#the professor is not my boss anymore (i still have to work off some hours though) and even if she was | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bruhstories · 3 years

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Sticky, Saccharine & Sinful

Summary: Professor Jaeger asks his assistant to come over and grade some papers. Pairing: Zeke Jaeger x Fem!Reader (modern AU) Warnings & Content: language, protected sex, fingering, oral sex (female & male receiving), spanking, daddy kink, bossy Zeke, bratty Reader, tying up, bit of an age gap but no underage shit (we don’t do that here) Word Count: 2.5 k

A/N: Huehuehue guess who finally wrote a daddy kink smut? Also I have looped Cherry Cola by Kuwada the entire time i wrote, proofread and formatted this bitch, I think it works with the atmosphere

"Y/N, I'm gonna need you to help me grade some papers later today." Professor Jaeger pushed his glasses with his index finger as he looked up from his book.

"You got it, boss!" You nodded as you entered the staff lounge room at Stohess Uni, two cups in your hands.

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Zeke?" The man sighed. “Or at least call me professor.”

"But I'm your assistant, you're my superior, that makes you my boss, boss." Sarcasm dripping down your tongue as you placed his coffee down the table. "All black, two cubes of sugar."

"Thank you. And yes, technically I am your boss, but you're, what, six years younger than me?"

"Seven and a half." You pouted.

You've been working at Stohess University for a little over a year now as Zeke Jaeger's assistant. He was the best philosophy teacher, as well as head of the department, and you nailed your internship interview, aspiring to be like him one day. He even taught you Ethics during your masters, and currently you were doing your PhD research under his coordination. The man was a genius in his field, and you didn't dare disappoint him, but your personalities always clashed. He was calm and collected, you were bubbly and all over the place. He was nice and polite, you were sarcastic and rude. Zeke knew you'd make a horrible teacher for children, but undergraduate students would adore you.

"How can you drink hot coffee in this heat wave?" You asked him as you fanned someone's epistemology essay to cool yourself off.

"It's actually been proven that warm drinks hydrate better than cold ones during summertime." He inhaled the scent of freshly brewed coffee before taking the essay out of your hand.

"Whatever you say, boss." You shrugged and gulped on your iced tea, a few glistening amber drops dripping from the corners of your mouth, down your chin and your neck. "Ah, shit." You wiped the tea with the back of your hand, not catching Zeke watching you curiously. "Why did the AC have to break down today of all days?"

"Dunno." He shrugged and immersed himself back into his book. "Oh, I hope you don't mind coming to my place to grade the papers? I don't think you'll be able to focus in this heat. Besides, I want to take a look at your latest PhD chapter." Jaeger told you absentmindedly, eyes glued to the pages in front of him.

"Sure thing–"

"Don't say it."

"Boss."

"Jesus Christ..."

You adored pissing your ex-professor off, but deep down, Zeke couldn't deny the fact that he loved the authority he had over you. You were a very alluring woman, after all, and any sane man would kill to be as close to you as he was, let alone boss you around like he did. And he had the strong feeling you acted like a brat around him on purpose. You took your leave after downing the rest of your beverage, going to the library to borrow some books for your own research.

•°☆°•☆•°☆°•

You rang the intercom and waited for Zeke to let you inside the building, dragging your feet down the hallway, tired from carrying so much shit with you – laptop, books, essays, papers, pens and highlighters – you were a walking, talking stationery shop and one could only wonder how someone with such a petite frame was so strong. Zeke waited in the doorway and took some of your things, relieving the weight as you sighed.

"Coffee?" He guided you to his kitchen.

"Water, please." You plopped on a chair and unbuttoned the first three heart-shaped buttons of your lilac shirt, tiny beads of sweat bundled up at your collarbone.

"You sure? I'll be keeping you up all night." Jaeger laughed. He was obviously talking about the papers, but to you, the sentence had a different innuendo — not that you minded, you had your fair share of sinful fantasies with the older man. Come to think of it, you were wondering why he was single. Zeke was undoubtedly an attractive man, he could have any woman he wanted. Yet you’ve never seen him on a date, never seen a picture of a woman when you accidentally glanced at his phone, never heard him talk about a significant other.

"Hey, mind if I smoke?" You asked, noticing the ashtray on his table.

"Not at all, I'll join you." He sat opposite you, mug of coffee in his hand. You pulled out a pack of pink cigarettes from your backpack and placed one between your lips, pocketing your jeans for a lighter. His hand extended over the table, lighter in his hand, and you slightly bent your head forward, eyes glued to his. You inhaled the smoke, not breaking eye contact, and exhaled with a sigh. Something about Zeke lighting up your cigarette made your little cunt tingle.

"Thanks, boss." The corners of your lips turned into a barely visible smirk. You really, really liked to tick him off.

"Don't mention it." He told you before lighting his own cigarette. What, no comeback? No objection? "How's your paper going?"

"It's... going." You shrugged.

"You haven't written anything in your last chapter, have you?"

"No, I have," you half-whined, "it's just that I can't find my words. I think I encountered writer's block."

"'S alright, we'll figure something out." Zeke pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase and dropped it on the table.

"Wow, no shit you need help, that's a lot of papers." You twirled the cigarette between your fingers before taking one final puff and crushing it in the glass ashtray.

"Told you." He picked his resting cigarette back from the ashtray. "You can do the first years."

"I'd rather do something else." You whispered to yourself, eyes almost rolling at the back of your head.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, boss. First years, got it." Your manicured fingers pulled the stack of papers closer to you. The exams were already annotated according to subject and year and you took everything you needed before shoving them back to Zeke.

•°☆°•☆•°☆°•

You were bored out of your mind, fiddling with the red pen in your hand and tapping your fingers on the table with no particular rhythm. It was already dark outside and you barely finished a quarter of your stack while Zeke was halfway through his.

"Could you please stop that?" He asked you without even bothering to look at you.

"Why?"

"It's annoying."

With a groan you rolled your eyes and stopped tapping your fingers, instead opting to fidget your leg, bouncing it up and down under the table. The wooden furniture shook at the movement and Zeke sighed, putting the pen down.

"I understand you're bored, but if you want to be a professor, this is part of the job description."

"I know, I know, but, like, can we take a break? Please? We've been at it for two and a half hours now and I'm just so bored." You looked at him with puppy eyes and a pout on your plump lips.

"Ugh, fine. What do you want to do?"

"I dunno. Got any board games?"

"Only a pack of playing cards." Zeke shrugged.

"Perfect! Literally anything is better than this. I mean look at what this kid wrote: the ship of Theseus ARE a thought experiment. Can you believe it? How can a nineteen-year-old not know proper grammar?"

"Careful, Y/N," he chuckled, "you made a pretty embarrassing error during your masters, too."

"Nooo, don't bring that up!" You got up and walked to the freezer, scanning the contents.

"Why not? It's funny."

"Yeah, for you." You rolled your eyes. "But I still proved my worth." You triumphantly told him, tongue playfully poking out of your mouth from behind the freezer door. Ugh, you were so cute, made to be ravaged. Your eyes settled on the single raspberry popsicle and you picked it up, closing back the door. "Can I have this?" Oh, he knew exactly what you were doing.

"Of course."

With Zeke's approval, you unwrapped the plastic, revealing the rose-tinted dessert, swirling your tongue around its tip. You were a sight for sore eyes, (not so) innocently licking at the popsicle, your gaze on him and his growing bulge. He didn't even bother hiding it, instead relaxing in the chair and drinking you in. It was no mistake that Zeke invited you over, and you weren't stupid enough to believe it was a mistake.

"Do you... want some?" You trailed off as the once cold dessert began melting from your hot lips.

"If you'd be so kind." He patted his lap and you accepted the invitation. His bulge was comfortably uncomfortable against your ass, and you put the popsicle onto his lips, one arm draped around his shoulder. Zeke's tongue moved languidly around the sweet snack and you leaned in, your own tongue licking both the dessert and his lips. It was sticky and saccharine and sinful, and your poor pussy couldn't take it anymore.

"Do you wanna fuck me, daddy?" You naively asked him. He wasn't surprised in the slightest by the name, already suspecting you had daddy issues, in fact counting on it.

"I very much do." His hands were already roaming your body. The popsicle was almost gone, and you deepthroated the last bit, taking the little stick out of your mouth with a pop. Finally, he crushed his lips onto yours and you could tell he had experience. You dropped the stick on the tiled floor, twisting your body to better straddle him. Zeke unbuttoned your shirt as you slowly began grinding your hips against his bulge, earning a groan from him. "Ugh, you bad girl." He threw his head back as you loosened the tie around his neck.

"Are you going to punish me?" You slowly, too slowly unbuttoned his shirt.

"What’s the point of a punishment if you’re going to enjoy it?" He mused, unclasping your bra. You had goosebumps all over your skin and Zeke took one of your nipples in his hot mouth, a hand pinching your other one. You whimpered at the slight stinging sensation

"Does it m-matter if I enjoy it?" His touch became rougher, almost animalistic.

"Of course," he stopped sucking your swollen, oversensitive nipple, "otherwise you won't learn your lesson." You got up and turned around, your back against him, taking your jeans and underwear off, bending down and exposing your cunt to him. "You're going to be the death of me, Y/N." Zeke shook his head, removing his own trousers.

"Allow me." You tucked your fingers behind the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down as you kneeled in front of him. His throbbing cock tapped your face after finally being unleashed from its textile cage.

"I suspected you were big, but this? This is too good." You sneered at his member, mesmerised by its size.

"Just shut up and suck it." Zeke pretty much commanded you and you wet your lips, pressing your tongue against the velvety tip. You worked your way around his shaft, enjoying this more than you should've. You pulled back, a string of saliva and precum attached to your lips as you looked up at him.

"Am I doing good, daddy?"

"So good." He grabbed a fistful of your hair and pushed your head back. You eagerly sucked and slurped until he got bored of your mouth around his cock. Zeke pulled you up, spun you around and bent you over the table. He brought your wrists together and tied them up behind your back with his tie before taking a step back and admiring the view. Ass up, face down, just like he loved it. His foot pushed yours to the side, spreading your legs for him before he gave you a good slap over your ass cheeks. You shot up with a moan but his hand forced you back down against the table.

"I think I know exactly how to punish you." Zeke announced, two fingers spreading your folds as his tongue dove inside of you, lapping at your wet cunt.

"Oh, God!" You groaned in pleasure. No man has ever eaten you out like he did. Most guys did it as a chore. Zeke? He was enjoying every single bit of it, passionately fingering you, his tongue moving in ways you didn't think were possible. "Ah, fuck– so good! Daddy, please! I'm coming!"

The way he venomously laughed told you that no, you were not going to come any time soon. Just as you were about to let loose, Zeke stopped, removing his fingers, another slap on your ass. Tears pooled at your Y/E/C eyes, frustration written all over your face. "No, no, no!"

"I told you, Y/N, you're a bad, bad girl." He bent over and whispered in your ear, his cock pressing against your entrance, his hand in your hair.

"Oh, pleaseee, I need to come! Will you let me come?"

"Hm, it depends." Jaeger straightened his back, hands resting on your hips. "Did you learn your lesson?"

"Yes, yes, daddy, I did! I promise I'll be good!" You tried to turn around to look at him, oblivious to what he was doing behind your back, cheeks crimson, droplets of sweat on your forehead.

"Convincing enough." He shrugged and you heard the condom snap against his cock. Unexpectedly and without any warning, the man thrusted into your wet cunt and you, again, shot up, but he pinned you back. "Stay fucking put, you little whore." Zeke demanded and you tried, you really tried, but your body had a mind of its own. "I see you refuse to learn."

"No, no, please!" You slammed your face onto the table, squishing your cheek in the process, desperate and helpless.

"That's better." He concluded, sarcasm dripping down his tongue as he rammed his cock deeper into you. The silken walls clenched around his hard member, and he grunted, no other woman pleasing him like your tight pussy did. "You like it when I take you from behind, you filthy slut?"

"Yes– oh my God, YES!" You bucked your hips against his for more pressure and pain.

"What would my students think if they saw you getting fucked like this on their papers?"

"Ah– I don't c-care!"

"What would the headmaster say if she knew you fuck your superior and- ugh- coordinator?" Jaeger thrusted harder and faster.

"Please, Zeke-"

His hand found its way to your neck, tightly squeezing it.

"Wrong name, Y/N."

"Shit, daddy!"

"That's right, I'm your fucking daddy and hell will freeze before someone else fucking touches you!"

"Fuc-k, fuuuck!" You both howled and panted as you climaxed, your entire bodies quivering. Zeke pulled out of you, carefully removing the rubber from his cock and giving you another slap on your perky ass cheeks. You stood up, arms still tied around your back, turned on your heels and pecked him on his cheek, giggling like a schoolgirl, marvelled by the fact that he chose you over anyone else.

"You know what, Y/N? Now that I've found you, I'm never going to let you go." He promised.

"I'm all yours, boss."

#zeke jaeger #zeke jaeger x reader #zeke x reader #zeke smut #aot #aot smut #aot x reader #aot fanfic #snk #snk smut #snk x reader #snk fanfic #attack on titan #shingeki no kyoujin #zekeythefreaky

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angellesword · 3 years

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MAGIC SHOP | JJK (08)

Description: You and Jungkook were best friends who were in love with each other. What would happen when Soojin, your half sister who you’re trying to impress, told you she’s in love with Jungkook too?

Alternatively:

“Would you believe me if I said that I was scared of everything too?”

Genre: childhood best friends to lovers, family drama, angst, fluff, idiots to lovers, pining, slice of life au.

Pairing: Architect!Jungkook x Architect!Reader (side pairings: Reader x roommate!Jimin | Taehyung x Yoongi)

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: none

Series: CHAPTER 7 | CHAPTER 9

Chapter’s OST: Talk by Kodaline

"Where is he?" Yoongi didn't sound annoyed when he asked this. He knew he should be but then he realized he was more worried than angry.

"In my room," you responded. Yoongi gave you a quick nod before rushing inside your bedroom.

You were left standing in front of your apartment door, waiting for Jimin who you guessed was parking his car.

You wondered if your roommate was upset too. You couldn't blame him if it was the case. You knew it was cruel of you and Taehyung to bail on your double date with him and Yoongi tonight.

However, if you were given a chance to redo this night, you would probably still choose to go home with your brother.

Pretending was becoming taxing on your part. You were sure Taehyung felt the same way as well. He was done acting like he could walk inside a fine-dining restaurant and pay for his meal. Yoongi said Taehyung didn't need to worry about things like bills—that he got it, but your brother was too proud to allow that to happen.

Taehyung and Yoongi had been dating for almost two years now, yet the former still felt abashed when money was involved.

He was so opposed to the idea of Yoongi treating him well. Taehyung didn't like the idea of him leeching off of Yoongi for money. You, on the other hand, were done acting as though you weren't hurt every time you see your brother struggling because of this.

Taehyung burnt himself out by keeping his promise to pay back Taemin. As far as you knew, he still owed your father an estimate of eight hundred thousand dollars. Taehyung had no idea how to pay off his debt, considering that his bank account had zero balance now.

He couldn't even afford to pay rent that's why he usually stayed in your shared apartment with Jimin. Taehyung's excuse was that he didn't like staying alone in his place so he'd rather sleep on your couch.

Yoongi asked your brother to move in with him but the Taehyung refused, saying he wasn't ready to take their relationship into another level. You and Yoongi knew it was a lie. It broke your heart every time Taehyung made lame excuses like this.

You wanted him to be able to freely express his life struggles to you. You would never judge him. It was okay to admit that he turned down Yoongi's offer because he didn't want to be dependent on him, that he didn't want to feel like he was 'useless.'

There should be no shame in admitting that you were having a hard time. It was a normal thing. Many people experienced it, but even if only the minority experienced it, we should still be understanding since not everyone was privileged, some people were struggling just to survive—this was Taehyung's case as of the moment.

He was a freelance model and he's still working as a curator, not at his mother's company though. Taehyung hadn't spoken to his parents, not even to his siblings. You were the only family member he talked to.

Sometimes you felt guilty thinking that one of the reasons why Taehyung turned his back on the Kims was because he wanted to help you forget.

"Come to New York with me," your brother offered this to you a week after you broke up with Jungkook.

You were miserable. You were having a hard time pushing Jungkook away. He was so persistent, begging you to take him back, saying things like he would do whatever you asked him too.

But you couldn't. Everyone knew he and Soojin were getting married. You couldn't afford to shame and hurt your sister like that.

"I could hook you up with this company. They're looking for a graphic designer. You're perfect for the job..."

You had to admit that you were skeptical about Taehyung's preposition. Sure, you wanted to get away from Jungkook, but not to the point of leaving Seoul.

It felt too rushed. New York was a foreign place, you hadn't been there before. You didn't know if you could survive there.

"I don't know, oppa..." You expressed your doubt, fortunately Taehyung knew exactly what to say to successfully coax you.

He said you had nothing to worry about since he would be there for you. Taehyung also promised to introduce you to Park Jimin, his best friend since high school.

Apparently, Jimin was the sweetest person in the world and you needed someone like him in your life. Taehyung thought that the universe wanted you to be close to Jimin since it so happened that the latter was also looking for a roommate.

Originally, Taehyung planned to move in with his best friend to save more money, but he figured it would be best if you took the opportunity instead. As said, your brother wanted you to hit it off with Jimin. Apart from this, Taehyung believed he was better off alone.

He was wrong though. Few months after moving back to New York, Taehyung realized he couldn't handle his expenses.

He needed a roommate too. Sometimes he hated himself for turning down Yoongi's offer, considering that the sole reason why Yoongi decided to go to New York was to be with Taehyung.

Your brother wasn't stupid. He was certain Yoongi was in love with him. The long distance type of relationship wasn't working anymore. They both crave each other's touches and kisses.

A few months after you and your brother left Seoul, Yoongi called to say he had been offered a job in New York too. He said he accepted it despite Taehyung's opposition.

It wasn't like Taehyung didn't want to be with Yoongi. Your brother was just upset that his boyfriend was making all these sacrifices for him. Yoongi was a well-known fashion designer in Korea. Why would he want to be an assistant of a fashion designer here in the United States?

It was absurd. But Yoongi didn't complain. He never did. Many months later, his patience and hard-work paid off.

Yoongi was able to close deals with different clients using his own name. He wasn't hiding in the shadow of his boss. He wasn't an assistant anymore. This was also the reason why Yoongi wanted to go out on a double date with you, his boyfriend, and Jimin tonight.

He wanted to celebrate his success with the people he loved, but Taehyung's 'mood' ruined Yoongi's night.

"Hey," while you ruined Jimin's.

"Hey you." Your roommate's voice was laced with exhaustion upon seeing you waiting for him at the door.

Your heart recoiled at the sight of his tired face. You were aware that his job as a professor was exhausting, it didn't help that he and Yoongi waited for two hours in that restaurant only to end up leaving and not grabbing something to eat.

"I'm really sorry about tonight," you smiled apologetically. You hated disappointing him.

"At least I saved some money." He laughed and this was when you came to know that he was holding a box of pizza.

A smile bloomed on your face.

"Is that garlic and shrimp?" You couldn't contain your excitement. Jimin chuckled and nodded at you, pleased that you appreciated the food he brought.

"Yay!" You grabbed the pizza box, rushing towards the kitchen so you could open it.

Your stomach grumbled, your eyes turning into the shape of a heart as you grabbed a piece of pizza.

"So good!" You moaned, relishing the taste of your food for tonight. Jimin grinned, handing you a can of beer.

You gladly took it. Jimin knew you so well. Pizza and beer were your favorite food combination.

"Corndog’s sold out," your roommate mentioned as he grabbed a slice of pizza for himself.

Your smile faltered. Yeah, right. How could you say that pizza and beer were your favorite when nothing could ever top corndogs, your favorite brand of probiotic drink, some chocolate bars, and Jungkook's smile?

"Is everything alright?" Jimin asked softly when he noticed your frown.

"Yeah."

Should he believe you?

"How's Tae?"

"Better, I guess? Yoongi's with him right now." You wanted to give them some slices of pizza. Taehyung's probably hungry, but then you didn't want to disturb him and Yoongi. Maybe they're still in the middle of a serious conversation.

Your brother's most likely explaining to his boyfriend why his mood suddenly turned sour. Yoongi asked you to tell him the truth, sadly you felt like you're not in the position to tell him anything.

You didn't even understand what's running inside your brother's head, and so you simply texted Yoongi and Jimin this: have to take a rain check for dinner tonight. sorry. Tae oppa's not feeling well.

"What about you?"

Your head snapped up to meet your roommate's thoughtful gaze. "What about me?"

"Are you okay?" Jimin sounded so sweet that your heart was filled up with so much warmth. Taehyung's right. You needed someone like Jimin in your life.

"I'm fine," you lied. You're not. Lately all you could think about was him and what could've been. "Wanna watch Breaking Bad and hate on Walter White?"

The worry painting his face vanished when you mentioned his favorite T.V series.

"I still don't get why you hate Mr. White when a whole Skyler White exists." He gasped dramatically, shaking his head before making his way to the living room.

You sighed, smiling albeit the pain in your chest. You couldn't help but compare the two men who had a huge impact in your life. The first one never forced you to share, he was very easy to reassure that you're okay, the other man, on the contrary, wouldn't stop until he's sure you're really feeling better. He liked prying into your personal life, acting like he could stop your despair.

Your chest ached because between the two men, you didn't know who you preferred.

Yoongi and your brother couldn't be bothered and you were certain it was because they're busy fucking. It was Taehyung's way of making it up to his boyfriend.

"He's getting so worked up over a fly! Gosh, he's so annoying!" And your way to make it up to Jimin was trying to keep your dislike of Walter White to yourself. Keyword here? Try. It was so hard not to talk shit about Jimin's favorite fictional character.

You tried. But you couldn't anymore.

"oh gosh," you pouted when you noticed your roommate's being too quiet. "I'm not supposed to rant because I know you're mad at me."

That broke his silence.

"I'm mad at you?" He looked at you as if you're crazy. "Why would I be mad?"

"Uh..." You winced. "Because I bailed on our date?"

Jimin laughed. He actually laughed! The corner of his mouth twisting upwards.

"I guess I haven't made myself clear about that, huh," he rubbed his chin, realizing that he didn't explicitly tell you it was okay, that you didn't owe him anything.

"I like you..." He confessed, uttering your name. "You know that, right? I'm glad you even agreed to go on a date with me."

You bit your bottom lip.

"But liking me doesn't mean you're not allowed to get mad at me."

Jimin chuckled again, amusement was dancing in his eyes. He lowered the volume of television before turning to face you.

"But I'm not mad. I know what I was getting myself into when I told you how I feel about you. Liking someone means you should also accept the risk of getting hurt, you know?"

You shuddered, heart thumping. You felt like your head was spinning.

As usual, Jimin simply giggled at your reaction.

"You're acting as if liking someone is such a scary thing..."

"It is." You replied, voice still mixed with slight fear. "Love too. Imagine waking up one day only to realize that someone has the power to hurt you."

You made that mistake once. You're still paying for it now. Love...be it romantic familial, or platonic, it still hurt the same. You made sacrifices for them, making yourself your last priority when it should be the top one.

"Imagine waking up every day realizing you have the power to make someone's life a little bit better, and doing it." Jimin retorted and for the first time, you couldn't answer.

You simply rested your head on his shoulders, grabbing the remote to increase the volume of whatever episode of Breaking Bad you were watching.

At the end of the episode, you saw Walter White closing his eyes, finally dozing off, a yawn escaped from your lips and before you knew it, you fell asleep too.

You jolted to consciousness when you heard your phone rang.

Grunting, you immediately answered the call even though an unknown number was ringing you. Jimin was sound asleep beside you. You couldn't risk waking him up.

"Hello?" You squinted, sleepiness still staining your eyes. "Who's this? Why're you calling me in the middle of the night?"

There was a pregnant pause on the other line, making you huff and yawn in annoyance. Was this a prank call?

"I'm gonna end this call if you don't speak." You yawned again when the caller still didn't say anything. "Goodnight—"

"Wait!" The stranger said before you could hang up.

Your heart suddenly skipped a beat. The voice of this caller sounded familiar—too familiar to the point that you could feel your stomach stirring.

"It's Jungkook," he mumbled. "Jeon Jungkook..."

He said his name as if you'd ever forget that. Your stomach continued to protest.

"I'm sorry for calling you so late..."

You were holding your breath, unable to speak.

"But it's an emergency."

"Emergency?" You startled, very awake now. Jimin stirred in his sleep because of your abrupt alerted movement. "Where are you right now, Kook? Are you okay? Did something happen?"

You stood up, pacing back and forth. Jungkook was silent once again. You felt tears filling your eyes. Why was he taking this slow when he said it was an emergency?

"Y-Yeah," his voice was shaky, as though he was having a hard time. Your heartbeat doubled as he said this:

"You and Taehyungie-hyung have to go back here in Seoul. The whole family needs you."

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #ficswithluv #jungkook x reader #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x you #jungkook best friends to lovers #jungkook best friend #armywriterssupport #jungkook x female reader

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heshoes · 3 years

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She was his best friend and they shared everything together already anyway. What difference would it make if it were a hat, shampoo, or the same bed sometimes? So what? That's what the Uni Daze were about, having fun, traditions, getting serious, new relationships, friendships, heart ache, break-ups, make ups, secrets, the occasional/casual bajingo here and there, and possibly, just maybe, finding the love of your life and hoping that it all works out.

Warnings: smut, slow burn, angst, mentions of abortion, mentions of verbal abuse

Harry Styles x OC (Face claim Zendaya)

Uni Daze Masterlist

Chapter 2 ( Word Count 6.7K )

Harry

My school day was absolutely long but it kept me busy and busy to me is a good thing. It keeps me balanced though I know Chelle would disagree since he keeps telling me as such over the phone.

"The only reason you think that trying to fit 72 hours in a 24 hour day is a balance is because of your parents. Just because they're work driven arseholes doesn't mean that you have to follow in their footsteps.”

"That's impossible to do, I don't work that much. My parent's aren't arsehole's they're just successful. Is that so wrong to want success?”

"It is when its your last year of uni and you're being a kill joy.”

"I said I would go out for drinks, Chelle. How is my compliance to something that I don't want to do being a kill joy?”

"Because you're not doing it with a smile. You've become boring. Your sex life and your regular life has turned about as vanilla as a middle aged man. We never had to beg you to come out last year or over the summer, Harrow. Think of it as a week of extended holidays. No one does anything the first week of classes anyway. It's all rules and instructions on how to prepare. We've been in uni for three years. We should know the jist of it by now.”

"But it's not summer anymore, Chelle and you know some professors like to give assignments in the first few days. We have two papers already in seminar for fucks sake.”

Michelle sighed in annoyance.

"Yeah, but, those aren't due for ages, Haz. Fun is due right now.”

"This is the year to pull your shit together. Everyone can't not study and get perfect marks like you. Sorry.”

"The phrase 'can't not' is a double edged sword.”

"What?" I spun around in my desk at work, handing a first year her keys. Its only the first day and she's already lost her keys and has to use her spare for a fifty pound charge. She looks nervous as well and her face is kind of red. She grins at me and says a shy 'thank you' before walking away, staring back at me and kind of tripping over her own feet on her way to the lift. I tried not to laugh, but honestly it was kind of funny.

"You know, a double edged sword? A double negative?You can't say 'can't not' next to each other in a sentence. It's repetitive of itself. You should be embarrassed. This is primary school stuff Harrow. Mr. “I have to take the UKCAT this year.”"

"Whatever Chelle! See? That's what I mean. I need a balance. I need to be able to be involved in school. I should have taken it more serious when we first started out.”

"You do realize balance means a good amount of your job, school work, AND a social life which includes parties and pubs and going out with your mates without a grumble?”

"I'm going out for drinks tonight! You're starting to piss me off."

"If the truth is anything it's annoying, Harry." I nodded my head and began to swivel around in my chair. I'd just gotten to work and had three and a half more hours to go. I'm glad I have a job and all but this one is fucking boring.

Speaking of truth.

"Do the boys know about your um...your new team?”

"No. Actually they don’t."

Oh.

“Oh?"

