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ciphykiss · 1 year

Text

< incubus (ii) >

blade x f!reader; implied nsfw (only un-explicit part), mdni (implied) somnophilia

a/n: second part of incubus, but stave off the thirst for now XD

“Declined.”

You blink, once, twice, dazed—you count every checkered tile in your peripheral vision, wondering if you’d misheard. Bewildered, you straighten from your previously bowed stance, head tilted to the side. Jingyuan pays you no mind, bent over a fortune scroll stamped with Master Diviner Fuxuan’s insignia. Behind him, Yanqing can only stare, wide-eyed.

“Excuse me?”

Those infuriating, once captivating (but now more serpentine than anything else) golden eyes peer up at you, unperturbed. “Upon careful evaluation, it has been deemed that [Name] of Cloudford’s maximum security detention center is to remain deployed at her post indefinitely—until the case of the stellaron hunter is sealed and closed.”

“By whom?” You demand, fists clenching the fabric of your dress. “‘Indefinitely’? Exactly how long is that? This is ridiculous, and against the very rights printed on Section 35 of the Luofonian Codex—”

“By me.” Jingyuan rests his scroll atop his checkerboard. “And I’m sure you’re aware by now, but the Codex also states every Arbiter General is free to exempt and circumvent said articles when deemed necessary.”

“You can’t be serious,” you hiss, slamming your hands over the table; you see Yanqing bristle, hands cleaving for his sword, and Jingyuan has to raise a hand to temper his retinue that had, no doubt, risen to their feet and aimed rifles at your head. You pay them no mind; the vampire-bruises from last night sting as a reminder of your paranormal plight, caked under layers of foundation and color corrector. There’s an odd sting that shoots up your left leg, making it slightly difficult to stand upright. “You’re making me a prisoner of the flagship?”

Jingyuan sighs, resting his chin on a hand; ah, it’s that attitude again, all unbridled kindness and fleeting exasperation, like waves atop a morning sea. Over time, it spells more patronizing than it does calming, and urges you to reenact the more violent (and less whorish) parts of your lucid dreams. Your fingers twitch at the sight of his unmarred cheek.

“Why must you always assume the worst of me, my dear assistant?”

A droll stare. “You uprooted a fresh graduate from her position as amicassador, took advantage of her naivete to weasel in mutable terms in her contract, had her work an eight to ten schedule with unpaid overtime, and encouraged said amicassador graduate with no background in combat to cross-examine one of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy.”

“First of all, what you are not paid in overtime is delivered to you in the forms of generous bonuses and an exceptional annual raise,” Jingyuan argues, scandalized by your declarations. Even Yanqing looks to him accusingly now. “And as for your meeting with… our newest problem, well, that’s a result of your own belligerence, isn’t it?” He taps his table with his knuckle, the first signs of irritation stretching over his usually composed visage. “You were instructed to meet with me as soon as you arrived on scene. If you had, I would’ve taken the time to inform you of what you were getting yourself into, and the risks associated.”

You throw your hands up in the air. “Well, fuck me for not considering my employer would throw little old me into a foray of top ten most wanted killers! I don’t know what you want me to say, Jingyuan, especially considering how little regard you’ve shown me for my entire career at your stupid post.” Your lips curl. “And you wonder why your turnover rate looks like it crawled out of Tingyun’s first year exam scores. Unbelievable.”

“Mind your tongue; there are children present,” Jingyuan snaps, but neither you nor his blond heir really give a damn. In fact, Yanqing looks like he’s fighting a smile. At least someone found the situation funny. “Regardless—this is a decision that has been agreed upon by both Diviner Fu and I. Thus, your resignation request has been… well, rescinded.”

His lips twitch into an almost-smile, and despite sounding like he meant official business, you can tell the bastard is enjoying this. You gaze mutely at the hastily-scrawled resignation essays you’d filled out at 6 AM over coffee stains and ink splatters, untouched beside a gold, ornate vase on the Jingyuan’s table; the general raises a brow at your lack of ire, likely expecting glares or creative (but politely-framed, as to not earn a bullet to the back of your head) death threats by now.

Instead, you smile. Jingyuan immediately grows wary.

“Article 6, subsection 23,” you purr, “Any defamation or destruction of property belonging to the Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou Luofu will result in the permanent termination of said civil servant’s contract; punishments include, but may not be limited to, a six-month leave of absence from all organized labor.”

You grin. Jingyuan’s eyes widen.

“...whatever it is you’re planning, do no—”

“I think I’m long overdue for a vacation, don’t you, general?” You sing, and the general and his compatriots can only watch in slack-jawed horror as you raise the vase (an armistice gift from the Marshall Hua) and send it shattering onto the tile.

Deathly silence fills the halls of Jingyuan’s palace. Jingyuan doesn’t look up at you when he speaks, low and gritted, as damningly close to murderous as you’d ever heard him.

“Take her away. Solitary confinement. Two hours—then ensure she returns to her duties. This time, I want completion.”

Your smile drops.

“You—!”

And then you’re thrashing, the ends of your heels digging uselessly into the ground. The stupidly beefy arms of his personal guards yank you backwards to your makeshift cell (the infirmary), preventing you from falling backwards on your face.

“You can’t do this to me!” Your shrieks go unacknowledged; Jingyuan is too busy mourning over his dumb vase. “Jingyuan, you bastard! This is a violation of my rights! Terminate me! Throw me in jail! Anything but back there!”

Yanqing glances over the broken shards glinting over filtered sunlight. “General… is it really okay to let her go like that?”

The silver-haired man sighs, weary and a thousand years older than his already-dreaded age; he picks up a shard and examines it for any signs of salvageability (there are none). “Despite her… grievances, Diviner Fu has already determined her ‘likely favorable but not quite necessary’ for this case. I’m afraid she would’ve had to stay regardless. Though I do wish my dear assistant was even a smidgen more… agreeable.”

“—I knew I should’ve let Tingyun leak your 18+ sauna album! Just you watch, Jingyuan, after I’m through—”

“She has what.”

ꨄ︎

“—so please, for the love of all Aeons, I don’t care if it’s your stripper alias or Foxian Beauty & Haircare handle, just please, give me something to work with,” you groan, finding yourself at the mercy of the selectively mute space murderer with both your clothes and hair disheveled from fighting off (clawing at) Jingyuan’s men. Your throat aches from two hours of screeching obscenities, begging for mercy, and finally, prayer (unfortunately, you’d never been pious, and Lan had likely forsaken you by now). You’d thrashed, flipped the nursing cot upside down, shattered glass vials against the walls, and fallen to a half-dead heap on the floor by the time you were dragged in to resume bio-data collection.

If he registers your incessant whining, the space-criminal doesn’t show it; he says nothing for a long while until the void fills with the sound of incessant pen-tapping against your digital clipboard.

His mouth bends into a frown. “Stop that.”

“So he speaks,” you drawl, sarcastic. “Tell you what—why don’t you share your introductions with the class—me—and I’ll stop yammering. Easy as that.”

“Is it necessary?” He inquires cryptically. “Why don’t you just ask that general of yours—I’m sure Jingyuan would be able to sate your curiosity.”

Your rhythmic tapping ceases. “You know Jingyuan?”

That, he doesn’t answer; you observe him as he lapses back into silence, as dark and brooding as ever before, and feel the welts on your neck itch, an obtrusive reminder of your night terror (your dubbing isn’t quite accurate, but the label makes you feel better about yourself). Then, you resume clacking your pen in tribute to the morning show you’d catch glimpses of on the way to hell (work), and observe the tick working on the man’s jaw.

“...Blade,” he says at last, the word cutting like the edge of a serrated knife; you blink. Blade. The name suits him, somehow—all edge and red, like the backdrop of a battlefield. “...but here, Ren.”

You’re tearing through the bio-data form like a storm; two lines is enough. You’ll make it enough. Blade/Ren. Affiliation: likely Xianzhounian. Fabric points to a prime of at least five-hundred years prior; further trace collection is needed. Picture comparison of clothing necessary for evaluation. Suspected relation with Luofu General—unsure if this is an attempt to derail from questioning/true identity. Unlikely, but possible. Discouraged communication style. Psychiatric evaluation necessary; put-off by rhythmic tapping. Likely suffers from heightened senses; could be a result of battle-trauma or mixed genetics (both?). Likely a Xianzhou Native; probable Homo celestinae, blood testing required for confirmation.

“Blade,” you murmur, and the name rests oddly comfortably in your mouth; a strange moniker, but it sounds almost sweet when you say it, as if meant to be spoken. The man—Blade—shifts, not out of discomfort or regulation, but as the first non-forced physical acknowledgment you’d managed to wrench out from him.

His lips curve into a sneer when you continue scritching.

“All figured out, from just a name,” he mocks. You raise a brow.

“Does that offend you?” You tap your pen in thought, conjuring up the next bullet point. Easily offended by assumptions. Possible insecurity?

To your surprise, he grazes a smile—but not your regular, run-of-the-mill grin. It’s malefic, a touch depraved, like staring into a hollow skull. “No. Fantasize all you want. So as long I ruin you in every end.”

You nearly drop your clipboard.

“I could ruin you,” his voice echoes. “I could make it burn. You would dream of me in the waking world, cry for me in the dreaming. A slave to passion, day and night; hardly sleeping, hardly eating, merely breathing…”

No. Impossible. There’s no way—it can’t be—

Gingerly, you finger the skin over your pulse point. The bruised kiss hisses upon contact; you feel the hummingbird-flutter of your own heartbeat.

“Do you dream?”

You don’t know why you blurt that particular phrase; you suppose it’s more acceptable than “did we almost-fuck in my (our?) dream last night”. Still, you observe the intergalactic space criminal with heightened scrutiny, wishing (now more than ever) he didn’t have that cursed blindfold on.

You never realized just how much is missed from the eyes alone.

If there’s any reaction, he doesn’t show it; his next words are mere remnants of what they should be, like bones atop carcass.

“I do not recall the last I dreamt.”

You swallow, the first needles of paranoia sinking into your spine. That should be answer enough. But you wonder why it feels like a dance between confirmation and indifference; anything but denial. Suddenly, you think you hate him; his archaic, cryptic remarks, his riddles and his ambiguity.

“Not worthy enough for recording?” he cuts through the silence, the cruelty of a half-smile gallivanting across your vision. You realize you’d been spaced out, pen hanging between downturned fingers, and curse.

“...think nothing of it,” you mutter. You deem the passage worthy enough for Jingyuan’s approval (it isn’t) and chuck the pen backwards. It dematerializes into the confines of your clipboard. “I should offer you my services once more, but I’m sure neither of us truly wishes for that. A word of advice—behave yourself, and the general might allow you to roam the cell unshackled for certain hours. I’m sure there’s nothing you want more than a hairbrush by now,” you snort. Blade doesn’t reply.

“Danyin,” you murmur, catching the man by his cuff when you exit the hall; he looks frazzled, as if half-expecting you to return with a missing limb (likely a touch disappointed when you don’t; you don’t consider yourself particularly lenient when forced into this scummy duty). “Do me a favor. I want you to place a recording device outside his cell; one of those high-tech thermal ones that can navigate through the dark.”

Danyin pales. “D-digital recordings—any recording—outside what is sanctioned by the general himself is strictly prohibited! I don’t even have cle—”

You unclasp your wristwatch and replace it with Danyin’s own; the man can only babble out a half-hearted protest when you do, mourning his defeat already.

“I’d do it myself, but I’m not exactly out of general douche-canoe’s radar,” you sigh, tightening the clasp. Danyin mumbles something about hiring an underwriter for his will, to which you offer a sunny grin and a pat on the back. “I’m counting on you, friend!”

He mutters something about you being as shitty as Jingyuan. You pretend not to hear it.

ꨄ︎

“A dream demon?” Tingyun snorts, pushing the newly-gifted sunglasses she’d received from a Yaoqing merchant that served as General Feixiao’s retinue down her nose. “You can’t be serious. Please tell me you didn’t make me cancel my hair appointment to play therapist for your psychotic break. How many times did I tell you to just quit and work with me in—”

You yank down the collar of your dress, having wiped off the excess makeup in the restaurant bathroom prior. “Look.”

“For the love of—oh. Oh.” She tilts her frames downwards, viridescent hues assessing the damage. “You got yourself a suckerfish? Careful with those—one starskiff romp shimmied into your lunchbreak and they think they own you.”

“Actually, my very preventable trauma from waking up next to Dai—Daiqiu? Daiqing? Has rendered me unable to pursue any bedmates since,” you sniff. Tingyun rolls her eyes.

“You sure you didn’t wobble into Inferno after your shift and had a couple shots too many? We all know it’s all south after your third martini. And your impairment the following morning.”

“You and I both know I don’t get off until midnight, and you were there when we both got banned from Inferno!”

“Maybe if you hadn’t laughed at the owner’s son and called him fossilized when he asked for a three—”

“He was at least as old as my grandfather, Ting! Without the Jingyuan-tier looks to make up for it!”

“Jingyuan isn’t that old—wait, do you still have a crush on him? What happened to—”

“That’s beside the point!” You swat her hand off the straw of her mid-afternoon cocktail, knocking her jade bracelet against the glass. The heat of it fogs the hexagons scattering rainbows onto the counter, and you are acutely reminded of the matching anklet that dangles on your left, forever warm and secured to your person. “I know you barely passed history—”

“Hey.”

“—but Foxian history can be traced as far back as the Long’s Scions, can it not? Surely there has to be something you picked up over the years. Maybe some old stories, some superstition…”

“[Name],” Tingyun sighs, “are you seriously asking me if I remember any bedtime stories?”

“So there is? Something, I mean?”

“You’re honestly better off taking that to a Vidyadhara historian or a senior Xianzhou Native,” Tingyun admits, to which your face cripples, because Aeons knows your social life had been reduced to zilch after your recruitment (and there was no way you’d press the matter to Jingyuan; you had no doubt he and Diviner Fu could grapple onto the dirtiest details of your midnight escapades). She swishes her drink with her straw in thought. “Foxian lifespans are but fleeting compared to the stories of our other long-lived peers; what are four hundred years, after all, to rebirth and a thousand?”

It’s said with a twinge of envy; you know Tingyun is not like Xianzhou commonfolk who dread their existence and eventual descent to madness. Life is—will never be—enough for her, never enough wine to drink, men to seduce; never enough jewelry and lost merchandise for Whistling Flames.

“We do, however, have our love stories—love and lust and betrayal and wroth, they’re quite similar, don’t you think? And the tales of the Foxians pale in comparison to none.”

“This isn’t about love,” is your immediate response. Tingyun arches a fine brow.

“Isn’t it, though?” With that, she reaches out to redo the buttons on your collar. Heat creeps up your ears. “Passion… this is something Foxians are accustomed with. We love our wine and jade, men and women all the same; I’m sure you know this,” she laughs, and you feel the fox-carving against your anklet simmer. “You know of the Xianzhou belief of soul partners, do you not?”

“Of course.” You reach down, absently, to tickle the jade that had been gifted (shackled) to you on your graduation day. “There’s the, erm, chosen ones, right? Bosom friends, sworn brothers—”

“That’s right; and they’re referred to as chosen for a reason.” She points the end of her olive stick at you. “It is the highest form of love, for some; philia, at the end of the day, is a choice,” she ignores your grumble of “where was mine”, “though, arguably, many believe these soul partners were predestined to be in your life. We gift our jade to these soul partners, and the Vidyadhara share a similar custom, but with bracers; warmth indicates the wearer’s partner is alive and well, and there is a belief that these gifts will eventually bring one back to the other, in life, death, dreams, or otherwise.” She narrows her eyes. “Though there’s no reason, seeing as I’d rather be caught dead than star in your rogue fantasies.”

“Wasn’t ever an option,” you mutter.

“There is another, more outdated; I’ve only ever heard stories about it, and some say the encounter died since the plague of abundance ravaged the long-lived. It’s less of a choice, more a force of nature; or so I’ve been told. A bunch of rubbish, honestly, but there does exist stories of another kind of soul partner—one that embodies a more… debauched role. I suppose soulmate is a loose term; these stories have long since been discarded, scoffed at as crude; these are the stories of scorned lovers, of passion, bedroom woes and death and betrayal; truly, nothing worth writing home about. I’m sure we’ve progressed enough as a society to leave behind such primal relics.”

Your head spins at the sudden onslaught of information; you inhale through your nose, pinching the bridge between two fingers. Tingyun finishes the contents of her drink, suckling the heart-shaped straw dry. “And what… what does that have to do with…”

“With your suckerfish?” Tingyun grins, dodging a kick under the table. “I’m getting to that. There’s a story—just one that I can remember, at least. My Lady wasn’t fond of me rummaging through those particular texts.”

“No wonder you turned out to be so godless—ow!”

“...like I was saying. There exists a…largely banned text. A bit blasphemous, but more so an overreaction, on the elders’ part; I’ll spare you the details, but the story can be loosely translated as The Foxian’s Obsession. Not the most creative of titles, I’ll admit, though it is fitting; it weaves the tale of a long-lived Foxian’s adoration of a short-lived fisherman. The woes of past society would not permit her to seek out a man of such fragility, and eventually, the fisherman married; the Foxian, hurt, enraged, and heartbroken, would curse the fisherman to an eternal sleep.”

“Sounds like one of those ex nightmare stories on Foxian Lipstick Alley,” you chortle.

“Imagine being so obsessed,” Tingyun snorts. “Anyways, the wife and family of the comatose fisherman start seeing ‘love marks’ on him, find him dead one day, bleeding from the mouth; the wife is put on trial until they discover news of said Foxian having passed in her sleep, coincidentally, with the same comorbidity.”

“What the fuck.”

“Creepy, isn’t it? Now, if that were the case with you…”

“Tingyun!” You screech. The Foxian snickers at your distress. “This isn’t funny! What if this dude’s some creepy old Foxy spirit disguising himself as some space criminal hunk to get into my pants and commit murder-sui!”

“Your drawers are in need of a seasonal refresh…”

“Tingyun, you bi—”

“Aeons, relax,” the amicassador slaps your arm in poor reassurance. “These are mere whispers of the past. The first starskiff hadn’t even taken flight when it was published. Besides, does your dream demon present with ears and a tail? You know that’s our one indisputable giveaway…”

“...no, he doesn’t,” you begrudge, a sigh of relief escaping you. Tingyun rolls her eyes.

“Then there you have it. I’m sure this is just a consequence of your ridiculous work hours—how many times must I tell you stress is bad for beauty? You’re even losing pockets of memory…”

“...you’re right. That must be it.”

“So? what happened to your resignation letter?”

“Don’t get me started—”

You vent the happenings of this morning to Tingyun, who, for the first time, appears rather irked; it’s not a common look for the Foxian, as leisurely and unbothered as a nepo-child of Lady Yukong can be, though you suppose even she has her limits on witnessing you falling victim to workplace abuse.

