire world love you makes me so happy I can’t even describe it. You’re FaceTiming my baby sister of your own free will, planning a baby shower with her for my other sister? You keep up with Shay and get Boden out of his shell. I couldn’t dream it up better if I tried. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but somehow I was blessed with you and I swear to you, promise you I will never stop loving you, ok? I love you with my whole heart and then some, Y/N”.

The tears are absolutely streaming down your face and into his hands and his into yours. The moment had gotten so intense and so fast. These were rare between you two, preferring to keep the relationship light and fun, but occasional moments like this where you attempted to pour your whole heart and soul into each other would occur and you were left breathless every time. But of course, you couldn’t resist a good chirp.

“You’re gonna have a hard time topping that for a proposal, Donovan”.

#ryder donovan #shay donovan #owen lindmark #cole caufield #dylan holloway #roman ahcan #mike vorlicky #rydesdono

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1267

cds.

do you still buy physical copies of cds? I stopped for many years but recently started again.

have you ever listened to a cd for the first time and loved every track? I was like this with Petals for Armor, Flowers for Vases, and After Laughter; I’m just a super big fan of anything Hayley Williams and Paramore put out.

name an artist who always comes out with great albums: I mean I’m gonna be biased and say Paramore...

how long can you listen to a cd without getting sick of it? I don’t really listen to CDs per se, I guess, so I dunno if I can answer this. When I want to music, and a particular artist, I usually pick a playlist composed of songs from different albums.

do you know any good places on the internet to get free downloads of whole albums? I wouldn’t be able to refer you to one, come to think of it.

what was the last cd you bought? My Butter/Permission to Dance set.

have you ever gotten a cd signed by the artist? Nope.

name cds that are in your car right now or would be in your car if you had one: I don’t keep CDs in my car just because I get my music played by connecting my phone to the Bluetooth; but I believe for the longest time I had a Beyoncé album in the CD slot before I took it out.

your hair.

describe your hair style: It’s wavy and layered is the most I can say about it. I don’t style it often.

when was the last time you got a haircut? Around the start or mid-August, I think? I don’t remember when exactly; but it was very recent.

is your hair the only thing you drastically change? I never do drastically change it to begin with. The only things I do with it are 1) let it grow out, 2) have it trimmed to my collarbones once a year.

would you rather have brown, blonde, or black hair (not your natural)? I have black hair, but it would be interesting to go brown.

what's the shortest you've ever had your hair? Up to below my ears.

have you ever had bangs? I currently have bangs and am more than sick of them already ath this point.

if not, do you plan on ever getting them // if you have them, do you plan on growing them out? Yeah, for the latter.

fantasies.

what do you fantasize about most often? How my life could’ve turned out if we weren’t in a pandemic is definitely one of them. Would I have been able to get the same job? Remain in the relationship I used to be in and maybe have even gotten better at handling it? What cities could I have possibly already traveled to with my own money?

if your last fantasy came true, how happy would you be? That would be traveling to South Korea, and I would be over the moon.

how much do you fantasize? Mmm not very often since my work takes up most of my headspace. I usually daydream before bed, I think.

or am i the only one who does? Definitely not.

have you ever told anyone who has been in your fantasy about it? I mean, I just always tell Angela and Reena that I can’t wait to go to Korea with them. But I don’t fantasize about irls in the way that I think you mean.

would you rather fantasize about your ex or the hottest teacher in your school for the rest of your life? I don’t ever want to think of my ex in that way anymore and I’m not in school.

do you often find yourself fantasizing about things/people you know you shouldn't? I mean I will fantasize about certain celebrities but idk if that falls as a should/shouldn’t thing.

your ex.

who did the most damage in your preexisting relationship? I think we both showed our worst weaknesses towards one another. But by the end of it, I will say she inflicted more damage onto me.

if you were/are single, would you have sex with them? Um at this point, no. I barely think about sex anyway.

would/did you give this person your virginity? I did. My feelings for her today aside, I don’t regret it; I trusted her in that moment and I wouldn’t take that away from me.

do you still miss the good times with them? Only in the sense that she used to be my best friend for an extremely long period of time and nearly all the great memories from my past were made with her. do you still talk often? how often? Oh not at all. I haven’t kept in touch since the last day of 2020. did you make a big deal about the break up? Yeah, I was definitely the more reactive one and it lasted for a couple of months. She bounced as soon as she got out of the relationship and I wish I had gotten the hint sooner.

how long did it take you to get over them? Around 6 or 7 months. I really thought it would take so much longer.

if you could tell them one thing, what would it be: I have nothing to say.

the song you're listening to/the song that's stuck in your head/any song you want to talk about

favorite lyric in the song: “Where there is hope, there is hardship.”

what is the song? It’s a song called Sea.

artist: BTS.

how'd you get introduced to this song? It was briefly played in one of their docu-series; I just can’t remember which one. Anyway, I instantly took a liking since it isn’t their usual sound, so I wanted to look it up; and it made a lot more sense when I learned it was initially meant to be a solo for one of the members.

if you could perfectly play this on any instrument, which instrument would it be? Oh this song would be perfect on a violin.

would you have sex with the artist/anyone in the band? Why does everything always revolve around sex for some people?? < LOL same question but to answer it anyway, hahahahaha yes

can you relate to the lyrics? Not in the manner in which it was written, but I do have my own interpretation of it that I am able to relate with a lot. The song definitely gets me emotional.

name a friend that you think would like it: Angela, only because I know she already does like it hahaha. In general, though, K-Pop is still quite polarizing so idk if any of my friends outside of the K-Pop bubble would appreciate it.

would you rather have sex to this song or witness your dad singing it to your friends? Uhm, maybe the latter because I think it would be adorable in a very dorky way

favorite restaurant.

how many times have you been to this place? Countless times, but they were always with my ex. I need to revisit that place just by myself lol.

where is it located? It has multiple branches across the metro but the one I used to frequent is the one at UPTC.

when was the first time you came here? I have no idea but I think the first time was with my mom and siblings actually. A rough guess would be...2016? or maybe 2017.