"Yeah, um, I was hoping that it was something that we could keep between me and you for now. Just until I can figure things out. I'd love to say that I'm for sure just this one thing. I know I said it this morning, but I'm still not sure, okay?”

"Yeah. Sure, of course." I stopped spinning in my seat and dizzying myself when I heard my manager's voice,"Look I've gotta go. I'm not supposed to be on the phone and my boss is coming.”

"Oh so there is some rebellion left in you? You're living on the edge now, Hazland. Why can't you use your phone? All you do is sit in a chair and answer phones and make people keys when they lock themselves out of their dorm.”

"Bye Michelle!" I quickly hung up the phone and stuck it into my pocket smiling awkwardly at Professor Forrester as he approached the front desk with someone else right next to him. She had on a Cambridge work shirt much like myself letting me know that I more than likely wouldn't be alone for the rest of my shift.

"Rion, this is Harry," Professor Forrester spoke to her before addressing me, "today is her first day here at the university and working. I told her that she would be in good hands if I left her here with you. Show her the ropes and maybe show her around campus when you're not at work? I've got to go," Professor Forrester turned to face the new girl before he nodded back at me, "any questions you have, ask him. He'll know all of the answers.”

She nodded her head up and down slowly before giving a shy grin and we were left alone as Forrester left the building.

“Hi."

“Hello."

"I'm Harry.”

She laughed to herself before nodding her head at me.

"So I was told. Nice to meet you.”

Rion, I think her name was, sat down in her seat next to mine after speaking back to me, lowering her rucksack down to the ground before pulling out a book. It was a good idea really. Maybe I should have brought one? I barely get the chance to read, especially living with Michelle. She always finds a way to interrupt, either that or my ADD kicks in, all the more reason for me to put in more effort at school. I took out my phone once I knew that Forrester was gone, but I really had nothing to do with it. I had no new text messages besides Michelle.

Chelle: Drinksssssss 🍻🍺🍺🍺🍻🍻🍻😉

I grinned before shaking my head and replying back to her, something just as stupid as she sent me.

To Chelle: Tortureeeeeeee😣🔫🍺😒

Chelle: Dramatic!

Ignoring her last text, I took out my earphones and turned up the music on my phone as I placed them in my ears. I suppose it was a bit loud because out of the corner of my eye I could see Rion scrunching her nose while she tried to read.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you.”

"No disturbance, I was just trying to figure the tune. Runaway?”

“Wh-what?"

She laughed before she pointed to the phone in my hand and repeated herself.

"Is that Runaway by Ed Sheeran?”

I nodded my head, not able to stop the stupid grin that cut across my face.

"You know Ed Sheeran that’s not on top 40?”

"Who doesn't? The man's a musical genius.”

She smiled at me before she turned back to her book, but I couldn't help but to keep talking to her.

"What school did you used to go to? Um, if you don't mind me asking…"

"Nope, don't mind at all. I used to go to Bristol Uni. How about yourself? Have you been at Cambridge all of your university career?”

I nodded my head and she looked impressed, but I'm sure she wouldn't be if she knew that I was a legacy and that I slacked off for the first three and a half years. Good thing that I'm getting my shit together now.

"Yeah, it’s alright here.”

"Just alright?”

"One of the best alrights I guess. Welcome to Cambridge and congratulations.”

"Thank you.”

I smiled at her and the conversation was on the verge of ending, but before I stuck my other ear bud in I paid closer attention to the book that she had in her hand.

"Scott Fitzgerald."

"Pardon?" Rion raised an eyebrow at me.

"That's F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

She raised her book showing me the spine, shocked that I hadn't seen the cover but still got the author right.

"You know F. Scott Fitzgerald?" She smiled at me while relaying my words back to me.

"Who doesn't? The man was a written genius. Not to mention that the book you're reading happens to be one of my favorites.”

She smiled again.

"Usually people only notice Fitzgerald if The Great Gatsby is involved." She turned her chair towards mine giving me a better view of her.

"Gatsby is a classic, but I think that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has more character.”

We continued to talk and before I knew it the shift was over. No one else needed keys and the phone barely rung. I probably would have stayed beyond the time that I was supposed to get off talking and creating awkward conversation with Rion had it not been for Michelle's reminders:

Chelle: Tonight is gonna be fun 😊

Chelle: You're off work in 1⃣5⃣ min🎉🎊

Chelle: I'm gonna get you so fucked up!😝

Chelle: I'm excited 😬

To Chelle: No 💩. Too excited I reckon 😐

I laughed to myself as I gathered my things to leave the building, not fully believing that I allowed Michelle to talk me into drinking tonight, even though part of me knew that I wouldn't be able to break tradition. Rion put her book away, that she never really got into reading and followed behind me out the door and to the parking lot. She seemed cool from what I got to know about her in the amount of time that I did and since she's new, I figure that it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey, a couple of my friends and I are getting together tonight to The Mill. Its a pub right up the road on Mill lane, if you're not busy, you should, um, you should come.”

"Mill pub? On a Monday?”

"Yeah, it's kind of a tradition that we started when we started here." I rub my shoulder as I wait for her answer. I don't know why I feel nervous about it but I do.

"It sounds like fun, but I shouldn’t, not tonight at least. I wouldn't be able to bear it if I missed class tomorrow because of a hangover, and I kind of also have plans.”

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it like you didn't have anything else to do or-”

"No it's fine it's just... I have a date.”

"Right. Sorry again.”

"I'll see you around though I hope?”

"Yeah, I'll see you at work.”

Rion nodded her head while giving me a content smile before she got into her car and as she pulled off, she waved to me. I waved back but as soon as her car was out of sight, I slapped myself in the face with the palm of my hand. Maybe six months is too long to go without any type of real interaction with the opposite sex besides Michelle, but honestly she doesn't count...or maybe she counts for both now?

I cleared my head of my thoughts as I got into my car that I feel like I'm too tall for. Even with the seat pushed down as low as it can go, I still can feel the top of my head brush against the roofing of it. By now I'm sure I've saved up enough to get a new one. A new car could be my mini treat to myself for cutting myself off from a social life. The more that I think about the way that my conversation with Rion just ended the more that I start to agree with Michelle and the more excited I get for the night of boozy tradition.

As soon as eleven thirty-five hit, my phone rang. When I answered it Michelle's voice came through clear as if she were sitting here next to me in the car, even though background noise and music blares in the room around her.

"Everyone is here but you. Are you en route?”

"Everyone?" I ask her with skepticism in my tone. I would be shocked if everyone showed up.

"Yes everyone. Niall, Darragh, and Zayn. Everyone but you. Are you on your way?”

I don't know why I even asked her if everyone would be there. I knew that Louis wouldn't show even though it was him and Darragh who started this tradition..

"Yeah, I'm on my way. This should be fun.”

"That's the spirit I've been looking for Harrow. It sounds like you've had a change of heart since earlier.”

"Yeah, I think I've been looking at my textbooks too long and not at real people. One night won't kill me I suppose.”

"If one night is done right, then yes, yes it will. And what do you mean you don't see real people? I see you everyday.”

"You're not a real person, Michelle. I'm not quite sure what you are yet.”

"I think I might have an idea by now." Michelle said while chuckling on the other end of the line.

"And what would that be?”

"Getting lucky tonight. Get here soon and I can be your wing-lady.”

The pub was in the early stages of being crowded when I got there and I couldn't deny how excited I was to see the boys, Michelle included even though I saw her only just this morning. The last time that we were all together was in the middle of June, but after that we really hadn't had time to hang out. Everyone had gotten busy and into their own things. Besides keeping in touch over the phone occasionally, we haven't really talked that much either.

The first person that I saw when I got in was Niall. He sat next to Darragh with a cigarette hanging from his lips, patting down his jeans in search of a lighter no doubt. When we made eye contact, he stuck his arms out to the side with his fingers spread wide and a smile on his face. Darragh looked at him as if he lost his mind until he followed Niall's line of vision and then quickly stood from his seat.

"Harry! How are you lad? Drinks are on Liam so order the most expensive thing possible.”

I received two claps on the back from each of them when I reached the table and then a smack on my ass that made me jump and then turn around find the guilty culprit. I should have known who it was straight away.

"Chelle! That actually hurt.”

She laughed at my discomfort with some kind of frothy drink in her hand as I grabbed my bum cheek and rubbed it over my jeans.

"Probably because there's barely any meat there to cushion the blow.”

I shook my head at her and squinted my eyes before I responded, "It's not about what's back there, its all about what's in the front. Girls don't date me for my bum.”

“Well, according to you, girls don't date you at all, not recently at least.”

Niall and Darragh started to laugh and a stream of smoke came through Niall's nose reminding me of an angry bull from a cartoon before he took another drag from his cigarette, this time intentionally blowing a ring of smoke before sucking it back in through his nostrils. I probably could have strangled Michelle in that moment, but it was true. My mind goes back to Rion and work and I can feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

"Mitch told us about your six month drought.”

"Stop calling me Mitch!”

Niall ignored Michelle's outburst before continuing, "She says you haven't gotten laid since your birthday.”

"Do you know what a penis fly catcher even looks like anymore?" Darragh added to Niall's teasing causing my nose to scrunch.

"Penis fly catcher?”

"Yeah, it's better than what you call it. What do you say again? Bajango?”

"No Darragh," Niall cuts in, "Django was a movie. He says bajingo. It makes sense to me.”

Michelle scrunches her nose in disgust and confusion at our conversation but doesn't say anything. Really though, what more could be added to this?

"It's not that big of a deal guys." I bring the conversation back to where it was before it drifted into a dark place so quickly. It can't be that bad. Can it? Perhaps it is? I don't even know at this point anymore.

"Oi leave him alone," Zayn chimed in as he walked up to the table with Liam with two beers in hand, passing me one before he sat down, "its alright Harry sex isn't everything...but six months is a long ass time. But enough about that. What has everyone been up to?”

It was almost like a show and tell as we went around the table talking about what we'd missed out on over the summer since we hadn't seen each other. Niall and Darragh went to Ibiza for the month of July staying in hostels and partying until all hours of the morning. Apparently Niall is in love with a girl he met there, but he doesn't remember her name so I don't know how accurate that is

Zayn spent a good amount of time in France with his girlfriend, sorry, fiancé. The fucker got engaged in France. Everyone thought that he and Daphne were gonna be a short lived thing since they met at a club and all, but people find love and fall in it in mysterious ways I guess. Michelle would be a prime example of that...but love is not involved with her apparently. A player not to be played anymore. I still have questions to ask her about that but I guess I'll have to wait until later since she doesn't want the guys to know that she's traded outies for innies. I could out her like she did me and my drought, but that's way more personal and I've decided that I'm not that much of an asshole, if I'm one at all that is.

Liam was arrested and his parents flipped out. For what I'm kind of scared to ask, but I'm sure it was something accidental. Sometimes I wonder how Liam even got into Cambridge, but I guess that they don't test for common sense, only book smarts.

When it got to Michelle's turn, she just talked about how she flew back home for a few weeks at the very start of summer to visit family and then came back here, but of course that's not anything that I didn't already know. When she came back was when I noticed all of the girlfriends that she had. It was odd to me because Michelle generally hated girls and hanging out with them, but then again, she obviously doesn't hate them that much.

When I told them that the most exciting part of my summer had been joining a book club for some work that I had to get ready to do for senior class, studying for the UKCAT that's not until the end of the school year, and sometimes coming here to Mill pub with Michelle I realized that what she said was true. My life had become vanilla, but I'm honestly kind of alright with it.

We continued to talk, share, laugh and drink until it was at least half three in the morning. I was waiting to see if Michelle was going to change her mind and let the lads know about her newfound liking but she kept it private between me and her the way that she said she would and it kind of made me smile. That along with the ridiculous amount of beer and shots consumed brought a goofy smile to my face by the end of the night.

By exactly three forty-five I was seeing double and couldn't drive home. Niall and Darragh had left to go back to their apartment that happened to be a few blocks down from ours, and Zayn and Liam stayed behind at the bar to drink deciding that they were too far gone now and might as well finish strong. They also decided that class tomorrow isn't important.

Michelle would have stayed behind with them I'm sure, but she has the tendency to be this odd motherly type when I get beyond the legal limit. I think she just likes to laugh at me because I start to say foolish things when my tongue loosens up in my mouth and my words slur. I tried to get up from the table discreetly so that I could walk home while Mitch, Zayn, and Liam continued to chat, but I knocked over a chair.

“Oh shit. I'm sorry bro." I chuckled to myself like an idiot as I picked up the chair earning the lads attention.

"Where are you going?" Michelle's eyes seemed to widen as she took in the state of me.

"Home. I've got class in the morrow-morning.”

"Do you honestly think that you're going to make it to class? Look at you, you can barely stand. My job is complete.” Michelle grins in triumph and I squint my eyes at her trying to figure out when she was going to tell me that she was a triplet.

"You're a horrible people and I don't know why we're friends." I think I was looking at her when I said it, but it could have very well been one of her sisters.

"Alright, and that's my cue. We'll see you later guys." Michelle spoke to Liam and Zayn as stood from the table, a little wobbly at best bus still in a better condition than I was in.

"You don't have to walk me home, Michelle. I'm not no kid.”

Michelle laughed as I stumbled, almost tripping on a crack in the pavement.

"Since I live there too I'm not technically walking you home. I'm walking home with you.”

I checked to see if my car was locked before we began our walk. The crisp early morning air sobered me up a bit, but I was still highly intoxicated and grinning.

"How was your first day of classes?" Michelle asked me breaking the silence of our trek back to our flat.

"Hmm, was okay. Good actually... I met this…met this girl.”

"You did? You were holding out on us at the pub! Who is it? Do I know who she is?”

"No, I don't think you do," I paused to hiccup hoping that was all that I had to do, "She's new here and you don't like girls. I mean, well, you know what I mean. You wouldn't know her.”

Michelle laughed while shaking her head.

“So it's a first year? I'm ashamed of you! I know you haven't dated in a while but that's sweeping the bottom of the barrel, Harrow.”

“No not a first year," hiccup "She's around my age, just new to Cambridge.”

“Oh," Michelle spoke putting her key in the door before she opened it "Where'd you meet her?”

“Work. I kind of asked her to come to the pub with me, but she said she had a date and I kind of sounded like a blubbering idiot when I asked her. I don't know.”

“Harry! You can't just invite people to come to the pub and we haven't met them yet! What if she was awful? Good thing she didn't come. That tradition is sacred for us. Whatever you said to her was probably fine. She just had other plans... Do you know why I've recently started calling you Harrow Harry?”

“Because it's one of the many odd nicknames you've created for me?”

“No. Harrow as in the adjective, it just so happens to fit with you. Har•row when used in verbal tense, means to cause distress to. You're causing unnecessary distress to yourself when you worry about things like the UKCAT and assignments that aren't due until the end of the year, and whatever you've said to this mystery bird that you've met at work. Fun. You used to be much less tense and more fun. You need to chill out and relax. You need to I don't know, get some maybe.”

I rolled my eyes before running my hand through my hair and walking into the kitchen, opening the cabinet in search of my favorite drunken snack, grabbing it when I found it and heading for my room. Quickly stripping off into my boxers, I fell against my bed before I turned on my television and got under the covers. I ate my snack in peace before Michelle knocked on my door twice and then let herself in.

"I could have been naked! you could at least wait for me to say come in.”

“Yeah well, its not like I've never seen a penis before and they're not really my main thing anymore you know?” Michelle climbed into bed with me, intruding while I tried to hide my snacks.

"What are you eating?”

“Nothing.” I slowed my chewing in hopes that she would lose interest.

"Harry I see them! Are those teddy grahams?”

“No!”

“They are! They're a snack for a five year old.”

“Teddy grahams don't have an age limit.”

“You should be embarrassed.” Chelle spoke before grabbing the box and taking a handful for herself, moving around too much for my drunken stomach to handle.

"Oohh these are nice. These are new sheets aren't they?”

"Chelle! Stop moving! Why are you in my room? Get out!”

“My room is too hot, so I've decided that we're going to have a sleepover. You get the better ventilation. You should trade with me.”

“What?”

“I'll sleep on the floor. It really is dreadful in my room.”

I sigh before I grab my pillows and comforter and toss them on the ground leaving Michelle the bed as I make my way to the floor.

“Aww Harry you're the sweetest, but I can really take the floor.”

“No, it's fine. Just don't do anything perverted while you're up there.”

“What like masturbate? I'm not you.”

I chuckled turning to face her from my position on the floor.

“Exactly, but if you do at least that I’m asleep first…Thats just common courtesy. ”

“Sure thing, Harlot. I can do that for you.” Michelle responded without pause causing me to chuckle before my head hit the pillow.

****

“ My head,” I groaned, waking up on the floor with my covers wrapped around me too tight much like a swaddling cloth. After successfully the blanket away from me in an attempt to escape confinement, I sat up slowly only to make the headache worse than it already was and add a new pain to the mix. “My back.”

I had almost forgotten that I slept on the floor to be nice and allowed Michelle to stay in my bed, but when I turned around to look at it I quickly discovered that she wasn't there. I could hear fumbling around in the kitchen and when I stood to follow the noise, the pounding in my head grew. When I reached the small space that we mostly use to microwave shitty food and store alcohol and juice, I saw that Michelle was fully dressed. I mean, well, if you can call an oversized sweater and tights with ladders down the legs in random places dressed then thats what she was.

“Morning, sunshine. How do you feel.”

“Like my head might explode all over the kitchen and I still have to get ready for class. Today is going to be long as shit,” my words slurred proving that there was still traces of alcohol in my bloodstream and when I swayed back and forth feeling as if I might lose my balance, I knew, “I'm still fucked.”

Michelle laughed at me before she flipped her pancake onto a plate and ran it back and forth below my nose. I snatched it from her and took a bite of the buttery breakfast cake without using the fork that she offered.

“Don't be such a savage, Haz. I'm not going to take the food from you after I've clearly been slaving over the oven for five whole minutes so that you could eat. Slow down, chew your food, and sit like a civilized human being. If you eat like that you're going to require the heimlich maneuver and unfortunately I don't know it. You'll turn blue and die in front of me on a Tuesday afternoon and that would put a slight damper on my day.”

“Afternoon?” I asked her while chewing around the pancake, “Afternoon?”

“Yes, Styles. Thats what I said.”

I put the plate that I was holding down on our small kitchen bench before I walked out into living room to squint at the only other clock that we had besides our cell phones, only to confirm what Chelle had just said. I rubbed my hands over my eyes hoping that it was just an illusion and what I'd seen was wrong because if it was the truth, I'd missed all of my morning classes for the day.

“Three eleven? It can't be three eleven! I had classes from nine until two!”

“And you slept through them like a baby.”

“Fuck! Michelle why didn't you wake me up? What's the point of having an Ultimate Alarm if it's not going to be used?”

“Harry, remember that little chat we had yesterday about distress and the use of your nickname? And in order for me to wake you up, I would have had to been up too. Even if I was, I wouldn't be using the Ultimate Alarm to save you with the splitting hangover that I had,” Michelle shakes her head in clear disgust before she continued, “too loud.”

My eyes widened as I looked at my friend, bewildered, annoyed, and somewhere deep down, somewhat amused. I waved my hand between the two of us before I gave up and ran it over my face exasperatedly. This is not how I intended to start the year off. My hand ascended from my face to sliding through my hair in distress, “Thats the point of the alarm, Michelle. It's supposed to be loud. It's supposed to wake you up.”

“Harry, calm down. When we got to sleep it was like seven in the morning anyway. I don't know how you expected to be up, awake, and alert in class. Don't you have like seven others that you can go to tonight? Over achiever.”

“If I shower now I can make it to my organic chemistry class.”

“Gross.”

I looked over to Michelle and frowned before I continued, “ Thanks for throwing me off by the way, making pancakes at three in the afternoon and making me think that it was morning.”

“Whatever time of day that you wake up is morning to me. I was feeling like pancakes, so I made pancakes. You didn't seem to mind them by the way that you were eating them a few minutes ago, arsehole.”

The mention of the food reminded me of how dry my throat was and how alcohol will leave your mouth feeling like you'd guzzled sand if you consume enough of it. I felt like a raisin.

“Do we have anymore orange juice?”

"No. Sorry I finished that all yesterday morning when you almost killed me and Alison with that damn fog horn.”

“Alison?” I smirked at Michelle before I started to tease. "Usually a player doesn't remember a conquests name.”

“You would know," she retorted back while squinting her eyes, “ you used to be one. But don't worry, Harry. I'll get so good at it that you won't ever catch one of them leaving the next morning ever again. I'll be like a black widow or is it a praying mantises that kill all other intimacy as soon as they've finished with them? I'll send them on their way so that I can sleep in my bed alone. It'll be like a switch.”

Michelle grinned as she spoke, silently approving her idea as I thought about how lonely it sounded. It actually saddened me. Michelle isn't the type that can handle being cold hearted and callous enough to kick people out of bed. After being in a monogamous relationship for three years, I could tell that she was the type who craved intimacy. She deserved it. What she just explained to me sounded like eventually it would take its toll on her and she would break down like she did before, substituting my shirt sleeves for tissues.

I keep my opinions to myself, not having enough time before my next class starts to really sit down with her and talk about them. If it's one thing that I cherish about Michelle and I's relationship is that we can literally almost talk about anything, if we had the proper amount of time to do so. I shake my head at her before I head down the hall, calling back to her.

“I never was a player, Mitch. I just wasn't steady in my relationships like you.”

"Whatever you say, Harold. Please go put on trousers…I don't want to see your moose knuckle.”

****

I'd made it to my chemistry lecture on time, and though I tried my hardest, it was extremely difficult to keep my eyes open. Even though I'd slept past all of my morning classes, I still didn't get the best rest from sleeping on the floor. Michelle was irritatingly right again. The only thing that was really mentioned today since it was still the very beginning of the school year, was instruction and what the professor expected from us as a class, so when my eyes closed momentarily as I sat at the back of the room, I didn't feel so bad. Before I knew it the lecture was over and I was rustled awake my the movement of students as they gathered their bags to leave the room.

"You've got a bit of dribble there." A familiar voice laughed as I stepped out of the classroom I wiped my mouth sheepishly before smiling at her.

“Rion, hi how are you?”

“I'm good. Getting around campus well enough, but how are you? You look pretty worn out and its only the second official day of the school year. Did your tradition get the best of you last night? You've got imprint marks from your sweater on your face.”

My hand went to the side of my face that she pointed out, the imprints from my clothing giving away my previous position before I flashed her a quick grin and responded ,Um, uh yeah kind of. I may or may not have missed all of my classes this morning. Mitch didn't wake me up, bad influence I guess.”

“Mitch?”

"Oh, um sh- Mitch is just...Mitch is my roommate." I explained in a panic I didn't want to scare her off with the details. I think I might actually have a chance with Rion, if I don't put my foot in my mouth that is.

“Oh I see.”

Rion smiled at me and I didn't even realize that we've been walking and talking this entire time. Conversation flows easily with her even though I stumble over my words. I feel like I'm just remembering how to talk to the opposite sex besides Michelle and feel kind of pathetic, but Rion doesn't seem to mind as she continues to smile laugh and start on new topics of conversation.

“So how long were you out for?”

“I didn't go to sleep until seven this morning and my head was pounding when I woke up. I really have no one to blame but myself. I told my friends that I would only have one drink and ended the night on my ass. I still have to go back to the pub and get my car, because I had to end up walking home. How I got to the right apartment on the first try is a mystery to me.”

Rion giggled in a cute way before tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear allowing me to see her features more. Her neck was slender and long, connecting to her shoulders delicately. She had a small tattoo that looked to be a ballet flat behind her left ear. Those tattoos placed just there always seemed like they might hurt, like they deserved to be kissed better even though the ache from the needle has been long gone. I could envision my lips on just that spot. I must have glanced at her just a bit longer than I should have causing a rosy hue to make its presence known on her cheeks. It made me smile before I quickly changed the subject this time, not wanting her to think that I was rude or weird for staring.

"How did your date go?"

She took deep breath before deciding if she wanted give a response or not and we ended up in the courtyard right before the student parking lot.

"It came and went, I suppose. Nothing really interesting to report. It sounds like I would have had more fun if I had taken the offer to go out for drinks with you. I'm usually not really big on drinking on the weekdays, but after that date I honestly might have taken a shot or four."

I smiled, selfishly happy that she didn't have a good time. I want to ask her out, but I feel like its too damn soon. I only met her yesterday anyway. Maybe its a good thing that she turned me down. When the time is right to ask her I'm sure I'll know. Hopefully I will.

"I'm sorry it didn't go as planned. Someone should take you out and show you a good time."

"Yeah, hopefully someone will sooner rather than later."

I think the emphasis that she put on the word someone was aimed at me, but I could be wrong. I don't know what else to say so I cap the conversation off with a , "Yeah" and mentally slap myself in the face before I grin awkwardly at her. I look around the parking lot as we come up to a white Toyota and she takes her keys out signaling that the tiny car is hers.

"Oh, well I'll let you go and get on with the rest of your day. Good seeing you."

"Okay, yeah." She responds quietly before she puts the key in the lock to open the door.

This has to be the most awkward I've felt in a while. I radiate awkward and though I don't want to believe it's because of what Michelle and the boys said, I'm kind of starting to think that they might be right myself.

"Wait, Harry?"

"Yes?" I turn my head to look over my shoulder before turning around to face her.

"I can take you to go get your car if you'd like. It looks like it might rain and it would suck if you were to get all wet."

All wet. I blush at her word choice and from that point on I know. Michelle, Niall, and Darragh were right.

"No. No its okay. You don't have to and I mean, don't you have other classes?"

She shakes her head and then opens her other car door, "I'm done for the day. Really I don't have a problem taking you. Get in."

I walk back towards her, thanking her and then giving her directions to the pub from the main campus. When we pull up, sure enough my car is there. Along with a ticket taped to the window for leaving it in the lot overnight. I sigh and rub my hands over my eyes before I get out and thank Rion again. Just as she's about to pull off, I call her name causing her to stop the car and reverse.

"Yes?" She looks at me eagerly with her eyes slightly widened and and traces of a grin on her face. I scratched my head out of embarrassment before I speak while pointing to the passenger side of the car.

"I left my book bag in your car."

"Oh, sorry. Here you go." The grin falls as she unlocks her car door so that I can get my bookbag. This time when she pulls off, I wave an awkward goodbye to her before getting in my car, knocking my head against the steering wheel in defeat causing the horn to honk.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #harry styles fic rec #harry styles x oc #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x original character #harry styles au #harry styles fluff

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shroomcult · 3 years

Link

@soulxmakaweek

Day 4: Apologize

I fell way behind with Soma week because I got slammed with work and this monster of a fic took me too long to write.

Summary:

Maka comes to realize that Soul had never felt fully comfortable around Crona, and in ignoring this entirely - she unknowingly hurt her closest friend.

Special thanks to Tori @chichirichick (she betas all of my dumpster fires, bless her) for proofreading this mess of emotions and also to Zi @azroazizah for coming up with the concept for this fic.

**Disclaimer** This story is not about putting blame on Crona, but instead about acknowledging the fact that Soul went through trauma due to their actions and it was never taken into consideration by Maka before inviting them into their friend group. I'm not saying Crona didn't deserve support, but it's also completely valid for Soul - a victim of Crona - to not feel entirely safe around them regardless of their tragic background and circumstances. If Crona is a big comfort character for you and you feel you would likely be upset by this concept, then I recommend not reading it altogether. We all interpret things different and we're all entitled to our own opinions, and I'm not going to get in arguments with people over this.

It’d been a while since the Spartoi team was all together again.

After the fall of Asura, they really had no purpose to join forces as a team. No big baddie to unite them in ass-kickery.

The skies were blue again. There were still Kishin eggs to take down, and a shaky new diplomatic relationship with the witches to maintain as well.

Things were more or less … normal. Boring, even.

The only big difference Blackstar could discern was that nobody seemed to have time to just hang out and be friends anymore.

Kid was over his head with his new responsibilities, and while he was doing an admirable job filling his father’s shoes; there was a steep learning curve and his perfectionist tendencies only made it more challenging to overcome. He upheld a calm and collected demeanor in the public’s eyes, but Liz and Patty spent most of their time holding him together behind the scenes.

