#this guy is gonna steal my shoes and my feet and my ankles and my shins and leave me bleeding on rhe side of the road!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

egcdeath · 3 years

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second chances

pairing: softdark!steve rogers x reader

summary: you wake up on the side of the road with no memories, no possessions, and no place to go. luckily, an attractive stranger arrives just in time to help you out.

word count: 4.6k

warnings: there are some soft moments, but this is ultimately a dark fic!!! alluding to kidnapping, deceit, mention of knife, drugging, abuse (mostly mental/emotional, but implied physical), amnesia, brief alcohol mention, nightmares, mention of bodily harm, bed sharing **if i’m missing any warnings, let me know

author’s note: this is my first dark fic without a dark reader, so please be nice! it took me nearly a whole month to get it where i want it to be (i’m a slow writer, i know) but i’m actually pretty proud of this.

you can find my masterlist and taglist here

After what seemed like years of waiting, the opportunity finally lent itself, a small pocket knife sat right in your peripheral view. A dangerous mixture of adrenaline and impulse filled you, not even granting you the time to think before you were clumsily extending your arm, and wielding the knife.

The blade popped out, and you held it with a shaky hand in front of your captor.

“Really?” he scoffed, “you’re gonna kill me.”

There was no attempt on his part to stop you, in fact, he smiled and leaned back slightly.

Your whole body trembled at this point, you could barely form words, let alone move. But this was your chance.

“So do it, Y/N. Kill me,” his voice steadily rose as he approached you, long legs making their way across the room.

Before you knew it, he was standing in front of you, hand approaching your own. He wrapped it around your wrist and gripped down on you like a snake, causing you to emit a tiny yelp.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked, voice steady as your hands trembled around the grip.

“Exactly. You’re still as fucking pathetic as you were the day I met you,” a slap stung your left cheek, a mark that was sure to be there for the days following.

The knife clattered as it hit the linoleum floor, and you followed its path, crumbling on the floor and breaking into tear-less sobs.

“Remember this moment, sweetheart. You’ll never get a chance like this again,” he swooped up the knife before walking away from you, leaving a broken woman in his wake.

——

You went from experiencing nothing to everything all at once. Your brain seemed to be attempting to escape your head as it pressed against your eyes, and you struggled to open them, lashes feeling like they were glued together. Rain poured down on your head, and you concluded that it had been pouring on you for a while, as you were completely soaked to the bone.

As you looked at yourself and your body, a curled up and bruised mess on the side of the road, you couldn’t help but wonder what exactly happened to you, or at all. You weren’t even sure that you had memories apart from the ones that were processing in that exact moment. It was as if you’d exited the womb for a second time, clueless to where you were, who you are, or how you got there.

You shivered as you pulled yourself to your feet, weak ankles shaking in glittery heels and body trembling in a half-torn dress. Wherever you came from couldn’t have been good.

You slipped off the shoes and held them in your hands as you walked down the side of the deserted road, bare feet sloshing in mud as you did so. You didn’t have an idea where you were, or where the nearest sign of life was. You were tempted to walk on the soaked, petrichor scented road, but you knew that that wasn’t your best idea.

You truly had no good options. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. No one to save you. You wanted to collapse back onto the ground, give into your screaming body that was becoming more and more tired by the moment. Hot tears began to slip down your face, contrasting the cold of the raindrops falling onto your body.

All hope was lost, you’d die any time now, and that would just be it. You looked up at the overcast sky and screamed at it, mentally begging for someone, anyone, to help. That you’d forever be grateful to god, or the universe, or whatever it was that was out there that put you in the situation you were in.

You screamed and sobbed until your throat was raw, and you weren’t sure you’d be able to produce any more sound, sitting down onto the damp ground and wishing for your inevitable death to be a swift and painless one.

Yet, your pity party was crashed just moments later by a beaming red light and the soft hum of a motor coming down the road. This was your one chance. Who knew when the next time you’d see a sign of human life was?

You jumped to your feet and waved your hands like a madwoman, trying to catch the attention of the male behind the driver's seat. He began to come to a stop, pulling over a bit to see you better.

His face was angelic, a strong jaw and soft eyes that looked like they had seen more than the average person. When he spoke, you felt heaven become drowsy with harmony. Or maybe you were just really tired. Regardless, your pleas to a higher power had proved fruitful, as your knight and shining armor had just pulled up beside you to save the day.

He rolled a window down, and you got closer to the door.

“Need a ride, ma’am?” he called.

You simply nodded and approached the vehicle, opening the door hesitantly. You sat down on the seat, and jumped a bit when you felt heat radiating onto the back of your thighs.

“I’m Steve. You?”

You chuckled awkwardly, “that’s a great question that I wish I could answer. It’s actually kind of a long story. Well, I assume it’s long since I can’t remember any of it. But maybe I will later. Nice to meet you anyway, Steve.”

He nodded understandingly, completely unfazed by your lack of name. Maybe he had prior experience with hitchhikers, as he was approaching this situation with a nearly suspicious calmness. “Well… where’re you heading?” the man asked, looking over at you.

“I, uh, I have no idea,” you said raspily, throat still sore from your previous screaming.

The blonde’s lip quirked at this, as if he were holding back a much bigger smile, “that’s fine. I’m heading a few towns away, but I was thinking of stopping and getting some breakfast. You interested in that?”

You shrugged, becoming slightly uncomfortable in the quickly dampening seat. Steve glanced over at you after putting the car in drive, and noticed your discomfort from your prior stay in the rain.

“We can stop by a bathroom first. I’ve got some extra clothes with me in the back,” he suggested. You nodded quietly, looking at the vast, and empty road ahead.

----

You sat in a diner booth dressed in a thick jacket and comfortable sweatpants that oddly enough, seemed to be exactly your size. Steve approached the table with an extra plate of fries, and set it gently in front of you.

“So you don’t remember anything?” he asked, stealing a fry before sitting down across from you.

You shook your head, bringing a salty fry to your mouth, “I swear I just woke up there. No memories, no nothing, no place to go. I mean, I was gonna die out there if you didn’t get me.”

Steve scoffed a bit at this, “that’s not true. I’m sure someone would’ve helped eventually.”

“Maybe. But I’m glad that it was you,” you looked up at him, and the fondness he was looking at you with was nearly suffocating.

Steve paused for a moment, mulling over his next words as if he was looking for the exact right thing to say.

“Would you like to stay with me? I mean, I know we just met each other, but I just have this feeling. Like I was meant to find you. Besides, it doesn’t seem like you have anywhere else to go.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” you excused after a moment, popping out of the both and heading towards the ladies room.

You handled your business, and stared at yourself in the mirror as you washed your hands. Makeup ran down your face, and it almost appeared that you were melting. Who would pick someone up in such a state? You had to question this Steve guy’s character a little bit. You couldn’t remember the exact phrase, but it couldn’t be smart to get into a car with a stranger. Especially a stranger offering to take you to some secret location with them. After all, he could be a murderer, a kidnapper, or a rapist. You would be none the wiser.

But he fed you, clothed you, and offered you a form of shelter. He couldn’t be too ill intentioned if he was willing to go out of his way to help, right? Maybe he just wanted to keep you off the streets, and that was why he was willing to take you to wherever it was that he was going.

Your stomach turned the longer you watched yourself, the longer you thought. Perhaps your intuition found that something was off. But who even knew if you could trust your intuition, after all, you were basically a day old, and you didn’t seem to have any other option.

——

You ended up going back out into the diner and accepting Steve’s offer. You didn’t really have much of a choice, and he wasn’t exactly a bad one.

Steve was quiet for the majority of your trip, only speaking when he noticed that you’d moved your sights from the window over to him. He didn’t seem to be a fan of the way you were studying him, but for some reason your eyes kept finding him.

Hours had passed in the day, and night was quickly approaching. You dozed as you watched the starry night from the passenger window. Your eyes were becoming heavier by the moment, hours worth of watching flat landscape, combined with the complexity of your day finally catching up to you.

——

Cold. You felt cold. The floor was cold. The blood running through your veins was cold. Your brain was cold and freezing, hindering you from properly processing what was going on in front of you.

A searing pain rolled through your body as you tumbled down the stairs, back into a room that was suffocatingly familiar.

“I should’ve never allowed you to leave. Ungrateful,” a faceless man followed you down the stairs and hovered over your now battered body. “I give you a home and you complain. I take care of you, giving you almost anything you could ever ask for. You complain. Do you know how many people would kill to be in your position? With someone like me taking care of them?”

“You told me you loved me, you goddamn liar. I let you come upstairs, and you try to fucking kill me. I should kill you,” he seethed, leaning down over you.

But I won’t.

The words were unspoken, but familiar. A threat uttered to you before, usually followed with an ‘I’ll make your life a living hell instead.’

You were unable to speak, as if someone had ripped out your vocal cords. Suddenly the faceless man was reaching down and holding the bloody organs in his hands. Your blood ran cold once again.

“You can’t even fathom the hell I want to release on you right now,” he continued, chest puffing out with exaggerated, angered breaths. “But I’ll be the bigger man. Because I love you,” he dropped the cords on the ground beside you, and your eyes flicked over to the mutilated part of yourself. “Y/N, I need you to prove to me that you love me.”

You wanted to beg, to plead and tell the man whatever he needed to hear in order to release you, but you were completely powerless.

The man hoisted you up with ease, and you soundlessly whimpered. He carried you into a small, plain room and set you on the flat, stiff mattress on the floor.

“Come on, Sweetheart. You know I’m doing this for us.”

The faceless man kissed your forehead, and the feeling of dread overtook you.

——

You awoke with a gasp, clawing at your own neck to make sure that your vocal cords were still intact.

“You alright?” Steve asked, glancing over at you. “Should I pull over?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” you whispered.

“Take some deep breaths for me, okay?” he advised, setting a reassuring hand on top of yours. “We’ll be at the hotel any minute now.”

——

Your nerves were absolutely fried by the nightmare. Your hands shook like leaves in the wind while you stood next to Steve as he checked you into your hotel room.

“How’re you doing?” he asked in the elevator, setting his large hand on top of yours once again. The gesture was calming, even if you felt a slight undermining feeling of something unsettling.

“A little better. I probably just need to lay down somewhere comfortable.”

Steve nodded and squeezed your hand, “you’ve had a long day. You have first dibs on the shower. Maybe it’ll help you relax.”

The smile that Steve was giving you was comforting. You felt glad that he was the person to have picked you up.

The elevator made a little ding noise before the doors opened, and he guided you to your room.

You made a beeline to the shower, not even taking the time to be impressed with the size of the hotel room, the amenities, or the quality of it. You just wanted to shed your clothes and find at least a moment of peace.

You exited the bathroom after about a half an hour, and walked out into the suite in just a towel.

“Can I borrow some more clothes?” you glanced over at Steve, who was openly checking you out from the comfort of the bed.

Wait, the bed.

There were way too many things going on for you to be focused on the fact that there was just one bed. Maybe Steve would offer to sleep on the sofa.

“Yeah, that’s fine. My teammate left some clothes in that smaller blue suitcase. It’ll probably fit,” Steve paused for a few moments as you found the aforementioned suitcase and looked for something comfortable that you could actually sleep in.

“Who did that to you?” he asked, gesturing at your bruised legs.

“I don’t… I don’t know. It’s all so blurry,” you sighed, settling on a fresh pair of sweatpants and a thin t-shirt. “I’ll be right back.”

You changed quickly in the residually steamy bathroom, and sat down at the foot of the bed.

“Do we need to have a fistfight over who gets to sleep in the bed?” Steve joked and you shook your head.

“I can sleep on the sofa, if you want.”

“No way. You deserve something comfortable,” he got out of bed, and approached the bathroom to take his own shower. “Get nice and cozy, friend. You deserve it.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, and you moved up to the top of the bed, slipping under the covers and sighing aloud from relief. Your body was finally having a chance to relax, and the hotel bed was surprisingly comfortable.

By the time Steve returned from the shower, you were already half asleep, and very unaware of your surroundings.

As you fell out of consciousness, you had blurry visions of confinement, punishments, and pain. You once again woke up with a gasp, but this time Steve was standing over you.

“Deep breaths, okay? I saw you thrashing and mumbling something to yourself. I think you were having a bad dream.”

You nodded and panted, trying to catch your breath and slow down your hummingbird heart rate.

“You’re safe, I promise.”

“Can you stay with me?” you stammered out.

“Yeah, of course,” Steve got into bed beside you, and rubbed your back as you curled into a fetal position, “just try to relax, okay? There isn’t anything to fear when I’m here with you.”

You nodded, clutching onto Steve’s genuine tone. Something about him just made you feel… safe, despite the possible red flags around him.

After Steve got into bed with you, you were finally able to fall into a dreamless and peaceful sleep.

——

You woke up to an empty and cold bed. You blinked a few times and looked around the room, eyes stopping on Steve as he watched you from the couch, eyes quickly flipping between yourself and the book in his hands in an effort to cover up his staring.

The whole ordeal made you feel slightly off, but the realization that you were essentially mooching off a stranger felt worse.

You hopped out of bed and anxiously paced towards the bathroom. “Shit, Steve,” you muttered. “I shouldn’t be taking advantage of you like this. I should probably leave.”

“Where else do you have to go?” Steve almost defensively questioned, frown deep on his face.

You took a deep sigh and shrugged, “I… don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”

“You don’t have to go,” he began, sounding unsure in his words, “stay. With me,” he stood up and walked over to you, grabbing the back of your arm softly. “You’re not taking advantage of me. If anything, you’re helping me. I get pretty lonely on these kinds of missions, so please, stay with me.”

You turned to look at Steve, the deep creases in his face at the thought of losing you. With just a glance, you knew that you couldn’t leave.

——

The next few days of your life had proved your theory. It was almost alarming how quickly Steve became your anchor in the midst of a new, overwhelming world.

The first thing that he did for you was tell you what your name was. As confused as you were to how exactly he figured it out, (he told you that he knew some weird tech guy. You were prepared to go with anything), you were grateful that Steve was able to help you out a piece of your old life back together.

He was oddly patient with you as you learned more and more about your surroundings. You were most impressed by the grocery store, and may or may not have spent hours inside of that food palace, spending much more of Steve’s money than was socially acceptable.

For the next few months, you stayed at a safe house with Steve, spending the majority of your time looking down at your reflection in the lake in the backyard, wondering if your memories could ever come back.

You’d grown closer with Steve in that time as well, he was really the only person that you’d gotten close with since you’d lost your memories. Now that you were thinking about it, you hadn’t said more than three sentences to anyone else. By that measurement, your next closest friend was a gas station cashier.

In fact, you’d started dating Steve. Granted, you couldn’t completely wrap your mind around it all, despite the hours of rom-coms you’d watched while Steve was gone on missions. You just knew that you cared a lot about Steve. When he was around you, your heart fluttered. He was the only person you truly felt comfortable with. He protected you time after time, and voiced to you just how much he adored you.

It made you feel wanted, to know that despite all of the confusion, you still had a place in this world, even if the place was just Steve Rogers’ heart.

——

Steve arrived at the safe house late at night after nearly a week of being off on another mission. The bed creaked as he got into bed with you, and pressed up against your sleeping form.

“Steve, sometimes I have these really awful dreams. Mostly when you’re not with me,” you began out of the blue as his arms snaked around you. “It’s always this faceless man just… abusing me. And I can’t even do anything about it because I’m too weak. And I can’t say anything because he stole my vocal cords. It sounds so silly, because it’s all just a dream, but it all feels so real. I just... I need you to promise me that you’ll protect me no matter what. Especially against him.”

“Of course,” he whispered against the back of your head, “I promise that I’ll protect you from him. He’ll never even get the chance to let the thought cross his mind.”

“I love you, Steve,” you mumbled sleepily, “please never leave me again.”

He’d been waiting to hear those words.

——

Your fingers wrapped around a warm mug while Steve put the finishing touches on your breakfast. He’d decided to go all out that morning, with an impressive spread of food that would put most buffets to shame. For a moment, you questioned if you’d forgotten about some important holiday, or an anniversary.

Steve set a plate down in front of you, then pressed a soft peck to your forehead, “enjoy, sweetheart.”

You grinned softly down at the food, and at the affection, “what’s got you in such a good mood?”

“Just relieved to be back. I don’t like being away from you for too long,” he settled into the seat across from you, and took a sip of his own coffee.

“Mm, you sure? You’re not always this chipper post mission.”

Steve chuckled and shook his head just the slightest bit, “alright. You got me. I wanted to save it as a surprise, but I hate keeping secrets from you,” Steve paused.

“So… what’s the secret?” you pressed, bringing a forkful of food up to your mouth.

“I’m retiring.”

Your eyes widened as you heard the news, and you nearly choked, “are you really?”

Steve simply nodded, “I’m ready for the next chapter of my life with you.”

Your heart fluttered at the sweetness of his gesture, and the slightest hint of nerves. Why was Steve so willing to give up his entire livelihood for someone he knew for less than a year?

You felt bad for questioning his motives, considering that Steve had been nothing but good to you in the time that you knew him. If it wasn’t for him, you probably wouldn’t even be alive. He had proved himself to be an amazing, loving man, who had bent over backwards to keep you safe and comfortable. He trusted you, and it was time for you to do the same.

“I’ve been plotting this for a while, to be honest. You might think this is a little fast, but I even have a permanent place for us to stay.”

You couldn’t find it in you to be skeptical for much longer, your feelings of adoration for Steve overruling your hesitance to jump into something like that with him.

You smiled softly as Steve spoke, getting up and pacing over to where he was seated so you could give him a hug, “I.. yes, that’s fast, but it’s also kinda amazing,” you sighed softly, burying your face into the crook of his neck. “When are we leaving?”

“Tonight, if that’s alright with you. I was thinking that we could spend the day packing up and… celebrating,” he winked down at you, and you looked up to shake your head fondly.

“That sounds like a plan,” you gazed at him with adoration, and leaned up to press a soft peck to his lips that was lovingly reciprocated.

——

Music pounded against your eardrums as you ground against a handsome stranger, one you couldn’t see, but instinctively knew. The smell of sweat, liquor, and sex filled your nose, the rancid combination oddly comforting in a retrospective moment.

“We’re leaving!” A voice you hadn’t heard in what felt like years informed you. Your face broke into a wide grin when you heard her voice. “But it doesn’t look like you care!” she jeered. “Good luck!” your friend laughed, disappearing in the sea of people.

“You’re coming home with me, right?” he asked, a hot breath against your cheek.

You nodded. The words refused to come out.

“Good,” he confirmed, pressing a kiss to your neck.

Out of the blue, you weren’t in the club, but in the small basement room from before, staring at nothing in particular while sat at the edge of your vanity’s seat.

“I’ve tried everything with you,” he commented, leaning against the doorway casually. You felt the need to apologize, to tell your captor that you didn’t mean to do what you did, that you loved him. Plead for him not to punish you. “After months of submission, I thought that we were finally getting somewhere. Why’d you have to throw it all away?”

Glancing up at the vanity, a woman with sunken eyes, a pained expression, and fading bruises looked back at you, just long enough for you to briefly become that messy, drunken woman at the club once again.

“I’ve tried everything with you. The easy way clearly didn’t work,” he continued, “you leave me with no other options, my love,” the man sighed, sitting down next to you casually. “I want you to know that I’m doing this for us. You know that nothing good ever comes easy, right?”

The syringe went into your arm like a hot knife through butter, and your muscles clenched as fire filled your body. You went to scream, but your throat was still out of commission. As you went down, your vision and thoughts began to blur before you couldn’t decipher one thing or another. The final noise you could make out was the distortedly slow rendition of It’s Been a Long, Long Time on the record player.

In an out-of-body moment, you watched as the man pulled your relaxed body down to the floor, cautiously pulling the clothes off of you and making you cringe internally at the sight of yourself in such a state. He left your body alone for a moment as he looked through the negligible amount of clothing in your closet, grabbing the same dress from the night at the club and pulling it on your limp figure.

It was torn and messy, not unlike the state it was in when you found yourself conscious. The faceless man muttered something unintelligible to himself before hoisting you up bridal style and taking your body out to the car.

You watched in terror as this all played out, your slack face looking disturbingly at peace compared to how you’d appeared before. In fact, even in your ghastly state, you felt at peace.

That peace quickly came to an end as you watched yourself get ditched on the side of the road, and as your body slowly began to twitch back to consciousness, your dream began to fade away.

——

You dragged your suitcase up through the garage, grateful to be at your final destination with the man you’d fallen in love with. You hoped that after moving in, the dreams might finally stop. After all, your dream in the car felt somewhat final. You were trying your best to be as positive as you could manage in such a strange situation, and from the outside, you had to admit that the house was gorgeous.

Stepping inside felt like the worst case of deja vu you’d ever experienced, as if your memories were repairing themself with every millisecond you were in the home, gazing at furniture you hadn’t seen in months, and smelling faint scents that you’d forgotten existed. Feature by feature, the puzzle pieces of the faceless man came together.

The longer you observed, the worse the feeling became. Waves of grief, fear, and pain were rolling over you again and again until you were completely drowning on it. The realization hit you with a ton of bricks: this was the house from your dreams.

Steve came up behind you, snapping you out of your panicked trance. He pressed a soft kiss to your cheek and squeezed you close to him.

“Ready for the first day of the rest of your life?”

#dark!steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #chris evans x reader #dark!steve rogers x you #captain america x reader #avengers fanfiction #dark fanfiction #chris evans x you #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers angst #captain america x you #soft!dark steve rogers x reader #softdark!steve rogers x reader

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gukyi · 4 years

Text

if i told you | jjk

summary: in order to pay for university, jeon jungkook decides to market his most valuable asset to the wealthy socialites of campus: himself. donning a suit and tie, tousled hair, and glasses (to look smarter), he becomes every rich daughter’s dream: the perfect boyfriend to bring to balls, dinners, and business gatherings. all while you watch from the sidelines, only able to dream of having that much money to buy yourself what you really want: him.

{friends to lovers!au, college!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, angst, we’ve got it all folks word count: 22k warnings: slightly underage alcohol consumption, mention of words that could be spoken on an crime documentary series but nothing graphic, ravioli-stealing, idiots to lovers, as per usual a/n: finally! here is the long awaited jungkook fic that i have literally been slaving over since the beginning of january. was this fic supposed to be 10k? yes. did i somehow end up writing 22k anyway? of course! in any case, please enjoy my absolute baby who i love and cherish!

check out the post-script drabble here!

Jeon Jungkook loses his job at the university call center on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year.

You know this because on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 2:07PM, seven minutes after he normally starts his job at the university call center.

He’s lucky that you’re the only one who doesn’t have class in the 2PM hour.

“Y/N!” He shouts through the thin wooden door, his voice probably echoing down the thin hallway of your apartment complex.

You open it before the second knock—you only rush to the door to get him to shut the fuck up, and not because you’re excited to see him, you swear—to see him standing on the other side, XXL university hoodie draped over his figure, down to his mid-thigh, baggy hood pulled over his head like a sad college-aged Star Wars character. He looks exactly like a jaded sophomore year college student would. He is beautiful.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the call center right now?” You ask in lieu of a normal “hello” or even a “what the fuck are you doing here, it’s 2PM”. Jungkook does not wait for you to invite him inside your apartment, immediately kicks off his shoes by the entrance and tugs on your apartment slippers that are a size-and-a-half too small for his feet, and marches over to your shared fridge to fish through the tupperware containers with your name written on Post-it notes for a mid-afternoon snack.

Jungkook waits until he’s got an entire piece of frozen supersized ravioli shoved into his mouth before he responds. “I was fired,” he says over a mouthful of pasta and cheese.

“What?” You ask, eyes widening as Jungkook shuffles through your kitchen drawers for a fork, which means that the first piece of ravioli that he ate he did so with his bare ass hands. Like a heathen. Like a ravioli-craving twenty-year-old heathen.

“I was fired,” Jungkook repeats. He stares at the microwave resting on your kitchen counter for a good ten seconds before he continues to eat the cold, unheated pasta. Every time he’s in your apartment (which is frequently), he tells you how it’s a fire, water, and explosive hazard to have your microwave on the counter like that. As if there is any other place in your apartment for it to go. Maybe out on the tiny balcony you have that overlooks the busiest street on campus.

“Care to offer an explanation as to why?” You ask, coming up next to him. Jungkook is nearly finished with your tupperware of ravioli, and normally you’d shout at him for it, but seeing as he was just fired from his only source of income as a money-starved college student, you’ll cut him some slack. Just a little.

“You remember that old, angry alumnus that told me that asking for donations in order to benefit low-income-slash-first generation students was selfish and rude of me, and that I wouldn’t be in college if it weren’t for what his generation accomplished?” Jungkook asks.

You remember that vividly. Jungkook spent an approximate two hours and thirty-seven minutes on FaceTime with you ranting about this one “old man bitch” who he had to speak to during his day at work, all while you did your economics problem set to the sweet, mellifluous sound of Jungkook’s shrill shrieks.

“The one you lost your temper at and shouted at for being ungrateful and elitist?” You ask pointedly. You have a feeling you already know where this conversation is going.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes. He finishes the ravioli (goddamnit, now you’re going to have to find something else to eat for dinner at 11PM tonight) and turns around to place it in the sink. For once, it is not piled high with dishes from up to a week ago, so Jungkook even squirts a bit of Dawn onto a sponge and washes the plastic container for you. “Well, as it turns out, telling an old racist elitist that he’s old, racist, and elitist does not go down well with my boss.”

“Why does that not surprise me,” you muse. Jungkook sighs, walking over to where you’re taking it easy on the couch. “Oh no,” you say, eyes widening as he grins, plotting something. “Do not, Jungkook. Jungkook, do not!”

He jumps, catapulting himself onto the couch and landing on top of you with a thud. You let out a groan as the weight of his body hits you, foreheads nearly knocking into each other. Jungkook is a good foot-and-a-half too long for this dinky leather couch that’s always sort of smelled, feet and ankles hanging off the opposing arm rest just so he can nuzzle his face into the crook of your shoulder like he always does. You hate when he does this. Hate when he jumps onto the couch while you’re casually reclining just so he can collapse on top of you. Hate the feeling of his body resting against yours, soft breathes against the skin of your neck. Hate how it always makes you want more, how it will never be enough.

“Have you been working out?” You mumble against the fabric of his t-shirt. “You’re more muscle-y than usual.”

“I added weights to my routine,” Jungkook tells you mindlessly. If your roommates walked into your apartment right now and saw the both of you on the couch, you’d never hear the end of it. “Taehyung said it would make me more swole.”

“As if you need to be any more buff,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Jungkook’s the most athletic person you’ve ever met in your entire life. He could probably pick up your dinky couch with you sitting on it without batting an eyelash. Even Superman would tremble at the sight of him. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Jungkook mutters into your skin. “God, what the fuck am I gonna do now? I need money to pay for everything in my life and my one source of income is now totally invalid because an old guy got what he deserved.”

“Are there any work-study positions still available?” You ask, hand reaching up to stroke at his hair, smoothing it down. Jungkook’s preferred cuddling position is big spoon, but he still demands that he be coddled as though he were the little spoon.

“No,” Jungkook says with a huff, “they’ve all been snagged by try-hard freshmen who need money like me.”

“I distinctly recall you being a try-hard freshman who also needed money,” you tell him. “That’s why you applied to work at the call center, isn’t it?”

Jungkook sits up, the weight of his figure crushing your legs as he rests on top of them. If you stayed like this forever, you’d probably lose feeling in your lower body, but you’d also get to stay with Jungkook forever, which is a trade-off you would genuinely consider. “Yeah, but the call center hires everybody. You just need to be like… decent at communication. And I’m pretty decent at communication.”

“You never text me back,” you tell him pointedly.

“That’s because I prefer showing up unannounced at your apartment or other places you frequent,” Jungkook reminds you excitedly. He’ll never let you forget about the time you were wrapping up a small seminar with your history professor and Jungkook burst through the doors with a whole thing of carrots and hummus because you had texted him that you were hungry. You could not look your history professor in the eye for the rest of the semester. “I’d say that’s pretty decent communication.”

“Well, you’re going to have to figure out another way to market your decent communication skills to get another job,” you tell him. “Have you considered the boba place on Oak? You could get me employee discounts.”

Jungkook leans over just to pinch at your cheek, fingers gripping onto your face and pulling like a grandmother. “You just want me for my money.”

“You’re my best friend, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him. “Of course I do.”

This is what Jeon Jungkook’s obligatory university Facebook group introduction post read:

Hi, I’m Jungkook and I’m thinking of majoring in visual studies or computer science (really different lol I know)! I played soccer in high school but don’t think I’ll be continuing in college because I was pretty bad at it. I’m looking for a roommate and I’d really like to live in New East House, but anything works for me as long as it has a bed. Hit me up if you think we’d made a good match, but I like talking with everyone lol.

I’m really into music and can play the guitar, drums, and piano. I like listening to all types of music (yes, even country which slaps kinda hard sometimes) but my favorites are The 1975, Frank Ocean, Troye Sivan, and Khalid. Will bop to Justin Bieber on occasion as well.

I play Ultimate and am really interested in joining the club team here so hit me up and we can practice sometime because my skills are a little rusty. I also do a little skateboarding but I am definitely not a skater.

Hit me up if you think we can be friends lol I’m excited to meet you all!

It was accompanied by several pictures, a couple of which are selfies at that anime girl angle, one of him with his friends at prom all doing that Frat Boy pose, and a couple of him with his family. To an outsider doing a very quick glance, it pretty much reads the same as a rather extensive dating profile.

The truth of it all is, as you were scrolling through the hundreds of obligatory university Facebook group introduction posts in search of a freshman year roommate, you stumbled upon Jungkook’s intro post and you thought this: No. Way.

The moment you laid eyes on his first above-the-head angle selfie, you knew that it would be unlikely that you and Jeon Jungkook’s paths would ever cross. He played guitar and did Ultimate Frisbee, and you wanted to audition for your university’s symphony orchestra. He was beautiful but in that sort of college frat boy who can crush you at beer pong kind of way. Craziest of all, he was a computer science major, and you were walking in as an undecided humanities concentration.

Impossible. There was no way the two of you would ever meet, and you accepted that right off that bat. At a school your size, you would go through these four years not knowing a majority of your class. Jeon Jungkook was just one of the casualties.

On the very first day of orientation, Jeon Jungkook comes up to you on the sidewalk, wearing a white t-shirt, a backwards baseball cap, and shorts, and asks you if you’re here for orientation as well? He’s lost.

Jeon Jungkook is the type of guy you imagine getting eaten up by any girl who meets him almost immediately. He’s charming and endearing the same way a baby deer is, but has no problem wearing clothes that remind you of how fit he is. He is, for lack of a better term, extremely good looking.

“Yeah,” you had said on the sidewalk, squinting to look up at him since the sun was in your eyes. “I’m heading to the auditorium right now. Wanna walk with me?”

“Okay, sure,” Jungkook had replied, smiling with all of his teeth. Even in the sweaty summer heat, he looked even nicer in person. “Thanks, by the way. I’m Jungkook. What’s your name?”

You knew that already. How could you have forgotten?

You had grinned up at him. The universe has always worked in mysterious ways. “I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

When Jungkook doesn’t know what to do, he stress eats. Most often, you are the single witness to this action, which has literally no effect on his body mass whatsoever since he immediately burns off every calorie (and then some) at his next gym session.

That is precisely why you are sitting in the second-best dining hall on campus eating a pretty measly salad and french fries, while Jungkook returns from the serve-yourself cafeteria with his sixth plate of food. Next to you is your mutual friend Chaewon, a filthy rich international student from Korea who is probably the nicest person you’ve ever met.

“I think I’ve called every cafe, bubble tea shop, clothing store, and paid internship within a five-mile radius of this place and nothing,” Jungkook says with a sigh, keeping Chaewon updated with his job-search antics. It’s been several days since he was fired, and while being keenly cognizant of your bank account isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when it means that Jungkook refuses to leave campus because he is in hyper-saving mode, it sort of rustles your jimmies.

“Have you tried babysitting?” Chaewon supplies helpfully.

You laugh aloud at the mere thought of Jungkook stuck in some middle-aged parent’s house with their toddler for hours on a night where he could be living it up on campus. Jeon Jungkook? A babysitter?