what's the name of the restaurant? Yabuuuu.

what kind of atmosphere does it have? On the sophisticated sidde but still casual and homey, especially since it offers unlimited rice and sides and you can always just call on a server to dump a scoop of rice or lettuce or whatever when you’ve run out of them haha.

does it have a bar? No, but if I remember correctly they do offer a few alcoholic drinks.

have you ever been here for a birthday? Yes, for my 21st birthday. I went with Angela.

what do you order when you're here? I get their rosu set, which is katsu with a strip of fat.

are they famous for any drinks? No.

have you ever gone here with your significant other? Many times. It was our favorite restaurant.

if it shut down (if its a chain, the entire chain) permanently, how sad would you be? That would soooo shitty. I’d order a meal everyday until it disappears forever lol.

would you work here? No. I love the brand, but not so desperately so as to work for them haha.

favorite teacher

(I don’t really have one, but I’ll refer to the first good professor that popped in my head.)

how old is this person? I have no clue but I would guess he’s anywhere in the mid-20s to early-30s range.

name: HAHAHAHAHA I don’t actually remember his name anymore...oh no...but he was my prof in my international relations class.

are they married? I know he has a boyfriend, not sure about his relationship status. That’s not of my business to know.

would you marry them? Well, no.

do they have kids? I’m fairly certain he doesn’t.

have you ever seen them out of school? Not me but I know some of my college friends have. It’s how I heard he has a boyfriend lol.

what's so great about them that makes them your favorite? He was clearly very passionate about our subject and he was able to explain concepts helpfully and in a way that anybody can appreciate, considering I wasn’t even majoring in the course he taught.

are they more laidback about teaching or strict? Laidback.

do they run any clubs or coach any sports? Not that I know of.

what's their personality like? Approachable, friendly.

if they weren't a teacher, what do you think would be a good profession for them? Political analyst.

#survey #surveys

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luytenae · 4 years

Text

Johnny Joestar Headcanons

So, I was really bored and decided to write about my favorite Jojo, 𝓙𝓸𝓱𝓷𝓷𝔂! This is a mix of headcanons with some canon stuff.

So, here we go!

✰ Johnny was that typical doll-like perfect baby: curly blond hair, pale skin, pink cheeks, little freckles and big blue eyes that followed everything with curiosity. The clothes he used to wear also helped to mantain that look: in the Victorian era, babies from wealthy families used to wear dresses with plenty of ruffles, laces, ribbons, buttons and frills -no matter their sex- and bonnets. Nowadays he still has freckles; although not that many. They’re mostly on his cheeks and arms.

✰As we know, Johnny is the youngest of two brothers (being Nicholas 5 years older tan him). This, plus the fact that he also looked really fragile, made his mother really over-protective of him. This was usually seen as Johnny’s being Anne’s favorite, but she only wanted to protect his youngest son. The way his mom treated him made Johnny a shy, yet kind, child. That kindness made him adopt Danny, as well as taking care of Slow Dancer even if he knew that she was old and almost ruthless.

✰ His hair gets wavy in humid weather. When he was a child his hair was a curly mess after taking baths, but now it simply curls in soft waves, which he tries to straighten as much as possible.

✰He was born in Danville, Kentucky; so he has a heavy Southern accent. But since the Joestar family used to constantly travel to Britain -and actually lived there for some years-, Johnny added some British idioms to his vocabulary, thus resulting in a funny combo of British slang said in heavy Southern accent.

✰He grew up in a wealthy family -his father was tied to aristocracy, and also was a famous racer and breeder, having won the Triple Crown seven times and owning farms to breed racing horses-, so he’s a little bit of a spoiled brat sometimes. This status also made him picky over certain things, like food or baths.

✰Johnny was educated to be a “British gentleman” and, even if his own personality sometimes makes him fail at it, he still tries to behave as polite as possible. One habit that stayed with him was the one to note everything down, showing off his fine calligraphy and his accountant skills. The Joestar kid also knows Latin and Greek, as he was schooled. He even went to Oxford for a short period of time.

✰Johnny has never been fond of dark colours; he has always preferred to dress up in light ones. Luckily, they suit him.

✰Since he was a child, he has proved to be very perceptive of his surroundings, as well as being able to read the mood quite easily. Johnny is also good at focusing, what makes him a really good shooter -probably hunting would have been one of his hobbies, if he wasn’t kind and compassionate-. He has proved to being able to shoot at little and/or moving targets, even if firing from odd angles and perspectives.

✰Johnny loved his mother, and would try to follow her everywhere like a duckling would follow its mother. It wasn't surprising that his first words were "mama". His next word was "horsie", and would enthusiastically say it as he pointed to the horses in the fields when the family decided to take a walk around the farm.

✰In the Victorian era, it was common for toddlers to rarely be in contact with their parents; as they were mostly raised by a nanny. He did have a nanny -whom he loved deeply-, but his mother was still around at all times; she was always there for him. Despite breaking this usual thing, he was indeed raised to be like the stereotypical Victorian child: proper, polite and quiet.

✰The youngest Joestar loved to visit the horses in the family farms, enjoying their company. His fondness for these animals evolved into his skills as a jockey; as he also is well-versed in equine science.

✰Johnny was five when he first rode a horse, and his father quickly considered him a genius. The young boy quickly started to believe this as an irrefutable truth, his ego beginning to grow. Although he indeed is a genius with plenty of skills that allow him to ride across many types of terrain, or even challenge fellow genius jockey -ahem, Diego Brando-; having such a big ego ended up wounding him.

✰Even if George did praise his early horse-riding skills, the rest of Johnny’s childhood was marked by a strained relationship with him. His father was unnecessarily severe, to the point of physically punishing Johnny. He also favored Nicholas immensely, belittling the younger one with constant comparisons. After Nicholas’ death, George was convinced that “God had taken the wrong son” and took out his sadness and rage on Johnny. This cruel behaviour caused Johnny great pain, and an enormous feeling of inferiority.

