#your pest band
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YOUR PEST BAND
Reflecting Board - Japan Tour
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I already sent you an ask today so hiiii
(Alright so now I hopefully have your attention, imagine: ancient settling, mercenary könig is made prisoner and enslaved and reader, a cute noble girl, buys him to ☆have fun☆. He doesn't mind at all.)
Have a good day!
anon whoever you are… every message that you have sent has been like you putting a clawing animal in my brain. all of these concepts are so good. sorry it took me a bit to get around to this one. <:•)
captured mercenary! König x noblewoman! reader
content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. medieval au (so: gender role nonsense), slightly mean slightly pathetic König, very brief mentions of violence/beheading, masturbation.
“That one.”
You hear yourself speak without thought. Your voice is shy, almost. It’s unbecoming of your station to seem so meek… even as you eye the men lined up before you like cattle prepped for slaughter.
Prisoners, they were. All apart from the one you had chosen would be little more than toys for the executioner after what they’ve done: to think that such a little band of mercenaries would even be planning for a siege… ridiculous. Most of the men have already had their hair cut cleanly away from their necks in preparation for the blade that would be slicing past each vertebrae and layer of muscle to chop away their heads.
This one is saved only because he’s been stripped of his armors, and though his face is rather rugged… there’s strength beneath his skin and such a deep misery in his eyes it sets your chest ablaze with pity. He could be useful, a willing servant if you could only save him from what terrible thing haunts him.
Maybe it’s the old wounds that flare his skin with the raised flesh of scar tissue, perhaps it’s the harelip or the wild thing set between his thighs where he’s forced to kneel. It catches your eye, that last one…
The prisoner’s jaw sets when your finger does point his way, blue eyes narrow just a fraction as realization settles in the pit of his stomach. No freedom to be garnered here, no love, nothing but that blade he had intended to use against you sworn to you instead. If the giant spit at your feet then, it would be expected, welcomed almost with the way your chest roars with sympathy.
He only stares.
You pay off his captors with a few silver coins and watch as they lead him bound to your side. His arms are tied too tightly before him, muscles slack with exertion after trying to fight the ropes for what must have been hours. Whether he sees you as savior or something revolting remains unknown. He doesn’t speak, not even as a servant leads him into the back of your carriage and you step inside after him, holding up the middle of your gown as to not sully it with the dirt and old blood splattered over the stones layered for street.
When the horses begin to move you give the man a proper once over, hiding your smile beneath a handkerchief, free hand curled into the lap of your skirts. He’s not just tall and broad, but incredibly well endowed. Not just sad and downtrodden, but pissed, though the only tell remains his shaking fists. His gaze never meets yours for longer than a moment before it settles back to gaze at the passing tall grass and sheep prancing about the fields, but each time that it does… there is no denying the mixture of confusion, maybe even attraction upon his face.
Your home was something this giant had never had a taste of prior to you: a castle atop a hill, charming and stone with its high ramparts and blunt roof. You didn’t need his confirmation in words, though you do ask and get nothing in turn.
The carriage pulls you right through the gate and it is almost cute the way that this man’s eyes seem to wander as he takes it all in. There are other servants tending to the sheep and horses, the smell of fire and the chiming of blade meeting blade ringing out as men spar, there are cats to keep away pests and modest but cozy homes, a tavern, an inn all beyond the wall. A small city of your own: all for the perfect little noblewoman that you were.
The only thing that you lacked was the trained sword of a man to ensure your safety, and now you had that, too.
You explain to him his place here, the role that he would take for the price you paid as you both disembark from the wooden carriage. He would be fitted for armor donning your family’s crest come the morning, whipped into obedience should he dare raise a hand toward any one here. You even think to warn him of the executioner’s sloppy work, how he may even live with his head chopped only halfway off should you request it…. some horror you had heard one of the travelers speak of.
As the weeks pass, König does begin to settle immensely. His speech is disjointed and parsed, his mother tongue muddled with your own language in a way that is cute… terribly, horribly cute.
He’s intelligent and strong: spends much of his time out amongst the lower men aiding with the animals and teaching them the deft way he swings his blade. It is an art form in its own right, the way that he paints the air with swift strokes… For a woman to fawn over a man’s swordplay was absurd, but it was impossible not to enjoy when he taunts and jabs the way that he does.
He rarely wears that armor the blacksmith crafted for him, both a flattery and an insult. You don’t mind watching him best smaller men in solely his trousers, pressing their faces into the muck while he barks his insults to them in words they can not understand. To you, now, when he flashes the most beastly of grins in your direction and utters the words, “Verpiss dich.”
You aren’t even certain why you stand there rather than hissing out orders to have him taken away. Your stupid corset feels too tight, gown too small, and your chest aches. There's not been a thing you could do to have this man do more than simply tolerate you. He sleeps within his own room in the castle, eats his fill and then some, you talk to him and layer your words with praise. He has not once been punished for anything. Not even now.
“Come here,” you demand without thought, walking down the staircase to cross the yard with your hands balled into delicate fists at your sides.
Your giant only looks confused for a moment as he clambers off of the man he’s just wrestled to the earth and rights himself. His eyebrows raise, his nostrils flare… and then he laughs. At you like you’re the most puny of rabbits, hardly a threat. Your betters would have laughed too at just how fragile you sound, on the cusp of tears over what? Some ridiculous little crush on a captive soldier??
He eventually does as you ask, stomping over to stand before you- not kneel, he never knelt. If his height and stature were meant to intimidate… your god would have to forgive the thoughts that muddle your head then, like filthy water as you drink him in.
“Was…?”
So you explain to him as best you can just how insolent he’s being, how horribly he repays your kindness, how he would be dead on some shrouded mountain pass or have his body tossed into the river if not for you. You explain your heart out when tears come to your eyes and spring forth as your chittering continues, and you don’t even know if the moron can understand; he only stands there with the wildest grin on his face when he sees you beginning to sniffle and sob.
“Was?,” he demands again, blunt even as he takes your face into one of his large hands, turns your head to brush a tear from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Why are you crying?”
“You need to learn your place!” And you know you’re being a hypocrite, that a proper lady should never allow a man to touch her like this, look at her the way that König does. You should call for a servant to have him dragged through the yard and whipped… or worse, but your voice only comes in a crestfallen whisper.
He shrugs those massive shoulders, rolls his neck and huffs a breath as he gazes down at you before his hand falls to his side and he merely walks away. That’s it.
Though you had the hopes that your warning had been taken seriously, the days following seem even worse.
König abandons his duties and takes up the most horrendous idea of courtship that he can muster. If courtship is even what it could be considered. It is more like a direct taunt, a jab now that he’s been made perfectly aware just how fragile the maiden he was sold to guard is.
He takes liberties once you’ve bedded down each night, your dresses stripped away to be replaced with a plain linen gown with nothing beneath: your only protection in the form of the wooden door between you two because König is no protector.
It always starts with the sound of spitting into his palm, then a drawn out sigh that rises to a near-animalistic groan. Sometimes he speaks, other times the soft, wet sounds rise in tempo until all that comes from his mouth are sharp hisses and whines.
This night proves to be the worst.
The wood creaks under his weight as he leans back against the door, stroking himself to the thought of you behind it. He makes it apparent when he breathes your name, low and shaky as you squeeze your eyes closed and pretend to not hear the words that follow.
“Scheiße… bet you’re tight,” he hisses between his depraved whimpers, the slick sounds increasing even as he rights himself to stand proper. You can almost hear the way he salivates, can almost imagine the way his jaw must fall slack and his eyes go dazed as he pleasures himself… you squeeze your thighs shut.
“Ja… you want it too, huh…” The bastard is most assuredly imagining you, knelt before him with the most helpless, reverent gaze as you plead for him. It should make you ill, yet it only stokes a fire in your belly, one that bridges between rage and need. “Ich will dich ficken…”
Your breath comes to a halt when your hand drifts beneath your thin gown, forcing yourself to listen as he brings himself to ruin in the halls as your finger presses to the spot that demands attention most of all. A fragile, shaking circle before your breath already begins to catch.
“Bitte…”
The brute sounds so helpless now, no longer the horrid thing that ordered you to “piss off” or scowled in your direction. He doesn’t know a thing about love… about how one should yearn for a maiden, only of spilling blood and seed. It’s only in the quiet of the night when the rest of the castle sleeps does he allow himself to be even this vulnerable… only his vulnerability seems even more terrifying.
His groans morph into pitiful sighs as he no doubt slows his motions, drawing out an impending orgasm in the hope that you will crawl to your door to let him in and fuck you rough on your bed.
“Just let me…”
Your thighs tremble as you weep between them in longing. The sooner it’s over the sooner you can close your eyes and drift back to sleep, no longer needing him the way he seems to need you now.
Your motions grow more heady, the patterns traced quicker and more deliberate as the heat rushes down further like the most vast wave of pure fire… When you tense, when your lips part to allow a low murmur of pleasure to slip from them, you’re met with laughter from the other side of the door.
“Ja… my lady… you do want it,” he hums as you draw your covers up and over your head in shame. You hadn’t been that loud, surely… but the way that he follows after, coming undone himself with a loud grunt as though it were some ridiculous competition…
“Let me fuck you next time,” he rasps, panting soft as he leans back. Depraved as he was, you were certain he was probably admiring the pearly paint he left along the stones. “That is my place, hm?”