“Wow, what the heck is wrong with me being a babysitter?” Jungkook questions, offended.

“First of all, you don’t even let me beat you in Mario Kart on your Switch and I am your best friend. If you ended up gaming with a four-year-old boy, your over-competitiveness would take over you and you’d crush the poor kid and his spirit,” you remind him pointedly. Not to mention the fact that the man cannot cook to save his life, and you can’t even entrust him with microwave dinners because of his irrational fear of modern oven technology.

Jungkook pouts. He knows you’re right.

“It’s not like you were going to look into babysitting, anyway,” you say with a shove, nudging his shoulder with your own.

Jungkook sighs, and despite all of the shit you give him on a daily basis (part of the responsibility of being his best friend), you do genuinely feel bad for him. Even if his job at the call center wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating nor morally rewarding, he didn’t absolutely hate it and he made a pretty decent earning off of it. He unzips his backpack and fumbles for his laptop, opening it up to reveal a Google Chrome window with approximately thirty-seven tabs open of places to work on and around campus. Meanwhile, Chaewon’s phone buzzes on the table, and she heaves out a great, exasperated exhale before picking up and immediately launching off into incredibly speedy Korean.

“If only the bubble tea place was hiring,” you lament, kissing goodbye all of the free bubble tea you had been dreaming about if Jungkook got hired.

“I’m glad I don’t work at the bubble tea place,” Jungkook tells you with his eyebrows raised, “otherwise I’d have to see you every day!”

“You already see me every day!” You should back, but it’s not like Jungkook doesn’t know that already. He’s the one always barging into your apartment or sitting down next to you in the library when you’re trying to study.

“But maybe you should try drinking less bubble tea, otherwise you’re gonna blow up like a tapioca pearl like that one girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Jungkook warns, pinching your cheek as if to make your face round like a tapioca bubble.

“I can think of nothing I’d want more than to be a tapioca pearl for the rest of my life,” you state simply. It would be much less stressful than to be a college student.

“If you were a tapioca pearl, I’d eat you!” Jungkook says, and you, out of the security of both your head and your heart, choose not to think too much into it.

As Jungkook teases you about your slight obsession with bubble tea, Chaewon finally puts the phone down after what very well was several minutes of angry Korean. She lets out this deep, long sigh, like all of the pent-up rage within her is exiting through her exhale.

“You good, Chae?” You ask her, a little concerned. Even after knowing her since the beginning of your freshman year, you’ve never once seen her get mad, though she looks pretty close to it now.

“Yeah,” she says, exasperated. “My mom is having this stupid company ball here and she really, really wants me to attend.” It is obvious that Chaewon does not, in fact, want to attend. You’ve seen Chaewon nearly every day for over a year, and you’ve never even seen her wear a pantsuit. You couldn’t imagine her joy at having to dress up in a ballgown.

“But fancy free food,” you point out. Even if she does have to be trapped in a penthouse ballroom with her parents’ stuffy business friends, the catering company will probably be god-tier.

Chaewon pretty much bangs her head on the dining hall table.

“Wow, I didn’t know someone could hate catered food so much,” you say, a little alarmed.

“It’s not that,” Chaewon says, rubbing her forehead. The pasta on the plate in front of her has remained untouched for nearly ten minutes now. You wonder if she’s even hungry anymore. “My mom wants me to bring a plus-one.”

Your eyes widen. An excuse to dress nice and eat good food? Hell yeah.

“And it can’t be you, Y/N, it has to be a date,” Chaewon says. It’s pretty obvious she’s not interested in dating whatsoever, no matter the gender of the object of her affection. You pout. Damn. “My mom said, ‘he can be whoever you want!’ but that means that he has to be an attractive Korean guy who’s got a future job in finance.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jungkook says over a mouthful of broccoli.

“You will?” Chaewon asks. Jungkook just single-handedly saved Chaewon from a night of unbearable business talk with a boy she doesn’t know and cannot relate to.

You scoff. “You’re just a regular Korean dude, Jungkook,” you tell him.

Jungkook pouts, bottom lip turned out. “You don’t think I’m attractive?”

You refuse to answer that question. You’re afraid of what you might say if you open your mouth.

“Seriously, you’d do that for me?” Chaewon turns to Jungkook with platonic stars in her eyes.

Jungkook shrugs. “Sure. I’ve got a suit. I’ll ask my friend Jimin for a crash course in finance before the thing. When is it?”

And just like that, you and Jungkook’s weekly Friday Mario Kart night gets a rain check.

Jeon Jungkook is the sole best decision of your life.

And it’s funny and twisted and wonderful, because he is the one thing you had failed to account for in your life. He stands there on the sidewalk in the blazing sun, black baseball cap nestled safely onto his dark brown hair, and in the split second it takes for him to open his mouth and say hello, everything changes.

But no longer is the image you conjure in your mind when you think of him a picture of him on that very first day of orientation, lost and excited all at once. It is of him barging into your apartment and eating all of your leftover ravioli. It’s him laying on your dinky couch like it belongs to him, surfing through all of the Netflix shows available and eventually just settling on old Gilmore Girls episodes like he always does. It’s him standing in your closet to judge your latest clothing purchases and take back any items that you’ve stolen from him over the years.

It’s imagining him not as a guest but as a permanent fixture in your home, in the place that makes you feel safest. Because that’s who Jungkook is, now. He is that place. He stands in your apartment rattling off a list of why microwaves are a severely underestimated killer, and it takes every inch of your being not to ask him to stay. To spend night after night cuddling on the couch, or make a home-cooked meal together on a Sunday evening, or get lost underneath the sheets on your bed.

Jungkook stands in your apartment like he belongs there. And only in your wildest dreams could you ever imagine that coming true.

Such is the case of that Friday night, when he’s supposed to accompany Chaewon to her terrible, awful, brain-melting parents’ business gala. You haven’t seen him all day, too busy with your club meetings to make time for him after your classes are finished for the week. College is never-ending in that horrible, unstoppable way.

It’s nearing two in the morning when you hear the knock on your door. Two of your roommates are at a rush event for their sorority, and the other sleeps through your smoke alarm on a regular basis, so you are tasked with the job of opening the door.

On the other side is Jungkook, as he frequently is.

Your heart practically freezes in place, like his eyes have shot right through it. Instead of his usual baggy outfit and a bucket hat, he’s standing outside of your apartment in a crisp navy suit (complete with a pocket square), rings lining his fingers and hair tousled in that effortlessly-styled kind of way. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a young, successful CEO. Like the love of your whole fucking life.

Coughing to distract from the fact that you’re practically drooling, you say, “Wow, you clean up nicely.”

Jungkook looks down at himself, almost as if he had forgotten he’s wearing a full suit entirely. “The pocket square is Jimin’s,” he explains, “but yeah. I didn’t want to let Chaewon down by not dressing up to code.”

He’s got remnants of makeup left on his face, having faded and smudged throughout the night. There’s a bit of black underneath his eyes from the liner, a smoldering effect that makes the dark brown of his irises even deeper. “You look tired,” you comment. “Why are you here, why don’t you go home, Jungkook? Get some sleep.”

Jungkook shrugs, looking over your shoulder to see if his arrival has woken up any of your roommates. “Your place was closer,” he says like it’s nothing.

Like it doesn’t make your breath catch in your throat, stop in its tracks. He spends an evening dressed up in a stuffy suit and tie surrounded by old businessmen and their preppy daughters with whom he has nothing in common, and when it’s nearly two in the morning and he can finally relax, he drives to your place instead of his own. Like it means nothing. As if it means anything at all.

Jungkook runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, and even knotted and messy it still looks flawless. “If I’m bothering you, just let me know. I know it’s late.”

It’s so hard to say no to him.

“Just come inside already before you wake up the neighbors,” you tell him, sighing to pretend like it’s a minor inconvenience. And even running on barely any sleep with makeup smudged underneath his eyes, Jungkook grins as you let him inside your apartment, caving in, just like you always do.

The first thing he does when he’s inside is take off his fancy loafers and peel off his suit jacket, resting it against the back of the couch. You fumble around in the kitchen for the kettle, instinctively starting to make two cups of tea. Routine.

Looking up, you watch as Jungkook loosens his tie and takes it off, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his white dress shirt. By the counter, you turn your back to him so he doesn’t see you mentally combust. It’s impossible that he doesn’t already know what he does to you.

The kettle finishes boiling the moment Jungkook settles onto your couch. He keeps the television off so he doesn’t wake your roommates, and scrolls on his phone with his knees tucked underneath his chin. Thirty seconds later, you’re joining him, handing him the cup of tea before sitting down next to him, severely underdressed in comparison.

“Did you at least have fun tonight?” You ask.

“The food totally slapped,” Jungkook tells you. “Chaewon’s parents really pulled out all the stops.”

“So I’ve heard,” you muse.

“We spent most of the time lounging by the catering table and distracting each other by making up stories about all of the rich people there.” Jungkook laughs.

“Please tell me you didn’t embarrass yourself, though,” you say. Perhaps Jungkook could withstand a few blows to his ego, but Chaewon’s future pretty much depends on her impressing her parents and their comrades.

“No!” Jungkook tells you defensively. “Jimin told me everything I needed to know, but all of Chaewon’s friends and their filthy rich CEO parents thought I was so handsome that I didn’t even need to speak.”

You roll your eyes. Of course Jungkook wouldn’t give up the chance to remind you of his hellishly good looks.

“You just stood there, looking pretty?” You ask. Not as if he doesn’t do that already.

“You think I’m pretty?” Jungkook teases, a greasy smile sent your way, like he doesn’t know the answer anyway.

You huff. “Dressed up like this? Anyone would.”

“Chaewon said I was like her fake trophy husband,” Jungkook jokes. “She did all of the schmoozing. It’s not like I could have contributed anything anyway. Unless everyone wants to hear about C++.”

“Ooh, I love it when you talk all tech to me,” you tease, nudging him with your arm. “So sexy, keep talking.”

He laughs. “If we keep talking about Python I might get a little too excited.” He wiggles his eyebrows just for good measure and you giggle, holding onto this moment for dear life as you let it etch itself into your brain permanently. Times like these, you know you can’t forget, saving them for a rainy day thirty years down the line when you’re in love with someone that’s not Jungkook. When you look out the window and think about what might have been, if only things back in college had been a little bit different.

Jungkook’s phone buzzes on the table. He’s got two notifications, one from Instagram of Chaewon tagging him in a post, and another from Venmo.

“Fuckin’ damnit,” Jungkook swears, letting his phone drop on the couch cushion.

“What?” You ask, turning to look at him.

“Chaewon just Venmo’ed me a hundred dollars,” Jungkook says with a sigh. And it’s not one of those times when you see your bank account balance go up and get happy because yay, money!, it’s when your friend pays you anything over what they actually owe you out of the goodness of your heart, and you refuse to accept it.

“She did?” You ask, eyes widening. A hundred dollars? That’s more than Jungkook would make in three shifts at the call center.

“‘Thanks for bailing me out tonight. You definitely deserve more than 100 but then you’d be mad at me. But please don’t be mad at me!’” Jungkook reads off his phone. “I just stood there looking like eye candy. I didn’t do a thing to help her, what the heck?”

You pull out your own phone to check Chaewon’s latest post.

It’s a picture of them together in the skyscraper penthouse the gala was held in, Jungkook looking dapper in his suit with a glass of champagne in his hand, and Chaewon in a dress worth more than a semester’s tuition throwing up a peace sign like the trendy Asian she is. They look like a K-drama couple. Like two celebrities basking in their fame and wealth.

Shoutout to my one and only Jeon Jungkook for being my fake date tonight! Thanks to your good looks and charming personality for impressing all of my parents’ rich friends and their daughters. Love you 3000 💕

“Wow, whoever took this picture of the both of you knows their shit,” you say, impressed. You had always thought it impossible for Jungkook to look better in pictures than in real life, but this photo is coming rather close. If you were any more shameless, you’d ask Chaewon if she has any more photos of him. Just him, preferably.

It’s not as if she doesn’t know about your gargantuan crush on him anyway.

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked that good in a photo in my life,” Jungkook says with a laugh. Impossible. He yawns, placing his empty mug on the little end table next to the couch.

“You should set it as your profile picture,” you suggest, leaning your head on him and pretending like this is normal. He yawns again, stretching out as he rests his body against yours. “Hey, we should go to sleep. Unless you want to go home?”

Jungkook groans, snuggling in closer. “No, your bed is big enough for the two of us.”

And who are you to resist?

You wake up to the sound of a phone buzzing furiously on your bedside table. You crack open one eye just a sliver to see who the culprit is and immediately eradicate it, when the sun filtering through your Venetian blinds hits your cornea. You groan, shutting your eyes once more as you smack your hand around to get it to shut off.

The movement, however, causes the bedsheets to shift beside you, and when you turn, you find Jungkook nestled up tightly beneath your duvet, an arm stretched over your side as he hums in his sleep.

You’re best friends.

This is normal.

(The feeling of your heart beating out of its chest has become rather normal, as well.)

He’s wearing a raggedy old t-shirt of yours that has always been too big on you but fits him just perfectly and a pair of joggers that he keeps at your place “just in case”. Just in case he stays the night. Just in case you ever need them. Selfishly, you will yourself to fall back asleep, shutting your eyes tightly and pretending that maybe, if you never wake up, this moment will freeze in time, locking the two of you together for eternity.

He mumbles to himself in his sleep, a murmur of nothing as he shifts over slightly, hand dragging up your side.

God.

Next to you, the phone begins to buzz erratically again, and wide-awake, you look over to realize that it’s Jungkook’s, and that it’s Chaewon on the other end.

This is at least the second time she’s called, which means that, despite how tempting it is, you probably shouldn’t silence his phone and go back to lying in bed with Jungkook and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

Sighing, you pick up.

“Jungkook!” Chaewon shouts on the other side. For a brief moment you wonder why on earth she’s so energetic so early, but it’s less that and more the fact that you are overwhelmingly lethargic rather late in the day. “All of my friends said you looked really good in those photos I posted of us. Do you think you’re free next Wednesday night? Seunghee wants you to accompany her to a double date her parents are forcing her to go on!”

“Chaewon—”

“Oh, Y/N! How’s it going?”

“I just woke up,” you mumble quietly as Jungkook stirs beside you.

“Of course you did,” Chaewon says, and you can see her rolling her eyes on the other side of the line. “Wait, why do you have Jungkook’s phone if you just woke up? Oh my God, don’t tell me—”

“Shh!” You hiss into the phone. Jungkook is slowly beginning to wake up, and you can only pray that he isn’t listening in to the conversation between you and Chaewon. “No, we did not. He got back after your thing and we promptly passed out in my bed, fully clothed,” you whisper loudly.

“Jungkook went to your place last night? He was so tired, I thought he was going straight back to his. We even got dropped off outside my apartment.”

What? Chaewon and Jungkook live within a three-minute walk of each other. Your apartment is ten minutes away from both of them.

“You did?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing.

“Who’s that?”

You turn around to see Jungkook lying on his back, head resting on a nearly-deflated pillow of yours as he looks up at you, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair is mussed, some parts styled and stiff with hair gel, and some parts tangled and unkempt. He looks like he’s been lying in that position for a while, hand resting behind his head as he gazes up at you.

“It’s Chaewon,” you tell him softly as she laughs on the other end. “She just called your phone. Are you free next Wednesday?”

“Hmm?” Jungkook, still half-asleep. “When?”

“Next Wednesday,” you repeat, a hand on the phone like it’s going to do anything to stop Chaewon from listening to you two. “Chaewon says she has a friend who wants you to accompany her to a double date she’s been set up to go on by her parents.”

“Mmmrph,” Jungkook mumbles. It’s clear he hasn’t even thought about his plans for the rest of the day, let alone next Wednesday.

“He’s not available right now,” you say into the phone. Chaewon snorts.

“Fine,” Chaewon says with a sigh. “Can you pass the message on when you guys are done pretending that you aren’t fucking behind my back?”

You suck in a breath. “Chaewon!” You hiss. “We are not—” you quickly turn back to Jungkook, who, by the looks of his hooded eyes and bewildered expression, isn’t listening in, “—fucking!” You whisper. “You know we’re not!”

Chaewon laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Call me later, Y/N, we should grab ice cream or something.” She hangs up.

“Who was that?” Jungkook asks sleepily, eyes still half-lidded as he sits up in your bed, soft skin, brown hair, pouted lips amongst a sea of white, bundled up in your thick duvet as if sitting on a cloud.

“Chaewon,” you tell him.

“Oh, why was she calling?”

“She wanted to ask if you were free next Wednesday.”

“To do what?”

Maybe you were worried about Jungkook listening in to Chaewon grill you about your relationship (or serious lack thereof) for nothing.

“She has a friend who wants you to go on a parent-mandated double date, trophy boyfriend style,” you explain. Jungkook groans.

“Pretending to know business is mentally, physically, and morally draining. It feels like I’m selling my soul to capitalism,” he says with a sigh, collapsing back against the mattress. “I just wanna stay here forever. It’s so cozy.”

“Come on, Kook,” you say, tugging the duvet off of him to reveal the rest of his body. He curls into himself at the exposure, refusing to budge. “You’ve encroached on my apartment long enough.”

“Y/N,” Jungkook whines, drawing out your name for good measure. “Noooooooo.” He reaches out to cling onto your wrist, which means that if you want him out of your bed, you’ll have to drag him out.

“Jungkook, you’re swole, you know I can’t tug you out of my bed,” you say with a pout. He knows every trick in the book to use against you, and worst of all, he knows you’re weak to all of them.

“Good,” Jungkook says with a loopy smile, pulling you back onto the bed like it’s nothing. You yelp as you come crashing on top of him, your body bumping into his as he wraps his arms around you and flops back onto your bed. You laugh and shout at the feeling as Jungkook cuddles up in the warmth of the sheets, pulling you in tightly to his body. “It’s so warm here, let’s stay like this forever.”

“What about food?”

“You keep a stash of Clif bars under your bed, we’ll eat those,” Jungkook suggests.

You attempt to wriggle out of his grip, hoping to escape before he holds you long enough to get addicted, hooked on the feeling of his arms around you, his body against yours. But Jungkook is nothing if not persistent and clingy, and he wraps his arms tightly around your torso like a koala, warm and soft. “Come on, Jungkook. It’s nearly noon. Let’s be productive today.”

“Gross.”

“Let’s not sit in bed all day.”

“Grosser. Let’s just stay in your bed all day and pretend that we don’t have any real responsibilities.”

“Given that we’re in college, that may be slightly difficult.”

“Fuck that, your GPA doesn’t matter anyway. Unless you have plans on going to grad school?” He asks with an eyebrow raise, turning to look at you.

“No way, I’m not paying for another four years of this shit,” you immediately declare. Let the capitalist system of higher education extort another two to four years worth of tuition out of you for the same degree? Absolutely not.

“Then why move?” Jungkook says with a grin.

“Because,” you say, stumbling for a real answer.

“Not good enough.” He grins cheekily. “I vote to stay in bed.”

“I vote to do my readings, your CS homework, and get back to Chaewon about Wednesday.”

“God,” Jungkook says with a sigh. “What’s Wednesday?”

“Oh my God, you need to call Chaewon. Right now. Before you ask me what you have on Wednesday one more time after losing all of your brain cells lounging around in my personal bed and refusing to leave,” you say, eyes wide as you worm your way out of his grip, dusting yourself off and heading to your closet.

“Noooooooo,” Jungkook says, reaching out a desperate hand. “Y/N, come back.”

“Call Chaewon. Call her!” You order, fishing around in your closet for some fresh clothes. You’ve been wearing the same one since Thursday night. You are disgusting.

Jungkook groans but obeys, picking up his phone and pressing her contact. “Hey Chae, it’s Jungkook. Listen, I’m literally going to Venmo you back what you paid me because you? Literally didn’t need to pay me at all? And I’m actually mad at you for it? Wait, what do you mean am I up to getting paid on Wednesday—”

The phone call presents the perfect opportunity for you to dash out of your bedroom and into the bathroom, where you splash yourself with cold tap water like a model in a face wash commercial (who already has perfect skin, so why does she need this new face wash, seriously?) to clear your head. It’s been a weird twelve hours. Even weirder knowing that across the hall, Jungkook is sitting in your room, on your bed, in your clothes, under your bed sheets. Knowing that maybe, in another universe, on another timeline, you would be in the exact same positions, only everything would be different.

You wash your face, hoping to wake yourself up. Convince your mind that the past twelve hours have been nothing but a dream, and that when you walk back into your room, Jungkook will have vanished. Or he would have never been there in the first place.

You leave the bathroom and return to your bedroom to see Jungkook tugging on his suit jacket, wearing the same clothes he had on when he knocked on your door at 2AM last night. He’s still on the phone, wrapping up the conversation with Chaewon.

“Yeah, yeah, tell her that I’m down. She can just text me, give her my number. I’m happy to do this for you and your friends, Chae. Plus, she’s gonna pay me and I feel less bad about it because it’s a service and she’s not a close friend like you are. Yeah, it’s all good,” he looks up to see you standing at the door, leaning against the frame. “Yeah, Y/N just got back so I’m gonna go. Maybe we can grab dinner or something tonight? Cool. Bye.”

“Dinner without me?” You ask with a pout.

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. “You’re always invited.”

“Have you figured out what’s going on on Wednesday?” You tease him as you walk him to the door.

“Chaewon has a friend, Soojin, who wants me to accompany her on a parent-mandated double date with a business partner’s daughter,” Jungkook explains. “Apparently all of Chaewon’s friends realized I make a pretty good fake trophy boyfriend.”

You rub his shoulder. He’d make a great real boyfriend too. Not that you think about that all of the time, or anything. “Gonna put that on your resume, big guy?”

“Of course.” Jungkook smiles. “Dinner tonight? We can go to the ramen place you really like.”

“Sure thing, is Chaewon coming?”

“If she wants to. Otherwise, it’ll just be us.”

“Sounds good,” you tell him. “See you then.”

“Hopefully before,” Jungkook says. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night, by the way.”

“Anytime,” you say. Maybe one day, it’ll be true.

Next Wednesday, there’s a knock on your door at midnight.

Who else could it be?

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. And then it was supposed to be just a two-time thing. And before you knew it, Jungkook’s number and his services were circling through the ring of wealthy international students, jumping from phone to phone as people crammed to get him to accompany them on their next double date, next business gala, next ballroom dance.

You had always had a feeling that his charming, charismatic personality would eventually draw everybody towards him, so electric and magnetic that you couldn’t help but want to know him, make friends with him, be close to him. From the moment you saw his Facebook introduction post, you knew it was only a matter of time before everyone on campus knew his name.

[October 17th, 4:12PM] You: do u want to get dinner tonight

Jungkook: would love to but have to go to kim family business dinner with dahyun sorry :(

You: ok next time then!

[October 23rd, 1:03PM]

You: yo what r u doing You: i have so many readings to do rip You: do u wanna come to greene w me and study

Jungkook: heejin is taking me shopping for a fancy suit for her family’s event tomorrow i can’t :/ Jungkook: but i am going to get macaroons for u at the mall so we can see each other later!

You: yummm sure thing!

[October 30th, 9:58AM]

You: hey ik you’re asleep rn but we are still on for tomorrow right? 🎃 You: can’t let our one (1) year long halloween tradition of buying last-minute candy and watching the nightmare before christmas together die

[October 30th, 11:13PM]

Jungkook: omg i just saw this now im so sorry Jungkook: uh yeonjoo wants me to go to her sister’s halloween party tm so idk if i can make it this year

[October 31st, 2:02AM]

You: ok You: thanks for telling me

It’s no fun watching The Nightmare Before Christmas by yourself, you realize this Halloween. All of your roommates are out frequenting one of the hundreds of parties being thrown on campus tonight, and although you’d normally be up for getting drunk and dropping it low, you just aren’t in the Halloween spirit this year. Wonder why.

Armed with the knowledge that your roommates probably won’t be back until three or four in the morning, you shut your laptop and decide to go to bed early. Early being midnight, but it’s early for you and that’s all that really matters.

You don’t know why you’re being such a stick in the mud this Halloween. It’s always been one of your favorite holidays, never one to pass up free candy nor the option to dress up, but this one has been particularly lame. You don’t have a costume, your local drugstore is out of mini Skittles packets, and you don’t have someone to spend it with.

Realistically, you have no reason to be sad that Jungkook isn’t available tonight. It’s not as if spending Halloween together is some ancient tradition from birth that binds the two of you together. You did it for the first time as freshmen, and you were foolishly hoping to do the same thing as sophomores. It’s not a tradition if it only happened once.

You look in the bathroom mirror, stained with nail polish and dry shampoo and old skincare, and you sigh. Jungkook has every right to prioritize his current and only source of income over a night spent lounging on the couch doing nothing. It’s not as if you haven’t seen your best friend in over a month and this was the only night you both had free. Jungkook drops by after every single event he goes on. Every single one. He stands outside your door dressed in a fancy suit, or a silk button down, leather shoes and expensive jewelry bought for him by the girls he goes out with.

No matter the time, he knocks on your door and says hello, steals a cup of tea and a bit of your heart along with it, before bouncing out of your living room and off to his own apartment. He doesn’t stay the night anymore, doesn’t worm his way underneath your duvet and refuse to move until morning comes. It’s hard to tell if you’re grateful about it or not.

Sluggishly, you peel off your clothes and wash your face, changing into some old sweatpants from the tenth grade and a t-shirt with an embarrassingly large hole in the armpit. This Halloween, you are dressing up as a lonely college student who is going to bed early on Halloween night because she has nothing better to do!

There’s a knock on your door.

Your first instinct is to freeze up. When there’s another knock, your second instinct is to grab the closest object to you (which happens to be your water bottle) for self-defense.

And then, you hear,

“You’re not watching The Nightmare before Christmas without me, are you?”

To spare yourself the shame, you won’t say that you practically leapt out of bed the moment you heard his voice. You calmly removed the covers, and casually walked to the front door. That is what you did.

When you open it, Jungkook is standing behind it, grinning, wearing the greasiest police officer outfit you’ve ever seen in your entire life. This flew at a marketing company’s heir’s Halloween party? He’s even got what looks to be a fully-loaded water gun in his holster.

“Don’t tell me this is what you wore to some fancy-shmancy Halloween party,” you say disapprovingly, eyebrows raised as you look him up and down and pretend that you aren’t just ogling his figure.

“It was fine, Yeonjoo’s sister just graduated college. If anything, she was more okay with it than Yeonjoo was,” Jungkook says with a shrug. You don’t even need to let him in at this point, just watch as he tugs off his shoes and steps inside your apartment like it belongs to him.

“What was Yeonjoo dressed as?”

“Princess Leia. We made for a very mismatched pair,” Jungkook says, chuckling to himself. “Ooh, did you guys get new tea?”

“You can have some if you want,” you tell him, shutting the door as he eagerly pulls out a box of teabags, turning on the electric kettle on the counter. “I think it’s Wild Berry Hibiscus.”

“Sounds good already,” Jungkook says, and he lets out a sigh that sounds so exhausted, so tired and aching, as he leans back against the countertop, head resting on the cupboards above it.

“You could have gone home, you know,” you tell him. Even from the couch you can see the droop in his shoulders, the bags under his eyes. He’s been going out several times every week for the past month, and he still has a truckload of CS assignments on top. He spends precious hours schmoozing with wealthy businessmen and women, shaking people’s hands and posing for pictures in the fanciest clothes he owns and then some. The selfish part of you wants him to stay. The part that loves him knows it would be better if he went home. “You still can.”

“No,” Jungkook insists, shaking his head. “We have a tradition to uphold, don’t we?”

Even though The Nightmare Before Christmas is seventy-six minutes long, the night ends long before that. You haven’t even reached “This Is Halloween” before you feel a head hit your shoulder, and crane your neck to find Jungkook having fallen fast asleep beside you, half-full cup of Wild Berry Hibiscus next to the laptop in front of you. He’s still wearing his stupid police officer costume, the navy blue uniform tight against his body. His lips are parted ever so softly, eyelashes fluttering as little non-sounds exit his mouth, hints, whispers of snores.

He hasn’t slept over since the first time. You’re not sure if you want the trend to continue, or if you just want to be a little bit selfish tonight, greedy, taking and taking and taking. He’s so beautiful like this, so innocent and gentle and soft. It would be such a shame if you had to wake him.

And so, gingerly, you rest your head against his own, breathe in the quiet little sounds that leave his parted lips, memorize the feeling. It’s not the first time Jungkook’s accidentally fallen asleep on you, but there is something about this moment, sitting on your couch a few minutes past midnight, as the rest of the world celebrates around you, that is so intimate. Like here, in your apartment, you and Jungkook have your own little bubble, tucked away in a corner of the universe far from the noise of the rest of the world. And it’s here that you wish you could stay forever, for once never wanting the feeling to end. Wanting time to freeze in its very steps, the clocks stop and the orbit halts, and it is just you and Jungkook, forever. Like characters in a movie, on pause for eternity.

The moment ends when Jungkook shifts beside you before eventually coming to, slowly opening his eyes as he turns to look at you. You smile at him, dazed and tired, as he sits up properly, staring down at your half-opened laptop and the half-full cup of tea next to it.

“Thought you’d end up sleeping here again tonight,” you joke, even though it isn’t really a joke. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside you, in the crevices between your bones and the dark corner of your heart, you had hoped that he would stay.

“Oh, did I fall asleep?” Jungkook asks, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. It’s nearly two-thirty in the morning.

“Just for a bit. I didn’t want to wake you, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to head back to your apartment or anything,” you tell him.

Jungkook nearly jumps up off the couch at that, like he’s got springs in his shoes. Suddenly he’s wide awake, brown eyes blown open as he scrambles to gather his belongings, taking the cup of tea and quickly dumping it out in your sink.

“Hey, don’t you want that?” You ask.

“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll come by some other time and have some, it was really good, I just fell asleep while drinking it,” Jungkook sputters, words moving a mile a minute as he tugs on his heavy black officer boots, scuffed at the tips from wear and tear. It’s as if he’s desperate to leave. Like your apartment has somehow offended him. Or worse, you.

“If you want to stay, Jungkook, you can,” you tell him, standing up to run to the door before he pulls the damn thing off his hinges with how fast he’s moving. “I don’t mind. My bed is big enough for the both of us.”

“No, I should—I should get going. My… plants need watering. Right now. I totally forgot.”

It’s not a completely bullshit excuse. Jungkook has a fair few pothos amongst his other worldly apartment belongings, hanging from his ceiling or potted in old mugs and janky shoes. But it’s still a pretty bullshit excuse. It’s dark. Jungkook waters his plants every Sunday, and it’s Friday. It’s obvious he wants to get the hell out of your apartment for whatever reason.

All you can do is hope and pray that it isn’t you who’s driving him away.

“Oh—okay,” you tell him, opening the door as he furiously laces up his other boot.

“Thanks for doing this. Next Halloween will be more fun, I swear. I won’t fall asleep on you. Or anything.”

“Okay, see you soon, then?” You ask, searching for a clue, a hint, anything that will tell you that it’s not you, that he hasn’t found you out yet. That you can still be friends, be best friends, because even if you want to kiss him, hold his hand, roll around in bed with him, loving him from afar is good enough.

“Yes, yes, definitely. Dinner? Uh… sometime this week? I’ll text you. I have to go. Plants. See you!”

He dashes down the hallway.

And you end your Halloween the same way you started it. Alone.

Jungkook ran out of your apartment the other day like it was infested with cockroaches. Or the Black Plague. Or your microwave had just beeped. It was as if simply being inside it was going to scar him for life.

Maybe your apartment is cursed. Jungkook does believe in ghosts. That’s another reason as to why he fears the microwave. Tiny ghosts could be living inside the microwave chamber and you’d never know. But Jungkook knows better. He knows that they’re there.

“He just… ran out?” Chaewon asks, clearly bewildered. The two of you have been working on the first floor of the library all day, obviously doing everything in your power to not actually complete any of your assignments.

“Yeah, something about his plants.” You sigh.

Chaewon narrows her eyes, the same way she does when she’s plotting something. “Interesting.”