✰Anne's death was a big shock for the youngest Joestar. He felt like he had lost the only support he had in the family; his mother would comfort him after his father scolds and punishments. She also happened to die a short time before Nick's accident. Johnny was 9 when his brother died; and around 7-8 when Anne died. His father cruel behaviour towards Johnny hurt him, and the little boy was upset because he didn't entirely comprehend why his mom wasn't coming back.

✰The only one who calls him by his full name -Jonathan- is his father, and he despises it. Nowadays, hearing his full name triggers something on him, reacting with some kind of fear. He was used to listen to his father call him only to point out his mistakes and scold him; so hearing “Jonathan” makes him have that kind of reaction.

✰He is a magnificent horse tamer, as seen with Slow Dancer: the horse was introduced as wild and ruthless, but she warmed up to Johnny, to the point of helping him get on her by hoisting him and rolling him down his neck and into the saddle.

✰After his father disowned him and threw him out of the Joestar household, Johnny, in shock, decided to shut himself off. With this, he also created a vain and narcissistic facade in order to hide the sadness this rejection caused him.

✰He tried to take Black Rose -Nicholas’ horse- with him when he was disowned.

✰After he was disowned, when Father’s Day arrived, Johnny used to spend the day in a sour mood, secluded and probably drinking, trying to forget his lame childhood.

✰With his pride harmed, he decided to prepare for the Kentucky Derby, winning it at the age of 16. He made it out of spite, trying to prove his father wrong and growing his own ego; maybe he couldn’t defeat Diego back in the UK, but he won the Derby. He still believes that winning the Derby was his greatest accomplisment.

✰When he was shot and paralyzed, Johnny felt his own pride crushing him: everything he showed off suddeny vanished. Unable to ride again, the horse-riding promise fell into oblivion; he lost all the friends and respect he had earned as a jockey. No one came to visit, leaving him behind; even his own father disappeared from his life, not even visiting him in the hospital. For that, Johnny is used to being abandoned: he forces himself to not get attached to anyone, since he believes that they’ll probably leave him.

✰During his stay in the hospital, the nurses used to dose him with morphine. They did it in order to shut him up –the poor boy was in terrible pain-, but for that, he got addicted to morphine. Luckily, it was only for a short time, since he managed to get clean several months after leaving the hospital.

✰Due to having such a big ego, now his past glory crushes him. He hates how he lost everything in such a pathetic way; but also believes he deserves it.

✰Surprisingly, his arms and chest are really strong; because he is always using them to crawl around and to lift himself.

✰Due to his light complex and weight, he is terribly ticklish.

✰He is a Christian, and believes in Fate and karma, but in a kind of wretched way. Johnny believes that, throughout the years, Fate itself was taking revenge on him for his misdeeds; and that he deserved every misfortune he received. His obsession with the Corpse showed his obsession with karma too, and how he wanted to reset it to a neutral state, paying off his negative debt. His beliefs in Fate explains his lack of confidence and constant panic of losing everything, since he firmly believes that Fate could at any moment take away his hopes.

✰Johnny has depression and, for this, a lack of confidence. He considers himself a useless person, a burden, and unworthy of love. This gloomy perspective of life came from his youth, making him a pessimistic man.

✰TW//suicide. He has considered -and tried- to commit suicide; but he couldn’t. He claims that it’s because he’s a “coward that hates pain, and doesn’t have the balls to finish everything”; but, deep down, it’s because he holds on to even the smallest hope.

✰TW//self harm. He has several scars: the ones on his arms are smaller, and were self-inflicted -self-harm and suicide attempts-. He also has some scars on his legs, caused by wounds he got by trying to stand up, walk and ride; but the biggest scar is the one covering half his back, as a memento from the accident. The bullet left a mark, surgery made it ugly, and the abuse he endured during his stay in the hospital made it worse. Therefore, he now is ashamed and self-concious of his back.

✰Seeing his legs makes him feel weak, and he hates that. He also despises feeling as defenceless as when someone picks him up to carry him without his consent. He truly hates feeling powerless, and it also makes him incredibly angry -and lowkey sad-. He can only tolerate this if it’s someone who he deeply trusts and knows, and only if he has asked for it.

✰At first, he wouldn’t let anyone touch neither his legs nor his back; but after warming up a little, he would tolerate caresses and gentle pats.

✰He also hates when people look at him with sorrow or as if they were pitying him. He may be disabled, but he’s still perfectly capable of plenty of things. Usually, he will reject any kind of help as politely as possible, but his anger will show.

✰Meeting Gyro made him throw away his harsh facade. At first, he was uncaring of everyone else save himself, only maintaining a polite but cold demeanour towards people he met; but Gyro’s influence made Johnny slightly more friendly.

✰ Gyro also made a great impact in Johnny’s perspective of life; not all of a sudden, but in gradual steps. The Italian man gave him hope, helped him to knock out his lack of confidence, gave him some assurance and optimism and also was genuinely nice to him, making Johnny grateful for meeting him. He treasures their relationship deeply.

✰Johnny doesn’t belittles Slow Dancer for being old, as he knows that she has plenty of experience as a Racing horse, and plenty of stamina. He truly knows his mare, possessing great knowledge of her: he knows and perceives her abilities and limits, and is able to predict what Slow Dancer will be capable of. They have grown quite close to each other, and she ocasionally nudges and licks him gently. Johnny loves this.

✰Sometimes, to kill some time, he and Gyro will exchange curses and slang in their respective languages. Gyro finds American sayings strange.

✰Gyro and Johnny had a hard time understanding each other in the beginning of their relationship: the older man had a thick Italian accent, and Johnny had to decipher what the hell was he trying to say. After a while, they grew used to each other's accents, but Gyro still made fun of Johnny's.

✰ His determination doesn’t waver, despite having failed several times. Johnny focuses on his goals, and puts them above anything else. He is also willing to endure severe wounds in order to reach them. And if you also add his stuborness…

✰The man is REALLY stubborn. If he wants to get something, he WILL, no matter what. If he has to, he will be violent or kill his opponents. This is called as “dark determination flickering in his eyes”, indicating a ruthlessness which would make Johnny able to kill in cold-blood. For this, he may seem amoral and selfish, even extending this to the interest of his loved ones. Yet he isn’t truly amoral, protecting defenceless people and taking damage to protect the ones he cares about.