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Always Under Skin, Even When it Gets Removed
Yandere! Childe x Reader
Part of {Mai Playlist}
Childe was a nuisance. Persistent. A vermin. Childe was a pest. Like an infestation of roaches, you could do everything in your power to get rid of him, but he'd still be somewhere nearby. Determination was one of his strongest traits, and he was determined to ruin you.
Being married to him was never in your cards and if you could've never met him at all, you would've been happy. Yet for almost a year, you were forced to be his doting wife. Only managing to steal yourself away after months of planning and a few close calls. The taste of free air, even if it was the air of Snezhnaya, was the best thing on your tongue, better than even your favorite food cooked to perfection.
You didn't think you'd live the life of a nomad, but it seemed easier. Paranoia was second nature to you now, and staying in one place seemed dangerous. He could be anywhere, around any corner, close by, but not showing himself until he knew it would fuck you over. Was living life on the road considered freedom? You didn't know, but anything would be better than another day with Childe.
“How far will this take me?” You held up a good ring to a carriage driver, making sure to keep your face covered beneath your hood. You took a lot when you left, mostly jewelry, things that were small and expensive.
He eyes the ring over before dropping it back into the palm of your hand, “It'll get you pretty far, but where are you even trying to go?”
“Anywhere is fine,” you said quickly.
The man helped you up into the back of his wagon, where he kept his wares. Mostly agricultural things, fresh produce and hay. It wasn't the best place you'd ridden before, but it was far from being the worst.
You understood why people were weary of you. You weren't making much of an effort to not come off as strange, but you weren't out to make friends. The wagon swayed as the sun began to set over the horizon, he didn't tell you how long he'd be driving and quite honestly, you didn't care. At the next port, you'd stow yourself away onto some other vehicle, never stopping, not even for a breath.
You let your head rest back against the hard wooden wall, you let your arms fall to your side, you let the movement of the wagon sway you to sleep. Morning would come and you'd be awoken by the well-known feeling of the carriage lurching to a stop and sunlight beaming through the cracks in the wall. Outside sounded like a bustling city, although you didn't know where, quite honestly it didn't matter.
“It's back here, sir,” you heard the voice of the carriage driver say as you watched shadows fall over the doorway. You can recognize Childe. Recognize his smell, his voice, a strand of his hair if you were to find one, and most importantly, you could recognize his footsteps. Slow, drawn out, and precise. Your blood went cold, noticing that the driver wasn't walking alone.
The door was slammed open and before you could even make a break for it, cold metal was pressed to your neck. Sharp enough to slice your head right off your body if you made any sudden moves, you could already feel the steel biting into your skin.
“Already running away again?” You didn't even want to look at him, but he used the tip of his blade to tilt your head up. Still wearing a smile as he looked down upon you, “I will admit, I'm proud of you. You managed to stay away longer than I expected,” the blade pushed a lot harder into your neck, “I missed you, my angel.”
You could say nothing as he took you by the hand, pulling you from the cart and onto the ground. You weren't treated gently, not when he was angry. His anger was a menace to deal with. The bigger the smile, the words his rage, and he looked practically elated to see you.
“You took everything, but this,” he tossed your wedding band down, it fell onto your body and landed on your thighs. The ring was warm, like he'd been clutching it in his hand. Knowing him, he probably hadn't let it go since he discovered you were gone.
Without much of an argument, you slipped the ring back on your finger. The small band felt more like a shackle, than something meant to adorn your body. With it, your taste of delicious, true freedom was ripped from your mouth almost as quickly as you'd gotten it. But you'd never get to taste it again.
Childe was all smiles and laughter as he helped you into his own carriage. That smile not reaching his dead, hollow eyes. The ride to Snezhnaya would be a long one, you wonder how long he could contain his anger till then?
#genshin#genshin x reader#genshin impact#yandere genshin#yandere x reader#yandere genshin impact#yandere genshin x reader#yandere x you#yandere imagines#yandere#yandere childe x reader#yandere childe#genshin childe x reader
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sleepwalking ● 22 | jjk
pairing: jungkook x fem!reader
summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.
genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers
warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF, some angst, mentions of drugs (including descriptions of harmful use), very plot-heavy chapter, SLOW BURN
words: 18k
read from the beginning ○ masterlist
chapter 22 ► if you want an enemy, i’ll be the last one that you ever meet
Jungkook marvelled at how quickly he got used to the peace he felt with you in his hotel room. It was strong, too, this peace. Stable. It seemed to him, as you slept on the bed right by his side, that nothing could disturb the walls of his room.
Sid’s Instagram post had been nothing but a picture. Neither of you interacted with it, nor did you respond to him—although, like a true pest, he continued to message you both throughout the night.
The picture remained as it was: largely anonymous, because Sid, in his petulant haste to post it, had not tagged you. And, from the looks of it, he had not realised he hadn’t tagged you.
The people in the comments—Jungkook checked, after making sure you’d fallen asleep—tried to guess what was happening. Most of the comments, with usernames that made Jungkook chuckle, seemed to recognise him (well, a few people did, and others jumped on this bandwagon with a heedless excitement that brought another smile to his face—they were thrilled to find him in this seemingly random picture, and he was thrilled by their thrill), but no one could understand the context.
So happy for you, Sid’s caption read. But happy for what? Happy for whom?
You’ve both decided to raise this issue with the band before the concert tomorrow. There was very little you could have done this late at night anyway. All the staff had a day off, and you did not want to disturb them over a personal problem that had escalated into something bigger than you.
Jungkook was delighted by your choice to stay in his room. He interpreted your decision to wait until morning as a confirmation of your deeper desire to prolong your time together. He preferred to believe that this was the reason, rather than the circumstances, that allowed you to stay.
And since you were sleeping next to him right now, your chest rising and falling gently under the covers, it was all too easy to give in to this belief.
When Jungkook woke up a few hours later, the room was bathed in a golden glow. The sunlight filtered through a gap in the curtains that he must have overlooked last night.
You weren’t next to him.
Panic seized him almost instantly, and he realised that the peace he had felt last night with you beside him was not quite as stable as he had believed. Now you were awake, and you were not here.
He flipped on his back and pushed himself into a sitting position. He even searched under the bed in irrational desperation—as if you had decided to play hide-and-seek and give him a heart attack for breakfast. And then, as soon as he threw back the covers and scanned the room, he heard your voice—a lifeline, really, amid his suffocating thoughts.
You were still here, in the bathroom, either talking on the phone or to yourself. Honestly, that part did not really matter to him, as long as he knew you were here.
Outrageously relieved, he collapsed back onto the pillows and buried his face in his hands, a ridiculous smile spreading beneath his fingers as his heart continued to race in his chest.
He realised that he was a little out of his mind.
You were on the phone, as Jungkook would later learn, with the founder and CEO of Jett Records, Christian Jett—or simply CJ, as he insisted you call him, even though you’d only spoken to him once in your entire time at the company: right now. You figured one of the reasons he insisted on the abbreviation was that his full name could have worked incredibly well as a Christian rock band name.
If Jungkook had known who you were talking to, his panic might have resurged. Your hands were shaking, too, as you clutched your phone to your ear and took in CJ’s rapid news.
In just one breath, CJ shared his thoughts on Rated Riot’s reception in Europe and outlined his vision for the coming months. He also surprised you with some good news, and you tapped your fingers on the hotel sink, eager to tell the band.
Then, CJ, your new best friend by the sound of it, turned the subject over to you.
“Here’s what’s going to happen in the next few weeks,” he said, speaking so quickly that you barely had time to react. By the time your stomach clenched in anticipation, he had already informed you of his plans. “I’ve personally put together a team, just a couple of execs and someone from HR, to recruit support staff for you. We’re thinking two people should suffice for now.”
Your pause seemed incredibly long compared to his—which was virtually non-existent, and CJ opened his mouth to keep speaking.
“I was also thinking that—”
“I—sorry, uh,” you interjected, finally finding your words, “w-what support staff are you referring to, sir?”
“Assistant managers,” CJ replied with a chuckle. “I should’ve started with that, you’re right. You’ll have a team. Naturally, you’ll be promoted to Head of Management.”
You needed some time to process that. It was the “naturally” in particular that confused you because none of this seemed very natural.
When you woke up and saw ‘Christian Jett’ on your phone (the device even vibrated differently, almost nervously), you immediately assumed the worst: Sid had done irreparable damage to the band’s reputation by hard-launching a relationship that no one at the label knew about, and now you were going to be fired because you had not contained it.
That was the only thought you had when you took the call. But you were actually being promoted. Naturally.
Did he even know about Sid?
“That—that’s great,” you managed. You sensed CJ’s anticipation for a more effusive response and he grumbled in mild disapproval when you did not offer one. “I am very happy to hear that.”
“Yeah?” He chuckled again. He sounded like a train veering off its tracks when he laughed, which was very odd, yet somehow felt comforting. “You don’t sound much like it.”
“Oh—m-my apologies, I’m just surprised.”
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be,” he said. “Others are trying to scout you for their own bands—fucking Reconnaissance, of all people—so, of course, we have to promote you.”
Your fingers stilled on the cool porcelain of the sink.
He said they had to promote you: as if it was a decision forced upon them by some foreign threat, rather than your efforts and the unprecedented growth of the band.
It would have made sense to expand your team eventually—when the tour ended, for example, and everyone could see how far Rated Riot has come. But now, apparently, your career would abruptly progress just because you received an offer from another band.
“Respectfully, sir,” you said, avoiding his nickname, “may I ask how you came by that information? I was under the impression that the offer from Reconnaissance wasn’t official.”
“It’s a small industry,” CJ replied. “We consider any offer aimed at our talents official.”