Throughout the conversation, you concoct the margins of your plan; the cameras should be set up by now, if Danyin is at least half-competent. You touch your now-fading love bites and make a mental note to pick up another bottle of fantasia.

If working with Jingyuan blessed you with any positives, it’s your seasoned thirst for vengeance—and the earlier you act, the swifter (and sweeter) your prize.

Perhaps it was a fluke. Perhaps it was a once-in-a-lifetime, paranormal encounter—but on the off chance it isn’t, well, now you’d be prepared.

Because if he can ruin you, who’s to say you can’t return the favor?

#blade x reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr x reader #hsr x you #blade hsr #honkai star rail smut #blade smut

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janeyseymour · 6 months

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At Arm's Length

One thing about Melissa Schemmenti is: she holds any newbie at arm's length- until that person proves themselves.

WC: ~4.8k

*not edited at all because it's late and I have to teach first grade tomorrow...*

One thing about Melissa Schemmenti is that she would hold anybody she first meets at arm’s length distance. Whether she liked someone perfectly fine, could tolerate them, or couldn’t stand them was unknown to any newcomer at Abbott Elementary. She did it with Jacob and Janine. She made it a point to not memorize Gregory’s name until the second month he had been working there. Hell, she had done it to Barbara- not that any of the newer employees at the school would know. But once you’re in with her, you’re stuck with her.

The “work wives”, as they called themselves, like to joke about it often- how Melissa would come in with a scowl on her face that would just barely lighten up as one of the older teachers their first few years would turn on the news, and Jim Gardner’s face would always be there to greet them as they practically inhaled their first cup of coffee.

But you didn’t know any of that. You came into the school bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, not a single hair out of place, ready for whatever this school was going to throw at you. Whether it be the students, the parents, even the other teachers- you knew you were ready for it. You had student taught in one of the neighboring districts, and even as you started filling out applications, people had warned you about Abbott. They warned you that the students had it hard and could often be “troublesome” (you didn't worry- you had been put on a student’s hitlist during student teaching, and that student bawled her eyes out when you left to graduate), that the administration was beyond questionable, the parents were a handful in itself, and you had been warned that the teachers were beyond cliquey. You had been told that their turnover rate was higher than any school in the surrounding area.

You walk into the school for the third student day, a fresh mug of coffee (your first of many) in hand and a smile on your face as you greet the women at the front desk. Of course they reply nicely, only to give each other looks as you turn your back to enter the hallways. They had seen far too many teachers enter just like you and leave in a puddle of tears.

You head into the staff room to put your lunch in the refrigerator when Janine quickly makes your presence known to the rest of the group.

“Hey! You’re-”

“Janine, will ya shut it?” Melissa asked in her low voice, Philly accent strong. “‘M trying to watch the damn news!”

Janine shrivels slightly and chooses to give you a small wave instead before turning back to her friends. “Sorry,” she mumbles as she takes a seat at a table away from the two veteran teachers.

You open the refrigerator, trying to find a spot to place your neatly packed salad. Keeping your head down, clearly not wanting to agitate Melissa any further, you stay silent as you bite your lip. You really don’t want to have to move anyone’s belongings in the fridge to make room for your own, but you just might have to.

“Oh Melissa,” Barb’s soothing voice cuts the tension. “She was just greeting our new teacher.”

“There’s been plenty of ‘em,” Melissa rolls her eyes. “Now let me watch.”

“Sweetheart, why don’t you take a seat with us?” Barb asks kindly. “Watch that handsome Jim Gardner with us.”

“Barb!” Melissa’s voice nearly booms, and it startles you. You had never seen, or rather heard, someone get so annoyed because someone was talking over the morning news. As you jump, head still in the refrigerator, you smack your head on the edge.

You hiss quietly, just enough to gather the attention from the others in the breakroom.

“Grab some ice from the nurse,” Jacob puts in, eyes half on you, half on the small screen in the corner. “I’ve done it plenty of-”

“For the love of Go-” Melissa takes a breath, huffing as she stands from her chair. “If anyone needs me, and youse better not, I’ll be in my classroom- watching Gardner in peace!”

As she’s making her dramatic exit based on anger, you just barely pull your head out of the kitchen appliance, rubbing at your head. You don't even mean to make eye contact with her- it just happens.

“Thanks a lot, newbie,” the fiery redhead nearly spits out at you.

You wish you hadn’t pulled your head out of the fridge if it meant not seeing those green eyes full of hatred.

That was your first encounter with Melissa, and you certainly hadn’t made a good impression. Your head was swirling as Janine guided you down towards the nurse, chatting your ear off the entire way. You didn’t know which was worse- Melissa’s anger or Janine’s incessant flow of consciousness.

It’s safe to say that’s the last time you enter the breakroom before classes start- or more accurately: it’s safe to say that’s the last time you enter the breakroom before classes start when Melissa Schemmenti is in there. Sometimes your salad pays for it, but you would rather have somewhat wilted spinach as opposed to the harsh green eyes you had seen from the redheaded second grade teacher.

---

You avoid her like the plague for the next few weeks, and you’re relatively successful. She’s only made a few snarky comments your way as you pass by in the halls. You hate it. You don’t know why she hates you, but she’s making it very apparent that your mere presence within the school is like the bane of her existence.

But today is dragging, the month of September in full swing, and your third graders are starting to get comfortable with you. They’re starting to learn your quirks, you’re starting to learn theirs, and you’re no longer the coolest person in the world. They’re starting to get into the grit of the lessons, try as you might to make it fun. It’s becoming a chore for them to sit at their desks for hours at a time, no matter how many brain breaks you do- no matter how much you beg the gym teacher to “just have them run around to burn some energy”.

You know Thursdays are the days where Melissa usually has to suffer through recess duty. You usually see her storm her way out of the breakroom and down the hall on those days as you line your little cherubs up for lunch. You glance out the door as you wait for one particular student to get quiet, but you don’t hear the clanking of her boots, and you don’t see her make her way down the hall.

You sigh quietly in relief- you had probably been tying Nazir’s shoes for him when she made her way out. You would be lying to yourself and anybody else if you said that woman didn’t scare the living daylights out of you with her intense glare and the aggressive way she tended to walk.

“Jordan!” One of the girls whines and points in your direction. “She’s waiting on you!”

Almost immediately, the boy hushes himself and stands quietly in line. The kids are quiet as they travel through the halls, knowing talking in the hallway was a quick way to get you to stop in your tracks and wait for them to get quiet again. You run a tight ship- a far tighter one than they had expected when they realized how young you were. You get a few smiles and a few “Enjoy your lunch!” from the kiddos as they pass you to get to their own lunch period.

With a sigh, you turn on your heel and head for the breakroom straight from dropping them off. You usually would wait a good ten minutes into your lunch before heading down to grab your food, but today you were in the clear. Or so you thought.

Your head down, simply just going in to grab your lunch and maybe brew a quick coffee before heading back to your own classroom, you push the staff room door open. And sitting at her table, lazily stabbing at her own salad is the woman you’ve been trying to avoid- Melissa Schemmenti.

“Oh, hey!” Janine grins at you.

“H-hey,” you say quietly, not wanting to intrude on their clique’s lunchtime.

Only then does Melissa glance up, that same stony look behind her eyes. “Where the hell ya been?” she asks with a roll of her eyes. You just barely manage to look at her before reverting your eyes. “Busy fixing your damn makeup?”

“Melissa,” Barb warns in a maternal tone- she kind of sounded like your own mother.

“What?” The redhead turns slightly to look at her friend. “What time do you wake up to look like that anyway?” She looks you up and down from her spot.

“Melissa,” the kindergarten teacher says again.

“What?!” Melissa looks at her again, just slightly incredulously. “It’s a fair question!”

“I think she looks nice,” Jacob stands up for you, both physically and metaphorically.

“I do too,” Janine states. “What do you think, Gregory?”

As the man fumbles for an answer, you just barely remember why you went in there in the first place: to grab your lunch, brew a coffee, and head back to your classroom to hopefully let the caffeine kick in, and- you don’t think you can make your coffee anymore. Not with Melissa’s judgemental glare.

“Listen, there’s no doubt she’s cute or whatever, a Philly ten even.” You blush. “All I’m sayin’ is: we’ve seen enough young teachers come in here all dolled up for the first few weeks of school, and then they leave here with their caked on makeup, dripping down their faces, and looking like a clown,” the redhead grumbles as she puts a forkful in her mouth. “Stop wearing makeup, kid. You’ll never be as hot as me anyway.”

“Melissa!” Barbara admonishes. Only then does the redhead bite her tongue. And even then, only for a few seconds as you grab your salad from the fridge.

In an out of character move, you nearly slam the fridge shut and turn on your heel to head back out. As the door closes, you sigh. You forgot to even get your salad. You had been so wrapped up in what the second grade teacher had to say about you. Ignoring the pang of hunger that had settled into your stomach, you walk back to your classroom with your head held high- you suppose a granola bar from your purse will have to do for today. You rummage around in your bag for a few seconds before you hear a gentle knock on your door.

“Hey,” Janine says quietly, almost unsure of herself. You had never seen her unsure before. Even just passing her in the halls or in the bathroom, she was always upbeat with a smile on her face. “I hope you don’t mind, but I -”

You turn, and the short teacher is holding your salad out. “You forgot this.”

“Thanks,” you give her a sad smile. “I ‘preciate it. You can just set it on the-”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s not the first time someone has said something about my looks as a teacher,” you state as confidently as you can, although your ears are burning with embarrassment. “And I don’t mean to be causing any disturbances to your group. I really just meant to grab my food. You can go back to them, I’ll be fine. I have to reply to a few emails anyway.”

“Barb’s giving her an earful right now,” Janine chuckles awkwardly. “You’re giving me a reason to not be in there right now.”

“She’s-” you gasp softly. “She doesn’t have to do that. I know the two of them are close.”

“We’ve all noticed the way you avoid the breakroom if Melissa is in there. Gregory sees you every morning when you peek in before either coming in or turning away,” Janine tells you. “We’ve been trying to tell her to lighten up, but-”

“Is she always like this to newcomers?” You actually do roll your eyes this time.

The second grade teacher nods as she steps further into the room, offering you your lunch and a fork. “She couldn’t stand me for the first year we worked together, and she liked Jacob even less. She called Gregory by any name but his actual one until the second month in, convinced he was going to leave- of course, he was just hired as a sub at that point, but then we all knew he was going to-”

“Thanks, Janine,” you cut her off gently, taking the tupperware and fork.

“And now she’d fight a parent that says a single thing bad about the three of us.”

“Why was she even there today? I thought she usually has recess duty on Thursdays.”

“That I don’t know,” Janine says honestly. “But I’ve learned not to ask because I either get an earful, or I get the lecture that it’s ‘none ya business’ or ‘who’s askin’ or ‘say one more word, and I’ll get my uncle Tony to-’ and then Barb normally cuts her off with her-”

“You know, you ramble a lot,” you note quietly with a playful smirk on your face.

“Melissa makes sure I know,” the second grade teacher chuckles quietly before glancing at the clock. “I should probably start heading out to make sure the work moms don't get into a fight, but hey... you should come with us to BoneTown tomorrow. Gregory and I are going, and we wouldn’t mind you-” she cuts herself off with the horrified look on your face. “The restaurant!”

Not that you know it, but as you and Janine are quietly talking in your classroom down the hall, Barbara is chewing out Melissa for her behavior.

“She has been nothing but kind to us, and she even lets you be!” Barb scolds her friend. “You have no reason to be acting so harshly towards her- even going as far as commenting on her looks!”

“I told her she was a Philly ten!” the second grade teacher practically growls out.

“And then you told her she wasn’t ever going to be as hot as you!” Barb fires back. “It’s no wonder Y/N has been avoiding you!”

Melissa, entirely ignoring the point of this lecture, makes a confused face. “That’s her name? I thought it was Alana.”

“Melissa,” Barb’s voice gets scarily low. “Everybody here knows her name. Everybody here knows that girl doesn’t even wear makeup! Everybody here knows that she actively avoids you because when she does run into you, all you do is haze her! You tell her she’ll never make it out of here alive, and that her bulletin boards look... I won’t use that word, but I thought you were better than this!”

Only then does the fiery redhead let her tough act go, even just slightly.

“You weren’t even that tough on my girl Janine,” Jacob pipes up with his eyebrows knit in confusion. “And we all know how you felt about her when we first started here.”

“The kid grew on me; what do ya want me to say?” Melissa rolled her eyes.

“All I’m saying is-”

“Melissa, the last three new teachers to start here were Janine, Jacob, and Gregory, and they’re practically our work children at this point,” Barbara steps in before the history teacher can dig himself into a hole.

“I wouldn’t go that far. Sure, I care for youse, but I’ll still only kill for you, Barb.”

“I’m just telling you, give her a chance. She’s a good kid with a good head on her shoulders. She’s polite, she gets the kids to walk down the halls quietly- even the ones you couldn’t get to,” the kindergarten teacher says pointedly.

Melissa sighs. “If I say I’ll try to be nicer, can we finish our lunch in peace?”

“I want you to promise me you’ll actually try though,” Barb requests seriously.

“Okay, okay!” The redhead puts her hands up in surrender. “I’ll talk to the newbie, and I’ll try to be nicer or whatever.”

“That’s all I ask, dear,” Barb lightly taps her friend’s arm and resumes her lunch.

---

You quite literally do everything you can to avoid Melissa for the next week. You let your salads wilt, you make sure you have two coffees ready in the morning so you don’t have to enter the staff room, you redecorate your bulletin board when you know she has recess duty, and you listen for her walking through the halls before you even dare to leave your classroom for the day. You don’t know how you’ve managed it considering your room is only a few doors down from hers.

You won’t admit it, but you had heard Melissa tell Barb as they were leaving for the day that your bulletin board ‘isn’t the worst thing in the world’. Worse yet, you hated that you liked her semi-approval.

It all comes to a head that Friday. As you’re walking in, you trip on the curb and drop both of your coffees, soaking your shirt and the top of your pants. You can’t help but squeal as the hot liquid trickles down your front.

“Happy October to me,” you grumble as you glance down. There’s no saving your shirt. You’ll just have to keep the cardigan you keep on the back of your chair wrapped closely to your body today.

With a huff, you practically storm your way into the staffroom, not even caring that the usual crew is sitting in there getting ready to watch the news. You make a straight away for the coffee maker. Melissa’s eyes widen slightly- she hasn’t seen, or rather heard, you in here since the incident last week. And the last time she saw you in the break room in the morning was... the first week of school.

“Hey, Y/N,” Jacob waves at you as he reaches for the remote to turn on the television.

“Hi,” you grit out, chest still burning from the scalding hot coffee.

Even Jacob recognizes the tension in your voice as you angrily start brewing a cup of coffee.

“Oh, what happened, sweetheart?” Barbara asks as she gently wraps her fingers around Jacob’s wrist, effectively making him pause before turning on the television.

“I dropped my coffee,” you grumble as you pour the coffee grinds into the filter. “But I’m fine.”

Melissa bites her lip, glancing down at the coffee she had just brewed for herself. She hasn’t taken a sip from it yet.

“Here kid,” she offers you the cup. Only then does she get a look at you, dark brown coffee stained on your white shirt.

“No thanks,” you bite out.

“Hey,” the redhead says, and she says it softly. “C’mon. Take it. I’ll make myself another, and you seem like you need it way more than I do right now.”

“I said I don’t want it,” you state again, scarily calm as you try to pull your shirt away from your chest. At this rate, your skin will be blistering by lunch.

“I have an extra shirt in my closet,” Melissa tells you quietly. “C’mon. Take the coffee and drink it while I grab you my extra shirt.”

“Just turn on your news and hate me like always,” you practically spit.

You storm out of the room before she can say another word to you. You don’t want the redhead’s pity, and you certainly don't want to get in the way of her news. Coffee be damned, you need to get out of that room. You run down to your classroom as you hold your shirt away from your chest and stomach. The cool air seems to be soothing your burns a bit, and you can’t quite help the way tears spring to your eyes.

Only about a minute passes before you hear a gentle knock on your doorframe. You turn, expecting to see Janine, or maybe even Barbara. But it’s Melissa with an Eagles sweatshirt in one hand and a coffee in the other. She tosses it at you, only for it to fall on the floor. You don’t want to let the soaking wet shirt touch you again just yet.

“Y/N,” Melissa says your name for the first time. “Just take it. C’mon. I can practically see your skin sizzling from here.”

“I don’t need your help,” you hiss out as you slowly let go of your shirt.

“I don’t hate you, you know,” the second grade teacher sighs as she steps towards you to pick up the pullover.

“You do, and I don’t care,” you bite out as a tear escapes your right eye.

“Ow!” you finally yell, pulling away your shirt again. You wipe the tear away before laughing bitterly. “Only a few more seconds before I run out of here, makeup dripping down my face, right?”

“Hey,” she says. There it is again. That soft tone. She bites her lip and contemplates saying something nice before trying to joke instead. “Barb told me you don’t even wear makeup, so there’s no chance of that happening, I guess.”

“Yeah,” you huff. “Unfortunately for you.”

“I really don’t hate you,” Melissa says again. She almost sounds genuine.

“You already said that, and I already told you: I don't believe you.” You turn away as a few more tears fall.

“I tried,” she sighs, and you hear her footsteps stop a few seconds later. You don’t even bother turning around. Unbeknownst to you, she had snagged your lunch from your bag to put in the refrigerator for you.

When you hear your door close softly, you finally turn back around. She’s gone, but the coffee and the Eagles sweatshirt are sitting on your desk.

With a huff and a silent curse, you peel off your shirt and change into the sweatshirt. Finally, you let a quiet curse slip. “Damn you, Melissa Schemmenti.”

Despite your sour mood, as the kiddos start to trickle in, you stand at the door with a plastered smile on your face and the coffee cup in hand. You don’t know it, but Melissa is smiling to herself- she’s glad you changed into her shirt and took the coffee. She wasn’t lying when she said she could practically hear your skin burning from where she stood.

Come lunchtime, you walk your kids to the cafeteria before sighing as you enter your classroom again. You grab your bag, ready to at least attempt to stomach some food, when you realize it isn’t there. You could’ve sworn you brought your lunch today.

“When it rains it pours,” you grumble to yourself as you grab a few dollars from your wallet. A bag of chips from the vending machine would have to hold you over until you could go home and wallow in your self-pity with a glass of wine in hand.

You don’t even look at the group as you walk in. You make a beeline straight for the vending machine.

“Y/N,” Barb says before you can feed your first dollar into the machine. “Your lunch is over here.”

You whip around at that. “How the hell did it get in here? I didn’t-”

“I did,” Melissa fights the urge to roll her eyes as she eats her pasta. “You’re welcome by the way.”