“What?” You ask, nudging her to see if you can worm a less mysterious response out of her.

“Nothing,” Chaewon says with a nonchalant shrug. She clearly has something to say.

“What?” You repeat forcefully. Chaewon doesn’t get to go all cryptic on you just because Jungkook ran out of your apartment like it had set fire.

“I know I’ve only known you guys for, like, a year and a bit now, but you two have the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen,” Chaewon comments like it’s nobody’s business when it is, in fact, specifically two people’s business.

You scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just…” She pauses, thinking. In the silence, she begins to pack up her belongings, shoving her laptop into her bag and gathering up the small pile of candy wrappers slowly amassing in front of her. “I’ve never seen two best friends have a relationship quite like yours.”

“Thanks?”

“What are you doing for dinner? I’m eating with Yoonji, but you’re welcome to join if you want,” Chaewon offers. Even though you have no idea who Yoonji is, Chaewon would never exclude you from eating with them.

“I’m getting Korean food with Jungkook, but thanks for the offer,” you say, only to be greeted with Chaewon rolling her eyes. He said he’d meet us outside?”

Sure enough, when you head out of the glass doors at the front of the library, Jungkook is waiting dutifully on a bench close by, headphones in as he nods his head and taps his feet to the beat of the music, lost in his own world. He doesn’t even realize that you’ve left the library until you’re two feet in front of him, when he recognizes your beat-up white sneakers and looks up at you in glee, eyes crinkled into crescents.

“Ready to go?” You ask happily. Your stomach has been rumbling ever since Jungkook suggested you go out to eat this morning.

“Hell yeah I am,” Jungkook says, putting his earbuds away as he stands up. “You coming, Chae?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m eating with a friend.” There’s nudge against your shoulder, and when you turn to face her, she winks. “But you two enjoy yourselves! Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Before you can publicly berate her for being so goddamn obvious, she’s rotating 180 degrees on her heel and speed-walking in the opposite direction, zooming off so you don’t get the chance.

“I feel like we haven’t seen each other in ages,” you comment mindlessly. Twenty-four hours away from Jungkook feels like a lifetime and a half. Forty-eight is a light year.

“I’ve been busy,” Jungkook says vaguely, shrugging his shoulders.

“Doing what, going out to fancy restaurants and galas?” You half-tease. It’s sad but true—Jungkook spends his nights living a life you could only dream of. And all of these rituals you share, from studying in the library until three in the morning to crashing at his place and taking naps on separate couches, get put on the backburner.

“Hey, it’s hard work pretending to be rich,” Jungkook pouts. “Besides, the craziest thing about going to those things is that rich Korean people don’t serve Korean food at their fancy gatherings. They serve shit like caviar.”

“Is that why you’re so desperate to get Korean?” You ask pointedly.

“Yes,” Jungkook emphasizes. “Man, I just want some tteokbokki.”

“Then we’ll go and eat all of the tteokbokki you can dream of,” you promise. You round the street corner and on the edge of the main road and an alleyway sits a tiny Korean restaurant the size of a bedroom, no more than six cramped tables inside. It’s run by a family who passes it down through each generation, dependent on the starving college students nearby to keep it alive.

It’s Jungkook’s favorite place. The owner gives him a discount every time he sees him.

(It’s impossible not to fall in love with Jungkook. Impossible to not be drawn to his presence, his personality. Like moths to a flame, you can’t help but come closer.)

“Ah, Jungkook!” The old man behind the counter greets as the bell above the entrance rings. “Sit! Sit!” He points to your favorite table, a round one in the far left corner that’s right next to the biggest window. “Usual?”

“Tteokbokki, too, please!” Jungkook shouts. The man gives you both a thumbs up and heads back into the kitchen.

“It’s been a while since we came here,” Jungkook notices. You both usually eat lunch on campus and Jungkook has been largely unavailable for dinner.

“Almost sounds like you missed it,” you poke fun.

“God, I missed it so much,” Jungkook exclaims, tilting his head back in exasperation. “I didn’t realize that it would be so much work to get dressed up in a suit and look hot.”

“Don’t make it sound like such a drag.” You frown. Jungkook needs to put in literally zero effort to look hot. Sitting across from him in this tiny Korean restaurant as he wears nothing but a massive hoodie and black joggers, he looks hot. When he wakes up in your bed in a raggedy t-shirt, he looks hot. When you catch him at three in the morning in the library after eighteen straight hours of studying, he looks hot.

Jungkook sits there and radiates light. Radiates warmth and joy and beauty. Laughter and hope. He’s the college version of a Disney prince. Perfectly imperfect and completely out of your reach.

“I wish I could take you with me, you might enjoy it,” Jungkook sighs. “Plus, I have literally never seen you wear something fancier than business casual. Imagine you in a ballgown!”

“In your dreams, Jeon,” you rebuke. “Free catered food sounds nice but having to mingle with the 1% does not.”

“Touché,” Jungkook concedes. “I don’t know how Chaewon does it.”

“She’s a goddess.”

“Indeed.”

Jungkook pours you a cup of water from the pitcher that the old man dropped off, and then pours one for himself. “Chaewon said that I did well, though.”

Not surprising. Jungkook excels at everything he does.

“Of course you did, you sexy beast,” you chide.

“She said I’d make a good boyfriend.”

You choke on your water as the man’s son brings out your food, and you desperately attempt to avoid eye contact as you sputter and cough into a napkin, gaze pointed away from both a surprised waiter and a concerned Jungkook, who awkwardly thanks the man and leans over to pat your back.

“You good?” He asks, brows furrowed.

Coughing, you say, “I’m okay, I’m okay. It just—it went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.” Jungkook doesn’t buy it, and the little coughs escaping your throat don’t do much to corroborate your claim. “Seriously, Jungkook. I’m okay. It’s just water.”

“You looked like you were on the verge of death,” Jungkook frowns.

“That’s just my face,” you fire back. “Just keep talking about what you were saying earlier. What was it?”

“Being a good boyfriend,” Jungkook says, and with no water near your lips to distract you this time, your mind bears the full force of his words, weighing down on your shoulders like a calculus textbook.

It’s not as if you aren’t already aware that Jungkook would be the best boyfriend in the entire world, bar none. Not as if you don’t sit in bed and dream of a parallel universe, a life other than the one you’re living in right now, where Jungkook is lovely and wonderful and yours. He knocks on your door at a random hour in the afternoon with Chinese takeout from the local restaurant. He remembers your homework assignments when you forget them. He sits in bed with you and judges the Instagrams of the guys on the latest Bachelorette season. It’s as if he was already yours.

“Believe me,” you scoff. “The people know how great of a boyfriend you are.”

“It’s fake, though,” Jungkook reminds you. “It’s only for a night. An evening, really.”

“Better than nothing,” you sigh. “If only I had enough money to rent myself a fake boyfriend for a night.”

“If only your parents were the CEOs of a multibillion dollar cooperation,” Jungkook adds on.

“Truth,” you say, and you and Jungkook toast to that. Toast to knowing that some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Toast to knowing that some of those people can get for themselves something you can only imagine in your wildest dreams—a night with Jungkook. More than just a night. A night spent dressed up in your fanciest clothes, arms wrapped tightly around each other. A night spent as a couple, rather than you and Jungkook.

Toast to knowing that even if you’ll never get to have him like that, you get to have him like this, and you’d rather it be like this than nothing at all.

“You don’t need to rent a fake boyfriend for a night, Y/N,” Jungkook tells you once you’ve downed the water in your glasses (stay hydrated!). “You shouldn’t feel pressured to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with.”

You don’t understand, you sigh. I’d give anything to spend time with you.

Jungkook pays. He says that he’s made more money accompanying wealthy socialites—even ones that don’t go to your school, because word gets around—than he would in a month’s worth of shifts at the call center. He says he’s never looking back. He’s probably not going to give up the gig for a while, either.

“Just because you have cash now doesn’t mean you get a free pass to pay for everything we do together,” you warn. You’ve always split the price of meals, split the price birthday cakes for your friends. In the beginning of freshman year, Jungkook ate a quarter of a bag of goldfish you had and paid you fifty-three cents to account for his consumption, which you immediately sent back to him. You still fight over it, finding surreptitious ways to incorporate it into the Venmo payments you make to each other.

“I’m rich, I can do whatever I want with my money,” Jungkook proclaims. “And if that means treating my best friend to a meal, then that means I’m gonna treat her to a meal.”

“That’s very rude of you,” you tell him pointedly. “Zero out of ten, worst best friend in the entire world. Will not accept my Venmo payments.”

Walking down the sidewalk, side by side, Jungkook wraps an arm around you and pulls you in for a side hug as you come to a stop at a traffic light. “You always do so much for me and Chaewon. You deserve to be treated once in a while, Y/N.”

“Why, ‘cause I go out to CVS at ten at night to get you Nyquil after you catch the common cold from some sweaty guy at the gym?”

“That,” Jungkook nods, conceding, “and also because you’re one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. The people who know you are lucky to get to say your name.”

If only Jungkook knew that he was the exact same. It’s an honor to know him. It’s a blessing to love him.

“What fancy clothes do you own?” Chaewon’s lying on your bed, scrolling mindlessly on her phone.

“I don’t know,” you respond, brows furrowing. You get up from your desk chair to start fishing through your closet, “I have, like, some business casual stuff.”

“How about a dress?”

You whip around suspiciously, eyeing Chaewon as she lounges around in your room and acts like she isn’t plotting something nefarious. “Don’t you think you could tell me what you’re trying to convince me to do before you ask me if I have the appropriate clothing?”

Even lying on her back, Chaewon still manages to roll her eyes, sitting up to meet your gaze. “There’s a gala tonight to celebrate some big business deal being closed and I want you to come with me,” she says like it’s a chore, exasperated.

“Me?” You frown. “Why not Jungkook?”

“He said he had some thing to do for some other girl,” Chaewon says. The topic clearly is not at the forefront of her mind. It’s a little too obvious that it’s at the forefront of yours. “Besides, I was given no date restrictions and you deserve to have a little fun tonight. It’s a Friday!”

“I just want to stay in bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you tell her.

“You’re already out of bed,” Chaewon points out unhelpfully.

“Well, then I want to get into bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you rephrase.

Chaewon pouts. “Noooo, please? It’ll be fun, I swear,” Chaewon pleads. “It’s a huge party and hundreds of people are going to be there. Everybody gets to bring a plus one. You won’t be the only person who doesn’t know anything about business and has to cling onto their date in order to survive.”

“Gee, thanks. That makes me want to go so much,” you deadpan.

“Seriously, Y/N. When was the last time you went out on a Friday?”

A while ago. You and Jungkook started having Mario Kart nights on Friday in the middle of your freshman year after you both came to the conclusion that every frat party smells, sounds, and tastes like the same fifty shades of college regret. You haven’t gone out since.

“Not that long ago,” you lie. It’s been months.

“Yeah, right,” Chaewon scoffs. “Don’t think I don’t see your Bitmoji on the SnapMap sitting in your damn apartment on a Friday at 11PM,” she scolds.

“I’m gonna turn off my location,” you declare. You’ve had enough of Snapchat exposing you and your location. People can live in mystery about your whereabouts from now on. They don’t need to know. Chaewon certainly does not.

“No excuses, you’re coming with me to the gala! You must have something to wear in that closet of yours, don’t you?” She slides off of your bed with a thud and joins you as you stand in front of your clothes. None of them scream fancy. None of them even whisper it. You stand back as she shuffles through your clothes, hangers squeaking as she shoves them along the rail. Chaewon tears through your clothing faster than you skim through your economics readings. “Aha! What do we have here?”

She whips out a dress from the very back of your closet, right behind the blazer you never wear because you’d rather be caught dead than in business attire. It’s old—you don’t think you’ve worn it since the beginning of your freshman year when you thought you actually had to dress up for parties. Needless to say, you dry-cleaned it the following Monday and never wore it again. You don’t even recall bringing it to college this year.

“This is perfect!” Chaewon cries. “Really says ‘I can fucking dress myself’, don’t you think?”

“Are you implying that I can’t dress myself?”

“You should definitely wear this,” Chaewon decides, dodging the question. “Gucci and Louis Vuitton are overrated, anyway.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I.” Chaewon thrusts the dress towards you.

Chaewon shakes her head. “Of course you don’t.”

Three hours later finds you one makeup and hair session later, standing in the lobby of a magnificent skyscraper wearing a dress that maybe could have done without the cup of frozen yogurt that you ate before you arrived. Now you remember why you haven’t really worn it since the beginning of last year. Has it shrunk?

“I feel like a loser, Chaewon,” you hiss as she bats her eyelashes and gets directed to the private elevator that will lead you both to the top floor. “A money-less, jobless loser.”

“At least you’re honest, Y/N,” Chaewon whispers back as you step into the elevator. Despite being nearly an hour and a half late (“Fashionably so!” Chaewon exclaims.) you are crowded into the back corner, several other couples stepping inside to join you, all of them wearing clothes that cost more than your tuition for all four years of college, combined. “That’s better than most of the people here.”

Nothing separates the rich from the poor like morality.

When the elevator doors open, you and Chaewon are the last group to step out, milling about in the corner until the path is free. And when you turn your gaze away from her, you realize just why Jungkook’s so keen on going to events like these, why he never turns down an offer when it lights up his phone screen.

In movies, rich people flaunt their wealth so extravagantly that it almost looks fake. From gigantic ice sculptures to ten-feet-tall chocolate fountains, entire orchestras and dresses worth thousands of dollars, it makes you wonder if rich people really do see those items as necessities when throwing a party. They rent out entire European castles and the press publicizes every one of their actions. To you, it looks contrived, unrealistic. Even if rich people have enough money to sustain the bottom 99% for hundreds of years, how could they spend their money on nonsense like this?

As it turns out, the ice sculptures and chocolate fountains are only half of the story.

At this gala, the hosts have spared no expense. The entire penthouse is made purely of glass, from the ceiling, to the floor, to the walls in between, giving you an absolutely breathtaking view of the city lights dozens of feet below you, of the stars millions of light years away. It’s as if you’re standing in a bubble, frozen in time, the world sparkling and twinkling and shimmering around you. You didn’t even know a place like this existed on Earth. The price to book it must be astronomical. The view, even more so.

“Holy fuck,” you murmur, mouth dropping open at the sight. It’s a movie come to life. It’s a picture straight out of a fairytale.

“Pretty sweet, right?” Chaewon says, clearly proud of herself for convincing you to join her. “The Parks and the Ohs really felt like celebrating.”

“No shit,” you say, dumbfounded. Chaewon wraps her arm around yours and leads you out of the elevator, her poise and grace akin to that of a princess. She’s been to this place before. She could do this in her sleep.

“Pictures first, then we eat, and then we mingle,” Chaewon instructs, and you nod diligently. She’s the only way you’re going to make it out of this night unscathed. Without her, you don’t know what you’d do.

On the average day of an average life of an average person, pictures means getting a stranger to take a single pic on your shitty iPhone at your worst angle, which you will begrudgingly post to your Instagram later after extensive editing.

But this is not your average day, and these are not average lives of not average people. Pictures means professional photographers with entire setups, standing with their cameras held up to their eyes, poised and ready for the next shot. It means couples, one by one, stepping in front of a gorgeous backdrop and posing, over and over, as five photographers at once cram to get their best angle, the cleanest photo.

You don’t know how to pose for photos. You barely remember what the proper formatting is for your essays, depending on the citation structure. And yet, Chaewon is ushering you over in front of the photographers, immediately striking one of her classic, perfect poses as you flail about, trying to figure out what to do with your hands.

“Just relax,” Chaewon advises. Even standing beside you, she can see you panicking in her periphery. “And smile. You’re beautiful, so show them that.”

Eventually, as the photographers switch positions to get different angles, you stop worrying about your hands, stop worrying about your bag, your feet, your head tilt, and just grin. You may not have millions of dollars to your name, but it’s a Friday night and you’re living the life of a billionaire with no responsibilities. You deserve to live a little.

When the next group comes up, Chaewon nudges you out of the way and whispers to one of the photographers, who nods dutifully in response. Wrapping her arm around yours once more, she guides you to the massive catering setup, tables and tables lined with delicacies from every country you could imagine. And of course, a gargantuan chocolate fountain in the middle of it all.

Your stomach rumbles. Clearly, the frozen yogurt was not enough to hold you off. Or maybe it’s just because you’ve been eating college dining hall food for weeks now, and are probably going to throw up if you have to have dry beef one more time.

“If you want to, you should try the caviar. It’s delicious. Avoid the eggplant, it tastes like foot, but the brussel sprouts are delicious. Kimchi’s good, too. Classic,” Chaewon instructs as you walk around the tables, placing servings the size of quarters onto your plate just so you can have a taste of everything. Chaewon sticks to some ribs, pan-seared salmon, and a vegetable so expensive you’ve never even heard of it before.

“Im Chaewon, is that you?”

“Mrs. Kim!”

A strange older woman comes up to the two of you as you’re dishing up, and Chaewon’s face immediately lights up. The woman goes in for a hug, a barely-touching pat of the shoulders and hands. Over her shoulder, you watch as Chaewon rolls her eyes and pulls a face.

“How are you, dear? You look so grown up,” Mrs. Kim says. You watch as the light slowly fades from Chaewon’s eyes with each second that passes.

“I’m very well, Mrs. Kim. Did you get your hair done? It makes you look so youthful.” Chaewon’s a master. She glares at you when Mrs. Kim isn’t looking, raising her eyebrows as if to say learn, young padawan. This is how it’s done. They go on for a couple minutes, showering fake compliments on each other as you slowly begin to eat. You scrunch your nose up. Chaewon’s right. The eggplant does taste like foot.

“And who is this?” Mrs. Kim asks, turning her focus onto you. You look up like a deer in headlights, a brussel sprout puffing your cheek. You were not meant to mingle and eat at the same time.

“This is one of my closest friends, Y/N,” Chaewon introduces for you. You nod your hello, chewing the brussel sprout in the most nondescript manner possible in an effort to save whatever is left of your dignity. “She’s pre-law.”

You are not pre-law.

“Oh, how wonderful! You must have a lot you want to accomplish in life,” Mrs. Kim says. God, you couldn’t care less about how Mrs. Kim feels about you.

“Yes, definitely,” you say awkwardly.

“We really must be going, Mrs. Kim. My parents will want me to make sure I do my rounds,” Chaewon says, a hand on your arm as she makes to get you both the fuck out of there.

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Kim concedes, sending you and Chaewon one final goodbye before moving on to find her next victim.

When she leaves, Chaewon seems to let out the biggest exhale of her life. “Holy fucking shit, I thought she’d never leave,” she exclaims, grabbing a flute of champagne and downing it in a single go. “She’s an associate of my father’s, so she’s always trying to kiss my damn ass. Like, sorry that you need to brown-nose your boss and his daughter just so you bribe your idiot son’s way into college.”

“You like mingling, I take?” You joke.

“Just murder me.”

“Have any tips?”

“Flex as hard as possible without actually flexing. Try to speak to people your age because they are usually more bearable than people older than you. The best conversationalists are anybody under the age of ten,” Chaewon tells you. She picks up another glass of Prosecco. “Want some champagne?”

“You have it,” you tell her. “I think you need it more than I do.”

Chaewon shrugs. Not as if they’re running out any time soon. She gulps it down and places it on the tray of one of the caterers as they whiz by her.

The rest of the night passes by in the same way the beginning of it did. Chaewon drags you around the penthouse, talking with her father’s business partners and associates and their sons and daughters and husbands and wives for no more than two minutes each before moving on. She’s got her technique down pat. Greet, compliment, shade, flex, compliment, say goodbye. It’s foolproof, because you immediately notice that everyone else in the room has adopted the same approach.

Business gatherings like these are just one big game of who can be the most-liked and the least-liked at the same time. And the answer: everybody, all at once.

Halfway through the evening, Chaewon collapses against the back wall, totally unafraid of the possibility of the glass giving out behind her. She doesn’t care. If it breaks, it breaks.

“Tired?”

“I just need a break,” Chaewon declares. “Because everyone in here is so fucking fake, and you’re the only one I can talk to without wanting to rip out my eardrums.”

“I’m honored,” you say sarcastically.

“When I say you’re the only honest one here, I mean it,” Chaewon says. You lean back against the wall next to her, looking out into a sea of people in fancy clothes with fancy food and fancy friends. “Look at all these people, Y/N. All these fucking people, and you’re the only one who’s true.”

And then, you spot him.

He’s far away, standing in a group of people you don’t recognize, a hand on the small of another girl’s back. He’s wearing a navy blue suit, tight-fitting and tailored, a silver watch sparkling on his wrist as he adjusts his sleeves. One of the other young men in the group says something funny, and he tilts his head back to laugh, chuckling as the girl beside him curls into his arms.

You suppose it would have been ignorant of you to assume Jungkook was elsewhere on a night like this, at a gathering where everybody who knows anybody is here.

Jungkook must not know you’re here. He mustn't, otherwise he would have come over to find you. You must have entered at different times, spent the night wandering around different parts of the penthouse. Clinging onto Chaewon’s arms, you must have avoided his gaze, and he, yours.

Chaewon hasn’t spotted him either. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better, if you’re the only one stuck with the knowledge that he’s here tonight. Chaewon would pity you. Other people would ask you how you knew such a worldly, experienced man like him. And you would spend the night wallowing in sadness, wondering why it’s never you that gets to spend the night next to him.

From this distance, you can see Jungkook perfectly. The light from the moon shines down on him like a goddamn spotlight, catching the sparkling on his wrist, leaving a silver gleam in his slicked back hair. You watch as he laughs, smiles, talks, grins and beams and socializes. Of course he’s here. Of course. He’s so good at this, so good at being real and genuine and happy.

Chaewon says the only person in the room who is true is you, but how can that be? How can that be when Jungkook, the most honest, wonderful, real person you know, is standing in front of you? You aren’t honest. You aren’t true and real and whole. You stand on the sidelines, a wallflower in a room of daisies and roses, and pine from afar. Watch as he pretends to date a girl that’s not you, wraps his arm around her waist and kisses her cheek, and you act like everything is alright.

It sucks, being trapped like this for fear of him seeing you. You know that would be worse—if he saw you standing alone and decided to take matters into his own hands. Seeing him up close in a penthouse like this, a movie set, shimmering and sparkling, it would be worse. Jungkook pulls the girl beside him in close to his side, smiling as he listens to someone else speak. She’s the perfect height in those heels, just tall enough to rest her head in the crook between his neck and his shoulder. You imagine them walking into the room together, hand in hand. Imagine them posing for the pictures like a real couple, a pair of celebrities.

You suppose you have no reason to be jealous of her, of him, of what they have. Jealousy is when resenting someone for having something that you once had. You never had a life like that with Jungkook. You’ll never have a life like that with him. Never get dressed up to go out, never get to be his date to an event. Never get pictures taken of you as a couple, never feed each other candies and strawberries dipped in chocolate. You can’t be jealous of her. You were never in the running to begin with.

“Ready to get back out there?” Chaewon asks, placing a firm hand on your shoulder.

A waiter comes by with a tray of champagne flutes, offering it to the both of you.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Chaewon tells you as she takes a glass for herself.

You sigh, casting another glance over at Jungkook. He and his date are moving around now, joining another social circle on the opposite side of the penthouse. He looks so at ease, so comfortable. He belongs there, in the middle of it all, talking and laughing and grinning. And you? You belong back at home, underneath your duvet covers playing a game of Mario Kart. Not here.

You shake your head. You could use a drink or two in this state. “I’d love one, actually. Thank you.”

That night, you stay at Chaewon’s place.

“You’ve been acting weird.”

“Hello to you, as well,” you say with a scowl as Chaewon sits down across from you at the local ramen place.

“Listen,” Chaewon begins, “I’ve been thinking. You need to confess to Jungkook.”

You nearly spit out the complimentary water you were served. “Excuse me?”

“You need to. You’ve been acting weird and that’s the only thing that’s going to fix it,” Chaewon declares.

“What do you mean I’ve been ‘acting weird’? Care to explain?” You ask, offended. You haven’t been acting weird. Well, that weird. Maybe a little weird.

“Jungkook told me you haven’t seen each other for the last eight days,” Chaewon points out. Eight days? It’s more like seven and a half. Not that you’ve been counting, or anything.

“So? We’re busy people,” you defend. It’s a good enough excuse. You’re sophomores in college. You have classes. Clubs. You have to meal prep.

“So? You guys are best friends. You make time to see each other at three in the fucking morning if you haven’t seen each other yet that day. And you haven’t seen each other for eight whole days? What’s wrong with you?” Chaewon demands.

“Nothing! What the heck, I invite you out to a best friend ramen date and you just blaspheme all over me like this?” You accuse. This is not how you imagined today to be going. This isn’t how you imagined this week to be going. “Besides, it’s only been seven and a half days. He’s over-exaggerating.”

“Seven and a—holy fuck, you are literally the worst. Can you just stop resisting? If you tell him, everything will be fine and go back to the way things were,” Chaewon says, blinking, flabbergasted.

“No, they will not,” you hiss. “Everything will change if I tell him. We’re best friends, Chae. Imagine if I told you that I loved you. What would you do?”

“I’d love you back, that’s what!” Chaewon tells you. “You deserve to be loved back, Y/N. Nothing would change between us. I already love you. You’re one of my most favorite people ever. I would never regret something if it was with you.”

“It’s different with him, though,” you try to explain. You don’t know why—you just know that it is. The way you’re friends with Chaewon and the way you’re friends with Jungkook are entirely separate. You love Chaewon. You’re not in love with Chaewon.

“Is it? How?” Chaewon says.

“I don’t know, I just—it’s different with him.” There’s no way to describe it. Jungkook appeared in your life and it was as if everything just clicked into place. There isn’t a single thing in your life that makes more sense to you than Jungkook. “It’s always been different with him. With you, I—I knew that we would become really close friends once we started talking a lot more in the beginning of freshman year. But with him—I don’t know. From the moment I met him, I knew that I would fall in love with him. When he said hello to me, I was fucked. There’s never been any hope for me, Chae. I just have to live like this forever.”

Chaewon rolls her eyes. “No, you don’t. You don’t even see what the fuck is right in front of you.”

“You?”

“God, I’m friends with idiots. Literal idiots. How you guys have made it through nearly a year and a half of college is beyond me,” Chaewon says to nobody in particular. “Seriously, tell me, Y/N. What do you think will happen if you tell him? Just out of curiosity.”

“I don’t know—” you pause. A lot of things. He tells you he just wants to stay friends. He rejects you because he’s not interested that way and you can’t really be friends anymore because it’s weird now. He’s already interested in somebody else. He’s already dating somebody else and you never even knew. He’s not looking for a relationship right now. Things get awkward because you confessed to your best friend that you’re in love with him and he doesn’t feel the same. You end up never speaking to each other. You never see each other. You go through the rest of university seeing each other on the Green by chance and not knowing what to do. You graduate and move on with your lives. And suddenly, he’s just a past friend you used to have. No longer a part of your life. No longer given the chance to. “He rejects me. We never speak again and have to avoid each other at all costs. He lets me down easy and I feel like a total loser for having confessed in the first place. There’s a lot.”

“Jesus, Y/N. Aren’t you forgetting a possibility?” Chaewon says, eyebrows raised high.

“I’m omitting a lot of them,” you tell her. Including the one where, in the next three years, you end up in a hellish dystopian wasteland and you have to band together to survive but it’s awkward and terrible because you love him still and he doesn’t feel the same, never has and never will, and now you have to fight off zombies and a corrupt autocratic government all while dealing with your own goddamn feelings. That may be the most unbearable one of them all.

“How about the one where he actually feels the same?”

“Too unrealistic,” you tell Chaewon. It’s the truth. Why else would Jungkook be traipsing around with beautiful, rich, worldly girls on his nights off? He does it for the money, sure, but he likes it. He loves the experience, loves living that sort of life. You’d never be able to provide that for him. “You know that’s never going to happen, Chae. We’re just friends.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, he thinks that we’re just friends. And I’m not gonna fuck everything up by telling him that I’ve been madly in love with him for the past year and a half.” You can think of nothing worse.

“Have you ever considered the fact that maybe he thinks that the two of you are just friends because you refuse to actually show him how you feel?” Chaewon asks pointedly, eyebrows raised in disapproval. She looks about ready to walk out of the restaurant. “You never do things to give him a reason to think otherwise.”

“Why would I?”

When your ramen arrives, Chaewon takes a deep breath, downs the rest of her glass of water, and moves on. It’s clear that if she thinks about this any more, her head will explode.

Nothing’s ever going to change between you and Jungkook. You knew, when you first met him, that it was always going to hurt like this. That loving him was something you had to sacrifice to stay close to him. He lights up every fucking room he walks into, and it’s all you can do not to sit there and bask in his warmth. You would rather catch a single one of his rays than be in the darkness. And if being friends with him means that friends is all you’ll ever be, then so be it. You’re lucky to have him like this. Why take the plunge?

“Just—” Chaewon says as you begin to pull apart the noodles in your own bowl. “I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now. And you deserve to be happy, Y/N. You deprive yourself of all of these wonderful things, and I just want you to know that you deserve every single one of them. But telling him? That’s something that even I know would make you the happiest. You shouldn’t live like this, Y/N. You have no idea what you’re missing out on if you do.”

The streak of not seeing Jungkook ends the next day, when you come back from an evening grocery store run to find him standing outside your door, hand about to knock on the wood. He’s all dressed up again, button-down and slacks, hair styled and parted, and you watch as he takes a deep breath, almost as if he’s waiting for the best time to knock.

“Jungkook?”

He practically jumps out of his skin at the sound of your voice, nearly tripping over his own feet as he lays his eyes on you.

“Oh, Y/N!” He exclaims. “I was just about to see if you were home.”

“You could have just texted, you know,” you say jokingly, joining him at the front door as you fumble for your keys.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Jungkook admits sheepishly.

“Well, make it up to me by helping me unpack these,” you demand, kicking the door open as you reach down to grab your reusable canvas bags filled with groceries. Immediately, Jungkook is leaning down to grab all of them for you, hauling them inside like they weigh nothing. You stare as he heads over to your kitchen without breaking a sweat, biceps clenching as he lifts the groceries up onto the counter.

“What’d you get?” Jungkook asks, slowly beginning to take out the groceries. He’s in your apartment so often that he’s memorized where all of your food goes, from the correct shelf in the fridge for produce to the proper cabinet for cereal.

“Just like… groceries. I saw a box of peppermint chocolate bars that I thought you might like, they’re in there somewhere,” you say mindlessly, pointing to a random canvas bag. Immediately, Jungkook abandons his putting-away-groceries duty to fish through each of the bags, hunting for the box of goodies. “And I got some cheap Trader Joe’s wine. You know. Just for emergencies.”

“Trader Joe’s wine and peppermint chocolate bars,” Jungkook comments, nodding in approval. He finally finds the box and tears it open sideways. “Sounds like a perfect dessert if I’ve ever heard one.”

“What, did you eat already?” You ask, busting out the wine and a couple of mugs, because you don’t own any wine glasses. Nothing says cultured like drinking seven-dollar wine out of mugs with kitschy sayings like “don’t talk to me until this is empty” or “coffee is my first love” written on them.

Jungkook shrugs. He grabs the box and heads over to your couch, already kicking back and relaxing. “Yeah, I went to some restaurant for another double date,” Jungkook says. “It was one of those places where everything is so expensive but the portions are the size of my fist. Of your fist.”

“You sound hungry,” you note, filling up the mugs and joining him. “And mad.”

“I’m getting reimbursed for the money I spent tonight, so I suppose I could be angrier. But I’m starving. Let’s finish this entire box of chocolates and do nothing else.”

“Your words, not mine,” you say, although his proposal sounds more than appealing to you.

You turn the television on for some background noise, switching to a channel showing old reruns of unsolved serial killer cases, because nothing sets the mood better than the words “then, slowly, he took the knife with which he killed her and began to slice away at her body”. Jungkook doesn’t seem to pay the television any attention, though, instead focused entirely on the chocolate in front of him, calling his name.

He takes an enormous bite out of one before moaning far too sexually for your liking, tossing his head back in bliss. “Oh my God.”