✰He’s rather impulsive and hot-headed, which makes him take action as soon as possible. Sometimes, he might end up regretting not thinking BEFORE acting.

✰ Johnny would do anything for his loved ones:

Even if he’s afraid of his father, he has always tried his hardest to live up to his expectations.

He loved Nicholas deeply and looked up to him as an idol, and blames himself for his death. After he died, he became guilt-ridden, believing that his brother’s death was his own fault and that he should have died instead.

He was willing to abandon the Corpse Parts he had to save Gyro.

(JOJOLION SPOILERS!) When Rina was struck with the Rock Disease, Johnny stole the Corpse to make it transfer the disease away from her, not caring who would receive it and suffer in her place. But when the disease transfered to his son, he healed him by transfering it to himself, dying in order to save his wife and son.

✰He’s the CEO of being done with everyone’s bullshit. He’s angry 85% of the time, and usually cries out of anger.

✰ He’s also a sarcastic little shit. Any stupid questions you make him will be answered with his fine sarcasm.

✰He’s HORNY! This is shown with his bug bite fetish and the fact that he has been involved in at least one threesome. He doesn’t mind empty sex either -as he slept with several girls who came to him only for his fame-. He’s also bisexual.

✰When it comes to affection, he prefers to show his emotions through actions. For him, they speak louder.

✰Regarding to affection, Johnny will deny it; but he is touch-starved. The man really loves hugs and physical contact. He likes to hold on tight and get as close as posible. Since he doesn’t usually speak out loud his emotions, he will show them physically. However, he would rather be held, feeling loved and protected.

✰He feels guilty when someone falls in love with him, since he believes he’s not worthy of happiness nor love. He tends to think that he’s making them waste their time on him, when they could be with someone who could provide them with what they deserve. He can’t help but compare himself to others, belittling himself.

✰When he has a crush, he will do anything to deny it. He doesn’t want to admit how someone began to be so important to him, and is afraid that “Fate” might take them away from him. If he has to avoid them, he will; just to get away and not face his feelings.

✰George does reconcile with Johnny, and feels ashamed of how he treated his own son. He claims to be proud of him now, and even gives Johnny Nicholas’ boots. At first Johnny was resentful and wasn’t planning on forgiving him, since he believed that his father was only coming back for his recovered fame. After a couple weeks he decided against that, forgiving George and honouring him by naming his only son after him.

✰Nicholas’ boots were one of his most beloved possessions, and were passed down as a family relic.

✰If Rina had allowed him to name their daughter, he would have called her Anne, in honour to his mother.

✰In Japan, the Joestar-Higashikata family lived in a farm. Although the place is designed in the Japanese traditional way, Johnny couldn't help but give it some Western touches, specifically to the barns. These ones were designed to be as similar as the ones his father had in Britain and Danville. It made Johnny nostalgic, but in a gentle and warm way; he purposefully made them like that, so he could remember his roots.

✰They were quite wealthy: not only for the Higashikata's fruit business, but also for Johnny's connection with the Japanese government.

✰As a horse-riding teacher, his pupils loved and respected him deeply. Johnny liked discipline -as he took his profession seriously-, but was also very kind to them, treating them with the respect he never received.

✰Obviously, he taught his children to ride as early as possible.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #johnny joestar #steel ball run

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baepop · 4 years

Text

PRIVATE // 6

You crash the proposal dinner.

Word Count: 5.9k

Pairing: Jungkook x You x Jennie

Genre: So much angst...and smutty smut

You awoke in Yoongi’s bed the morning after. Your eyes had swollen and crusted over from the excessive crying that took place all night. At the thought of why your eyes were so puffy, the realization set in all over again. Thankfully, you were too tired and numb to start crying again. The pain inflicted on you from the memory of meeting Jennie’s mother was now dull and instead overshadowed by slight embarrassment at letting Yoongi see how upset you were. Though you were still pissed that he kept something so important from you, you were grateful that he was willing to nurture you in this wounded state instead of being his usual callous self. Yoongi could surprise you with his soft side from time to time.

You yawned and stretched out your limbs, your body feeling as stiff as if it had been asleep for years. You had no idea what time it was since Yoongi’s room was always dark from drawn blinds and dark curtains. You hesitated in getting out of bed for a few more moments, reveling in the comfort Yoongi’s quilted blankets offered. You knew that the minute you forfeited their warmth, you’d have to face reality’s all too cruel embrace.

You rolled over and slowly sat up right, preparing your bare feet to touch the cold hardwood floor, but before you did, you realized there was a body lying in the way. You fisted your eyes groggily then peered over the edge of the bed to get a better look. Yoongi was laying on the floor and his body was so still you weren’t sure if he was actually sleeping or just laying there with his eyes closed. You jabbed your toe into his rib and he instantly swatted it away. Ah, the latter.

“I thought you were sleeping on the couch?” You watched as he stretched and settled his hands across his flat stomach, eyeing the ceiling.

“I was. But I dunno…just decided to sleep in here. Had to make sure you weren’t gonna fucken kill yourself or some shit.”

This time, you jammed your heel into the boy’s side, earning a grunt of pain out of him. “Ha-ha. Very funny. Seriously though…thank you. I mean I still hate you for being a deceitful piece of shit, but thanks for having my back last night.”

“Wow, that’s like…the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Yoongi’s monotone made you giggle, but it came out horse. “Seriously though, don’t mention it. Last night was stressful as hell. Please do not put me in that predicament again.”

“I refuse to feel badly, you deserved every bit of it. But don’t worry, you won’t be put in the middle of any of this anymore. I’m going to settle this shit tonight,”

Yoongi paused briefly before replying, “So you’re still hell-bent on going huh?” You hummed a confirmation and hopped out of bed carefully so as not to step on him. Yoongi sighed and sat up, scratching the side of his head. “I guess there’s no keeping you from it then. They decided to host the dinner at Jennie’s place last minute, six o’clock. Now let me sleep.”