He gave no further explanations. You had questions, of course, but did not know how to say What the fuck is that supposed to mean? in Corporate.
Instead, you said, “I see.”
“I’ll send one of my assistants and a couple of people from our legal team to go over the new contract with you in the next few days,” he informed you.
You wondered what time it was for him, wherever he was, because here in London, it was far too early to talk about legal teams. The magnitude of the situation made your empty stomach churn.
“Your new contract won’t be much different,” CJ continued. He sensed that the mention of lawyers had unsettled you, and his tone softened. “Bigger pay, a few extra tasks, a more defined division of labour. Your assistants will handle the routine chores, allowing you to concentrate on promoting and advancing Rated Riot. That’s the direction we’re moving in right now, and that’ll be your main priority.”
“I understand, sir,” you said, although you understood fragments.
They could have hired a marketing specialist instead of two assistants for you if they wanted to focus on the advancement of the band. Rated Riot did not even have their own publicist right now. There was one at the company, but she juggled several bands and rarely ventured beyond arranging an occasional interview for Rated Riot if someone contacted the company, and not you.
Evidently, they chose to promote you to Head Manager and Publicist instead of hiring a different person for that job.
“You’ll stay with the band and work on location,” CJ said. “That arrangement seems to bring the best results, especially regarding the band’s schedule. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, sir,” you replied, recognising that CJ probably had the authority to teleport you out of London immediately should you disagree with anything he said.
“Excellent,” he said. “I’d like to move forward with this while the band is still on tour, so you could train your assistants as soon as you are back. From then on, you’ll focus on effective representation and the strengthening of their brand, marketing strategies, bigger shows, more advertising—well, you know the drill.”
“Right,” you said. “Of course.”
You chose not to point out how far these new duties deviated from your original job description. You were already doing all that anyway, even if you weren’t, technically, required to. And they clearly seemed to think that your extra work came without saying—of course, you’d do everything. When have you not?
“And mostly everything else on the contract will remain as it is,” CJ finished. “The legal team will go over the rest with you. It’s the same things: compensation, conflicts of interest, obligations, bonuses, the whole bunch. You know. You’ve done it before.”
You haven’t done it before, actually. When Rated Riot hired you, the company emailed you the contract, you skimmed it, understood about half, and e-signed it without any meetings with HR, let alone the legal team.
Nevertheless, you responded obediently, “I understand. When can I expect to meet with them?”
“Let me check your schedule,” he said. You heard the faint clicking of a laptop mouse and assumed he had Rated Riot’s schedule at the ready. “Alright, you’re in London for the next few days, then almost a week in Paris. How about one of the days there? My assistant will email you later with a more specific time and date.”
“Okay, that sounds perfect,” you replied. “Thank you for taking the time to personally inform me about this, CJ. I—I’m very excited to start this new chapter with the band.”
“I’m excited as well,” CJ said, glad to finally hear your use of his name, even if you wavered while saying it. “Let’s keep this discreet, though, yeah? For now. I’ll mention the changes in management and the band’s upcoming promotions at the executive team meeting next week. Namjoon will update you on how that goes. Until then, let’s keep this within our circle.”
“I—of course, sir,” you replied. CJ allowed you a moment of thought and did not interrupt your silence this time.
You worried that his strong emphasis on discretion indicated his knowledge about something else. And even if it didn’t, you thought it would reflect badly on you later if you did not mention Sid right now, when you had the perfect opportunity for it.
“I’m—I would also like to address the recent speculation online regarding the, uh—bathtub picture,” you said, trying to choose your words without sounding like a three-year-old imitating a businessman. “I want to assure you that—”
“Oh, yeah, no—Namjoon called me earlier. He filled me in,” CJ said. “I hadn’t even seen the picture before he mentioned it. That Sid’s a weird character.”
Your heart jumped over a beat, chilling the blood in your anxious veins.
“Uh—yes,” you played along, wondering all the while where Namjoon was, and what he had done on your behalf. “He is.”
“I trust you’ll ensure no one else leaks the band’s album covers in the future, though,” CJ said. His words sounded like a demand—half a step away from a threat—but you could not recognise your reflection in the mirror all of a sudden and could not reply. “Maybe reset your systems or something.”
Namjoon had called CJ. He had deflected from your relationship with Jungkook and shielded you from what could have happened if someone discovered who the people in the picture were.
Sid leaked the album cover.
You took a fractured breath and leaned against the counter, closing your eyes for a moment.
“Yes—yes, of course,” you finally managed. “We’ll take every precaution to make sure these incidents are avoided in the future. Th-thank you, CJ.”
You could no longer tell if you were still coherent or just trying to be. CJ’s unusual pause seemed to indicate that he sensed your unease, but he chose not to comment on it. He thought you just felt uncomfortable that the album cover had leaked.
“Alright, happy to hear that,” he said. “Talk to you soon. Keep up the good work.”
He ended the call before you could voice any more platitudes about looking forward to hearing from him again. You weren’t. You were looking forward to finding Namjoon and possibly offering your soul to him to repay the debt.
Namjoon had resolved the issue that Sid had caused—the issue you considered personal, because you were keenly aware of the causal relationship between Sid’s post and your relationship with Jungkook: if you hadn’t spent so much time with him on this tour, if you’d kept your professional distance, if you’d closed the damn door in that hotel bathroom, there wouldn’t have been any picture at all.
However, there was more for you to fix. Namjoon had helped you now, but Sid was still at large, wild and unpredictable.
And as you glanced at your phone, you also remembered something else that CJ had said about your contract: conflicts of interest.
In your initial contract, you had declared none, despite already knowing that Jungkook was in the band. You hoped you could carry on quietly enough—as though you had never met him, really—and no one would mind. That more or less worked out, up until this point.
Now you wondered if you could still claim no conflicts of interest without any consequences. Was that what your relationship with Jungkook was, in the eyes of the company?
You took a deep breath and decided to ponder this elsewhere because the bathroom was getting stuffy and the clothes you’d worn for a comfortable film night suddenly felt suffocating against your skin.
Stepping out of the bathroom on the tips of your toes so as not to wake Jungkook, you turned the corner and locked eyes with him right away.
“Hi,” he murmured, the edges of his morning voice hoarse and groggy as he watched you from the mess of sheets on the bed.
Despite hoping to find him still asleep so you could slip back into bed and have the morning together that had been stolen from you, you didn’t feel disappointed that he was awake. He had a lazy smile on his lips. His hair was dishevelled and he kept bringing his hand through it.
There was a glow over your face as you approached the bed. “Hi.”
“I thought you’d left,” he said, his eyes following your every movement as you settled back next to him.
“Do you want me to?” you asked, tilting your head to the side, closer to him. He wasn’t sure if you were even aware you did that, it seemed subconscious, but it prompted his hands to reach for you.
He touched your cheek, running his fingers over your jaw before leaning in to press his lips to yours—quickly, just to remind himself that he could. And to steal just one breath from you.
“No,” he said then. “Never.”
He saw your eyes soften and your smile grow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He traced his thumb over your lower lip before pulling away to sit up on the bed. “Who, um—who was that on the phone?”
The question was expected, but you didn’t have an answer for him personally—you’d planned to explain everything to all of Rated Riot later today.
“Uh,” you leaned against the headboard of the bed, “the label.”
“Yeah?” he encouraged.
“The CEO, actually,” you added briefly. “But I should probably discuss this with the whole band.”
Startled, Jungkook gripped the sheets in his hand. He was worried—rather obviously—that this was about Sid or still about Reconnaissance, and he couldn’t decide which he dreaded more. He was absurdly quick to convince himself that the CEO had told you something so serious that you didn’t even see the point of talking to him about it.
“Did something happen?” he asked, feeling the tips of his fingers grow numb.
You recognised the concern on his face with half of a glance. “Yeah, but it’s something good.”
Relief, excitement, and curiosity replaced the previous anxiety in his eyes at an impressive speed.
He shifted on the bed with a newfound energy, crossing and uncrossing his legs. “Well, tell me!”
“We’ll have a meeting—”
“That’s fair,” he said, moving closer. “But tell me now.”
You were too excited to dwell on the fact that this was the precise conflict of interest that had unsettled your mind earlier—this perception of favouritism, this special treatment that others might assume Jungkook received because he was in a relationship with his manager.
“You’re doing festivals next summer,” you said, pausing for emphasis, “and they’re extending your tour. We’ll be going back to at least five countries in Europe for encore shows.”
You still had to confirm the dates with the venues and perform several additional bureaucratic tasks so your team could stay in Europe longer, but all of that seemed irrelevant in light of this news.
“Ah,” Jungkook replied—happy, but not nearly as exuberant as you’d hoped. “That’s cool.”
You realised quickly that he must have misunderstood.
“No, Jungkook,” you said. “In arenas this time—with a capacity at least three times larger than we have right now.”
Instantly, his eyes ignited with the flames you’d looked forward to before.
“Oh,” he said and now the tingle of adventure was finally there, glistening fervently in his burning eyes.
But he looked at you again, and he thought there was something you hadn’t told him yet. It was the way your lips curled—smiling, but not quite.
“But you look—was there something else you talked about?” he asked.
You were surprised. You had hoped—naively, you now realised—that you could continue to talk about the promising parts of all that CJ had told you, leaving the more questionable parts to wait until the rest of your thoughts had cleared.
“They’re, uh, holding interviews for assistant managers and promoting me to Head Manager,” you said. Jungkook raised his eyebrows, but you continued before he could interject, “they’ll send people to Paris for me to sign the new contract.”