“Th-thanks,” you sigh as you walk over to the table to take it. You start to make your way back out when you hear that low voice again. “Just eat it here, kid. C’mon. It’s fine- you’re already wearing my shirt and had my coffee.”

You blush violently, but Janine scoffs. “You let her wear your precious Eagles sweatshirt?! You wouldn’t even let me wear it when Jamal got to second base with me with paint last year!”

“Your skin wasn’t blistering,” the second grade teacher snorts out. She turns back to you before kicking out the seat next to her. “Sit.”

Silently, you obey. You eat quietly, taking in all of the conversation around you. Lunchtime is over all too soon, and today you have recess duty. With a sigh, you stand and push in your chair.

“Thanks,” you say quietly before you exit.

At the end of the day you change back into your coffee stained shirt and head down to Melissa’s room to return it to her.

She’s standing outside of her classroom, hands on her hips as she stares at her own bulletin board in frustration.

“Hey,” you say quietly, trying not to sneak up on her.

“Hey hon,” she sighs.

“Thanks for letting me borrow your shirt,” you say shyly as you offer it to her.

“Don’t mention it,” she says offhandedly. She then glances over at you. “Seriously: don’t mention it. If my uncle finds out I let someone else wear it, he’ll have my-”

“I won’t,” you laugh nervously. You weren’t sure if she was kidding or not. Then you look at what she was just looking at.

“It looks nice,” you compliment quietly.

“Not as nice as yours,” she huffs. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what? The bulletin board? I can help you with-”

“No. I don’t know how you come in here everyday looking so damn nice, and without makeup. I don’t know how you get those little gremlins to stand quietly in line and walk through the halls without a sound- Barb couldn’t do it, hell I couldn’t do it! I don’t know how you make it look so effortless to work at this shitshow. I really don’t know how you handled today the way you did- I saw you standing outside your room ten minutes after that hot coffee was all down your front with a smile on your face for the kiddos- my kids would’ve known I had a shit morning. And I ‘specially don’t know how you can stand to eat that boring, bland ass salad you do everyday. Seriously: has no one taught you what a good meal is?” She huffs again at the end of her rant, looking at you curiously.

“I-” you really don’t know what to say.

“Y’know what?” she sighs as she sets her stapler down on the vent. She mumbles to herself for a second before, “Come over tonight, and I’ll teach you what a good meal is. And in return, you can teach me how to do this fuckin’ bulletin board.”

“Oh, I uh-” You were kind of looking forward to sitting at home with a bag of chips and a glass of wine in your sweatpants.

Melissa looks away. “Nevermind. Forget I asked.”

“N-no,” You say, maybe too quickly. “I’ll be there. Give me your address, and I’ll- I just have to go home and change.”

“Alright, kid,” the redhead rolls her eyes. She rattles off her address, and you commit it to memory. You actually know around her area of town- one of your best friends grew up on that street. “‘N bring a bottle of wine.”

You nod, a blush on your face.

“And don’t tell Janine or Jacob. It’s too early in the year for them to be over at my place.”

You laugh. “I won’t. I promise. I’ll be over by six, if that’s okay?”

“Sounds great, hon.”

With a smile and a nod, you make your way out of the building. You quickly run home and change into a nicer top- not one covered in coffee- before heading down to the liquor store.

A bottle in hand, you stand at her door nervously. What if you picked up the wrong bottle? Would this be the end of somehow getting onto the veteran teacher’s good side?

Before you can contemplate your choice any longer, the door whips open. She’s in a green tank top and a denim overshirt, and you can’t help but laugh. You’re pretty much wearing the same thing, except for your top is black.

“C’mon. Otherwise my sauce is going to simmer for too long, and the last time someone simmered the sauce for too long... Well, Kristin Marie still hasn’t heard the end of it.” She saunters into her kitchen, and it smells great. She tends to the pasta sauce- clearly homemade, before reaching up for a couple wine glasses.

“I hope you brought somethin’ good,” she says jokingly. You hold up the bottle to show her. “Well shit, kid. That’s my favorite. How’d you know?”

You may have panic texted Barbara to ask what kind of wine to bring, but she didn’t have to know that. Instead, you just give a bashful shrug.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine,” she smiles, her first real smile at you since you started at Abbott.

And the rest is history. She doesn’t hold you at arm’s length anymore.

#abbott elementary #melissa schemmenti #melissa schemmenti x reader #melissa schemmenti x you #abbott elementary fanfic #abbott elementary fanfiction

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zeestarfishalien · 2 months

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My Graveyard Song Ch. 14

(Totally got distracted and forgot to post this to tumblr. It's been up on ao3 for a few days now)

[Masterpost]

Jason looked at the two empty bowls and one empty plate of food Danny had polished off and promptly decides to take him to Rosa Lee’s Diner. They always serve extra large portions of food that stands up to even Alfred’s high standards.

As he urges Spooky into one of the jackets left by his siblings, he shoots a text off to Cass.

[BCC plz 4 Spooky u wel 2 IOU 1 🏠🍝 ur chc]

By the time Cass gets there, Danny is starting on his third plate. Mind you, she got here in under half an hour and Danny is not in fact a speedster, but at the rate Danny is going, Bruce is certainly going to think someone fed a speedster.

Jason is really not sure where all this food is going. By all rights, his spooky friend should be on the verge of exploding from eating more than his body weight in food.

Even the waitstaff are watching this little meta-looking kid down pounds and pounds of food.

Cass passes Jason an unmarked black credit card and sits next to him in order to better watch Danny scarf down his waffles.

Five minutes later when their waiter swings by, Jason orders a platter of beignets and Danny orders Rosa Lee’s own personal special, a breakfast that comes with four slices of ham, a mountain of cheesy scrambled eggs, two pancakes, four breakfast sausage links, two biscuits, and an apple turnover.

At this point, the waiter doesn’t even blink, just asks if he’d like anything to add or substitute.

He asks for 3 extra pancakes.

By the time he's halfway through his stack of pancakes -the last thing left of his Rosa Lee Special- it dawns on Jason, that maybe Danny shouldn't be eating this much when he hasn't eaten regular human food in a long time.

But then again, what does he know? The world is a great big mysterious place and you cannot treat every humanoid looking being by the limitations of humans.

Danny is watching him now, an openly curious look on his face. There's a question in the air between them, even Cass picks up on it.

Carefully slow, Danny sets down his fork and finishes chewing the bite in his mouth.

"You're worried," he croaks, tapping his index finger on the table to emphasize his words.

He pauses, distracted, and looks down at his hand, repeating the motion of tapping his finger on the table while studying it closely. Jason almost breaks into laughter when Danny’s head tilts in an oddly animal like fashion.

If he needed any other proof that Spooky the dog is Danny the spirit sitting before him, this would do it.

His glowing eyes flick back up to Jason.

"Amused," he rasps out barely above a whisper. There's still that unspoken question in the air.

It finally clicks. The emotions Danny is naming are Jason’s. The question he wants to know is 'why'.

"I wasn't sure if you could get sick from overeating. Humans need to ease back into eating normal amounts but you're not human so I don't know what standard to hold you to."

Danny nods absently, his finger tap tap tapping away on the table.

"Hard to say," he says finally. His voice still sounds like gravel, not unlike Cass' own voice.

"Ecto fills in gaps. A temporary fix. Rebuilding with the right stuff now." He gestures vaguely to the empty plates stacked on their table. "Ecto is fast. I'm probably fine."

"Sorry," Jason half mumbles. "I just worry."

All movement from Danny freezes, like someone pressed pause on the TV. His eyes go wide in realization and alarm.

"Jazz..."

Jason blinks and then it hits him with the speed and force of a freight train.

"Oh shit! Jazz!" He scrambles for his phone. "Do you remember anything else about her that might help?!"

~•~

Bill would like everyone to know that he works very hard to be a good hench person.

He's not dumb. Now he may not be book smart like half the big baddies in Gotham, but he's not dumb.

He would have died long ago if that were the case. He's worked for the Red Hood for a couple years now —it's one of the best decisions he's ever made; the guy knows how to treat his hench people. What more can Bill say?— and he's avoided asking questions just like with all his hench jobs before this.

But he'd really like to ask one now that he's stuck watching years worth of security footage...

What even constitutes suspicious activity in a cemetery?

Now most people would automatically say, graverobbing, but Big Red is a Gotham native. In Gotham, no one is buried with their valuables, not unless your grave is in a super secret spot. Gothamites can smell money and anytime there's a possibility of it, people will dig up the grave in question.

Hell, the cops don't even stop for it anymore, they just keep on rollin' even if it's happening right before their eyes.

Point is, graverobbing can't be the suspicious behavior he's supposed to look for, but Bill really isn't sure what exactly does quantify as suspicious behavior to Big Red.

Everything here has been run of the mill, graverobbing, teen/young adult vandalism, or drug deals.

Yes, he considers goth teens/young adults having sex in a cemetery as vandalism too. Vandalism on his eyes, if nothing else.

He hits pause on a big white van and rubs his eyes tiredly. Perhaps it's time to call it a night. He's losing focus, getting caught up in his own thoughts.

His hand hovers over the mouse about to drag it over to close out of the program when his brain catches up to what his eyes are seeing.

The van, big, white, armored...

Now that IS unusual. Black or gray vans are the favored colors in Gotham and anyone, who knows anything about Gotham, knows that you NEVER armor up a suspicious color and type of vehicle. Not if you don't want the cops and vigilantes breaking down your door.

He can just make out two people in bright colors inside the van. They're grainy but not grainy enough for Bill to doubt the color of their outfits.

It's too bright for any regular gothamite. The only people in this city who dress like that are the big shot villains and their cronies.

The two disappear into the cemetery, out of sight of the camera with tools in hand. He scans forward a few hours (less time than he expected honestly) and slows back to normal speed just in time to watch them unload what seems to be some sort of coffin, except it's metal with glowing lines and patterns on it.

He pauses the video again and with elbows resting upon the desk he presses clasped hands against his mouth to muffle his sigh.

Well, if that doesn't constitute suspicious activity then Bill will hand in a letter of resignation and go flip burgers.

Well...time to let the boss know.

Yall thought I made up the part where Bill the Henchman comes in, but I definitely, absolutely had this planned from the beginning. [Lying]

Okay, gonna be honest, I may have had a plan for Bill, but it either was lost in the shuffle or there never actually was a plan for scenes with Bill. Considering I can only sometimes keep my dream memories from mixing with my awake memories, any hope of recovering any potential memories is nigh on impossible.

HOWEVER

I can always make new plans. AND I HAVE! So yes, we have Bill now and I'm going to pretend like this was planned all along.

Oh yeah! So Jason’s text at the beginning says: Black credit card please, for Spooky. You are welcome too. I owe you one homemade meal, your choice.

Also can you imagine being a vigilante? Bc you have at least 10 very important things you have to juggle on just an average Tuesday. This is not including sudden family disasters like a family member getting trapped in a burning building and having to go save them, plus more wild revelations about your funky supernatural roomie. So like, cut a guy some slack, I know I'd be floundering some days. Attempting to prioritize must really be a bitch some days. Just...oof...

#my graveyard song #dpxdc #dcxdp #church grim danny #black dog danny au #jason is doing his best okay?#and look! he delegates things!!!

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sentientcave · 3 months

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You Drive Me Wild - Nikolai x OC It's October 1990, and Nikolai is a soldier, guarding the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen. It's a dull assignment, with dull comrades, the only bright spot of his station the days away from the embassy, when he can get to know this new city and her people. It's one of these nights when a woman he's been dreaming about walks into a smoky bar, and into his arms at last.

Contains: Alcohol, smoking, age-gap relationship, plain text is "translated" Russian (Since it is Nikolai's perspective), English in italics, pining, low-key hero worship, oral sex, unprotected (oops) sex. (Let me know if I missed something!)

~7.3k - MDNI!! - Intended for mature audiences

Read on AO3

Copenhagen, October 5th, 1990

Copenhagen was… Alright.

Nikolai had gotten a cushy sort of assignment, thanks to Natalia’s connections, guarding the Soviet embassy. Mostly all he had to do was stand around and look threatening, check identification at the gate, occasionally follow the ambassador around to some function or another. It wasn’t complicated. It wasn’t exciting. It just… was. Days bled into each other like cheap watercolour paint, edges blurred and indistinct. The routine chafed at him. He had gotten too used to freedom, running wild between Leningrad and the farmhouse out in Kyrelia, skipping school and occasionally helping his uncle with work, which was more likely to end in real action than anything he did at the embassy. A high-speed car chase through fields of rye was good fun, and a knife-fight in a back alley was better.

Still, there was a certain thrill to getting out of Russia— A few runs across the border into Finland hadn’t given him much idea of what life was like outside, and he was eager to taste what the West had to offer him. He spent every moment that he could off base, practising his languages, picking up pretty brunettes (English and American ones, when he could), listening to music that hadn’t been approved by any government agency, played in basement bars, laced with anger and heavy guitar, the air heavy with smoke and the smell of sweat. He would have spent too much of his meagre salary going out to bars around the city, if he didn’t so often wind up with more cash in his pockets than when he left, betting on games of pool and poker and winning more often than not.

He had a few favourite establishments, ones with a higher turnover rate of tourists. It was harder to shark the same people twice, but cocky American tourists provided good hunting for a fresh-faced soldier who was oh so good at pretending to be a simple country boy. It was their own arrogance that lost the games before they had even begun. Nikolai had no qualms about using that American bluff and bluster to his advantage. This particular bar was near some of the embassies and plenty of hotels, and he’d already made a hundred American dollars playing pool with chain of unlucky marks (So typical of Americans to carry their own currency in another country). He sat at the bar considering his next move. He felt no particular urge to play any longer, or to return to his comrades, sitting at a table on the other side of the crowded establishment. Perhaps he would try his luck with the table of leggy blond women in the back corner of the smoky bar. One of them had been throwing smiles his way for the past half-hour. Pussy was pussy, even if he did prefer brunettes with thick, muscular thighs.

“You should play another round of pool,” Ivan, one of his fellow embassy guards said in his ear, half crashing into him from behind, knocking Nikolai into the bar and nearly spilling his beer. “There is a beautiful woman who’s about to beat a couple of Germans, you could have next game.”

Nikolai made a disgruntled sound. “I’m done for tonight,” he said, draining the rest of his beer. “You play her.” He had neglected to return to the table with Ivan and the others for a reason. He was tired of the usual posturing and boisterous behaviour already, and they had really only started in on their night. They often made fun of him for calling it early, or not trying to keep up with them, but it was always his turn to feel superior in the morning, when they could hardly open their eyes.

“Ah, come on, Kolyan. I can’t speak German or English. She will look at me like I’m a fool if I try to speak to her.” Ivan relied too heavily on Nikolai when it came to women. He made no effort to learn other languages, putting him at a disadvantage talking to local and tourist alike in Copenhagen, where Danish, English, German and even French were the best bets for communication.

“Maybe she speaks Russian.”

Ivan scoffed. “Unlikely. She looks American.”

Nikolai rolled his eyes, but turned to look, rewarded with the sight of a round ass wearing a pair of blue jeans bent over the table. A brunette, with shiny, slightly curling hair pulled into a high ponytail, wearing a leather jacket. Judging by the looks on the faces of the two blond giants across from her, she was about to clear the table. And she was just Nikolai’s type, by the shape of her.

He ordered two shots of whiskey, and when he turned to look around again, the woman had circled to the other side of the table. Nikolai’s heart stammered to a stop for a moment, bounced against the bottom of his stomach, and lurched back into motion as it landed hard in it’s usual place.

Helena.

She sank the eight ball, grinning like a wolf, her red-painted lips stark contrast against her white teeth. “Sorry, boys. That’s game,” she told them in that pretty English accent of hers. “Better luck next time.”

Nikolai slapped a few krone on the bar and picked up the shot glasses, sidling up to Helena, setting them on the water-stained wooden edges of the pool table. “Lena,” he said, puffing himself up a bit. He had no need to pitch his voice lower now, or pull himself ramrod straight to give him the extra height. He was undoubtedly a man now, with a days worth of stubble on his chin and enough experience with women that he would not turn pink or stammer when she looked at him. She would have to see that. “Have a drink with me.”

Her attention snapped away from the Germans and to him, eyes devastatingly sharp on their first pass, until recognition softened her features with a smile half a heartbeat later. “Kolya?” she asked. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she seized him around the neck, pulling him into a tight hug.

Nikolai wrapped his arms around her waist, picking her up and spinning her in a tight circle, breathing in the smell of cigarettes and sweet, spicy perfume. He was a lot taller than she was now, and she fit into his arms better than a dream, with weight and substance. The last time he had seen her, three years that felt like a lifetime ago, they had been the same height.

“I’m a soldier now,” he told her as he set her back down on her feet, his hands lingering on her hips just a moment longer than necessary. He had no desire to let her go, but he did. “Stationed at the embassy. Aunt Talia pulled strings. It’s an easy assignment.”

“They made you cut your hair.” She rubbed a hand over his head, her hand sliding down the back of his neck before she let it fall back to her side. “It’s too bad. The long hair suited you.”

Nikolai nudged her gently, picking the shots up again and handing one to her. “I’ll grow it back once I’m my own man again. For you.”

He loved the way her eyes creased when she smiled. “Good.” They knocked their glasses together and downed them at the same time. “You still smoke?” she asked, inclining her head towards the door. “I was about to step outside.”

“You can smoke in here.” A bluish haze hung in the air above their heads, swirling whenever someone opened the door to admit a fresh gust of air, and many patrons of the bar had lit cigarettes in their hands, smoke drifting upwards with every exhale.

“I know. But it’s loud. I want to catch up.”

He would never argue against taking a moment alone with her. “As you wish.” He gestured for her to walk ahead of him. He could feel Ivan’s eyes on the back of his neck, so he shot a quick, gloating glance over his shoulder at his open-mouthed comrade, and then dashed ahead to open the door for Helena.

They stepped into the cool night air, and Helena pulled a pack of smokes out of her inner jacket pocket and thumbed one up enough that she could pull it out with her mouth, and offered the pack to Nikolai while she dug her lighter out of the front pocket of her jeans.

“You’re here on business?” Nikolai held her wrist steady as he plucked a cigarette from the pack, fingers moving fast enough that he hoped she wouldn’t notice that he took one that had the slightest smudge of red lipstick on it. He might be a man, but he didn’t harbour any illusions about his chances with Helena. An indirect kiss was the best he could hope for.

Lena tucked the pack into her pocket again, nodding. “Yes. Finished up now. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.” She lit her own cigarette and held up the lighter for him, her other hand cupped around the flame to protect it from the chilly breeze that rolled down the well-lit streets.

“That’s too bad. I have a few days off. It would be nice to spend some time with you.” He braced a hand on the wall behind her as he leaned in, meeting her eyes evenly. Did he just imagine that little hitch of breath? The spark of interest in her dark brown eyes?