Soul and Maka were a different situation entirely.

It was odd enough to adjust to the recent change in the nature of their relationship. They claimed to be the same as they’ve always been - just Soul & Maka. Only, they grew much closer after the hardships they had endured both in the book of Eibon and on the moon.

They had been close to begin with, but this was a different kind of close. Stolen glances, hands reaching for each other when they thought nobody was looking. Blushing for almost no damn reason.

Something was going on between them - he could be sure of that.

More recently, however, Maka had been particularly obsessive about solving the dilemma of Crona’s entrapment on the moon. She was driving herself to a slow-burning insanity, considering every moment that she hadn’t rescued them yet to be a personal failure.

She’d been spending much of her time in the restricted section of the library, consuming every piece of relevant research for hours on end. Soul often stayed up there with her doing the same, or at the very least keeping her silent company when he was too burnt out to read anymore.

He’d also spent much of his extra time with Stein, training to perfect his sound-wave abilities into his own form of wavelength attack.

He’d been giving his all ever since making deathscythe status to hone his strength and better serve Maka. He’d even been able to hold his own for a surprising amount of time in the sparring ring against Blackstar, and that was a feat in and of itself.

All of the focus on Crona’s rescue had appeared to be wearing on him, though.

Soul may have accepted Crona into his friend group for Maka’s sake, even empathized with them - but he had never fully trusted the demon sword meister. Although Soul was outwardly friendly towards them, Blackstar noticed the way his friend had watched them like a hawk before they turned back to Medusa. He was always ready for a scenario like that because he had never felt entirely safe around them to begin with.

Not that Maka had bothered to even take Soul’s feelings into consideration before forgiving Crona on his behalf.

She couldn’t have possibly been that dense. She had to have been actively ignoring the signs of Soul’s discomfort because she couldn’t handle acknowledging them.

And now she was doing the same thing all over again even with Crona as far away as the moon. It was obvious that Soul was doing what he always did - shoving his own feelings aside in favor of Maka’s. The loyal mutt of a boy valued her wellbeing far above his own, that was for certain.

He just seemed so exhausted of it all now. Searching tirelessly with Maka for a solution that may not even exist took up much of his time and energy.

He never had the time to shoot hoops or play video games like he used to, and Blackstar was far above begging for his attention. He stopped even bothering to ask him.

Just for one night though, by some divine luck - everybody was willing to clear their schedule to have a late night dinner at the most beloved and heart-attack inducing burger joint in town.

Every member of Spartoi was crammed into the largest booth in the restaurant and their chatter was loud enough to fill the whole section.

There were multiple conversations happening at a time, but Blackstar was zeroing in on Soul who had his chin resting on his palm and that stupid, dopey look he got on his face when he was proud of Maka. Yuck. Keep it in your pants, loverboy.

Maka was next to Soul, his arm stretched out behind her on the booth, while Ox engaged her in a fiery debate over god knows what across the table from her. Judging by the redness in baldy’s face - Maka was on the winning side. He really couldn’t understand Soul’s hard-on for a bossy know-it-all personality, but whatever floats his boat he supposed.

He decided he’d seen enough of that look on his best friend’s face and crumpled up a straw wrapper, dipping it in his soda and sticking it at the end of his straw.

He blew on the other end, sending the sticky wad of paper flying across the table. The projectile hit its target directly on the cheek.

“Fuck’s sake dude, how old are you?” he grumbled, reaching over the table to grab a handful of napkins to clean his face off with.

Maka snatched some of his napkins for herself, rubbing it vigorously into the flecks of cola that stained her uniform. “You got my shirt all wet, idiot.”

Blackstar simply threw his head back to cackle obnoxiously. “I just thought I should break up your lame little debate team fight before Ox over here pops a blood vessel. You know he can’t handle losing well.”

“I wasn’t losing!” Ox hissed under his breath.

Maka only met her opponent’s glare with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, Maka! What had you stopped to talk with Professor Stein about earlier today?” Tsubaki cut in, obviously attempting to diffuse another argument between the two competitive brainiacs.

Maka’s expression relaxed into something a little more neutral, seemingly caught off guard by the question. Debate-mode successfully disarmed.

“Oh. Well… I just had some questions about my black blood research for him.”

Blackstar didn’t miss the way Soul tensed up beside her at the mention of black blood. His face was void of any distinct emotion, but something was off in his body language. The way his shoulders squared as if he were instinctively bristling.

Anyone with a shred of social awareness could have deduced that black blood, Medusa, and Crona were not Soul’s favorite topics. It wasn’t unusual for him to shut down and discontinue any contributions to a conversation when any of these things were brought up.

Unfortunately for Soul, all of those subjects were constantly on Maka’s mind since she began her obsessive pursuit for a solution to Crona’s ordeal.

“Oh? And what did he have to say?” Tsubaki pressed, completely oblivious to the tense situation she was potentially triggering.

“As you’re already aware, there’s not really any official research on the black blood that exists. We’ve been digging through countless books - gathering as much information about madness and Kishins as we can, but it can only get us so far. It would be so much more useful if we could get our hands on a physical sample of the substance itself.”

Soul’s eyes widened in concern, but only for a second before he slipped his usual poker face back on. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously despite the veneer of calm he displayed.

“Anyways,” she continued, turning to look at Soul, “I was going to talk to you about this later, but maybe some of the black blood still remains in your system? I know we believed it was all gone, but surely there’s some residual amount of it lingering behind? Something we could maybe isolate, extract and create a concentrate of? Stein said it was unlikely, but technically possible. We have to try for Crona, right, Soul?”

He was no longer wearing his mask of apathy. Unmistakeable, visible discomfort was etched into his facial features and he was clenching his hands, knuckles whitening from the pressure. Everyone at the table was hushed and the tension was palpable.

“He doesn’t have to try anything,” Kid’s voice cut sharply through the silence, golden eyes flashing sternly at her.

A soft gasp escaped her and her eyebrows shot up, clearly taken-aback by the sudden burst of hostility from her boss and close friend. Her eyes darkened seconds later, determination setting in.

“I think that’s his decision to make, and I’d like to hear what he has to say,” she turned her attention back to Soul, hope still shining in her eyes.

He fidgeted with his necktie, loosening it and clearing his throat. “Yeah, s’fine. Whatever you need, I guess.”

Maka’s face lit up into a bright smile that turned Blackstar’s stomach and she pulled Soul into a brief hug. “I knew we could count on you, Soul! You’re the best partner ever.”

“Whatever, it’s no problem. Just try not to drain me of all my blood, alright?” he chuckled weakly, avoiding her eyes in favor of staring a hole in the middle of the table.

She gave an easygoing laugh in response, and went back to conversing with Tsubaki as if she hadn’t just pressured her partner into volunteering himself as a guinea pig for the sake of someone who had literally sliced him open from shoulder to hip and infected him with black blood to begin with.

Is she fucking serious?

Blackstar was practically vibrating with fury from the interaction he’d just watched, and Tsubaki’s normally soothing hand on his shoulder did little to calm him down. When he glanced at Kid, he instantly knew the death god had shared his frustration with Maka’s obliviousness.

It wasn’t long before Soul abruptly stood from his place at the end of the booth, pulling a twenty out of his wallet and placing it on the table in front of him.

“Soul? What are you doing? The food hasn’t even gotten here yet,” Maka blinked at him in confusion.

“I’m not feelin’ too great - gonna head out, sorry guys. Could you just bring my food back in a to-go box?” he said with an apologetic quirk of his lips. He squeezed her shoulder gently before turning on his heels and making his way out of the diner in long strides.

Why does she look so shocked? Does she really not understand that she’s been hurting him?

After that, the night passed by in a haze for Blackstar. He hardly spoke for the rest of the meal due to the fact that he was using all of his mental capacity to keep his impulse to stand up and loudly call his friend out in front of everybody in check.

The only thing truly stopping him was the knowledge that Soul would likely be embarrassed and more than a little pissed off if he’d made a big scene over something that he wasn’t even willing to talk about.

So he waited - held his tongue until he could lash out in private.

As everyone was saying their goodbyes, Blackstar watched her rise from her seat gathering her to-go boxes carefully and giving him a nod of acknowledgement before she headed out.

His eyes bore into the back of her head as she left, and Tsubaki’s hand clamped gently on him for the second time that night. Her eyes were crinkled with a gentle concern.

“I think you should leave this between them. If Soul wanted all of this out in the open, he would have had that conversation with her himself.”

A heavy sigh settled in his chest, “You know how he is. He’s the suffer in silence type and he always does her bidding. If nobody says anything, then nothing’ll change. I just want to talk to her - not like I’m gonna beat her ass or anything … unless she gives me a reason to.”

“Blackstar,” she chided, fully aware that he would make good on that threat.

“I know, I know. I won’t be long, see ya at home,” he said, throwing up placating hands before stuffing them in his pockets and striding in the direction Maka had gone.

_______________________________________________

Maka set her walk home at a leisurely pace, dragging her feet slightly as she watched the sunset bleed into the sky above.

It wasn’t that she was trying to prolong seeing Soul, or that she wasn’t worried about the way he’d acted back in the diner - like something was eating at him.

She was pretty positive that he wasn’t physically ill, which only left the option of it being an emotional issue.

And getting Soul to talk about emotional issues was like trying to pull teeth from a temperamental bear.

She had to figure out a way to go about this delicately, and she had to figure it out soon because their apartment block was fast approaching.

She stopped in her tracks when she felt the presence of a familiar soul behind her. His steps had been so quiet, she wouldn’t have even been aware he was stalking her from behind if it weren’t for her exceptional soul perception abilities.

“I know you’re following me, Blackstar.”

In moments, he was stepping out in front of her. “Wasn’t trying to hide. I need to talk to you,” his voice was uncharacteristically stern.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew Blackstar had some kind of problem with her since dinner. He was deathly quiet and glowering at her for most of the night; very unusual behavior from someone who never shuts up or hesitates to start a fight.

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said, already preparing to defend herself against whatever absurd argument he wanted to pull her into.

“The whole situation with Crona - have you ever once thought about how Soul feels about it?”

Whatever she had been expecting to come out of his mouth - that wasn’t it.

“What? I mean, I know how Soul feels. He wants Crona to be safe, just like I do. What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m not talking about what he thinks about Crona being stuck in the deathdamned moon, Maka! I mean have you ever thought about how he felt when you forced Crona into his life to begin with? After being sliced open?”

Maka’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and her mouth opened and closed a few times, baffled by the question.

“Soul understands why I welcomed Crona as a friend. He trusts me,” she answered, hoping her voice conveyed the confidence that she couldn’t find in this moment.

This entire conversation was throwing her off.

“Yeah, okay. He accepted your decision because he trusts you, or loves you or whatever the fuck. We all know that - but that doesn’t mean he was comfortable with it. It doesn’t mean he felt safe. He just stuffed his own feelings down, because he knew it made it easier for you.”

Her throat tightened as her own conflicting emotions overcame her. He had no idea what he was talking about. Soul was fine. He’s always been fine.

“Did he say that to you? That he didn’t feel safe?” she choked out.

“Soul? You think he tells people things? About his feelings?” he snorted. “No, he doesn’t have to tell me shit. It’s clear on his face every time you mention Crona, or Medusa, or that fucking blood.”

“Maybe you’re just making assumptions about how he feels!” she shouted back, gripping handfuls of the front of his shirt.

He leaned in, completely unfazed by the rage burning in her eyes. “You ever noticed how when Crona was around, he was always watching them out of the corner of his eye - twitching every time they made some sudden move. You ever noticed how quiet and withdrawn he’d get around them? Or any time they were brought up? You didn’t - because you didn’t want to.”

“Shut up! Y-you’re making something out of nothing. Are you trying to tell me that I should just give up and forget about Crona? That they don’t deserve to have a friend?”

Some of his aggression was fizzling out as he released a heavy sigh, placing his hands calmly over hers, still clenching in his shirt. “I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t have helped Crona, or that you shouldn’t keep trying to help them now. I’m only telling you that even if Soul has forgiven and moved on - he’s still a victim of Crona’s actions. He suffered trauma from that, even if he’s too fucking stubborn to admit it. Just acknowledge that maybe he needs a break from thinking about them - all of that shit that happened - every now and then. Get your head out of Crona’s ass long enough to check if he’s okay too.”

She stumbled over wordless sounds as her hands went limp and released their vice-grip on his clothing. She was trying desperately to think of a way to refute the awful things he was saying, but Blackstar wouldn’t give her the chance.

“If you gave him even half the thought you gave to Crona - maybe you would have noticed it like everybody else has. I just want you to think about it for a bit, that’s all,” his voice softened towards the end, shoulders sagging slightly as he turned away, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of his confrontation.

The heat of tears prickled behind her eyelids and she clenched her fists tightly to her sides.

She wanted so badly to swing around and scream at Blackstar’s retreating figure that he was wrong, that he had no idea what he was talking about and of course she thinks about her weapon.

But the longer she allowed his harsh words to sink in; the more she could feel the sting of truth settling into her heart.

Had she really been so blind?

_______________________________________________

Soul had been laying on his back in bed, hands resting on his stomach and eyes pointed at the ceiling, unmoving for some time. He wasn’t entirely sure how many hours, but he knew his playlist had ended long ago - no music played from the earbuds that were still jammed in his ears.

He couldn’t explain the heaviness in his heart. The anxiety that often set in whenever Maka mentioned Crona or the black blood. It was all water under the bridge, wasn’t it? There was no point in allowing himself to wallow in all the negative emotions that punched him in the gut at the mention of their name. It was selfish to feel those things - it was his job to give Maka his full support. His own feelings were irrelevant.

It was just harder on this particular night. Sure, she droned on about those sore subjects often. Their research revolved around it anyways. He’d just hoped that it could have been different just for one night.

He’d secretly been ecstatic when Maka begrudgingly agreed to shelve her research just long enough to get a late dinner with all of their friends. A break had been long overdue.

Things had been different between them, after all. They’d been sharing a bed, and they’d even shared a few kisses in the small, rare moments that they’d spent alone together - focused only on each other. They were chaste kisses, but he’d greedily take whatever he could get.

As she became more frantic about her lack of results in helping Crona, he may as well have not even existed to her.

He’d just needed that one dinner to pretend things were normal, to pretend as though he was on a date with her and she was willing to spend time with him and think about literally anything aside from her latest fixations. Instead, she’d asked him to play part in some unsound experiment - to prod for things that he hadn’t wanted to find again. It had only been made more uncomfortable by the scrutinizing presence of all of their friends.

He’d felt used.

Soul perked up at the familiar sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut. He was immediately ashamed of the pavlovian response he had to the sound of his meister returning - the little flip in his heart that made him feel like a stupid dog wagging its tail at the sound of its master.

Just keep to yourself. She doesn’t need to interact with you in this useless state of self pity. You don’t deserve her comfort.

Self-loathing curled in his gut and he kept his eyes stubbornly trained on a water stain in the ceiling.

Suddenly, light flooded into his dark room as his door was hesitantly opened. He reflexively brought himself to sit up on his elbows only to meet a teary-eyed Maka.

All self-indulgent angsty thoughts instantly evaporated from his head, and he was ripping his earbuds out and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to get up.

She made purposeful steps across his room, throwing her arms around his neck and forcing him back onto the bed with the motion.

“I’m so sorry, Soul,” she warbled mournfully into his sweater.

“Huh? Sorry ‘bout what? What’s going on, Maka?” he tried to nudge her into looking up at him, but she adamantly refused.

She took a few shallow breaths before rubbing her wet cheek against the quickly-dampening fabric and looking up at him with dewy eyes.

“I haven’t been a good friend to you - have I?

Was that a trick question?

“I-I don’t get what we’re talkin’ about here,” he stuttered uselessly, attempting to compensate for his lack of eloquence by brushing his fingers comfortingly through her soft hair.

“I never asked if you felt okay with Crona being around you. I never asked you if you forgave them at all - I just brought them into your space, your home. I just wanted them to have a chance at a normal life so badly - I ignored your pain, and I’m so sorry,” she rushed her confession out like it had been a breath she was holding in.

He had to fight the urge to bark out a laugh. It wasn’t that he found anything that she said humorous - it was just so strange that she was addressing this out of the blue. She’d seemed completely unaware as usual back at the diner, where had this even come from?

He was so lost in thought, he’d almost forgotten to respond and instantly regretted the prolonged silence he’d left her in. “Maka, it’s fine,” he insisted, “I get why you forgave Crona. I admire you for it.”

“But that doesn’t mean you were okay. I should have at least checked on you, or asked you about how you felt - or literally anything,’ she mumbled numbly from his chest.

“Hey. Look at me,” he said, lifting her cheek from its resting place against his sweater, “Sure, I didn’t feel the most comfortable around Crona. I think it was pretty awkward for both of us to be near each other. That doesn’t mean I dislike them, or didn’t want you to be their friend. You can’t beat yourself up over something I hadn’t bothered to tell you.”

His words hadn’t brought the comfort that he’d hoped they would, and her brows remained stubbornly crinkled. “If it had been me - if I was the one who’d been cut by that sword, would you still say that you don’t dislike them? That you’re okay with us being friends?”

It was a question that he instantly knew the answer to, but he was reluctant to say it out loud. He finally caved, bringing his eyes back to hers, “No. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive them if it was you.”

She closed her eyes tightly, nodding her head in grim acceptance of that truth. She had likely known that would be his answer already, but hearing it must have been difficult.

“But I love that about you. You have so much compassion. I only care for the few people that I’ve decided I love - I don’t have room in my heart for others like you do. I’d like to be more like you,” he whispered reverently, taking her cheeks in both of his hands and briskly wiping away all of the moisture he could reach with his thumbs.

“I should’ve had more compassion for you,” she lamented softly under her breath, eyes downcast.

“You’re not a fuckin’ mind reader, Maks. It was my choice not to bring anything up.”

She nodded slowly, but the way her grip tightened on him only confirmed his suspicion that she wasn’t going to forgive herself for it.

Minutes passed before a word was spoken, but Soul eventually cleared his throat. “You know, I don’t expect you to ever stop being friends with Crona, or to give up on rescuing them. I don’t want that. I don’t mind helping you like you’d asked earlier tonight, too. If that’s what you need from me, then I’m here.”

She brought herself to her elbows on top of him to get a better view of his face.

“I know. I’m not going to give up on them. But It matters to me that you’re happy too, and if that means you need a break from all that, then I want you to know that it’s okay to ask for that.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in a hushed tone, distracting himself with a piece of her hair twirled between his fingers.

“And I don’t want to use your blood for research. It was wrong of me to even think of asking you that. We’ll find another way,” she assured him, voice tightening with emotion, “I definitely got carried away with all of this. It wasn’t healthy, and I really am sorry I’ve pushed you away in the process. We can’t solve this thing if we don’t have time to properly take care of ourselves. You’ve been working so hard with me, and I think we need more actual quality time together.”

“Yeah, I could get on board with that. I kinda walked out on dinner tonight, so how about we do something - just you and me tomorrow? Movies sound good?”

“Movies sounds great,” she hummed in agreement, hands idly playing with his hair.

As much as he would have preferred for her to continue her ministrations, he stopped her movements to grasp her hand, bringing it to his chest to rest above where she knew his scar was. He pressed down on her hand lightly.

“I’m glad it happened. I’m glad they gutted me, ‘cause I hadn’t understood what you meant to me till that moment,” he muttered, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head.

She only exhaled shakily, hand tightening against the evidence of his devotion.

“I just hate that it took a lecture from Blackstar of all people for me to realize that I’d been hurting you.”

His eyes widened a little at that new piece of information. Blackstar was the one that brought all of this on her mind? He could’ve sworn it would have been Kid if anyone. He couldn’t help but feel a little touched that Blackstar had been so concerned about him, but he was also somewhat irritated that his friend had distressed Maka as much as he had.

“Blackstar, huh? Remind me to have a conversation with him about mindin’ his own business,” he laughed half-heartedly.

“No, don’t. I’m glad that he said what he did - I needed to hear it,” she urged him.

“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t have to make my girlfriend cry from guilt over bein’ friends with someone,” he muttered, but his face immediately burned a bright red as soon as he’d caught what he’d called her.

She was a similar shade, holding her breath as well as his gaze with a tortuously difficult to decipher expression on her face.

“That is, uh- I mean… fuck.”

Very articulate. Great job, Soul.

He hadn’t needed to agonize over whether or not he’d just fucked everything between them for long because her face soon melted into a warm, genuine smile.

“Girlfriend, huh?” she said with a glimmer of mischief in her eye.

“I’d like that. If that’s w-what you want,” he wanted to kick himself for the voice crack he just experienced. Not cool in the slightest.

At least she got a good giggle out of it. The melodic sound squeezed something in his chest and he swallowed nervously as a response.

She brushed back his bangs, leaning in to place a soft kiss to his forehead. She peppered a trail of kisses down his cheek until she reached his lips.

This kiss was far from chaste. She cradled his cheek and jaw as she slanted her mouth sweetly over his, pressing fervently, constantly moving against him and eliciting a breathy moan from him that he would never admit to making.

When she tried to separate, he followed her, bumping noses for a moment and giving the corner of her mouth a few more enthusiastic pecks before backing up and allowing her room to look at his face.

“Girlfriend sounds nice, actually,” she smiled broadly, letting her fingers brush against the back of his neck.

“Glad that’s settled, then,” he laughed easily, not even bothering to feel any embarrassment over the flush of his skin or the lightness of his breath.

He crushed her to his chest, and they stayed like that for a while, just listening to the other’s loudly beating hearts until they were lulled to sleep.

He’d have to thank Blackstar with a game of basketball later.

#SoMaWeek2021 #SoulxMakaweek #soul eater #soul evans #soul eater evans #maka albarn #soul x maka

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bagadew · 3 years

Text

The Great Ace Attorney Playthrough: The Adventure of the Great Departure (Part 3)

Last Time: We finally found Miss Brett, the English woman who’s present had been erased from the scene of the crime, and dragged her ass to court only to discover that she was a Massively Racist Bitch in a swan hat. After a lot of back and forth it became clear that Dr Watson Wilson actually died of poisoning, and that Miss Brett took advantage of the fact Japan currently doesn’t do autopsy reports to shoot his corpse in the chest and frame me (Ryunosuke) for the murder. Fortunately for us Hosonaga took the bottle from the crime scene, and after needlessly translating Miss Brett for the last hour (and presumably filtering out a lot of questionable content) was only to happy to produce it for the court. Unfortunately for us the poison wasn’t in the bottle, so it’s up to a lady in pink to save the day!

I’m going to roundhouse kick Auchi

I’m liking how everyone else in this room is just as done with Auchi as I am

Our saviour Ryunosuke, that’s who

Oh, that’s not a glass

Is it about poisons?

It is!

Ok so I’m pretty sure that Curare is incredibly powerful and fast acting poison (which lines up with what we know). Unfortunately I think it needs to be injected but I might be mixing it up with something else.

Susato’s actually given me the report now, which is probably a much more sensible way of getting information (rather than me trying to remember what I’ve picked up from Agatha Christie novels), and unfortunately it looks like I remembered correctly about it needing to be injected.

(Side note: how alarming is it that I’ve retained this much knowledge on poisons? I feel the need to explain that I’ve been reading and listening to audio dramatisation of Agatha Christie novels since I was about three, but I feel like that makes it worse)

What is curious though is it’s potential use as an anaesthetic. Given that Dr Wilson had just had a tooth removed with anaesthetic I wonder if there’s a connection there?

I’m not sure what it could be though, unless it turns out Miss Brett Weekend at Berniesed his corpse all the over way from the clinic.

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

Actually wait...

GET HER ASS JUDGE!!!

Auchi if we were to run this courtroom on things you know about we’d be running a kindergarten.

Auchi, you’d never even heard of Curare until I told you about it, be quiet while the grownups are talking.

Yeah, Curare is not a nice poison.

I’m not going to post the full explanation here, but wow, Kazuma’s really going all out with his description!

Also it looks like I misunderstood about it needing to be injected. Everyone’s saying that it can just be swallowed, which I guess that makes sense given how deadly it is.

Miss Brett’s being a bitch again (but what else is new) and Kazuma’s taking none of your shit and telling her that the feeling’s mutual. (Something I would have screenshot, but I was too busy calling Kazuma a legend to press the little square button.)

I knew it, it was only in the glass.

Yeah, now try it again from the glass you took.

Don’t worry Ryunosuke, I got this!

It’s ok Kazuma! Believe in me (Ryunosuke) and our beautiful friendship!

It astounds me too Kazuma, but for once I’m on to something!

Kazuma, please stop saying foreboding things, I need you to survive the next case and you’re already not being helped by the fact that you’re so much better than me. You’re so good you kind of render me, the protagonist, a little bit obsolete in fact.

PENALISED!

I guess I was wrong then! That bottle does somehow contain poison.

Yes Kuzuma, because I’m going to be penalised otherwise!

OH FUCK I’VE GOT IT!!!

I UNDERSTOOD CORRECTLY THE FIRST TIME!!!

IT DOES NEED TO BE PUT INTO THE BLOODSTREAM!!!

AND THE DOCTOR HAD A GAPING WOUND IN HIS MOUTH!!!

WHICH MISS JEZAILLE BRETT ADMITTED SHE KNEW ABOUT!!!

It’s finally time!

Let’s get her!

He’s got it!

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

She’s cracking!

Is it hatred Ryunosuke?

Ah no, my mistake - it’s lawyer rage conviction!

I know I’ve said this a lot but...

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!!!!!!!!

HE DID THE THING!!!!!!!!

WE’RE USING HER OWN WORDS AGAINST HER

AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!

Oh good... she’s started laughing

Oh no. We’ve set things into motion haven’t we.

Kazuma, I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to take care of yourself in the case to come.

SHE’S DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE!

You can’t do that!

Oh who am I kidding, this lady’s been dancing on privilege since she walked in.

Oh Ryunosuke I think she might have done...

I knew she felt like an end of game villain!

Auchi’s about to catch these hands!

Kazuma’s telling us to step into our mind palace.

‘Is Kazuma right’, he thinks, as he remembers the blood on the plate.

I don’t know Ryunosuke? Is water wet?

You got it Kazuma!

I mean to be fair it did only just happen.

DID HE STEAL THE PLATE?!?

YES HOSONAGA!!!

YOU BEAUTIFUL GENIUS!!!

I do genuinely love these moments in Ace Attorney though. When everyone works as one to get some untouchable big fry. There’s something very rewarding about the whole thing.

Shit... she swapped it out...

Fortunately my man Hosonaga has everyone’s plates though!

Cheer up Ryunosuke, look, we have steak blood at least. And I’m sure Hosonaga’ll bring us the rest of the plates if we ask nicely. Especially after Miss Brett broke his bottle.

Miss Brett’s now making racist statements again.

But at least I’ve been given the steak to examine!

Bless you Kazuma

Ryunosuke what short of cats have you been looking at!

Get his ass (affectionately) Kazuma!

THE STOLEN COIN!!!

I KNEW SHE SWAPPED THEM!!!

(Also it looks like I was right about it being stolen by Nosa)

Didn’t know that was there, did you Miss Brett?

Now, dig your own grave with your words!

Now it’s time to dob Nosa in it. Sorry Nosa but you were kind of a jerk. Look on the bright side though, now’s your chance to redeem yourself in my eyes, like Hosonaga has!

Old man Korekuna’s armed and pissed!

Nosa I’m sorry. It’s best to throw yourself on his mercy now before I rile him up more. Use your baby to calm him if you must.

NICE CATCH NOSA!

I take everything back, Nosa your complete safe, old man Korekuna has no idea how to use that thing.

Ah, I forgot he was proficient in vase!

(Which I forgot to screenshot)

Never mind Nosa, you’re still screwed!

That is the right face to pull (Nosa not Hosonaga):

Look at him in the corner there. I feel bad now.

It was theft wasn’t it?

...oh Nosa what have you done?

(Kept food on his kids plate probably, given how he can’t afford childcare)

Nosa’s now accusing his infant son of being the mastermind... Sure Nosa, everyone’s bying that.