“To—oh, shit. Fuck.” His shock turned to laughter. Just moments ago, he was worried you’d have to leave the band. Now you were signing a new contract to stay. “Oh, but does that—does that mean we will see less of you? Is that why you—why you don’t seem very happy about that?”
“No, it’s—I am happy,” you said. “I’ll stay on-site with you guys. But the focus is—they’re saying we’re focusing more on promoting you and ‘strengthening your brand.’ That was cool, by the way. Your brand. I liked that part. But, uh—that will be my main priority, apparently. I guess I’m not really sure how that’s going to go.”
That wasn’t the only reason for your apprehension, but you did not want to mention Reconnaissance and the unexpected impact that Nick’s offer had on your sudden promotion. You preferred to see Jungkook smiling at you from across the bed—even more so when he was smiling right next to you.
“Well, what will you have to do?” he asked. “I mean, exactly?”
“I guess I will be making phone calls the whole day,” you replied, hoping secretly that this would not turn out to be all you’d have to do. “It also means that none of us will be going home longer than it takes for you to record a new album.”
“Oh.” Jungkook attempted to control his facial expression. For him, this arrangement—album, tour, album, tour—sounded almost ideal. “Well, that’s honestly fine by me.”
You knew he would not mind. But you minded. You had not said anything about your own workload to CJ, but you were prepared to use any threats necessary to ensure that Rated Riot had enough time to breathe.
“You say that now,” you pointed out, “but it will eventually get tough, being away from home for so long.”
“I have you,” Jungkook said. “I am home.”
He said that like it was the most obvious statement in the world—the grass is green, the sky is blue—but subtle magic was laced in every letter of every word. When he closed his eyes, when he couldn’t see the unfamiliar surroundings of the hotel room, his senses recognised the warmth of your presence as home.
Unfortunately, the darkness in his thoughts was unforgiving, and he had to ask you something else—but then he lost his resolve momentarily when he met your soft gaze and realised that you’d placed your hand on his.
“I, uh—” he tried, but several more moments had to pass before he sobered, “he—did he say anything about Sid?”
You exhaled. “Yeah.”
Jungkook nodded contemplatively and took a breath, bracing himself. Although it was difficult to imagine what the label could have said about Sid, considering the abundance of good news, he knew better than to expect something positive.
Another book his grandmother had read with him when he was young suddenly returned to his mind, the dark cover with thick red lettering vivid in his memory: Something wicked this way comes.
The book had been sinister, completely unfitting for a child of his age at the time. Just like Sid.
“What was it?” Jungkook asked.
“That picture he posted,” you said, “is apparently the cover of your upcoming album.”
“It—oh.” He looked away, puzzled, suddenly, by the shade of the wallpaper behind the bedframe and the questionable events that had led the label to that conclusion. He tried to say more and managed a very successful, “ah.”
You lowered your head, tugging on the edge of the duvet. “Namjoon, uh—he took care of it before I got the call from CJ, so I don’t know much about what he said to him.”
Jungkook was not sure if he should have been relieved that Sid’s damage had been neutralised seemingly so effortlessly. He could never know with Sid; his refusal to give up rivalled only Voldemort’s immortality. Only Sid’s horcruxes were, apparently, pictures and videos he used to manipulate others.
“It’s a good photo for an album cover,” Jungkook finally said.
“It—it is,” you agreed. “And it’s also—well, you know. A good explanation.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll inform the label about us before I sign the new contract, though,” you decided. “I’ll talk to them. I thought maybe this could wait, but they’re sending over lawyers, so it’s—”
Jungkook’s breath got lodged in his throat and he had to cough several times to clear his airways, interrupting you.
“H-hold on,” he said. “You need lawyers present when you tell them we’re together?”
“They’re coming for the contract,” you explained. “And I’ll have to talk to them before I sign it because I figure you might be my conflict of interest.”
A sudden surge of very different emotions made Jungkook purse his lips. He found himself wondering if there was any term starting with “my” you could have used to describe him that he wouldn’t have liked. My boyfriend. My source of headaches. My biggest nuisance. Ultimately, all of that still meant that he was yours.
Reasonably, however, he did not like the sound of this.
“Huh,” he mused. “Doesn’t work as a pet name. Call me something else.”
“Yeah.” You chuckled. “I don’t like that one, either.”
You did not look particularly troubled. Everything was going to be fine, you were sure of it. You just weren’t sure how soon, and what this “fine” would look like.
“Come here,” Jungkook said before you could begin thinking about the possibilities and the risks.
You moved closer, happy to relish in the warmth of the room for a few more minutes as he wrapped his arms around you.
This was the morning you were looking forward to. Everything else could wait.
The second you stepped out of Jungkook’s hotel room and headed towards yours to pack for the day, Maggie startled you by calling out your name in the otherwise empty, echoing corridor. She appeared a little worried when you turned around, and that was so unbecoming on her normally laid-back face that you took an instinctive step back.
“Is—are you okay?” you asked.
She seemed surprised to see your surprise.
“I slept the whole day,” she explained. She was carrying something in her hands, but she kept it behind her back. “Feels like I was out for a week, actually.”
You smiled. That was hardly anything new.
You remembered the fright of your life that Maggie had given you the first time the two of you went out together. She had an alcohol tolerance that should have been outlawed, so she always drank more than Jungkook could ever handle (though he would argue otherwise, of course). By the time you got her back to your apartment that night, she was already barely conscious.
She had collapsed on your bed and when you brought her a glass of water about three minutes later, she was already snoring. And she’d slept—you counted—for twenty-two hours and thirty-three minutes. You had spent the last eight hours keeping watch over her, periodically checking if she was breathing, with your finger hovering over the emergency number on your phone.
To your amazement, she woke up the next morning without so much as a hint of a headache, perplexed by the concerned look on your face. She looked a bit like that now.
“Yeah,” you replied, a little jealous of her dangerous, but seemingly foolproof ability to avoid hangovers. “Maybe we should have stopped before the tequila shots.”
“Hmm.” She scratched her forehead. It was hard to tell what she was feeling; hesitation flickered in her eyes when she looked at you. “Was, uh—was Jungkook in my room yesterday?”
“He—oh, yeah,” you recalled. “I asked him to check on you.”
“Oh.” Relief washed over her face, adding some vibrancy to her cloudy features. “Okay. So I didn’t hallucinate that.”
You smiled again. “No.”
“I took your jacket,” she said, revealing the item she’d been clutching in her hands. “I don’t remember doing that.”
She seemed to remember even less from last night than you did, which was not uncommon for Maggie. She had a terrible memory in general—she took notes and then forgot she took notes—but this time, you could not help her remember, either.
“Thanks,” you said, taking your jacket from her. It still smelled faintly of your perfume and too much liquor. “Jungkook told me you had it. I still have one of your shoes.”
“Yeah, I—I have yours somewhere, too,” she said. “I assume you have my phone, too, then?”
You looked up. “Why would I have your phone?”
“Hm?” she asked as her heart began to pump blood a tad more effectively than necessary; you hadn’t even properly answered her yet. “But—you—didn’t you put it in your bag last night?”
You stilled and the surprise inside your stomach grew large, floating inside you as if it were a heavy, helium and anxiety-filled balloon.
“I… I had my bag with me?” you asked very slowly, but Maggie still did not understand the essence of your question. She looked around as though she’d just realised she was accidentally having this conversation in a language she did not speak, and she needed someone to translate it for her.
You were baffled. You knew you’d left your phone in your room before you went out with the girls, it was entangled in the sheets when you woke up the next morning. But you couldn’t remember whatever happened with your handbag; you had assumed it remained in your room as well.
“I’m pretty sure you had it with you,” Maggie said. Your heartbeat sped up, matching the frantic rhythm in your friend’s chest. “You took our orders on my phone because you didn’t have yours. And I assumed you put it in your bag after that.”
You turned around, frightened goosebumps rising on the back of your spine as your trembling fingers fumbled with the lock on your door.
“Jungkook said I didn’t have my bag with me when I got back,” you said as you entered the room, your gaze sweeping the space with an ever-mounting sense of panic. “I assumed—I thought I just didn’t take it with me. Nothing was missing. I had my keys in my jacket—I took them out at some point, before the jacket ended up with you—a-and my phone was here.”
You attacked the room, lifting suitcases and inspecting empty closets. Since you hadn’t fully unpacked, there were not a lot of places where your handbag could have been. Maggie tried to help you by holding up furniture for you to check underneath—just in case, she’d said—but it became increasingly clear, with every nook and cranny you searched, that the bag was simply not here.
“Okay, shit,” Maggie finally concluded as the two of you knelt side by side on the floor, the room in disarray around you.
Among the useless clutter, you found a lot of dust, someone’s phone charger, and a forgotten USB flash drive under your nightstand.
“Wait, so—wait, wait.” You stood up, stumbling slightly as your knees cracked. “So, you don’t have your phone?”
The question was redundant, but Maggie didn’t mind repeating herself. She was just as confused as you were. And the handbag was the least of your problems: you did not carry a lot of cash with you when you travelled, so if you didn’t find the bag, all that you’d lose would be a travel-sized container of hand sanitiser, an old tube of lipgloss, and a package of tissues. It was Maggie’s phone that you were worried about—you couldn’t even remember putting it in your bag.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes seemed even wider than they had in the corridor. Her hair fell in chaotic curls over her face. “I couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried Find My iPhone today, but it didn’t show anything. Maybe the phone’s dead? I don’t know. I didn’t check right after we returned to the hotel, because I was sleeping. And then, this morning, I thought, well, of course the app won’t tell me where my phone is. Because you have it, and you’re right next door.”