“Thanks, Yoongi.” You left his apartment swiftly to catch the very next shuttle going towards your apartment. You wanted to get home as quickly as possible and start your day. Considering that the fanciest dress you owned was an LBD with cutouts at the hips, you’d definitely need to do some shopping.

Jennie sighed heavily and massaged her temples. Her mother’s shrill voice could be heard even through the thick wooden door she was hiding behind. Her mother always made it a point to oversee the event planning even though she always hires professionals to do just that. Turns out it wasn’t just Jennie with whom she’d never be satisfied with. Jennie felt badly for the staff because, while she was able to escape her mother’s demands even if only momentarily, they could not.

There was still 45 minutes until the start of the first course, but Jungkook and his family were already perched in Jennie’s living room, politely pretending not to hear all the yelling going on in the dining room. They were making conversation with her father whom had just arrived from a 16 hour flight. Just when things got quiet from behind the door, Jennie’s mother barged into the kitchen and forced her daughter out of hiding out so she could mingle and be the perfect hostess. As she stared at the backs of her guests’ heads peering above the sofa from afar, her stomach churned, and she wished so badly that you were there to make this easier. She hated everything about this, but she agreed to it and there was no backing down now.

Jennie swallowed thickly and approached her guests. Her father immediately noticed her and made room for her next to him on the couch. He embraced her with one arm once she finished bowing to Jungkook’s family and began praising her. She grimaced and avoided eye contact with Jungkook, hating the way her dad sounded fake while complimenting her. Jungkook fought his instinct to roll his eyes valiantly.

You heard laughter and a medley of voices you’d never heard before from the other side of Jennie’s front door. You took a moment for yourself in the hallway to calm your nerves. You stared down at your heels and smoothed your lavender satin dress over your stomach. Loose curls hung from the sides of your face while the rest formed a carefully crafted updo. There was still 15 minutes until the dinner would be starting, but it seemed the event was already underway and in full swing. You didn’t hear Jennie’s or Jungkook’s voices at all and feared this was a huge mistake. You were so mad at them, but the momentum from your hurt feelings was losing steam as it suddenly became all too real. You took a few more deep breaths, deciding that you wouldn’t let this dress go to waste and that if you were going to lose your best friend and your boyfriend all at once then you wouldn’t go down without swinging. You knocked on the door loudly three times and listened carefully. It seemed no one was aware of the knocking, yet you heard the distinct sound of heels against hardwood approaching the door.

As the door opened, Jennie’s mother peered from behind it. Her shocked expression morphed into one of disbelief and then annoyance at your presence in the doorway. You cleared your throat when the woman seemed to be in no hurry to actually let you in.

“I’m just here to show my support, like you wanted me to.” You stared into her eyes innocently, but she could see right through your feigned innocence.

“Mom, who is it?” Jennie called out from the living room as the conversations died down. You smiled sweetly at the older woman, both of you realizing that she wouldn’t be able to turn you away quietly. The older woman stepped aside so everyone could see who had arrived.

“It appears your friend has come to show her support.” You stepped through the doorway and waved at the crowd of people sitting down. Jennie shot up in alarm and stared at you with wide questioning eyes. Her smile was wide and her expression inquisitive, her silence urging you for answers but you simply returned a blank stare and tight smile. The older man next to her whom you presumed to be her father stood up as well.

“Jennie, don’t be rude. Go greet your friend!” He then turned to you and smiled. “You came just in time, dinner is just about to be served.” You smiled and tucked a curl behind your hair as you bowed. “Thank you! I just wanted to be here during a really important occasion as Jennie’s best friend!” You made your way over to Jennie and hugged her halfheartedly while she was still unable to form words. Her hands lingered on the small of your back.

As you situated yourself at the independent sectional in between the two parallel couches, you finally allowed your eyes to rest on Jungkook. He was dressed impeccably with his hair swept to the side exposing his forehead. He had his eyes trained forward, determined to avoid your piercing stare. He was rigid as stone, but you were still able to detect the subtle way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. It brought you faint satisfaction that you made him nervous. You were unbelievably pissed at him.

Jisoo on the other hand, was barely able to contain her laughter at the absurdity of the situation. She took turns staring in between the three of you then smirking down at her lap. Although she held no allegiance to you and continuously made that crystal clear, you were upset that she hadn’t said anything to you either despite having plenty of opportunity to do so.

As your eyes traveled further down the couch, you took in Jungkook’s dad for the second time. He seemed to be confused as to why you looked so familiar, so you offered him a little help.

“It’s nice to see you again Mr. Jeon! Do you remember me? I helped your son pick out that suit.”

His eyes lit up instantly, “Ahh, yes of course! It’s lovely to meet you again. Thank you so much again for your help! He looks handsome, doesn’t he?” Jungkook’s father laughed and patted his son on the shoulder. Jennie’s parents laughed and nodded in agreement. You tried your best to laugh along hoping the stabbing feeling in your heart would go away soon.

“Oh, it’s my pleasure of course. Anyone who’s courting my bestest friend in the whole wide world should look the part!” You smiled cheesily between Jungkook and Jennie. You could see Jisoo’s frame shaking from the corner of your eye.

Jungkook’s dad made a comment on how small the world seemed to be just as a waiter appeared to escort everyone to the dining table. You took a seat next to Jisoo and watched everyone else for queues on how to behave appropriately. You’d never attended a fancy dinner and had no idea which utensil was for what.

“Lay the fabric over your lap, dummy.” Jisoo commented under her breath at you as the staff members placed small bowls of soup in front of everyone. You did as she instructed, trying not to seem like a rookie in front of so many wealthy people. If you were honest, you were in no mood to eat. The spectacle unfolding in front of you was proving too much to handle already. Jungkook and Jennie were made to sit across from each other as their parents took turns talking about how great they were and how profitable it would be to merge their families.

You watched everyone take hold of the wider spoon to the right of the bowls and followed their lead. You dipped the utensil into the reddish brownish liquid and sipped gingerly through barely parted lips. It was delicious of course, but you couldn’t force yourself to eat so you settled for wading your spoon around the bowl while looking around the table.