“Good?”

Jungkook moans again in response.

“Please don’t orgasm on this couch. Who knows what other bodily fluids were on here before we bought it,” you ask calmly.

“I’d say that’s nasty, but you guys did cover this with one of those couch covers, so it’s not like my body is coming into contact with other people’s body stains,” Jungkook reasons. The couch cover is the single best purchase you’ve made this entire year. Possibly your entire life. “But they’re delicious. You made a good purchase.”

“I thought you would like them,” you say. “You’re the only person I know who actually likes the combination of mint and chocolate.”

“People who say that it tastes like toothpaste are brushing their teeth with the wrong kind of toothpaste,” he tells you pointedly. “I don’t understand. This is God’s combination. It’s perfect.”

“As long as you love it, that’s all that matters,” you tell him with a pat on his back, breaking off a square of the chocolate bar for yourself. It is pretty good, even if mint chocolate ice cream does sometimes taste like toothpaste. But you’d never tell Jungkook that, of course.

Jungkook takes a swig of the wine, picking up the mug and gulping down about half of it, the wine bitter on his tongue. “Goes great with this wine, too,” he jokes. You take a sip yourself. It’s… not very good. Actually, rather sticky. No wonder it was only seven dollars.

“You don’t have to lie to me, I know it tastes like ass,” you tell him honestly. To be fair, you and Jungkook have both had worse. Compared to the shit served at frat parties, this may as well be beautifully-aged Malbec.

“It only tastes a little bit like ass,” Jungkook compromises. “But it doesn’t not taste like ass.”

“Let’s finish it now so we don’t have to have any more of it later,” you decide. “You’ve probably had some of the best alcohol in your life this semester.”

Jungkook thinks back, tilting his head to the side as he begins to recall all of the instances in the past few months when he’s had anything to drink. “Soju’s still my favorite. But yeah, I’d say I’ve had wine that probably costs more than my textbooks for this semester if I hadn’t pirated them all.”

“The beauty of being a CS student,” you muse.

“You know it,” he says, holding his half-empty mug out as a toast to himself. “But seriously, even if this Trader Joe’s wine literally tasted like garbage, it would still be better than all of that other shit.”

You turn to him, skeptical. Even the single night you spent with Chaewon, in a penthouse amongst the stars, drinking champagne and eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, was more than you could ever dream of. You woke up the next day on an air mattress in her bedroom and wanted nothing more than to go back to basking in the luxury, desperate for another taste. It was addicting. How could Jungkook ever prefer what he has right now to what he had last night?

“Really? Don’t say that just to make me feel better,” you tell him. You can take it. Jungkook has every reason to prefer the fancy meals, the penthouses, the suits and ties to your janky little apartment and old clothes from high school. The two aren’t at all on the same level. They’re not even in the same goddamn game. If you could drop everything to have what Chaewon has, what the other girls and boys who pay for Jungkook’s company have, you would.

“I’m not,” Jungkook tells you seriously. “I mean it. I would rather sit in your room, hunched over your tiny Switch because you lost the HDMI cord to plug it into the television, playing Mario Kart than out there, pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“But it was fun in the beginning, wasn’t it? Getting to be rich without the moral ambiguity that comes along with being part of the upper class?” You ask. It must have been. Jungkook looked so happy when he first started doing these gigs, coming back to your apartment in a state of bliss, a little tipsy from the expensive champagne and steak. He’d knock on your door and tell you all about the night, from how older businessmen handed him their cards and offered him jobs, to the hundreds of ice cream flavors you could only ever dream of eating. Everything seemed so wonderful to him.

Jungkook shrugs, pouring himself more wine. “Yeah, I guess, but it gets so old after a while. Like, no wonder Chaewon was so desperate for me to go with her that first time. It sucks the damn life out of you. You walk around and mingle and pretend that you’re the greatest person on Earth, talking about yourself and kissing up to the other people for an entire night. Honestly, sometimes it’s worse than my CS homework. And I hate that shit.”

“Chaewon mentioned that the eggplant usually tastes like foot,” you add. Jungkook nods in agreement.

“Yeah, it does. She warned me about it the first night and I, like a fool, tried it because I usually like eggplant. And it still tasted like foot. Never again,” Jungkook says, shivering at the mere thought of it. It’s funny, actually, because you did the exact same thing. “But the food is like, the one thing I pretty much don’t have the right to complain about. It’s delicious and usually free.”

“But I hope that you’re having fun,” you tell him honestly, because you do. When you’re sitting in your room, eating two different pints of Ben & Jerry’s, you hope that Jungkook, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, is enjoying himself more than you are. Because he deserves it. You never want there to be a time when he’s sad, when he’s unhappy or bored. Jungkook deserves to live the happiest version of life he possibly can. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“I do,” Jungkook says. There’s a second half to that sentence. “I do—it’s just that… It's so fake, you know? I feel like such a goddamn actor when I’m there. I get to live this extravagant lifestyle for a few hours but in return I don’t even know who I’m looking at when I look in the mirror.”

Oh?

“Like, I pretend to be this business student, when I’m not. I pretend to have millions of dollars to my name, when I don’t. I hold hands and pose for pictures with people Chaewon is vaguely familiar with and nothing, literally nothing, feels real. I don’t know.” Jungkook takes another swig from the mug. “Even the relationships I have when I’m there are fake.”

“Do you hate it that much, then?” You ask him. If it’s so awful and terrible, then why does he keep doing it? Keep dressing up and going out, holding hands with and wrapping his arm around them?

“No,” Jungkook says, sighing as he leans back into the couch. “I don’t hate it. I just—I wish I had something real afterwards to come back home to.”

Real? Like what? Like you? You aren’t real. You sit next to your best friend and pretend that everything is fine. That nothing hurts. You’ve had the biggest crush on him ever since you laid eyes on him, and you’re doing everything in your power to make sure that he’s the only one that doesn’t know.

“That’s why I’m always coming back to your apartment afterwards,” Jungkook says. He chuckles, but it isn’t his usual laugh. It sounds forced, contrived and fake. Jaded. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it almost immediately. Then, he breathes, long and slow. Thinks. The silence is almost unbearable. Waiting to hear what he has to say, even more so. “You’re the most genuine person I know. What we share—it’s real.”

Tonight is the least lonely you’ve felt in a long time.

Even though Jungkook has something tonight, you aren’t aching to be by his side, desperate to spend more time with him. He told you that he was really looking forward to this one, that it wasn’t going to be some stuffy gala or blind double date. He said something about going to karaoke with the girl and her friends, singing Britney Spears songs and taking shots of soju for hours on end, screaming his voice hoarse. And even if you aren’t there with him, you’re happy because you know that he’s happy, that he’s genuinely enjoying himself.

So, you aren’t that lonely.

Content with the state of your life as it is, you take the night off, ready to prepare yourself for a weekend that will almost certainly consist entirely of just work. Chaewon’s voice echoes in your mind (“I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now,” she had told you), but it’s different now. Because you are happy. You are happy, because Jungkook’s happy. The two of you see each other just as frequently as you used to. He texts you about his terrible CS homework and the Shiba Inu he just saw being walked across campus. It’s all gone back to the way it used to be. That’s what you had wanted.

You were prepared for this. You knew that it would eventually boil down to this, down to whether or not you could take Jungkook not knowing how you feel any longer. But right now, you don’t care. Jungkook not knowing has always been a part of your friendship. The love you hold for him, in the spaces between your bones and deep in the cracks of your heart, that has always been there. You see it, hear it, feel it, whenever you’re with him. Even when you’re not with him, it will remind you, appear in the silence, the emptiness. It will always make itself known, because it’s become a part of you. From the moment you met him, it had settled into your heart.

Staring out of the window by your living room, overlooking the ugliest parking garage on campus, you sigh. You can’t see the stars from here, not even in the dead of night, but that’s alright. There is something so peaceful about the navy blue sky. About how mysterious and unknown it is. It calms you. You put on a movie that you’ve genuinely been wanting to watch for a while, sit down in your bed, amongst your duvet and sheets, pillows and plushies, and enjoy yourself, for once. It’s a good night.

And then, much like most aspects of your terribly convoluted, over-complicated and confusing life, it all comes crashing down.

There’s a faint thud from outside, a soft little non-noise that you assume is coming from the street. Not wanting to interrupt your movie—she’s just about to confess, holy shit—you ignore it. It’ll go away eventually.

Then another thud. You pause, leaning towards your window to see if you can figure out the source. Silence. You’re just about to press play, when you hear it again. And again. It gets louder and louder, making up in volume what it lacks in rhythm and order, until you realize it’s someone knocking on your door. And not just knocking casually. It’s as if someone is shoving their whole body into it, shoulders and chest and feet hitting the wood as they bang on it.

“Y/N?”

Oh, God.

Pushing off your duvet, you tug on your slippers and wipe away the crust around your eyes as you rush towards the door. You know who’s on the other side. You’re not sure if answering it is the better or worse option.

You’ve always had an uncanny ability to pick the latter.

When you open the door, Jungkook, in a fancy sweater pulled over a white button down and black jeans that could almost pass for dressy slacks, is standing on the other side.

Correction: he’s sort of standing on the other side. He nearly topples over when you pull open the door, having clearly been leaning on it, and you barely have time to reach your arms out to catch him.

“Oh! Y/N!” Jungkook exclaims, as if he’s surprised to see you inside your own apartment. “I was hoping to see you.”

“I figured,” you tell him, laughing. You guide him inside, and even in his state he remembers to tug off his clean white sneakers, kicking them towards the shoe rack. “It’s so late, Jungkook, you should go home.”

“No,” Jungkook whines. “I wanted to see you. I missed you.”

“We saw each other this morning, Jungkook. And this afternoon, right before you went out,” you remind him. The words go in one ear and out the other, and he pulls you in close to him, wrapping his arms around you as he presses his body against yours in a sweaty hug. His grip is tight around you as he rests his head on your shoulder, breathing you in as if you’d been gone for years. Slowly, after a few seconds, you pull away from him, a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at you through his too-long bangs, hanging over his eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong? I’m right here, don’t worry. I never left.”

“I had a lot to drink tonight,” Jungkook tells you, blinking rapidly. “Like, a lot. They just kept ordering soju and I just kept drinking it. It was really good. Have you had strawberry soju? It’s delicious.”

“I might have had it once or twice,” you fib, not able to recall having it one way or another. “Come on, sit down,” you point him towards the couch, but he refuses, clinging onto you even as you make your way towards the kitchen. “Jungkook, please, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“But I missed you,” Jungkook repeats. “I missed you a lot. I thought about you the entire time I was there.”

You can’t say you didn’t do the same.

“Next time we’ll do something together then, hey? Something really fun, like going to an arcade or bowling,” you promise him with a pat on his shoulder. “But you need to drink some water, JK. Can you please sit down?”

“No, I want to be with you,” Jungkook says like it’s nothing. Like the feeling of him wrapped around you like this, holding onto you and telling you that he misses you, that he thinks about you, doesn’t mean anything. You don’t think your heart has beaten since you opened the door to see him standing on the other side.

(You don’t think it’s beaten since you met him. Since he came up to you on the pavement, asking you for directions. Since you told him your name, and he told you his.)

“Ah, fine, just be careful, I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” you concede, because it’s so easy to let him have his way, so easy to say yes to him. You manage to grab an empty water bottle and fill it up with what’s left in your Brita, too lazy to refill it after it’s left bone dry. Slowly, you make your way to your bedroom, out of view of the central living space, where your roommates could burst through the door at any moment and see you taking care of your drunk best friend on the sofa.

Slowly, you settle on your bed, sitting off of the edge of it as you cajole him into drinking some water, whispering soft nothings to make sure he finishes the whole thing.

“Does your head hurt or anything?” You ask him, already looking around for the stash of Advil you usually keep on your nightstand.

“No, no, I’m fine, Y/N, seriously,” he promises, even if you can see the glazed-over look in his eyes, the way his sweaty bangs stick to his forehead. “You’re too nice, you know? Always treating me when I show up at your place. Even when you don’t invite me.”

“You know I never mind seeing you,” you tell him. “You can come over whenever you want. I’m always here.”

“No, you’re not,” Jungkook says with a pout, and it makes you furrow your brows. When have you not been? Jungkook’s been going out to events ever since the beginning of the semester, and without fail, you’ve always been waiting for him at home, knowing he’ll turn up one way or another. Except, there was— “That one time a couple of weeks ago, I went to this crazy big gala with Eunha, there were so many people there, and I came back home afterwards and knocked on your door, and your roommates said they hadn’t seen you all day. Where were you that day?”

He had come? You didn’t know if he would.

(Or maybe, you did. You knew he would show up at your door once he got back from that night, and selfishly, not wanting to see him after the fact, the leftover version of him, the part he leaves behind when he goes out. You knew he would be there and you couldn’t bear the thought of being the second girl he spends the night with. The other option. Maybe, you’ve known all along that you’ll never quite stack up to the girls he goes out with, and that sometimes, when you see him all dressed up while you’re in your hoodie and sweats, it reminds you is nothing more than a casual friendship.)

“I must have been out late with Chaewon that day, I’m sorry,” you apologize, letting him rest his head on your shoulder. “I didn’t know you would come.”

“I always come after my events. You know that.”

“I didn’t know if you’d remember to,” you correct.

“I’d never forget about you,” Jungkook says, the alcohol erasing his filter. Making him honest. “I really missed you, that day. I had been waiting the entire night to see you.”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” you promise, and this one is for real.

“You know, today?” Jungkook says, pulling his head back so he can get a good look at you, your eyes meeting his own. “Today, I was so sad on my way here. It was so terrible, because I was drunk and sad and I missed you.”

“You were sad? What happened?” You ask, leaning in. Jungkook? Sad? Who would do such a thing to him? Who would erase the smile on his face, his crescent eyes, and replace them with tears?

“This girl and I, she was a lot of fun. We sang a couple duets together and we were pretty good,” he hiccups, “kept winning. It was fun. She and I talked for a long time. I definitely liked her the most out of all of the girls I’ve gone out with. Besides Chaewon, of course.”

“What happened? Did she do something you didn’t want? You know you can tell me, Jungkook,” you ask, a hand on his arm.

“No.” Jungkook shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was fun and I was drunk. We were on our way back in the Lyft when she leaned over and kissed me. And I kissed her back, and it was kind of nice. I haven’t really kissed someone like that in a while,” Jungkook tells you. And even though you’re hearing these words from him, hearing how he had all of this fun with a girl who isn’t you, how he kissed her in the backseat of a car, you rally, blinking away the tears you can feel forming in your eyes. It’s none of your business, you tell yourself. You and Jungkook aren’t together. You don’t get to feel bad about him kissing someone else.

“Did you like it?” You ask, each word a pin in your chest.

“It was pretty nice,” Jungkook admits. “We, uh, we made out a bit in the back of the car until we got to her place. And then we got out of the car and she asked me if I wanted to go back with her, to her room. And—and I almost said yes.” Jungkook looks about ready to combust. At his side, his fists are clenched so hard you’re worried he’ll pop a vein.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” you tell him, looking him in the eyes so he knows that you don’t mind, that he can tell you these things without worry. Jungkook may be the love of your life, but he’s your best friend, first. He’s always been, before anything else, your best friend.

“But there is!” Jungkook cries, standing up in anguish. “There is, Y/N, you don’t understand! I almost had sex with her!”

“You’re allowed to, Jungkook!” You assure him, standing up to reach out to him.

“No, Y/N, you don’t get it,” he tells you coldly, pulling his hand away. “Why aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry that I nearly had sex with her?”

“No, what the fuck, Jungkook, why would I be mad?” You shout back at him. “You can do whatever you want with your body, it’s not my job to police it! I’m your friend, not your mom!”

“But don’t you want to be more, Y/N?” He rounds on you. “Don’t you want to be the one kissing me, fucking me? Why aren’t you jealous?”

“Were you trying to make me jealous, Jungkook? Is that what you were trying to do? You wanted to get a reaction out of me because my best friend nearly fucked someone else and then didn’t? What the fuck, Jungkook? What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to tell me you fucking love me back!”

“Jungkook, what—”

Jungkook, eyes dark and furious, pushes you against your closet door as your lips part, feeling the breath get knocked out of your lungs. He’s so close. He’s right there, you can see him, watch as he looms over you, hands clenched in your hoodie as he presses you against the wall. And then, wordlessly, he’s leaning down, crashing your mouths together.

Suddenly, your heart starts. You gasp into the kiss, the feeling of his mouth on top of yours. It’s fervent, hot and angry and passionate, his body against your own as your hands reach out to press against his head. You seize up at the feeling, almost as if in shock, before melting into his touch, leaning into him, desperate. You can feel his breath mixing in with your own, feel the way his chapped lips meet your overly-moisturized ones, feel how his hands drift from where they’re bunched up in the front of your hoodie to your waist, your hips, your thighs. Jungkook kisses ruthlessly, kisses like he’s trying to prove a point. Holds onto you like he’s afraid to let go.

When you part, gasping for air, Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, blinking.

“Jungkook, you’re drunk—” you tell him firmly, refusing to let get your hopes up if what you have in front of you is really just an intoxicated best friend. Your heart is beating miles a minute, about ready to thump right out of you, chest heaving and mouth agape.

“That doesn’t matter,” Jungkook argues back. “Even when I’m sober I love you. Don’t tell me I’m confused because I’m drunk.”

“You show up at my place at one in the morning, tell me about how you made out with some other girl and almost slept with her just to get me angry, kiss me, and tell me not to tell you you’re confused?” You demand. “Jungkook, I’ve never been more confused in my life than right now, can you please just—”

“I love you, Y/N,” Jungkook says, and even though he’s angry, red in the face and sweaty, when he says it, it’s soft. It’s a whisper, a murmur. He says it not to convince you, but so you know. “I’ve been in love with you for so goddamn long, ever since I fucking met you. And I thought you might like me back but you never did anything about it, and so neither did I.”

“You need to go home, Jungkook,” you tell him, hiccuping. When you blink, you feel the warm tears streaming down your face. You hadn’t even noticed them. “You can’t just come into my apartment and tell me shit like that. How do you think it makes me feel?”

“Do you feel the same, Y/N?” Jungkook asks, looking you in the eyes. He’s angry, that’s for sure, but even underneath, you can see the desperation, see how he’s just waiting for an answer.

“Go home, Jungkook. Please. Let’s talk about this when you aren’t drunk, okay? I’m confused and I need to clear my head,” you plead, pushing him towards the door. “Please, okay? Be safe, too. I’ll call Chaewon to give you a ride,” you tell him, grabbing your phone.

Jungkook puts a hand on your wrist. “I’ll be okay, Y/N. I just… Please, tell me. Did that kiss mean anything to you?”

“Yes, it did, but Jungkook, I can’t—”

“It meant something to me, too,” he tells you firmly, lets the words sink into the air around you. He heads for the door, pulling on his shoes. He looks so sad. “Good night, Y/N.”

You place a hand on the doorknob. “Good night, Jungkook.”

It’s barely nine in the morning the next day when a knock wakes you up. It’s soft at first, one every couple of seconds, before it gets progressively louder. Slowly, you get out of bed, trying to tame your hair as you rub the sleep from your eyes.

“Y/N’s in her room. Is that for her? That’s so cute. Yeah, she’s probably awake. You can just knock.” It’s your roommate.

You scramble to make your bed, pouring some water from the water bottle by your nightstand into your hand and splashing your face, wiping it away with an old t-shirt as you run towards the door, pulling it open just in time.

On the other side is a much more tired, much less drunk Jungkook, one hand raised and about to knock, the other holding a bouquet of daisies.

“Hey,” he says shyly, mouth breaking into a smile the moment he sees you.

“Hey,” you say back. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, head hurts like hell, though,” Jungkook says. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, yeah, s-sure, of course,” you say, stepping aside to let him into your bedroom.

“These are for you.” Jungkook holds out the bouquet towards you, wrapped up neatly in cellophane and tied at the stems with a bow. “So you don’t have to keep Febreze-ing your room all of the time.”

“They’re beautiful, Jungkook,” you tell him, grinning as you take them from his hands. Today feels different from yesterday. It feels lighter, fresher. New. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I—” He pauses, taking a second to think, “I meant what I said, yesterday. Maybe not all of it, but. Most of it, yeah. I meant it.”

“Why did you try to make me jealous, Jungkook?” You ask him. “Why did you think that would work?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook admits. “I shouldn’t have, and I fucked up. I just got so… so tired of waiting to see if you’d ever come around. I just wanted you to tell me. And then I guess I got so fed up that I told you instead.”

You place the bouquet on your dresser before walking towards him, reaching a hand out. “Yeah, that was a pretty big asshole move of you,” you chide, grinning to yourself.

“I know, I’m sorry.” He sighs.

“But I’m happy you’re here,” you tell him. “And happy that you meant what you said. Maybe it could have been said in a less angry way, but hearing it made me happy.”

“I’m happy that you’re happy.” Jungkook grins. “You’re my favorite person, Y/N.”

“When you asked me, yesterday, if that kiss meant anything to me? And I said it did?” You begin, Jungkook nodding in front of you. He’s positively beaming. “It still does. I want to do that every day, Jungkook. Every hour. Every single second for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“You do?” Jungkook asks.

“I love you, Jeon Jungkook. From day one, it’s always been you.” You smile, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. Feels like you’re fucking flying. Like you’re weightless.

“I love you, too, Y/N. I never want to be away from your side,” he declares, and like a cheesy, rom-com movie, like the shitty novels you used to read in eighth grade, he pulls you in close and presses a kiss against your lips. Wraps his arms around your waist as he holds you tight, kisses you in the middle of your bedroom, in your hoodie and sweatpants, a bouquet of daisies on your dresser. He kisses you because he can, because for every second of every day for the rest of your goddamn life, he can kiss you, over and over and over.

“We owe Chaewon an apology,” you tell him when you’re parted, sitting on your bed, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

“Hell yeah we do,” Jungkook agrees. “She’s been on my ass for ages about telling you.”

“Mine too.”

“She’s such a great best friend,” Jungkook comments. “Knew all this time that her two friends were madly in love with each other and didn’t say a damn word to either of us. That’s loyalty.”

“We should do something for her, to make up for it all,” you suggest.

“You know,” Jungkook says, grinning, “I know this guy who made bank this semester by going on fake dates with a bunch of really rich girls. Maybe he could help.”

“I know him, too,” you joke. “He’s the love of my fucking life.”

Jeon Jungkook quits his job on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year.

You know this because on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 7:18PM, eighteen minutes after he normally heads out on one of his many dates.

“Y/N!” He shouts, banging wildly on your door. You rush over to open it, letting the pasta water on the stove boil over and sizzle on the heat. He’s barely gotten in a second knock when you turn the doorknob to reveal your smiling boyfriend in his oversized hoodie.

“Don’t tell me you’re blowing someone off for me,” you say, inviting him inside. He places a kiss on your cheek on the way in, taking off his shoes and coat as you rush over to take care of the pasta.

“Me? Blowing someone off? Never,” Jungkook says, mock offended. “I actually quit the dating thing, this afternoon. A girl asked if I was free and I said that I wasn’t, because I have to go home to my girlfriend making me a meal. Don’t you love the sound of that?” He asks, pleased with himself.

“You quit? I thought you liked doing that stuff,” you say, using the spaghetti fork to move around the linguine. “Hope you’re cool with boring old pasta for your meal tonight. You could have had caviar if you hadn’t quit.”

“I don’t care, it smells so good,” Jungkook tells you, wrapping his arms around your waist as he stands behind you, watching you cook from over your shoulder. “Look at you, being all domestic and shit. It’s very cute.”

“Stop rubbing in the fact that you’re the better cook, I get it. Pasta is all I got right now.” You pout, turning down the heat as you move to pour yourselves two cups of tea. Jungkook follows you the entire way to the kettle, grip on your waist never faltering. “You can keep going on those dates, you know. I don’t mind. I get to see you in a suit when you get back, and then I get to take it off of you. It’s a win-win.”

Jungkook pinches your waist in response. “If you have a thing for suits, you can just tell me, you know. I won’t be mad.”

You turn around to whack him with the spaghetti fork. “I do not!”

“Alright, Y/N, guess I won’t wear a suit next time you call me at two in the morning—”

“I never said you couldn’t,” you interrupt, making Jungkook laugh.

“You’re so cute, Y/N,” Jungkook coos as you begin to dish up the pasta, making sure to add peas because Jungkook loves peas with his spaghetti. “But I quit because I have enough money to sustain me for the rest of the semester. I’ll work over break and get a new job next semester when the new work-study positions open. Don’t worry about me,” he assures you.

“But didn’t you like going out and everything? Getting dressed up and drinking fancy champagne?” You ask, setting the plates down at your dinky kitchen table, a single scented candle lit in the center.

Jungkook thinks about it for a split second, and then he shakes his head. “Nah. I like hanging out with my girlfriend more.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” you reason with a grin.

Jungkook laughs, leaning over the table to plop a kiss on your lips. “I love you, Y/N.”

“Yeah, you pea-eating loser,” you chide, “I love you too.”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #w: if i told you #god this fic.... i cant believe i wrote this.... how did i do it

7K notes · View notes

nochiquinn · 3 years

Text

campaign 3 episode 4: [judge doom voice] you’ll laugh yourself to death!!

(the title is a reference For Me but also someone else pls get the reference)

going into this episode with Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia stuck in my head, so that's a thing

sam is wearing that shirt ENTIRELY to fuck with the color balance of this episode. and my eyes.

"I want to dye my hair to match it" PLS

I want the stocking and I know my partner will want the pjs

"I love shouting that" of course you do

rapid-fire NPCs

MISTER

"you're not here" "yeah but sam is"

oh don't put that guilt on dorian :(

"this is what we should have been doing with doors this WHOLE TIME"

imogen apologizing for getting other people involved in her anxiety is entirely too relateable and I need her to dial it back immediately

ooooh

"I'll rush over to orym" gay

how hard sam stares at marisha's dice cracks me up

f e a r n e

what's in his pockets that killed marisha

WEEKEND AT BERTRAND'S

"thirty-year-old condom....."

deeply love them calling fcg "letters" and I cannot explain why

liam's face is my face

"it's not your fault" "I know." "do you?"

"I'm glad the noise stopped for you" mrs baileyham please it's not even an hour in

laudna: I hate people just from the OUTSIDE, imagine hearing the INSIDE parts

orym: i'M nOt A lEaDeR

f e a r n e

excuse

"smiley FUCKIN day"

orym uses his jumpy boots to shoulder-boop dorian

(also: gay)

laudna

ashton

you're right but you shouldn't say it (right now anyway)

our second character death: fcg gets caramel'd to death

little round fire boi

laudna: I'm just Like This

"this 24 hours has a lot of range"

orym: shoes :D

Light Up M'Balls

"I feel silly" "you LOOK silly"

"wrap around me like a belt" cries

"you got it, simon" CRIES

we did it, we found the ash hole

"claw marks" nope I hate it

death by muppet

FCG it's okay if it's not okay

"your face can barely make ANY face, that's impressive"

orym

I just love everyone here

"it's what you do, it's fine" and you can tell her to STOP FCG ESTABLISH A BOUNDARY

"what feet equates to tallness" this is also how I process math

stop saying entity

"ashton down, fcg up" that's the way we like t- [is snatched offstage by a vaudeville hook]

"it's a 1 but I'm a halfling! ...and it's a 20!" the duality of halfling

"does no one BRIBE anymore?"

mala: but ashton, if you STEAL you keep your gold

"next time I'm here I'm gonna get so drunk I pass out before I break anything"

"we learned something here today"

I fucking love ashton

"I'm the talker? I'm immediately terrified"

they're gonna die so hard

liam is me and I am liam

ashley's hair is distractingly pretty

my BOY

dorian: eat the rich, amirite

this accent sounds like something and I cannot place it

(is it fable 2, it might be fable 2)

d o r i a n

the collapsing tower of laughter on bottom table

(genuinely so pleased that they're where they can collapse on each other again)

"send him back to tal'dorei" lays in the floor about it

"he's a colorful guy" read: he was full of shit

"whitestone has always been a friend to the dead" new theory, laudna is undead, preserved almost entirely with pure salt

"I heard the lady in charge of zephra isn't very powerful" "she's a BITCH" liam: careful, that's my wife

"this isn't even metagaming, I don't know what this is anymore"

"we're inceptioning"

"I don't know much about lords and ladies" press x to doubt

oh no I dozed off

"my dice were distracted"

WHISPERRRRRS

I need Dorian to play an instrument so I can get a bingo

laudna

some things you do not upcycle

"oh, bertie" :(

"literally the only thing he did"

what happened with the ashari? liam what happened to the ashari

[holds orym upside down by the ankles and shakes him until the lore falls out]

#nailedit #good #professional

you ain't gettin ME to no second location

this is a milo appreciation blog

"I was an inspiration" "you always are" surprisingly wholesome background chatter

"if you can't find a chair, make one - steal one - I don't care"

"the head got up and the head got hit"

"tell us everything" "no"

imogen you can't just DO that to people

"did you kiss the beef?"

sam leave him alONE

lift robit

ESSEK-ING

the shadow BAKER?

what're you buying, what're you selling

FEARNE

pies (derogatory)

tonight has an ENERGY

matthew it is 1:45 am pls I want to sleep

"he went to take a piss" no that's dangerous here

cool I hate it

"FUCKING pie fucker"

"that coin also lets you reroll 1s" "I hate it and I'm glad you got rid of it"

mala: okay who has a sacred artifact to pull out and give these people

#critical role #spoilers #crititag #liveblog #reaction post

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childish-ish · 4 years

Text

kismet

pairing: michael myers x reader

soulmate au; soulmates that make choices for each other.

part two!

"Bro. I got this bitch ass pimple on my face - what should I do?"

soulmate chooses: let it do it's thing.

"What a bitch. When i meet my soulmate I'm gonna fucking punch 'em in the fucking neck." You sigh, then snicker right after - "If i can even reach them."

Usually, you start off your day with a huge huff of cocaine and a box of Kelloggs™ cereal with the milk with the purple lid. Just kidding! You don't eat Kelloggs, instead, you eat Lucky Charms! Mostly for the marshmellows. Anyways.

You get dressed. Having been naked and looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror, contemplating on whether popping the 3 pimples on your face - one above your eyebrow, very - not visible. Another on your cheekbone - the other on your nose. You popped the one on your nose and washed your face, yesterday, so two pimples.

Anyways. You dress in regular jeans, pull over a plain grey t-shirt over your head, and slip on some socks, then your sneakers, then a hoodie. You checked over yourself and decide you look hot as fuck, and step to your bed, pull off your phone from your charger, shove that bitch in your pocket - and leave.

soulmate chooses: take a bus to school.

"Awh! They care about me <33."

"Hm." You look over the choices you get to pick - buy a donut or have a balanced breakfast.

"Haha!" You laugh, clicking on the 'balanced breakfast'. "Homeboy gonna eat good tonight. Whether they fucking like it or not."

You exit your home, keys in your pocket, and a lollipop in your mouth. You totally forgot to the brush your teeth, but gurgled some mouthwash hoping it would be enough.

You jog towards the bus, enter said bus, and sat next to your friend.

"Hey, kiddo." She waved. Neon pink hair clashed with black hair as it fell over her left blue eye, a major contrast to her paper white skin. She wore a black hoodie with some red symbol, something to do with creepypasta, black pants with large rips, fishnet tights under, and regular ol converse. Red, to be exact. Converse Chucks, to be exact.

"Shut the fuck up, don't call me that." You pull out your phone and lean down, entering your password as the bus begun to move.

"Ah, babygirl, you know that turns me on, aha - " She bites her lip and rubs her hand together like she was rubbing in hand sanitizer.

"Ah, right. I love you."

"Ew." Cheesebird laughed. Some random ass nickname you gave her because she didn't like her name.

soulmate chooses; go to classes

"Ugh." You roll your eyes - had thought about skipping class.

You look over your choices. steal a car, or walk.

Well. You don't want your soulmates feet to hurt.. so. Steal a car.

After the bus pulls up to the school, you exit with Cheesebird. You're a Senior in highschool.

You enter first period. Homeroom.