Either accusing a baby is a panic response, or I don’t need to feel so bad anymore.

Hosonaga how did you not immediately catch this guy?

HE SLIPPED THE COIN UNDER THE STEAK SO IT WOULDN’T BE FOUND WHEN HE WAS SEARCHED!

MISS BRETT’S TRYING TO WEASLE HER WAY OUT TO LUNCH AGAIN!

Oh thank god!

I thought for one terrible second we were letting her go.

(I’ve say it before and I’ll probably say it again, this is an intense first case)

Yes! ‘Her’ steak had a big bite mark in it!

But I thought and English Lady like yourself wouldn’t eat steak that way Miss Brett?

Of course, there’s a difference between the two photos.

I knew I could see the glass in the first one, which means it was taken before Miss Brett rearranged the table!

Oh, now Nosa’s saying that he switched the plates.

I must admit I didn’t expect that, I thought it was something Miss Brett did to remove the bloody evidence.

She’s cracking!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

YEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

IT WAS ALIVE!!!

BABIES!!!

BABIES EVERYWHERE!

Oh god... what’s she planning.

Your honour, she’s already poisoned one person, do you want to be next?

Kiss my ass Miss Brett

Get used to it Auchi.

HAHA!

DAMN KAZUMA

(Editor Note: I am very upset by how poorly my screenshots conveyed Kazuma destroying Auchi’s hairdo with his sword)

Also, were you always hot Kazuma?

Wait no - I can’t be thinking that. The bar for fictional men I like is the floor and if I want Kazuma to continue to live a long, happy, non morally ambiguous life, I need him to not fall into the category of ‘fictional men I find hot’.

For some reason, I picture it being blue and spiky your honour

Wait what’s this about Kazuma having a mission?

Oh fucking hell, I’ve doomed you to moral ambiguity haven’t I Kazuma?

Thank you for the backhanded compliment your honour!

Ooh, petals rather than confetti, that’s a nice touch!

We did it!!!

And most importantly of all, we’re being praised by Kazuma!

Susato! Our saviour! Has turned up, along with her father: the innocent Professor Mikotoba, who I would like to thank and to reiterate that he could never kill anyone!

Seriously though, what was the relationship between him an Dr Wilson?

Ah ok, I simply just had to click on to find out.

So apparently the two of them worked together in the same hospital in London for a while.

OH MY GOD KAZUMA’S TAKING THE SWORD WITH HIM TO GREAT BRITAIN!!!

YES KAZUMA! F THEM UP!!!

(Also if your journey tragically ends in the customs office there’s a non-dead-Kazuma reason for me to go in your place.)

Oh fuck, she got off didn’t she...

I knew it

Of fucking course...

So basically she’s going to get off with a slap on the wrist. That’s what I’m getting from all of this.

Yep

Ah, but what you’ve failed to understand Kazuma is that the British Government and 99% of those people in power, are hypocritical dirtbags who will change the rules to suit them.

OK TEAM LETS GO GET HER ASS!!!

FINAL BOSS! FINAL BOSS!

Now on to the party with Kazuma!

And also Hosonaga apparently. Who is clinging onto his waiter job even though the case he was investigating is solved. Look like Ryunosuke was right about money being tight.

Hosonaga, do you not have a job anymore?

Were your superiors upset when you said ‘fuck the government’ and bought Miss Brett to us? Or was it your one man forensics team shtick that upsets them?

Oh yeah, we never did find that out did we?

Kazuma Asogi I forbid you from charging me with looking after your sister, of for that matter anything, incase something happens to you!

Fortunatly for us Hosonaga is here! Diving in-front of that Kazuma shaped plot bullet with promises of food!

Ryunosuke over here, taking the cases final moments to roast Hosonaga.

I think we’re even now Satoru, my second favorite character.

I don’t want to click to the next text box.

OH FUCK!

Oh wait, false alarm everyone!

I genuinely thought that the case was going to end with something like: but little did I realize that he never would.

Anyway that’s enough worrying about Kazuma! For now let’s enjoy the fact we’ve finished this bastard hard first case!

We’re moving on to Episode 2: The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band next!

#tgaa spoilers #tgaa #the great ace attorney #the adventure of the great departure #ryunosuke naruhodo #kazuma asougi #satoru hosonaga #jezaille brett #susato mikotoba #yuujin mikotoba

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cjsinkythoughts · 3 years

Text

Erased From the Stars: Chapter 2

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 4254

Series Warnings: Toxic Relationships, Cheating, Physical Abuse, Underage Drinking, Drug Use (marijuana), Motor Vehicle Accident, Cursing

Chapter Warnings: Cursing, Mentions of Sex, Cocky Bucky, Nervous Bucky, Bucky Bucky

A/N: I actually have ideas for this story, so I’m cranking it out! I definitely wasn’t expecting to post today, but here we are! This chapter has a lot of dialogue and some of Reader’s thoughts, but not much action, yet. We’re kind of still getting in the roll of things, it still being the first week of college and all that. We do get to meet Bucky, though! Next chapter we’ll meet mostly everyone else, and there will be more things happening other than classes and work. I kinda feel like I’m rushing these first few chapters, so I’m sorry about that, but it’s mostly introductions and setting up the story and I’m the type of person who likes writing the climax and only the climax. So this is steady growth for me.

I do want to point out the series warnings, just in case! I don’t want anyone feeling uncomfortable or being triggered while reading this so please take those seriously as it will happen later on in the story! Thank you!

Once again, this isn’t beta’d so please excuse any mistakes! Thank you for reading and please enjoy!

Erased From the Stars Masterlist

cjsinkythoughts’ Masterlist

You woke up in a much better mood on Tuesday, having gotten more sleep than the previous night, especially considering how tired you were when you got home past midnight from working at Shield. You crashed as soon as your head hit the pillow.

You took your time getting ready and eating breakfast, saying bye to Christine and the kids, leaving first that time since your Public Speaking class started before Kayla’s preschool did.

Which you were late to.

Of course as soon as you let your guard down, thinking you’d be fine since your first day was fine, you weren’t fine.

Fortunately, you were only a few minutes late and didn’t miss anything, since today would be another day of going over rules and course requirements for the two new classes you had.

Public Speaking was the worst. You’re older - and only - sister, Kimberly, convinced you to take the class after saying it was one of her favorites. Of course, you forgot that you and Kim were very different people. For starting at 9:05, it was too early of a class, especially when the whole point was, you know, public speaking. You hadn’t done anything yet, but one glance at the plans your professor had for the semester and you were dreading it already.

Your next class was a US History lecture, which started fifteen minutes after Public Speaking. You were again late because you severely underestimated how far the buildings were and your professor let you out a bit later than you anticipated.

You practically threw all your stuff into your bag the moment he dismissed you and sprinted out.

Arriving, you tried slipping in as silently as possible, but the door slammed shut, rather loudly, making you cringe. You felt yourself heat up as several pairs of eyes snapped towards you, but luckily the professor, Coulson you remembered, was just gathering papers and hadn’t started yet. Ignoring your peers - none of whom you knew and you weren’t sure if that made it worse or not - you shuffled over to the nearest empty seat a few rows down and to the right. You were surprised and extremely grateful to find it was an aisle seat.

Pulling out your laptop, you huffed when it wouldn’t turn on. You hadn’t used it in your previous class, meaning it was dead before, but you could’ve sworn you plugged it in last night. Whatever. You were fine with pen and paper.

“Aw shit.” You resisted the urge to smack your head on the table as you dug through your bag. Seriously?! You forgot to pack a pen?! That couldn’t have been your only pen, right?!

This is why you were anxious. Next morning, you swore you’d get up early and triple check to make sure you had everything.

You quietly threw your bag to the ground and slumped in your seat, your arms crossed. That meant you couldn’t even doodle! You had to sit there for over an hour and listen to this guy talk about another syllabus. Joy.

Suddenly, something hit you in the back of your head. You rubbed where it hit and looked down at your feet, eyebrows knitting together at the scrunched up ball of paper sitting there. “Psst.” Another hit to the head made you whip around, glaring at the culprit.

“What?” You hissed before faltering. Damn. Now that was one hell of a specimen.

Steel blue eyes crinkled at the corner as pink lips pulled up into an entertained grin, pearly whites on display. Sharp jawline covered with light scruff. Fluffy chestnut hair styled with the perfect amount of gel fell a little past his ears, with a single pesky strand falling in his eyes. The white shirt he was wearing was loose with a low collar, a leather jacket thrown over it. You could see the combat boots from underneath the table. He was a pretty boy, yeah, but you hung out with (*cough cough* dated) enough guys dressed like him in high school to know his game.

“Need a pen?” He offered in a whisper, holding up the said object.

“Uhm…yes?”

He smirked, leaning forwards in his chair, closer to you. “I’ll let you have it on one condition.” You raised an eyebrow, giving him a pointed look. “Just a name, babygirl. Yours, specifically.”

You rolled your eyes, glancing around the room to see if you were disturbing anybody. Not seeing anyone paying attention to you two, you turned back to him. “Y/N.”

“Bucky.” He introduced himself, reaching over to shake your hand. You took it, a bit hesitant, blinking when you felt something fall into your palm once he pulled back. The pen.

“I, uh, thanks.”

He winked at you, leaning back in his chair, hands linked behind his head. “No problem, doll.”

You turned back to the lecture, holding in your scoff at his pet name, hating the fact that it nearly made you smile. He was definitely a fuckboy and you told yourself before college that you wouldn’t play around with them anymore.

So you tuned him out of your mind for the rest of the lecture and, thank God, you had to rush out of class once it ended because you had to work in half an hour, not even letting the blue eyed pretty boy say a word in your direction.

You worked for the rest of the day, Russo’s for lunch, a few hours break to look over school stuff and have dinner with your family, before Shield from 9 to 1. It was fine. Long, but nothing you weren’t used to already. You really enjoyed both your jobs and you got lucky with your bosses.

Joe and Anthony were brothers who took over Russo’s for their parents. The pizzeria had been in their family for generations, and they gladly took on the tradition. They had kids of their own and dealt with their school, so they were very understanding - almost parental - to you.

Phillips had started Shield after retiring from the Army, wanting to settle down with a place to drink, smoke, and play poker with his buddies. He was stern, but that was to be expected. He always told you, “you can take the man out of the Army, but you can’t take the Army out of the man.” Despite him being strict, though, he was reasonable, and had taken a liken to you since the moment you stepped foot in the bar.

And not only did you like your jobs, the money wasn’t too bad either.

But, despite that, you were still human, and having two back-to-back college classes and then working two jobs for over eight hours was draining.

You made sure everything was ready for the next day before you left for Shield, that way you could just get home, change, and sleep. Tuesday might’ve been a rough starting day, but you’d learn for Thursday, and Wednesday’s morning was definitely better.

Peter even texted you his coffee order, telling you he’d probably be late. You chuckled to yourself when you got the text at breakfast. You totally called it.

In his defense, he really was running late, and you could tell just by looking at him. One shoe untied, hair messy like he just rolled out of bed, sweater haphazardly thrown on like it was an afterthought, which it probably was.

“You,” he puffed, sinking into his chair and taking the coffee cup you held out. “Are my savior and I’ll love you until the end of time.”

You chuckled, shaking your head. “And you, my friend, are so much more chaotic than I thought. What’d you do? Stay up until three last night?”

He shrugged, shooting you an innocent smile while his cheeks turned red. “I got caught up binge watching Clone Wars.”

“Of course you did. Here’s the notes you missed so far.”

He gave you an adoring smile. “Did I tell you I love you?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sap. Hurry and copy them down so I don’t miss anything.”

********************

It was when you were checking your things Wednesday night when you realized you had an extra pen. It took you a moment to remember the blue eyed pretty boy from Coulson’s History lecture, but when you did you groaned.

Your dating record in high school was pretty bad. Not that you would really call it dating. But Whitney was right when she said it was you wanting attention. It wasn’t easy being the middle of seven. But you dealt with it and now that you were across the country from your family - who you loved but Jesus Christ did you need a break - you didn’t need to act out to seek attention.

You were an adult. Meaning you wouldn’t goof off with guys like that anymore. Meaning you didn’t even want to talk to guys like that anymore.

Meaning you were severely regretting taking his stupid pen.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice if you didn’t give it back. Yeah. Maybe you could just ignore him and he won’t even remember that he let you borrow it.

Those were your hopes as you walked into your US History lecture, taking the seat you had on Tuesday.

“On time today? Glad to see we’re learning.” And there go your hopes, crashing straight into the floor, shattering into millions of tiny pieces. Going for ‘not interested’, you quirked an eyebrow, twisting your head as a bag landed on the table next to your open laptop, a body falling into the seat beside you. The leather jacket was replaced with a denim one, his black button up tighter around his chest than Tuesday’s white t-shirt. “And you charged your computer! Very nice, doll.”

You shrugged, going back to your doodling. “Time management’s always been a bit of an issue for me.”

“Ah. Gotchu, gotchu. I’ve got a pal like that too. A couple of them, actually.” He chuckled. “Is that why you high-tailed outta here Tuesday?”

“I’ve got work right after this class.” You answered shortly.

He leaned his elbow on the table, his legs spread as he turned fully to, a slight smirk on his face. “I haven’t seen you ‘round campus before. You new here? A freshman? You don’t look like it.”

You hummed. “Maybe. It’s a big campus.”

“Which you don’t live on.”

Frowning at the question that he said more like a statement, you moved your head back to him. “I don’t?”

He shook his head, setting his cheek in his palm. “Nope. I know everyone who lives on campus.”

A bit distracted due to Professor Coulson just walking in and announcing the lesson for the day, you hummed and shut your notebook and set up a page on your laptop for notes. “Everyone, huh?”

He nodded with a click of his tongue. “I get around.”

There it was. “Oh? A party animal?”

“I wouldn’t say that. My friends and I are just outgoing. We enjoy life.”

“Enjoy life or enjoy getting into girl’s pants?”

He hissed, shaking his hand like he burned it. “Ouch, doll. That stung. For your information, quite a few people in my group are goin’ steady. And we’re of mixed genders and sexualities. It’s not always girls’ pants.”

You raised an eyebrow, turning to him while still trying to pay attention. “For you or your group.”

“Does it matter?” He shrugged. “Would it bother you if I did fuck guys? ‘Cause I have experimented and it’s not half bad.”

“Nope.” You popped the ‘p’, shaking your head. “You do you, pal. Or…do whoever you want to. Now if you don’t mind, I’m trying to-”

He nodded. “Right, right. Yeah. Sorry. Just…listen. I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m not gonna force you to do anything, you know. Yeah, sure, I’ve seen a few beds around campus, but I’ve got female friends who I don’t sleep with. What if I just wanna be friends with you, huh doll?”

“Just friends?”

“Yup.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Okay. How many of these so-called female friends you don’t sleep with single?”

He chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “The list gets smaller, but yeah.”

“How about single straight female friends?”

He paused at that, eyebrows scrunched up. After a moment you clicked your tongue with a slight smirk, facing your computer and typing the notes Coulson was writing on the projector. “Hold on, hold on. Yes, I’ve got a few of them. Listen, babygirl, you’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be.”

You scoffed. “Don’t call me ‘babygirl’ and we’ll see where that gets you.”

“Okay, okay. That’s fair. What? Don’t you believe that guys and girls can be friends with nothing between ‘em?”

“Yeah, I do. Just not guys like you.”

He frowned, eyes narrowing. “Well that’s not fair. You don’t even know me!”

“Mister Barnes.” Bucky winced at the teacher’s annoyed shout, before throwing Coulson a dashing grin.

“Hey, Phil! How was your summer, man? You still goin’ out with that cellist?”

The professor raised his eyebrows, unamused. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

“Oh yeah! Thanks for the reminder, Phil!” Bucky stood up and cleared his throat. “Yo! First football game of the season is next Friday! It’s gonna be a blast! Watch out for number 41! Handsome devil’s gonna score the winning touchdown! Avengers assemble, am I right?!”

Coulson gave him an unamused look as the room cheered, making you laugh behind your hand. Bucky fell back into his seat, shooting you a wink as Coulson calmed down the room.

“You’re a football player?”

“Fullback, yes ma’am. Co-captain of the team, in fact.” He smugly leaned his seat onto the back two legs, setting his feet up on the desk.

Unbelievable. Why were you always attracted to these idiots? A player in both senses of the word. “There it is.”

He blinked, his chair falling forwards with a ‘thud’ that made Coulson shot him a warning glare. Bucky smiled innocently, before shifting his chair so he was turned towards you again, the smile turning upside down. “There what is?”

“That cocky, conceited air you fill the room with. Attention is what you live for. I should’ve guessed you were a jock too. I’m surprised you’re not wearing a letterman jacket or something just to make sure everyone knows who you are.”

His frown deepened. “Look, doll. I dunno what you think you know about me, or what you’ve heard-”

“I’ve never heard about you before you lent me a pen Tuesday. Which I appreciate and here it is back, by the way. But I know your type. I’ve been down that road. So excuse me for trying not to make the same mistake twice.”

He stared at the pen you set down by his bag, before his gaze flitted back to you, but you wouldn’t meet those pretty eyes of his. “Fine. Sue me for trying to get to know the new girl.”

“This is a mainly freshman class. Half the girls in here are new.”

“Yeah, but they’re chattering away with the posse they’ve already discovered.” He nodded over across the room. Your eyes scanned the lecture hall to find that he was right. Most girls were giggling and whispering to each other, no doubt freshman straight from high school. The others were most likely maturing sophomores. “And, hey, if you want extra reassurance I’m not trying to get you in my bed; I don’t fuck with freshman. Nothing against you or anything, just…straight outta high school and all that? Not really my jam.”

You eyed him, before shrugging and looking down to make sure you got the notes Coulson was starting to talk about. “Yeah, well, too bad I’m not straight out of high school, then.”

He tilted his head, an eyebrow raising in curiosity. “So you’re not a freshman. I didn’t think you were.”

“No, I am. But I took a year break between high school and college. But if you didn’t think I was a freshman, that reassurance doesn’t really work, now does it.” He opened his mouth to defend himself, but you continued, not wanting excuses. “What about you? You’re definitely not a freshman.”

“Nah. I’m a junior. I studied abroad for a semester last year and there were mishaps my freshman year, so I’ve got a few classes to make up. My friend had this class last year, so I just took all his notes. Coulson never changes his lectures. Pretty sure he doesn’t even change the tests.” You hummed, pretending you were barely listening when you really heard every word loud and clear. Bucky huffed, reaching out to grab your wrist gently, making you stop typing and look up to meet his eyes. “Can we start over? Please. I don’t know what type of guys you used to know or whatever and, yeah, I’ll admit I started the conversation like an idiot, but I promise I’m not that bad.”

Pursing your lips, you scanned his features, taking in the pleading eyes and the pouty lips. Clearing your throat, you took your hands off the keyboard, straightened a bit, and turned to him, holding out your hand, your full name falling from your lips.

The beam he gave you had you severely doubting your initial thoughts about him, his larger, calloused hand taking your eagerly. “James Barnes. Everyone calls me Bucky.”

You nodded, before starting to type again. “What are you studying?”

“Mechanical engineering.”

You paused, not expecting that answer. Maybe you were wrong - majorly wrong. “Really?”

“Yeah. I dunno. Technology’s always interested me and I like fixing cars and stuff; I work at an auto shop actually. I dunno what I’m gonna do with it yet, but it feels like a step in the right direction, ya know?”

“I’m afraid not.” You shook your head. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He chuckled, drumming his fingers against the table. “That’s alright, doll. I don’t think anyone does. They just think they do.”

“That’s…very true, actually.”

He grinned, running a hand through his hair again, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “I told you: I’m not an idiot all the time. I swear.” That made you laugh.

Bucky talked to you throughout the rest of the class, never going above a whisper as he babbled about his other classes and how one of his friends, Sam, tripped down the stairs that morning. You were almost annoyed at him, but he was a very good conversationalist and he wasn’t distracting you too badly. There weren’t any awkward pauses while he stumbled around for something to talk about and if he wasn’t talking, it was a comfortable silence filled with Coulson’s voice, pen scribbling on paper, and the clicking of computer keys. He never pushed you for responses, either, only asking a couple questions, like where you worked and what other classes you had.

“Sorry if I’m bothering you.” He said a few minutes before class was over. “I’m just bored.”

“No. You’re fine.” Honestly, besides a few flirty comments and that pet name ‘doll’ popping up here and there, he wasn’t as bad as you were thinking.

He went quiet for a moment before clearing his throat, almost nervously. Your forehead creased as you snuck a glance at him. He licked his lips, a hand combing through his locks, scratching the back of his head. You wondered why he did that so often.

“So, uh, there’s this cabin in the woods by the lake about half an hour away…” His eyes widened at the weird look you shot him. “Oh fuck, that sounds so bad. No, no. It’s not - I’m not a serial killer or anything. My friend owns it. Well, technically his dad does, but it’s his. Anyways, he always throws a party the first weekend of a new semester. On Saturday. Noon to midnight. If you’d wanna come.”

You quirked an eyebrow, packing up your stuff as Coulson dismissed class early. “You’re asking me to go to your friend’s cabin in the woods-?”

He shook his head with a little laugh. “It sounds so sketchy. I promise it’s legit, though. Honest. You can ask anyone. It’s Tony Stark’s party. He holds one every-”

“You’re friends with Tony Stark?”

He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. We’re in the same circle. I know how it sounds, but-”

“I’m working.” You cut him off, finding it amusing how he rambled. Who knew a fuckboy could get so nervous about asking a girl to a party. “But if you give me the address I’ll see if I can get some time off.”

“That’d be awesome. Yeah, yeah. Here.” He quickly grabbed the post-it note you handed to him and scribbled the address down. “It’d be really cool if you could make it.”

“I’ll try. Cross my heart.” You smiled, taking the paper from him. “I do have to go, though-”

“Oh right. Yeah. Work. I’ll see you this weekend, then. Maybe.” He grinned.

You bit your lip, nodding. “Maybe.”

As he started walking out, you looked down to grab your bag, the pen left on the table catching your attention. “Hey!” You called after him, making him turn around, walking backwards with that grin still on his lips. You lifted the writing utensil to show him. “Your pen!”

He shook his head. “Keep it! I don’t take notes in this class anyways!” He shot you a wink, before spinning on his heel, his hands in his pockets, whistling some random tune, without a care in the world.

**********************

“There she is! So?! How’s school been?! I wanna know!”

You grinned at Whitney as she bounced in, looking at you excitedly while going to wash her hands. “You’re working early today. It’s only 3.”

She shrugged. “They wanted me in before dinner rush tonight. Don’t dodge the question!”

“It’s been fine. I’ve met a couple people, doodled a few things, ignored syllabus talk - the usual.”

She sniggered, moving her eyebrows. “Any cute guys so far?” You thought back to your History lecture and Bucky, who confused the hell out of you. Whitney’s squeal pulled you out of your thoughts. “That’s a yes! Tell me about him immediately!”

“It’s not a ‘yes’. There’s nothing to tell.”

“But he is hot, right?”

You rolled your eyes, but your lips pulled up at the corners. “He’s…very easy on the eyes.”

Whitney gave an excited squeak, quickly drying her hands and putting on gloves before sliding up to you. “So? Tell me all about him.”

“Nothing to tell.”

“Bull.” She called out. “What’s his name?”

You huffed, focusing on the pizza you were making. “Bucky.”

She tried it out on her tongue before nodding. “Cute, cute. How old is he?”

“He’s a junior, so I’m guessing 20. Maybe 21 if his birthday was in the past week.”

Whitney hounded on you for every detail of your conversation, which you told her with some exception, leaving out the pen and some of the random stuff he told you. “So he’s a fuckboy?”

“Oh yeah. No doubt.”

“But he’s a charming fuckboy?”

“Mhmm.”

“And he’s not a dick?”

“So far.”

“So…he’s your type.”

You scoffed, giving her a look. “I don’t have a ‘type’.”

She gave you a bemused expression back. “Honey, it’s not a secret you like the charismatic guys that every girl swoons over. You just don’t swoon over them and that’s what makes you different.”

You scowled. “I don’t swoon over them because they don’t deserve my effort. And no. I don’t have a thing for them. I just…tend to get their attention more than other guys.”

“Because you don’t swoon over them.”

“Whitney-”

“Okay, okay. What happened next?”

You shrugged. “Nothing. He just sorta…talked the entire class. He did invite me to a party on Saturday though-”

“Oh my God! You have to go! College parties are the best! You’ll have so much fun!” She stopped to give you a serious look, pointing a finger towards you. “You’re going, right?”

“I dunno. Maybe. I’ve got to ask Phillips if I can get time off and I-I dunno if I even want to go.”

Whitney groaned, throwing her hands in the air and letting her head fall back. “This is the first party of your college life! There shouldn’t be any doubt!”

“Apparently Tony Stark is the one throwing it-”

“Are you fucking - you can’t not go!”

You snickered, Whitney’s persistence amusing you. “Again. It depends on Phillips. We’ll see. I promise.”

“At least tell me you got this guy’s number.”

“Nope.”

Whitney glared at you. “You are the absolute worst person to try getting drama out of, you know that? You’re not interested at all in this guy?”

You shrugged, turning to throw the pizza in. “Maybe. I wanna try out this whole friend thing first. Tommy’s the first real guy friend I’ve had since middle school and that’s mostly because he’s gay and we barely even talk outside work. I’ve never just…let myself take a break from dating before.”

A sigh came from the other girl, who reluctantly nodded. “That’s good, actually. Take a mental break. I respect that. But please, for the love of God, please try to have fun.”

You smirked, nodding. “I’ve told you, Whit. I know how to have fun. Don’t worry; if I do go to that party, I’ll have enough for both of us.”

“Yes! I have to live college through you now, so it’s your responsibility!”

You mockingly saluted. “I won’t let you down, babe.”

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yellowocaballero · 3 years

Text

The Crocodile's Dilemma: In Which Helen exploits Michael's Labor, Michael suffers an un-identity crisis, and unpaid internships should be illegal

It’s tough being a teenage embodiment of the Spiral. Your boss/wine aunt figure Helen’s a Tory, your inattentive cousin figure Mike Crew keeps attending philosophy classes and day drinking, and you’re pretty sure that this internship doesn’t have any dental. At least it’s good job experience for your future career in...being evil? But do you even want to be evil?

This small story is technically part of my Roleswap AU, but I specifically wrote it so that no knowledge is required. Still, if you’re wondering why Michael’s an eighteen(ish) year old, Mike Crew’s an Avatar of the Spiral, and everybody is obsessed with Melanie King, check it out. Still, no need. Rest under the cut.

Maybe Helen was right.

Not that Helen was ever strictly right, much as Helen was never wrong, but Michael just had to be doing this whole fear demon thing incorrectly. If someone had explained the whole fear demon thing to them two years ago (“Okay, so it’s like you’re the semi-sentient appendage of an extradimensional force of evil that has to consume trauma relentlessly in order to propagate its own debatable existence, also you’re nonbinary now, no those things are not strictly related, probably”), then they would have called them crazy. Which, of course, they were, but that wasn’t the point. So long as the point existed. So long as anything -

An essential theorem within quantum physics was the quantum Zeno effect.

Simply put, it was the fact that a quantum state would decay if left alone, but does not decay under continuous observation. Even observing the results after the photon is produced leads to collapsing the wave function and loading a back-history as shown by delayed choice quantum eraser. If something was seen, it no longer existed; if something persisted unperceived, it would exist as long as it liked.

So it was explained to Michael by the physics professor he was torturing that day. Michael had trapped the man in the physics building of his university, lured in by one too many late nights in his office and the persistent sense that his life was going nowhere meaningful. After a few classes spent sitting in on his Physics 101 class, maintaining constant and forever eye contact, Michael had eventually tricked the man into giving a persistent and ongoing physics lecture to an empty classroom, desperately trying to explain the inexplicable to a college freshman who did not care. Truly miserable, yet ultimately harmless - Michael’s favorite kind of trick.

But, despite themself, Michael grew interested. They didn’t understand any of what the man was talking about, but that was all of the fun. Understanding ruined the magic of things; broke down the beauty of the universe into cogs and gears. No thanks. They could tell that it bothered the professor, that he said so much and yet knew nothing. That there was so much he would never know, and that he wasn’t so smart after all. How would any of his colleagues respect him?