She looked away, flicking the lighter closed. “I could maybe stick around another day.”

“Maybe another two?” he asked playfully. He was still looming over her, not touching, but close enough to share heat. She didn’t move away.

“We’ll see.” She braced her left elbow against her hand, setting the cigarette to her lips, her eyes everywhere but on him. Perhaps her stance was protective, hesitant, but still… Something had very obviously shifted between them.

Her wedding band was missing.

After three years of pining and chasing any woman that reminded him even a little of Helena, it was a cold-water shock to the system to imagine that the real thing was suddenly attainable. Fate had smiled at him, led them to each other on a chilly autumn night in a city big enough that they could have easily sailed right past each other, not even knowing that the other was near. Nikolai was no longer a child, he was tall and strong like a man worthy of her ought to be, and she was as beautiful as he remembered, sloe-eyed and ageless, and she was not wearing a wedding ring.

Still, his chances balanced like a knife tip on a finger. It would be easy to move to fast or too slow, to ask the wrong question or provide the wrong answer. Helena might still think him too young. He could stumble and show his limited experience, let the facade of confidence slip, allow the knife to tumble, sharp and glittering, to the ground.

He resisted the urge to touch one of the escaped wisps of hair that framed her face, curling in the damp sea air. "Do you ever wear your hair down?" he asked, pivoting away from the inclination to ask about her marriage. Maybe that would be a conversation for a few drinks later.

"Not really," she said, finally looking up at him again, tucking one of those escaped curls behind her ear. "Why?"

"Just wondering. I think I only even saw it down once. It is always business with you. Practicality."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Certainly not. It is just curiosity."

"Hm. Of course.” The look she gave him was strange, fond but slightly suspicious, like she knew that there was something unsaid underneath his casual tone, but hadn’t quite figured out what. “How is the family?” Her turn to pivot, turning the conversation away from herself and back to predictable waters. “Last time I spoke to Talia she said she was expecting another baby."

Nikolai nodded. "Yes. Due soon. Maybe inside the month. And little Aleksei just turned three. Getting bigger every day. Talking endlessly, asking a thousand questions every day. Wants to know the whys of every little thing. How is your son? Ten now, yes?"

"Yes. He's a smart boy. Very capable. He's an expert marksman already. Hits a dead eye on a moving target eight times out of ten."

"Impressive."

“He’s got no real sense for flying though. Taken him up a few times, but he doesn’t like heights. Poor kid.”

Nikolai laughed, struck, not for the first time, at the absurdity of her being a mother at all. She had patience, but little softness, more a captain training a recruit than a mother teaching her son, more concerned with toughness and survival than anything else. She was a hawk nudging her fledgling out of the nest and hoping he would fly. “He is only ten years old, Lena,” he reminded her. “You cannot expect him to be an expert in all things.”

“Well, I suppose not. He’s a pretty good driver, at least.”

Ivan tumbled out the door, followed by Iosif and Pyotr, the three of them laughing. Like Nikolai, they had gotten their stations in Copenhagen due to connections, but unlike Nikolai, they didn’t take an ounce of it seriously. Nikolai was no nationalist, but he did respect the training. He knew he could outrun, out-lift and out-shoot all three of them. And when it came to thinking, he was many miles ahead as well.

“Kolyan! We thought you left us behind,” Pyotr said. “But no, you are just out here with a beautiful woman.”

“Helena,” Lena supplied, giving them a half-wave with her nearly spent cigarette.

“Pyotr,” he replied, giving her a wide smile. He was tall as Nikolai, and blond and handsome in an annoying, self-aware way. “Ivan, and Iosif,” he added, pointing to the others in turn. “You don’t look Russian.” They were all so surprised when someone could speak more languages then they were born with, as though their own ignorant refusal to learn to communicate was the norm.

“I’m English,” she said. “A friend of Kolya’s family.”

Iosif gave Helena a look that lingered too long everywhere but her face. It made Nikolai want to punch him repeatedly. “You’re very beautiful,” Iosif said bluntly. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She smiled at him, the wolfish one that was all bared teeth and thinly-veiled threat, and dropped her cigarette to the damp ground, stepping on it to ensure it was fully out. “No. I buy my own drinks.”

“Kolyan bought you a drink,” Iosif protested.

“I don’t like you as much as I like him,” Lena said, shrugging. “There are no debts between us.”

Of course she would say so. She didn’t tally favours against friends, no concern for balanced books when the scales were tipped her way. He didn’t operate like that— Couldn’t afford to let favours accumulate interest, liked to collect sooner rather than later, keeping his own ledger clear. But it was staggering, how much he owed her. For the gifts, his flight lessons, the dust up in Leningrad where he had gotten injured, cornered and nearly killed, and she had taken down two men with her boot knife and bare hands. “Not quite,” Nikolai said softly. “My life is yours.” Perhaps it was nothing to her, just another day in a life filled with violence, but he would certainly not forget the sight of her covered in someone else’s blood, rushing to his side the moment both bodies hit the floor.

She shook her head, looking up at him. Her dark eyes looked starry, the way they cast back the orange light of streetlamps and the pink and blue neon sign from across the street, but it was hard to fathom what she was thinking, behind all that reflected colour. “No, Kolya. You owe me nothing.”

Nikolai tossed down his own cigarette and tapped his first knuckle against the bottom of her chin, leaning in a little closer. “It is really not a matter of owing, Helena,” he purred. “It is a matter of knowing where I stand.”

Her lips parted slightly, a hint of colour creeping into her pale cheeks.

“If there is a story there, we’d like to hear it,” Pyotr said smoothly, interrupting the moment with all the grace of a bucking bull smashing through a window. “Come, let Kolyan buy you another drink, tell us why he owes you his life.”

“It is better if I tell it,” Nikolai said. “She will discount her actions, because she is as modest as she is beautiful. But it is up to her if we join you. Tonight she is my general.” He dropped his arm to her shoulders, pulling her in close. She made no move to push him away, and her body fit right in against him like she belonged there. Like she belonged with him.

“They’re your friends, Kolya. Up to you.”

In all truth, he didn’t want to share any of her attention with them, although he did feel a certain pull to show her off some, even though she was not really his. “One drink,” he said. “We won’t stay long.”

They crowded back into the bar, and Helena touched Nikolai's chest lightly. "I'll be right back," she said, taking off for the back corner of the bar, weaving through clumps of other patrons. It was getting busier, and a band was tuning up their instruments on the opposite side of the establishment, the noise already sending ripples through the haze of smoke. Pyotr followed him to the bar while Ivan and Iosif laid claim to one of the few remaining tables.

"You always have good luck with women," Pyotr complained while they waited for the bartender to take notice of them. "You should leave some beautiful girls for the rest of us, no?"

"If you learned another tongue you could speak to some of them yourself," Nikolai said. "You and Ivan should try. Iosif has been learning English. He's fucking terrible at it, but it's worth the effort. He gets dates."

"Your Helena speaks Russian. And German?"

"And French. Maybe more than that. She does business in many countries."

“Business? She does not look like a business woman.”

Nikolai shrugged, burying his irritation under nonchalance. “Perhaps you have a narrow mind.”

Once they had their drinks in hand, they found the other two soldiers, and crammed into the booth with them. With four bulky men in the space, it was hard to imagine squeezing Helena into a proper seat. Nikolai wanted to kiss Ivan and Iosif on the mouth for creating a scenario where he might be able to coax Helena to sit on his lap. They were not good for much, but at least they were good for something.

Helena reappeared at his shoulder, and Nikolai twisted to look up at her, surprised to find that she had taken her hair down from its ponytail. She looked a little wilder that way, a little younger, dark hair loose around her shoulders, curling at the ends.

"Why don't you sit with me?" Pyotr asked, patting his knee invitingly. "Pretty thing like you ought to have a man take care of you, yes?"

Helena gave him an unamused look and hooked her arm around Nikolai's shoulders, dropping onto his thigh without any further ceremony. Nikolai wrapped his arm around her waist happily, his big hand sitting on the junction between her hip and thigh. He resisted the urge to dig his fingers in and feel her properly. "Don't get any ideas, Kolya," she told him, an attempt to be stern, although he wasn't sure either of them really believed that she meant it. "I'm far too old."

"Not so," Nikolai said, hoping honesty would help his case. "I've been with older women than you." He preferred women to girls his own age.

Surprise flickered across her face. She was rarely surprised, but the expression suited her, her soft red lips parting slightly, her beautiful eyes, usually half closed, opened wide. Ivan and Iosif were laughing, Iosif jostling Pyotr with his elbow for getting rejected so definitively.

Nikolai pressed his advantage, leaning in close, his words only for her. "Perhaps you will tell me later why you have no ring on your finger."

She turned her head slightly. They were so close that their noses almost brushed. "Kolya..."

"Lena," he returned, nudging the tip of his nose against hers, satisfaction pooling in his belly at the was she inhaled, like she thought he was going to try to kiss her. And then he turned away, picking up his beer and nudging hers toward the corner of the table slightly.

Yes, things had certainly shifted between them.

There was something gratifying about having her there, and not just because her warm body was pressed close to his, but to have someone to exchange a look with when Pyotr said something out of touch, or when Ivan made a terrible joke. They tended to think alike, him and his sparrowhawk, and every time they looked at each other it was confirmation of the chemistry that Nikolai had long been painfully aware of, and Lena was just beginning to realize.

When she finished her beer, she stood up, heading outside for another cigarette. She didn’t like to smoke indoors— Nikolai suspected it was more a reason to take a step outside to gather her thoughts than it was for any type of propriety. Pyotr had offered her two as they sat around the table, and she had politely declined each time.

“I won’t be back,” he told the others, grinning wolfishly at the sour look on Pyotr’s face. “Try not to get into too much trouble without me. You will not be able to talk your way out of it.”

He found Lena around the corner, tucked into an alley to get out of the wind. The weather had a habit of shifting without warning, and there was a smell of ozone in the air, promising rain, although the sky above them was still dark and clear.

She looked at him, but didn’t speak, simply held out her pack of cigarettes to offer him one. He lit it with his own lighter this time, nodding his thanks rather than breaking the silence. If she had something on her mind, it would be better to wait her out. So he smoked, standing a step away, watching her. He could never get tired of looking at her anyway.

Finally, she spoke, an accusation, but delivered lightly. “You’ve been flirting.”

He nodded. The allegations were more than true. He was only glad that she could not charge him for the thoughts he’d indulged in, not simply that evening, but for a very long time. “I have.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you.”

She dropped her spent cigarette to the ground, frowning. "Kolya, you're too young. You should be with someone your own age."

Nikolai dropped his own cigarette and threw caution away as well, stepping forward, crowding her up against the rough brick, and cupped her face, allowing all the admiration and want that he'd tried to bury for years to rise to the surface. "I am nearly twenty. I am a soldier. Old enough to die for my country, but not old enough to want to make love to a beautiful woman I respect and adore?"

She gripped his wrists, but didn't pull his hands away. "I--"

"No. Even before you were not happy. You deserve more, from a man who will do anything for you. Let me be that man, Lena. At least for a day or two, hm?" He pressed his lips to hers and drew back, searching her eyes for a reaction. Her grip on his wrists loosened and fell away, her palms settling against his chest instead. Not pushing him away, but not pulling him closer either.

They looked at each other for a long moment, indecision writ in bold script across her face. Good sense would have her send him away, but it was not a night where good sense reigned supreme. They were alone, in a world that had shrank to fit just the two of them, everything else forgotten and distant.

Her eyes dropped from his and settled on his mouth. "Oh fuck it," she said, and they crashed together desperately, her hands gripping his shirt.

Heat blazed in his chest, like a sputtering engine roaring to life. She opened up to him without him having to do any prodding, he could taste smoke and the clean burn of alcohol on her tongue as it moved against his. This was passion, not the clumsy, anxious pawing between two inexperienced people, like he was more used to, but the inevitable reaction of two people who knew exactly what they wanted. He threaded his fingers through her silky hair, angling her head slightly so he could deepen the kiss the slightest bit more, licking eagerly into her mouth. She made a soft sound, arms twining around his neck so she could press her body closer to his. He let his own hands settle on her waist. As much as he wanted to touch every inch of her, he didn't want to come across as too excitable or get carried away by his desire. He needed to make Helena melt first. His own pleasure was a guarantee. Even if she stopped him there, he had held and touched and kissed her now, and he had come many times to paltry imaginings of less.

Lena broke them apart, breathing hard, her dark eyes bright and slightly unfocused, like she had never been kissed like that. Like his kiss had left her more unsteady than the drinks, her red lipstick smeared across her mouth. “I’m staying close by,” she told him, running her thumb across the corner of his mouth, coming away with more red pigment. “Do you want—”

He cut her off with another kiss. He didn’t give a fuck if there was lipstick staining his own mouth. It was just evidence that she really had kissed him. “If you’re asking if I want to get out of here, the answer is yes.”

“Should you tell your friends?”

“No. I make it a habit to leave without saying goodbye. Especially if a beautiful woman has been sitting in my lap all evening.” He grinned, catching her hand as he stepped back. “Where are you staying?”

They walked to her hotel slowly, Nikolai stopping to kiss her at every opportunity, a little worried that she might, at any moment, come to her senses and send him on his way. He had wanted her so badly for so long, he did not wish to stop until they had tangled up together in bed, and perhaps not even then. Perhaps he could convince her to spend more time with him. Perhaps when he had served his time in the army he would be able to follow her wherever she went.

It would likely take some convincing, but he was up to the task. In that moment, he was up to any task.

She unlocked the door to her hotel room, her expression turning pensive. "I'm not divorced yet, we’re just separated for now. Maybe this is--"

"Lena, I am not asking you for the rest of your life." He didn't add that he would take it, if she offered it to him-- That he would take anything she offered him, no matter how big or small. "I only want to show you what you mean to me."

She pushed the door open to let him in. "I don't-- I don't even know if we will get divorced."

"I don't care." He did. He cared a lot, but if he said that aloud she would halt things, tell him it was for his own good.

"Of course not. It's just a crush you want to work out of your system, right?" She smiled wryly, shedding her leather jacket and tossing it over a chair.

"Sure." He tossed his own jacket down on top of hers and hauled her back into his arms. "Do you want to talk about this man that never deserved you? Or do you want to forget him?" He rubbed his thumb over the jagged scar on her arm, where it cut her RAF tattoo in half, his touch following it up to where it disappeared under her rolled up t-shirt sleeve and back down again.

She drew in a shaky breath, as unsure as Nikolai had ever seen her. "He cheated on me. Said it was because I was gone so much. Guess I can’t blame him for that. Just never was able to stay home. Too much to do. Not built for domesticity.”

“You cannot help being what you are,” Nikolai said.

Lena laughed lightly and wound her arms around his waist, her hands slipping under his shirt and curling against his back. “Are you going to tell me what I am, Kolya?” she asked, tilting her head back to look at him.

“A sparrowhawk. A fierce little hunting bird. A warrior, perhaps, a traveller, certainly. Never the kind of woman that belongs tucked away in a kitchen somewhere. Your husband is a fool if he cannot appreciate you as you were made to be.”

“He wants to work it out,” she warned him. “We've got so much tangled up together it might be the only thing that makes sense."

“Perhaps. Perhaps if you must, you should allow him to chase his lesser women, so that you can spend your time with a better man.” He grinned at her and moved in for another kiss. He had said everything that needed saying, laid out what cards he thought would aid him, and kept the rest tucked away for later. She all but melted in his arms, lips parting reflexively for him.

This time, he made no effort to restrain himself, letting his hands roam, moaning into her mouth when he finally got a handful of her backside, fingers gripping a little too tight from enthusiasm. What curves she had were incidental, from her broad-hipped build rather than much softness— Even motherhood had granted very little softness to Lena, she was packed muscle and callouses and fire, totally unlike any of the pale imitations he had found himself chasing over the past few years. Lena would always be a soldier first, it would take some effort to remind her that she was a woman too.

Nikolai stepped forward, making Lena move backwards until her knees hit the bed, and broke the kiss so he could kiss down her neck, sucking a little too hard just below her ear, making her hiss. She gripped the collar of his shirt firmly, hauling him back a bit. “Easy,” she said, laughing. “Leave the hickies for the college girls, Kolya.”

He flushed pink, although the embarrassment from his mistake did nothing to dampen the mood, blessedly. “Sorry,” he said, knocking his forehead against hers. “You’re very hot.”

Lena grinned in response and tugged his shirt off over his head, tossing it to the side. She ran her hands over his chest, eyes following hungrily. “So are you.”

Nikolai had been hard since they started kissing outside the bar, but her words, somehow all the more genuine delivered in her own tongue, coupled with the look she gave him made him twitch, blood fully abandoning his head to travel south. He pulled her shirt off too, and kissed down her chest, cheering internally that he managed to unhook her bra on the first attempt, rather than struggling with the clasp like a schoolboy.

Her nails grazed over his head encouragingly when he reached her small breasts, lapping his tongue across one nipple and palming the other. She made a breathy sound, and then a groan when he tested his teeth against the sensitive nub. He groaned too, some primal part of him getting off on the fact that he was making her feel good, that she was letting him touch her, that she was enjoying the feeling of his hands and lips and tongue and teeth on her skin. He felt twenty feet tall.

Lena reached for his belt, undoing the buckle before his syrupy-slow thoughts could catch up. He broke away from her breast and caught her wrists before she could do more than undo the top button of his jeans. He was fairly sure he would spill all over her fingers if she put her hands on him. “Impatient,” he chided her, pushing her onto the bed. He sank to his knees, positioning his body between her thighs. “Ladies first.”

Her laugh was always music to his ears, but it was honey sweet now, pooling somewhere in his chest as he cut her off with another kiss. He couldn’t risk her seeing the feeling in his eyes— He knew it was too close to love, that she would realize that this meant more to him than it did to her, and she would send him away to protect him.

He ducked his head and sank back on his haunches, pulling one of her boots into his lap so he could undo the laces and pull it free. She leaned back on her elbows to watch him, her head tipped to the side thoughtfully. Her gaze burned, but he didn’t look up until he had set both boots to the side, sliding his hands up her firm thighs to the waistband of her jeans. “These need to come off now.”

“Now who’s impatient?” she asked teasingly, but she pitched her hips up so he could peel the denim off of her legs anyway, the heat in her eyes undeniable.

Nikolai ran his hands up her legs reverently, dropping a kiss on the inside of her knee, torn as ever between restraint and enthusiasm. He pushed her legs open a little wider, attention fixed on her cotton-clad cunt.

Lena gave him a sly, fox-like smile. "You want to taste me?" She asked, hooking her thumbs through the waistband of her panties.

"More than anything," he breathed.

"Then get to it, soldier," she said, pushing them down.