You clenched your jaw. “Okay. Okay, I-I must have left my bag at the club. Or someone took it. We have to call them.”
“Call them?” Maggie repeated, standing up, too. She glanced around your room once more to make sure your bag had not decided to grow feet and return on its own. “What will we say?”
You did not mind the pointlessness of her question, either. Evidently, now was the precise time for stupid questions.
“That I lost it. I don’t know,” you said. “Let’s just see. Maybe I left it there.” But you hesitated as soon as you pulled your phone out. “Shit. Do you remember what the place was called?”
“Oh, yeah, I have the directions open on my pho—” She stopped tapping the pockets of her jeans, realising. “Oh, shit.”
“Fuck.”
It took you less than a second to find the solution to your new problem.
Luna and Taehyung’s room was just down the corridor, and Luna opened the door as soon as you knocked, almost as if she had been waiting for you to require her immediate assistance in this crisis.
She could not remember many details of how the three of you got home, but she readily supplied the name of the club. Then she joined you and Maggie in your room, where your friends tried to reconstruct the events of the previous night and you dialled the number of the club, your shaky hands and frazzled mind leading you to hit all the wrong keys on your phone.
Finally, the call connected, and a cheerful, young voice introduced himself as, simply, Tom, barkeeper—although your frantic mind interpreted that as Tom Barkeeper initially, which, honestly, seemed like a fitting government name for someone tending the bar.
“Hi!” you said, your nervous voice nearing a screech. Luna and Maggie stopped talking and turned to you. “My friends and I were at your club on Wednesday night, and I seem to have misplaced my handbag. Is there any chance I left it there?”
“Let me check, miss,” Tom Barkeeper replied. You heard the faint sound of his footsteps in the background. “Could you describe it for me?”
“It—well, it was black,” you said, your palm pressed against your forehead. “With a large grey metal zipper, and sort of a—a little chain on the—”
“Er, actually, no, we’ve got no handbags at the Lost and Found,” he interrupted. “Got five watches, though.”
He chuckled lightly, and you looked up at your friends. There was a frown on your face that they immediately took to mean danger, and moved closer, settling on either side of you to listen.
“Uh, right,” you said distractedly, putting the call on speaker. “Are there any phones, by chance? There was a phone in my bag.”
“We had a couple of phones left here, but both have been picked up by their owners,” Tom B. replied. “Sorry.”
You turned to your friends, silently asking them what to do next.
“Perhaps you left your bag somewhere else?” the barkeeper suggested over the phone. “A taxi?”
Maggie, who remembered glimpses of your taxi ride, shook her head.
“Hmm. Or it was stolen,” you speculated.
Tom Barkeeper seemed surprised by this and he stuttered for a second—he had a thick accent, and even his, “well, er—I’d—uhm—” sounded really quite elegant—until he finally composed himself.
“Well, it—it does get rather busy here,” he admitted, and his voice sounded even younger all of a sudden. “I—er, was it very valuable? You could try filing a report, then we’d get our security here and rewind the CCTV footage.”
You glanced at Maggie. She shook her head again. She doubted they could find her phone in time if it really was stolen; you’d be leaving for Paris soon. She was embarrassed, too. There was nothing she could tell the police if you filed a report.
When have you last seen your phone, miss?
I have no idea, officer. I was shitfaced the whole night.
“I think we—no, that, um—we’ll try to see if there are any other places where it could be first,” you told Tom, trying to come up with a logical plan on the spot. “And then I’ll—”
“Yeah,” the barkeeper cut in, sounding relieved. “You check and call us back if you haven’t found it.”
“Yes. Thank you. Sorry to bother you.”
“That’s alright, miss,” he said. “Hope you find it.”
You ended the call with a disheartened sigh and turned to your friends.
“Well, they don’t have it,” you declared, as if they hadn’t heard everything.
“That’s great,” Luna observed. She glanced around the chaos inside your room. “And it’s definitely not here?”
“You can go ahead and look,” you said, stepping back to gesture at the piles of clothes. “I don’t know where else it could be.”
“Okay, well, Maggie and I both remember you having it with you on our way to the club,” she said. She tapped her chin and, because she had her glasses on and wore a sweater with a long white dress shirt underneath, she looked a bit like a heroine from an old Agatha Christie novel. “I remember the pins on my dress getting caught on the chain on your bag in the taxi.”
“That’s right,” you said, pointing at her, although you weren’t sure if you remembered the moment under discussion, or just the way the three of you had laughed about it later that night.
“So maybe you left it there before we even got to the club?” Luna suggested.
“No, but she still had it with her in the club!” Maggie interjected, frustrated. Her hair kept growing wilder the longer she stayed here, tousling it nervously every few seconds. “When she took our drink orders! My phone and her bag were both there.”
You and Luna both groaned, realising Maggie had already mentioned this. You were aware that the three of you had turned into a mess after just one night of drinking. Perhaps the next time you went out, you should consider bringing a chaperone, because this right now felt a lot like the blind leading the blind.
“Right,” Luna mumbled. “Sorry.”
“It’s starting to seem,” you said, “that either I left it in the taxi at the end of the night, or someone grabbed it at the club.”
Maggie nodded, agreeing with these options, even if she did not know what to do with them. You didn’t, either. Was there a Lost and Found for items accidentally abandoned in taxis? Should you have filed a report with the police, after all? Surely, they dealt with drunk people losing their belongings all the time. And maybe they could search for the phone even if you were across the strait.
Then you noticed that Luna was biting her lip, seemingly lost in a recurring thought.
“What are you thinking?” you prodded. She did not react. “Luna?”
She looked up from the floor, surprised to be addressed.
“Nothing,” she said, hesitating. “It’s sort of a conspiracy theory more than it is based on actual facts. But, um, you did mention seeing Sid and Jude at the club.”
You watched Maggie pull on her hair so hard that a few strands stayed in her grasp when she let go. Neither of you liked how plausible Luna’s not-fact-based theory was.
“You think they took my bag,” you surmised. “But why?”
“I don’t know,” Luna replied. “Why does Sid do anything?”
Your frown deepened. She had a disturbingly solid point. Sid was diabolical.
“That’s…” you faltered, thinking. “Well, he could have—although I didn’t even have anything in my bag except for Maggie’s—oh. Shit.”
Your sudden realisation—and the subsequent horror flashing across your face—surprised both girls. Maggie stepped closer to you.
“What is it?” she asked.
You pulled out your phone and opened Instagram.
“Sid posted a—he posted the picture,” you explained, scrolling down your feed, then abandoning this decision and going directly to Sid’s profile. “The one Maggie showed us at the club.”
You found the post and turned your phone towards the girls. The expressions on their faces made it very clear that Luna’s hypothesis was not far-fetched at all. Maggie looked delightfully murderous.
“Jungkook thinks Sid got it from his phone,” you said, “but what if—wh-what—”
“My phone was in your bag. He could have downloaded it from my gallery,” Maggie concluded, staring at the screen.
She wasn’t just angry about her stolen phone or the filter Sid had put over a perfectly good picture. She was also angry about him using a photograph that she was proud of to stir up trouble.
“That fucking loser,” she said. “That massive fucking piece of shit. Fucking good-for-nothing rat. Motherf—”
“Yeah, Mags,” you interjected, knowing she might not stop for a while. Last week, she had kept mumbling curses under her breath for forty minutes straight after Jimin ate the last pack of tomato ketchup crisps that she’d brought with her on tour. “We agree with you.”
Luna continued to bite her lip until it took upon an angry shade of red. She did not want to be responsible if she’d just led you in the wrong direction. Maggie already seemed prepared to crush your phone in her hand as she stared at Sid’s post.
Luna tried to reason, “we don’t know if that’s really what happened, though.”
“No, but it makes sense. You have to be right,” you insisted, glancing at the clock above the door. “Fuck. I—I have to—I have to get the band together before their soundcheck, but after that, I’m—I’ll talk to Minjun.” You brought your hand through your hair, angrier at yourself than you were at Sid right now. “We should have left the club right after I talked to Jude. It was a shitty call to stay there. But we’ll find your phone, Mags. And if Sid was really the one who took it, he’s—well, he’s not going to be taking shit from anyone anymore.”
Some of the tension in Maggie’s posture eased at your words.
“Well, we couldn’t have known they’d do something like that when we decided to stay,” Luna said, her voice comforting. “If they indeed—”
“Alright,” Maggie interrupted, taking a deep breath and returning your phone to you. “Let’s kill him.”
The room fell silent. You did not know if Maggie was aware of the undeniable resolve in her voice. She’d said that like she would have said, “let’s get lunch,” while already holding boxes of take-out in her hands.
“Or, you know,” she added in response to your and Luna’s expressions, “let’s beat him up. That’ll work, too.”
You glanced at Luna and the smile spreading on her face made you lose your calm, too.
“We’ll do that,” you promised Maggie, grinning as you wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned your head against hers. “If we can’t come up with anything better.”
“Hell yeah,” Luna agreed, joining you on Maggie’s other side. “He’s got a few teeth left, right? We can start counting who knocks out more. Jungkook is in the lead right now, but I don’t like losing, so—”
You and Maggie burst into laughter so loud and sudden that Luna flinched in surprise. Maggie even had to clutch your arm for support as she bent over, struggling to breathe in between wheezes. Her laughter was so infectious that Luna couldn’t keep a straight face much longer, either.