“So photons degrade if they’re observed?” Michael asked one day, after...some period of time. They had raised their hand and everything, they were so proud of themself. Uni was just like secondary school after all. “Is that true of people too?”

The professor had sweated, deeply uncomfortable with Michael as a person and as a non-euclidean concept. “No - no, not at all. Humans are much more than photons -”

Michael grinned. It wasn’t quite right. “Are you sure?”

The professor sweated harder. “I - no, I’m not. But humans are constantly observed by - by the universe, or something.”

Michael grinned sharper. “Are you sure? Are you being observed right now? Are you sure?”

And the professor was not sure, not anymore, and the fragment of this man’s reality collapsed.

Well, Michael thought to themself, slipping out of an improbable yellow door, that’s another Statement for the Magnus Institute. Not that they would read it.

****

“Now, remember this - the first step to being a successful Avatar is presentation!”

Michael squinted at Helen dubiously. “I thought we were fear demons?”

Helen sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with two sharp knife fingers. It looked as if it hurt quite a bit, but Michael reasoned that they had probably gone through the fifth dimension. “This is the stupidest dimension - fine, fine! Fear demons, then. It is absolutely vital that we conduct our business with style, grace, and the slightest sprinkling of pizazz!”

Just for the flourish, Helen twirled her fingers, and a faint shower of confetti came raining down from the ceiling. Michael sneezed.

“I thought it was vital that we harvest fear and trauma from people to propagate our cursed existence,” Michael said.

Helen’s eyebrow twitched. “More than two things can be vital, Michael. Please pay attention. Now, as a demonstration, I’d like you to take a gander at that man over there.”

Obediently, Michael looked across the bar. They were sitting on barstools in a high-class pub, because Helen knew her worth and never settled for anything less, with glass counters and lots of private booths. But all pubs had their sad men drinking alone, and this one was no exception.

This man wasn’t sullen and slow like a lot of them. He was wearing a nice suit and thin tie, looking straight out of Canary Wharf. Michael silently agreed with Helen’s choice - they took eat the rich very seriously, and also literally. He also seemed a little jumped up on something, with shaking hands and erratic eyes.

“He looks happy,” Michael observed. “Think it’s his birthday?”

“He’s on cocaine, Michael,” Helen said flatly. “Cocaine. We are at a posh bar, and he is currently doing a line off his watch.”

Oh! Michael suddenly felt very uncool. They had never been one of those people in secondary school who did cocaine. They hadn’t been cool. “I knew that,” Michael bluffed. “What are we going to do to him?”

“Take the teenager as your intern, they said,” Helen groused, “it’s investing in the future, they said, it’ll stop them from eating you when they grow up, they said.” She sighed, jabbing a finger at the now very obviously coked up man who was staring at the bottles behind the bartender as if they were whispering secrets of the universe into his ear. Helen liked that one. “Use your intuition. Find a good angle to squeeze. What are his weaknesses to exploit?”

Oh, Michael knew how to do this. They shifted vibrations just a bit, dropping out of what Michael liked to call the ‘mild’ spectrum into the ‘spicy’ spectrum. They were distantly aware of a patron’s glass shattering.

They squinted at the man, picking out his little fears and insecurities like Dionysus picking grapes. Maybe. Michael had gotten a C in English, but they were somewhat cognizant of the Spiral munching heavily on Bacchanalia. Sometimes they felt like some of those children who spoke in tongues and claimed to be from a past life. That had also been the Spiral.

“He owns a Nintendo NES,” Michael said confidently, absolutely sure that this was important. Helen groaned. “His house is painted white, and his girlfriend does tax fraud.”

“Something relevant?” Helen hinted desperately.

Michael just squinted at her. “Relevant to what?”

“...good point. But something useful, please.”

Picky. Michael scowled, but gave the man another good gander. “He only remembers faint details of his father’s face, and he worries that his recollections aren’t accurate,” Michael proclaimed finally.

Helen clapped, delighted, as Michael took a careful sip of their water, turning it into fizzy water. She took a sip of her own wine, turning it into champagne. Or maybe just sparkling unreality? “Wonderful. Now, how should we play this? Insert a false father into his life, completely separate from his recollections, or is that a bit too Stranger? I suppose we could do some good old-fashioned gaslighting, but sometimes that’s just a bit too Melanie, if you catch my drift -”

“Are you jealous that the Archive girls are better at gaslighting than you are?”

“Shut it, kid,” Helen hissed, before taking a long drag of her champagne. “My vote is that we convince him to top off his coke bender with some LSD. Then he hallucinates - oh, he hallucinates that he’s in a mental institution, that’s a good one -”

“Why don’t we shift everything thirty cm to the right?” Michael asked brightly.

Helen squinted at them. They beamed back.

“You are so bad at this,” Helen said.

Michael would have felt crushed if Helen didn’t express this sentiment roughly once per lunar cycle, contrariwise. As it was, they bore the criticism with a stiff upper lip. Helen had her way of harvesting fear from unsuspecting humans, and Michael had theirs. “Look, Helen, you’re being uncreative! We don’t have to traumatize people every single time.”

Helen squinted further. “We’re personifications of deceit. We eat trauma.”

“No, we eat confusion,” Michael pointed out patiently. “Look at it this way. If you give someone one really terrible experience, then they repress it for the rest of their lives and consider it a brush with Hell. One and done, see? But if you minorly inconvenience them for a really long time, then they’ll never be able to break out of it. They’ll feel as if something’s wrong, but they’ll never know it. You can keep the game going for years that way!”

The idea was very good. Michael had been working on it for a while. Truth be told, Michael felt bad traumatizing people outright and making them scream and cry and everything. They always felt as if they were doing something wrong by making other people’s existences a living nightmare. Michael much preferred rigging a corn maze so you were stuck in it for days inside the maze but only an hour outside. It was funner, and much more confusing.

But Helen just pursed her lips and stared Michael up and down, making them squirm awkwardly on their barstool. Finally, as if she was delivering a life sentence, she imperiously said, “Well, we all have our different styles, I suppose! It would be quite boring if we were both exactly the same.” Michael nodded vigorously at this, and Helen held up a scaly claw. “But! You’re my intern, which means that you’re learning from the master here. So shut up and let me teach you how to ruin lives.”

“Yes, boss,” Michael said miserably.

Helen tsked, but she patted them on the head anyway. It tasted like batteries. “Honestly, kid. A literal bleeding heart’s fun for the whole family, but a metaphorical bleeding heart will get you nowhere in life. You can’t exist as you are and feel bad for them. It ruins the point. It’s a paradox.”

“I thought we liked paradoxes, though?”

Helen shrugged, downing the rest of her wine. “Rules for thee but not for me, honey. But I’m a good boss and drunken aunt figure, so I’ll appease you today. Now come on, let’s convince this bar to vote for Brexit.”

They did. It was quite fun after all, tricking a roomful of people into doing something actively against their own interests. But something about the whole thing left a strange taste in Michael’s mouth: not the good kind of strange, or the bad kind of strange that was also good. Just strange, and undeniable, and something that couldn’t be exploited at all.

****

Maybe Helen was right.

Michael was a bad fear demon of the Spiral and Infinite Twisting and That Is Not What It Is and The Twisted Door, etc, etc, All Fear Its Name, etc etc all Hail, because they didn’t always like how their internal monologue could no longer be described through common language. Words and images and understandings were nothing but approximations for Michael now, and sometimes it was frustrating existing outside the boundaries of understanding. Which, of course, was the point, so long as the point existed, so long as anything existed -

It wasn’t always easy. Still, nobody ever got what they wanted if they weren’t willing to put the effort in. The adult world and labouring under capitalism wasn’t easy for anybody. That was what Mum had always said. Who was Michael to complain about their 9-5? Or 24/24? Or infinite/infinite? Or nothing/nothing? Or -

Was it too much to ask to have a linear thought once in a while?

Helen wouldn’t understand. There were only two other approximations of concepts that Michael knew, and Helen would hardly be any help. The other “person” would probably be a better sounding board, but there was the fact that he was kind of pretentious. Still, it was better than nothing. Well, it was nothing, but only in the sense that everything was - argh!

A yellow door appeared in a nondescript basement, and Michael appeared with it. They melted out of the “wood”, taking a second to check their outfit for this apparition - a nice vintage 50s dress with a painstaking stitch that reminded one of the oppressive nature of housewifery, nice. They elongated their curly blonde hair from a roguish mop into a nice little shag and melted into the crowd.

It must have been a passing period, because Michael was buffeted to and fro by tall white men wearing backpacks and shorter white girls hoisting strangely identical water bottles. Somewhere Northern, Michael decided, likely private and small. Not that it strictly mattered, but it helped to solidify their grip in reality a bit if they had some idea. They already knew geography was purposeless and a distraction from the real issues, like shrimp, but occasionally it could be useful. Helen had been careful to impart the central tenet of existence as a non-euclidean concept in undefinable space in the twenty seventh dimension: location, location, location!

It was obviously the Philosophy Department, because all philosophy classes were held in old basements built in the ‘60s in identical hallways. For kicks, Michael turned all of the school hallways inwards and sent them in a mobius strip, and changed all of the door numbers into a headache. The key to enjoying your job was to take initiative in the workplace environment and to just have fun with it!

Michael found themselves in front of a door identical to all of the others, with fake laminated wood, and they decided to go in. The universe had guided them to this door for a reason, and who were they to reject its call?

The small classroom was like most other small, private colleges in unpopular departments that nobody cared about. Lots of single person desks - Michael snapped their fingers and turned them all into left-handed desks - complete with a smartboard and a teacher’s podium. It was already half-full, so Michael carefully slid into a chair in the back and pretended that they had been there all along. A student wandered close, convinced that this was her seat, but Michael successfully convinced her that a different seat near the front was hers, prompting an impromptu game of musical chairs that sent ripples through the otherwise sedate classroom.

There was a blond student already sitting in the front, flipping through a spiral notebook and clicking a pen in no particular pattern. He was wearing a pea coat, jeans, and his hair was weirdly perfect. Michael wished they had a notebook. Was this what you did in university? They had never had the opportunity to go.

Actually, they had never quite graduated secondary - three months away from graduation, actually. It probably wasn’t all that important. You didn’t really need a diploma to become a trauma eating fear demon. Was there a university of eating fear? That would be funny. What would the classes be in, ‘Enforcing the Powerlessness of Capitalism 101’? What was the difference between that and a Business major?

Maybe Business majors were the real fear demons, Michael thought grandly. It was a good thought, they would have to remember to tell it to Melanie later. Melanie would approve. Hadn’t Tim been a business major? Yeah, in that case she would definitely approve.

The student sitting in the front seemed to have finally noticed the game of musical chairs, and as the professor started clearing their throat and announcing something unimportant to the class, he turned around to find Michael sitting in the back of the class. They waved cheerfully. The student scowled.

‘What are you doing here!’, the guy mouthed angrily.

‘Hi Mike!’ Michael mouthed back.

‘Go away!’ Mike mouthed back.

‘But I’m going to eat your teacher :(‘ Michael mouthed back. They didn’t actually frown.

‘ >:(!’, Mike Crew mouthed back, also without changing his facial expression.

This was probably why Mike wasn’t Michael’s biggest fan. Which was a pity, because Michael thought Mike was really cool. He had the coolest name, for one. But shorter, and snappier. Mike was the kind of name girls would call you at clubs. Michael was what, like, your Mum would say as she yelled at you to clean up your room before her book club girls came over. Why were they girls? They were, like, fifty.

Mike Crew was an Avatar of the Spiral completely unwillingly. Chosen as a child and chased throughout his life by an improbably long lasting Lichtenberg scar, he had eventually succumbed to the inevitable and transformed into an even more improbable man. Personally, Michael found it strange that ‘inevitable’ and ‘Spiral’ was in the same sentence, but - well, it had to be everything at one point. Even a melting clock was right once an endless twilight.

Strangest of all, Mike Crew was a philosophy major. The class, of course, was a high level philosophy course. Mike Crew had been in uni - well, a while - and he tended not to waste his time with the boring shit anymore. Michael listened with interest as the professor dived into the lecture.

Two minutes in, Mike subtly gathered his things and slipped into the conveniently empty chair next to Michael. He was still glaring at them, as Michael tried their best to look innocent and cute. The effect was a little ruined by the inherent maliciousness of Michael’s pores, but they liked to think it was the thought that counted.

“To continue our conversation on the topic of paradoxes,” the professor began, “I’d like to introduce a few thought experiments for your consideration as a class. I’ll mention the concept, and then allow you to break into pairs to discuss them.”

Mike leaned into Michael’s ear. “We were discussing Descartes!”

“But isn’t this more interesting?” Michael asked.

“If you give my professor a mental breakdown we’re going to fall behind on the syllabus!”

“The first paradox I’d like to bring to your attention is the Crocodile’s Dilemma.” The professor flipped to a new slide, which helpfully had a big crocodile on it. Michael admired it. They had seen a crocodile at the zoo once. “Similar to the liar’s paradox, the premise states that a crocodile, who has stolen a child, promises the parent that his or her child will be returned if and only if he or she correctly predicts what the crocodile will do next. The outcome is fairly obvious if the parent states that the crocodile will return the child, but the crocodile faces a dilemma if the parent states that the crocodile will not return the child. No matter the outcome, the crocodile is made a liar: if the crocodile decides to not give back the child then the statement proves to be true, and he ought to return the child, thereby making it false. Whatever the outcome, he still violates his terms.”

Michael raised their hand. Mike forcibly lowered their hand.

“If I give your professor a mental breakdown then you’ll have extra time for the test,” Michael whispered back. Mike seriously considered this notion.

“The next paradox is slightly related,” the professor continued. “The Infinite Hotel Paradox.” Michael’s face stretched into a grin as Mike Crew groaned. “It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely many rooms may still accommodate additional guests, even infinitely many of them, and this process may be repeated infinitely often. This is what we call a veridical paradox: it leads to a counter-intuitive result that is provably true. Therefore -”

“Okay, yeah,” Mike Crew said, slumping in his seat. “You can eat him, this guy is just begging for it.”

“Yay!” Michael went in for the hug, before Mike pushed them away. Michael’s quest for a cool big brother failed yet again. “Do you want to call the -”

“They’re your hallways,” Mike said, persnickety as always. Maybe he was just jealous that he wasn’t a hallway?

Michael raised their hand, patiently waiting for the professor to call on them. He stumbled in the middle of his lecture, adjusting his thick glasses.

“Uh, yes, Miss -”

“You no longer understand gender,” Michael said pleasantly, as they always did whenever they were misgendered. It was an understandable mistake, so they didn’t do it maliciously. Frankly, they just thought it was healthy. Everyone should not understand false things. “Professor, I have a question about the Crocodile’s Dilemma.” They waited for the professor to nod, somewhat confused. “How do you know that didn’t really happen?”

The professor blinked lethargically at them. “It’s a thought experiment. It’s not real, it’s just an idea proposed by philosophers to represent -”

“What makes you so sure?” Michael asked cheerfully. “Crocodiles eat babies. Or dingoes. I think I read a story about this happening in Australia, didn’t you?”

“I - I suppose I did, yes -”

“We wouldn’t talk about it if it didn’t really happen.” Michael felt their voice fall into a rising lilt, like an attractive song that was played to a concert hall but heard only by you. They were distantly aware of Mike lulling the rest of the students into their own hazy daze: aware enough to be confused, but trapped in their seats and the fog of misunderstandings. “Fiction isn’t real. Reality is real. But a thought experiment is in between, isn’t it? Something that strains the boundaries of reality, that proves the fundamental concepts of life, told through a framework of an intrinsic lie. A paradox is a lie telling the truth. You are a truth speaker telling only lies. What you know isn’t so much as anything at all, is it? What do you really know, anyway?”

“One of us tells only the truth and the other tells only lies,” Mike Crew called out, bored. But his eyes were shining in endless refraction, infinite rooms holding infinite guests. “But is it really a lie if you had mistaken it for the truth? What lies are you living, Dr. Young?”

Dr. Young was stammering, eyes swimming, and Michael didn’t dare to break eye contact. It was a delicate spell they wove, but Michael wasn’t so bad at bringing this simmer to a boil. Cooking was about improvisation, and Michael had always been great at that.

“If your life is a lie,” Michael breathed, “then are you really alive?”

It was clear, when it happened: the professor started inhaling deep, deeper breaths, chest wracking with heaves. His eyes rolled up in his head, he clutched at his chest, and he finally slumped down on the floor. He twitched, jerking slightly, and he would continue jerking. At which point the students would become aware, and they’d call an ambulance for him, and he would be perfectly alright in the end. If a little mentally scarred.

“Damn,” Mike Crew said, almost impressed, as both he and Michael stood up. He shoved his pens in a backpack, glad to be free of his examination for another week. “What’d you do to him?”

“Made him think he was dead,” Michael said serenely. “He thought his heart had stopped beating so he had a panic attack. He’s going to have to make an appointment with a psychiatrist but he probably should anyway, work’s very stressful for him.”

“Guess I have the rest of the hour off,” Mike sighed, as he held the door open for Michael so they could slip out of the back of the classroom. It was yellow, and a little strange. “Want to grab a pint with me at the campus pub?” He paused a beat. “Wait, are you even old enough to drink?”

“I’m as old as eternity and reborn every second.” Michael paused a beat. “But I was eighteen last time I checked, and I’ll probably be eighteen for a while, so yes?”

“Great, let’s roll. I need a drink.”

****

Mike’s uni’s pub (Michael had asked the name of the uni but the information had, unfortunately, been lost in next Tuesday, so they’ll know then) was the exact opposite of the high class pub Helen had taken them to. Instead of glassy, shiny, and chromey, Mike’s pub looked strongly as if very many people had puked in it and the staff had tackled the problem somewhat half-heartedly. Michael enjoyed the sight of the puke existing in all points in time simultaneously, giving it a sort of weird yellow-ish shine. Actually, maybe all puke had that yellowish sheen?

When they asked Mike about it as they hopped up on the bar, he just sighed. He flagged the bartender down for a pint, and when the bartender squinted dubiously at Michael they revelled into the micro-confusion of ambiguous ages. Micro-feeding? Like mini muffins?

“Helen made a mistake hiring you. She’s stuck us with a perpetual teenager.”

“I’m as much a teenager as you are a uni student,” Michael said pointedly.

“I’m not an embodiment of the It Is What It Isn’t Is,” Mike said, oddly aggressively. “I’m just a normal Avatar.”

“Fear demon.”

“Melanie King isn’t always right and I don’t know why everyone thinks she is.” Big words from an honored Special Guest on her show. There were many in the fear demon community who would kill for the honor. It was a good thing she hated intruders in her Archives - otherwise they’d never leave. “But I’m no different from - that douche Peter Lukas or that stoner Elias Bouchard or that btich Annabelle, okay? I’m just a guy. Who eats trauma. Plenty of guys do that.”

“Very good denial of reality!” Michael approved. “Normally Helen tells me to go further into denying reality as a concept, though.”

“God, you hallway people are impossible to have a normal conversation with.” Mike huffed, clearly not as irritated as his words would imply. Michael also approved of the incongruity. “I’m assuming that you’re here for absolutely no reason and that you have no idea why or how you ended up at my uni.”

Michael shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, I am here for a reason.” At Mike’s extreme surprise, they hurriedly clarified, “Not with any goal, meaning, or intention in mind! But I just wanted to talk about something to someone who wasn’t technically another facet of my meaningless whole. Helen and I are as index and ring fingers on the same hand, but we don’t really get each other sometimes, you know?”

“Does that make you the pinky finger?”

“I actually had a hypothetical for you.” At Mike’s nod, Michael snagged a napkin from the stack on the sticky bar and began creasing it, somewhat anxiously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, you were a teenagerish nongendered sentient hallway intern who happens to eat trauma.”

“This isn’t much of a hypothetical,” Mike said flatly.

“I’m a hypothetical person. And I’m only a person hypothetically.” Michael started making little folds in the napkin, twisting it up into a strange origami. “So, let’s say, hypothetically, that this person - their name is Michael - enjoyed being them. It wasn’t always fun, and sometimes they kind of missed the world making sense, or at least not making sense in a familiar way. And sometimes Michael got tired of being a sentient hallway and wanted to finish secondary. And maybe even sometimes Michael grows sad that both their parents were eaten by their new boss, who is kind of a Tory! But that’s all fine. Michael’s probably happier like this than they ever were even when they did have parents.”

Mike Crew stared at them a little, slowly sipping his pint.

Michael hunched their shoulders, and folded up the napkin further and further. They had read somewhere that any piece of paper can only be folded seven times. They folded the napkin seven times, then eight, then nine, then ten. That was something nice about the way things were now, they supposed: no rules, absolute freedom. Only rules, no freedom. That was what Dr. Yung would call a paradox. “But maybe the worst part about this new job is that Michael doesn’t really like hurting people. Sometimes it’s fun to randomly make people very upset, and you always kind of end up doing it anyway, but after a while Michael feels kind of bad about it. Michael likes doing other things better, like making terrible roundabouts and rearranging the pages of books. Maybe they even like reading books. They like reading comic books backwards, from the last page to the first, so every panel is a surprise.”

“There’s lots of ways to be a fear demon,” Mike pointed out, almost gently. Maybe only because he could relate. “Look at me. I’m not feeding off anyone. Just myself.”

“But I like the way I do it,” Michael said, frustrated. “Helen keeps trying to get me to do it the way she does it, but the point is that we aren’t the same. What’s the point in having two of us if both our viewpoints are the same? We’re different in every way, but we’re the same being. I just want to be the Spiral the way I want. Not the way Helen wants.” Their voice lowered, almost unwilling to say what they were about to say. “Not the way the Spiral wants.”

Mike stared at them for a long time, slowly sipping his beer, and Michael focused their efforts on forcing this improbable napkin into something that could be beautiful. A lotus flower? A mobius strip? Or should they just let it happen as it happens, and see what form it decided to take?

Finally, Mike said, “You are the Spiral.”

“Then why am I always disagreeing with it?” Michael asked miserably.

“Why are you, Helen, and the Spiral always disagreeing?” Mike pointed out. “Maybe that’s the point. So much as anything’s a point. Isn’t it the most perfect paradox of all, to split yourself into portions that are always disagreeing and bickering? Maybe everything you’re feeling is on purpose. I mean, it’s kind of improbable that you’re feeling at all, right?”

“I retained a lot of humanity,” Michael said. “Maybe a bit too much, actually?”

“Right.” Mike nodded decisively. “Then that’s the appeal. A human mind will always strain against its confines. It will always want different, want the same, want the old and the new and the perpetual and the fleeting and the eternity and the moment. What’s more nonsensical than a human? What’s more contradictory than human nature?” A dark shadow passed over his face, just for a second. “The Spiral kidnaps us and turns us into it. One part of our minds is entrenched in its eternity, and another part is always screaming in agony. But predominantly we are the unholy mixture of human and Entity, oil forced into water. It’s so intrinsically horrifying and wrong that we just get used to it. We are both demon and human, and so we’re neither, and so we’re both. Isn’t it weird, Michael, that unlike so many other Avatars, none of us want to be here?”

“You’re a very philosophical person,” Michael said diplomatically.

“Thanks, I think too much about my lot in life.” Mike Crew sighed, slumping on his barstool and knocking back more of his pint. “I wish you and Helen would stop showing up in my life so often. When you aren’t around, I can almost pretend I’m a person.”

“That’s why we show up,” Michael felt obligated to point out.

“Yeah, I know,” Mike said glumly. “I always know. I can’t stop knowing.”

There was nothing Michael could say or do that fixed this, or that could make Mike feel better. They understood, just a little - that nostalgia for a kinder time. But maybe it was more that Mike never had those halcyon, innocent days. He had lived life since childhood in aching knowledge that his days were numbered. Maybe that’s why Mike was allowed to live life as a human even now: his human life was just as confusing and isolated as his afterlife, and that when fear stained every second of his life there was no point in ceasing it.

Maybe Michael couldn’t keep their human life because they had been happy. At the very least, they had been ignorant. That was one thing the Spiral could not abide: ignorance.

These days, Michael knew everything. They knew everything so, so much.

So, in lieu of comforting falsehoods, Michael offered Mike Crew a slightest sliver of truth. They passed Mike the little piece of origami that they had made, and let Mike cradle it in his large and smooth hands.

The origami had no shape. It wasn’t folded into anything. It was just a meaningless amalgamation of points, corners, and creased paper. It didn’t look like anything at all.

“See?” Michael pointed out. “It’s a bear.”

Mike Crew smiled weakly. “Looks like a sea goat to me.”

There was something beautiful in ambiguity. When something was nothing, it could be everything at once. That was rather Michael’s favorite thing about it.

“I think it’s a self-portrait,” Michael decided.

And that, at least, was as true as anything else.

***

Michael wandered their hallways.

On some level, they were pretty much perpetually doing that. Even as one facet of them talked with Michael in a campus pub, even as another helped Helen convince a high class pub into voting Brexit, even as they traumatized a physics professor, they wandered these hallways.

Make no mistake: everything in this story has/will/is happened/happening simultaneously.

Of course, on another level Michael was literally their hallways, and thus they were not so much wandering as existing. Pulsating, one could say. Even twisting, if one would be so bold.

There was a mirror, in the hallway. Not a funhouse mirror - although Michael did enjoy popping out from those and scaring Nikola - but just a mirror. Gilded around the edges, ornate with swirling curlicues. You could see yourself in it. You could see a lot of yourself in it. It wasn’t what you had always looked like, not really, but you just had the sense that this was what you really looked like. Maybe you had always looked like this, and everybody was just too polite to tell you. Were you really a brunette? This mirror had to be right. You had been a blonde all along. Nobody had told you. They were laughing at you. They were laughing -

But this was Michael, and Michael’s, and nothing in here could harm them. It was even comforting. They looked at themselves in the mirror, and saw themselves same as ever. Or not same as ever. They were still Michael, so far as Michael was Michael.

Shortish. Blondey. Raggedy hair. Curled as much as anything’s curled. Fun clothing that they really enjoyed. Tall shoes, because they liked feeling tall. Similar dimensions to the golden number. Non linear, but who’s counting? It was what they typically looked like.

But, just for a second, Michael even fooled themselves. They saw someone in the mirror that they were not, someone who they had never been, someone who they never will be. Someone different.

Michael, just like everyone else, couldn’t stop themselves from reaching out. Come back. Come back! Let me touch you, let me be you! Michael’s fingers brushed the shiny glass, and the world tilted sideways, and Michael fell into where the sidewalk ended.

They emerged, or maybe they had always been, inside a bedroom. It was a nice little suburban bedroom. It had a peaked ceiling and a window seat. The walls were a soft, navy blue. There was a young person, lying on the shag carpet, leafing through a book. Big headphones were over their ears, and they were bopping along to music. Disco.

Michael stood, an intruder into a familiar space, and watched the stranger. Their throat felt oddly tight, and their eyes felt strangely hot. The stranger was smiling faintly, flipping the pages of their book somewhat mindlessly. They were reading it for school. Flatland. It was just an assignment, but it was really fucking them up. It was making them think about all of these things that they didn’t normally, in new dimensions. It was really cool. All of their friends were just reading the Sparknotes, but they really wanted to talk about it with someone.

This, of course, had happened. It will happen in the future. It was happening now, as Michael watched the scene with an electric sadness. It would never happen, because the Spiral had never been here, and never would be, and always was.

A knock echoed on the door, several sharp raps. Michael didn’t notice, legs swinging to the music.

The knock on the door hit louder. “Michael!” A voice echoed from behind it. “Michael, are you ready to go?”

Michael reached up and slid off their headphones, without looking up from their book. “Coming!” They called back. “Be right there!”

The Spiral watched Michael, who hummed absentmindedly as the door knocked again. Dad was downstairs, making sure the gas was off and shutting off the lights. Mum was knocking, knocking, knocking, on a door that was and will always be wood.

“Have you packed yet?” Mum called.