"Yes ma'am." Nikolai pulled them the rest of the way off, and tried to be subtle about shoving the (wet!) cotton in his pocket. She probably saw, but she was gracious enough to not mention it. He wasted no more time, pulling her to the edge of the bed as he peppered the inside of her thighs with kisses, eyes focused on her pretty pussy, framed by slick darkened curls. His cock throbbed as he dipped his head down, licking a broad path along her slit, groaning at the heady taste of her. He threw one of her lean legs over his shoulder and fixed his mouth to her clit, lapping his tongue across it, gripping tightly to her hips when they bucked up against him. A moan fell from Helena's mouth, prompting him to repeat the movement.

He found a rhythm quickly, spurred on by her gasped instructions, or her hand nudging his head into just the right position. He had found that the benefit sleeping with older women was that they weren’t shy about asking for what they wanted, but Helena took it a step further and simply took, grinding against his tongue, using the leg over his shoulder to pull him closer, the other planted on his thigh so she could push him just slightly away, reminding him to breathe. As if that was important, when the sharp taste of her was heavy on his tongue and her moans were thick in the air.

“Two fingers,” Lena gasped, nudging him back slightly to make sure he was listening. “Inside, please.”

Nikolai obeyed, leaning back to watch her face, replacing his tongue with his thumb. Her soaked cunt pulsed around his fingers, her hips canting toward his touch desperately. He curled his fingers just so, and she keened, fisting the sheets as if she were worried that she would levitate off the bed and away from his hands. “Will you come for me?” he purred. “You look so beautiful. Taste so sweet.”

His words made her gush, her walls clenching tight around him. “Fuck— Kolya!” Her whole body shuddered, pulling taut, tension snapping when he suctioned his mouth to her swollen clit once more, moaning against her as she came, as if her pleasure was his own. It nearly was. He was so hard, and his jeans so tight that he could imagine coming just from the pressure and the sweet sounds she made, although he tried not to think about that.

She unhooked her leg from his shoulder and pushed herself into a seated position, cupping his jaw to pull him closer. “You’re pretty good at that,” she panted, pressing a kiss to his mouth, unphased by the slick that coated the lower half of his face.

Nikolai got to his feet, letting his teeth graze against her bottom lip before he straightened up fully, separating reluctantly so he could kick off his boots and finally rid himself of the rest of his clothes. “I’m good at lots of things,” he promised.

Helena moved toward the head of the mattress, watching him, face flushed pink high on her cheekbones and hair a mess already. Her dark eyes dipped down his chest, thighs pressing together when he finally freed his cock. He wanted to imprint the image of her looking at him like that on the back of his eyelids, so he could see it every time he blinked for the rest of his life. Her dark eyes were hot and hungry, for him. That morning, this was a distant, far off fantasy that lingered in the back of his mind, and now she was here, laying naked before him, every inch of her lean, muscular, scarred up body on display, and she wanted him.

“Are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to come over here and show me what else you’re good at?” she asked.

“I am just appreciating the view,” he laughed, climbing onto the bed beside her. “It’s one I’d very much like to remember.”

“Flatterer,” she accused, curling into his arms for another kiss.

He hummed against her mouth, agreeing, pulling her on top of him, legs on either side of his waist. He was glad she was as eager to lock lips as he was— He could never get tired of the spit-slicked slide of her mouth against his, the swipe of her tongue against his own, like she was as desperate to devour him as he was her. He reached around her hips to take himself in hand, precum easing the glide of his first few rough, desperate strokes.

“Koyla,” she whined against his mouth, angling her hips back.

“You want me?” he asked, tapping the head of his cock against her core, grinning when she inched backward, chasing it when he pulled back again.

“Yes,” she panted. “Please.”

Who was he to deny her? He rubbed himself against her dripping folds again, and she pitched herself backward, taking him to the hilt in one smooth movement. He groaned, fighting off the urge to come just like that, at the first molten clench of her cunt around him, fingers digging into her hips to hold her still while he adjusted.

Lena fought his grip, grinding her clit down against him, desperate for friction and movement. Nikolai lost the battle shamefully quick, an orgasm pulsing through him before he could do more than pant out her name, holding her down against him as he came inside her, eyes screwed tight.

He pulled in a shuddering breath, wincing. “Shit. Sorry.”

Lena just laughed, not an ounce of judgment or disappointment in the sound. “You need a minute?” she asked, pushing back up onto her knees, their hips still pressed flush together. Her cunt pulsed around him, and, blessedly, his cock responded with enthusiasm, staying hard. She rocked back and forth, hands braced against his chest as she fucked herself slowly on him, drawing each movement out excruciatingly slow, a teasing smile on her lips. She squeezed around him again, and he could help but groan, rutting up into her reflexively.

“No. No, I will keep going. Sorry.” He pulled her down against his chest and rolled them so that he was on top. Coming too early once was bad enough, he couldn’t risk it happening a second time. He folded her legs up and thrust into her slow, making sure that she felt every inch of him drag across that spongy, sensitive spot that he had found with his fingers earlier.

Lena hooked her legs around his waist, pressing her palms against the headboard to give herself some leverage to meet his movements, encouraging him to pick up his pace. He followed her cue, pistoning into her soaked pussy harder and faster, his balls slapping against her ass, coupling with the wet sound of his cock moving in and out of her and the little whimpers that left her lips with every thrust. He dropped down to his forearms, feeling tension building inside him again, trying to keep his reaction in check, and the change in angle made her cry out. She let go of the headboard and clung to his shoulders instead, burying her face against his neck.

“Kolya,” she gasped into his ear. “I’m close.”

He knew that the best thing he could do was keep to the same rhythm, so he continued the relentless pace, shifting his wieght to one arm so he could reach between them, rubbing a tight circle around her clit. He legs squeezed tight around him, her cunt fluttering around his cock. She bit down on his shoulder, groaning against his skin, nails digging into his back. His own release came quickly, the tension snapping as he spilled inside her for the second time. He rutted against her until her cunt relented, loosening around him.

“Fuck,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers, breathing hard. “You’re so beautiful. Next time I need to see your face, yes?”

That teasing, fox-like grin returned. “Next time?”

“Give me, five, ten minutes,” he panted. “I’m good for it.”

She laughed, pushing him over onto the bed and curling into him, her head on his shoulder, her legs tangled up with his. She made a soft, contented noise, running her fingers through the sweaty curls of hair on his chest, her expression turning dazed and thoughtful as she relaxed in his arms. He smoothed her hair back from her face, kissing the top of her head affectionately.

"You flown a helo yet?” she asked. “I could take you up tomorrow, if you want. There’s one on the ship." The change of subject was abrupt, but he knew her well enough to recognize her tactics when she got too close to an emotion.

"I would like that.”

“Good. Me too.”

Nikolai sighed, tilting Lena’s chin up for another proper kiss. He would spend every moment he could by her side, for as long as she would let him, in the air or on solid ground. “Will you be in town again soon?” he asked hopefully.

“I haven’t even left yet,” she said, laughing.

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

She bit her lip, cheeks turning pinker, her eyes filled with something shining and hopeful and sweet, something that settled under his ribs, curling up in his chest and purring like a contented cat. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

“Next time, stay longer.”

“I will,” she promised. “And yes, soon.”

He didn’t expect more than that. Couldn’t, knowing her. But it was enough.

Maybe Copenhagen wasn’t so bad after all.

#call of duty modern warfare #cod fanfic #x OC #Nikolai x OC #Nikolai mw #here be smut #MDNI #Sparrowverse #I can't look at this anymore or I will go insane #Please let me know if you need more content warnings at the beginning #This is the first actual sex scene I've posted and I hope it's appropriately sexy

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ms-scarletwings · 8 months

Text

A Messy, Sedulous Necropsy of Zib Membrane

That’s what we call him right? Not Invader Zib? Hell if I know, we’ll let the tags decide.

Whatever he is christened by his author, enemies, or fans, this titular villain of the Zimvoid is such a mind blaster to me. I wish we had more time with him within the comics. I wish he had been a concept explored in the show. I wish he had a movie. I am having fun with a little hyperbole here, but I truly do find him just as interesting and potentially pivotal of an antagonist as Tak was, if not even more.

Both, of course, were so badly underutilized for sake of the series status quo. To that, Zib was a much bigger threat than Tak, and especially to that of the comics’ own. He potentially changes everything, and somehow absolutely nothing by the end. The TV show always had a more overt tone of cruelty and the macabre floating about its themes. These print issues? I don’t dislike them. It’s still recognizably invader Zim, and the more the merrier, content-wise, but longtime fans can feel that there was this change of essence in the transition. More obviously, in the art, but more subtly, there was an audible softening of that bluntly darker, cynical tone the show was made iconic for. To put it very generally, they lean a little more into the whackiness of this world, there’s a lot more dark comedy to be found in what I’ve seen so far rather than in your face darkness, and in the absence of the ost and voice acting the show accustomed us to, the comics leave a lot more room to be read as you wile. To me, they’re goofier and more episodic in spirit.

This all is not a critique or rating on the comics.. It’s purely, I feel, why Zib stuck out to me all the more jarringly in his context. His reveal was a genuine twist that brought forth stakes higher than arguably any other threat in the entire franchise. He represents a plausible while horrifying prophecy of our main characters if only they made worse decisions. The most interesting of all, for every piece of amazing information he fed to us, he bred dozens more questions about everything than he answered, from Irken machinations, to his ambivalent backstory, to the secrets hidden by the sum of his parts.

Though he was left evidently alive at the end of his story, I don’t see any chance for him making a return, so he is memorialized as another defeated one-off the writers have brisked past and left behind for good. Therefore, I’m here today to take what we got and present it on the metaphorical autopsy table. I want to really pull apart why this character alone pulled me back into the TV series, really just flay open the bits I can’t get out of my own head and dig harder until we find something or we run out of threads to tug at. Starting with the one already hanging out of my mouth, but

• B.E.F

“Bad End Friend” is a term I learned the meaning of within the last 12 hours or so of writing this, and I’m exuberant over that discovery. It’s a niche trope i didn’t know ive been a giant fan of since I was a child. Summed up, fictional characters from beloved media, typically, animated child protagonists… given the worst case scenario treatment. Their “bad ending”, whether that means a corruption arc, demonic possession, a lovecraftIan tragedy… usually something that’s anywhere along the lines of a fate worse than death to a full villainous turnover. As a treat. The concept is strongly associated with fanworks and AUs of popular media, but just as often this is something that becomes explored in the source material as well. A couple great examples I know would probably be Ice Prince Finn from Adventure Time or what happens in Undertale when you decide you want to run the most depraved playthrough possible. From a more mature story, “Evil” Morty is another validly arguable sample.

Besides a bit of a fondness I got going for certain dark or spooky themes in general, what I REALLY love about canonical BEFs the most is their utility as characterization tools. They’re the “having your cake and eating it too” option! The perfect way for an author to explore certain things about any character without actually committing to well… a bad ending.

Almost always, they are necessarily hypothetical or reversible. If they’re not reversible, they go often hand-in-hand with a little universe tampering to make happen. Sometimes, this means the story goes the way of time travel and branching off butterfly effects. Sometimes it means confirming multiverse theory, which can be the same thing depending on your semantical position.

And Zib crossed off the BEF qualifications by far and away. His implications are extremely dark given any pause think about them, and he’s a living, disturbing tragedy in aftermath. If you want to view a rigamarole about that aspect of his characterization as he appeared in the comics, someone else long beat me to that and I’m enthusiastically recommending a peek at their own work. I’m thrilled to do so and build a little upon that with those extended what-if-wonders.

• Lessons From a Lost Episode

Elephant in the room I haven’t seen someone ask yet, uh..

By show rules, isn’t Zib supposed to be a clear case of the writers committing the sin of retcon? By show I’m including the unaired scripts, including “10 Minutes to Doom”. In that one we had what looked like the potential setup for a Zib case, and it was deconstructed across the whole episode.

In short recap, Dib learned the hard and reckless way about the true nature of what Irken PAKs actually are. This is not an inventory bag, it is not “gear”. It’s the actual Irken entity- at least, the primary component.

Detaching it from the organic shell essentially caused a temporary split into two instances of Zim, desperately trying to connect back together under threat of obliteration.

Like let me be very clear about this,

The PAK is an autonomous instance of Zim’s consciousness, and it’s the main one. We’ve seen it act to save his life when his body has been out cold or flatlined, and he doesn’t appear the least bit disoriented or confused once “he” wakes and jumps back into the action. There’s no known separate computer assistant AI or security autopilot in there. That code, that program, IS Zim. As Long as the PAK is active, he is capable of staying fully conscious and able to react to what’s happening around him, and that’s what we’ve been seeing, his own actions.

Zim proved me right when Virooz tried to replace him and detached the PAK. Take note of his phrasing after the chair event™.

“I” activated the protocol. Immediately after Virooz ran off with my shell.

“I” Voluntarily chose to do so.

I don’t remember it playing out like that in “10 Minutes to Doom”.

Attaching to a new host wasn’t the first reflex. Dib was not the least bit aware that that he has literally holding the actual Zim captive in sense, and the latter was fighting like a cornered animal to escape him. Failing that, alongside the distance between him and his original body growing fast, he made a last desperate gambit, and he willingly connected himself into Dib’s body.

I can see why he thought this was better than nothing, no matter how repulsive the notion might have been. If he couldn’t fend Dib off physically, he could incapacitate him in some fashion by trying to overtake his will. Maybe give the shell a better chance to catch up, maybe in the longshot hope of being able to pilot dib in order to become whole with the correct host again. And you can say he succeeded, at least in dominating bodily control away from Dib, but at the cost of his already tenuously held sanity. This could be because of the interference of Dib’s own mind still resisting to fully submit, or malfunctions because of the biological incompatibility; however, the thing that Dib mentally becomes is only the basic idea of what “Zim” is. Instead of remembering it needs to reunite with its shell ASAP, the PAK mistakes Dib’s body for its own and goes through the manic motions of following the Invader mission. And it does this, weirdly enough, with almost no regard for blowing its cover.

When things are set right again, Zim’s later words near the episode ending revealed that he knew that was an unsustainable state.

Such a risk was not just accounted for, he was actually banking on it if that clock had hit zero. If Zim had truly lost, if he was really doomed to meet his end on this nasty rock in the middle of Nowhere, Space, then by every damned circuit in his being, he was going to take down this insolent fool boy and as many other humans possible with him. A dying act of vengeful rage.

• The Exceptional… Exception

Now, wouldn’t all of this be the definitive reason for Zib’s existence to be an aberrant impossibility? Yes, but actually no. Fun thing about multiverses is if something doesn’t work in one setting, you can just tweak a few dials and suddenly you have a world where the impossible becomes possible. But that’s a pretty cheap answer, isn’t it? So, what exactly was that crucial difference?

What happened in Zib’s timeline that went down so, so divergently from the events of 10 Minutes to Doom?

Because the only one who was in any position to explain it for us was Zib himself, and he’s proven to be one of the most unreliable of narrators. It’s as @dana-chan-the-control-brain already spared no effort to demonstrate, when he does tell us something about his past, his story is pocked with contradicting half-truths or outright lies. Ergo it helps to break down each recount of events to pick out the real facts.

Version 1: This is an alternate version of dib who defeated his complementing Zim (logically sensible) and went on to achieve all of the success and respect he sought after in his timeline (absolute bullshit). He kind of gestures and only implies about what has happened to his body while explaining that he came to his current understanding of Irken technology by studying it through Zim’s lab (a partial truth). He lets slip in passing that he has in fact fused with the PAK in order to learn how to alter and reprogram its coding, lessons he has applied to Number 2 in order to have a brainwashed pawn (also apparently true).

Version 2, when cornered and red handed: This is an alternate version of Dib who managed to specifically stop Zim's mission (Again, makes sense) but somehow could not convince the world of his findings or his warnings about the Irken Armada (*VERY eyebrow raising). Frustrated with the people’s lack of cooperation, he decides he has no choice but to physically merge with Zim’s PAK post-mortem (concerning and evidently mostly accurate), dominate the Earth himself, and enslave humans to help him in his efforts (highly troubling and probably true). The construction of his EMP super-weapon is successful, but ultimately led to the creation of the Zimvoid when the device was field tested (self evident, absolutely horrifying).

You know what I noticed was missing from both of these accounts? Exactly how his Zim was defeated. Which honestly could have been some beyond useful wisdom to pass along to the main Dib??? More than anything else? I’m not going to fault our boy for not pressing that matter better under the awing circumstance; however, there’s an implication I’ve been reading between lines.

When Zib mentions “defeating” his own Zim, he’s talking about something different than ours.

When our Dib has always talked about “defeating” Zim, he’s meant incapacitation and capture. Throughout the show he explicitly wants to present Zim before an audience alive and whole. Yeah, he fantasizes about other people torturing or disassembling him for study, but HIS role was supposed to be reaping the fame for an undeniable, ground-breaking discovery. Conspiracies and cryptids are all this kid breathes and lives by! And as long as pop culture has always been fascinated with the paranormal, and he has to know this full well, people keep bringing forward hoax after hoax after scam. I mean there’s a freaking current one or few still going IRL about this exact topic. Dib would want no room left for being dismissed as another one of those con artists.

Nonetheless, I actually doubt this is the reason Zib couldn’t get through to the scientific community. A genuine alien lifeform, even a dead one, could still be confirmed by any basic medical examination. The world thinks Dib is too crazy to listen to, but his father is still Professor Membrane. In "10 Minutes to Doom" OUR Dib got as close as having Membrane literally analyzing a PAK, or at worst, preparing to. “Ultimate Dib” gets his hands on the same thing and pulls a move I’d expect from an HP Lovecraft Protagonist instead.

We’re assuming way too much to what these two Dibs have in common, because this ^^^ is really what made the Zimvoid an outlier in the multiverse. That world didn’t only have a very different, more threatening Zim from the main timeline, it had the Dib who proved even more formidable, cunning, and ruthless, even before the fusion.

He didn’t obtain that PAK ala the “10 minutes to Doom” accident, it’s a personal trophy. This is extra strange remembering that capturing an Irken is realistically more easy than killing one. They’re seriously more tenacious than kudzu and will even fight back in PAK form alone. I’m convinced that whatever sort of final showdown made the Ultimate Dib the victor, there are two optional endings on the table.

Option 1: There was not a body even left intact enough to bring in to research. Maybe Dib’s fault, maybe an accident, maybe even Zim’s own luck running out and his incompetent antics finally swallowed him (and possibly GIR). This theory assumes that the PAK was the only sort of remains to come into Dib’s recovery/possession.

Option 2: Curiosity Killed the cat,

but satisfaction brought it back.