You were convinced that you would fix everything.
You’d find Minjun and ask if he had talked to Sid or Jude since Wednesday. If not, you’d get to the two of them yourself. Maggie would take care of them if they had your bag. And if, by some lucky chance, they would turn out to be innocent, you’d go to the police to find the real culprit.
You gathered the band—and Namjoon, of course—in the changing room of the venue before the soundcheck. Mindful of your limited time, you started by sharing the updates from CJ – the festivals next summer, the arena tour, and finally, the strategic shift that Jett Records was planning for Rated Riot, including your promotion and the expansion of the management team.
Once the cheers and the high-fives died down, you asked the boys to settle down for one last thing.
“The opening act,” you said, scrolling to the very bottom of the meeting agenda you’d prepared on your Notes. “Ren is still recovering from his broken foot, so we—”
“Because Ren is a whiny baby,” Jungkook chimed in helpfully. He was leaning against the wall instead of sitting around the table like the rest of his bandmates.
You gave him a look that was not particularly grateful but lacked any real threat. He grinned.
“So, Poison Tongue might be out for the rest of the tour,” you went on. “We’re talking to several other bands that might join you instead. Ivy will continue to support you on the upcoming shows in London and Paris.”
The band members nodded. They’d grown accustomed to Ivy’s presence—she used to be a tattoo artist and brought her equipment with her when she travelled, which everyone on tour appreciated. You and your girls personally found it wonderful to have another girl around.
“Alright. That was the last thing on my list, but it—there’s something else we have to discuss,” you paused, glancing around the room to keep your voice steady. Jungkook gave you a firm nod of support from the back of the room, no longer fooling around. “Uh, there was a picture posted last night. I’m sure you’ve all seen it. Namjoon took care of it; he informed the label that it’s the leaked cover of your upcoming album. But I want to emphasise that it doesn’t have to be the cover of anything. We can say it was one of the options, but we settled on something—”
“I like it,” Taehyung interjected. “The picture, I mean. I think we could use it as the cover for our next single, at least. It fits, right?”
“It does,” Yoongi agreed. You felt a tingle of unease creeping down your spine. “The lyrics match the picture very well.”
That was understandable, given the subject matter of the lyrics, but you were grateful that Yoongi did not elaborate further. You felt Jungkook watching you from across the room and your skin was burning.
“And it fits in with the rest of our album covers, too,” Hoseok joined, solidifying the consensus.
The decision had already been made, so Jungkook only shrugged when your eyes slid over to him.
“I say we use it,” he said. “It’s a great shot.”
For the first time since you joined Rated Riot, you genuinely worried that you might not keep your composure.
Every person in this room—and many people in the corridors, working on Rated Riot’s show—knew that you and Jungkook were the people in the photograph, and they all agreed to help you hide your relationship in plain sight. Aching discomfort and heartfelt gratitude fought a fierce battle inside your chest.
“Well, then, alright,” you said, your voice quivering slightly on the last syllable. You fixed your gaze on the white table. “That’s, uh, settled, then. Thank you, Namjoon, by the way. That was great quick thinking on your part.”
“No problem,” Namjoon replied. Hoseok leaned back in his chair to pat him on the shoulder and Namjoon gave him a smile before explaining, “I didn’t mean to jump the gun, but—”
“No, no,” you cut him off. “You did great. It’s—well, it’s good PR, claiming he just leaked the cover art. Thank you.”
He shrugged. “Maggie’s the one who took a great picture.”
Hums of agreement filled the room, and you nodded, too. Maggie had always been a field photographer. She felt claustrophobic in a closed photo studio, she needed the space, the action, the emotion. And she knew how to capture it all. It was a great picture. It was a shame what Sid was trying to do with it.
“She did, yeah,” you said before noticing the time on your phone. “But, uh, anyway, that—that was all. Any quick questions?”
No one spoke, and the momentary silence in the room felt a little disconcerting. These were the loudest people you’ve ever met, so you did not enjoy feeling like a teacher, asking for volunteers to solve an excruciating equation. Actually, you did not enjoy standing here at all right now; pins and needles chased each other all across your body.
“In that case,” you locked your phone and set it down on the table, “go out, and get ready for the night. It’s going to be a good one.”
Someone cried out, “fuck yes!”—it was hard to determine who, due to the immediate shouts of agreement that followed—and the boys tumbled out of the room, making as much noise as they could. Right away you felt a little better. Everyone had already been excited about the concert tonight, but the news about the extended tour and bigger venues only amplified their emotions.
You ended up watching each of the boys leap over the threshold of the door for no reason whatsoever, just to see who could jump the farthest—until Jungkook smacked his head right into the top of the door frame.
Pouting, he walked over to you after everyone else had finished laughing and left. You fixed his hair, trying to bite back your laughter, and he pulled you into a hug, groaning in disapproval when he felt you chuckle softly against his chest.
“Is your head okay?” you asked, the humour in your tone undeniable, despite your attempts to suppress it.
“No,” he said, tightening his grip on your waist until he heard your quiet gasp. “Oh, now it’s a little better.”
“Oh, it’s better,” you retorted, evidently taking up the challenge. “I see.”
The force of your grip was nowhere near as strong as his—although it was very impressive, he had to admit; he did lose his breath for a split second—but you felt his smile spread as he leaned his head against yours, and that was good enough.
He hummed against your neck, swaying with you in his arms, and you realised that you could not think about Sid’s picture or Maggie’s phone now that it was just the two of you in the room. That was good. You wouldn’t have wanted to speak to Jungkook about any of that right before his concert anyway.
“Now it’s okay,” he whispered. “Fifteen more minutes and I’ll be good as new. Maybe twenty.”
You smiled, but one of your hands had stopped drawing soothing patterns on his back.
“You have to go, though,” you reminded him reluctantly. “Jin will rip you a new one if you’re not on stage in two and a half minutes. He and Jimin got into an argument with one of the local sound engineers earlier today, so he wants to finish the soundcheck as quickly as possible.”
Jungkook groaned, releasing you, but keeping his gaze on yours.
“Can I just tell him I hurt my head,” he asked, “so I deserve special treatment?”
“Not sure,” you replied. “I think that only works with me.”
His laughter was loud and unapologetic. Before you could say anything else, he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back into his chest again, resting his forehead against yours.
“What are you doing?” you whispered, concerned about his poor time management and the relatively open space that you were in. The door was closed this time, but not locked.
“Nothing,” he replied softly. His lower lip brushed against yours as he spoke. You felt dangerously light. “If you say I’m late.”
“Well, n-not yet... You have about,” your breath hitched momentarily when he pressed a gentle kiss just under your jaw, “a minute and forty-five seconds left.”
“Well, then,” he lifted his eyes to look at you again, but only for a moment, “I have to make the most of my,” his lips touched yours slowly, but firmly, “one minute and,” his quick kiss gained more force, “thirty seconds.”
You were laughing by the time he kissed you again, and he could not stop himself from smiling, too. He knew he was running late, but he kept his lips on yours, the kiss focused, lingering, and locked your taste in a separate part of his brain—a part so full of you that it was beginning to overtake other, much less important parts.
“I love you,” he whispered, pulling away.
His lips glistened slightly from your gloss. Your heart, having already finished three laps around the venue, had now taken up parkour in the crevices of your chest.
“I love you,” you replied. You ran your fingers down his cheek, forgetting yourself, almost, when he leaned into your touch. Then you pulled back and nodded at the door. “Go now. I’ll see you after the show tonight. There’s, uh—I have a plan I want to discuss with you.”
Jungkook was about to object—you couldn’t remove your hands from his skin so abruptly, there was a certain procedure you had to follow to ensure he could still breathe when you were no longer touching him, similar to replacing nicotine patches for someone trying to quit smoking—but then he realised what you were saying.
“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow and stayed still despite your utmost attempts to push his shoulder to get him to turn around. “About Sid?”
You nodded. “Yeah. But I’ll explain later.”
You expected him to question this, to try to find out what the plan was right now, but he did no such thing. He felt happy and optimistic—kissing you might have helped with that—so he did not need to know more. You could have said that you were taking all of your staff to Argentina to escape Sid, and he would have grabbed his sunglasses.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m in, either way. Operation Cobra-Rabbit.”
“Operat—” You scoffed, suddenly remembering your conversation after the film yesterday. “We’re not calling it that. It’s not a secret operation, it doesn’t need a name. You’re going to your soundcheck now, and then we’ll—”
“How about Operation: Escape from London?” he suggested, dragging his feet as you pushed him towards the door. “Since, you know, we’re in—”
“No,” you said. “Go.”
He didn’t protest this time, because Seokjin’s angry, hurried footsteps were already reverberating down the corridor, and Jungkook did not want to piss him off more. Still, he paused again by the door, giving you one last overly dramatic nod over his shoulder as if he were in a spy film. Then he left with a triumphant fist in the air after finally earning a chuckle from you.
You shook your head as he shut the door of the room behind himself, leaving you alone—not for very long, however.
Less than a minute later, as you returned to the table that Hoseok and Yoongi had dragged to the centre of the room for your meeting, you heard the door open again. You lifted your head, ready to scold Jungkook, and saw Namjoon instead, peeking inside sheepishly.
“Hey,” he greeted, hesitating in the doorway. “Didn’t want to interrupt your meeting, so I, uh, waited until it’s over. Do you have a minute?”
A knot tightened in the pit of your stomach. There were too many things that already took you by surprise today. You were not sure how many more of them you could take.