“Sure I have!” Michael yelled back, glancing at the empty suitcase on the bed and the messy pile of clothes right next to it. They pushed themselves up, flipping the book shut and rising to their feet. “Be right out!”

“Hurry up,” Mum called, as the Spiral mouthed the words along with her. “We’re going to be late!”

The Bermudas aren’t going anywhere, Michael thought spitefully. They stuffed their clothes haphazardly in a suitcase, took far more care to pack their laptop and DS, and shoved Flatland in a side pocket of their backpack.

When Michael slung on his backpack, unfolded the handle from their suitcase, they were not even looking at the door they left through. They were entirely focused on managing the unruly suitcase, and walked straight through the crazed yellow door.

Of course, Michael walked out. Slightly stranger, a little better, a lot worse. Exactly the same. They were back in their hallways again, fresh from their little suburban bedroom and the child exiting one world and entering one quite different. Maybe one part of that child would always be in that bedroom, another part in these hallways, and another part always caught in that doorway and the transition.

Simultaneously, in all points in time, Mum knocked on that wood door, and Michael never let her inside. Simultaneously, at all points in time, Michael watched it all happen.

They hadn’t expected it to be so comforting. At all moments in time, in a little corner of their heart, Mum knocked on their door. If the Spiral lived in your soul and beat your heart, it was easy to find the beauty in it - the magnificence of eternity, and the joy in the moment. Mum was with them - literally, as he was pretty sure Helen was still digesting her. Maybe nothing was ever truly over - just over there.

Michael stuck their hands in their pockets, whistling a jaunty tune that highly resembled the Shepherd’s Tone. Their hallways pulsated comfortingly, and Michael carefully toed off their platform shoes and eyed down the infinite hallways. No rugs for a while.

Maybe Michael, Mike Crew, and Helen should get together more often. Just the three of them. They would drive each other batty. It would be a lot of fun.

Michael set off running down the hallway, and skidded on their socks down the hardwood floor, whooping in joy as they skidded endlessly towards eternity.

#my writing #the magnus archives #tma #the magnus archives fanfic #tma fanfic #michael the distortion #helen the distortion #michael #helen #michael shelley #helen richardson #mike crew #the distortion #the spiral #Michael views their life as an embodiment of terror and unreality as roughly equivelant to capitalism #Helen is kind of regretting hiring this kid but it's probably the only thing stopping them from eating her #Mike Crew really really really hates his fear cousins #i had to open a lot of wikipedia pages for this so you're welcome

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dreamescapeswriting · 4 years

Text

Ice Cream and Breakdowns ~OT7 [Request]

↬↬↬Word Count: 2.2K

↬↬↬Genre: Fluff? With a little angst

↬↬↬Pairing: ot7 x reader

↬↬↬A/n: I hope this is okay for you!!!

The sun was starting to rise and you sat up in the bed you hadn't even managed to get a blink of sleep in which made you hate everything around you,

"Y/n? You awake?" You heard one of your boyfriends, Yoongi, ask from the outside of the door he was always the first one awake so he spent the early mornings with you. You would do that every morning, go and sit in the kitchen catching up and talking as if you were alone together but you weren't just dating him, you thought it would be weird at first, dating all of them but it was nice and they all respected the other's time with you.

"Yeah," You heard his footsteps leave meaning he was going to make you both some coffee to wake up with so you groaned into the pillow knowing you had to start your day. You ran your hand through your hair and slid your legs off the bed going over to the window to look through the blinds at the scenery. The sky was orange with some pink hues to it and it made you despise the colours since it was all you saw nowadays, the sunrise and sunset blurring into one for your mind, you hadn't slept in two days as those 48 hours of no sleep was starting to get to you though you were never going to say anything about it. You swallowed the lump in your throat and went over to your wardrobe to find some clothes for college, you have written and practical assignments to do that day and you weren't ready for any of them but you were going to do your best you could with them. Namjoon had helped you study a couple of nights ago but you didn't think it was enough, everything you ever knew was gone from your mind and you were running blanks thanks to the lack of sleep.

"Jungkook said he heard you walking around at 3 this morning, what's wrong?" You looked up from the apple you were biting into to meet Yoongi's gaze from across the table. Jungkook was always the last one to go to sleep at night so you should have known he was awake last night when you came in.

"Worried about my exams and a little tired." You lied biting into the green apple and trying to ignore the sinking feeling always got whenever you lied to any of them, you felt bad for it but you didn't want to bother them with your problems when they had their own to worry about. They had their comeback coming up and you adding to their stress would only make you feel worse about yourself so you kept it all buried deep inside. The truth was you weren't just 'a little tired' you were exhausted, you hadn't slept properly thanks to worrying about exams, you were stressing about job and college work and you were starting to breakdown a lot more than usual.

"You sure?" You nodded at his question, he didn't believe you for a second but he couldn't push you for answers because you were getting up from the kitchen table and making an excuse to get out of the house sooner. You loved them all but if Yoongi kept questioning you would end up crying in the middle of the kitchen at 7 am. It was always the case you could hold it together until someone asked if you were okay then you would break down into a fit of tears,

"I'll give you a ride-"

"It's fine Jin! I'll be okay!" You rushed out of the front door and practically ran down the street to get away from the house full of 7 guys all asking you the same questions.

"Y/n!?" You heard Namjoon calling but you continued running until you reached a taxi bay and got into a waiting cab, giving him the address to your college and throwing your head back against the leather seats within in the car trying to relax a little.

They had all been texting you throughout the day to see how your exams were going but you were ignoring them, hoping that if you didn't respond the problem would go away and you would be fine.

"Jungkook?" You asked when you walked out into the car park of the college campus, he was stood leaning against the hood of his car waiting for you. He was dressed in a leather jacket, jeans and a baseball cap which meant he wasn't planning on taking you home right away that's when you remembered it was his date night with you.

"Fuck, Kookie I'm sorry. I forgot it was tonight." You said as you walked over to him, he wrapped his arm around you in a friendly manner in case anyone was out with their cameras.

"It's fine, you had exams to worry about. I'll take you for takeout and then we'll go home." You smiled at how understanding he was being and he took your backpack from you throwing it into the back of the car,

"How did the exams go?" You felt your world freeze as he asked that simple question,

"We won't know for a couple of days." You lied looking over at the college doors and wanting nothing more than to run back in and retake everything you had done that day. You'd failed every small exam and then the major one which meant you would have to attend the summer course they would be putting on.

"I'm sure you did great, you're smarter than Joonie," Jungkook said as he started up the engine, you forced a laugh out of your throat trying not to think about it but you knew you were fucked.

"If I come down from this nap and any of you have touched my ice cream, heads are going to roll!" You yelled as you walked through the living room and towards the staircase. You and Jungkook ended up grabbing some fast food before going to get snacks for the weekend, you had decided you wanted to treat yourself to your favourite ice cream for the first time in months.

"We don't even like it," Namjoon said as he looked up from the book he was reading and you smiled kissing them all goodnight before going up to your room. For the first time, you felt like you could actually get some decent sleep but at this point, you would take ten minutes as some decent enough sleep.

As soon as your head hit the pillow you let your whole body relax the boys had taken your mind of off everything that had happened that day and you'd forgotten about failing exams. Listening to the boys downstairs to help you drift off into a deep slumber, they slowly began to quiet down as you got closer to your sleep and were silent to you once you were gone into dreamland.

3 am? Your sleeping pattern was officially broken beyond repair but you didn't care, you'd gotten more sleep that night than you had in 2 days and you were feeling slightly refreshed so you crept out of the bed to go and eat your ice cream from the freezer that you had been dreaming about. Your mouth was watering from just the thought of eating the ice cream, you took your phone from the charger deciding to check if you'd missed anything happening in the group chat, but you had an email from your professor informing you when the summer classes would be starting and giving you the failed grades once again and the real world was starting to crawl back into your mind your vision began to cloud as you could feel the tears building up and there was a lump in your throat, you didn't want to have to think about it right now all you wanted was the ice cream, you didn't want the stress of college or the real world. You pushed away the feeling and locked your phone putting it back on charge and walked down the stairs expecting to find Jungkook on his computer games but he was nowhere to be seen you choked up at feeling more alone and walked into the kitchen for your ice cream.

"Come to mama." You whispered taking it from the freezer and opening it, it was still sealed so you grabbed a spoon from the drawer and took a small spoonful into your mouth. Letting out a moan of pleasure when the ice cream hit your taste buds you'd missed it a lot which seemed silly since it was just ice cream. There was a bang in the living room making you jump you span around quickly and the ice cream slipped from your hand and onto the floor, leaking out onto the tiled flooring and you just stared at it. Everything hitting you all at once like a gigantic wave washing over you all at once, you threw down the metal spoon and slid down the kitchen cupboards bringing your knees into your chest as you cried into them. You felt like an immature child crying over spilt ice cream but it wasn't just that, it was everything building up on top of you that you couldn't even breath anymore. It was like there was a huge weight on your chest and nothing was helping to stop it only adding more and more to it and the only thing that could have helped, the ice cream, was now gone in a flash.

Taehyung was the first one downstairs to see what the bang and scream was, he found you on the floor sobbing into your hands and he didn't say anything. He just sank down beside you bringing you into his arms and holding you while you cried to him, your shoulders shaking whenever you tried to take in a breath.

"Shh, it's okay." He promised as he rubbed your arms but you pushed him away getting up from the floor and looking at him. He stared back at you, your eyes were red from crying and your face was stained with tears.

"It's not okay! Nothing is okay!" You screamed out waking up Jungkook who was the heaviest sleeper in the house, they all came into the kitchen and you were pacing back and forth yelling about everything that came to your mind.

"Nothing is okay! I failed my exams! I'm in the middle of losing my job because my boss is losing money! I can't afford to feed myself, I just- I have to attend summer classes because I'm such a fucking idiot I can't pass a simple exam!" You broke down again falling onto your knees and leaning your head onto the kitchen cupboard beside you. The boys swallowed the lumps in your throat and Hoseok was the first one to go over to you, saying nothing but just wrapping his arms around you as Taehyung had done before.

"I can't- I can't do this anymore." You whimpered to Hoseok as he rocked you back and forth, Namjoon got you some water while Jimin went on the hunt for some blankets for you.

"It's too much." You whispered finally losing the strength to talk or raise your voice for them to finally hear you. With them around you, it no longer felt as though you were drowning under everything you were holding back and you felt better for telling them about everything already.

"You should have told us before," Namjoon whispered an hour later, you were laid on the floor of the living room in front of the TV that had something playing in the background but none of you was paying attention to it.

"I didn't know how." You whimpered as he wiped more tears away from your face you knew now that it would have been easier to deal with things if you had told them.

"You can tell us everything, you know that right?" Yoongi questioned looking over at you, you nodded sleepily and he sighed at how tired you were. They all felt regretful for not noticing how tired you'd become and they began blaming themselves for not noticing though you shut that down quickly when they mentioned it.

"I won't hide anything anymore, promise." You managed to say before falling asleep with your head resting on Namjoon's legs, he was tracing his hands up and down your arm to help you drift off and smiled as you were finally out cold. All of them agreed that it would be better to let you sleep as long as they could let you deciding to take the day off from the studio to work from home for once instead of letting you be alone and from that point forward they were going to make it a regular thing to properly check-in with you. Making sure you were okay and you weren't trying to hide things from them, all they cared about was your happiness and making you happy because they loved you a lot and didn't want anything to happen to you if they could help it.

Tagline:

@writingdreamsnottragedies @yoongisdumplingcheeks @snowy-meowl @lynnthevirgo @jooniesdarlingdimples @kpopfanfictionhoes @lyoongx @callingmyangel @mitzwinchester @btsiguess-kpop @rjsmochii @fan-ati--c

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starkidpotty · 3 years

Text

Should’ve Known Better [GW]

After the Second Wizarding War, the wizarding world faces a great recession that puts you and George in financially and morally compromising situations.

Pairing: George Weasley x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: swearing and terrible use of tenses (im sorry for the grammar)

A/N: written for angst prompt #14 for @kalimagik‘s 1.3k writing challenge!! congrats on 1.3k again!! <3

You had always been good–exceptional, actually–at writing since your teenage years. Essays you’ve written for work assigned by Professor Flitwick managed you top marks. Hell, even Snape commended your writing from time to time (if he wasn’t too busy taking away points from Gryffindor.) Throughout your years at Hogwarts, you entered multiple wizarding writing competitions and won them all. It made sense to you to seek out a job at the Daily Prophet after graduating from Hogwarts to put those writing skills to good use.

Your first year at the Daily Prophet was difficult, to say the least. You were paid almost next to nothing and writing on an empty stomach while worrying if you had enough galleons to pay rent was terrible for your creative process. On top of that, it seems as though whatever piece you made never satisfied your boss, Angel Hornbeam, editor of the Tragedies and Mishaps section of the paper. Each piece you wrote was either sent back with red ink splattered across the parchment with scathing comments on how sophomoric & crass your writing was or outright discarded. You didn’t know what Angel hated more: you or your writing.

There you were walking down Diagon Alley after a grueling day at work. You made two pieces today–only two pieces–that were immediately thrown out to the rejection pile at the corner of Angel’s office. Roan Staghart, a colleague of yours, accidentally spilled pumpkin juice all over you which Angel pointed out and subsequently prompted her to give you a long-winded lecture on how unbecoming it was to sport such an unprofessional appearance in a place of work. You made your way down Diagon Alley with your path only being illuminated by the lights in the shops you passed. You were downtrodden and hungry and lonely and unmotivated and uninspired. You thought about the eviction notice plastered to your flat’s door that you received earlier that day before heading off to work. You thought about the empty pantry in said flat, which then reminded you of your empty wallet. Lost in thought and not looking directly straight ahead, you ram your head straight into the open door of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Your arse lands on the cobblestoned path and you’re clutching your bleeding nose with your right hand, while your left provides support.

“Merlin, I’m sorry!” says one of the Weasley twins as he hurriedly walks toward you.

“Georgie, go get her some ice.” says the twin to the other behind him, still clutching the door open.

“Fred, right? Sorry, I’m shite at telling you and your brother apart.” You say while letting out a humourless chuckle, wincing in pain as you clutch your nose. Fred crouches down to your level.

“S’alright, just know I’m the better looking one.” He pauses, “You’re [Y/N], you were in [Hogwarts House], correct? I remember you selling a pre-written essay to Lee in our fourth year. T’was the only he got an O for, if I recall.” says Fred with a joking grin. George runs back with ice wrapped in a handkerchief which he passes to Fred, which Fred passes to you.

“Had to make money to buy butterbeer at Hogsmeade somehow.” You answer him as you bring the wrapped ice to your nose. Both the brothers smile at you and you smile back.

“Fred and I were actually headed off to dinner at our flat, join us. I suppose it’s the least we could do after the damage we’ve inflicted onto your poor nose.” George proposes.

“I couldn’t impose–”

“Nonsense!” They say in unison. Fred offers you a hand, which you graciously take. He pulls you up and you walk with them to their flat.

You were now at the Weasley twins’ shared flat at the edge of Diagon Alley. It was the best meal you’ve had in weeks, not to mention the twins’ presence was a morale booster in itself. Dinner lasted an hour, but the conversations after lasted well into the night. You wondered why you weren’t friends with the twins during their school years. Perhaps if you detached your hand from your favorite quill and parchment, you would have been. Regardless, that night sparked a friendship.

You were stopping by the shop on your way home from work on the daily and the twins enjoyed your presence so much so they offered you a small, part-time job as a stock keeper as a means to keep yourself afloat while your work your way up the Daily Prophet ladder. They’d come to visit you in their spare time at your dinky flat on the border of Knockturn and Diagon alley. As hard as your first year at the Daily was, your newfound friendship with Fred and George made it all the worthwhile. While you and Fred remained friends, you and George had begun to engage in a shameless “flirtationship” as you coined–always dancing on the border of friends and being more than friends. Stealing kisses in the shop, holding hands underneath dinner tables, George reasoning out to Fred that you needed help at your flat only for him to spend the night, writing little notes for George before he left in the morning. Everyone around you knew you and George were it, as much as you and he tried to suppress it. One day, George decided to make it real and official.

Your personal life had improved immensely after your horrendous first year as a journalist. You were dating George Weasley, your pantry was always full now, and you didn’t have to worry about getting evicted anymore. Your work life wasn’t as terrible as before as Angel Hornbeam turned over a new leaf and was much more forgiving at work. You were finally given a small promotion–not a choice Angel made, but by a higher-up as you stayed loyal to the good of the wizarding world–which offered you enough stability to leave the shop.

The wizarding world at this point in time, however, was not improving. Death eaters infiltrated the ministry and your beloved Hogwarts. They started censoring pieces at the Daily Prophet, much to your chagrin. You couldn’t write or report about tragedies happening as the Death Eaters wanted the media to depict dark wizards as righteous and justify their actions. You moved over to making crossword puzzles for the paper as opposed to spewing lies about Lord Voldemort and his mission to take over the wizarding world. Fred and George had to close down shop for the time being as the Weasleys went into hiding.

Then the Battle of Hogwarts happened. You fought alongside Fred and George, casting spells and charms. Blasting death eaters left and right. You did everything you could to fight against the Death Eaters. But you couldn’t save Fred, nor could George. George was never the same after Fred’s death and neither were you. You were both deeply resigned to grieving and still continue to do so everyday. The sun still rose and set like it always did, but Fred was gone and the world just kept spinning. It left you and George no time to breathe.

The wizarding world slowly built itself back up after the war, with Kingsley Shacklebolt acting as the Minister for Magic. He’d done a bloody good job of it. He purged out the dark wizards from the ministry and from the Daily Prophet, effectively returning most things back to normal. You were back to writing in the Tragedies and Mishap department, but the wizarding world hit a great recession after the war. People were losing jobs left and right; you knew for a fact that your neck was next on the chopping board if you didn’t come up with a good piece soon. Though George was slowly reopening the shop, with the help of his family, it wasn’t enough to keep you and he afloat. Losing this job would bring your right back to where you were your first year out of Hogwarts and you were determined to avoid that.

It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon, two hours to the end of the work week. You haven’t written anything substantial in a while and your desk was evidence. The brown wood was stained with droplets of stray ink from your quill, but they weren’t as obvious because of the crumpled pieces of ripped parchment scattered across the desk. Your hand was ink-stained and your hair was in disarray. To say the least, you looked a mess.

“[Y/N], I need you in my office,” Angel called out to you, peering out of her office door.

You stood up, straightening out your top, trying to look as presentable as possible. Walking over to her office catches the attention of your many officemates. Your stomach begins to feel like a vacuum, sucking in all the air around you, ineffectively trying to get you to breathe. Were your fears getting realized? Was this it for your writing career? So many thoughts raced in your head as you walked–slogged, rather–the distance from your desk to Angel’s office. You reach the archway of her door and she instructs you to close it. You gulp heavily.

“Yes, Angel? Anything I could do for you?” You anxiously choke out. You feel like your guts are about to unceremoniously find its way out your mouth and onto her office floor.

Her office was decorated all in black, from her quills to her velvet wallpaper. Angel stood out in the gloomy decor of her office, sporting an all-white outfit. She says it’s a metaphor–tragedies are both light and dark, simultaneously and she wants to embody that. A little pretentious, but she’s right nonetheless.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to fire you, darling.” Darling, a term of endearment, but never when it came from Angel’s lips. “I’m close, but I won’t. I have a proposition”

You look at her intently, your eyes almost bulging.

“I want an editorial piece on grief and love. I want romance wrapped in despair, topped with angst.” Angel mused.

“I beg your pardon?” You muster out.

“Write about lost love, the war did just happen–it’ll be fresh, uncut,” Angel pauses for dramatic effect, “Absolutely raw.” She clenches her fist in such a theatrical manner, it's almost comical.

You stay silent, unsure of what to say or do. Your face must’ve looked bewildered, as she slouches and rolls her eyes.

“Godric, I want you to interview someone who lost the love of their life because of the war, so to speak. It’ll do wonders for readership. Have you read that muggle story–Romeo and Juliet? Love and tragedy create such a spicy little mix.” She says in response to your look.

“Wouldn’t that be exploitative, no? Everyone’s still grieving.” You question Angel.

“That’s journalism.” Angel’s brows are furrowed and you can tell she’s trying to control her temper. “I better have a damn well-written editorial on my desk come Monday morning. May I remind you, you are the last of your colleagues to have either been promoted up or let go. Do you want to be the latter?”

You gulp, she hasn’t threatened you since your first year at the office. You shakily let out a soft no. She returns with a softly-said good and points you to the direction of her door.

You were on your way home to you and George’s shared flat in Diagon Alley. Your mind was raking itself for who you could possibly call to satisfy Angel’s wants. The gears were grinding hard until you had the aha moment–Angelina. Her and Fred’s relationship was complicated to say the least. They weren’t friends but they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, but they didn’t want to see other people. You could no longer recall what they were and with Fred gone, the answer didn’t seem to matter anymore. The “almost” aspect of the relationship would provide the angst–unfinished business, if you will. Fred’s death and the love that could’ve been. You lit up at the ideas forming in your head, but you feel your conscience gnawing at you. However, you and George had to keep the lights on somehow.

George had beaten you home that night and was eating a packed dinner from Molly on your couch. You hang your bag on the rack next to the door, taking your coat off as well. You walk over to George, plotting your body next to him. Resting your head against his shoulder you say, “How was your day?”

You each share quips about your days at work, leaving out Angel’s request entirely. A silence ensues and you find this to be the most opportune moment to ask him.

“D’you mind having Angelina over tomorrow? A light catch-up? Haven’t seen her since, well, y’know when.” You ask George. His face stiffens.

“Alright, would be good to see an old friend, yeah?” He manages to say. He gets up to write an owl to Angelina. He sends the owl off and within the hour, Angelina’s response comes back. She agrees.

It’s the day of your interview-not-interview with Angelina. You are in the bathroom getting ready while George waits by the door for Angelina. Your self-writing quill for note taking and its accompanying notebook are hidden in a cupboard at the corner of the kitchen that could not be seen from the dining room, ready to start writing at your will.

“Love, Angelina’s here!” George says through the bathroom door. You quickly get out, rounding the corner to get to the living room and see Angelina sat on your sofa. You bring her in for a hug which she happily returns, you feel the guilt creep up again. You try and dismiss the feeling as hard as you can but it lingers like an unwanted guest. Trying to ease your nerves, you invite her to the dining room, where food you cooked in the morning lay waiting.

Angeline told stories about her life as a bigtime Quidditch match commentator and you entertained her with stories from the Sports department. You were both marveling at how much time has changed things since your graduation from Hogwarts to the war to life now. Now’s a good a time as any, your mind reasons out. You muster what little courage you had and shift the topic over to Fred.

“So, Angelina, how have you been holding up, since the battle?” You ask her. George looks at you strangely, as he notes the shift and tone in your voice.

“Uh, well I’m here. Coping. Grieving.” She responds.

“We’re here for you, tell us more.” You say, trying to probe more information out of her. A slimy feeling makes itself known in the insides of your stomach and you try your hardest to ignore it.

Angelina stays silent and then starts, “It’s been rough, Fred–” The winning ticket.

“What about Fred? It was a bit complicated before he died.” Cutting her off, you were siphoning as much information as you can.

“Yes, it was. You know that.” Angelina deflected, but she continued. “I wish there was more time. More time with him.” Her voice grew heavy, but you tried to turn up the pressure.

“Tell me, what would you have done with that time? Were there things you would’ve said? Done?”

Angelina takes an ugly pause.

“Well?” You don’t mean to say this in such a crass and impatient manner, but you do.

At this point, George stands up. He gets uncomfortable and goes to the cupboard to fetch himself a glass of water. As he inches to the cupboard, he hears scratching noises like a quill writing on parchment. He knows exactly what you’re doing now. Opening the cupboard he sees your quill and notebook scribbling away. On the pad is written, “‘A love lost, an almost,’ says Angelina as she begins to tell me about what could’ve been had Fred avoided his untimely death…” George stopped reading. It clicks in George’s head now. It explains the sudden decision to send an owl over to her last night. George’s jaw tenses up.

He grabs a glass, closing the cupboard, while leaving the quill and notebook in there. He heads to the front of the refrigerator where you’d be unable to see him. It gives him time to rethink his next move while calming down. He knew journalism would be gross, but he didn’t think you’d prey on your friends–especially since you knew how everyone was still mourning the loss of his twin brother.

Angelina begins to cry from the other room, but you continue to hound her with questions. “What would you be doing now if Fred were still around? Do you still dream of a life with him? What else have you been doing to fill the space? Do you wish there was more you could’ve done?” The words were practically marathoning out your mouth. The guilt in you subsides and all you feel now is a desire to get the truth out of Angelina. It’s as though you were watching this unfold from the corner of the room; it wasn’t you shoving questions down Angelina’s throat, but an entirely different entity.

“Merlin, will you stop!” Angelina boomed. “I’m leaving. I missed you and George, I really did. But, how dare you. We’re all grieving and if this is your sick at attempt at therapy, I’ve damn near had it.”

You’re silent and you feel yourself float back to your body, sat in front of a tearful and red-faced Angelina. She angrily gets up, dropping her fork onto the table. She makes a beeline for the coat rack, grabbing her things, and leaves–making sure to slam the door.

“What the fuck was that, [Y/N]?” George shot at you, as he emerged from the kitchen. He was holding his glass of water with his fingers by the brim, both his arms by his side. The expression plastered on his face was a mixture between disappointed, frustration, and anger. You stay silent.

“Answer me, what was that?” George repeats again. You still stay silent, you don’t know how to answer him. “Were you trying to make a piece out of Angelina?”

You look down at your lap repentantly. “Angel said she’d fire me if I didn’t.”

George makes his way over to you, placing his glass on the dining room table. He doesn’t take a seat, instead he looks down at you in anger.

“She’s our friend. She’s grieving, mourning–like you and me fucking both.” George was fuming, “You were being a prick and I didn’t like it, obviously neither did Angelina. I could say more, but out of respect, I won’t.”

“George, we have to eat one way or another. I didn’t want to lose any more income than we already had!” You tried very hard to justify your reasons as to why.

“At expense of a good friend of ours? Merlin, [Y/N].” George rebutted. “I can’t even look at you right now. I know you love writing, I do. I love your writing, in fact. But, this is low. All for what? A few fucking galleons? Merlin.”

George turns his heel and stomps to the door, grabbing his coat and slamming the door shut in one swift motion. He presumably chases after Angelina to apologize on your behalf. You hang your head, trying to recollect yourself, and think about what to say to Angelina and George.

You decide right then and there that you were going to quit your job at the Daily Prophet–there was always a need for writers in the Wizarding World anyway and jobs of that sort were probably not as exploitative in nature. Deciding to write a Letter of Resignation later that night, you trudge your way to the door, grab your coat, and run after George.

masterlist here

#maggieswinterwritingchallenge #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter x reader #harry potter x y/n #george weasley x y/n #george weasley x reader #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley angst #george weasley #angelina johnson #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x y/n

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avintagekiss24 · 4 years

Text

Hot for teacher [4] > Bucky Barnes

PAIRING; Dark!Professor!Bucky Barnes x black!reader, Dark!Peter Parker x black!reader

WORD COUNT; 7,973

WARNINGS; Age difference, teacher/student dynamics, spanking, smut, sex, loss of virginity, vaginal fingering, mention of blood, slight praise kink, slight crying kink?, overstimulation

SUMMARY; A friend comes to your defense and Bucky finally gives in.

NOTE; Gif credit goes to @/fluturojdallandyshia! I wanna say/reiterate that Cher, reader, and Peter are in their senior/last year of school AND they are all 18 years old. I had a “late” birthday (May), so I turned 18 three weeks before I graduated. My brother had an early birthday (September), so he turned 18 like two weeks into his senior year. Peter, Cher, and reader all have early (August/September) birthdays. Any crap about aging Peter up will be deleted and blocked. You’ve been warned multiple times - if you continue to read after this point, it’s on you.

I also gave reader a last name. Sue me. Hope this lives up to the hype... I’m probably gonna hide for the rest of the night and not look at tumblr for the rest of the night... posting anxiety sucks.

Any mistakes are mine, I was rushing towards the end, lol.