You sit in your assigned seat, thankfully, next to Cheesebird. You two discreetly passed notes, never getting caught - only once by a substitute.

"Hey, so, i know a neat place to go trick-or-treating. You up for it?" Cheesebird asked, placing her Gir themed backpack next to her feet, under the piss yellow desk -

You shrug. The day carrying on, kind've. You're in fourth period. Gym, when Cheesebird asked you the question again.

"Honestly, I'm thinking of starting in tonight. I have this fucking weird ass bad feeling.." You rub your bare arms, feeling unusually comfortable in the red booty shorts the gym made you wear.

"I can respect that. After i get all my candy, I'm gonna dip over to your house, is that okay?" Cheesebird asked, fiddling with a lollipop stick. She ate the lollipop already, stealing it from someone's backpack because of her soulmates choice - so the stick acted as a candy cigarette of some sort.

"Yeah, that's chill. What are you gonna be?" You swing your legs back and forth. Ankles crashing against the bleachers, giving you a dull pain.

"I'm gonna be a goblin. You know, if i were to guess what you were going to be, you would be a fucking astomi. Cause like, I'm gonna be a goblin.. and you're basically a goblin.. and i don't like talking.. except like, with you." Cheesebird explained awkwardly. She begun to chew on her lollipop stick.

"Yeah, i got it." You chuckle.

soulmate chooses: apple, water, and chicken nuggets.

"Oh, sick." You nodded.

"Oh, did your soulmate choose something? What was chosen your majesty?" Cheesebird asked.

"I got chicken nuggets for lunch. Want them?" You ask, looking over the freshmen that chose to play volleyball on one side, and basketball on the other.

You turn to Cheesebird, watching her eyes peek up.

Her eyes flick to you, and she nods with a smile, "Thanks bro!"

"Ah, yeah." You breathe, "No problem."

You look over your choices. clever or chef's knife.

You make a look, furrowing your eyebrows and jerking your head back slightly before choosing chef's knife.

"Another? What'd you choose?"

"My choices were clever or chef's knife." You tell her with confidence.

"Holy shit - your soulmate is a cooker! Lucky.. mines a fucking idiot."

You snort. "Lucky you.. mine could also be a murderer." You shrug.

"Hot." Cheesebird wiggles her eyebrows at you. "Oh, dude! Remember that guy - Boogeyman of Haddonfield?"

"Yeah."

"Dude, they say he escaped some institution! They might cancel Halloween cause of his bitch-ass." Cheesebird rolled her eyes and leaned back.

"Ah, what a fuck. If it actually gets cancelled, you wanna come over and watch some movies? Maybe order some pizza?" You offer.

"Oh fuck yeah man! Thanks." Cheesebird laughed, clapping you on the shoulder once.

"No problem!" You say enthusiastically, punching Cheesebird on her bare upper arm.

"Ow! Fuck.. you whore." Cheesebird sucked in a breath.

You laugh, quieting down and patting ehr on the thigh. "Wanna go to the lockers? It's almost time to go. Like, 15 more minutes.." You say absentmindedly, gazing at the red blinking numbers.

"Oh yeah. Let's go." Cheesebird was ready to hop off. You count down to 3 to 1 and jump off the bleachers with Cheesebird, jogging across the court and entering the locker room.

soulmate chooses: wash face

I didn't even do shit, though? You shrug off the thoughts and get undressed after putting in the combination for your little locker. After shoving your gym clothes into said locker, you pull on your clothes, slipping on your shoes easily and picking up your backpack. You jog over to the bathrooms, go to the nearest sink, and splash your face.

You look up - the choices; grab a water or get a beer.

You choose water. Gotta stay healthy.

You wait by the gym doors for Cheesebird. And, hooray! She comes. Don't take that out of context.

Lunch speeds by. So do your classes. After school, you walk home with Cheesebird and say your goodbyes. You pull out your keys, inserting the key and unlocking the door.

You enter, closing the door behind you. You toss the keys on the stand next to the door and kick off your shoes, throwing off your backpack and jogging to the living room. You recieve a call from your mom. Saying that she was gonna be late. Maybe coming in around midnight or even later.

soulmate chooses: order pizza.

"hey cool."

And, you do just that. You call some pizza place with breadsticks, grab some money from your room and jog back downstairs. You watch Adam Sandler movies while you wait for the pizza.

The doorbell rings after 15 minutes of waiting. You jump up and run to the door. Opening it and seeing a cute pizza boy.

"Thanks." He salutes, recieving a tip from you.

You call back a 'no problem' and shut the door, placing the pizza on the table in front of the couch. You lie down, pulling a blanket over you.

soulmate chooses: take a nap.

You feel so.. tired now. Fuck it. Let's go to sl-

You awake. The T.V. off, lights out, and warm-ish pizza. You were obviously disoriented. You go to pull out your phone from your back pocket once you sit up.

The brightness blinds you - you quickly put it at a lower brightness.

You yawn, vision vlurry before it subsides and you quickly look over your notifications. A text from your mom 'hey honey, gona b stayin l8r than usual luv u'. You smile, rubbing your eyes and holding your phone with one hand.

You stand, flashing your flashlight. You drop your phone - gazing at the large figure in front of you.

"Who.. are you?" You take an anxious step back, you can feel a stream of cold sweat stream down the side of your head - from your temple. It was fucking disgusting. So.. so dark.

You see the glint from his hand - a knife. A knife. A knife. A knife. He has a knife. He has a knife. He has a knife. Run. Go. Run. Go. Go. Through the backdoor. Now. Fucking GO!

You turn on your heel and bolt through the living room and through the kitchen. Why did you even fucking ask that? 'Who are you' - like?? You don't know him, and he's in your house. Like?? You should've just pulled a knife. Just kidding! You would've been too fucking pussy to do that :\

You inhale and exhale heavily - otherwise known as breathing. You were really close to hyperventilating - but somehow, you slow down your breaths as you quietly slip through the backdoor.

All you wanted to do - you sob in your mind, was eat some fucking pizza - you heave, as you shuffle towards the backyard entrance, that lead to the front yard. And maybe watch some fucking pornhub.. all my plans.. ruined.

soulmate chooses: go back inside your house.

You choke. Eyes growing uncomfortably hot, your bottom jaw trembled as you clench your arms, hugging yourself. Was this - this fucking stalker your soulmate?

You did have control of your body as you calmly walk back through the gate. Your eyes well up, tears blurring your vision. You wipe the tears away and wipe them on your hoodie harshly. You trace therock trail that lead around the corner of your home.

You enter through the backdoor. Closing it behind you gently. You huff, and turn around.

You immediately make eye contact with large breasts that were covered by a dark blue fabric. A zipper in the middle and a single pocket.

"So.." You begin; voice cracking. You feel your face grow hot out of embarrassment. After clearing your throat and looking into the black holes of the mask that mocked a human face, covering the whole ass fuckin head of the tall, buff male, you instantly feel small. You rub your hands together, clenching your hoodie in your hands now.

"Uh.. what's uh - what's your name?" You come to a realization of how fucking stupid that was. Asking a large scary man what his name was - he's your soulmate! A part of you pleaded for some reason. Anyways, we live for the confidence.

You gawk at the man - wasn't he "Michael Myers? Killed - killed.. four teens back in -" you couldn't remember the year. All you could honestly think about the man that was looming over you threateningly. Where the FUCK was your mom?!?

He painstakingly slowly brought up a hand, and dropped it onto your shoulder. You feel tears well up in your eyes once more as you shake under his hold.

"H - hey.. aren't we uh.. soulmates? Sh - should you really be h - HOLDING me that tight?!" You squeak, now trying to pull away. "I'm - not fucking going anywhere - "

The Boogeyman brought up his other hand and let the hand fall on your other shoulder, the hold gradually getting tighter.

You could barely see his actual eyes, due to the not-so-bright moonlight. Despite this, you see some irises..

"I - i.. I go to school.. " You blurt, "I - I have a f - family."

He didn't respond. You get anxious quite quickly due to the circumstances. You feel your eyes well up as he fucking gripe you tighter before picking you up and throwing you over your shoulder like a dead body. His actions were clear - they said 'you aren't fucking getting away'.

He held you with one arm, caging you in over his shoulder. You sob softly, but couldn't help but admire his nice ass as he walked towards the front door.

what's to become of me?

You thought. You couldn't scream - could you?

You couldn't believe you missed Halloween for this shit. You could still see some kids - they would probably run away due to their fragility.

Fuck this. We are not fucking dying. We're soulmates. But what kind of fucking soulmates does this shit? I wish my soulmate was Adam Sandler.

michael: you the bitch thats been making HEALTHY decisions for me??

you: no..?

#michael myers #michael myers x y/n #michael myers x you #michael myers x reader #slasherslikebeetroot #slasher x reader #slasher #slashers x reader #yandere slashers #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere slasher x reader #yandere michael myers x reader

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johnkrrasinski · 4 years

Text

So It Goes...

full masterlist

Pairings: Rock star/Bassist!Bucky Barnes x female!reader (AU)

Word count: 7,149

Warning: fluff, SMUT! but mostly just me falling in love with bucky, really.

Summary: natasha romanoff aka your annoying roommate coerced you into the howling commando’s live performance at a divebar near your dorm. little did you know, it was going to lead you to the man of your dreams aka the charming rock star boy/bassist, james buchanan barnes.

a/n: this one’s written for @sourpatchkidsandacokecan‘s “Little Darlin’s Mysteru AU” challenge. i chose band/rockstar au. here’s another love letter to bucky barnes because i love that man with my entire heart and every fic that i write about him is basically just me expressing my deep affection for this man. hope you guys enjoy this one cause i certainly do! also, rock star/boy band bucky is such a concept omg i’m in love

You laid in your twin-sized bed as you heard the chirping sounds of the birds outside of your window. They were singing cheerily as if they knew what you were feeling and they were celebrating with you. It felt like you were in a Disney movie that you used to obsess over as a kid, where you are the lovestruck princess because you just met a handsome prince who swept you off your feet at first sight.

The birds outside of your window are your animal pals who swoon over you swooning and they spontaneously harmonize and dance to this newfound joy. You couldn’t resist the smile taking over your face. It was too early for you to be awake on a Saturday morning. You were always up by 10 AM. No more, no less. But it was currently 8.45 AM and you still had at least one more hour to get up and be productive.

But not today. Today, you were going to welcome this exhilarating sensation in your bones, and you were going to savour every second of it. Because you couldn’t shake away those baby blue eyes and that suave, boyish charm. The way, they electrified you by first glance and made you tremble when those pupils dilated. You could still feel the way his soft, plump lips hypnotized you last night. And the raunchy way he held you at the bar.

Even when all was said and done, he found a way to haunt you in your dreams.

And you didn’t mind one bit.

You were currently in the middle of a crisis due to your upcoming final week. If there’s any word to describe you as a college student, it would be ambitious. The idea of failing or getting less than B+ makes you go ballistic. You were an active student. You joined multiple organizations that expanded your social life. You got along with mostly everyone in your classes and you had your professors’ respect too for your excellent grades and polite manners.

But your lack of dating life irked no one else more than your roommate, Natasha. You loved Natasha with your entire heart, really. She was like a sister to you. You were an only child so you cherished her older sister role in your life. She was, in fact, several months older than you and she always protected you like her own. Starting from the asshole that broke your heart in high school, despite only knowing him through your story, to incessantly pushing you to stop being such a nerd and have more fun.

Natasha was the kind of woman you don’t wanna mess with. She was loyal, brave and quick-witted. She knows how to keep her GPA high, whilst also maintaining a fun social life. She managed to do it all so effortlessly.

“C’mon, y/n! Just one night! You need to let loose and release all tension on your shoulders, baby. It’s good for your brain before finals start!”

“Noooo, Nat. Rock bands are not my thing and I’d have a higher chance of acing the tests if I study now, okay? Just go. Have fun without me and tell me how it goes.”

“But my boyfriend’s performing, y/n. And I want you to meet him! I promise they are really good. Even if you're not into the music, you can still go for the drinks, right? Also, they’ve got other cute members available so, you might find your own rock band boyfriend too if you go.” She winked. Her smirk was menacing.

“Ugh, I’m not interested in finding a boyfriend, Nat.”

“I know, but wouldn’t hurt if you do, right? Then we can go on double dates and have them write songs about us. Oh God, it’s going to be awesome.”

“Whoa, slow down. I haven’t even learned their names, yet and we are already discussing double dates?”

“Alright, let’s just start with putting on your sexy clothes and meet them yourself. Then we can move onto picking one gorgeous beast for you.”

“What makes you even think that they’d be interested in me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, y/n. Have you never owned a mirror? You are a total babe. You just need to get yourself more action.”

“Ugh, I don’t know, Nat…”

“You are going. And I’m not leaving until you get up and put on something cool. I have patience, baby and I’m going to annoy you all night if you stay. What do you prefer? Going out and have fun and meet some cute boys or me annoying you all night so you can’t study productively.” She glared at you. Her tone indicated that there was no compromise.

“Alright, I’m going. But that’s only because I wanna meet your boyfriend, alright? Not because I wanna find a boyfriend or whatever stupid shit you’re thinking.”

“Yay!” She jumped in excitement. Her face was content with joy and satisfaction from succeeding in persuading you. “Alright, let’s dig through your clothes.” She started rummaging your shared closet and observed meticulously each one of your outfits. “Hmm… Let’s try this one!” She picked up a strapless black sequin dress that you hadn’t worn in forever. You didn’t even remember packing it up in your baggage and brought it with you to your dorm.

You began stripping yourself out of your oversized hoodie and high-waisted shorts. You didn’t feel embarrassed changing in front of Natasha, you had seen each other naked many times. You were roommates after all and sometimes, you just had to be comfortable with the fact that you had private body parts underneath and within the course of four years, eventually, you had to get used to flashing one another at some point.

You put it on as you started to feel a little uncomfortable. You weren’t used to wearing skimpy dresses. Already wearing it for less than three minutes, you were constantly lifting the hem of the dress to prevent it from exposing your boobs and revealing your inner thighs. And the material felt itchy on your skin too. “Nat, I’m not sure about this. Let’s just wear a leather jacket and jeans.”

“Nonsense! You look bomb! Give your leather jacket and jeans a break, alright? Okay, turn around so I can see your behind.”

You twirled as she said, restlessly.

Tonight was going to be a longspun night…

The air felt crisp against your skin, as the breeze swept through your freshly curled hair, causing a few strands shading your sight. You struggled to walk steadily in your 7-inch heels that belonged to Natasha because you didn’t have a pair of your own. You were cool with wearing ankle boots pairing them with a sparkly dress. But Natasha didn’t think it was a cute look.

“What? Boots and dresses don’t go along, honey. Oh my, you need a serious makeover!” She was derailed.

You eventually settled with a silk red dress with a seductively low cleavage on the front, exposing the globes of your breasts. You were already as uncomfortable as it is, this dress didn’t make it any easier to act normal.

So you had to endure walking in these deadly shoes of torture, whilst clad in nothing but a scanty material with makeup painting your entire face. Great. What had you gotten yourself into? Damn you, Natasha.

You and Nat were walking arm in arm to the bar where “The Howling Commandos” were performing. That’s the name of the band that Natasha’s boyfriend was in. They have been a group for 5 years now, they had been doing this since they were in high school. Clint and the rest of the members were several years older than you and Nat. As soon as they graduated, they decided that they wanted to keep making music rather than working mundane, dead-end jobs.

Yep, Natasha told you that much.

Clint and Nat had been dating for two years now. They rarely saw each other due to the band’s packed schedule. Although, they would FaceTime each other every night, talking about each other’s days. You heard it all, from their most disgustingly adorable flirtations, to the most inappropriate, not so PG-13 confession.

They would literally pretend to smooch one another through the screen when you were doing your homework or when you had your nose deep in a book. You’d try to cover your ears by putting on your earbuds and turning up the volume so you could give them privacy but also, you didn’t wanna hear them talking about what they wanted to do to each other if both of them were here.

You knew Clint well enough to not feel like you were meeting a complete stranger. Natasha would often tell you to say hi to him and she had told you a lot of wonderful things to Clint. Clint would often talk about the band too on the phone, how someone called “Bucky” would piss him off by stealing his leftover sandwich. Or someone called “Sam” would often interrupt their chat by reminding him that it was soundcheck time.

“I gotta go, babe. Sammy’s not gonna stop yelling.”

“Aw, okay, tell the boys I say hi! Love you.”

“Love you too, baby.”

It’s like a daily podcast for you every night.

The dive bar where The Howling Commandos were performing thankfully wasn’t that far from your dorm. Natasha was super thrilled when Clint told them that they were going to perform here. They were finally able to see each other after a while, and because this was going to be their last gig until they come back with a new album, he said he was going to stay and spend some time with Nat.

You were happy for both of them. You’d never say it out loud but, a part of you was secretly jealous of their love. They managed to maintain such a fun, loving, and healthy relationship despite the distance and differences. Natasha once told you that she was never one to settle with a man for too long but, Clint changed the game for her. You smiled at the thought. They were genuinely in love. If you were to find yourself a boyfriend, you wanted the type of love that they had.

But not tonight. You were okay with being single. Just because a part of you wanted what Clint & Nat had, doesn’t mean that you actually need it or you’d die. You were too much of a goal-oriented person to be chasing over something that should come naturally. You had grown so comfortable in being alone, that you stopped desiring love so much. It wasn’t getting you anywhere. So you lived your life, being grateful for your friends and family. You invested your time in your education and passion. You were content.

When you arrived at the bar, the room was full with a crowd. You walked in with Natasha trying to make a space for yourself so you could walk through them. You could barely anything else due to the number of bodies blocking your view. Natasha held your hand as she took the lead and fought through the crowd to get to the front, where she could get the best view.

There was a blonde-haired woman standing on the front, so close to where the band were going to play. When Natasha slightly grazed her whilst trying to stand next to her, she didn’t look the slightest bit happy. She glared at Natasha as Natasha noticed. She glared back at her.

“Excuse me, there’s more space in the back, maybe you can stand there instead of cutting through the line.”

“Excuse you, miss. I’m dating the band’s drummer, so I can stand wherever I want, thank you very much. If you don’t like that, then the exit is right there.” She pointed to the door of where we walked in from.

The blonde woman rolled her eyes as she folded her arms against her chest. After you stared at her reaction, you realized that you actually know her. She was in the same social science class with you. You had never really talked to her because she often sat in the back and immediately left after the class was done, but you remembered her name. Her name was Dottie Underwood. Your classmates called her Dot. The ones that she liked anyway.

You decided to stay quiet and let it pass. It’s not like she even recognized you even if you start a chat with her. You don’t think it was a good idea either since she and Nat literally just snarked at each other. You directed your sight to the stage and waited for the famous Howling Commandos to appear.

One of the spotlights turned and highlighted a man walking on stage before he talked into the microphone at the centre. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a group of brilliant lads, that make all the ladies go feral wherever they go, and their showstopping music are going to make us sing and jump tonight. Please welcome, The Howling Commandos!”

The crowd roared with cheers, the sounds of their enthusiasm filled the atmosphere. Their claps were jovially in sync as four, drop-dead gorgeous young men stepped into the stage as their presence shifted the energy in the room.

The first one was a blonde-haired with breathtaking bone structure, forming a ridiculously handsome face. His hair shone under the spotlight like the sun amidst the clear sky. He had an amiable demeanour about him. His smile was gentle and welcoming. He waved to the crowd and stood directly behind the microphone.

The second one to walk in was a dark-skinned man with an undeniable charisma oozing out of him. He had a neatly trimmed beard that only added to his spicy appeal. His smile was radiant as he also waved the crowd. He stood on the left side of the stage, a couple of steps behind Steve who was apparently the lead singer.

The third one to walk in was Clint. He was everything Nat described him to be. Placid and nonchalant. His smile was amenable as he greeted the crowd. He walked directly to the background, where the drumset was placed. He sat down on the drummer’s chair as he picked up the sticks he was going to play with.

The last one to enter was a literal Disney prince coming to life. His prominent boyish charm completely bedazzled you. His blue eyes gleamed under the spotlight as they lingered on you for a second. He immediately shifted his gaze as he kept walking towards the right side of the stage, but you swore that when he caught you staring dumbfoundedly at him, you could see the flash of a quick smirk on his face.

He only nodded to the crowd as he confidently picked up the bass guitar that was previously placed on the floor and put on the leather straps around his neck. His eyes turned back to you as you found yourself still bluntly staring at him. Something about him just enchanted you. He had that boy-next-door charm about him but also, a bad boy persona that was irresistibly enticing.

That flash of smirk that you saw earlier resurfaced and it was getting harder for you to pay attention to anyone or anything else in the room other than him. His gaze grew more intense as the noises of the crowd faded into the background. You were lost in this lethal game of eye contact until Natasha accidentally elbowed you by screaming her lungs out to respond to the lead singer’s introduction.

“Good evening, SHIELD’s Nest! How are we feeling tonight?” The lead singer vivified the crowd. They responded with a reassuring reaction. “I’m Steve Rogers and these are my buddies,” he turned his head to the left, as he started introducing the other band members. “The handsome guy right there is Sam, and in the back, there’s Clint, our brilliant drummer boy and this ladies’ charmer right here is Bucky.” As he pointed to the magnetic man who had held your attention hostage since he first walked in.

“And we are The Howling Commandos.” He paused for a second before carrying on with his prelude. “Alright, so the first song that we’re going to play tonight is called ‘Rusted Love’. Enjoy.” Steve removed his mouth from behind the microphone and started cueing the band to play. “1,2…”

Sam and Bucky started strumming the first few notes as a few people cheered. Then Clint jumped in, flaunting his talent in mastering the drum with his sticks. The energy in the room felt more energized as people started moving a part of their bodies. Then Steve amazed the room with his sultry voice, singing the words that echoed through the Sound system of the bar.

“I’m a flying kite in a hurricane, you paralyzed me with your touch and your lips got me addicted…” Steve shut his eyes, relishing the rune. You had a feeling that those lyrics wouldn’t just stay lyrics tonight…

They played another four songs that night. The crowd danced, jumped and screamed the words to their song passionately. You, on the other hand, was probably the most tranquil person in the crowd. You didn’t really know much about the band, let alone their music. So when everyone was constantly pushing you because they were too lost in the moment, you eventually tried to get out of the crowd and sat on the bar instead. Natasha was also too lost in supporting her boyfriend, that she almost didn’t notice you leaving.

Through the vibration of the crowd and the music, you had to really lean in to get Natasha’s attention and to get her to hear you. “Nat! I’m gonna sit in the back and wait there. I’m a little thirsty.” She had a giant smile on her face due to the zest the band inflicted. “Okay!” She yelled back, then carried on with her foxy moves.

You struggled to walk through the crowd, trying to not step on anyone’s feet as you made your way to the barstool. What you didn’t notice was, Bucky’s disappointed on his face when he saw you walking out on him. He noticed that you weren’t exactly as thrilled as anyone else. Although, he noticed your stolen glances as you shied away from him when he stared back. He even tried to wink at you once but you immediately looked to the floor, hiding away your blush. He swore he saw the way your cheeks reddened. Not that he wasn’t used to getting that reaction anyway…

You exhaled a breath of relief as you finally broke out of the congested mass of people. You sat on the barstool as you ordered a glass of rum and you waited as the music still reverberated robustly in your ears. You sat there as you started looking through your Instagram. Nat’s icon was the first one to appear in the row and you clicked it to see what you were expecting. She recorded a video of the band, then zoomed in to Clint, as he was ardently drumming the beat.

She put on a heart eyes and fire emoji with the text; “that’s my man!”. The next one was her and you singing along to the second song they played that night. You were able to actually mouth the words after they played the last chorus and you were a quick learner, so you memorized the repeated words easily after the third time. You scrolled through your feed a few more minutes until your order finally arrived.

“Enjoy, miss.” The waiter winked at you. He was probably in his mid-20s, he had warm brown eyes and a sweet smile. His dark hair was slicked back as you stared a little longer than you should. He was obviously attractive, but, you didn’t say anything back to him. You just smiled back in a friendly manner and uttered silenced thanks.

After sitting by yourself for about a half and an hour, like all good things, the show must come to an end. Steve Rogers concluded the show with a final thank you and goodnight as the spotlight shut down, like the drapes closing over a theatrical show. The crowd clapped and some of them started leaving, while others immediately went to the bar to quench the thirst from screaming along to volatile rock music and jumping up and down, getting lost in the tune.

Natasha patted your back as she jumped on the empty chair next to you. Thank God, she was quick on her feet, otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to get a seat. “Hey! God, I need a full shot of whiskey right now.”

“Yeah, go crazy.”

She scoffed. “Huh. As if that wasn’t crazy enough, back there.” She signalled the bartender to make an order. “So, what do you think? That was fun, right?” The cute bartender from earlier walked to her as he asked her what would she like to drink and she quickly replied.

“Yeah, they’re pretty good.”

“Pretty good? They’re damn talented. Especially the drummer back there. He totally killed it.”

“Yeah, okay, they are amazing. But you know their music isn’t my kind of music, so can’t say I really enjoyed it that much.”

“Okay, but you must’ve at least enjoyed the view, right? Don’t think I didn’t catch you and bass boy making several eye contacts back there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You took another sip of your glass to cover your embarrassment.

“Oh my God, you totally do! Look at you blushing!”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are! Admit it! You like Bucky, don’t you?” She playfully pushed you to tease you.

“Oh my God, shut up Nat! You’re causing a scene!” You tried to lower yourself, now that you’re able to speak in a normal volume.

“Nope, I won’t stop until you admit it. Don’t worry, y/n, Bucky’s always been a charmer, so I totally get your attraction.”

That caused a peculiar sickness in your chest. It’s not like you were falling in love with Bucky, no. You didn’t even know him enough to like him. He may be an eye-candy but if he’s really as “charming” as everyone is saying, then that means, he’s one of those dangerous fuckboys that you should avoid at all cost. Because that means, he’s probably only going to manipulate you into thinking that he really cares for you, when in reality, he only wanted to get in your pants. Nope, not gonna happen to you. You weren’t going to be a new notch in his belt.

“Well, then that means he is bad news and that gives me even more reason to feel anything but attraction toward him.”

“Oh, no, y/n, I don’t mean it like that. He’s really sweet, and he’s always been the most chill one in the group. Trust me, you’re gonna love him. Just, give him a chance first, alright? I’ve known him long enough to know that he’s into you.”

“Into me? Nat, he doesn’t even know my name.”

“He will.” She winked again, as she took a sip of her whiskey.

Not long after that, Clint appeared from behind, without Nat realizing. He surprised her by wrapping her waist from behind as he whispered into her ears; “how’s my best girl?” Nat was slightly stunned but as soon as she realized it was her boyfriend, her expression instantly turned into a joyful one. “Hi, baby!” They immediately smooched as she wrapped her arms around his neck while standing face to face now.

“Did you like the show?”

“I loved the show, you guys killed it as always. Oh, and by the way, this is y/n, my number one bestie and the best roommate anyone could ever ask for. Now you finally meet her in person!” Her excitement was genuine.

“Hi, y/n! Heard so many great things about you, but you probably can’t say the same, huh?”

“No, actually I can. Nat wouldn’t stop talking about you every night even when I’m blatantly ignoring her.” You joked.

“Well, is that right?” He looked at Nat to assess the truth on her face.

“Yep,” you carried on. “She would say you’re hot, funny and kind, and all these wonderful things. Including the ones that I’m not supposed to hear.”

They laughed. They kissed once more, as Clint stood next to her seat, ordering a drink for himself. Next to you, you could hear Nat saying, “oh, where are the boys? Are they not thirsty?”

“They’re just packing up, babe, they’re gonna join us in a few.”

“Good, ‘cause I think there’s someone y/n would like to meet.” She teasingly wiggled her eyebrows at you, as you sent her a murderous glare. Your lips silently mouthed, “what the fuck?” but Clint picked up her tone and he quickly got the message.

“Oooh, who is it? Is it Steve, Bucky, Sam? Just let me know which one you like and I’ll deliver them at your door tonight, y/n. They’re all single and ready to mingle anytime now.”

You laughed nervously. “No, no, no, no. Nat’s just saying shit.”

She turned her head to her boyfriend and shook it. “No, I’m not. She and Bucky practically eye fucked on stage.”

You instantly slapped her arm, staring deadly into her eyes. “Ouch!” She put her hand on the spot that you struck, even though it wasn’t even that hard. Classic Nat. Dramatic as always. “Nat, you can’t just–”

Before you even managed to finish your sentence, she darted her eyes to somewhere behind you as she pointed at whatever got her distracted. “Oh, here they are!” She smirked. She raised her eyebrows at you before she stood on her feet and hugged the anticipated men.

“Hey, guys! Killer show back there!” Nat started hugging Sam and he kissed her cheek, and then she moved onto Steve and the last one to join was Bucky. You muttered ‘shit’ to yourself as you pondered on how you should act. Should you act like nothing ever happened during the show between you two? Or were you going to address the elephant in the room, and just straight up flirt with him, now that he wasn’t being so closely watched anymore?

You didn’t know which would be the best option so you just took a big gulp and drank down the entire glass of Rum you had left. Maybe if you were less sober, you wouldn't excessively overthink. You weren’t even sure whether he was really staring at you or not. For all you knew, he could be staring at another beautiful girl in the crowd that was standing beside or behind you. And if you act impulsively now, this would be like that cheesy moment on Rom-Coms, where a girl waved back to the guy who she thought was waving at her but it turns out, he was actually waving at another girl who was coming from the same direction as her.

Nope, you weren’t going to be that girl.

So you just smiled and nodded along as Natasha introduced you to the rest of the boys. You didn’t want to be rude so you sat on your chair, facing them with an interested look, even though all you wanted to do was just shrink and leave this goddamn place.

“Hey guys, here’s my bomb-ass bestie slash roomie. Her name’s y/n! Isn’t she stunning?”

When Steve was about to offer his hand to you, Sam immediately inserted himself in front of you and Steve. “Well, hello, good-lookin’. Can I buy you a drink?” Sam, being the cool dude he was, he leaned back against the bar counter on his elbows as he shamelessly flirted with you.

“Nope, thank you. I just had one.”

“Oh, you look like you could use another one. Here, let me get that for you.” He cued the bartender to make an order and you instantly tried to stop him, telling him that it wasn't necessary, but it looks like the bartender was already taking his order for you.

And then, out of nowhere, Bucky suddenly stooped in like a hero. “Hey, Sam, why don’t you back off? This one’s mine, alright?” That elicited a questioning look out of you. “Mine?” He didn’t even know you.

“Oh wait, so this is the one you told us about in the dressing room?” What the hell? You thought. They were talking about you as if you weren’t there at all.

“Yep, so why don’t you fuck off and get out of here before I get myself drunk enough to shit on your bed?” His tone was menacing but you could tell that this was a normal, daily conversation between the two.

“Jeez, alright. I’mma leave. You don’t need to wave your dick all over my face.” Before Sam moved to another spot, he patted you on the back and said, “good luck.”

What? What the hell was that for? The bartender came in with your order and served another glass of Rum right in front of you.

“You don’t need to drink that if you don’t want to.” He carefully spoke to you, as if he was trying to not scare you away.

“No, I think I need to. Tonight’s been a pretty crazy night.” You took a sip, the cold drink felt nice on your tongue.

He chuckled. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Oh, how crazy can it be for you? Isn’t this like, what you do, every night?”

“Yeah, but, you never really get used to it, you know? Sometimes you just wanna sit in the bar and have a nice talk with a pretty gal and hide in the booth or something.”

That… Warmed up your heart. Damn, if this is his way of flirting, it was truly working. You could see now why everyone was calling him ‘a charmer.’ He really had a way with words. And stares. His baby blues really know how to captivate you and froze you on spot.

“I’m Bucky, by the way.” He offered his hand to shake yours.

“I’m y/n.” You shook it with a smile.

“Did you like the show?” He asked.

“Gotta be honest with you, buddy, your music isn’t exactly my kind of music. But you guys were awesome.”

He paused for a moment as if he was contemplating what he was going to say next. “Think I got a little distracted up there.”

“Oh yeah? Why is that?”