Or, the one I personally headcanon. Dib… all Dibs, I assume, don’t just hate the Irken species. They are mesmerized by them, and all that they represent from his perspective. Firstly, the epic villain he gets to roleplay nemesis to in order to feel his own worth and importance. Secondly, an unknown wonder from beyond the boundaries of the cosmos. He’s not really a ghost buster or a Men In Black agent at heart, but a scientist, like his father. Underneath his contempt for Zim’s plans to destroy the world is a genuine and appropriately childish awe for alien presence, especially for Zim’s technology. His silent, dopey smile when Tak’s ship ended up in his backyard said more than words ever will..

Earlier in the show, a great deal of Dib’s time and effort was spent on trying to infiltrate the lower levels of Zim’s base. Sneaking into the house was hard enough, but the computer security can’t be bypassed like the gnomes. Not even by Zim himself unless he really is all himself. Perhaps you’re starting to sniff where I’m going with this one when I refer back to “Bolognius Maximus”. I’ve another reference that’s a little more on the nose, and a lot more… dark.

Were an expired Irken husk before you, you too might take your victory and cash in then. Still, who knows what sudden impulse may run through the head of a less humble version of yourself, one some could call greedier, obsessive to a fault, a screw or two loose, yet, a hell of a smart cookie. Smart enough to see it for what it actually was, the keys to a whole world of discovery that went so many layers deeper than they could ever imagine. It’s possible the Ultimate Dib already learned beforehand the same hard lessons about the PAKs that our own did, and took that understanding toward not repeating the same mistake this time. What happened to Zim? I think he was murdered in cold blood, body, and entity. “10 Minutes to Doom” showed us a fight between 2 brains clinging to one body, struggling until one overpowered another, but that’s not what this is. Through whatever means of science were available to him, this Dib has probably tried to “disarm” the technology by either erasing Zim’s consciousness out of it altogether, or by forcing the autonomous code into a kind of dormancy. His intentions were to render it back to its basic hardware without losing its precious knowledge and usefulness, something like the brain-filled tank that was wired into Skrang’s head. Zim’s PAK doesn’t cling onto his body like a parasitic teratoma this time; it’s merged in a literal sense with his nervous and circulatory system. As well, he has fooled the device’s ability to detect and reject a foreign host shell, the exact same way he deceived the the base’s security AI. If an Irken biology is what these measures authorize to command them and their secrets, then he had the tools on hand to give them just that- in an atrocity I like to call

the darker harvest.

Within this theory, there is not as much room to wonder exactly what became of Zim’s organic remains.

But where Dib fucked up was, for the second time, in his ignorance to the true nature of what he was even playing with. That was a mistake that even the mighty Elder Brains of Judgementia lost themselves to; How much more vulnerable was the weak, human mind? Though Zim can be devoured, he can never be digested. In that fact was born this aberration against nature, sanity, and humanity alike.

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects… don't have politics. They're very… brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first… insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but… I'm afraid, uh… I'm saying… I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over… and the insect is awake." - Seth Brundle, The Fly, 1986

By fusing what is half-mad and what is utterly mad, neither being was cured, only assimilated into the birth of a new madness. The madness of the creature that snickers behind the curtain in the Zimvoid. I rightfully fear that lonesome thing, but not I think as much as I pity him.

• Dejavu, or Re:Plagarism

One more thing about the Zimvoid arc I find curious is the way it makes you question more and more just how much of the aberration is actually still Dib, and how much of it is Zim's infection haunting him. He does nothing with all of his intellect, his resources, and his time in the void doing anything but surrounding himself in everything he claims he despises. He decries alien tyranny in one breath while lording over a homemade, cruel dictatorship in another. He calls for eradication of the very race who's technology and physiology he has thoroughly appropriated. He laments feeling unable to protect the Earth from the Armada alone, yet sneers literally through Irken teeth to insult humans as inferior and of no value to him any longer. Our Dib spent the whole damn show longing for the support of other people, but Zib pushes away potential allies in his arrogance. His broken timeline never became a Dibvoid instead because while only half of his mind can't stand Irkens, both of the souls inside him remember that they loathe and look down upon a Dib, deep inside.

The corruption goes as far as even subverting his own creativity. None of Zib's plans are wholly original. His anti-Irken weapon was already a concept blueprinted inside of that PAK before the merge. Our Dib has several times shown a propensity for some DIY ingenuity, sometimes dipping a toe into the supernatural. Zib entirely calls upon, scavenges and regurgitates Irken designs with a few modifications or upgrades. The Dib Virus, I think is his most uninspired creation yet, for it's original form was always something inside of Zim, even if the latter himself was not aware of the fact. Like all else, it is a weapon he has plundered, customized, and turned around on everyone else for his own selfish ends. This brief point I will end on one more reflection. The one kind of help Zim ever allowed at his side were the likes of GIR and his own creations. Unable to connect and cooperate with his peers and own kind, his ego preferred to be around those defective machines he related to- drones to be owned by him and always loyally at his beck and call. A slave to admire him unconditionally is the only companionship he's ever been willing to admit to desiring.

And what was Number 2's purpose again? What role exactly were the arena combatants auditioning for, when you think about it?

#iz #iz comics #zimvoid #dib membrane #iz zib #iz headcanons #invader zim headcanon #zib membrane #iz analysis #invader zim #iz comic spoilers #iz theory #scarlet talks about things #long post #absolute ramblings i mean holy crap #longass post

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captainjamster · 3 months

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hi i have a request Price gives stress relief to reader

if youre too busy thats fine

i absolutely read your username instead of price and started writing for graves until i realised, so uhhh... this idea but with phil coming at some point! also wasn't sure if you meant stress relief or stress relief, so this gets nsfw!!

thank u for the ask my little sunshine i hope you enjoy, i am never too busy for a request, especially not from a fellow graves lover <3

Pairing(s): Price x AFAB!reader (no gendered nicknames or pronouns) Warnings: NSFW, fingering, light dirty talk Wordcount: 2.2k Summary: Price gives you a hand winding down after a frustrating day at work, though mutual satisfaction is on his mind. AO3 Link: Right here <3

Full fic is under the cut <3

The pages rustle as John flickers through them, smoothing out with the tapping of your phone to create a peaceful, white noise. Yet despite the atmosphere, a heavy weight presses on your chest, brow furrowed and shoulders tight as you scroll through your apps. You can feel John's eyes on you, taking in your sullen form as you glare a hole into your screen.

"You're quiet, love."

John breaks the silence, looking down at his book again. You take a moment to compile a response, debating whether to delve into the frustrations of your week.

"Just a day, I guess."

He takes in the short, avoidant answer, thumbing the pages of his book. "Don't want to talk about it?"

"I don’t know. Not really."

John looks at you again, and this time, you turn to him too.

"Can I hold you?"

You nod, not trusting your voice. The moment your head inches forward, the book thuds onto his bedside table with a careless toss, immediately spreading his arms open. "C'mere, sweetheart."

You crawl into his lap, curling up and sinking into him. His arms wrap around you reflexively, bringing your head to rest against the bristle of his chest, the other arm rubbing up and down your back. He doesn't press the subject, just sets a steady pace to inhale and exhale with, rocking you softly with each breath.

After a few minutes, you initiate conversation yourself, mumbling against the skin of his sternum.

"So... Shit. Everything is so shit."

"Shit, love?"

You rub your cheek against his chest hair as you nod. "I hate people."

"Yeah?"

Drawing in a sharp breath, the feeling of burning frustration reignites in your lower stomach as you spill out an angry tirade. "God, I just want to tear their fucking heads off sometimes! I want one day, just one day, where I can speak my mind. I could ask them "oh, I'm sorry, is your fucking price wrong? Okay, now is it MY fault or YOUR fault that you didn't check the coupon was in date before you used it?" Maybe their fucking brains would start working if I didn’t have to just smile and say “yes customer, no customer! Whatever you want customer!” like the stupidest shit didn’t just come out their mouth!”

You turn, back pressed to his stomach as you gesture agitatedly. "I can't stand it! "Oh, oh! I dropped this jar and now it's cracked! Can I get it for free? Oh, my kid ate half of this apple, but he doesn't want it, so I'll just put it back on display! Let's berate this minimum-wage worker because the line was slightly long at midday, like they have any control over that!" Like, why do people become such monsters whenever they step foot into a store? My friend from that clothing shop down the street? She said someone tried to return a whole bag of dirty underwear, like what the fuck?"

Huffing, your jaw clenches tight as you cross your legs, flopping your head back against his shoulder dramatically.

"I'm sorry, baby." He murmurs lowly, running his hands up your arms, digging his thumbs into the tense flesh of your shoulder. "S'not fair, you deserve to be treated better than that, your friend too."

You soften into his arms, biting at the inside of your cheek. “I just wanna quit. Management sucks, everyone else working there is just as miserable. No wonder their turnover rate is so high.”

John’s hand drops down from your shoulder, running past your chest to rest against your midriff. "Always can, doll. Put in your two weeks, live off what I've got in the bank 'til y'find a better position. Y'know I'd let you never work a day in your life, if you'd let me."

His tone is gentle and passive, content in his reminder with your desire to keep financial independence and stay busy when he leaves for deployment. The room falls into silence again as you nestle into an arm, manoeuvring it to rest over your chest like a seatbelt and clip between your legs. His other arm rests along the length of your leg, and you feel him lean his weight back against the bed’s head as you continue thinking, playing with his arm hair absent-mindedly. John is content to let you fiddle away, his hand caught in the grip of your thighs comfortably, thumb traces little circles against the skin it rests between.

His body shifts underneath you after a few minutes of quiet, readjusting to move closer. You’re suddenly flush against him as he sits up, pulling you tighter against his soft, sturdy chest and pressing a kiss to the back of your head. The movement surprises a squeak out of you, squirming before a pressure against the crotch of your underwear stills you. Warm air brushes against your hair as John huffs in amusement, readjusting the hand cupped against your sex in an effort to tug you closer, intentionally positioning his hand to spread and fully cover your mound.

"John..."

He hums in response against your neck, lips pressed into the skin.

"Your hand."

"My hand, dove?" He pulls away, leaving one last kiss behind your ear.

"It's, ahhh...”

He flexes his fingers tighter for a second, the increase in pressure barely stimulating the sensitive nerves beneath. “What? Just movin’ you closer, ‘n my hand’s nice and warm down there.”

The playfully avoidant answer earns him an exasperated groan, though the desire seeping into you leaves it breathier than you’d like.

“Want me to stop?”

You shake your head before he can finish the sentence, grip tightening on his forearm. The vibration of his chuckles jostles you against his torso, warming your cheeks. Before you can exclaim your embarrassment, he shifts under the blankets and nudges your legs open, his feet hooking round your ankles to pin them apart. “How about some stress relief, hm? Get all those yucky feelings out for the night.”

His fingers trail teasingly against the hemline of your elastic, running his nails over the soft fat that meets the cotton barrier. All it takes is a “yes, please” for his fingers to breach the elastic, honing to your entrance only to glide back up the damp skin of your lips. At your whining insistence, his fingers deftly pull your lips apart, using his middle finger to collect the slick gathering between your folds and lather it against your clit. Your hips jerk at the contact, and John tuts, chasing your hips to flick his thumb over the sensitive button. “Askin’ for it, but y’won’t sit still, huh? Jus’ wanna help my baby feel better.”

Moving his arm to cup your chest, his hand crawls under your shirt to pinch your nipple, sending shivers down your spine as he rolls it between his fingers. Your whimpers only egg him on, emboldening him to trace little circles around your clit as he works to build the delicious tension growing between your legs.

Warmth flushes through your body, combining with the body heat radiating from John’s chest against your back, leaving you burning up in your own desire. It only takes minutes of John’s ministrations to draw wet squelches from between your legs, filling your ears as your eyes flutter closed, focusing on the way John’s fingers curl and tease around your most sensitive spot.

“John, please…”

He takes your unspoken request without argument, leaving the begging for another night as his fingers leave your swollen nub to graze against your needy entrance. Your hole twitches at the slight contact, clenching as if to draw him in, eliciting a chuckle from John that goes unchallenged in your distracted state. Catching a line of slick dribbling down your perineum, he guides it back up, coating his fingers before he dips a digit into your hole.

You hiss wantonly at the sensations, hips bucking up to urge his finger in deeper, and John tuts. “Keep still, needy thing. Tryna play with this pretty cunt properly.”

He teases you with a sole finger, crooking it to stroke against the spongey muscle that has you leaking with each pass. Despite the stimulation, the single digit leaves your needy cunt feeling empty, fluttering against the intrusion with a desperation until you’re mewling for more.

“I know, y’need more, pet,” he murmurs into the skin behind your ear, dropping kisses down to your jaw. “Let me take care of you.”

The thick finger retreats from within you, leaving you whining in complaint as your hips chase his touch. Your eager hips are met with a firm spank to your folds, leaving John’s fingers trailing with slick as you gasp and retreat to the mattress, back against the protruding bulge in his lap. The compliance is rewarded with a soothing swipe of his fingers along your stinging lips, collecting arousal against his calloused skin. His fingertips circle teasingly at your entrance again, tracing the quivering muscle as he chuckles at your reactivity. Sensing the protest rising in you, he silences it with a swift thrust of his fingers, filling you up again.

His fingers work like they were designed to coax the stress from you with each drag, replacing the tension with a buzzing need for release that has you flexing and relaxing in waves against him. The pressure builds in the pit of your stomach as his fingers pump in and out of you, his other hand abandoning your breast and travelling down to reclaim its spot nestled against your clit, rolling tight circles around the nerve ending in harmony with the drive of his digits. He masterfully orchestrates your undoing, timing each thrust with each involuntary grind of your hips, kissing the salt from your neck as your head lulls against his shoulder, panting.

“Fuck, right there, m’so close John,” you moan, hands fumbling to find something to grip, finding purchase in his hairy thighs. The way your nails sink into the meat of his muscle has him groaning in your ear, breaking his smooth rhythm with a particularly deep thrust as he struggles to contain his enthusiasm. “Fuck, sweetheart, my god.”

Your cunt tightens so fiercely around his fingers that you’re sure they’re being crushed together as your orgasm hits you, squeezing the digits like you could milk the life out of them if you tried hard enough. John hums praise against your neck as he waits for your walls to relax to resume lazily thrusting in and out through the last sparks your climax, his own breath laboured as you tremble in his embrace.

His hand remains between your legs, fingers snug within you as your breathing evens out, the other travelling to trace small circles on the inside of your thigh. You float on the high of your orgasm, sweaty and satisfied as the strain dissipate from your legs, relaxing against John’s.

“Any improvement?”

You give him a breathless giggle, pulling your eyes open to tilt back and look at him. “Yeah, don’t feel like decapitating someone anymore.”

“Good.” He gives you a pleased smile, dotting a kiss on the corners of your lips. His face is warm and flushed, eyes still hazy with lust as he looks down at you, which brings a thought to your mind.

“Do you want me to take care of you…?”

His expression flickers to something guarded behind the smile, gently disentangling himself from your body. “I’m fine, don’t worry,” he announces gruffly, clearing his throat as he ducks into the bathroom. You frown, gazing at his retreating figure as you shuck off your soiled underwear, waiting for his return. He re-emerges with a damp cloth, crawling across the bed to kneel between your still spread legs, wiping delicately at the mess of arousal sticking to the sensitive surface of your skin.

The cloth is slightly warm as he pats at any excess water, collecting your dirty underwear as he pulls away. Walking to the closet, he discards the used fabrics in the laundry basket, grabbing another pair of underwear for you. Readjusting the sheets and blankets, you watch him quickly tug off his boxers, grabbing another pair that he manages to pull around his knees before you gasp in realisation.

“John, you didn’t?”

He turns around with a bashful expression, tucking himself into the crotch as he grins. “What? Pretty thing like you grinding up against me like that, can’t help myself.” Giving up with discretion, he chucks his own soiled boxers into the basket, returning to the bed with your underwear in an outstretched hand.

You pull them on as he climbs in next to you, tucking himself under the covers as you turn off the lamp and join him. He raises his arm, holding the blankets up like a cave as you grin sleepily, shuffling across the sheets to scoot into his embrace. The covers descend on you as John takes care to tuck them underneath you, entangling your legs between his as his hand finds home in your hair.

“Thank you, John. Was feeling really shitty about that.” You whisper into his chest, blinking your eyes closed as a sleepy warmth grows heavy in your limbs.

John grunts, patting at your hair. “S’what I’m made for, lookin’ after you. Get some sleep 'n we’ll work everythin’ out in the morning.”

A smile tugs at your lips as the last whisps of consciousness fade from your mind, and a gruff I love you is the last thing you remember before falling asleep.

#this was meant to be 800 words but i just keep yappin #jams asks #jams writing #price x reader #john price x reader #price x you #john price x you #cod fanfic #call of duty fanfic

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gioscott · 7 months

Text

Saiki Kusco would have the absolute worse time of his life sitting at the same table as L and Light on like a desert outing.

Like this idea has me literally vibrating, shaking like a purring cat.

Short write-up thoughts in italics!

My name is Saiki Kusco and I'm a PSI user

I accidentally got involved with a weirder bunch then normal, and if you've been keeping track of my story that should say something.

"What kind of desert did you want, on me." L says dryly

Light pulls a menu to his face "I'm not sure yet"

From a normal humans perspective this is a totally normal gathering of college students, but not for a PSI user l, I see, feel and hear things a little differently then others. Most importantly I can hear their thoughts as clearly as if they were speaking them

"Dammit this is clearly another test to see if I am Kira!"

Did I mention I happened to be sitting with the biggest serial killer of all time, almost disturbing enough to skip out on the free coffee jelly...almost

"This shop is known for their Apple Turnovers, yes L I can deduce your whole plan, Gods of Death love apples, so if I order the apple dish I am Kira, but if I purposely order something else to avoid suspicion it be a clue as well wouldn't it! Lucky me I have a plan!"

This man is giving me a serious migraine and the creepy one with the bags around his eyes is just as bad.

"Light Yagami I know your smart enough to deduce the ploy with the apple dish, you don't realize the fact your "not sure" about your order makes you a half percent more suspicious by the second, Light Yagami would know what to order before he walked in, the apple dish obviously it's a one in a lifetime opportunity to eat a desert so highly rated. Only if Light Yagimi was Kira would he hesitate."

Good grief why was I even invited, I telepathic broadcast my order, a coffee jelly.

"Really?" Light asks "Did you know this place is known for their apple desert you should really get one of them."

"This is exactly why I suggested Saiki come along, one person not ordering the signature is odd, two means that YOU miscalculated L!

Don't use me in your plan you egotistical bastard.