☞ PART FIVE | ☞ SERIES MASTERLIST

You toss your freshly braided hair over your shoulder as you move through the halls towards Bucky’s classroom. You’re actually pretty excited. Sure, you were fuming for most of the day yesterday but after a joint and an appointment with your vibrating boyfriend, your mind cleared. Your mother's words came floating back to you, and you knew what you had to do. Kill ‘em with kindness. After all, healthy competition goes both ways.

You turn into his room, finding it empty, but the light on. No bother, you just move up the rows and plop down in your seat, pulling out your laptop. You don’t even look up when Cher walks in - late, of course - and sign loudly when she acknowledges you.

“Didn’t realize sucking up started this early.”

“And yet here you are,” you smile quickly, “Late, but here, nevertheless.”

She rolls her eyes, mumbling something about you being a bitch before she sits in her seat. Bucky arrives some minutes later, a cup of coffee in his hand, his glasses low on his nose, “Morning ladies. My apologies, I'm dragging ass today, had to get some coffee.”

You don’t answer. You don’t even look up from your screen as you tap away, finishing up your English paper. You hear the two of them making conversation, flicking your eyes up as Cher moves to the desk, leaning over it to no doubt show off the boob job her father paid for over the summer. Her irritating laughter rings out, but you pay it absolutely no mind until you feel a set of eyes on you within minutes.

“You’re awfully quiet this morning.” Bucky says, tilting his head as you finally glance up at him from over your screen.

“Good morning Bucky.”

You watch as his jaw twitches slightly and his eyes squint at the sound of his first name. You shift in your seat, dropping your eyes back to your google doc, having to literally stop yourself from grinning. You’ve got him already.

“Bucky?” He questions, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

You click your teeth and scrunch your face as you pretend to be confused, “You did say at the beginning of the year to call you Bucky, yes? Has something changed?”

He scoffs lightly, a confused smirk playing on his lips as he rubs his chin, “I did, yes.” He agrees, shaking his head, “I thought you said you preferred Mr. Barnes.”

You shrug, “Well, I guess I don’t anymore.” You cut your eyes to Cher, who squints back at you, her lip slightly snarled, “If you want to be called Bucky, then I’ll call you Bucky.” You lift your eyes back to his, crossing your legs, “Just like everyone else.”

You drop your eyes back to your Macbook and fill the silence by tapping away at your keyboard again. You feel his eyes on you for a few seconds more before Cher draws his attention with some bullshit question. You stay true to course, never lifting your eyes back to him as he throws random looks at you, trying to get your attention as the class starts to fill up.

You close your laptop but never really give him your full attention as you usually do as he begins his lecture. You glance out the window, or keep your eyes cast down on your pristine white shoes You gaze at your nails, making a mental note to schedule an appointment. You keep your legs crossed. You don’t engage, you don’t answer any questions, you don’t offer any insight. You just sit there - like everyone else.

His eyes are on you the entire hour. He poses questions, but ignores the raised hands for a few moments, waiting for yours to pop up into the air. When it doesn’t, his eyes linger on you for a few beats before he finally calls on someone. His questions get short, his thoughts sort of jumbled as the time dwindles. You smile. This is going to be easier than you thought.

The bell rings and you fall in line with everyone else, heading towards the door. A hand catches your bicep and you sigh, but you keep your eyes straight ahead. Bucky nods and smiles at a few students before he turns his attention to you.

“You stopping by after class?” He asks gently, “I got something in my pants you might like.”

You smile back at him, cocking your head, “No, I can’t make it today.”

His lips part as his eyes bounce back and forth between yours, “Why not?”

“I have a riding lesson with Mr. Udaku.”

He laughs in disbelief as he runs his hand through his hair, “A riding lesson?” He repeats, “That early in the afternoon?”

“Yes.”

He clears his throat as irritation starts to bubble in his chest, “You gave me your schedule. Wednesday through Friday, six to eight, twice a day Saturday and Sunday.”

You shrug, “Not anymore.”

You take a step from him, but he stops you, grabbing your arm again. You turn towards him, your lips set in a hard line. He looks back at you, crossing his arms over his chest as you refuse to give in.

“Come on,” he says after the last student clears the room, “What is going on?”

“Nothing.” You shrug again as you answer sweetly, “What do you mean?”

“You’ve barely spoken to me today. This isn’t about yesterday, is it?” He probes, wrapping his arms around your waist, “I was just joking. You know you’re my favorite girl.”

You smile. It’s too late for that. You step out of his arms and head for the door as his eyes follow you, “You were absolutely right, Bucky,” you stress, “A little competition is healthy. For everyone.”

You turn and walk out before he can respond.

----------

You brush down Apollo, your most prized possession as he neighs gently. You shush him, patting him softly on his side before you kiss him on his snout. He shakes his head and you laugh, reaffirming his good boy status just as Cher walks into the stalls. You throw your eyes at her as she stops in her tracks before rebounding quickly and moving to her horse’s stall.

“And just what are you doing here?” She asks.

“Isn’t it obvious? I have a lesson.”

You hear her scoff, “I’m not stupid.”

“You sure about that?” You giggle, rolling your eyes, “I moved my lessons to mirror yours, just so I can crush you everyday of the week. Show you who’s boss.”

She tuts, batting her big eyes, “You just can’t stand it that Barnes doesn’t want you anymore.”

“Please,” you scoff, “Just the fact that he’s entertaining you, makes me reconsider his intelligence.”

You smile sweetly as you grab Apollo’s reins and start to walk him out of the barn. You lean into her and push some of her blonde hair off of her shoulder, “You fuck with me, I fuck with you. You should have stayed in your place, little girl.”

She slaps your hand away and you laugh before moving out into the field. You place your foot into the stir up and hoist yourself up onto Apollo, adjusting yourself on the saddle. You start a slow trot around the fenced in area, warming him up before you start working the obstacle course.

Your lesson goes exactly how you thought it would, compliment after compliment from Mr. Udaku, (or T’Challa, as many of his students call him) about your form, your technique, your skill - while Cher struggled to keep up. Pride swells in your chest as you gaze upon her flustered, red face as she rips off her helmet and runs her fingers through her hair.

“Cher, you still need to work on not bouncing as much when you canter, you're still gripping too hard with your legs. Here,” T’Challa says, “Watch Ms. Prescott.”

He waves you forward and you start a canter with Apollo, your body moving naturally with his, “See how relaxed she is? You gotta let your legs stay soft. You have to remember to stay aligned with Cotton’s body or you’ll never be a smooth rider. Thank you Ms. Prescott.”

“Not a problem,” you coo sweetly, “I’m always here to help. You have my number Cher, you can text me anytime if you need any pointers.”

She narrows her eyes at you as she exhales hard, “Thank you.” She hisses as sarcasm drips from her words.

“I mean, now that I’ve switched my schedule, we’ll get to ride together more. I don’t mind showing you the ropes. I know you’ve only started riding a few years ago.” You smile widely, continuing to step on her throat.

“I think that’s a good idea actually,” T’Challa agrees, “There’s no shame in asking for help sometimes Cher. Ms. Prescott’s knowledge and skill set could really help elevate your riding. You know she and Apollo are three time Champions.”

“Going for four,” you smile proudly, “Cher was there, cheering me on for all three of my wins. What did you place last year?” You ask, knowing good and damn well she was disqualified from your skill class.

“Fuck you,” she mouths.

Your smile practically breaks your face in two. Kill ‘em with kindness. You pull Apollo away from T’Challa and Cher, starting another slow trot around the fence. You glance over your shoulder and spot Bucky walking through the grass. You squint slightly, pulling on the reins to slow Apollo to a stop. You’ve never seen him out here before. He must be checking up on you, seeing if you really had a lesson this afternoon. You smile again. Men.

You click your tongue quickly and pat Apollo on his hip, turning him back towards the two teachers. You ride just close enough to hear their conversation but not close enough to where they’d know you’re snooping. You jump Apollo over the hogsback in the center of the arena as their conversation wafts towards you.

“I didn’t know she rode this early in the day, especially on Tuesdays.” You hear Bucky say.

“She usually doesn’t, but she texted me last night wanting to change her schedule to free up her weekends. She wouldn’t tell me why. It’s not like she really needs to practice this hard.”

You glance over at the two of them at the fence and meet Bucky’s gaze. You blink back at him, never one to back down from a staring contest, and quirk your eyebrows up your forehead. He turns his attention back toT’Challa, before he sends his gaze towards Cher. You turn Apollo again, trotting him over to another jump.

You cut your eyes over your shoulder, watching Bucky shrug, “She’s been my TA for a few weeks. I just thought it was kinda sudden that she couldn’t stop by after class today.”

T’Challa slaps him on the shoulder, “I’m sorry man. Didn’t mean to steal your help away.”

“No, no,” you hear Bucky say before he links his eyes with yours again, “We’re just going to have to share her it seems.” He shakes T’Challa’s hand, “I’ll catch you later, huh?”

You watch as he moves back across the grass, running his hand through his hair as he bows his head. You let Apollo cool down for a few more minutes before you ride him back into the stalls. You brush him down again, before cleaning out his stall and laying down some fresh hay for him. You give him his dinner, feed him a few carrots as a treat for a job well done and rub noses before kissing him again.

“You’re the only man I can depend on. See you tomorrow baby.”

You remove your gloves as you move out from the back of the barn, jumping slightly and clutching your chest when you come face to face with one Bucky Barnes, “Bucky -”

“Stop calling me that.” He answers sternly, his hands in his pockets, “You switched your riding schedule? Really?”

You shrug definitely, “So I wanted more lessons during the week, shoot me.”

“T’Challa said you don’t even need them. You’re just fucking with me.”

You giggle, “And Cher,” you add, “This isn’t all about you.”

“Can we just knock it off please? I’m sorry, okay? I told you, I was just joking yesterday.” He says with a huff, running his hands through his hair again.

You cross your arms over your chest, a smirk on your face and a sing-song tune in your voice, “But I’m just getting started, Bucky.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“Oh,” you laugh, “It’s a little funny. Look at you all worked up.” You mock, bopping his nose with your index finger, “You’re cute when you’re mad.”

“Hey. Prescott.”

You snap your head back towards the new voice, taking a quick step away from Bucky. You smile as the young Peter Parker leans up against the fence, nodding his head at you, “Peter Parker. How are you?”

“You got a minute?”

Your smile widens, “Of course.”

Bucky grabs your arm again before you step away from him, “I’m not finished talking to you.”

You pull away from him, “Well, I’m finished talking to you.” You state, stepping away from him, “I’ve been involved in competition my whole life, Bucky. I don’t cave and I certainly don’t lose. You wanted a competition, now you got one.”

You turn on your heel and bounce towards the waiting Peter. He stands up straight, smiling at you again but keeps his eyes on Bucky as he walks off. Once you’re close enough, he nods towards him, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

You wave it off, “No interruption. I don’t see you out here much.”

“Nah, I came by to see you. I think we can help each other out.”

“God,” you roll your eyes playfully, “You read my mind. I smoked my last joint last night.”

“Not with that,” he laughs, “Well, I can help you with that too, but I have something else in mind.”

You raise your eyebrows, intrigued with him, “Oh?”

“Word’s getting around that you and Cher are battling over Barnes.” You shoot your eyes towards him, “You know she’s got a big mouth.”

“Fuck,” you mutter.

“Don’t worry. Everybody here has something on them, nobody is gonna snitch for fear of it coming back on them ten times over.” He says slowly, scrunching his face slightly as he faces the sun, “That’s what I thought I could help you with.”

You cross your arms as you glance around the deserted area, “How’s that?”

“You know Cher and I fucked around for a while late last semester, right before summer. Turns out, the fucking bitch burned me.”

“Ugh,” you grimace, “You’re kidding?”

“No. My parents intercepted the test results. That’s why my ass has been on lock down. Plus, I had to be on a fucking regimen of antibiotics to get rid of the shit. Killed my fucking game for the summer, man.”

You giggle a little, bumping your shoulder with his, “Sorry to hear it, but what exactly does that have to do with me, Parker?”

“It would kill her if we hooked up,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows, “Barnes too. He hates me.”

You inhale deeply as your lips curl into another devilish smile, “I didn’t know you had Barnes.”

“I have him in the afternoon. He busts my balls over every little fucking thing.” He rolls his eyes, “Cher is absolutely obsessed with you, it would drive her nuts. It’s the best revenge that I can get and I know you love making her feel second best.”

“It gives me great joy, actually.” You watch as Peter laughs, “Alright Parker, you got yourself a deal, but we need to draw some lines.”

“Okay,” he nods, shoving his hands in his pockets, “Lay ‘em out.”

“I don’t,” you start, clearing your throat, “I haven’t fucked-fucked yet and I'd like to keep it that way.”

“Saving it for Barnes?” He teases.

“Fuck you,” you giggle, “Make outs, blow jobs, heavy petting… whatever, I’m down with all of that, just no fucking. Deal?”

He holds out his hand and you take it, shaking it to make it official, “A woman confident in her sexuality. I love it.” He pecks you on the cheek before he starts to walk off, “It’ll be a pleasure doing business with you.” He calls.

“Same to you, Parker.” You smile, “Same to you.”

----------

You and Peter keep your newfound “romance” on the low for the next few days, as not to arouse any sudden suspicions. You continue to show up to Bucky’s class a half hour early (always making it in before Cher) and completely ignore him. You catch up on homework, you read, you paint your nails. Your nonchalant attitude towards him has continued to get under his skin, as his frustration and irritation has bled over into his lectures. Everyone picks up on his attitude, even Cher, now also receiving a cold shoulder from him in the mornings and afternoons.

You and Peter decide to start your attack bright and early Monday morning. You meet up in the parking lot, hanging out next to his car, laughing and joking with a few of his baseball teammates. You walk in around seven fifty, twenty minutes after Bucky has been expecting you, hand in hand. Peter throws his arm over your shoulders, pulling you into his body as the two of you make your way through the halls.

You pass by the open door of Bucky’s room and Peter stops purposefully in front of it as he calls for one of his friends down the hall. You glance into the room, but quickly cut your eyes away as you find Bucky and Cher gaping out at the two of you - Cher practically flipping over her desk she’s leaning so far forward. You and Peter push forward out of sight and you lean against the lockers, pulling him into you.

You kiss him hard, making him moan in surprise at first but he quickly follows suit. You smack your lips on his a few times before he pulls away, resting his forehead to yours as he drags his finger down your now swollen lips. The two of you whisper back and forth, smiling and giggling all the while before he leans into you again, capturing your lips.

A throat clears loudly from beside the two of you, but you both ignore it, continuing to giggle and kiss as if you don’t hear a thing.

“Guys,” you hear Bucky sigh, “Break it up.”

“Oh, Mr. Barnes,” Peter laughs, wrapping his fingers around your neck softly - possessively, “Shit, man. Sorry about that. Didn’t even hear you, did you babe?”

You shake your head, “Nope. Sorry Bucky.” You peck Peter on his lips again before reaching up to wipe away the excess lip gloss you left behind, “You’ll walk me to my next class, yes?”

He winks at you before dipping back into you to kiss you once, twice, three more times, causing Bucky to speak up again.

“Guys, I mean it. You aren’t on a beach somewhere and you need to watch your mouth, Parker.” He sighs loudly, “Ms. Prescott, your seat please.”

You roll your eyes and push away from the lockers, you and Peter linking hands and extending your arms as you both walk in different directions.

“I’ll be right here after class babe.” He says, winking again.

“Ms. Prescott.” Bucky barks before pushing a hot breath out of his nose.

When your hands actually come undone, you wiggle your fingers at him before tossing your braids over your shoulder and push past the verklempt Bucky. You step past Cher, and she grabs your wrist, pulling you down into her.

“So you want my sloppy seconds all of a sudden?”

“Sloppy seconds?” You repeat, laughing lightly as you tilt your head, “Sweetie, it’s the restaurant metaphor all over again. Peter moved on from a bug infested pizza parlor to a clean five star restaurant. You’re still the sloppy one here.” You wink.

You revel in Bucky’s anger for the entire hour. He continuously cuts his eyes towards you, now dark and brooding, but you smirk back and drop your eyes to your book, not giving him the satisfaction. Your legs stay crossed and your panties stay dry - much to his chagrin. Peter is right there by the door as soon as the bell rings. The two of you intertwine your fingers and swing them back and forth as you walk down the hall, two pairs of eyes on you all the while.

“Mr. Barnes, I-”

“Not now, Cher.” Bucky bites back, running his hand through his hair again quickly before he damn near shoves her out of the classroom, slamming the door.

----------

You pull your next stunt in the library a few days later. It’s a study period, so there’s a few more teachers and students loitering around than usual - Bucky just happens to be one of the loiterers. Peter pulls you through the bookshelves by the tips of your fingers, finding the perfect position for the two of you to be aligned within Bucky’s eyesight.

He’s perched at a table, his glasses low on his nose as he scribbles into his notebook before returning his gaze to the thick book just off to this left. Peter pushes you up against one of the bookshelves, jarring a few of the books loose from their spots and sending them crashing to the floor. You laugh, and Peter covers your mouth with his hand as he leans in and kisses your neck. His other hand snakes up between your thighs and pushes into your skirt, his fingertips brushing along your sex.

You push your chest into his and sink your teeth into your bottom lip as your hooded eyes flick towards Bucky. His jaw is tensed as he stares back at you. His lips are set in a hard, thin line, his face flushed red as his chest rises and falls harder than before. He falls back into his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, almost daring you to keep going - to keep pushing him.

You dig one of your hands into Peter’s hair, pulling softly and hissing when his teeth sink into the fleshy crook of your neck. You push your hips into his fingers as he teases your clit with light, soft strokes. He licks a slow path up your neck and chin before he kisses you deeply and pulls you suddenly out of Bucky’s sight.

“This is fun,” he laughs against your mouth, kissing you again as he squeezes your hip.

You giggle in return, tilting your head up towards the ceiling, silently asking him to continue. He obliges, and starts sucking on your skin again, pushing his hand back between your thighs. He slips his fingers underneath your panties and moans when the slickness of your sex coats his fingers. You let out a small moan as your hips move with his fingers. You grab his free hand and push it to your left breast, helping him to grab a handful of you.

You gasp suddenly when Peter’s fingers push inside of you. You laugh again but spread your legs instinctively, raising one slightly to rub his calf. You feel him laugh against you as his fingers pump softly, his palm rubbing against your clit.

“Fuck, Peter,” you say softly, pushing your body into his again as he finger fucks you up against the wall of books.

You roll your head and jump when those familiar blue eyes are on you again, this time just on the other side of the bookshelf in front of you. Your mouth falls open as you stare back at him over the tops of the books. He slides a book off of the shelf, removing his eyes from yours to flip through the pages before he slides his angry eyes back to yours. He runs his eyes along Peter’s body, then halts at his hand as it pumps into you.

You snarl your lip as a pang of excitement flashes through you. You’ve never been watched like this before - it’s kinda fun. You keep your eyes on Bucky’s as Peter’s hand quickens inside of you, his palm beating against your clit. You bite down into your bottom lip as you rest your chin on his shoulder, your head falling forward as your orgasm starts to build.

“Shit,” you whine, your breath growing ragged as your hips pulse with the pace of his fingers.

You lift your leg a little higher as the lust in your stomach starts to flood through your veins. You wrap your arms around his neck and ball his t-shirt into your hands, struggling to keep your eyes open as Bucky peers on. You watch as he runs his tongue over his teeth, blinking at you slowly, anger brimming just below his surface. He doesn’t shy away though, he doesn’t walk off, he doesn’t lash out, he just flips aimlessly through the random book he picked up as he watches as you come all over Peter’s fingers.

You slam your eyes shut at your orgasm rips through you. Peter moans as he slams his fingers into your wet, tight muscles. His free hand creeps back up to your face and covers your mouth, stifling the squeaks and squeals that dribble from your lips. Peter crushes you to the bookshelf with his weight, chuckling as he nips at your chin and neck. You keep your bottom lip between your teeth as you smirk at Bucky. You wanted a competition, now you got one.

Peter pulls out his phone and lifts it into the air, hitting record as you still lean up against the bookshelf, still panting and giggly as your body floats on cloud nine. He smiles slowly into the camera, before leaning in and kissing you deeply, his tongue skimming along the roof of your mouth before it slides along yours. He situates your panties and skirt, like the gentleman he is, before he tugs at your wrist to pull you out from between the aisles.

When he clears the bookshelves, he stops suddenly when he locks eyes with Bucky just on the other side. He nods his head towards him, before shoving his wet fingers into his mouth. He licks them clean before he pulls them out with a soft pop and glances back into his camera, throwing a wink it’s way. The two of you waltz out of the library, smiles on both of your faces. You hear Peter’s phone as it starts to sound, ding after ding after ding as a quick flurry of text messages slide through.

He pulls it out and snorts before he tilts it towards you, Cher’s name flashing across it as a call comes through.

“This is going tremendously.” He smiles, declining the call and sliding the sleek phone back into his pocket.

----------

You glance down at your watch as you whistle slowly; 8:06am. You’re now officially late to Bucky’s class, and officially late for the first time in over four years. You turn down his hallway, scrolling through your tumblr as you come to his closed door. You push through and feel the eyes of the entire class on you as you waltz in without a care in the world. Bucky’s lecture comes to a halt as he slides his eyes with you as you pick your way through the seats to find yours.

You sit, taking your time as you pull out your notebook and pen while everyone watches, just as surprised as Bucky that you’re late. You take a deep breath and expel it calmly as you finally glance up at him.

“Good morning.” You say cheerfully.

He crosses his arms over his chest and licks his lips slowly, “You’re late.”

“Oh,” you sigh a little, glancing at your watch, “Sorry about that.”

“We had a deal at the beginning of the semester.” He says, his voice deep.

You cross your legs and swing your foot lightly, “Did we?”

He narrows his eyes at you as he pulls his glasses off of his face, “Should I remind you?”

“Please.” You nod, “It’s slipped my mind.”

He nods slowly, starting to pace, “You wanted me to hold you personally responsible if you were ever late.”

You squint your eyes as you tilt your chin towards the ceiling, pretending to rack your brain, “That’s right, I did. That little check mark next to my name on the attendance sheet is gonna hurt.”

“Oh no,” He chuckles as you challenge him so openly, “You wanted to be held responsible. A little check mark isn’t going to do that.”

You smirk, “So what’ll it be, Bucky?”

“Detention.”

Your face drops. Detention? Detention? For one fucking tardy?! “Detention?” you repeat, sitting up a little straighter in your seat, “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

He turns back to face you, leaning back on his desk as he kicks his legs out in front of him. He shrugs, shaking his head, “You asked for it.”

“You’re joking,” you laugh, your mind starting to race, “A detention for being late one time? Have you handed out a detention to anyone else?”

He shrugs, “Nope. But you’re not everyone else, are you?”

You squint your eyes at him as he smirks back. This is the only way he could get back at you - to tarnish your perfect record. Your body flushes with heat - you honestly didn’t expect this. This… this is below the belt. You’d figured that he’s been so out of sorts that he’d just slap you on the wrist and beg to see him after class. You’d trade barbs back and forth, he’d eat your pussy and the two of you would be right back on track, like this never happened. But this?

“I’m getting you ready for real life. That’s what you wanted me to do, isn’t it?”

A chorus of oooh’s ring out from the rest of the class as you throw your braids over your shoulder angrily, “I have a riding lesson at three twenty five today.”

“I’ll talk to T’Challa if you’d like me to.”

You laugh sarcastically, “This is ridiculous. This’ll go on my record, you realize that?”

He shrugs again as he pushes away from his desk, “Maybe you should have thought about that. Now,” he smiles, turning his attention back to the rest of the class, “Where were we?”

He completely turns the tables on you after that. He ignores you for the rest of his lecture. His mood lightens considerably. He cracks jokes, he banters with other classmates as you stew in your anger. When class is over, he holds out your detention slip between his fingers, which you snatch and crumple up in your hand as you pass by without so much as a glance in his direction.

Asshole.

The final bell of the day rings hours later and you start the trek towards Dr. Banner’s room, the resident detention monitor. He’s surprised to see you and gives you a reassuring smile as you head to the back of the room, plopping down in one of the desks. You catch Mitchell Bryant, the fifth year senior and fuck up extraordinaire, smirking at you and roll your eyes deeply before shifting in your seat to block him from your line of vision.

You busy yourself with your trigonometry homework, actually getting into it within a few minutes. The door opens and you flip your eyes towards it, doing a double take when you spot Bucky walking in. He smiles at Dr. Banner, leaning into his desk and muttering something before he heads back to the door.

“Ms. Prescott?” He calls, “Grab your stuff and come with me please.”

You cock your head as your eyes instantly narrow at him. You take a deep breath, but stand and collect your things. You walk out into the hallway, finding him waiting for you, “Yes?” you ask, your tone flat and irritated.

He doesn’t answer, he just points forward and waits for you to start walking. You roll your eyes but ultimately obey, your feet carrying you back to his classroom. He enters a few steps behind you, closing the door softly before he flips the lock.

You spin on your heel to face him as your bag hangs off of your shoulder, “What is it, Bucky?”

“Drop your bag. Put your hands flat on the desk.”

His voice is deep and eerily calm. Your lips part and your eyes widen a little as you stand in your spot. He cocks his head when you still don’t move, “Did you not hear what I said? Hands flat on the desk. Now.”

You drop your bag from your shoulder and move to his desk, flattening your palms on the top of it. You’ve never heard him like this before - so stern. You swallow hard as your eyes dart around the chalkboard in front of you. You feel his presence behind you, hearing the material of his tie rubbing against his shirt as he loosens it, before pulling it from around his neck.

You jump when he slaps lightly at the insides of your thighs, “Open sesame.”

You spread your legs wider as his fingertips brush along your soft skin. His hand slides up your spine slowly and pushes you forward until your chest is resting flush against his desk. Your breath becomes audible as he pushes his hips into your ass, making you gasp when you feel his hard on pressing into your flesh.

He grabs your right wrist, bending your arm to place your hand in the small of your back before he reaches for the left. You then feel the soft silk of his tie as it wraps around your wrists, looping around them both before he ties it tightly into a nice, firm knot. Without warning, he bucks into your ass, jolting you forward as you gasp loudly again.

“You are one smart cookie, Ms. Prescott.” He says softly, running his hands along your hips and ass, “I underestimated you.”

“Mental warfare is my specialty.”

You bite your lip as your body starts to warm from his touch. A moan escapes you as he rucks your skirt up around your hips and groans at the sight of your sheer, pink panties. You close your eyes as his fingers dance along your plump ass, cupping it in both of his large palms and jiggling it gently.

“Nervous?”

You shake your head definitely, “Of course not.”

“Never one to show weakness, huh? I like that.”

You let out a sharp scream when a hard slap is suddenly leveled to your behind. Your body tightens as you pull against the tie wrapped around your wrists. He spanks you twice again in quick succession and you slam your eyes closed as you squeal and squirm underneath him. He pushes his hand back between your legs, his fingers brushing along the sudden, new wet spot on your panties. Goddamn him.

“I’ve gotta give it to you, Prescott,” he says softly as his fingers push underneath your panties and slip through your wet folds, “You had me going. I was jealous.”

You hiss as you roll your hips into his hand, “I told you Bucky - “

He spanks you again, the sound of his flesh meeting yours bouncing off of the chalkboard, “That’s not my name.”

“Fuck!” You mewl as the sting radiates through you, but you don’t give in. Not quite yet.

“What were you saying, darling?” He coos as his fingers travel to your hips and dig underneath the thin band of your panties.

He pulls them down slowly, slipping them over your feet. You hear him inhale deeply seconds later before his fingers slip through your folds again. Your mouth drops open as he plays with your clit, drawing slow circles around it before he pushes two of his thick fingers into you. His thumb pushes between your ass cheeks and flattens against your tight hole, applying a slight pressure as he starts to pump his fingers slowly.

“Did you have fun with the young Peter Parker?” He asks, pushing his hips flush to your behind, “Hmm? Did he make you feel good?”