“Cause there was this pretty lady in a red dress that I couldn’t take my eyes off of.” His gaze even grew more intense now. He was looking at you like you were the only thing in the room. Then his eyes darted to your lips, as he licked his. And before you knew it, he started inching his face closer to yours as he held his gaze on your plump, painted lips, while you could feel his breath more and more as the seconds went by.

And then… His lips were on yours. It’s like the clock just stopped ticking and every noise faded into the background and you were the only two people in the room. His lips felt soft against yours, and the way he licked your bottom lip made your head spin. You ajarred your mouth to let his tongue enter as it got tangled with yours.

You were aware that Nat, Clint and Steve who were having a conversation are now watching you like hawks, but you couldn’t care less. Not when Bucky’s hands grabbed your face, so he could have more control over your mouth. You were practically out of breath by the time he looked into your eyes, that are now slightly darker than a few seconds ago. He loved the sight of you, with your lips slightly swollen.

“Let’s go somewhere more secluded.” You could only nod and then took his hand after he offered you his as you got off the stool. He led the way and you couldn’t help but notice the glances that were thrown by several women along the way. They were staring at him with incontrovertible full of hunger eyes, one even shamelessly put her hand on his shoulder, as she coquettishly smiled at him. Bucky only smiled back and nodded at her but he kept walking with you in his hand.

Even if you were practically a pair, you felt invisible. Everyone’s eyes were on you, but not precisely on you. This must’ve been something normal to him, you thought. You weren’t used to big crowds and inundated with attention, and you weren’t used with unquestionably holding a stranger’s hand and letting him take you wherever he had in mind. But you did anyway, and you weren’t having second thoughts.

Bucky led you to the cramped lavatory and locked the door. The lack of space made it even harder for you to breathe when Bucky was this close to you. He pressed his body to yours, as he kissed you once more. Slowly, but you felt the spell in your bones. “All I could think about on stage was tasting those luscious lips.”

You were spellbound by his magic. You could barely speak another word when his baby blue eyes were looking at you so intensely like that. But you gathered every cell in your body to utter the words anyway, “do it again, then.” You boldly challenged him.

He grinned a Cheshire cat smile. He grabbed your face again and eagerly consume you with his mouth. He then moved his hands to the back of your thighs to elevate you onto the sink. He put his hand on your thigh and the other hand went to the back of your head as he grabbed a fistful of your hair, while still kissing you even deeper.

He pulled away to stare at your distraught state and asked the question, “can I touch you?”

You licked your lips, as you nodded. “Please.” His mouth was on yours again, as the hand that was on your thigh moved to the bottom your dress, delicately inserted his fingers to feel you against your red lace panties. You could feel yourself growing wetter and wetter as he motions his fingers in circle harder.

Your breath quickened. Your mind was getting hazy as the second passes by. The right strep of your dress had fallen off of your shoulder, and Bucky utilized that opportunity to pull down the other strap and he began groping your breast, tenderly pinching your nipple. That elicited a petite yelp out of you. He groped your breast once more as he was still toying with your nipple.

He began kissing your neck, shortly finding your sensitive spot as you threw your head back. You shuddered. Your hands grabbed his hair, wanting to feel him closer. “Bu- Bucky… Please. I need to feel you.”

You didn’t wait for his response and immediately lifted up his shirt. You were stunned by the sight under the dimmed light of the bathroom. Clothes really didn’t do this man any justice. He should never be allowed to wear any coverups, ever again now that you had seen him. He was sculpted by the Gods themselves. His biceps felt robust in your dainty hands and the V-shaped line on his hips led to somewhere you really wanted to wrap your lips around.

Your hands quickly zipped down his jeans and his boxer along with it, and you didn’t hesitate in feeling his throbbing member right there, right then. It felt tremendous in your trembling hands, and you felt it getting harder with every stoke of your palm.

“Oh, fuck, doll, don’t stop.” His voice was raspy in your ears. It was the sexiest goddamn sound you had ever heard.

“Yeah, just like that. Go faster, doll.” He sucked your earlobe and his hand fisted your hair, making a mess out of it. You didn’t mind one bit. You wanted to be a mess for him and only for him. You somehow still managed to pamper him with all the senses you had left, even if your mind was clouded with every part of him.

“Bucky, put it in me. Please.” You begged with a quavering voice.

“Your wish is my command, doll.” In a second, he pushed into you and it sent an electrifying jolt all over your nerves. You threw your head back in mingled pain and pleasure. He felt even more full now that he was fully seated inside you. He lifted you from the sink and pushed you to the wall on the opposite.

You circled your arms around his neck as your back was slammed against the concrete. Then Bucky began thrusting vigorously. You shut your eyes and moaned his name. Bucky, on the other hand, didn’t. He kept his eyes wide open to watch you with full attention. He loved seeing the way you were drunk in him. The way you forgot your name more and more every time he slammed back into you.

He loved the squelching noises ringing in his ears, better than the melody he was used to creating in the studio. The sound of your heartbeat was far more gratifying than the way Clint played his drum. Oh, how he could write an entire album solely about you in this state alone.

“You feel so good around me, doll. So. Fucking. Tight.” Your moans became louder with his filthy words in your ears.

“I’m gonna make you mine.” This time, his voice was sultry. It was rather beguiling than mortifying.

His hips kept moving and out of you with a vehement tempo, and then just like that, you crumbled. You screamed your pleasure, not caring if anyone could hear you. Bucky was still moving, trying to reach his own climax. Shortly, he was with you. He unleashed his cum deep inside you, adding the mess that was dripping all over your thighs.

You were a beautiful mess. And Bucky loved it.

After a few minutes, coming down from your high, you breathed into Bucky’s neck, not wanting for it to be over yet. You were a little scared that Bucky was going to walk out and pretend nothing ever happened between you. You didn’t know how many bathroom stalls Bucky had brought different women to and fucked them silly right there. You had a lot do unravel about him, yet, you weren’t certain whether he wanted to let you in or not.

“You okay?” Bucky whispered into your ear. You only nodded, still a little hazy from ecstasy.

“I’m gonna put you down now, yeah?”

“Okay.” He slowly set you on your feet, as he was still staring at your face. You leaned against the wall, trying not to collapse. Bucky picked up his shirt and put it back on along with his jeans and boxer.

“Let’s get out of here.” Bucky offered you his hand, like the gentleman that he was as if he hadn't just fucked you into oblivion in a public restroom.

You took his hand with a smile. You didn’t know what was going to happen after you walk out of the door, but you were going to savour every second of being in his arm if this was going to be last time you’ll ever see him.

You went home with a contented smile on your face. You were like a teenage girl who had just been asked to prom by her crush. How could you not, when Bucky offered to walk you home and left a kiss on your cheek before he called it a night?

Natasha was going to stay at Clint’s hotel, so you were supposed to walk home alone. You knew eventually this was going to happen but Natasha and Clint used it as a reason so Bucky and you would spend the night together too. You didn’t mind one bit, though. You wanted to elongate your time with Bucky and your wish was granted.

You offered him to come inside and stay for a little while, you were secretly hoping that you could go for the second round, but Bucky only chuckled and shook his head.

“Not tonight, doll. I ain’t that kinda man. And you need rest. But I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?” Then you and Bucky exchanged your numbers and he waited until you were really gone from his sight.

You walked up to your dorm with butterflies in your stomach and sparks fly all trailing over your footsteps. Thank God, Natasha wasn’t here. If she were, she would’ve relentlessly teased you all night and made you admit that she was right to coerce you to come.

And you would’ve had to admit that she was right. And you didn’t like admitting that you were wrong.

But tonight, you were going to admit it to yourself though. Sometimes, doing something that frightens you the most would endue you in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.

And you were going to thank your lucky stars tonight for embedding Natasha Romanoff in your life because, without her, you would’ve stayed in your shell and Bucky could’ve fucked someone else in that restroom instead of you.

That might’ve happened in another universe, but not tonight. Tonight it was you and you were really hoping that you were going to see him again in your dreams tonight. You had one taste of him and it wasn’t enough.

Bucky texted you not long after you took a shower.

“Dreaming of me, yet?” Wink emoji.

“Well, if I were, I wouldn’t be texting you right now, would I?”

“That’s true, but at least you’d be drenching your sheets because of me and I don’t think I have a problem with that.”

“I don’t need you to do that, maybe I can use some toys in my drawers tonight. They seem pretty bored.” Thinking emoji.

“Oh, doll, you are killing me here…” Drool emoji.

“You like it.”

“I do.”

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

“Goodnight, doll. Thinking of you here.”

You turned off your phone and the screen went black. You changed into your pyjamas and washed off the remnants of your makeup and let the slumber take over you.

Bucky’s face loomed over you, somewhere in a fancy balcony, the view of the city stretching over, added to the beauty of the scenery. He was wearing a navy blue suit with a white dress shirt and no tie. The first couple of buttons were unbuttoned, giving you a majestic picture that he was. His hands that were in his pockets, took yours as you exerted yours to him.

He leaned in with a bright smile under his stubbly face, his blue eyes sparkled like Sirius star.

“Fly with me, doll.”

“What if I fall?”

“Then I’ll catch you.”

521 notes · View notes

aziraphool · 3 years

Text

I have fic, it's already one ao3 but here ya go anyways

The Ultimate Wingman

Summary: Nico goes to Kayla for help on asking out Will, forming two relationships - platonic or not - within the Apollo cabin

No warnings :D

I wrung my hands as I walked across Camp's grounds. This couldn't go too badly… right? The worst that could happen was that he'd say no - then he'd tell everyone I was gay and they'd all hate me and think I was weird and those that I could actually call friends would abandon me and -!

"Ugh!" I said aloud, kicking the dirt. The girl that I had been looking for, Kayla Knowles, spun around. Her short ginger and green hair whipped her face and the quiver on her back slid to the right.

"Oh, hey Nico," she greeted with a smile once she got over the shock.

"Uh, hi," I mumbled.

"What is it? You seem… stressed," she commented.

"What? No, I'm not stressed," I lied. Her eyebrows creeped up.

"Oh really? I might not be any Will Solace but -" she stopped. I hoped desperately that the warmness of my cheeks wasn't showing. By the looks of it, however, I was more red than Rachel Dare's hair. She set her bow down and pulled off the quiver. Kayla seemed to be torn between smirking and being as kind as possible.

"I believe you wanted to talk to me?"

Oh, how easy it would be to say 'no' and walk away, my secrets still kept to my chest. But that would accomplish nothing. Besides, it wasn't as bad as telling Will. At least if I talked to Kayla it wasn't completely sure Will would ever find out what a loser I was.

"I - I… yes," I said, staring at the ground.

"Would you call it an… important matter?" She was definitely smirking; I could hear it in her voice. I glared at her red converse. I swear this girl lived in bright colours. "Ooh," She giggled before clearing her throat. "Sorry, I've been spending too much time around Lacy." I didn't know or care who Lacy was, though I assumed she was a daughter of Aphrodite, judging by the behaviour Kayla had leeched off her. I hoped I never had the misfortune to meet Lacy, as even this interaction with Kayla had just about killed me - or maybe it was just the circumstances.

"So," she said, jumping up to sit on the table she had just put her bow on. "What is it that you need me, of all people, for?"

"Well -"

"Sit down first," she interrupted, patting the table space next to her. She moved the bow as if it were made of glass and not a weapon made for killing. I hesitated before climbing up. (And, yes, I had to climb up. Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, was too short to get up on a table that even the smallest kid in the Apollo cabin could effortlessly jump onto.) Her bluebelle eyes held the smile that she was repressing.

"Now we're all cozy -" I shuffled away from her. "Tell me whatcha problem is." I didn't answer straight away. In fact, I didn't answer at all. I just kinda stared over to Camp, occasionally stealing glances to cabin 7. Discreetly, of course, or Kayla might start taking after Lacy again.

Suddenly, she hit my arm. I looked at her, a mixture of surprised and offended.

"There was a mosquito," she shrugged with an innocent smile.

"I hate you," I muttered so quietly I thought she wouldn't hear. But damn these Apollo kids, with their hearing that was too good, even for a demigod.

"That's kind of you,"

"How did you even -?"

"Hear you? Please, dad's the god of music n' stuff, we can't be tone deaf - well, maybe Will is -" she definitely paused just to see my reaction this time. I was disappointed in my inability to control my own blushing. The smirk reappeared on her face. "And he's also the god of prophecy, so I'd like to say that I have a pretty good idea of what's going on around here." I sighed, staring up at the sky. It was fun to imagine Zeus burning up there but I couldn't sink into childhood daydreams right now.

"I know you know -"

"I know I know, too," she said. I glared at her before looking back up.

"So just say it,"

Her smile widened before it disappeared. Shaking her head, she said something completely unexpected,

"This isn't my place to speak. You need to tell me, if you want to,"

I paused, momentarily confused by this sudden change. She smiled a genuine smile, her freckled cheeks faintly pink.

"If it makes you feel any better, I've had a crush on Lou Ellen for, like, ever,"

"Really?" I asked before I could stop myself. She nodded, the amber to green colouring of her hair made it look like traffic lights, her face was also red, making it even more pronounced.

"Well… I guess…" I groaned. "We're going anonymous, here. I have a - I have a crush on one of your half-siblings, right? And I need your help." She grinned.

"Well, good thing we're both amateurs -"

"How is that a good thing?"

"Shh, di Angelo," she placed a finger to my lips. "It's rude to interrupt a genius at work."

"You're not a genius and you've interrupted me, like, 4 -"

"3," she corrected, then paused, rolling her eyes at herself. "Now it's 4 times."

"Whatever! I just need to find out if Wi - someone in your cabin likes me back!"

"You could just… ask?" she offered.

"No!" I cried, aghast. She racked her brain for another option.

"What d'you like to do, then?" Kayla asked. I looked at her quizzically.

"Raise the dead,"

"Maybe something more… normal," she said. "No offence but an army of skeletons isn't the way to ask someone out."

"Uhh,"

"You literally never leave your cabin. What do you do in there all day? Stare at the wall?"

"Yeah, basically," I shrugged. She seemed taken aback.

"You have a sword, right? What if you challenge him to a sword fight? You know, then get talking after?"

"That could work… I guess…" I mumbled.

"Then it's settled," she said, grabbing my wrist and jumping off the table.

"What're you - no. No no no no no! You cannot -" my foot caught and I ended up with a face full of grass.

"Good thinking! Will - I mean, my siblings like healing! Did you sprain your ankle?"

"I think so," I replied, tenderly poking the injury. "But the last time I was in the infirmary-"

"Will got really pissed because you left before your three days were up? I know. So now you can make up for it!" she said, dragging me along behind her.

"William!" she screamed through the Apollo cabin door.

"What?" Will opened the door, glowing in the fading sunlight.

"I've got a visitor!" she giggled before practically throwing me inside. "Good chat, Neeks!" Kayla slammed the door, leaving us in the empty cabin.

"Uh, what was all that about?" he asked, still staring at the door as he held his hand out. I hesitated before pulling myself up.

"I sprained my ankle," I replied, my voice an octave higher than usual.

"Oh," Will said and pointed at a bed. I sat on the edge of it, my toes grazing the floor. He walked over, his blond hair bobbing with his bouncy step, which was accompanied with the clapping sound of flip flops. He finished a Red Bull, crushing the can and throwing it over his shoulder, where it flawlessly landed in the bin. How hot can you get?

He gently pulled off my black sneakers - I hoped my feet didn't smell. He prodded around the ankle and I winced in pain.

"Yeah, sprained, all right," he said. It was too quiet, I could hear his breathing. He pulled out an ice pack and wrapped it around my foot. "So, er, you're free to go, I guess." I nodded and replaced my shoe. I limped to the door before turning around.

"I was wondering if you'd, uh, if you'd like to… meet me in the - what's it called?- in the, um, arena tomorrow?" I stuttered.

"Sure," Will grinned. He couldn't be blushing, it was probably just the light. "What time?"

"Um, you pick," I said, not wanting to feel like a control freak.

"Will 11 do?" he asked.

"Of course," I replied. Truth was, I didn't usually get up until then, so I'd have to remember to set an alarm. Or tell Kayla and she'd come bounding into my room and 3 am for 'preparations'.

"See you there," he said. I nodded and left.

***

"Did it work? It worked, right?" Kayla practically yelled, jumping out from behind a bush.

"Yeah! It actually worked!" I answered just as loudly, unable to contain my enthusiasm. She gasped.

"What time are you gonna have the sword fight?"

I cursed in Greek.

"I forgot to mention the swords!"

"Never mind, you have a sprained ankle anyway," she said, then hopped up and down excitedly. "See? I'm the ultimate wingman! You're going on a date!"

"It's not a date!" I corrected her, though I secretly hoped it was.

"Whatever you say, Neeks," she shrugged. I was too happy to tell her not to call me that.

"But what should I wear?" I asked.

"Hmm," she mused. "Not the same as today… I'll need to see your wardrobe." She marched off to cabin 13, me in tow.

"Do you own anything that's not black?" Kayla grumbled, throwing yet another skull t shirt onto the bed. "Anyone'd think you're going to a funeral every day of the year."

"Uh," I squinted at a shirt. "That one's… dark grey," She held it up and raised an eyebrow. "... very, very dark grey."

"It's black," she sighed. "Anyhow, it'll have to do. At least it doesn't have a skull on."

"Who knows, maybe Will likes skulls and skeletons?" I shrugged. Kayla snorted.

"Tbh, he could probably name every bone in your body,"

"What the Hades does tbh mean?" I questioned and she grinned.

"Sometimes I forget that you're from, like, ages ago. Times like now, though…"

"Just tell me what it means," I growled as a skeletal hand broke the black carpet.

"Um, it means to be honest," she answered, her voice squeaky.

"Oh… thanks," the hand retreated back into the ground. "Sorry, I guess."

"Don't worry 'bout it," Kayla shrugged. "Just lemme watch the date first."

My face went red. I was so close to summoning another skeleton to drag her into the depths of the Underworld.

I lay in bed, too nervous to sleep. What if it didn't work out? What if he hated me? What if - oh, the horrors - he was straight? I mean, I had nothing against straights. Most of my friends were (supposedly) straight. Still, when you're tryna ask a guy out, him being straight is not ideal. At all. I rolled over and punched my pillow. I needed sleep. I already had eye bags, I didn't need yet another sleepless night to look even more trashy. I could hardly breathe on my stomach but it, at least, served as a distraction. I mused over shadow travelling across the room and back, just so I would pass out. It was unnecessary, though, as I did (eventually) get to sleep.

"Nico," I vaguely registered someone whispering in my ear. "Nico. Nico. Wake up," they inhaled. I just managed to brace myself, realising what they were going to do. "NICO!" Still, I stumbled out of bed and fell to the floor.

"What?" I hissed at Kayla. She grinned, having successfully screamed in my ear.

"Date,"

About a hundred thoughts passed through my mind at once. Through the jumble, I managed one question.

"What's the time?"

"8, which gives 3 hours to go over your strategy," she answered.

"Strategy? I don't need a strategy," I said.

"Yes, you do. Besides, I've been talking everything through with Lacy last night,"

"How did you even meet? She's, like, two years younger than you,"

"Maybe if you actually left your cabin -"

"Point taken,"

"Drink it," Kayla instructed, pushing a glass into my hand.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Poison," she said, rolling her eyes. "Water, dumbass. Now, drink." I downed it and wiped my mouth on my wrist. There were a few moments of silence before Kayla stood up, grabbing me by the wrist.

"C'mon, Ghostie, let's take you to the arena to find lover boy,"

"Wh - what? Aren't we early?"

"Will's always early, it'll be a surprise," she replied. I nodded and followed her out, trying to resist the urge to sprint, adopt a new identity and forget this whole not-date.

***

I never would have thought I'd end up standing behind a bush with Kayla Knowles whilst Will Solace waited for me, yet here I was.

"Don't mess up the eyeliner," she said. "Or Lacy will kill me." I tried to reply, but no sound came out. She smiled lopsidedly, like she understood anyway.

"You'll do great," she inhaled then patted my head. "Will totally loves you."

"I - I - he -" I stuttered.

"Trust me," Kayla said, grasping my hand, her bitten nails lightly scratching me. She pulled me into a hug from there. I tensed momentarily before doing the same.

"Thanks," I said into her shoulder. "Maybe I could be the ultimate wingman for your date with Lou Ellen."

"Isn't she with Cecil, though?"

"Eh," I shrugged. "I can… arrange something." She pulled back, laughing.

"Will will be lucky to have you, di Angelo. Now, go get him!" She pushed me out from our hiding space.

Will spin around, a grin forming on his face. His camp tank top exposed his golden shoulders, which glowed in the sunlight. He obviously had had some assistance too, as he was wearing jeans and not beach shorts two sizes too big.

"You're early," he laughed; a short melodic note.

"Then what are you?" I retorted good-naturedly.

"Hmm, fair point. But do you like my shoes?" he pointed at his black crocs. "I thought you'd like the colour."

"Oh, yeah, get me some," I said sarcastically.

"Sure!" Will said, his white teeth shining.

"That was a joke, Solace! A joke! I do not want black crocs!"

"Suit yourself," he shrugged. "Now, do you wanna sit down somewhere?"

"Thought you'd never ask,"

#ao3 #hoo fic #solangelo #nico di angelo #kayla knowles #so yeah :/

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notyetneedcoffee · 4 years

Text

Date Nights 3

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Smut

New Naughty Series

“It’s your turn,” You grinned.

Steve cracked open a fresh beer. “You sure you don’t want to just hang out around here?”

“Just pick.” You nudged him. “We don’t have to take all night.”

He leaned closer, covering your mouth with a tender kiss. “Okay, Sweetheart.” Steve reached into the jar and pulled out a little rolled up note. Opening it up, he read it aloud. “Do something together that you usually do alone.”

His eyebrow rose, mischievously.

Completely deadpan you stole his beer from his hand and took a swallow. “Jacking you off does not constitute a date.”

Steve laughed, head thrown back. “Okay, okay.” He drew in a deep breath. “Maybe later, though.”

“Oh, definitely later.” You smiled.

He looked thoughtfully at you, mind racing. The corner of his mouth tipped up and his blue eyes searching your face. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “Got it!” He stood up, taking his beer away from you. “But no booze for you.”

“Hey!”

“Nope,” He finished the beer in one pull. “Now, go put your shoes on. You’ll be good in jeans and that sweater.”

“Where are we going?”

“The range.”

“Okay.” You said slowly, pulling your shoes on.

Steve took your hand and let you to the firing range in the basement of the Compound. You’d never been there before. The outer chamber was nothing short of an arsenal. All kinds of weapons hung from racks, ammunition stacked on shelves, and only people with proper clearance could open the cases. In the middle of the room, a table held tools and supplies for cleaning.

At the moment, both Bucky and Clint sat at the table with parts of weaponry laid out before them. Tony sat on a countertop, fiddling with a setting on his left gauntlet. Steve nodded a greeting. “Guys.”

“Hey, what are you two up to?” Bucky leaned back in his chair.

“We’re going to do some shooting.” Steve opened a cabinet pulling out Sig Sauer P320. “Sweetheart, have you ever owned a gun?”

Before you could answer, Tony barked a laugh. “You kidding? She was raised by peace-loving Haight Ashbury hippies. Didn’t you live in a commune for a while?”

“Hippies? Seriously?” Bucky chuckled.

“Doesn’t your mom run a dispensary now?” Tony pointed his tool at you.

“You mother sells weed?!” Clint howled.

“For medicinal purposes.” Steve grumbled.

“Among other things.” You grinned, throwing Clint a wink.

Bucky laughed heartily at the uncomfortable look on Steve’s face. “Why start her with something so boring, pal?” He finished the assembly and held out his M249. “Let her play with a real gun.”

Before you could say a word, the two men flanked you at one of the lanes. Both went over the safe handling of the handgun and the machine gun. You listened, intently, a small smile on your face. Finally, they stopped.

Steve handed you safety glasses and ear protection, “Did you get all that? Any questions?”

“I’m good.” You donned the safety gear.

Before either could respond, you picked up the Sig, popped in the mag, and fired once, paused for a heartbeat to check your sight, and fired nine more in quick secession in a tight little cluster at the center of the target.

“What the -” Steve breathed.

You cleared the Sig and ejected the magazine. Picking up the M249, you flicked off the safety and squeezed off a few shots. Smiling, you changed aim to the head of the target and blew a hole the size of a baseball in it. You lowered the light weight machine gun, pulling off the ear guards. “Nice.”

Bucky laughed.

“You said you did know how to shoot.” Steve looked at you with an odd mix of confusion and arousal on his face.

“No. You assumed. Just because I’ve never owned a gun doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fire one.” You smirked.

Bucky must have recognized the look on his best friend’s face, because he ducked out of the room without a word.

Steve leaned close to you, hot breath tickling the skin of your ear. “That was really sexy.”

“Oh?” You purred. Taking off the glasses and running your nose along his jaw.

“Mm-hmm.” His hand slid over your hip, dipping lower to the warmth between your legs. “Took me by surprise.” He placed open mouth kisses on the side of your neck. “I’ve seen you be sweet, seen you outsmart the room, seen you be funny and charming, but fuck...” he growled out the word. “The badass look is sexy as hell on you.”

His teeth nipped your ear as he pulled your ass tight against the hard evidence of his arousal. You gave a little moan. “You got a thing for girls with guns?”

He chuckled low. “Got a thing for you. You keep surprising me.” One hand cupped your breast as he pulled you against his rutting hip with the other. “I love it.”

“We, oh damn,” a shiver ran down your body. “We better cool it or get someplace private, ‘cause I don’t think bending me over right here is such a good idea.”

Steve groaned, freezing. “You’re right.” He took a deep breath before standing up straight. “Okay. Yeah.” Steve picked up the weapons and headed to the exit. Peeking out he breathed a ‘thank god’ before pushing the door open. Clint, Tony and Bucky were gone.

He quickly stowed the weapons, knowing they should be cleaned before being put away. The raging erection in pants demanded other action, though. You watched his quick work with a grin. As soon as he slammed the last cabinet closed, Steve swept you up in his arms and kissed you hard.

“Let’s go.” He murmured against your lips.

“Yes, sir.” You quirked an eyebrow at him.

A low growl escaped his chest and he practically carried you out of the range. Thankfully, you didn’t pass anyone on the way to his quarters. Steve kept pulling you close, kissing you, lifting you against him. As soon as his door closed, he buried his hands in your hair. “Say that one more time.”

“What?” You smiled against his lips. “Yes, sir?”

His eyes fell closed, and his grip tightened. Oh, that was new. Your voice dropped to a husky purr. “What can I do for you, sir?”

Steve’s eyes opened, studying you. His thumb traced your lower lip and you took it in your mouth, sucking and rolling your tongue around his digit. His eyes darkened. “You can get on your knees and suck my cock, like I know you want to.”

His words sent a flood to your core. Hell, yes.

You lowered to your knees, keeping eye contact with him as your hands ran over his chest and abs, down his thighs. You moved all the way to his feet, removing his shoes and socks. Rising up, you unbuckled his belt. Steve’s hands clenched at his side. You unfastened his jeans, breathing hot air over his cock before touching him. You took him hand, licking up the length of him, stroking.

When you finally took him in your mouth, he moaned. His hands combed through your hair, pulling it away from your face so he could see. You pushed him to the back of your throat, swallowing against him. He growled jerking into you, pushing you to limit of your reflex. Your hand grabbed his ass.

Steve bit back moans, watching your head bob, fighting the urge to fuck your mouth harder. Finally, he pulled you up, crushing your mouth with a brutal kiss. He held himself back, eyes closing. “What do you want, Sweetheart?”

You nipped his bottom lip. “Fuck me hard, sir.”

“Hell, yes.” He groaned. Picking you off the ground so your legs came around his waist, he marched to the bed. He threw you on the bed. You were pulling off your sweater before you stopped bouncing. Steve yanked off your shoes. Clothes were thrown in every direction.

Steve manhandled you until you were naked, on all fours, ass facing him. His large hands ran over the cheeks of your ass, pulling them apart, fingers sweeping over your wet cunt. “So, sweet.”

“Steve,” you whined.

You felt the sharp crack of his hand on your ass. “What?”

Gasping, you corrected. “Sir.”

“God, look at that.” He smacked you again. You jumped. Pain. Pleasure. You felt yourself dripping. “You like that, don’t you?”

A moan escaped your throat.

Steve slipped two fingers in, rubbing against your wall, roughly stroking the spot he knew so well. With a cry you dropped to your elbows. “Tell me. Say it, Sweetheart.” His other hand spanked you. “You like that.” Again, and you cried out. “Don’t you?”

“Yes, sir!”

He fucked you with his fingers, hard and rough. His other hand coming around to tease your clit, slick with your own juiced. “Do you want to come for me, Sweetheart? Are you ready to squirt all over me?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Not yet.” He was suddenly gone. You let out a something between a whine and a scream. Steve flipped you over, pushing your knee to your chest. He entered you in one deep thrust.

“Fuck!” You clutched at the bed covers. He held your crossed ankles in one large hand. Resting on his knees, he pulled out almost all the way before sliding in again. His hard cock pressing against your g spot the whole time. Your eyes locked closed.

“Look at me!” His hand slapped you ass. Your eyes popped open, panting. Steve thrust into you harder, faster. “Fuck, you feel good.”

“Yes, sir.” You reached for his hip, his shoulder, anywhere you could touch. “Harder, please, sir!”

Steve let go of your ankles, fingers digging into your hips. Skin slapped on skin. “Yes!”

Heat flooded through your body. Toes tingled. Thighs quivered. Tension coiled in your core. “I’m gonna... oh god...”

Steve leaned back, angling to fuck up at just the right angle. He watched, open mouthed, as his cock slammed into your wet cunt. You writhed, but he held you tight. You cried out, coming hard, flooding over his cock, soaking the duvet. He lost it.

With a growl, he slammed into you hard, fast, stealing your breath. Unable to come down from the first orgasm, he pushed you over the edge a second time. Your whole body shook, mind whited out. You screamed. Steve growled as your cunt clutched at him, milking every bit of hot come from him until he collapsed over your sweaty, still shaking body.

His soft lips roamed over your neck. “You okay, Love?”

“Mmm.” You panted. “I can’t feel my feet.”

He chuckled, and you felt it down the length of your body, including where he remained buried in you. “That was,” he sighed. “intense.”

“Yeah.” You nuzzled him, unable to move anything else.

Steve pushed off you and lay at your side. “Bed, or bath?” His fingers traced over your sweat soaked chest.

“Coma.” Your eyes closed.

He kissed you lightly. “That good, huh?”

“Mm-hmm, yessir.” You smiled lazily.

Steve got up and you whined at his absence. “Just going to run the bath, Sweetheart. Don’t worry if you doze off, I’ll take care of you.”

“You’re so good to me.”

He came back, placing a soft kiss on your lips. “That’s my line.”

You rested, drifting in a wonderful haze. Date nights were a really good idea.

TAGS

@rainbowkisses31 / @dsakita / @geeksareunique / @lbouvet / @buckybarneshairpullingkink / @theneuropsychwriter / @vanillabunn21 / @sammghgecko / @beautifullungs / @badassbaker / @the-omni-princess / @sebbysstangirl / @jesseswartzwelder / @unadulteratedwizardlove / @the-reading-octopus / @bangtan-serendipity / @kiki5283 / @mindtravelsx / @my-favorite-fics-and-imagines / @patzammit / @thegetawaywriter / @vxidnik / @jennmurawski13 / @wildmoonflower / @rynabarnesrogers / @notyourtypicalrose / @sllooney / @wwe-fanfiction-queen / @thorfanficwriter / @scarlettsoldier / @morganhoran1671 / @michelehansel / @sexyvixen7 / @readermia / @buchanansebba / @what-is-your-plan-today / @imma-new-soul / @asiaaisa77 / @babygurl8840 / @acf2510 / @firefly-in-darkness

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #steve rogers fic #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fan fiction #steve rogers

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impala-dreamer · 4 years

Text

Edge of the Blade

SPN FanFic

~Y/N has found Michael and is ready to take him down and get Dean back. Michael doesn't care for that plan and changes the rules quite drastically.~

Michael!Dean x Reader

1,998 Words

Warnings: NSFW. NonCon-ish...but not in the end. Kink!Kink. Object Insertion. Grace!Kink. Smut and Michael. ‘Nuff said.