Your eyes first gravitated towards Jennie’s face. She was smiling at her parents and Jungkook’s but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. As if sensing your eyes on her, her head drifted in your direction and your eyes met for the second time that night. The edge of her lips feebly quirked upwards but you decided to turn your head and ignore it. Your petulant behavior didn’t bring you the revenge you craved, but it was a start.

Your gaze moved on to her mother who was animatedly chatting amongst the older people. Everyone laughed at her jokes and hung on her every word. They probably didn’t suspect her of being the type of woman to lure a college student into a car for the sole purpose of crushing her romantic relationships.

Her husband on the other hand, smiled with his eyes here and there but barely contributed to the conversation. He simply nodded along when a story included him in it and ate his food. He seemed tired and for a brief moment, you pondered what his relationship with Jennie might be like.

Jungkook seemed to be embarrassed by his dad’s constant praise. His hand barely left the back of his neck since everyone sat down. He circled his spoon around in his soup just as you did while sneaking glances in your direction. Your eyes dared him to look back at you for once and face you, but he never did. You sighed and faced forward again, waiting for the next course, but you instantly noticed Jungkook’s mom’s trained eyes on you. She seemed to have been observing you for a while. You blushed and smiled, but her look remained concerned. She spoke to you quietly from across the table without disturbing the ongoing conversations. “You’re a…friend of Jennie’s?”

“Yes, we’ve been inseparable for the past year!” A giggle bubbled up in your throat but died before it could realize its potential. The woman was clearly unconvinced. Your smile faded and you began sweating, feeling like she could see right through your false happiness.

“And how do you know my son, again?” You were starting to feel uncomfortable with her questioning, feeling as if she knew more than she was letting on.

“Mom, she was the girl who helped me with the suit, remember? What’s with the third degree?” Jungkook chuckled nervously from a few seats down but you could sense his annoyance. You were relieved he came to your rescue, but it was hurtful being reduced to just another store clerk. You felt a lump in your throat form.

Much to your relief, the waiters instantly appeared with the second course. Bite-sized appetizers sat perched at the center of each plate placed in front of all the guests. The dish was some variation of bruschetta and it smelled fantastic. Your mouth watered as you picked a piece up between your fingers and plopped it in your mouth. You hummed in delight with your cheeks so full your eyes turned into crescents. Jennie’s mother scowled at you for eating with your hands, but her husband reacted by chuckling to himself. You almost choked in a hurry to swallow.

The rest of the courses went smoothly, for the most part. After the appetizer, a spring salad was served followed by seared steak and finally, a pop colored mousse with an ambiguous taste that intrigued you. The only hiccups happened when you had to hold back dramatically gagging as their parents discussed the topic of grandchildren. The three of you wore the exact same pale and uncomfortable expressions. However, when Jennie’s mom decided to brag about Jennie’s nonexistent cooking skills, you failed to hold back the cackle that escaped your mouth. You held up your palms together apologetically for disrupting dinner again while Jennie covered her grin with her palm. Jungkook allowed himself a small smirk.

As the dishes were being collected around the table signaling the end of the dinner, Jungkook’s father began talking about his son’s budding career in baseball. He seemed to be immensely proud while informing Jennie’s parents of all the scouts that have visited Jungkook’s games.

“Isn’t that right, Jisoo?” Mr. Jeon turned to his niece while explaining how supportive she was of Jungkook’s athletics. “She attended the last one where he pitched a perfect game!”

“Uh, almost, Dad. I almost pitched a perfect game.” Jungkook intervened, the blush evident on his face. It was strange to see him in a setting where he wasn’t overtly cocky.

“Ahh, Kook’s always so modest!”

Jisoo put her phone away at the sound of her name but the bored look on her face stayed. “Oh…yeah I was there. It was a great game. Wasn’t it, Y/N? She was there too, being just as supportive!” Everyone turned to you at the table and you could feel the nervousness prickle at your scalp. You and Jennie’s mom shared the same horrified expression. You whipped your head towards Jisoo whom was facing you. No one could see the wild amusement on her face.

“Uhhhhhh…Yeah. I was there. I…uh…I’m all about school spirit! Way to go Jungkook.” You laughed pathetically, hoping their parents wouldn’t catch on to just how strange this situation was. You gulped while looking around the table. “Uh, Jisoo actually invited me! We’re actually becoming really great friends!” You ruffled the top of her head. The pale girl sneered at you and cringed at the physical contact.

“Oh? And how is it that you know my niece, seeing as she doesn’t go to your school?” Jungkook’s mom quirked her eyebrow at you and you never wanted the earth to swallow you whole more than at that very moment.

“Yeah, how DO you know me?” Jisoo placed her elbow on the table and leaned her cheek onto her palm, enjoying your misery down to the last drop.

You hated all this lying. It only led to more lies and you couldn’t take much more. You frowned and looked at Jennie who seemed to mirror your look. You took a deep breath, resolute in explaining what’s really going on.

However, it seemed Jennie was an expert at reading your face because she shot up from her seat before you could open your mouth.

“Oh my god! I accidentally ripped my dress! Y/N, come help me fix it!” Jennie scurried out of the dining area and up the stairs that led to her room. You hesitantly excused yourself from the table and made your way to the stairs but not before glancing back over your shoulder and meeting Jungkook’s annoyed stare. He was finally looking straight at you.

You held your dress in one hand and the railing with the other as you made your way up to Jennie’s room. You were so preoccupied with escaping the interrogation that you were only now realizing this would be the first time you’ve gotten some alone time with Jennie, since the night of the party and more importantly since you found out what was going on with her and Jungkook. You held your hand on your chest and felt your heart thumping furiously, willing it to calm down before you entered the bedroom.

You took a steadying breath, closing and locking the door behind you. Jennie was sitting on the edge of the bed, one of her legs crossed over the other. Her arms were folded in front of her and her fingers drummed impatiently on her arm. Her dress was in pristine condition, just as you suspected.

“Seriously Y/N? What the hell was that!? Are you playing some kind of game with Jisoo? Get it together! You were about to ruin everything in front of my family. Why did you come here if you weren’t going to take this seriously!?” Jennie was sputtering angrily. She had never talked to you like this, ever.