#death note #the disastrous life of saiki k.#saiki kusuo #saiki k #saiki no psi nan #i could continue but its 7min till midnight

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daydreamgoddess14 · 8 months

Text

Everything More Than Anything pt. 2

Sydney Adamu x Carmy Berzatto - R rated 🔥

Full Masterlist

Sydcarmy Masterlist

Chapter 1

~~~~~

Syd's brain is in overdrive, she needs some help with the mental load...

Chapter 2

With Carmy finally on board, Syd threw herself into work more than ever before. The crew rose to the challenge they'd set them, and were improving day by day. Some days though, chaos reigned no matter how hard she tried. The turnover time on a handful of tables was too short, they had diners arriving for tables which were still in use - a nightmare for an already too busy Saturday night. Richie had handed over expo to Carmy so he could deal with the front of house noise, leaving Syd and Tina both covering his station.

"I need to fire the dessert right now for table 4 and 8 please, Marcus."

"Yes, Chef."

"Are those the two tables waiting to turnover?" Syd called over,

"Richie's waxing, don't worry. They'll be sitting in 20. Yes Marcus?" Carmy confirmed, pushing Marcus for the desserts.

"Heard, Chef. Plating now."

"Excellent, thank you. Can I have hands ready to go please. 4 and 8, let's go." Syd watched Carmy direct the expo with ease, unperturbed by the additional stress of the first cover's late arrival and the second's early arrival.

"Hate it when people are late."

"Early is just as bad."

"Early gets a drink at the bar. Late pisses everyone off." She reasoned.

"It's done. Let's move on, I've got 3 halibut and 5 salmon all day?'

"3 halibut, 5 salmon all day, Chef." She confirmed,

"Behind, Jeff," Tina called out at the same time, brushing just a hair too close to Syd and catching her wrist with the hot pan.

"Shit," Syd gasped, the pain taking her breath away,

"Baby, I'm so sorry! Fuck, let's get you under some water, honey -"

"It's OK, you carry on. Marcus, can you plate these please?" Syd stepped away from her fish as Marcus moved into her space. Carmy was already running the faucet so she plunged her hand straight under the water flow. Her eyes screwed up, she grimaced in pain as Carmy took her hand and turned it over to check the burn.

"Looks nasty. Keep it under there," he instructed. "Let's get 2 of those halibut and 1 salmon ready to pick up, Marcus. Followed by 3 salmon."

"Yes, Chef. You good, Syd?"

"Fine Marcus, thanks. The first salmon is SOS, please."

"You got it, Chef."

"You good?" He asked quietly by her side,

"Sure." She breathed out through pursed lips, pain still evident on her face. She went to move her hand from the water, but his firm grip still holding it kept her from doing so.

"Not yet. Still hurts?" She nodded, "so keep it there." He said firmly.

"That's new 4 and 8 seated. Order coming on now." Richie moved through the kitchen,

"Thanks, cousin, are they happy?"

"Nothing a couple of free margaritas won't cure."

"Fucking heard, Chef." Syd agreed, teeth still gritted against the pain.

"Ouch, burn baby burn? I'll save you a marg, Syd. Tequila will take all your pain away, honey." Richie bounced her shoulder sympathetically as he passed. She stood with her hand under the water for 10 long minutes with Carmy checking in periodically, mostly to make sure she hadn't moved.

"My fingers are numb, can I move now?" She asked, he nodded as his pen flew across the table information and crossed off the latest table completed.

"Yeah, c’mere," he turned to draw her in and pulled the first aid kit from under the table. He took out the burn ointment and smeared some across his index finger before lightly applying it to the angry red burn on the side of her hand. Her free hand pulled her jacket collar away from where it crowded her neck, his eyes flicked up to watch her. She could feel the goosebumps on her arm as he gripped it gently to apply the cream. She was fascinated by the diligence and tenderness he touched her with as the rest of the busy kitchen disappeared around her. "Plating tables 10 and 16, Marcus?" He called out, his focus split equally between the crew and the tickets lined up on the expo, and her. She felt her heart rate pick up as she watched him multitask. She'd tried for a long time to ignore the ache between her legs whenever he exuded total control like this. Seeing his confidence and skill in full flight was really something. "That ok?" He asked quietly, bringing her back down to earth.

"Yep. Yes, Chef. Thank you."

"Good. You've got 2 halibut and 4 salmon all day."

"2 halibut, 4 salmon all day." She repeated back, tearing herself from his side and back to her station. Tina was wrapping her in a hug instantly,

“I’m so sorry, baby. Are you ok? Lemme see,” She turned Syd’s hand over in her own,

“It’s ok T, I’m fine. It’s not a bad one.” She reassured the older woman, “let’s get back on it,” she listened carefully so she could get caught up and the rest of the service went without issue. As promised, Richie delivered an ice cold margarita to her station just as they wound down and started the clean up.

“Coulda been worse sweetheart, I once put my whole palm down on a stovetop. It was one of those electric hotplate ones an’ I forgot it was on. Burned my whole hand. Fuckin’ grim, and holy shit the pain was insane.” He held up his palm, examining it for signs of evidence.

“Thanks Richie, god that’s gorgeous." She took a long drink from the cold cocktail. "Front of house get cleaned up under your watch?”

“Sure it did, smooth as a baby’s ass. No one had a clue.” She grinned at his enthusiasm.

“Ok. Same again tomorrow?”

“You know it, Chef. Someone wants stars after all,” he rolled his eyes affectionately.

“Oh c’mon Richie, you know you want it too. Don’t pretend you weren’t impressed at Ever.” She teased.

“We’re gonna be better kiddo.” He slung an arm around her and dropped a kiss on the top of her head before dancing away from her, “ When you wish upon a star, Your dreams will take you very far, yeah, ” he sang, “ You're a shining star, no matter who you are, shining bright to see, what you could truly be… ”

“Beautiful, thanks for that. Really showing your age there with the 70s disco.” He laughed,

“Everyone loves a classic. What’s your dad listen to?”

“Yeah, it’s the classics for sure. Disco, Soul, Motown, a little 70s rock, he really likes to get down. Got some great pictures of orange corduroy flares and silk shirts.” She grinned, “I literally caught him this morning busting a move while he made coffee. He made me go to dance classes with him when I was a kid.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, cos y’know… my mom. He wanted to meet people, make some friends, but it’s not easy I guess with a kid hanging around, so he just took me with him.”

“Cute, So you’re gonna go on Dancing with the Stars once you’re a top fuckin’ famous chef, yeah?” Across the room, she caught Carmy laughing.

“No, hell no. It was 20 years ago, I have conveniently forgotten everything I ever learned.”

“Bullshit! Yo Tina, did you know Syd’s got moves?”

“Course she does honey,” Tina scoffed, “we’re always dancin’ around here when you ain’t watchin’! So, we done here, Chefs?” She looked around to assess how everyone else was getting on.

“Yes, Chef. Let’s go home. I could fall asleep on my feet.” Syd sighed, a yawn creeping up on her.

“Syd, fall menu tomorrow?” Carmy asked as they all milled around grabbing coats and changing shoes.

“Yeah sure, I was going to swing by the market at Logan Square in the morning first?” Syd could feel Tina watching them,

“Sounds good, mind if I get in on that?”

“No, that’s… that’s totally fine.” She frowned as she spotted Tina turning to hide a smile. “Night everyone,” she took Tina’s arm and the two women left together out into the warm evening.

“Something goin’ on there?” Tina asked as soon as they were away from the building.

“No! Tina, god no. That is a ridiculous suggestion. It would be a terrible idea, for one. And secondly, I don’t even like Carmy y’know, like that .”

“Sure honey, it’s not like you idiots are spending all day looking at each other or anything like that, right? You must think I’m blind, babe.” She laughed.

“Shut up, Tina.” Syd grumbled as her Sous pulled her along to the train station.

~~~~~

“Yo, what’s that?” Carmy asked, weeks later. Sundays in Logan Square followed by brainstorming/ cooking/ menu planning at Carmy's had become the new normal.

“What’s what?” She said, a teaspoon held between her teeth.

“That face?”

“It’s just my face?”

“No, there was a look - is it the consommé?” He took the spoon from her mouth, and dipped it into the amber liquid to try.

“Don’t double dip.”

“It’s only us eating it, doesn’t count.”

“The consommé is fine.”

“Yeah, so what’s up?”

“I just have a thing… I’ve done something to my shoulder,” she winced as she rotated it.

“May I?” He asked, raising his hands. She nodded and he stepped behind her, “where?”

“Like, below my shoulder blade, kinda here -” she stretched her hand behind her back and roughly pointed to the area where her bra’s shoulder strap met the horizontal band with a sharp intake of breath, “hurts like a motherfuc -” His thumb pressed into the soft flesh of her back,

“Here?”

“Little lower,” she squeaked, “and to the lef -, ohh fuck,” she trailed off with a sigh as he found the problem area.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and the warmth of his hands - one kneading the space somewhere between her shoulder blade and the top of her ribs, and the other on the opposite side of her waist to hold her still. She could feel how rigidly she stood.

“Relax, s’probably not helping.”

“Easy for you to say.” She muttered, desperately gritting her teeth to hide the moan on the tip of her tongue.

“Yeah, right.” His thumb found a particularly tender spot,

“Ohh god, fuck,” she let out a broken whine, her hand flying up to cover her mouth in embarrassment. She jerked away from him but his hand on her waist held tighter,

“Just -, I’ve nearly got it, Syd.” He said hoarsely. “Better?” He asked, clearing his throat. She let out the breath she’d been holding, it felt like she couldn’t hear her own thoughts - only white noise.

“Yep, great. Thanks.” She turned to face him, fiddling with the collar of her t-shirt. “I gotta… I gotta split, my dad’s been on me for not hanging out with him anymore.”

“You doing anything?”

“There’s an exhibit he wanted to see at the Art Institute. Was gonna take him to get crepes after.”

“S’good, you should get outta here.” He shoved his hair back, pushing the curls off his face.

“See you tomorrow?"

"For sure. Say hi to your dad from me." He said shyly.

"Yeah, maybe next time uhh, I dunno, you could come too. If you wanted, I mean. I keep meaning to take him for breakfast at Kasama." She wrung her hands, swaying lightly on the balls of her feet.

"I'd like that, Syd." A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, "But you should go, otherwise he'll uninvite me."

"Fuck yes, yes he would." She rushed for the door, a loud "see ya!" As it slammed behind her.

Another couple of weeks rolled on, and as much as Syd didn't care to admit it, Carmy had been right. Taking their time, building everyone's confidence at their own individual pace, caring about every detail, was working. By running a minor injuries triage on the sideline, Carmy had kept Syd on the straight and narrow. The good vibes were almost intoxicating. As they’d moved into early September, Nat had reduced her hours to as few as possible with her due date looming but she was impressed with how things had improved since opening night. Yet Syd couldn’t switch her brain off. It felt like a constant stream of thought, she could feel herself only giving half of herself to any conversations she was a part of, the other half consumed with what they needed to do next, do better, do more of.

“Yo, Syd, you listening?”

“Of course I am,” she looked up sharply at Marcus,

“What’d I say?”

“We were talking about…” she racked her brain, the guilt mounting. She hadn’t been listening, not even close. The last thing she’d heard was about Luca’s plans to visit, she’d then switched off to think about whether she and Carmy could drag him in for a day or two of training with a few of the crew. She was outlining a possible training plan in her mind, splitting the two days into chunks of time dedicated to the things she wanted him to show them.

“It’s a nice idea, Marcus, totally fine for you to take a day or two and show Luca around.” Carmy confirmed,

“It’s a great idea. There are so many good places you could show him.” Syd nodded along, shooting Carmy a grateful look for saving her. Marcus grinned,

“Thanks guys, ‘preciate it.” He left the office and went back to his station, pulling his phone out to text Luca.

“Not listening?”

“Thank you for the save.” She slumped further into the spare office chair.

“You got lucky.”

“Ok, ok, I zoned out.”

“You’re always zoning out. Pretty sure you don’t really listen to anyone anymore.”

“I listen to you. Usually. I had an idea about doing a workshop with Luca - if he’s up for it?”

“Dude comes on vacation and you want to put him to work?”

“He’d love it.”

“We’ll think about it.” He assured her, “where’s your head at?” She looked away at the books over his shoulder,

“I dunno,” she mumbled, “s’like I… like my brain is just so full of stuff, I can’t think fast enough, can’t write it all down quickly enough. I just can’t switch it off, it’s constant.” She tried to think of the last time her mind wasn’t a relentlessly moving machine.

“You sleeping?”

“Sometimes. I get a few hours if I’m lucky. Don’t you feel like this too?” She asked, almost desperately.

“I used to, til someone started giving me shit about having my full focus.”

“Haha, so funny,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m serious.”

“So am I. That is how it felt before. Then you told me to focus, so I did. One thing at a time. Mostly.”

“What’d you do?”

“Listened to you. Prep helps - keeps my hands busy and gives me time to think.”

“I don’t get it. Did you know Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love you and Jolene on the same damn day? So why the hell can’t I do what I need to do in a day? I need to empty my brain completely first. A total reset. Just blank space, no thoughts at all. White noise.” She rubbed her tired eyes, “now that would be first fucking class.” She handed him her half empty iced coffee and swiped the half slice of toast left on his plate holding it between her teeth, “Oh fuck -”

“S’up, channeling Dolly Parton?” He sniggered.

“No!” She scoffed, “I just realized how to… ugh, but it means Tina was right. God fucking damn.” She chewed thoughtfully.

“You’ve lost me?”

“Yeah, nevermind. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah?”

“For real. Back to it, Chef.” She left the office, still cursing under her breath.

White noise. Suddenly it was all Syd could think about, the last time her brain had got up and walked out on her had been when Carmy had his hands on her. She'd felt the warmth of his hands through her clothes burning into her skin, his firm but careful touch trying not to hurt her. The way he'd grazed a particularly sensitive spot that would have made her knees buckle if the table hadn't been holding her up. And of course Tina had been right about the best way to relax. Because of course that would be the answer. She fell practically mute during service, robotically repeating back to Richie on expo, but otherwise not really engaging. She missed the whole conversation about Tina’s birthday plans, didn’t even flinch when Connor dropped a baking sheet right at her feet and didn’t once argue with Richie. She could feel Carmy’s gaze burning right through her at every opportunity, but he didn’t pull her up on her silence.

“Earth to Sydney Adamu, come in Sydney Adamu? Are you reading me?” Richie called over, using his hands as an amplifier,

“Sorry Richie, miles away. What’s up?”

“... Dude, that’s what I’m askin’ you? Where’s my sparring partner, huh? I musta mispronounced at least three different dishes tonight and you didn’t rip me even once! An’ you know I can’t rely on Carmen for witty banter - that’s our bag!”

“Witty banter?” She laughed, “I’m very sorry Rich, it won’t happen again. I promise if you really want me to roast you next time you fuck up, I’ll be there in a hearbeat.”

“That’s my girl! That’s what I wanna hear! Ok lizards, that’s the kitchen closed - thank you and goodnight. Not literally of course, get cleaning. Cousin, coming to burn one?” Carmy shot her one last look before following Richie.

“Baby, you good? I like, signed you up to cater my whole fuckin’ birthday party and you just agreed no questions asked?” Syd sighed with relief, of course she would have agreed to that regardless.

“T, hell could freeze over and I’ll still do your birthday. You know that!”

“I know, just don’t want you burning out - you’re workin’ too hard.”

“I’m working the same as I always do. I promise I’m fine.” She popped a kiss on Tina’s cheek as Richie and Carmy came back in to join the clean up. By the time the kitchen was spotless, Syd was drained. She called out goodbyes from the office as the others left, scribbling notes before they got overtaken in her brain by something else and something else and something else.

"Syd, home." Carmy peered around the door. Half the lights were off and there were only the two of them left.

"Shit, sorry. Yeah, I'm going." She dragged herself from the desk.

"Look, can I try something - and you can tell me to fuck off?"

"I doubt I'm gonna tell you to fuck off, Carm."

"You might. Close your eyes?" She hesitated, but did as he asked. "What are you thinking?"

"Honestly?" She felt him nod.

"Well, I started to think we needed a new fruit supplier cos I swear we're being screwed on strawberries. Then I got onto strawberries being ready earlier each year because, y'know, climate change. So I doomspiralled a little, wondering if we need to move premises due to flooding, food prices, food shortages… but then I got kinda back on track thinking we could grow our own fruit and vegetables but that's, like, a lot of work and now I'm just about back to getting a better fucking supplier - ohh, or joining up with other spots nearby to buy bigger quantities, cheaper? Also, climate change is gonna kill us all, so that was a fun little detour." She finally stopped, eyes still closed, it was so quiet she wondered if Carmy had just left the building during her rant. Then he laughed. A lot.

"Syd sweetheart, fuck, you need to get some sleep."

"Fuck you, I know I do. But that is the state of my mind at the moment, and it is not funny! Things are going so well, why can’t my mind just let me breathe?" She sighed. "Can I open my eyes now?"

"No." She felt a hand on her waist, his insistent kiss on her lips, and she squeaked in surprise. He pulled away as she leaned in, leaving her swaying on the spot.

"Oh." She opened her eyes with just enough time to see him move towards her again.

"Oh? Should I stop?" He asked. She shook her head, words failing. Somewhat more prepared this time, she met him halfway in an instant clash of tongues and teeth. With one gentle push backwards, he'd pressed her against the wall. She gripped his t-shirt in her fist, catching the chain around his neck at the same time.

"Ohh god," she moaned in exactly the same way as she had in his kitchen. He nipped along her jawline, one hand on the back of her neck and the other on her ass.

"Sounds familiar," she could feel him smile, "how's all the big brain shit goin'?"

"Fuck, Carm -" She gasped as his hand moved from her neck to palm her breast over her t-shirt, "no thoughts here." He pulled away from her abruptly, holding her steady against the wall,

"Good girl." He watched as her breath stuttered at his compliment and smirked. He flicked his wrist at the button of her pants, and kept his eyes on her as he slid them over the curve of her ass. She nodded for him to continue, and he dropped to his knees in front of her, dragging the material down her leg and pulling off her sneakers. She waited for him to reappear, but he didn't. Instead, he hooked her knee over his shoulder,

"Wait, what?"

"I'll stop when you forget your own name. How's that sound?" Her jaw dropped, "kidding. Mostly. Say now, and I stop, and we can forget this ever happened, 'K?"

"I don't want you to stop," she whispered.

"Good." He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her soaked underwear and pulled them down her legs, then he nudged her legs apart and lifted one to drape it over his shoulder. "So wet, Syd," he teased, peppering her inner thighs with kisses. He licked a broad stroke through her folds, his nose nestling up against her clit. She could feel her knees shaking so he put a firm hand on the hip of her raised leg to hold her steady. His other hand moved to join his determined mouth, he replaced his tongue fucking her with his fingers and turned his attention to suck her clit

"Oh f-fucking fuck , Carm," She tangled a hand in his hair, partly to stop him from moving, and partly to keep herself upright. His fingers, knuckle deep inside her, pumped lazily in and out while he savored her taste, wanting to drag out her pleasure for as long as possible. Her dripping cunt ached for release but he didn't let up.