You whimper as his fingers curl inside of you, his thumb pushing just inside. When you don’t answer fast enough, he spanks you again, making you squeal loudly. He pushes his thumb further and you squeeze your muscles as tight as you can as you tilt your head towards the ceiling, relishing in the electricity bouncing through you. His fingers push deeper in your pussy and you growl as you run your tongue over your teeth.

“Yes.” You hiss, the smart ass in you still winning out, “You were there, Bucky. You saw how good he made me feel.”

He chuckles deeply, removing his fingers from you before he pulls you up into a standing position. He turns you around to face him and picks you up, sitting you gently on top of his desk. He stays nose to nose with you, his eyes bouncing around your face as he smirks. He lifts his fingers to your mouth, smoothing your wetness over your bottom lip.

You lick your lip slowly before you suck it into your mouth, blinking up at him slowly as you swallow your taste. He kisses you hard, wrapping his hands around your neck and pulling you into him as his tongue bursts into your mouth. You moan, letting your head fall back into his hands as you accept him, sucking on his tongue as you pull lightly against the tie still around your wrists.

He pulls back slowly, pulling your bottom lip with him before he lets go. He tilts his head as his fingers drop to the buttons on your shirt, popping them one by one until it falls open. He flips his eyes back to yours as he starts undoing his pants, letting them slightly fall down his hips. You bite your lip as you watch him push his hand into his black boxer briefs, stroking himself. He pulls his dick free and you inhale deeply, your eyes growing wide as he springs out from behind the stretchy material.

“That little prick couldn’t satisfy you.” He says quietly, “Not like I can, baby girl. I’m a grown man.”

Your mouth falls open as he pushes the tip of his dick along your throbbing clit and through your folds. He pushes your legs open wider, wrapping your right limb around his hip. He pushes at your slit, positioning himself right at your opening.

“What’s my name baby?”

You bite your bottom lip again as your lips start to curl into a smile. You bat your eyes at him but shake your head - not giving an inch.

He smiles back at you, “You are stubborn as all fucking hell.”

“You started it.”

“I suppose I did,” He laughs, leaning in to kiss you softly, “You’re my perfect little princess.” He says, “You always were, you always will be.”

“And?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, cupping your face in his hands, “Don’t be mad at me anymore.”

You breathe in confidently, pushing it out of your nose as pride swells in your chest. You never cave. You never lose, “Apology accepted.”

“Good. Can I fuck you now?”

You nod slowly, “Of course you can, Mr. Barnes.”

He bites your lips and growls at the sound of his name tripping off your tongue with such ease. He grabs his shaft, slipping the head of his cock through your folds again before he stops at your slit. He wraps his other arm around your waist and starts to push slowly, breaking into your tight canal. You squeak as your muscles spread for his flesh for the first time, hissing as a delicious pain courses through you.

His mouth drops open as he watches you swallow him. He pushes a focused breath out of his mouth as he pushes until he completely disappears inside of you. A tear slips down your cheek as he pulls out and slides back in. You dig your nails into his desk as you adjust your hips - the pain and the pleasure of it all mixing and melting together into a perfect harmony.

You moan loudly as he fucks you nice and slow. He pushes his fingers to your clit and rubs quick circles against it as he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, his eyes hooded as he watches you squirm and writhe.

“This is what a real man feels like,” he says softly, digging his fingertips into your hip as he fucks you, “Do I feel good, baby?”

“Yes,” you answer breathlessly, tears streaming down your face, “You feel so good.”

“Mmm,” he grunts, “You are such a good girl. You’re taking me so well.”

Your head swims as he praises you, stroking your ego, making you clench around him. His hips start to move faster as his hands run up and down your thighs, gripping and kneading your flesh. His fingers roam up to your breasts, pushing into your bra to tease your thick nipples, adding a new sensation to the mix. He drops his right hand back between your legs, pressing the pads of his fingers against your clit and starts to rub again, his other fingers still pulling and flicking at your aroused buds.

Your hips jerk without warning, pushing his cock into you deeper, pulling a guttural scream out of you. Your eyes continue to leak as your head spins and your body tightens and flexes. A shutter runs up your spine, your thighs shake. You tighten them around his waist and try to grip the desk below you as a dull ache sits in the pit of your stomach.

He fucks into you faster - recognizing that you’re starting to come undone as he overloads your senses. He rolls your nipple between his fingers, pinching and pulling as he continues to rub your clit and pump his hips into yours.

“You gonna come for me?” He starts to coax softly, “Hmm? Is my girl gonna come?”

My girl. Your brain can’t even form a coherent sentence. You’re nothing but sensation as he pushes you right to the edge of the cliff. His strokes get harder, his fingers faster as he rests his forehead to yours. He leaves your nipple to wrap his hand around your throat. His hot breath washes over your face as he kisses you quickly.

“I want my girl to come. Come for me, baby. Give it to me, I want to own you.”

You grunt as your eyes start to roll. He fucks into you as your toes curl with each of his strokes, pushing, pushing, pushing, until he tips you right over the edge. You mewl into the empty room as your orgasm floods through every vein, every muscle, every sensor in your body. He loses his control - pounding into you as hard as he can as your pussy quivers around him.

Your clit jumps with contractions as you tighten your legs around his hips. He coaxes you on, whispering sweet nothings as wave after wave crashes against you. His grunts grow louder and more erratic, his hips faltering every now and again until you feel a sudden warmth burst into you. He hisses as he spurts long, hot ribbons into your cunt over and over again.

He nearly collapses - having to slam his palm to the top of his desk to hold himself up. His breaths are deep and ragged as his head falls to your shoulder. He leans back after a minute and tilts his head towards the ceiling as he focuses on his breathing, pushing them in and out slow and evenly.

“Fuck,” he lets out as a laugh rumbles through his chest, “Goddamn.”

He reaches around and unties your wrists before pulling you up into his arms. You throw your arms around his neck and let him wrap your legs around his waist as he walks you around his desk and sits in his chair. He curls you into him, wrapping you up in his warm arms before he sweeps your braids over your shoulder. He kisses your forehead and the top of your head as he strokes your spine gently.

“You are so pretty when you cry.” He says gently, smiling at you, “My perfect little girl.”

You still can’t talk. You just smile as you nuzzle into him, blinking down at your thighs, a small amount of blood splashed on your skin.

“Can you cancel your riding lessons tomorrow and Sunday?” he asks after a few minutes.

You nod slowly, “Why?”

“I want you all to myself.” He says, pushing his knuckle into your chin to tilt your head up towards his, “I want you to pack a bag for the weekend. I’ll text you my address, okay?”

“Okay.” You say simply.

“Okay.” He smiles, kissing you again, “Come on, let's get moving.”

You reluctantly climb out of his lap and start to arrange your clothing properly, buttoning up your shirt and smoothing your skirt back down on your hips. Your legs are shaky, your pussy and clit sore, but you’ve never felt better. He grabs your bag and places it on your shoulder as the two of you move to the door. When he opens it, the two of you come face to face with one Cher Goodwin, her hand still in the air as she was just about to knock.

Her lips part as she stares at you, before flicking her eyes towards Bucky, “I thought you had detention.”

You shrug, “You thought wrong.”

She slides her eyes down your frame, squinting as she looks you over. Her face drops as the realization floods through her. Your smile widens. She doesn’t even have to ask. She runs her hand through her hair roughly as she takes a deep breath, letting the dread of knowing she’s lost again flush through her. She’s come up just short - second place, once again.

“Cher,” Mr. Barnes starts, “I’m sorry. Something came up, I’m not gonna be able to stick around this afternoon.”

She scoffs, clicking her teeth as she crosses her arms over her chest, “Mr. Barnes, I - “

“I’m sorry,” he cuts her off, “You know, I can get you a couple of names of some really great tutors that can give you all the attention you need. Okay?”

She runs her tongue over her teeth as she stares off into the distance, laughing slightly, “Sure, yeah. Whatever.”

Bucky pushes past her and out into the hallway, “I’ll have them for you Monday morning, okay? I’m sorry ladies, I gotta split. Have a good weekend. Thanks for all your help Ms. Prescott.”

You smile at her as he moves down the hallway, “Oh, Cher.” You laugh, “Poor thing.”

“I’ll fucking get you.” She sneers, “One of these goddamn days, I will win! I will fucking beat you!” You shouts, stomping her foot.

You nudge her chin with your fist, “It’s cute you still believe that. The only thing you’ll ever have over me, is knowing how second place feels.” You brush past her shoulder as a frustrated tear slips down her cheek.

“Oh,” you say happily, turning back on your heel to face her, “I forgot to tell you. T’Challa signed Apollo and I up for the relay competition on Wednesday. You’re participating in that too, right?” You wink, watching as her eyes fill with dread, “See you there.”

You throw your hand into the air as you walk away from her, wiggling your fingers, “Tootles, darling.”

767 notes · View notes

flowesona · 4 years

Text

guess how much i love you - soft yandere! seokjin x reader

This is part of the MFEEU canon, written by the amazing and talented @worldwidemochiguy. I hope I can do it justice :)

“What’s wrong, little Yoona?” Jin crouched down to see Yoona. She was sulking in the corner, having pushed away all of her pseudo-siblings until one of them finally resorted to asking Jin for help. Jin always had a way to make Yoona smile, yet even now as he pinched her cheek and gave her buckets of attention he could barely get a sniffle out of her.

Finally she gave some kind of reaction to him. As he continued to try to coax her into smiling, she finally pointed at something as the cause of her woes. Jin followed where her finger was pointing to the sofa, where Hanuel and Jihae were cuddled together with their Nintendo switches engaged in visiting each other’s towns in animal crossing.

“Why does Hanuel-eonni treat Jihae differently to me?” She whimpered. Her godfather smiled, turning her gently to face him.

“That’s because they’re in love. One day, you’re going to find someone you love like that.”

“Really?” Yoona was looking at Jin as if he was some kind of prophet, enlightening her on the path to true happiness.

“Yes. You know that when I met aunty (Y/N) it was love at first sight?”

“Really?”

“Of course, Yoona. Of course, it wasn’t easy, but love never is.” Seeing how his discussion with Yoona had pacified her qualms slightly, he had an idea to make her happy.

“How about I tell you the story of how I met aunty (Y/N)? Should we find your Shooky and have a storytime?” He offered.

“I’m not a kid anymore!” Yoona had pouted, but eagerly climbed onto his lap with her round plushie in tow ready for his highly anticipated storytimes.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“N-no, stop!” Jin raised his head at the sound of the melodic voice. His focus switched from the seven takeaway coffee cups he was trying to balance to the source of the glorious sound. And it was love at first sight.

She was near perfect. Her skin glowed, her eyes were filled with an otherworldly mirth and her sweater hugged her body in just the right way. The only part of her that was marred was her arm, to which some unattractive boy clung. Not a hair on his body held any appeal, yet the girl seemed infatuated, giggling at every word he said as they waited for their order.

“(Y/N)? A cappuccino with a double espresso shot?” So that was her name? Jin watched as she took her coffee with a sleep-deprived grin. And he knew he had to have her.

He whipped out his phone and dialed Taehyung’s number quickly, still glancing at the couple as they waited for the vermin’s drink.

“I need your help.” He said quickly. “Fuck, she’s leaving.”

Taehyung quickly caught on.

“Follow her. See if she’s going home. Do you have her name?” Taehyung’s voice was background noise as Jin followed (Y/N) out of the shop. Snow was starting to drift down, sticking to his hair and dampening his clothes but in that moment his appearance was the least of his worries.

As he told Taehyung her name, her appearance, and the university he presumed she attended due to her sweatshirt being emblazoned with the name of a nearby establishment.

“I found her. We’ll have all her details in a few hours. Come back to the offices and we’ll sort this all out, alright?”

It was only when he hung up his phone he realised that half of the various hot drinks he’d volunteered to bring back for everyone - planning to secretly use the outing as a opportunity to spike their beloved drinks with salt - had spilt onto the ground in his haste. But he couldn’t care less about his colleagues when fate had granted him a much greater design.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“We understand you applied for the assistant role last week?”

(Y/N) was hidden in the back of the university library, trying desperately to keep her voice down whilst attempting to quell the situation.

“As I said, you’ve got the wrong person. If you’ll excuse me…”

“You are (L/N) (Y/N), correct? We have all your details on record.”

She didn’t respond.

“Well, if you want the position then come to our offices by 11AM tomorrow in business casual.”

The phone call ended, leaving (Y/N) with all sorts of unnerved feelings.

Those feelings intensified as she stood outside the offices the next day in a simple blouse and trousers. Whilst the strange circumstances surrounding the offer were nothing to be ignored, she’d looked up the company name to find they were a reputable business, and their staff pay was nothing to sniff at. As a student barely able to afford a coffee in the morning, could she really afford to look a gift horse in the mouth?

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

The job was truly a blessing upon her life. Reasonable hours that perfectly coincided with her university lectures, decent pay and fellow employees who seemed to respect her.

She didn’t know why, of course. How could she know of the stranger pulling the strings behind the scene to get her into his arms?

“Sorry, could you drop this off with Kim Seokjin? He’s on the top floor. You can borrow my keycard to get there.” One of her colleagues asked, pressing a manila folder into her hand along with the keycard needed.

“Sure.”

Her heart was pounding as she scanned the keycard to enter the new level of offices. Never before had she been around such high up executives, who could have her fired in a second if they so pleased.

(Y/N) approached the first man she saw.

“Excuse me, do you know where Mr Kim is?” She asked timidly.

“You’re speaking to him, darling.” He responded, turning to face her. (Y/N) resisted the urge to blush when she made eye contact with him, as he excluded an aura of attractiveness and wealth she could never compete with.

“Oh, right. This is for you, sir.” She handed over the folder, trying not to die from the embarrassment.

“Wait a second.” She felt a presence next to her. Standing by her shoulder was another man. To put it simply, he was gorgeous. From his clear golden skin to his sharp features, it was as if an ancient statue had been breathed into life.

“That was meant for Kim Seokjin, right? That’s me.”

As if the situation could get any worse.

“Kim is a common surname, darling.” The former man commented as he passed the folder to the real Seokjin.

Noting the look of anguish on her face, Seokjin took one of her hands into his own.

“You’re new here, right? Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake to make.” He offered her a warm smile.

“Thank you. I should go…” (Y/N) gently tried to pry her hand out of his hoping to end the whole interaction as soon as possible.

“Here, my card.” Seokjin pressed a rectangular business card into her hands, emblazoned with his name and number in stunning cursive. “Call me, and I’ll take you out for dinner sometime. As an apology.”

(Y/N) nodded, and he finally released her.

The business card lay buried in her purse for days afterwards. She couldn’t bear to face him again to be reminded of her embarrassment. But her interia was only serving to anger Jin.

“It’s been three weeks, Jin-hyung.” Taehyung said cooly. “Maybe it’s time to try again.”

His office had become a second home for Jin, who would spend around an hour each day ranting and raving to his boss, who just took it all on board with a knowing grin every time.

“How?” Jin muttered. “How do I get her to talk to me?”

“If there’s a will, there’s a way.” Taehyung responded, tempted to return to his mountain of work but also not wanting to leave Jin to wallow in doubt.

Jin just kept pacing.

“You could give her a promotion? Or maybe you could turn up at her university and sit on a lecture or two. That way you’d have an excuse to see her when you like.” Taehyung pressed. “You’ve still got some holiday hours this year to spare.”

Jin didn’t reply, but his decision was already made.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

(Y/N) was ready to go back to sleep. No number of espresso shots could cure her banging headache, as her hangover weighed down her body as if she was carrying a ten pound barbell on her back.

She didn’t noticed how someone new had slipped into the seat next to her in the lecture theatre. All that occupied her mind at 9am was the desire for sleep. The double life of being a student and office worker was wearing on her hard, and she was contemplating on handing in her notice. The only thing that kept her from so was the tantalising paychecks and the haunting beauty of Seokjin, the memory of whom which had remained in some unused part of her brain.

The professor had a droning voice. The monotone syllables were practically a lullaby, and surely resting her head for a few minutes wouldn’t hurt? Not when she was at the back of the theatre and was practically unnoticeable.

Jin smiled as he observed (Y/N) slowly drifted into a deep sleep. The poor lamb had overworked herself. If only she knew of how he wanted to make sure she would never lift a finger again. He’d bided his time, months of casual stalking building up the the moment he’d finally decided to sit next to her, and how fortune had smiled upon his to give him the chance to admire her without being ‘creepy’.

Her deep sleep remained uninterrupted as people started to leave the lecture theatre, and a daring plan started to form in Jin’s mind. It was dangerous to just take her in the middle of the crowd, but it wasn’t like anyone else was particularly attentive at 10am and besides, anyone who asked questions could be paid off without a worry.

Gently he scooped (Y/N) up under his arm. She didn’t stir, as he gently guided her to the exit amidst the groups of other lethargic students. Navigating the crowd with a sleeping girl attached to him wasn’t easy, but Jin managed to make it out of the building and into his car without her waking up. It warmed his heart to see her head loll against the soft leather of his car interior as he indicated for the driver to start the engine.

Halfway to their destination, (Y/N)’s eyes starting to peel open.

“Mmmm... where am I?” The confused words stumbled out of her mouth as (Y/N) rubbed at her eyes.

“We’re going home.” Jin responded simply.

“Home? Wait... why are you here? Aren’t you... you’re one of the bosses from work?” The gears in (Y/N)’s brain we’re starting to turn.

“Well... yes. We can call this a promotion, I guess?”

The warmth of his smile, the smooth feeling of the leather car interior against her back and the steady beat of her heart all worked to convince (Y/N) that she was alright. It wasn’t conventional, but the adoration in Jin’s eyes was like a dream.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

Unfortunately, a serious event plagued their ‘honeymoon’ period.

On Tuesday morning, as Jin gently woke her up with a cup of coffee, he noticed something was wrong. Her face was hot to the touch, and she could barely open her eyes.

Evidently, the cold weather and her busy schedule had taken a toll on her health. For the day she was stuck in bed, Jin dabbing at her forehead with a wet cloth and feeding her spoonfuls of broth.

“(Y/N)? How do you feel, my love?” Jin posited as she was nestled up half paying attention to the TV he’d brought into their room.

Through her drowsy drawl, he could barely make out what she was trying to say.

“Why are you… so nice? No one has ever loved me, not like you do. It’s not normal, to have your boss slash kidnapper treat you better than your exes. I don’t know why I’m not fighting you like any sensible human should.”

Seeing tears start to well up, Jin wiped at her eyes, wanting to shush her but simultaneously wanting her to continue praising him.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend who cares for me like you do… this isn’t right. I must be dreaming.”

Jin gave her a soft smile, his heart drumming loudly in his chest.

“This is reality.This is love. And I love you all the way to the moon and back.”

Before he could go on to tell her of what lengths he would go to show her his love, she’d fallen asleep.

He wanted nothing more than to stay by her side for the rest of the day, but the vibration of his phone in his pocket reminded him that he still had a job to do. He left the bedroom before answering it, closing the door with as soft of a click as possible.

“How’s it going, lover boy?”

“Shut it, Jimin.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“You see, love triumphs all. When you love someone, you should stop at nothing to make them love you back.” Jin concluded. Yoona had been hooked onto his every word, Jihae and Hanuel long gone both from the room and from her mind.

“Yoona? Yoona, we have to go!” At the call of her father the young girl clambered out of her godfather’s hold.

“Do you feel better now?” Jin asked. She nodded happily.

“Will you tell me more stories next time?”

“Yoona!” Yoongi finally found her next to her godfather.

“Go find Mommy, she’s got your jacket.” Yoona nodded happily, rushing off leaving only the two colleagues.

“You’ve gone soft, hyung.” Yoongi commented.

“Show a bit more respect for your elders.” Jin snarked back, but he couldn’t hide his happy glow.

“Sure thing. Pass on my regards to your wife.” Yoongi said before turning on his heel to find his own family.

Now that he was all alone, Jin pulled out his phone to send a quick message.

‘Be home soon, love.’

(Y/N) responded about ten seconds with a gif of two dogs hugging, to which Jin chuckled.

‘I love you. All the way to the moon and back.’

#yandere bts #yandere bts x reader #yandere jin #yandere seokjin #yandere seokjin x reader #yandere au #yandere x reader #yandere oneshot #soft yandere #yandere kim seokjin #yandere kim seokjin x reader #yandere jin x reader #bts jin #jin x reader #seokjin x reader #kim seokjin #kim seokjin x reader #yandere kpop #kpop yandere

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missfangirll · 3 years

Text

Tie your heart to mine

Fandom: SCI Mystery Relationship: Zhan Yao / Bai Yutong Tags: Case fic, Angst with a happy ending Chapters: 3 Summary: Zhan Yao has disappeared.

Read on AO3

By night, love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness.

--Pablo Neruda, Love Sonnet 79

Chapter 1: Descensus Averno

The world went to hell on a Thursday.

Bai Yutong couldn’t even remember the reason for the fight he had with Zhan Yao that Sunday. It was probably something stupid, like whose turn it was to do the dishes, and yet it was all he was able to think about later.

They had still been arguing the whole drive to the airport, Zhan Yao hadn’t even looked back or said goodbye when he had gotten out of the car, hauling his suitcase through the lobby, his whole body tense, shoulders square, his steps determined. Bai Yutong had watched him until he vanished in the crowd and wished he wasn’t so stubborn. They both were. He loved his cat with all his heart, but living together didn’t always bring out the best in either of them.

Because of the nature of their parting he hadn’t been surprised when Zhan Yao hadn’t called from the hotel that evening, or any other evening that followed. Sad, yes, angry and hurt, but not surprised. He had spent the whole Monday hiding in his office, going over some cold cases a good enough reason not to examine his feelings to closely.

The following days hadn’t been any better and by Wednesday evening he had been determined to pick up Zhan Yao from the airport and apologise immediately, maybe cook his favourite food or take him to see a movie, anything to make things right again.

And then, nothing was right anymore.

On Thursday morning, the hotel Zhan Yao had stayed in called to let him know there had been a mix-up in the reservation and his credit card would be charged twice, but it had been handled and he would get a refund. He hadn’t really been listening to the explanations and apologies, until the caller mentioned she hadn’t been able to reach Zhan Yao this morning and therefore had called him, which made him pause. Slightly alarmed, he tried to make sense of that information. “You mean you called his room and he didn't answer?” “No,” she said in an apologising tone. “He has checked out yesterday evening and I couldn’t reach his mobile phone. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Bai Yutong felt his stomach drop. “He was supposed to fly back today. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“Sorry,” the clerk said. “He didn’t say, only left last night.”

“Let me call you back”, he said hastily and hung up. While he dialled Zhan Yao’s number from memory, his mind went through a million possible explanations. Maybe he was still mad and therefore hadn’t called? Maybe he had taken an earlier flight? But why wasn’t he home already, a voice in his mind whispered.

The call went straight to voicemail and Bai Yutong stared disbelievingly at his phone, his heart beating painfully slow in his chest.

After this he didn’t waste any more time. He informed the team that their resident professor had gone AWOL and set everyone to work: He called the hotel again to make sure Zhan Yao’s room would be sealed and treated as a crime scene, then had Zhao Fu find the next possible flight and Jiang Ling trace Zhan Yao’s phone – the former with success, the latter not so much, since it apparently had been turned off all week.

Pinching his nose, Bai Yutong muttered a curse, took a deep breath and addressed his team: “Alright, Wang Shao and Zhao Fu are with me. Jiang Ling, you work best behind your own desk, so you stay, Ma Han and the little one”, he nodded to Bai Chi, “will assist you. Call me immediately if you find anything useful.” The chorus of “Yes, Sir!” did nothing to ease his anxiety, but he smiled at them anyway and nodded. “Let’s go. Let’s find him.”

The flight didn’t take long, and when Wang Shao hailed a taxi, Bai Yutong’s mind was already busy making lists and sorting through facts. They arrived at the hotel shortly after noon and immediately went to work, first explaining his case to the – very helpful – manager, who promptly offered a suite to use as a headquarter as long as they would need it.

Searching Zhan Yao’s room wasn’t really enlightening. He hadn’t left anything when he checked out – Bai Yutong noticed he hadn’t even taken the small shampoo samples and his heart clenched in fond exasperation. His cat was honest to a fault, really. Sitting on the bed in the quiet, empty room, he ran a hand through his hair.

Where are you, Cat?

----------------

Cold.

He felt cold.

It was a cold that didn’t feel normal, not like being outside on a chilly day or after taking a cold shower. It was odd, somehow, vibrating, like a living being, moving inside him.

He felt it in his soul, his heart, his bones.

How curious, he thought.

----------------

Sighing, Bai Yutong took out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found what he was looking for. Bai Qintang answered after the first ring. “Any news?” He sighed. “No, it’s… He’s…” He trailed off and sighed again, pinching his nose. “This is a nightmare, jie.”

“You’re going to find him, Yutong. I have no doubts about your abilities.”

“Jie, it’s my fault. We haven't spoken in a week. If I hadn't--”

“Oh, shut it!” Bai Qintang blurted. “It’s not your fault and you know it. Stop pitying yourself and start being useful. He’s counting on you, so you need to get your shit together.” Bai Yutong winced at the tone, but knew she was right. He swallowed hard. “Thanks, sis, I’ll try.” He could hear her smile through the phone. “That’s my baby brother!” He rolled his eyes and hung up. Feeling slightly more optimistic, he stood up to gather his team, leading them to the reception desk.

The clerk, the one who had called Bai Yutong and was now very keen to help, remembered Zhan Yao leaving shortly after 8 p.m. the day before. He had given her a rather good tip and asked about a store where he could buy some provisions, which she had told him.

Bai Yutong decided to pay that store a visit. After flashing his badge into the manager’s face – and hoping she wouldn’t look closely enough to see he was from another city – she produced a security tape from the night before, leaving him and Zhao Fu in the cramped store room to watch it. Hunched over the tiny screen, he saw Zhan Yao walk into the store, dressed as impeccably as always, carrying the small black suitcase that had been his birthday gift last year. He vanished from the screen for a few minutes, only to reappear at one of the self-checkout registers, piling his items haphazardly on the surface. Bai Yutong couldn’t make out all of the things he bought, but he recognised a few water bottles, cans of soft drink, lots of chocolate bars and something that looked like a CD case. He frowned. What on earth had his cat been up to?

After Zhan Yao had left the frame with his suitcase and a shopping bag, Bai Yutong ended the recording and stood up. That had been only moderately helpful. Nodding to the manager, he and Zhao Fu left the store and returned to the hotel room to meet with Wang Shao.

Two hours and a lot of empty take-out boxes later, he sat at the low coffee table in his room, socked feet on the table, a coffee mug beside him. The chairs next to him were occupied by his remaining team members, whose faces showed the same feelings that Bai Yutong was sure were on his own as well: frustration, anxiety, exhaustion.

Checking the nearest airport had proved utterly unhelpful. Zhan Yao hadn’t booked or taken a flight there and he didn’t show up on any of the video tapes. It was still possible he had taken a flight from another airport a city over, but Bai Yutong didn’t find that plausible. Zhan Yao was a rational and patient person, he would simply wait for a flight if it was delayed. So, he hadn’t taken a plane. What he had done, however, they could only speculate.

The only thing they were sure about was the shopping he had done before vanishing. And it didn’t make sense either. Why would his cat buy so much food? Shaking his head, he took a sip of coffee. Food. Music. He wouldn't have use for a CD, Bai Yutong pondered, because for all his old-fashioned antics, he didn't actually own a portable CD player. So, he had bought food he couldn't eat, and music he couldn't listen to, unless…

Unless.

“I got it!”

Wang Shao almost dropped his coffee mug and Zhao Fu startled out of his seat at this outburst, both looking expectantly at him. “Got what?”, Zhao Fu asked.

“What the cat did. Ah, I could kick myself for not getting it sooner! It's so obvious!” The other men looked at each other and then back to their boss. “And…?”, Wang Shao prompted. “The food! The CD! It is so obvious now! He wouldn’t buy so much food for a flight when he couldn’t keep it anyway.” He looked at them, feeling almost giddy with hope.

“He rented a car.”

#sci谜案集 #sci mystery #sci #bai yutong #zhan yao #yaoyutong #case fic #angst with a happy ending #my writing #tie your heart to mine

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