A/N: How about a little Porn Wars revisited?? Tag, @covered-byroses you’re it! Please enjoy responsibly.

My Masterlist ~ Become A Patreon ~ The Porn War Masterlist ~ Find My Original Works on Amazon

The door opened without a sound, her boots silent on the highly polished floor. The only sounds were her faint, quick breaths as she snuck into the office, heart pounding when she saw him.

Michael sat in a low armchair, his back to the door, one suited leg crossed over the other. His face was turned to the window, moon above adding a glow to his stolen profile.

Y/N couldn’t help but stare for a moment. It was Dean’s crooked nose, Dean’s lips, chin, brows. It was Dean and yet, so very not. He sat straighter; the hand on his ankle lay oddly. There was no Dean coming through, not tonight.

If he sensed her presence, Michael gave no clue, not even flinching as her first footsteps entered the room.

The angel blade in her fist gleamed in the faint moonlight as she raised it high, ready to strike, drive it deep into his back, freeing her friend.

Her arm never even came down.

Y/N screamed as invisible hands shoved her away, sending her flying sideways and slamming into the wall to Michael’s left. She struggled, but the hands pinned her back, head to toe against the mahogany panels.

“It’s rude to sneak up on people.” Michael’s voice was dark and fluid, rolling like molasses into her ears.

Y/N sneered as he stood. “It’s rude to steal bodies,” she spat in reply, rage boiling in her gut.

His heels spun on the glossy floor, perfectly hemmed trousers breaking just below the tongue of his shoes. “I stole...yes,” he agreed with a slight shrug. “But I stole and left.” He took a step towards her, rounding the chair. “You have broken in and snuck up on me with a blade.”

Her fist tightened on the hilt. “I came here to kill you!”

Michael laughed, spreading Dean’s plump lips into an amused smile. “Don’t you know little girls shouldn’t play with sharp things?”

Y/N growled. “Fuck you.”

Michael looked to the angel blade and Y/N felt the ethereal metal in her palm heat up.

“You know that won’t kill me.” It wasn’t a threat or a tease, it was a fact now spoken.

She shivered as the warmth spread down her arm. “Yeah, but it’ll hurt like a mother.”

His heels clicked delicately on the tiles. “True. But what if you had... succeeded and pierced this heart?” Michael cocked his head, curiously watching her subtle response. “Dean would be dead in an instant.”

Y/N laughed bitterly and tried to keep her attitude intact. “You wouldn’t let your perfect vessel die.”

“There are others,” he told her, dipping his chin to look up with deep green eyes. “Although, none as… exquisite as this one.” Perfect lips spread into an abnormal smile; too much teeth, no happiness in the eyes.

“You’re a creep.”

“Am I?”

Y/N narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, you are. And a fucking asshole; a sorry excuse for an archangel.”

Michael growled low in the back of his throat, his jaw tightening, upper lip twitching with rage. “You should show me some respect, child. You have not seen all that I am capable of.”

Y/N licked her lips slowly and let out a calm breath. “Fuck you.”

The invisible force holding her up vanished but not for long. Y/N gagged as the hands moved to around her throat, closing in tight as they lifted her right off her feet. Her toes struggled to reach the floor, to give her head some help, but Michael merely lifted her higher. When her body started shaking and her eyes began to roll, Michael let her go, watching as she slumped to her knees.

“Would you like to try again?” he asked gently.

Y/N coughed, lungs burning as she tried to regain her breath. Somehow, she made it to her feet, blade still tight in her hand. She sucked in a fierce breath and hissed, “fuck you.”

Michael sighed heavily and looked away for a moment, just about finished with her game.

“You know, I could just kill you. With a thought I could snap that pretty little neck of yours.”

She knew he was right but she’d already come so far. No use going out like a pussy. Y/N clicked her tongue and raised her brows, challenging him. “So why don’t you?”

“Because, Dean… is getting antsy,” Michael squared his shoulders and cracked his neck with a flinch. “It seems that killing you would... upset him. I need him to be nice and relaxed… distracted.”

“Distracted?” She swallowed down another cough, trying to stand up straight.

Michael pressed the tip of his tongue between his teeth and lifted his shoulders in a tiny shrug. “The calmer he is, the more work I can accomplish. It’s a simple equation.”

Y/N chanced taking a step towards the door, but before her foot landed, Michael’s power held her back again, shoving her into the wall. She grunted, wind knocked away for a moment. “So... what, you’re gonna keep me pressed up against this wall forever? Let me go.”

“No.” His voice boomed, stinging her ears and shaking the windows.

Y/N whined as the pain of his shout traveled through her skull. She squirmed against the wall but could do little more than turn her head as Michael came close. Perfectly calm and inquisitive, Michael stopped an inch away and bent down, sniffing the air around her, breathing her in. Y/N closed her eyes and tried to wish it away, wanting to click her heels and be back home in the Bunker. But her heels wouldn’t move, and she was all out of wishes.

Michael took another deep breath as if he were drinking in her essence. He smiled. “He likes you, you know. A lot.” His grin was unbearable.

“What?”

“Dean.” Michael stood up, but remained close, slowly tapping his temple. “He’s screaming right now for me to let you go. He wants you safe. Wants you back at home where you will be out of harm’s way. Out of... my way.”

Her chest was heaving, heart drumming painfully against her chest. Adrenaline was running low. “So let me go, please.”

“I think not.” Michael turned, leisurely pacing the floor before her. “I think it would be good for him to see you. Might...settle him down.”

Confusion washed over her face.

“Oh… you didn’t know, did you?” Michael smirked. “Didn’t realize that Mr. Winchester was harboring a crush on you all this time? Pity.”

Y/N panicked. “Shut up.”

True, manipulative glee flashed over Michael’s face. “You like him too. Oh, how sweet. This must be killing you then, isn’t it?”

It was true. Seeing Dean used by a monster was more painful than she could have imagined Listening to the stark difference in his voice, seeing the empty but powerful look behind his eyes was like taking a bullet to the guy. Still, she kept her anger. “Fuck. You.”

Michael shook his head. “Again, with that mouth!” A ghostly hand clamped down hard over Y/N’s mouth, making her shriek behind closed lips. “Do not force me to hurt you, child. Despite my host’s protests, I will do it. I can do... anything I want. Anything.”

He let her go once more and Y/N gasped. “No.”

“Oh, yes.” The devilish twinkle returned to his eye. “I could make you kill yourself if I commanded it.”

Fear rose in her chest. “Never.”

Michael narrowed his gaze on her and sent out a wisp of Grace. “Oh, yes.”

The Grace pushed into Y/N’s body, forcing her arm to move against her will. It turned and lifted mechanically, pressing the angel blade against her throat. She froze, eyes wide as the edge bit her skin.

“Anything I command.”

The blade pushed even harder and Y/N felt a trickle of warmth drip down her throat as she broke the skin. “Stop it!”

Michael flashed a dead smile, white teeth glinting in the dim light. “I told you... little girls shouldn’t play with sharp things. Now I get to play with you.”

“Michael, please!” Tears sprang to her eyes as she begged, still slicing into her own throat. “Dean!”

Grace shut her mouth again as her grip relaxed, pulling the blade away enough to slide across her neck.

Michael watched as he moved the knife where he wanted, easily commanding her body to do his bidding.

The sharp tip pressed into her bottom lip and began its descent, slowly dancing down the middle of her; so slow, so gentle, leaving only a faint red line in its wake.

Y/N was unable to speak or stop herself; her body utterly under his control, will bending to his whim. When the blade reached her top, she felt her hand move oddly, caught like a puppet on a string. The buttons on her flannel popped as the angelic edge cut them away; the office’s mechanically controlled air cooled her skin as the fabric of her bra was sliced through.

“Isn’t this lovely?” Michael asked, seeing her eyes roll back while the deadly tip circled her left nipple. *You enjoy this.”

Y/N moaned in negation but wasn’t able to hide it from him. Her nipples were hard, her breath fast and deep. The blade was so cold, her skin so sensitive; she was losing the fight.

When the blade hit her navel, Michael took a step closer. “Let me help you with those.”

Warm fingers tugged gently on her jeans and Y/N closed her eyes, trying to push the arousal away. It was wrong, so fucking wrong, but she wanted him to keep going. There was no denying the wetness that dripped down her legs as Michael pulled her clothing away.

“Keep going.”

Her hand dropped, pulling the blade down further and further until the tip pushed against her cunt. She moaned and Michael held up a hand, stopping her movements.

“We wouldn’t want to cut that off...would we?” He blinked slowly and her wrist turned, flipping the knife around. The thick hilt was a shock to her system, and Y/N’s legs began to shake as the cold metal dipped down between her thighs. “That’s better…go on.”

Her knees parted and her eyes grew huge, pupils fully blown, pulse racing. Under his control, Y/N pushed the hilt into her cunt, quickly dipping in and out a few times to gather up the slick leaking out.

A flash of blue and Michael released the hold on her voice, letting her cries ring out through the room.

“Oh, God!” Her pussy clenched around the sword as she fucked herself harder and faster for him, so close to cumming she could feel it in every atom of her body. “Please!”

Michael cocked his head to watch as her temperature rose. He could see deep inside of her, every cell and molecule, and they were all on fire, bending to his control. He smiled and released his hold fully, letting her take control back.

Y/N could not stop even as she felt the Grace recede. Her hand kept moving, hips continued thrusting, she needed to cum for him, needed to feel it. Her eyes flew open and locked on his; her jaw dropping in a high pitched scream as she came, pussy leaking all over the blade, down her thighs, onto the polished floor.

Michael smiled. “Such an obedient little thing. I think we’ll keep you for a while.”

Out of breath and ashamed of herself, Y/N pulled the blade from her cunt and let it fall to the floor. “I hate you,” she said under her breath, still shaking and pulling her shirt closed against his gaze.

He moved closer. “Yes, you do...for now.” Michael lifted his hand to her cheek and slowly drew his middle finger down across her lips. “But you won’t after I’m through with you…”

2020 Forever Tags: @67-chevy-baby @akshi8278 @akhuna01 @amanda-teaches @because-imma-lady-assface @blondemarvelchick @blushingjared @broiderie @burningcoffeetimetravel @classic-rock-angel @cosicas-cuquis @covered-byroses @crashdevlin @deansgirl215 @deans-baby-momma @deangirl7695 @deanwanddamons @deanwinchesterswitch @defenderrosetyler @dolphincliffs @dontshootmespence @edge-oftonight @emoryhemsworth @fandom-princess-forevermore @feelmyroarrrr @flamencodiva @focusonspn @herbologystudent252 @heycasbutt @hornyandsmol @ilovefanfic86 @i-love-superhero @ilsawasanacrobat @imjustadrummer @ivvitm1109 @joseyrw @justagirlinafandomworld @justcallmeasmodeus @katymacsupernatural @laxe-from-outer-space @leatherandfrackles @lessons-of-red @letsby @letsdisneythings @lonewolf471 @maddiepants @mariekoukie6661 @meganwinchester1999 @missjenniferb @mrswhozeewhatsis @mummybear @onethirstyunicorn @our-jensen-ackles-love @screechingartisancashbailiff @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @starboycas @stephaniecanfield96us @stoneyggirl @squirrelnotsam @thebookisbtr @thehardcoveraddict @thevelvetseries @veevm @winchestersister55 @wendibird @winecatsandpizza @winterpoohbear

#michael!dean x reader #Dark Kink #pornwars #one shot #Michael!dean #smuts

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scarletenvy · 3 years

Text

eastbound, homebound. — chapter 3

this is for the nony who the other day asked me to post any previously unpublished parts of the airline au i might have. here’s 5k of unfinished, unbeta’d and not edited ch3. includes smut.

Chapter 3: concrete jungle.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Violet squeaks, startled and surprised, and tries to get up, but Pearl just lets out a guttural grunt and tightens her grip on the junction of Violet’s hip and thigh under her skirt, thus effectively trapping Violet where she’s straddling Pearl’s lap. Violet produces a disagreeing noise that turns into a shameless moan as soon as Pearl sinks her teeth into her flesh just above her collarbone, and involuntarily grinds her hips down.

“Come on, guys, again? Really? In my fucking cockpit, too?” Kameron whines.

Violet’s lids flutter open and she looks up. Kameron is standing in the doorway, shielding her eyes with her palm theatrically. Pearl detaches her mouth from Violet’s body, settling against the backrest of her pilot’s seat, but her index and middle fingers curl under the waistband of Violet’s panties.

“Oh knock it off, Michaels, you can’t possibly expect us to believe you haven’t done this with your purser wife even once,” Pearl says while her other hand slides up Violet’s back under her unbuttoned blouse and sneakily unhooks her bra.

“Pearl!” Violet protests half-heartedly and slaps Pearl’s arm. Pearl just smirks and pushes her hand under the undergarment to cup Violet’s breast.

“I’ll be happy to inform you that my wife and I can actually keep our hands off each other for longer than five minutes, because we’re not a pair of libido-driven bitches, thank you very much,” Kameron says sternly.

Pearl hums in a noncommittal manner and leans back in to drag her lips against Violet’s collarbone. Violet’s lids fall closed again and a pleased purr forms somewhere deep in her chest and escapes her.

“I should really fuck you in first class next, doll,” Pearl states. “You’d look so fucking good, getting yourself and the seat all wet and messy while I finger your pretty little pussy. Would you like that, babe?”

“Oh, God, I can’t hear you, I can’t, I’m not listening!” Kameron shrieks before Violet can react.

Violet blinks, trying to bring her surroundings back into focus, the rampant arousal that pools in her gut making it difficult. Kameron is squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears with her palms, looking equal parts flustered and amused.

“Pearl,” Violet repeats hoarsely.

“Mmm,” Pearl says, slipping her hand to squeeze Violet’s ass under Violet’s skirt while her other one is still playing with her breast. “Okay, go on, then, doll, the sooner I land this thing the sooner I’ll get to actually fuck you.”

She manoeuvres her hands to rest on Violet’s waist and swiftly pushes her to her feet, proceeding to straighten her tie and crack her neck like she wasn’t just walked in on by her captain. Violet reaches to wipe her lipstick off Pearls mouth, and then secures the hooks of her bra behind her back and buttons her blouse up.

“C’mere, princess,” Pearl beckons her closer as soon as Violet’s done straightening her uniform.

Violet bends over, planting her hands on the armrests of the seat Pearl’s occupying, and Pearl presses a gentle kiss on her mouth, her plum lips so soft and good against Violet’s own. Before it can escalate, Pearl slaps Violet’s ass lightly and repeats her command to go on. Violet pecks Pearl once more and grabs her blazer from Kameron’s seat where she shedded it not too long ago before circling Pearl and heading out of the cockpit.

Kameron is still standing in the doorway, her arms crossed on her chest. She’s shaking her head slightly, her expression scolding, and it would almost make Violet bashful if it weren’t for the way Kameron’s so obviously fighting off an entertained grin.

“Nice bra, Chachki,” she shoots as she moves aside to let Violet through, and that’s when Violet is assured she’s not nearly as irritated as she tries to act.

“Why, thank you, captain,” Violet says, making sure it comes out pointed and clear, audible.

Behind her, she can hear Pearl snap around in her seat and let out an actual growl, low and dangerous, and she runs off quickly, feeling oddly pleased with herself for provoking a reaction.

There’s always a small part of her, shy and quiet, that keeps nagging that she should be ashamed of such vulgar, flamboyant behaviour she’s engaging in. Lately Violet’s grown very talented at ignoring it, progressively more so around Pearl, but today it’s louder, more persistent somehow. Maybe it’s because of where they are right now. Violet doesn’t let that thought linger, doesn’t let any of it linger, just works harder to not think of it at all.

She arrived in Atlanta early in the afternoon yesterday to overnight there before their flight to Johannesburg. She hadn’t told anyone she’s back, hadn’t left her hotel room, either. It was unlikely she would run into someone familiar in the busy streets, but she didn’t particularly feel like risking it. It’s been a while since she’s been back, and it was a peculiar feeling, being here as a visitor, a passer-by on her way to another, faraway destination.

Now they’re at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, getting ready for their flight. The airport is, at core, the same it was eleven, thirteen, fifteen years ago, but at the same time it’s not. The difference is, she’s never seen it like this before. She’s never seen the staff security checks and airline meeting rooms and unnoticeable doors that only open with a swipe of one’s I-D. badge. It’s both unnerving and comforting, the way a place can change so much, but not because it hasn’t, essentially, remained the same; rather, because she has not.

It seems no one’s really missed her in the main cabin. Farrah is standing in the middle of one of the two aisles, her palms placed on the backrests of the seats either side of her, and one of her knees is bent, her foot lifted coquettishly and the heel of her shoe brushing against her ass. Michelle is standing in one of the rows, her back to Violet, and she’s snapping photos of Farrah as she poses. Her expression is simultaneously oozing both seduction and saint-like innocence in the way only one Farrah Moan is capable of perfectly mastering.

“NorthWest should really use you in their next advertisement campaign, Farrah,” Violet chuckles.

Farrah strikes another pose, standing back on both feet and popping her hip, her hand moved to rest there now.

“I’m Farrah. Fly me to Milwaukee,” she breathes out, her tone eery and empty like she’s a bimbo from some 60’s movie.

“Amazing,” Violet laughs. “Do they even have an airport there?”

“Does it matter? It’s Milwaukee,” Farrah shrugs and reaches for her phone Michelle’s handing her.

“You ever been to Atlanta before, Violet?” Michelle asks.

“This is the first time this is my base,” Violet replies vaguely.

“So you’ve never been to Johannesburg before?” Farrah says wistfully. “Me neither. Gonna be fun!”

Violet hums her acknowledgement, then looks around the cabin. “Where’s Brianna?”

“We’re missing two life vests, she’s sorting that. We should be able to start the boarding soon,” Michelle says.

“I’m sure someone stole those vests during the previous flight,” Farrah chimes in expertly.

“Why would anyone steal a life vest?” Violet questions.

“Girl, people tend to steal the most random unnecessary shit, you’d be surprised,” Farrah says like it’s obvious.

“She would know,” Michelle notes.

Farrah whines, that drawn, high-pitched sound that has become her signature in Violet’s mind by now. Michelle doesn’t seem too bothered by this reaction, just laughs and suggests they get back to work.

They monitor the cabin together swiftly, making sure everything is taken care of before Brianna returns with the missing vests. Violet is unsettled, craves to get going already, but luckily Farrah is rushing them in her palpable excitement, so Violet clings to that excuse as she moves through the familiar steps with more urgency than is usual to her.

They’re one-third into the 15-hour flight when Brianna asks Violet to check if the cockpit needs anything for her while she deals with something in first class. Violet uses the intercom in the back galley, holding the receiver between her ear and shoulder as she leans against the counter, her legs crossed at the ankles, and examines the fresh coat of nail varnish she applied that morning while she waits for Kameron and Pearl to accept the call.

“Liaison,” she hears Pearl’s absentminded drag after two rings, her voice thick with amusement as if Kameron and her were just laughing at something when Violet phoned.

“Captain,” she purrs seductively. “Main cabin here, Violet speaking.”

“Blatant erasure,” Kameron chimes in before Pearl can reply.

“Shh, Michaels, you’re ruining the fantasy,” Pearl snorts.

The playfulness in Pearl’s tone makes Violet smile involuntarily, and she glances down at the tips of her black pumps and bites her lower lip like she’s trying to hide her reaction despite being alone, convince herself her heart doesn’t beat faster and her cheeks don’t get a little bit warmer whenever she hears Pearl sounding happy or imagines her grinning.

“So, what’s up, main cabin?” Pearl prompts.

Violet straightens her posture, crossing one arm over her chest and grabbing the receiver, and quietly clears her throat, seductively narrowing her eyes and dropping her pitch before she speaks. “Just calling to see if the cockpit needs anything, captain. Maybe I could get you something to eat?”

“That depends,” Pearl drawls cheekily, clearly playing along with Violet’s flirting, her voice husk. “What’s on the menu?”

“Why don’t I come and personally show you?” Violet chirps immediately.

“Jesus, Chachki, you’re on fucking speaker, come on,” Kameron groans.

Pearl laughs roughly, and Violet lets out a pouty sound, not really caught off guard by the interruption — it’s a wonder Kameron let it fly as long as she did, actually — but still a little dismayed. It’s been six days since their last flight together, six days since Pearl rushed her into a toilet stall at Seattle-Tacoma and took her against the wall, hot and desperate and messy, six days of radio silence and waiting and waiting and waiting, and Violet is itching for contact now, restless to get her hands on Pearl, hardly satisfied by their quick make out session from earlier.

“Goddamnit, Michaels, you’re such a bitch,” Pearl complains through laughter. “Why can’t you ever let me have any fun?”

“Because your idea of fun is having phone sex at work while you’re flying a craft and I’m sitting a foot away, you absolute genius,” Kameron shoots back.

“It’s better than your idea to play I spy with my little eyes for three hours straight, Michaels. There’s only fucking sky and clouds to spot!” Pearl says and Violet giggles, knowing full well the line was punctuated by a huge eye roll.

She moves her arm from her chest and tucks a loose lock of hair behind her ear, then fits her hand between herself and the counter and slips one of her heels out of the shoe, absently dangling it on her toes in the air. Pearl is in a good mood today, had been already when she had come out of the conference room to meet Violet in the hallway before their briefing and, despite Violet’s protests, taken her suitcase from her and carried it herself. It’s not exceptional, Pearl is in a good mood more often than not, but it’s a contrast to how she had been in Seattle last week, curt and rough and on edge, almost as if inflammable if approached wrong. It had been a three-hour layover, a flight that wasn’t even scheduled for Violet but that Aja had magically made happen anyway, and they had spent the majority of it with their hands and mouths on each other. After Pearl had made Violet come, Violet had backed her up against the opposite wall and gently rubbed her through her panties, the damp cotton catching on her swollen clit so perfectly, a light teasing touch insistently right where Pearl needed it until it had slowly gotten too much and she had let go and released.

Violet hadn’t asked if something was wrong, and Pearl hadn’t said anything, either, had just hidden her face in the crook of Violet’s shoulder and held her close while she came down, and then abruptly pushed past her out of the stall and the restroom without another word, and Violet hadn’t seen her again until the briefing.

“Seriously, though, is there anything you two need?” she interrupts Kameron and Pearl’s friendly bickering, her tone more professional now.

“No, babe, not really, I don’t think. At least I’m good, how about you, Michaels?” Pearl replies.

“Nah, I’m good, too. Maybe like a bathroom break in a half hour? But send someone else, I don’t want this plane crashing while I’m peeing because Liaison got distracted getting her fingers wet.”

“Ha-ha, you’re so fucking funny, Michaels, fuck all the way off,” Pearl snorts. “But what a glorious way to go, huh?”

“I’ll send Brianna or Michelle up there in like twenty,” Violet promises, stepping back into her heel and pushing herself off the counter.

“Thanks, Chachki,” Kameron calls. “Tell my wife I miss her and I love her and I can’t wait to get back to her.”

“Ew, you two are gross,” Pearl says before Violet manages to get her reply in.

“You just tried to have public phone sex and I’m the one getting called gross?” Kameron gasps in mock offence.

“You wish, Michaels, I know you’d like to hear how pretty she moans,” Pearl deadpans.

“Oh, trust me, I have heard her moan. Our room has been next to yours more often than I’d care to remember.”

“Okay,”Violet cuts in before Pearl can continue. “Nice talking to you, cap, main cabin will check in again later, have a good one. For the love of God, stop torturing her, Pearl.”

“Okay, baby, if you say so,” Pearl agrees solemnly. “I’ll see you soon.”

The line clicks in indication that the call is over, and Violet stays staring at the mute receiver for a while, the word Soon heavy on her tongue but never having had the chance to leave her lips.

They arrive in the early morning, and despite it having had been a fairly easy flight, Violet is physically drained and a little disoriented. It’s immediately clear Pearl likes Johannesburg, and while she puts her chin on Violet’s shoulder and keeps pointing out places and landmarks, painted in the soft glow of the quickly rising sun, through the tinted car window on their cab ride from the airport to the hotel, Violet thinks she could see herself falling in love.

Their accommodation is located in the northern part of the city, and Pearl tells her the neighbourhood, as well as those surrounding it, is considered one of the most prestigious in Johannesburg. The establishment is scattered across an undulating hill, a bunch of separate villas rather than one big building with rooms, and Michelle says it’s lovely, one of her favourite overnight locations she’s ever been to. Farrah snatches a little booklet from the front desk upon their arrival and check-in, and buries her nose in it, reading away and informing Violet that the name of the business — Zandfontein — comes from one of the early farms in the area.

Inside, their villa turns out to be a cosy, open space with a number of bedrooms and a shared kitchen and lounge. Everyone just kind of silently agrees that Pearl and Violet will take one of the two doubles, with the Michaels’ occupying the other, without any discussion or explicit acknowledgement of it. Violet thinks she should feel flustered about the way they’re treated by everyone as an extension of each other, a package deal, almost, should resist the implications, but there’s a craving crawling under her skin and she can’t think far past it, needs Pearl close and can’t deny herself.

“How do you feel about thunderstorms?” Pearl asks her when they’re settling in and the air between them is mostly filled with weary contentment and slowness of thought and motion, no energy to jump each other until they’ve slept the flight and jet lag off.

She’s changing into something comfortable to nap in, her uniform shedded and carelessly draped in a messy heap over the first somewhat suitable surface, the back of a chair today. She always does that, and then curses on the day of departure, stressing over how wrinkled the fabric is and resulting in Violet trying to straighten her up to the best of her ability. Violet is only slightly better than Pearl at this. Her uniform usually ends up strewn across the floor of whatever hotel room they’re entering as soon as they’re through the door, but at least she picks it up later on and makes an attempt at actually hanging it.

“Um,” Violet says, a little taken aback by the randomness of the question. “I feel fine? Or, like, I’m not, like, afraid of them or anything. It’s kinda nice when it’s thundering outside and you can just curl up with a blanket and a cup of tea and a book, yeah, you know, the cliché. I don’t know, why?”

She glances at Pearl over her shoulder, a hanger with her blouse and blazer temporarily looped over her wrist. Pearl is pulling on a white tank top, her bra already off, and Violet succeeds to catch a glimpse of the perfectly round underside of her breasts right before Pearl tugs on the hem and covers the rest of her upper body. Violet lets out a pouty noise and blindly tries to hook the hanger on the closet door handle, eyes concentrated on the visibly darker spots on the material of Pearl’s top where her nipples are stiffened and poking against it.

“Just figured I’d ask for, you know, later,” Pearl shrugs, running her hands through her hair to get it out of her face and then readjusting the waistband of the loose black cotton shorts she often sleeps in. “Baby, my eyes are up here,” she adds with a low chuckle after noticing Violet’s spaced out staring.

“I know, but I’m talking to your tits,! Violet muses, finally managing to place the hanger where she wants it and reaching for her skirt to hang it. “Whats happening later?”

“The thunder?” Pearl says like it’s clear while she moves to pull the comforter aside on the bed and adjust the pillows and covers like they’ve grown accustomed to having them. “It’s gonna be raining and thundering in like five hours or so.”

“Oh, come on now,” Violet snorts and brushes her off, finally turning to fold the skirt over the little bar on the hanger and grab the oversized t-shirt she packed as her pyjama. “There’s not a single cloud in the sky and it’s getting progressively warmer by minute. Thank God you’re a pilot and not a meteorologist ,”

“Babe…” Pearl says softly, and there’s a pause in the rustling of the sheets.

“Hm?” Violet hums and spins to face the rest of the room, pulling her locks out of the collar of her shirt where they got stuck upon her putting it on,

Pearl now has one knee perched on the bed, stretched out to place the pillow she’s gripping wherever it is she sees appropriate and frozen mid-movement, gaze turned up to scan Violet. Violet fixes her a quizzical look and spreads her arms in the air with a little shrug, almost challenging Pearl to disagree with her observations and deduction, and suddenly Pearl’s expression lights up, one corner of her mouth twitching up into a lopsided, extremely pleased smirk, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“What?” Violet demands.

“Nothing, babe,” Pearl says and shakes her head, going back to her pillow arranging. “It is an awfully clear day, isn’t it? Almost like calm before the storm, huh?”

“You’re such a cryptic fucking bitch, Pearl,” Violet complains, slipping her hands under her shirt to unclasp her bra and toss it aside. “The fuck is that even supposed to mean?”

Pearl laughs uproariously and throws a pillow at Violet. It hits her in the thigh and lands at her feet, and Violet sighs in exasperation as she bends over to lift it. When she straightens up, Pearl is already sprawled on the bed, limbs splayed out in disarray like a human-sized starfish. Violet crosses the room and shoves the pillow in Pearl’s face as soon as she’s close enough to aim.

“Bitch,” Pearl mumbles into the soft material, giggles spilling out of her in sporadic gales.

“Idiot,” Violet shoots back,

“Yeah, but you like that,” Pearl retorts, still making no attempt to free her face.

“Do I really, though?” Violet mutters absently and flops onto her back on the bed next to Pearl.

“Uh-huh,” Pearl says assuredly, like there’s no care in the world, no doubt whatsoever, and maybe there isn’t, maybe she’s right, maybe she knows something Violet has no clue of, and Violet allows it soothe her until there’s something heavy in her belly and throat.

They lie there for a while, both completely quiet, and Violet enjoys the weight of the body next to her, just the way it makes the mattress dip different than it does when she sleeps alone, the warmth of it, the familiar scent, cherry blossom of Pearl’s perfume twining with the smell of cigarettes, lacing lacing lacing until it’s so unmistakably her Violet thinks there’s no replicating it,, not even coming close to. She verges on searching for Pearl’s hand, but then changes her mind and interlocks her own fingers beneath her chest, wonders how and when the silence between them got more comfortable than mindless chatter with most people is.

“What’s the meaning behind your thigh tattoo?” she asks finally, when the atmosphere gets too light, too easy, close to compressing in how natural it feels.

“Huh?” Pearl finally raises the pillow off her face and drops it somewhere in general direction of the head of the bed. “Oh, this one?”

She throws her legs up and props her ass off the mattress, trying to keep her lower body up with her abs and failing spectacularly, almost tipping over and nearly ending up with her feet over her head and eventually just falling back down on the sheets with a frustrated huff. Violet resists the urge to laugh for approximately a split second and then cracks up, drawing her hand up to facepalm. Pearl mumbles something under her breath and elbows Violet in the ribs lightly, pretending to be dismayed by her temporary loss of cool, even though she’s never been hiding her dorky side around Violet and they both know it.

“Each flower represents a woman in my life,” Pearl says when Violet succeeds to stop cackling and outstretches her arm to brush her knuckles against the ink. “There’s one for my mom, then my sisters, and my grandma, oh, yeah, and this smaller one is for my nephew.”

“that’s so sweet,” Violet smiles. Pearl must be close with her family, she seems the type, seems like somebody who keeps in touch a lot and insists on spending at least one set of holidays a year together, makes it work despite everyone having their own busy lives. Violet doesn’t ask, though, wants to avoid the series of corresponding questions touching the subject will surely breed painfully harder than she wants to learn these things about Pearl, feels claustrophobic more than she does intrigued. “You designed it yourself, didn’t you?”

“Yah, doll, all of my ink,” Pearl confirms. “Nap time?”

With that, she pushes herself up on the bed to lie down on the pillows, Violet follows her, pressing close to her side and twisting her gently until Pearl’s back is to her chest and she can loop her arm around her middle and bury her face in her hair. Pearl sighs happily, her hand immediately covering Violet’s where it’s resting on her tummy, and relaxes, and Violet falls asleep to the deepening pattern of her breathing.

Sure enough, Violet wakes up to the sounds of thundering and raindrops against the window some hours later.

It takes her a moment to register she’s in Pearl’s arms now, despite them having had been in the reversed position when she dozed off, but it doesn’t particularly alarm her — she’s used to Pearl’s tendency to flip them around in her sleep, as if she can’t possibly get enough of holding Violet and will utilise any chance she gets. Next, Violet registers Pearl’s open mouth dragging against the skin of her neck and her fingers aimlessly stroking her stomach through the fabric of her shirt, the light trailing of her blunt nails sending chills up Violet’s spine.