"You wanna come for me, baby?" He murmured as she whimpered at the loss of his tongue.

"Yes, god yes -" her hips twitched towards him, changing the angle so his fingers brushed against her g-spot, he flicked his tongue over her clit at the same time and felt her walls contract around his fingers as she came apart completely with a broken sob of his name. He rested his head against her thigh as she leaned limply into the wall. Her legs trembled, so he slipped her underwear back up, sat back and guided her down the wall to sit in his lap. "Holy shit." She whispered once she'd recovered her breath.

"How's your head?" He asked, dropping a kiss to her temple.

"Hmm, pretty empty." She smiled into the crook of his shoulder. She kissed a trail up to his ear and along his jaw, tasting herself on his tongue. With a desperate moan, she moved to straddle his hips, her knees on the cold, hard floor. She could feel him rock hard through his pants and rutted against him.

"So fuckin' beautiful, Syd." His hands gripped her ass, holding her against him and making them both moan. His phone vibrated across the desk and onto the floor as he slid his hands underneath her t-shirt, "ignore it." He told her, tickling the sides of her ribs while he tried to pull it off. She batted his hands away and leaned away from him to reach it.

"Fuck, it's Pete?" She handed it over and he swiped to answer the call just before it rang off.

"Hey man, you good?" Syd couldn't hear Pete's response, but she could see Carmy's frown deepen. She moved to get up from his lap but his hand on her bare thigh stopped her. "On my way. No, no Richie till later - got it. Yeah, I'll bring Syd. Later dude." The phone dropped into his lap between their bodies. "We gotta go."

"We?"

"Baby's coming, Nat wants you there."

"Oh no, no no. That's not… I don't like hospitals. And it's really late. And I'm pretty sure they only let family in, so -"

"We'll figure it out later, come with me?" He cupped her jaw, bringing her face close to his again, and kissed her, "and we'll figure this out later. C'mon." She stood up with ease, her legs now more willing to cooperate, and held out a hand to help him up. He kissed her again, his cock still half hard pressed into her thigh, "fucking family. Figuring this out later for sure." She pulled away first, hands fluttering nervously as she found interest in her bare feet, the coral nail polish a pop of brightness in the dimly lit room.

"I'm gonna get cleaned up. Have we got time?" She picked up her clothes from the floor,

"Pete said it's still a while off, we're OK for now." She nodded, considering his wild hair and disheveled clothes.

"You should straighten up too. She's your sister, full blown labor or not she's gonna know straight away."

"Yeah, yeah I will." He nodded in agreement. She took her time in the beautifully decorated bathroom. The dark wallpaper and paint with the brushed gold features were all her and Nat. They'd spent an afternoon in a DIY store together picking out the colors and accessories. She switched with Carmy, and while he was in the bathroom, she put her sneakers back on and switched off the remaining lights.

#sydcarmy smut #sydcarmy fanfic #sydcarmy fic #sydcarmy #the bear fic #the bear fx #syd x carmy #carmy x sydney #carmen x sydney #carmy x syd #syd adamu #syd x carmen #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto

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rarepears · 1 year

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Sounds like one of them "supporting school kids and teenagers and prepping them for real jobs" summer job offering companies with like only one leader, and his two assistants who herd the crowd, one who scares the shit out of you and the other nagging about every single thing you do wrong and writing an essay to help you fix it but its so long- Hey, A Pretty Butterfly!

Shang Qinghua the leader keeps trying to hide behind someone else's back (cough second-in-command Shen Qingqiu) and also keeps disappearing from the job to work on his secret sidejob, thus making him look like a massive slacker even though the company is mainly staying afloat through all his work.

Shen Qingqiu mainly bitches, commands the interns/ summer job employees to do this and that, and pretends to know what he's doing and he's mostly pulling it off without realizing it. I say mostly because no one is reading his daily 3k long email summarizing all the shit that's being done incorrectly by everyone. This might be the main reason why everyone doesn't realize Shang Qinghua is playing Atlas here since over 2k of the words is directed by Shang Qinghua.

Oh and his husband pops in everyone to deliver a very large and expensive looking lunch spread that Shen Qingqiu won't share with anyone else.

Then there's everyone else. Unpaid interns here for the experience who have no clue what they have really signed up for. And they look at their sad $15 sandwich and salad combo and then back at Shen Qingqiu's influencer worthy looking meal spread out across two entire tables in the kitchen.

Yeah, the high rate of turnover might be just because of the food comparison. But it’s still fishy AF that the rebrands every year.

[More in #shang qinghua's bad timing ascending to tcgf heaven au]

#svsss #svsss au #svsss ideas #mxtx #shang qinghua #the scum villain's self saving system #mobei jun #shang qinghua's bad timing ascending to tcgf heaven au #shen yuan #shen qingqiu #luo binghe

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yoosungisbabie · 1 year

Text

on the ride home

jumin x mc

rating: G

warnings: none♡

word count: 3k

ao3 link

summary

Jumin accompanies Jaehee and MC to view a potential venue for their next RFA party. He doesn't realize how strongly MC affects him.

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“I’ll leave you to think it over. Please let me know if you have any more questions,” the manager said, bowing respectfully as he exited the room.

Jumin fixed his suit jacket for the seventh time in the past five minutes; there was nothing else to do. That particular suit always hung weird, so instead of looking at the uninteresting room the three of them were standing in, he focused on his jacket.

“So, what do you two think?” MC wondered aloud, clasping her hands together behind her back. Her eyes were alight, but Jumin failed to see what there would be to appreciate about the subpar banquet hall they stood in. He glanced around once more, almost to humor her, and let his eyes roll over the dull chandelier and aging upholstery.

“I’ll need to ask about the maximum capacity limit, the entrances, and what catering would look like before we commit to anything,” Jaehee spoke quickly, holding her clipboard tight to her chest. MC’s smile only widened, her eyes softening at Jaehee.

“Of course,” she agreed, nodding along before her eyes shifted to meet his expectantly. He took a deep breath in through his nose, nearly forgetting where he was going to start his grievances. The unbothered sparkle in her eyes was uncharacteristically distracting to him.

“Assistant Kang, please also investigate the hotel’s status further. I’d like to know their banquet reviews and frequency,” Jumin started, straightening his back and glancing over as Jaehee began to scribble on her clipboard. “I’m interested to know the turnover rate of their employees and what training they go through before anything.” The confidentiality of their guests was extremely important, and nothing could go wrong at the party due to the lack of proper training on the hotel’s part.

A small frown grew on MC’s face, drawing his gaze curiously. Was she displeased at the amount of help he was offering her? He normally took the role of investigating the possible hosts of the locations for their parties.

“That sounds great, Jumin,” she sighed, unclasping her hands from behind her back. “But– here! Just imagine it,” she grinned, changing her aura almost instantly. She quickly walked to the middle of the room, gesturing to the left side of the hall.

“We can have all the tables here, and we can hire that company for the centerpieces that we were talking about,” she began, nudging that last comment at Jaehee. “The refreshments can be set up there, and oh! I was thinking we could have V’s auction set up on the opposite side of the room. I want to give him space to arrange his pieces the way he wants, and–”

“I think he’ll appreciate that,” Jaehee interjected, smiling back at MC. Jumin was watching her, not realizing that his hands had relaxed at his sides. He quickly stuck them in his pant pockets, but the almost-anxious action caught MC’s attention.

“Jumin? Can you see what I mean?” she asked, walking closer to him once more. He raised his eyebrows, his eyes flitting around the room as he tried to visualize the ideas she had proposed.

“I think we should still review all the options, but if you would like to be in charge of how we arrange the room, you are welcome to,” he replied, looking back down at her as she breathed quickly out of her nose like that was the wrong answer.

“What about the view? The Seoul skyline?” she prompted, stepping to his left side so they were both facing the wall of windows to the east. She steadied herself with one hand on his forearm, using her other to point out at the windows enthusiastically.

“The Highrise Enthusiasts will love it, don’t you think? And once the sun begins to set?” she asked, almost commanding more of his attention than what had been drawn to the sudden upset feeling in his stomach. He stared down at her, seeing her wide smile and trying to figure out why he felt slightly sick. Had the minor change in his breakfast routine thrown off his perfect equilibrium?

“Consider it?” MC urged, her mouth softening into a gentle smile directed at him. He moved to speak, feeling his stomach clench once more in distress. Perhaps he should have stayed at the office to finish his paperwork instead of accompanying them that day.

“I’ll try my best to see your vision,” he agreed, nodding along before pressing his lips together. It was only when MC backed away, satisfied with his answer and releasing her light grip on his arm, that he unclenched the fists he’d made in his pockets.

“I’m not settling, but I think this would be a lovely venue if we don’t find another good option,” she offered, tilting her head at Jaehee. The two girls smiled at each other, and Jumin took a deep breath to try to settle his heart rate. He would definitely need to talk to his dietician, if not his doctor. Maybe the air in the banquet hall wasn’t filtered correctly? He couldn’t think straight.

“We can definitely consider it, MC,” Jaehee said, glancing up at her boss. He nodded at her, avoiding the party planner’s eyes as he turned back towards the entrance of the hall.

“I believe we should go before the traffic gets too much worse,” Jumin spoke quickly, wondering if there would be hardly any traffic outside. He led the way, bowing to the hotel staff as they took the elevator down to the ground floor.

MC gushed about the lobby when they passed through, latching onto Jaehee’s arm but not surprising the assistant in the least. Jumin watched with intrigue, interested as to if the small gesture had really been the reason for the ill feeling that hadn’t quite left him.

Driver Kim was waiting with the company car for them just outside the entrance, and to Jumin’s slight surprise, the lunchtime traffic was actually a little worse than usual.

Jaehee sat upfront, leaving Jumin in the backseat with MC. Driver Kim pulled out into the street quickly, knowing that they would want to get back to the office as soon as possible.

“I think Zen would really like the red accents in that hall, don’t you think, Jaehee? I only just thought of that,” MC commented, pulling out her phone. “I should send him a picture.” Jumin couldn’t help but peek at her phone, watching her send a picture that he hadn’t realized she’d taken. Jumin was in the picture, and Jaehee was hidden behind him as they had been talking to the manager. The subject of the picture was the stage at the head of the banquet hall, but the fact that Jumin was also in the picture alleviated some of the heat that rose to his ears when she had opened her private chat with Zen.

Jumin focused his attention back on his own phone, reading over the emails he had received while they had taken their short trip. The car was mostly quiet except for the light air conditioning and the gentle piano sonatas that Driver Kim always played on the radio. But before long, MC began to yawn, making Jaehee laugh after the first subsequent few.

“If you’d like, I could make you some coffee before you head back,” Jaehee offered, making MC smile and hum thoughtfully.

“That sounds lovely, thank you,” she replied, locking her phone and placing it and her hands in her lap. “I can’t sleep very much lately.” Jumin’s ears perked up, his attention shifting from his emails to their conversation more fully.

“Is that so?” Jaehee replied, turning in her seat to look back in slight concern.

“Oh, it’s just the transition from my old apartment to Rika’s apartment and now my new apartment is definitely an adjustment,” she explained, shrugging at Jaehee. “I’m used to a lot of background noise, so I need a good fan or something to–” She interrupted herself to yawn again, giggling herself out of it and making him finally look up at her completely. The sound was hard for him to ignore, for some reason.

“To drown out the quiet,” she finished, stealing a glance at him before looking back at Jaehee. He blinked at her comment, thinking about how quiet his penthouse was. If he compared it to the noise in the car at that moment, he could almost feel his ears ringing at the intense silence he would find in his own home. A strange thought then popped into his head; he wondered if she were ever to visit his house if she would hate it, or if her pleasant laughter would fill the space instead. But when his mind slipped into wondering what position she would sleep in or what she would look like waking up in the morning, he minutely shook his head, trying to clear the strange thoughts that seemingly came from thin air.

“I wouldn’t mind helping you look for a high-quality fan,” Jaehee spoke up, pulling him from his momentary daze. Again, he felt a strange sensation in his stomach, and he wondered if he really was developing an illness.

“Oh my goodness, please don’t,” MC said quickly, waving her hand dismissively. “I could never add more to your plate, Jaehee.” His assistant made a strange noise, somewhere between a sneeze and a cough, but brushed it off quickly and excused herself before turning back around in her seat.

The soothing piano melodies took over the quiet of the car once more, and Jumin went back to his emails, trying to find where he’d left off reading.

After only a few more minutes, he heard a small snore come from MC, and his eyes were drawn almost immediately to her. She had her head tilted back against the headrest, her mouth slightly open, and his first thought was of how quickly she had dozed off.

It was a long moment that he stared at her, seeing the rise and fall of her chest and listening to the air pass through her lips. Jumin realized how unexplainable his gaze would be if anyone saw him, so he pulled his eyes back to his phone, absentmindedly opening his browser. He began researching top-reviewed fans, but his mind switched quickly to another query.

How to fall asleep in my apartment if it is too quiet

Jumin had blocked out all other noise, focused on his research when there was sudden pressure and warmth on his left shoulder. His eyes moved before any other part of him could, seeing the top of MC’s head in the corner of his vision. His heart executed what he could only describe as a high jump, nearly eliciting a vocal reaction from him.

His whole body felt frozen, stuck in midair. Was she still asleep? If so, would she wake up if he so much as breathed? He anxiously tested it, feeling her body rise and fall with the rhythm of his breathing, and in doing so almost missing the rapid rate at which he was inhaling and exhaling. He tried to relax, staying as still as possible. He would much rather her be comfortable than him, even if that meant they would stay like this for the rest of their car ride.

Jumin looked back to his phone, exiting his browser and switching back to his emails. It was almost too much to try and focus on anything but the pattern of her breathing or the way he could barely feel her feathery exhales brushing the back of his hand.

When Driver Kim made a sudden stop, MC’s head slipped forward, nearly shifting off of his shoulder. She made a dissatisfied noise, raising his heart rate as she repositioned to move her whole body closer to his side. One of her hands found the crook of his elbow, her gentle grip hardly even noticeable through the fabric of his dress shirt and jacket.

He focused on his own breathing, wondering why her proximity was making him feel so uneasy. Maybe the combination of her closeness, her hand on his arm, and the way the simple scent of her shampoo was lingering in the air was the reason for his mental disquiet. But before he could take too long to dwell on it, they had arrived back at the C&R building. The dim lighting of their underground parking garage cast long shadows into the car, and he couldn’t help but tense up as he realized what was about to happen.

Jumin couldn’t bring himself to move, even as Jaehee opened the door for him. His assistant paused, glancing in at the both of them in confusion.

“Mr. Han? Did she real fall asle–” Jumin held a hand up, motioning for her to be a little quieter.

“What should I do?” he whispered without thinking, turning to glance at the woman lying against him to hide the way his face began to warm. He felt so unlike himself, but it seemed as though he didn’t have any way to control that fact for the time being, not with her there asleep on his arm.

Jaehee was quiet for a moment before clearing her throat and prompting him to look back at her, feeling an unexpected dependency on his assistant.

“I think you should wake her up,” Jaehee whispered back, pressing her lips together quickly to avoid smiling. Jumin pretended not to see that, furrowing his eyebrows at her. “If you move your shoulder slowly, she will probably begin to fall and wake up,” she offered, drawing an even more confused expression from him.

“I thought you would have a helpful answer,” he murmured to himself, trying to think of a solution quickly. Normally the security guards waiting nearby never bothered him, but even having Jaehee as an audience to whatever was happening felt intrusive.

“Please take the security guards and gather everyone for our one o’clock meeting,” he instructed, watching from his peripheral vision as Jaehee paused for a moment before nodding and turning away. Once she and the guards were closed in the elevator, he let out a slow, even breath.

He turned to look at MC, his chin almost brushing against her hair. He tilted his head forward slightly to see her face, his chest tightening when he saw her in the dim lighting. Her hair was hanging slightly in his way, but her lips were opened slightly in a pout, drawing his eyes first. He’d never noticed how long her eyelashes were or the pleasing slope of her nose until that moment, and the slightest color in her cheeks nearly made him reach up to feel the warmth waiting there. The thought of touching her was what made him release the breath he’d been holding, the air from his lips blowing her hair against her nose. It seemed to tickle her, her eyes fluttering and her face scrunching in response.

Jumin startled, pulling his face away just in time for her eyes to flutter open. She took an unsteady breath in, lifting her head to look around.

When their eyes met, hers blew fully wide, both of her hands shooting up to cover her mouth. The color of her face went red, a shade even more pleasing than before, even if he couldn’t see it as well as he would have liked in the poor lighting.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to fall asleep!” she exclaimed, her eyebrows pulling together like she wanted to cry. Jumin’s heart leaped, his unexplainable delight switching to regret.

“It’s alright,” he responded, shaking his head quickly as he moved to take off his seatbelt. She did the same, pressing her hands to her cheeks while he stole a glance at her. She looked distressed, but she was blushing and fixing her hair nervously. As she pulled it behind her ears, she moved to look at him. He quickly looked away, stepping out of the car and offering her his hand to help her out. She hesitated but took it, and the feeling that started in his fingertips and radiated through his whole body almost made him pull her into him again. But he controlled himself, watching as she walked past him towards the elevator.

Jumin faltered for a moment, hesitant to follow behind her too closely in case she was still uncomfortable. He shut the car door behind himself, buttoning his jacket and fixing his sleeves. He took even strides over to the elevator, glancing at her for less than a second as he stepped inside and selected his floor.

They were both silent as the doors closed and their ascent began, and Jumin wondered if she could hear the way his heart was racing in his chest as it pounded in his ears.

“Jumin,” she called, making him flinch. He played it off by brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve, glancing over at her. He had only intended to turn his head enough to imply that he was listening, but once their eyes met, he didn’t dare look away from such a sight.

She was smiling, a light pink settling over her cheeks as she blinked up at him.

“Why are you blushing too?” she whispered, pressing her lips together when his eyes widened. He felt his face grow even warmer, a heat simmering along the entire expanse of his body. Her expression could only be described as teasing, and the idea brought a whole new level of depth to the way he felt ill.

“I-um,” he started, surprising himself when he stuttered and was at a loss for words. While his mind scrambled to put any words together, either in response to her or for an explanation as to what he was experiencing, she giggled into her hand.

Jumin knew right then that even though he had no idea what she was doing to him, he would do everything in his power to make sure that it wouldn’t stop.

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thank you so much for reading! i haven’t been on here in a hot minute, but I had started writing this in october and thought I might as well get something out. I love writing and sharing it, so here are!

if you liked, please like, reblog, and leave a comment in the notes or in the tags! thank you <3

mel x

#jumin #jumin x mc #mc x jumin #mysme #mystic messenger #my writing #juminxmc #mcxjumin #jumin han #han jumin #mysme fanfic #mystic messenger fanfic #mysme ff

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