“You wouldn’t have interrupted,” you said, mustering a smile. “You’re part of the team. Come in.”
Namjoon slipped into the room without any sound at all and took a moment to close the door, his hand lingering on the engraved knob.
“Yeah, uh—I just want to have a quick word with you,” he said, turning around. “About why I called CJ in advance.”
“Oh. You don’t have to explain that,” you said. “It—that was a good decision. Thank you for thinking of it. You might have really saved—”
Namjoon started to speak in the middle of your sentence as if he hadn’t heard you.
“I was with Yoongi in his room, working on the song, when we saw Sid’s post,” he said, clearly battling his guilt about the extra attention the picture had gained because of him. He wanted you to know that he had no bad intentions. “It was about four in the morning when we—well, actually, a fan sent it to Yoongi, and asked, “oh my god, is this the cover of your new album?” Obviously, Yoongi and I thought that was impossible; we haven’t even decided when we’re releasing this new song. We could tell that Sid was just trying to mess with Jungkook, and that it had to be you in that picture with him.”
Self-conscious when he gave you a questioning glance, you brought a hand over your neck. “It is.”
“Yeah. So, I called CJ right away,” Namjoon continued. “I don’t think I even had a clear plan of what I was going to say to him or what time it was for him. But he picked up, and I just blurted out, “our album cover leaked,” because that was what that fan had assumed. And why not, you know? If the fans think that’s what happened, why not utilise that to eradicate whatever Sid was trying to do? The picture’s really good. Might as well use it for—for a good cause, instead of whatever Sid was hoping for.”
“Right. Yeah. Exactly,” you said. The more words you used to agree with him, the clearer it became that you still wished you could have escaped this situation. “And now Sid’s caption makes it seem like he’s just—”
“Congratulating them,” Namjoon finished for you. “Happy for you, he’d said. Makes sense.”
“Yeah.”
The two of you allowed for several quiet moments to pass, lost in your own thoughts. Namjoon shifted his weight to his right leg and tucked his thumb into his belt loop.
“I, um—I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, though,” he said, looking up. “I knew things might get… weird if I didn’t do anything. The picture itself might not have caused any harm, but given the speculation surrounding it, and your upcoming promotion… I thought that using the picture as an album cover was just safer.”
“Yeah, it—no, I—I’m glad you did that, really,” you said, a little thrown off by the mention of your promotion. “I don’t know if I would have thought of a solution like that.”
Namjoon believed you would have come up with a similar plan quite easily. The problem was that you did not want to draw even more attention to the picture.
“Y-you said—um,” you added, “did you know that CJ was going to call me?”
His pursed lips turned into a timid smile.
“I heard some things…” he admitted.
You arched a surprised eyebrow. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I hear a lot of things you wouldn’t want to know.”
You nodded. You were fortunate to work with many amazing people, but you had heard their stories. You knew what this industry had been like to them before they reached this point. And you felt very blessed that these same people now shielded you from the negativity that they had not been able to escape themselves.
“Alright,” you said. You were glad, all of a sudden, that CJ had not elaborated on his decision to suddenly promote you. “That’s fair enough.”
You returned to your belongings, sliding your phone into your pocket, and Namjoon observed you in silence for a second, only moving to assist you when you began to push the table back to its original place by the window.
“So,” he said, once the room was restored to its former order, “how come you look so worried? Head Manager! That’s great.”
“Oh,” you said. “It is great.”
Namjoon knew there was more. The two of you hadn’t had many chances to have private conversations during this tour, but usually, you were the person he came to talk to about the problems in his job, and he expected the same from you.
He gestured towards the couch next to the table and waited until you took a seat before sitting down next to you with an expectant look on his face.
“It—well, really, this is great,” you said, clasping your hands together as you rested your elbows on your knees. This was standard, Namjoon knew. You needed a minute to admit what was bothering you. “I’m grateful. There’s just a lot of stuff going on right now. Nothing I want to trouble you with, but, uh, this promotion feels… well, it feels like my work had very little to do with it. They found out about Reconnaissance and just decided to promote me. I’m happy, of course, but I wish they had waited until after the tour, so I could say, with confidence, that this was due to everything I’ve achieved with Rated Riot. And not just because Nick Zhou called me one time.”
Namjoon appeared to be highly interested in one specific crack in the floorboards.
“But this is because of everything you’ve achieved with Rated Riot,” he said, not looking up. You wondered if he did that on purpose, to make you feel less like you were talking to a specific person, and more like you were just talking—so you would not feel bad about sharing your troubles. “You took the abstract concept of a European tour and brought it to life. And then Rated Riot got on stage, and the whole Europe fell in love with them. But you brought them here. You looked after them. And the staff. And, actually, their personal belongings. Sorry about Tilburg.”
You smiled, recalling the Lost Laptops of Tilburg.
“It’s nothing. I was just doing my job,” you said. “And everyone on this tour looks after one another. That—well, that’s the whole point, I—”
“No,” he disagreed, finally giving you a look. “You’re never just doing your job. You’re always doing more. You earned this. Accept it.”
Namjoon had used a very similar tone to defend you from bitter, middle-aged men who had a problem with your promotion after CJ’s assistant had brought it up at the last Zoom meeting with the executives at the company. Their issue was your young age. Namjoon did not think a person needed to start balding to be awarded for their great work.
“CJ actually didn’t even give me the option to refuse,” you said, your smile turning wry. “He just told me I’m getting promoted and I felt like I had to go along with it.”
Namjoon nodded knowingly. He had several similar experiences with Christian Jett before. He had even played tennis with him once and called him Chris—not CJ—by accident. Luckily, he managed to duck before a tennis ball came hurling at his head. Namjoon knew CJ did not give suggestions; he gave orders.
“Would you have refused, if he’d asked?” he asked you.
“No, but…” You spun your ring around your index finger and settled back against the couch. “Can I be honest?”
“Of course.”
“I am—honestly, I’m also worried about my relationship with Jungkook,” you said.
Namjoon noted that this was the first time you brought this up to him without encouragement. Despite his surprise, however, he did not want to let the awkward silence take over the room, so he coughed politely into his fist and tried to reply, not particularly smoothly.
“What do you—what are you worried about?” he asked, even though that was obvious.
“I talked to Jin the other day,” you said. “He said that as long as the band makes a profit, no one’s going to care—which is true enough. But with this happening, with Rated Riot growing more and more popular, with my promotion… they will have to care. Our relationship has, obviously, never been strictly professional. And now it could hinder their plans for the band.”
Namjoon mulled over this for a minute, his gaze drifting to the expanse of the empty room. He had obviously had similar thoughts as you when he made the call to CJ, but now he realised that this was only half the picture.
“If they’re promoting you,” he began, his voice steady against the subdued air in the room, “that obviously means they want to keep you in the company. So, when they learn about your relationship, they definitely won’t immediately decide to fire you. I suppose they will ask you to end the relationship, or they won’t care about it at all. Those are the only two logical possibilities, right?”
“Right,” you agreed.
“If they tell you to end it,” Namjoon continued, “I think you’re in a position to present them with a similar ultimatum. Tell them that you will leave if they won’t accept your relationship. That is risky, I’ll admit. But they need you. And, from what I hear, they know you have other options.”
There was a quality about Namjoon that you really admired. Often, when people wanted to make someone feel better, they said things that they knew would lift their spirits—you appreciated that as well, just in a different way. Namjoon, on the other hand, managed to offer comfort tempered with rationality.
You took a deep breath and stretched your legs.
“Yeah,” you said. “Negotiate, is what you’re telling me.”
“Yes. More or less,” he confirmed. “But, of course, you have to decide what, uh—what you will do if they refuse to do it your way.”
You shook your head.
“I’ve already decided,” you said. The smile on your face was as sad as smiles could be. “If they will tell me it’s one or the other, I won’t choose to stay at the company. I’ll choose him.”
Namjoon nodded and hung his head. He hoped you would think he did that in solidarity, but, really, he was trying to hide his smile. Of course, he was a little worried about the label’s reaction. But he was also happy for you and Jungkook.
Not to mention, he had been roped into joining the bet about your relationship backstage—Seokjin was very loud, and Namjoon embarrassed very easily—and now he might have been the first to find out that he’d won.
He couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “I—are you guys, um, back together, then?”
“Honestly,” you said, snickering at the absurdity of your position, “at this point, it feels like we never even broke up.”
Namjoon’s smile was too big to hide it. “So, you are, then.”
“We are. And, it’s—you know,” you said with a shrug that was not one bit nonchalant, despite your best attempts to make it seem so, “I’d love to still be able to keep working with you guys despite that, but, uh—I’ll deal with whatever happens. If they will think this is unacceptable, I’ll leave.”
“It may not come to that,” he said, his tone reassuring, yet grounded. “There’s still a good chance that the label won’t care. I mean, Taehyung is in a relationship.”
“Yeah,” you gave him a skeptical look, “but Luna isn’t working with him.”
“True,” he acknowledged before pursuing his point further, “but that relationship only has a positive impact on the band. He’s relaxed when she’s here, her presence helps him cope with the stress of the tour… on and on this list goes.”
That was a great observation, of course. Not to mention, you enjoyed having Luna around, too. But you knew that there was more to the story.
“I had to fight for that, though,” you said. “Jett Records didn’t think we should allow any girlfriends, friends, or relatives on tour. I had a different opinion.”
Namjoon did not know this, but his surprise quickly turned to pride.