“Pearl…” she croaks, her voice cracking a little.

“Shh, baby,”Pearl breathes out.

Violet gasps almost soundlessly, shifting a bit, and Pearl presses a kiss right where her whisper is still burning Violet’s skin. Her palm flattening on Violet’s middle, she starts unhurriedly sliding it higher, pulling Violet’s shirt up with it. She reaches Violet’s tits, gropes the flesh forcefully, but before Violet can push her chest out into the contact, Pearl drops her hand lower, hooking her fingers under the rolled up hem of the shirt. She tugs it over Violet’s breasts, and Violet barely bites down a filthy moan as the cool air on her bare body gives her goosebumps.

“Pearl,”she repeats, a pleading tilt to her tone.

Pearl’s mouth moves to Violet’s ear, and she closes her teeth around the lobe lightly, then laps her tongue over the spot, and Violet’s toes curl, the action causing her to lose a bit of her breath. “Shh, I’ve got you.”

Pearl presses two of her fingers right between Violet’s exposed breasts and starts slowly tracing them down her chest and abdomen, her leisurely pace nearly torturous and making Violet’s gut twist and her whole body tense and shiver in anticipation and excitement. She’s still hazy from sleep, soft and a little powerless, ardent and almost shapeable under Pearl’s touch, needing her to set the tempo and do whatever she pleases, and Pearl seems to be in the matching mood, wanting to take control and have Violet her way, dominant in such a tender, disarming fashion. She reaches Violet’s panties, twiddles with the waistband, slipping her index finger under it and swiping across the skin there, and Violet involuntarily bucks her hips into the impact, a whimper escaping her as Pearl retaliates and puts her palm on Violet’s pelvis instead, swiftly drawing her back closer.

“Baby…” she mutters, scolding, teasing, perhaps a tiny bit breathless.

“Please,” Violet utters instantly, not caring about how desperate the thickness of her voice sounds.

Pearl’s lips are back on Violet’s skin immediately, kisses being peppered in a neat string from behind her ear all the way to the crook of her neck. She simultaneously forces her foot between Violet’s ankles, and gradually pries Violet’s legs open with her own, fitting her full thigh high enough to be lightly brushing against Violet’s pussy. She starts sucking a mark on top of Violet’s shoulder, and moves her hand and places it on the back of Violet’s own, fingers feathering over the knuckles before interlacing with hers.

As Pearl begins to drag their joined hands lower, Violet squeezes her eyes shut and exhales in shattering pants, wanting to squirm, to rock her hips to try and get some friction against Pearl’s thigh, but also immobilised, unable to recall how to use her muscles, her lust rendering her boneless and completely pliant. Pearl detaches her mouth from Violet’s skin, leaving the spot hot and throbbing in her wake, and lifts her face to nose Violet’s curls, her deep and heavy breath tickling the nape of Violet’s neck. She guides their hands all the way down and stops right above Violet’s panties again, her fingers still securely clasped over Violet’s, and Violet senses how prominently her muscles tense under her palm as Pearl stalls deliberately.

There’s a moment of stillness, the only sounds disturbing the almost perfect silence — the rhythmic drumming of the rain and the occasional thundering that feels like it rolls over the area in huge waves, as well as their noticeably laboured breathing. Violet’s wound up, thinks she might snap any second now, loves how charged all of this is, utterly enjoys the way Pearl is torturing her and the ache in her core from too much tension without any relief.

After the longest while, Pearl nuzzles her faze closer and presses her lips behind Violet’s ear, and that’s what finally sends Violet right over the edge.

“Daddy,” she whines, so fucking needy and desperate that there’s no mistaking it.

Pearl must lose some of her composure with that, because she curses lowly and screws her knee, thus working Violet’s legs farther apart. With determination, she pushes their hands into Violet’s panties, and Violet produces a surprised Oh, her eyes flying open, not having had realised Pearl was planning something like this, but promptly relaxing her wrist to allow Pearl full control of the situation and her body, relishing in the way surrendering to Pearl turns her on so much.

Without delay, Pearl presses their fingers between Violet’s lips, and Violet hisses as she senses her own wet heat, nearly burning against her skin. She’s slightly mortified by the ease with which Pearl reduces her to this state, by the fact Pearl can feel it just as well, by the way the humiliation only stirs her on.

“God, Vi, dripping already,” Pearl rasps, her fingers twitching like she can’t contain it. “Slutty little thing.”

Violet whimpers and squirms, too overwhelmed and consumed by all the sensations, all the softness and intensity of their position to produce anything intelligible, limbs too heavy to try and speed the things up, to do anything except give up and let go. Pearl aligns their fingers so that hers are lying primly along Violet’s, and. with another kiss pressed to the side of Violet’s neck, thrusts her wrist to rub the digits against Violet’s aching clit.

#my writing #airline au #eastbound homebound #pearlet #rpdr fanfiction #snippet #8s this one of my last hurrahs to the rpdr fic or will i be back ? only time will tell #by which i mean i rly have no idea #jk gotta finish tiwmug tho #asks #answered

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honkhonkrichard · 3 years

Text

but at what cost. - Chapter One: And So The Cycle Starts Again

It's early November, 2015. They haven't even heard from each other in nearly five years. Some... more than that. Eddie had vanished off the face of the earth, Stan seemed to want nothing to do with any of them and Richie is... Well he found himself in Chicago. On Ben and Bev's couch. They have kids now, and therapy, and mentla health issues, but Richie's more than a little determined to spend his second year of sobriety fixing his wrongs, and seeing everyone's face again. Almost everyone's face again. It all depends on who will accept his apologies.

Read on Ao3 or Below :) Reblogs are greatly appreciated !!

Elliot poked at his father’s shoulder the way kids do when they don’t know how to wake them. His father was shirtless, wrapped under the covers with shoulder blades out and head tucked under a pillow. Elliot had tried to call out, but didn’t want to startle him awake.

No need for more startling. There was too much of that already.

So, Elliot used his index and middle finger to gently poke and prod at his father. His skin was a little sweaty. He smelled sweaty, too. He was up late last night working on something, talking with Elliot’s mother quietly. But his mother was harder to wake up, and much easier startled, so Dad it was.

And his father’s eyes must’ve opened, because he stirred. His head lifted from the pillows and his mousy brown; slightly curly hair stuck to his face.

He almost had a beard now, but Elliot figured it would be shaven back down to a polite stubble soon. Dad never cared for his appearance too much, and Mom never liked him in a beard.

Reminds me too much of my ex-husband. She would say, and then coo at dad. Plus, it's too rough to enjoy.

Dad always went red at this comment, but never explained what it meant. Must’ve been an adult thing. Elliot remembered growing up, kissing his father’s cheek when it was a beard and feeling the itchy prickle on his mouth for the rest of the day. Since Mom and Dad kiss so much, maybe Mom felt the same way.

“Dad?” Elliot asked gently, confirming his dad was awake, and not just looking at him.

“What’s up kiddo?” Dad replied. He sounded rough and groggy. Elliot was a smart 11-year-old. He knew the vague effects of hangover when his father wore them. It wasn’t so often he did this, but Elliot had seen the signs.

“Um…” Elliot shifted on his feet. “There’s a weird man on the couch.”

Dad shifted up more. His eyes opened properly, and the warm concern in his eyes made Elliot feel a little better.

“What are you talking about?”

Mom sat up a little bit. She was wearing one of Dad’s shirts. She looked grumpy.

Mom was almost always grumpy in the morning, wearing a big furrowed frown, yawning and grunting. Dad liked being awake in the morning but he was a little less aware. It was fun for Elliot to watch them interact first thing in the morning.

“A man?” mom said with a bit of disdain.

“He’s tall and long and has lots of tattoos and won’t get off the couch.” Elliot thought perhaps, when he first saw the mystery man, that his house was being robbed.

He had seen robbers on TV. They went for small empty houses, not the open cottage house he lived in. And robbers wore darker clothes, and were in and out of the house trying not to get caught. Elliot knew the couch-hogger wasn’t a robber when he yanked a blanket out of JJ's hands. No robber wants to steal from a 10-year-old.

“A tall man with tattoos…” dad mumbled, eyes closing shut again and frowning, trying to remember, or perhaps wake up. “Stealing our couch?”

“He’s not stealing it.” Elliot promised, thinking about Looney Toon burglars. “He’s just trying to sleep.”

Dad leaned over his shoulder and looked at Mom, the way parents seemed to when they thought they knew something their children did not.

“Are there flags on the back of his neck? Tattoo flags?” Mom asked, still looking at Dad.

Elliot nodded. “The Irish flag, I think. Its green and white and red.”

“That’s Italian.” Dad looked over at him and then started to get out of bed.

“Italian flag then.” Elliot said. “Should I call the police? Do we know him?”

Mom swung herself out of bed. She looked a little nervous, which made Elliot think he should call the cops, even though the couch man didn’t seem particularly dangerous. A nuisance, yes, but you call the cops when there’s a weird raccoon in your garbage right?

“He was playing tug-of-war with JJ for his blanket. Do we know him?” Elliot asked again.

“You don’t know him. Your mother and I know him well.” Dad put a hoodie on. It was the soft Star Wars one. He wears it a lot when he plays with LEGO. Maybe he’ll play LEGOs with Elliot today.

“What’s his name?”

Ben scratched his chin. He did not know how or why Richie broke into his house last night. Or why he yanked Ben’s youngest’s favorite blanket from his grubby little fingers. Or how the dog didn’t lose her damn mind seeing him.

That’s not fully true. Ben could come up with answers for all but one of these questions. 1: Ben gave him one of the spare keys almost a decade ago. In case there was an emergency. 2: he probably took JJ's blanket because it’s a soft blanket and the couch's designated blanket is crap. Richie was cold, so he nabbed it and went back to sleep, knowing a nine-year-old wouldn’t be able to get it back (although he had another thing coming because last week JJ found out what an air horn was, and knew there was one in Dad’s Office) 3. Lucy probably remembered him from the last time he was here.

It was all about why then.

Thinking about that night made Ben clench his jaw. He breathed deeply. Anger is an ugly emotion; his mother always says. Just breathe Benny.

His mother is the only one who gets to call him Benny. Not even Bev called him Benny.

Richie was tucked into the fold of the couch, back bare, tattoos covering his shoulders and going down his spine. His hair was long, longer than Ben remembered it being. His jeans were still on, as evidence by the clear leather in his belt loops and the cuffs at his ankles but his shirt was thrown over the arm of the couch and his socks were on top of it.

Ben looked to the front door. A new key on the key rack, and a pair of white converse that had been drawn and painted all over kept neatly by the front door.

Then Ben noticed something that struck the anger out of him. Bev saw it first, of course, she must’ve been looking for it.

“Richie, get up.” Ben said, not really caring all the much because it was Richie and Richie is like he's always been.

Richie moved, curling in on himself, and his tattooed fingers wrapped around the opposing bicep. He was awake alright.

“Richie. What are you doing here?” Bev asked, walking over and peeling the blankets off him. “Move so I can sit.”

“Or? Whatcha gonna do, Foxy, sit on me?” Richie said, in a clear and steady voice. Far more than Ben had expected, and by her face, far more than Bev expected too.

“I have stilettos that would go right through your belt. Get. Up.”

Richie's legs, which had been hanging over the arm of the couch, tucked in, giving Bev room to sit.

Ben rolled his eyes.

He considered himself a forgiving guy. He forgave Bill years ago. He forgave Stan. He even forgave Eddie. But Richie was a different story. He’s spent many years forgiving him. Praying for him.

Now’s the time Tozier. Was it worth it or not?

“Richie, are you sober?” Ben asked, speaking his mind once and a while. He looked behind him, and in the hallway doorframe was his boys. JJ was bravely stepped in front of Eli, ready to get his blanket back.

“To your rooms, please.”

They looked up at him with their wide eyes. Ben knew they were smart enough to know not to argue, given the tone of Ben’s voice, the sharpness in Beverly's words and the confusion of Richie's presence. So, they turned on their feet and ushered each other into JJ's room. In minutes Ben knew they’d cross the hall into Elliot’s room instead.

Eileen swiftly went passed him, holding a bowl of cereal. She had been sitting at the counter. She mumbled a soft “Whoop” as she went. Ben bit back a smile.

Richie hadn’t answered so Ben came up behind Bev, always ready to be her muscle, and backup. “Richie. Are you sober?”

Richie let out a long sigh. He was still holding himself in a tight, cowardly way. “Yes, I’m sober.”

“What was that?” Bev snapped.

“I’m sober.” Richie replied, louder this time.

Bev looked at Ben, who while looking back, rubbed her shoulder.

“Are you?”

“Yes.” Richie mumbled, and this time he sounded desperate. He sat up, and turned around.

It could be argued that Richie had the nicest hair out of all the losers. Ben always thought Beverly had the nicest hair. But Richie always had thick, long curls, and now they were thrown carelessly around his shoulders, and down his back.

Ben had forgotten about aging, to a degree. The kids aged – had aged, greatly so, after the past five years – but Beverly was evergreen. Timeless. She hadn’t seemed to age a day since they got married. Ben felt still and calm with her, since the day they got married, she was dazzling and beautiful, he felt like their first dance had never really stopped.

If he thought about it too long, he’d zone out entirely, disappearing into the memory of his shoes tapping the aged wood floor, Beverly’s warm, soft hands in his as her fantastical wedding dress swings around the room. She laughs as Heaven by Bryan Adams fills the air...

Ben takes a second to blink. He’s not at his wedding right now. He's been married for 13 years. He needs to focus on the now. He needs to focus on Richie – who he hasn’t seen in nearly four years and was kind of thought to be dead by now, which, yikes, but given Richie’s history, wasn’t really too harsh of a judgement, – who was sitting on his couch, shaken and bleeding and probably scared as hell.

Richie had clearly aged. His hair was longer yes, but he looked like he’s had a hangover for decades. His eyes looked heavy and sunken. He had dropped weight – too much weight to be healthy – and there were sliver strands appearing at his roots. He looked old. He looked sick.

Around his middle was a poorly put-on gauze bandage. On his side was a big red blotch. Not quite bleeding through, but Ben was willing to bet there was scuffs of red on his nice couch.

“What did you do?” Beverly asked, picking his shirt off the arm of the couch.

“Some teenagers decided to pick a fight.” Richie told her.

“You were mugged?” Ben’s eyes popped open and his head bowed down from his shoulders.

“Lightly mugged.” Richie corrected. “Wasn’t even that bad. They didn’t even shank me.”

“Then what’s this?” Beverly said, putting her finger tips on the red splotched bandage. Richie didn’t flinch.

Richie squinted. He didn’t have his glasses on, so he looked like he was trying to read invisible words.

“Mild laceration.” He decided, after some thought.

“Do you need medical assistance?” Ben’s words felt soured, somehow. Maybe because driving Richie to the hospital for a god damn stab wound wasn’t what Ben wanted to do at 9:23am on a Saturday.

Richie hung his head and stared at his middle. He gently pulled at the bandage to see under it. His eyebrows went up, a little bit. “I think I’m good.”

Ben rolled his eyes, and then looked at Beverly. She looked concerned. Far more concerned then Ben felt. She always was more forgiving for Richie’s strange, god-testing nature. He was like a cockroach, incapable of being damaged but begging to be squished.

Ben knew he was being too harsh. He loved Richie like a brother. An estranged, weird, alcoholic older brother. And Ben would be able to save his resentment for Richie until after he knew Richie wouldn’t get an infection and die on the couch like a bug that is not a cockroach.

He turned to speak down the hallway:

“Elieen, can you bring me the first aid kit from the hall closet please?”

Richie buttoned up his shirt quietly. The wound wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked, and they were all surprised to see it when it was cleaned up. It looked a little bad, yeah, but nowhere near fatal.

Richie had hung his hair up in a ponytail, lose, long bangs over his tired face. The longer Ben stared at him the more conflicted he felt. He wanted to be mad at Richie, wanted to resent him. But he knew Richie would only drop in like this if there was some deeply, deeply wrong.

Beverly set a tray holding three mugs in front of them at the breakfast bar, resigning to making Richie something to eat while Ben cleaned him up. Richie scarfed down the pancakes, but now he only gingerly took the coffee mug and swirled it around, staring at it like it was going to help him.

“So,” Beverly gave him an expecting look. “What happened?”

Richie gave her an expecting look back. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you here, Rich. We haven’t heard from you in a hot while.”

Richie shrugged, and flashed his eyes a little. The scars in his irises made Ben’s heart hurt. “I’m not allowed to spend my sober-versary with my two sexy best friends?” He plastered a grin onto his face, cheesy and face. “Hah? No?”

“You’ve been sober for a year?” Beverly tilted her head, trying not to sound too doubtful.

“Yeah,” Richie sighed, dropping his cheesy grin and looking somberly down back to his coffee. “I was shocked too. It’s a big deal, I guess. It doesn’t feel like it though. Overshadowed by all the other anniversaries this time of year.”

Oh. Ben realized, and it hung there, unforgiving and deep.

“It’s been five years.” Richie whispered. “Five years and he’s still gone. Seven years and Stan’s still mad at me. 12 years I’ve not been allowed to meet my god-daughter. 27 years and I still wake up in the night thinking a spear has gone through my skull.” he met Ben’s eyes. “What a world I’m living in.”

“So what led you here?” Ben asked, now genuinely curious, and eager to push the conversation more comfortable; even though he knew it wouldn’t get there anytime soon.

Richie hung his head, this time not for comedy or drama – Ben knew this time it was shame, and when his chin lifted back up, his eyes were dead, and watery.

“I didn’t think I’d survive this year if I were alone.” Richie admitted. “And I wanted to believe there would be people wanting to help me stay.”

Beverly and Ben looked at each other again, Ben wanted to get up and hold her, make her feel better and safer and to ask Richie to leave and take care of himself somewhere else but instead he got up and wrapped his arms around Richie.

It wasn’t reflective of how he felt. He was upset with Richie. He had seen how Richie could get when he was at lows like this. He could get angry – almost violently so – and often dangerous. Ben had a family. He had kids. He wasn’t going to let Richie get away with that again. But...

But Richie was still his friend, and he still deserved comfort.

Richie sunk into Ben’s arms, tensing and relaxing and tensing and relaxing and desperate and hesitant and for the first time Ben stopped thinking about how Richie had hurt Ben, and instead considered if Richie had hurt himself.

“You can stay with us Rich.” Beverly supplied, and Ben nodded in agreement. “As long as you keep your shirt on and you talk to us.”

“I’m better.” Richie said wetly. “I’m trying really hard to be better, I promise I won’t ever – I won’t - I-I'm sorry-”

And then Richie broke down crying. His body jolted and shook, and while Ben couldn’t feel the tears through his hoodie, he knew they were there. Ben sunk down, holding Richie gently and bringing his chin to Richie’s shoulder. Beverly was behind him, her hands on Richie’s back, rubbing up and down slowly. She and Ben stared at each other for a while. Richie continued to choke out “I’m sorry”s and “I’ll be better”s and other sad, lonely phrases at were making Ben’s heart crack and pop.

Richie was never known to cry for long, but when he finally pulled back from Ben, the bags under his eyes were swollen and pink. “I’m sorry.” he mumbled, sucking in a gulp of air. “I gotta pull back.”

“No no no,” Ben hushed, keeping his hands on Richie’s shoulders. Beverly had disappeared into the hallway to tell the kids they had an uncle who was going to be staying with them. Ben was never the most emotionally intelligent, but he figured he could handle this. “It’s okay Rich. You don’t have to pull back anything. We’re here for you. You need some comfort, a-and safety, and Bev and I are happy to provide.”

“You’re not mad?” Richie’s voice came out like a whisper, the look in his eyes made him look like a scared child.

“Do you want me to be mad?” And with Richie’s sudden childlike nature, Ben put on his Dad voice.

“I just don’t want the anger to be a surprise later.”

Ben nodded. He understood. He sat up and took a deep breath.

“Okay.” He closed his eyes. He had to be thoughtful about this. Richie’s gaze slowly burned into him. He chose every word slowly and deliberately. “I... What you did to Bev and I was... traumatic. It was dangerous, and inexcusable. I know... Why you did...what you did. And I’m willing to accept that you weren't in any stable state of mind when you did it. But you still did it. And... mental health... mental illness... that’s an explanation. Not an excuse. And I will not let it happen again. In any form or fashion. I... I know you’re better. Getting better. Have gotten better. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t getting better. You’re still struggling, but you’re reaching out – looking for people who will help you, and that’s... that’s amazing. I’m really proud of you. And I know this isn’t easy. You’ve been through a lot of intense... hardships. And I’m both very proud and happy that you’re still with us. I’m, of course, open and ready to help you grow and get better from here. You deserve that much. I know you would do the same for me. I’m willing to... look past your... behavior. What you’ve done. But I will not, will not forget what you’re capable of. I’ll help you for sure. Same with Bev. But I will keep an eye on you. And if I decide that you pose a threat to my family – my wife, my kids? I will fucking kill you.”

Ben’s eyes had gone dark and his hands had dropped from Richie’s shoulder down in his own lap. His body language was mostly calm, but seeing a stormy rumble in Ben’s eyes gave Richie the shivers. Hot damn he forgot how scary Ben could be.

(Though this should not be a surprise to Richie, Ben is 6’3” and 250 lbs of muscle and fatherly love. He could snap Richie in half.)

Richie nodded when he realized Ben was done. He almost wanted to say yes sir like he was talking to a drill sergeant or something but then he’d pop a boner and he’s learned over the decades of knowing Ben that boners made Ben uncomfortable, so he just nodded.

Ben took a deep breath. “I’m not...” He stopped and tilted his head, like some ghost behind him was whispering the words. “I know you’re doing better. And I need you to understand I don’t expect you to get like you were that night. I know you better than that now.”

Richie nodded again, this time more earnestly.

Ben smiled; it made his entire presence feel warmer. Damn these kids have a good dad.

“Thanks man,” Richie’s throat felt destroyed. “For being honest and shit with me. Needed a good slap on the wrists.”

Ben made an undecipherable face. “No, no you didn’t. C’mere.” And they hugged again.

“We have a guest room, it’s all yours. The house wakes up at around seven, every morning, and the kids are all in bed by ten at night, just so you know.” he went on, and his voice went softer the longer he spoke. Richie could almost throw up with how sweet it was, how much Ben adored his kids.

Richie rubbed his eyes and face. “I have so many damn birthdays and shit to make up for.” he sighed. “I gotta take those little bastards shopping I think.”

“Maybe you could reel the language in, Rich?” Ben asked politely, and Richie nodded, mumbling a soft ‘sorry’ before Ben pointed behind him. “You never know when you have an audience.”

Richie looked over his shoulder, and Bev had reappeared with three little gremlins (Or, “children” as Richie was told they were called).

“This is your uncle Richie.”

Oh my cock coming christ I’m their uncle Richie.

Richie smiled, really big, toothy, genuine smile, for the first time in a while. The three of the looked uncomfortable, but curious.

The smallest of the three, the one who had that soft ass purple blanket Richie took earlier, stomped forward and pointed his little sausage fist at Richie with rage. “Don’t touch my blanket! It’s mine and you’re not allowed to steal!”

Richie nodded. Those are some solid terms. Motherfucker knows how to tell someone off. “You’re right. I’m very sorry, it was wrong of me to steal from you, I will never do it again. I promise.” And Richie put his hand out to shake.

The Kid gave Richie a suspicious glare, and then shook his hand – oh my god his little hand he’s so small what a little dude what the fuck - carefully, like he had just bet the house on the ponies. He was the smallest alright, with a pair of big chaotic eyes. Richie could tell he was the one who steals from the cookie jar.

“My name is JJ. I am the... Th-the brains of the operation.” JJ said, like he was some war boss and not a nine-year-old. “These are my siblings-”

“Eliott.” the middle kid who looked so much like Ben Richie thought he was going to have to lay down. It was like he was back in 1989, that summer when they all met, if Ben had dropped 60 lbs at random. He had the same round face, brown eyes and mousy brown hair. He looked bored out of his damn mind. Richie figured he didn’t need to steal from the cookie jar. Eliott had a secret stash or something. “Hi.”

“Man of few words, I respect that.” Richie nodded, saying nothing more before he started called the poor kid ‘haystack’.

JJ was still holding onto Richie’s hand. His palm was bigger than the kid's entire outstretched hand. “That’s Elieen. She’s gross and twelve.”

Elieen, who looked like Beverly but with long hair, longer than Bev’s ever was, well kept bangs and brown eyes, made the most teenage face as she rolled her eyes and tried to turn on her heels to go back down the hall, presumably to her room. Beverly stopped her and said, quietly but with a firm tone: Say hi, please. Just say hello.

“Hi. I like your tattoos. I’m not gross.” She said sharply, with a little head twitch and a wave of her fingers.

Richie looked down to his fingers as he said “Oh thank you, I don’t know how they got there.” He had become so desensitized to his tattoos he only really recognized them when someone brought them up. Normally this was limited to children, punk teenagers and really angry catholic grandmas. “I didn’t think you were; Little Man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

JJ scrunched his tiny face together. “Yes I do!”

“No one under four feet tall knows what they’re talking about.” Richie told him. Ben snorted and then repressed laughter behind him. “It’s a fact of life.”

JJ didn’t look convinced until Richie said fact of life. Then he dropped everything and started to really think about it. He looked at Bev, and then at Ben (who was still trying to not laugh) and then to the floor.

“Maybe. I think I'm more than four feet tall.”

Richie wanted to say “maybe” in that ambivalent tone you give kids when they say absolutely anything, but Eliott, without missing a beat, said: “You'd be wrong.”

“Cold-blooded.” Richie said to Beverly, smiled and ran her nails over Eliotts scalp. Eliott blinked harshly and shivered.

These kids... Richie liked these kids.

“Uncle Richie, shall I show you to your room?” Ben said, probably using his Dad Senses to know the kids were done with their introductions.

“Sure thing.” Richie looked down to JJ, who was now very interested in the circuits tattooed onto Richie’s fingers. “Thanks for the introduction Little Man. Bring it in.” He stood up off the breakfast bar and brought his other hand out to a fist for, as the kids bluntly say, a fist bump.

JJ scurried almost, staring up at Richie and it seemed like he was realizing for the first time that Richie was an adult, who was 6’4 and covered neck to waist in tattoos, had long curly hair and two very pierced ears. Richie thought he realized this because he jumped once and said, loudly: “You look like a Rockstar!”

“Rockstar?! Where?!” Richie yelped, faking panic, and JJ dissolved into a fit of giggles. JJ gave Richie a fist bump and continued to grin wildly. His hair was brown, like his dads, but it was bushy and wild curly like his moms. He had the big contagious grin Bev had too.

Richie smiled at Elieen, who was going that dumb young teenager thing of trying to look cool by pretending you don’t think anything is funny, and pointed a finger gun at Eliott, who looked like he actually didn’t think anything was funny, and with a totally straight face, did a finger gun back.

The guest room was nice. Like, hotel nice. A nice tall lamp, a shrimpy, empty desk, a nice big queen-sized bed, with a ton of drawers and shelves in and around the frame, which really drew away from the fact that the room was otherwise empty, quiet, kind of sad and there were no sheets on the mattress.

Ben opened up the blue blackout curtains and the whole room felt a lot nicer. “I’ll get some sheets and make the bed for you, so you have some blankets and stuff.”

“No way man I’ll just use Elliot. He’s stiff as a board. Just make him plank all night.”

Ben smiled at that but shook his head. “You’ll just have to make due with blankets.”

“What about all three of them? They can rotate through the night.” Richie called after Ben as he left the room. “They can- They can take shifts!”

Richie laughed to himself and took a breath in the dusty, lonely little guest room outside Chicago Illinois. One week ago, if you had asked him where he thought he’d be a week from then he would’ve said dead or sleeping or in an alleyway, dying. But instead, he was states away from home, in a well-lit guest room, alive. Sober.

He shuddered and turned around, to see a wide eyed Elieen in the door way, holding his bag in her arms. Richie took it from her and without really thinking about it said “Thanks Chica.” and then stopped abruptly.

When they were kids, and first becoming friends, Richie tried an array of nicknames on Beverly, and every time he gave her a new one, it made her skittish. Every member of Bev’s bloodline Rich had met (That being two of them, Beverly Marsh and Al “Asshole” Marsh) were standoffish as hell. The last thing Richie wanted was to freak out the 12-year-old as a weird, nickname giving 40-year-old show pig.

But Elieen just broke into a semi-shy grin that reminded Richie of smoke breaks and scrunched up her nose with a tilt of her head. Her hair swayed to the side.

“Chica?” She asked. “Is that Spanish or something?”

Richie felt a wave of relief. “Yeah it’s just Spanish for girl. Nothing fancy. You gotta earn fancy nicknames.”

Elieen leaned pressed her back to the doorframe and watched Richie open his duffle bag on the bed, tossing out the vitals: phone chargers, notebooks, laptop. “What are my parent’s fancy nicknames?”

“Your mom used to be Chica, when we were kids.” Richie said, and heard the fondness in his voice. “When we didn’t know each other that well. Nowadays, she’s Poppet, or Red. And your dad is Haystack, or Benvolio.”

“Benvolio?” Elieen mumbled, clearly trying to figure it out. “Poppet- Do you mean poppy? Like the flower?”

“No, I mean Poppet.” Richie promised, with no further explaination. He plugged his phone charger into the wall.

Elieen let out a half-chuckle. “You’re weird.”

Richie swung around from where he was facing the wall. “Yeah I am!”

Elieen made a fun face and wandered back down the hallway. Richie heard her relay the conversation to someone in the living room.

Richie sat on the bed. He let out a long sigh. Then he smiled again. Genuinely. The longer he was in the room the less it felt like a hotel. Outside the doorway, he could hear the rest of the house in motion. It was barely 11am. JJ saying “I want pancakes!” despite him having breakfast not half an hour ago. Eliott explaining Benvolio to Eileen and Ben correcting him. The sound of a washing machine rumbling through the walls. Beverly was using a sewing machine across the hall in her office.

At home, Richie’s house was very quiet. His hobbies needed headphones, and he didn’t know his neighbors. He had lived alone for five years, at that point. Being in a family house felt... nostalgic.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture the last get-together the losers had, all seven of them in one place. It was Halloween, 2008. Richie was Elvis Presley, Bev was an 80s workout teacher, Ben was a candy monster (he glued a bunch of gross kinds of candy to a black sweater and wore it under a brown jacket with a witch hat – apparently it's from a cartoon), Bill didn’t dress up, he never did, Mike went as Bill, Stan was a cockatoo (He had an amazing costume, always did) and Eddie-

The thought of Eddie threw Richie’s smile off-kilter. That year Eddie was... a stereotype. He went as a stereotype. He had a bowtie and his hair combed back and suspenders and khakis and spent the whole night talking in a weird, high-tone sassy way, with his hand on his hip and a cheesy fake grin on his face.

He always did weird costumes like that. He would go as “the scariest thing you could imagine” and show up as tax paperwork. He would go as “a hideous monster” and tape a mirror to his shirt. Dumb, easy stuff like that. It made Richie so happy to see him do that because it upset everyone to see him in a costume like that (he would go as “Late” and show up ready to hit the fucking Beach) but Richie knew Eddie looked forward to it every year.

Richie missed him. So much.

But he wanted to believe Eddie wouldn’t want him to be miserable. With or without Eddie around, Richie knew he had to fix his mood. He wanted his second year of sobriety to kick off with a bang. Reuniting with Ben and Bev and meeting their kids was step one. Step two...

There was someone Richie pissed off a long time ago. Someone Richie would give his entire right leg to see again.

He wondered, for a second, if Stan even wanted to see him.

Ah, of course he does, that crazy bastard. Can’t dress up as a cockatoo and expect Richie Tozier not to show up at your door step. Stan has Richie’s god daughter for Christ sakes. Can’t keep him from her for long. And he can’t kiss Patty from this far away!

Richie nodded to himself. He would fix what he had broken with Stan. After that? Who knows? Maybe he’d convince the kids to take up planking.

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