Your heart quickened in pace and you could feel heat radiating from your face. Your breathing shortened as you stood there getting scolded by her. Without thinking, you closed the distance between you two and smacked her in the face so hard your hand tingled. Jennie brought a hand up to her cheek but refused to move or talk any more. You were both in shock and reeling from emotions running high.

“How dare you,” you struggled to find the words to convey your electric emotions, “you have no right to sit there and scold me like a child after what you’ve been up to behind my back. I wouldn’t have to be so careful about what I say if this situation wasn’t so fucked up! Nothing about this is normal Jennie, NOTHING. And you’re the worst fucking friend EVER.” Jennie remained quiet and didn’t bother turning her head to look at you, so you turned to leave the room in a huff. Jennie’s hand immediately shot out and caught your wrist before you could get away.

“Don’t go.” Jennie’s voice was so small it was almost inaudible. You turned around to see her looking up at you with panicked eyes, but you were too mad to care about sparing her feelings. You ripped your arm out of her grasp as your chest heaved. Your heartbeat thrummed loudly in your ears.

“Seriously? That’s all you’ve got!? What was your plan exactly? After the stunt you pulled at the party and now stabbing me in the back like this, I don’t even get an apology?! You have so much explaining to do it’s actually laughable, Jennie. But instead, you haul me up here on the pretense of a fashion emergency, just to tell me to play along to your bullshit better!?” You reached for a seam at the bottom of Jennie’s dress with both hands and ripped the fabric wide open, revealing her legs underneath. She gasped in response and stared at her exposed lower body with a gaping mouth.

“Y/N, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?” She stood up from the bed and pushed you in a huff. You stumbled back, matching the wild look in her eyes with your own. “You should really go. You’re acting crazy right now.” Jennie fiddled with the bottom of her dress. You walked up close to her towering over her.

“Oh? But I thought you wanted me to stay.” You questioned her innocently. If she thought you were being crazy now, then she was in for a treat.

“Not if you’re going to act like this I don’t.” Jennie jutted out her chin, refusing to back down.

“What am I doing that’s so crazy huh?” You yanked the single strap of her dress down her shoulder. She immediately brought her arms up to her chest, holding up the remainder of the fabric. Jennie’s nostril’s flared with rage. “Considering what you’re doing to me, this is pretty fuckin tame sweetheart!” You pushed her back and she fell on the bed with a bounce. She sat up on her forearms and blew her hair out of her face.

“I mean, what the fuck do you want me to act like!?” You parted her legs with your knee and then rested it on the bed between them so she couldn’t close them. Your hair slipped over your shoulder as you leaned over her, placing your palm over her underwear and firmly cupping. She gasped as her legs twitched. “Is this what you fucking want? Is this what you were expecting from me?” You began rubbing circles furiously over her underwear once you saw the lustful gaze that clouded her vision. She started mewling and panting. You didn’t care whether anyone heard her, in fact, you wanted her to scream so loud that it’d be impossible to keep secrets around here anymore. You also wanted to get back at Jungkook for betraying you so badly, and what better way to do that than to fool around with the person that made him so insecure.

You climbed onto the bed and sat on Jennie’s leg as your hand continued its relentless movement against Jennie’s middle. You could feel her underwear dampening rapidly, a light sheen of sweat already forming on the exposed part of Jennie’s chest. Her chest heaved irregularly, no doubt a result of the sharp pleasures wracking her body. She threw her head back and exposed her neck as she tried to keep her moaning quiet. You leaned forward and ran the flat wetness of your tongue from her collar bone to her ear, earning a shiver from her entire body. She was wearing her bottom lip out with her teeth, so you pulled it out from their grasp with your thumb and held her chin to keep her eyes trained on you. Her arms and legs broke out in goosebumps.

You observed Jennie getting closer to her climax, but it didn’t feel like enough. You were trying not to think through what you were actually doing. You wanted to convey your frustration so badly. You felt used and angry. You weren’t sure why your emotions were manifesting themselves sexually, but you couldn’t stop now. It was all so intoxicating and taboo. Everyone must be wondering why it’s taking you two forever to come down. You were holding the hostess hostage, after all. These simple facts thrilled you. To hell with everyone.

You climbed down from the bed and onto the floor so that your head was level with Jennie’s mid-section. You yanked her underwear down her legs so roughly you swore they tore a little and then parted her legs with the same vehemence. She was glistening and blushing. You hooked your arms around her thighs and pulled her closer to you. You licked a stripe up her pussy and latched your lips onto her clit, sucking on it with no remorse. Jennie began moaning and groaning incessantly. Her lower stomach twitched and her legs ached to close at the buildup of sensation. You held them wide open with both of your hands and continue sucking on her mound, taking brief pauses to swipe at the accumulating wetness. It still wasn’t enough.

Your right hand released her thigh so your fingers could work their magic. One of your digits entered her with slick ease. Jennie’s eyes burst open and looked down at you, her face portraying an incredulous expression. You eased a second finger into her, earning a loud moan. She was tight, but wet enough to take it. “That’s it baby, lemme hear you.” You cooed up at her but her eyes were glazed over and looking past you in absolute pleasure.

Your fingers pressed against the sensitive spot inside her and began moving in and out, slowly at first but gradually picking up speed until you were pumping relentlessly. Her entire body was overtaken with stimulation. She no longer had the strength to hold herself up, instead laying splayed out on the bed and bucking her hips into your hand. You leaned your face in and flicked her clit with your tongue to get more of a reaction out of her. She hissed and clench around your fingers, so you latched onto her clit again and settled the tips of your fingers on her g spot to draw her orgasm out from hiding.

“Ah…fuck…Y/N…Y/N” Jennie moaned your name over and over, so you made sure not to lose your pace. You could feel the signs of her climax approaching. Her walls clenched around you rhythmically and her hips waved around rapidly in your face. She was so shamelessly full of lust that, chasing her high without abandon. It was contagious, but you hadn’t come to please her. When her voice became high pitched, you pulled away instantly. Jennie opened her eyes, blinking a few times as if needing to remember where she was. She spoke to you while panting, “What the hell Y/N, why’d you stop?”

Bending down to pick up Jennie’s underwear, you wiped her juices off of your finger with them then chucked the pair at her. The thin fabric landed on her chest in a crumpled sag, then toppled to the bed as the girl sat up in confusion.

“Just giving you what you wanted.” You smoothed out your dress and checked your hair in Jennie’s vanity mirror. You sighed and turned to her for the last time. Tears were pricking at the edges of her eyes, though you weren’t sure if that was because of the sex or because she was sad. Her lip quivered and it seemed as if she was thinking about what to say, but you just didn’t want to hear anymore. “Good luck on the marriage Jennie, he’s a real catch.”

You exited the room without a glance backward. She didn’t stop you this time, and for that you were grateful. You weren’t sure if you’d have the strength to stay away if she had. You leaned on the door to catch your breath and steady your nerves before appearing in front of everyone downstairs. You stopped breathing long enough to hear Jennie sniffling from behind the door. You debated on going back in there. You knew you were being petty, but you just couldn’t take the high road, not with this. You hated everything about this and you hated both of them for creeping behind your back. And you resented the fact that neither of them considered you before making such a decision. Just thinking about everything had you realizing how hurt you were deep down. You’d never been hurt like this before, and you couldn’t believe the crushing blows came from two people you didn’t want to let in in the first place. This all served as a good reminder as to why you were so closed off like you were, because people end up doing things like this.

Footsteps coming up the stairs snapped you out of your thoughts. Your eyes met Jungkook’s just as his head came into view from the bottom of the stairs. You were caught off guard by his presence that all you could do was stare wordlessly. He looked amazing, even when his expression was so serious and guarded. The last few steps he took to reach the last stair were slow and hesitant. Soon you were eye to eye, both of you refusing to speak. He kept his hands in his pockets as his tongue rolled on the inside of his cheek.

He cleared his throat, interrupting the loaded silence in the air. “I came up to see what was taking you two so long. Everyone’s waiting downstairs.” He looked everywhere but at your eyes when he spoke. You didn’t doubt that he probably felt guilty about the situation, but you didn’t care about that, not when there was so much unsaid.

“Your finace’s in there crying, you should probably go comfort her.” You kicked off from the door to walk past him, but he caught your arm before you could get away. He kept his grip strong so you couldn’t move, but it’s not like you wanted to anyway, not when you craved his touch and attention. You wanted him to say something, anything that would make your hurting subside.

Jungkook sighed deeply, “Y/N, stop. Please don’t be like this. I know I have a lot of explaining and apologizing to do, but this isn’t the time or place. Please don’t let this change things between us.” He looked into your eyes, searching them for understanding.

“How can this not change anything? You’re getting engaged to my best friend, and you tried to keep it a secret. It’s so fucked up I can’t even begin to try to understand.”

Jungkook sighed again, releasing your arm and turning towards you. He tugged on his locks in frustration. “Do you think I’m happy about this? Do you think this is what I actually want? Y/N… just because I have obligations to fulfill doesn’t make what we have any less real.” Jungkook leans in so close you could smell his intoxicating cologne. You backed up until you hit the wall, but he followed you to it, leaving no space in between your bodies. His firm body pressed up against yours and you placed your hands on his chest in a week attempt to stop him. You held your breath as his cheek brushed against your temple. He breathed in lightly, taking your perfume in as well. His finger reached up and moved your curls out of your face, tipping your chin forward to get a better look at you. You allowed yourself to take his face in and all its features. His lips were parted and so close to yours, your head was swimming. As if reading your mind, Jungkook placed his other hand on the wall for support and went in for a passionate kiss.

His lips ate yours up in unrelenting motion that left you breathless. For a second, you didn’t care about breathing or not, you just wanted more of him. His lips sucked at yours, leaving them wet and swollen. You gasped for air as your tongues immediately found each other and began dancing in between your mouths. The sweet nostalgia of your sunny afternoons spent together, and sweaty lovemaking came flooding back, but instead of joy, they brought a pang of sadness with them. You couldn’t smother the sob that escaped you. Jungkook was too caught up in the passion to notice, so you bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to elicit pain. He backed off and brought his hand to his mouth, staring at you in wonder.

“What we had, Jungkook. I can’t do this with you anymore.” You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, you were sure you’d start crying, so you bounded down the steps and escaped through the front door. You didn’t stop to say goodbye to everyone, nor check to see if they had noticed you running out. You couldn’t care less if you made a bad impression, you just needed to put as much space as possible in between you and this situation.

On the ride home you wondered if you should stop at Yoongi’s but decided against it. He’d seen enough of you crying for an entire lifetime. As lights and buildings and cars passed you by in the window, you scrolled through Instagram on your phone. It was probably a terrible idea to be on Jungkook’s page, but you were too worn out to fight your urges anymore. After everything that happened tonight, you wondered if it was worth reopening last night’s wound. Did you even get any closure?

You hit the unfollow button and then headed to Jennie’s page and did the same. If they were going through with this, you didn’t want a front-row seat to it. A montage of marriage pictures and future babies played in your head, and you surrendered to the sadness that came with it. You hated them, at least you wanted to believe you did, but the truth was that you were so hurt because you didn’t, not in the least. You exited the Uber and headed into your apartment. You began shedding your clothing on the way to your room. Once you reached your bed you were in nothing but your underwear and your fancy updo. You slid in between the blankets, pulling them up to your chin and staring at the wall in darkness. You must’ve left a window open because the chill in the apartment gave you goosebumps all over, but you couldn’t care about that right now. You were giving in to your feelings, yet the tears didn’t come. All dried out, I guess.

Just as the heaviness of the evening weighed you down, holding you stationary against the mattress, your eyelids began to close. Your breathing evened out and you welcomed the sweet release of sleep. But just before you drifted off, you became vaguely aware of your front door opening and closing, and then your bedroom door doing the same. In the grogginess and surrealism of sleep, you felt two bodies laying on either side of you, warming you up and comforting you for the night.

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