“Oh,” he said, beaming. “But you won, though. They allowed our loved ones to join. You got your way.”
“Yes, but that could be because they didn’t think the tour would be this successful,” you countered. “Sure, most of the dates sold out before we came here, but it—that’s the minimum requirement. You know that. So, alright, the label already knew that Rated Riot would gather two or three thousand people every night. But they didn’t realise there’d be another thousand waiting outside the venue in every city we visited. Their attitude might change now that they know about the level of interest in the band.”
Namjoon noticed a tentative smile tugging at your lips. Despite your concerns about the future, the fact was that this tour—with all its mishaps and accidents—had already surpassed everyone’s expectations. Rated Riot were on a clear path to success and the unexpected crowds at each venue made it impossible not to feel excited, no matter what happened next.
“That’s just the thing, though,” Namjoon said, his eyes kind. “When you came to manage Rated Riot, they were still playing in bars and restaurants. All they had was potential. But with you, they’re starting to live up to it. Not to mention... there has to be a reason why Nick wanted to scout you for Reconnaissance. The label knows they need you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in such a rush to promote you without even asking if you agree.”
You realised you hadn’t thought of it like that. But Namjoon was right. Everything he’d said to you was true.
You loved your job, and you were good at it. It was just this one hiccup in your otherwise excellent performance as the band’s manager that made you doubt everything you’ve done for them: you were dating the lead vocalist.
But you listened to Namjoon now, and you realised your thoughts weren’t fair. Your relationship with Jungkook did not—and never would—impact your ability to do your job, and do it well. It was not an indicator of the quality of your work. It was not proof of your lack of effort or motivation.
You were learning, through agonising trial and error almost every day, that these two roles—manager and girlfriend—could co-exist. You did not need to relinquish one to succeed at the other.
Namjoon noticed that your eyes seemed brighter, your shoulders were less hunched and you no longer averted your gaze when he looked at you. The melodic strains you heard as the band finally started their soundcheck likely helped you calm down, too.
“I realise,” you admitted, “that I am nervous about big changes. About multiple big changes, concurrently.”
Namjoon had to lean in closer to be able to hear you—Hoseok pounded his drums behind the wall as if his life depended on it.
“I think that’s normal,” he noted. “Who wouldn’t be?”
He hoped to remind you that it was very easy to get lost in your feelings and experiences, and convince yourself that you were going through them alone—but you weren’t. And you saw that very clearly today.
“And it’s okay,” he continued. “I can’t make decisions for you, but you’re—you have us. We’ll always have your back. We won’t sit idly if we find out the label made you resign.”
You took a breath and finally allowed the gratitude in your heart to really settle.
“Thank you,” you said. “For everything. I really liked your advice about standing my ground. I think I’ll try to follow it.”
Namjoon smiled at this and nudged your shoulder with his. Smiling in response, you nudged his right back.
You’ve found your family when you met Rated Riot. They made bets about your relationship, they teased each other at nearly every possible moment, they complained and argued, but they supported each other with unwavering loyalty. And you were prepared to fight, if it came to it, to stay with them.
You were convinced that CJ had put a hex on you, because you had to spend the rest of the day on your phone, arranging interviews, giving comments about the band’s plans for the future, and pacing in the corridors of the venue. You could not even return to the hotel to pick up your forgotten laptop, you had to do all the work on your phone.
You still had to figure out what happened to Maggie’s phone, but you resolved to track down Minjun and ask him about Sid and Jude later, after the incessant calls stopped. For some reason, everyone demanded to talk to you in Dutch or Swedish or something that sounded vaguely German, and all you could gather from their speech was ‘Rated Riot’ and a questioning tone at the end of the sentence.
You still hadn’t finished by the time Rated Riot began their set on stage, so you had to return to the dressing room for some silence, no matter how much you’d missed hearing the way the audience responded to the band. Thankfully, you only had two more calls to get through—both in Swedish, much to your enormous joy.
After you left the changing room to finally join Luna by the stage, you heard a peculiar sound—a soft, conspiratorial shushing from somewhere in the corridor backstage, like someone trying to beckon a cautious cat.
“Psst. Psst. Pss—hey!”
You did not immediately realise that this was aimed at you. Stopping, you looked around warily until you finally spotted Minjun’s head peeking out from behind the corridor wall. He was trying not to attract too much attention to himself, so he did not use your name.
“What’s going on?” you asked, approaching him. “Why—”
“Come with me.”
“Wh—” you began, but Minjun’s hand darted out from behind the wall, joining his head, and he seized your wrist.
He pulled you down the corridor with an urgency that made your heart drop to your knees and he refused to stop no matter how much you struggled to watch your steps.
“What’s going on?” you demanded, altering between genuine fear and irritation.
“Jude’s here,” Minjun said and tripped over something as soon as he did, forcing you to stumble, too.
“Jude—with Sid?” you asked, your insides stirring with newfound horror.
Jude never went anywhere alone, and you did not like this rush that Minjun was in to get to him. You tried once more to stop running, or slow down at the very least, but Minjun was a train, running late on schedule.
“No,” he said, his grip on your wrist firm, his eyes frantic. “Alone.”
“Why?” you pressed.
He did not reply until he brought you to a halt outside the door at the far end of the corridor, leading to what appeared to be either a utility closet or an unusually small dressing room.
“Come in,” he said then, without any explanation, and held the door open for you.
You pushed the door further.
Jude stood before you inside the room. He looked more transparent than he had at the club the other night, and you weren’t sure if this wasn’t just a hazy memory. He was holding your handbag in his hands.
You wished you were back on the phone with the impatient Swedish journalist from before.
“Hi. This is yours,” Jude said awkwardly, extending your bag towards you.
You stood in the doorway and did not move. “How did you get that?”
Minjun had to gently push your arm with his shoulder so he could enter the room. Jude appeared very small as he held out your bag and tried to find his words.
“I, um—after I talked to you at the club,” he said, “I told Sid that I saw you, and he—he made me hang around and wait until you weren’t paying attention. I told him I knew which table you and your friends were at, and he thought—h-he wanted your phone.”
He waved the handbag, his alarmingly thin arms growing tired, and you finally took it from him. Maggie’s phone was inside, snug among scattered receipts.
Luna had been right—not that you doubted her for a second. And it made sense now, why Jude had lingered that night: he was waiting for Maggie and Luna to pick a table.
“I ju—I just had to wait until you all went dancing,” Jude continued, his voice unsteady. “A-and I was supposed to grab your phone. Sid was—he was desperate.”
Your posture was rigid, your eyes locked on Jude in a way that stopped him from breaking eye contact, and even Minjun felt a little uncomfortable. He knew more of what happened, after all; Jude had to explain it all to him to persuade him to find you. Minjun did nothing to interfere now, however. Jude was the one who wanted to talk to you, so he should have been the one to convince you to listen.
“Why?” you asked finally, your voice cutting through the tense silence, and slicing into Jude’s fragile confidence.
He glanced at Minjun, who gave him a small nod. Encouraged, Jude rubbed his hands together and began to speak. He could taste bile at the back of his throat, but the bitter sensation had been there for a while.
“He was looking for something to use against you and Jungkook,” he explained. “He hoped to find an old picture or video of the two of you together. When you were—when you dated. He wanted t-to cause a little trouble. If he couldn’t find anything, then h-he would have called Jungkook from your phone to, um—to give him the wrong idea.”
You gritted your teeth, reminding yourself that Jude was the accessory and the messenger. Your desire to slam someone’s face into a wall was not aimed at him.
“This isn’t mine, though,” you said, nodding at the phone inside your bag.
“Well, wh—it doesn’t matter,” Jude dismissed it with a shrug that seemed to propel his whole body backwards. “There were a lot of pictures from backstage in the gallery. Sid thought that was good enough.”
You wished Luna or Maggie were here with you right now, maybe both. Granted, Maggie might have attacked Jude—and you weren’t sure if you would have tried to restrain her, given your own urges—but at least you wouldn’t be standing here alone, trying to make sense of what was happening. Minjun’s quiet presence in the corner of the room did not offer much comfort. He was poised to intervene as if he was waiting for you to throw a punch.
“And why are you here?” you asked Jude.
You noticed that he was leaning slightly to one side despite standing firmly on both feet, and you wondered if this was a sign of how accustomed he was to standing on Sid’s right. Or maybe he was just drunk or under the influence of something stronger.
“Because you—you don’t owe me anything,” Jude replied, and you felt even more confused. His eyes looked watery, the edges of his pupils blurred. “You hate me, actually. And you have that right, I haven’t—I haven’t been very nice to you over the years. But you—you’re the one who told me to be careful. And Sid—I was—he left me for dead when he got bored later that night.”
You frowned, meeting Minjun’s brooding eyes across the room. He knew about this, you could tell. But he wanted Jude to do the talking.
Jude continued, “it started with a nosebleed. Then, I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. Sid tossed me another bag of ice as if I hadn’t already taken enough.”
You were slow to grasp that “ice” did not mean frozen water in this case, and you wondered how many different ways to describe meth Jude knew at this point.
Then you needed another second to stop your heart from overexerting itself. Your initial plan for Sid paled in comparison to the new one burgeoning in the dark depths of your mind.
“A-and then he left the hotel between my third and fourth wheeze,” Jude finished. “He said he didn’t have time for this shit.”
You allowed Minjun to give the appropriate reactions to the story—and he nodded empathetically every few seconds—while you were only half-listening.
This happened in their hotel room, then. And Jude had said, another bag.
How many bags of methamphetamine did Sid keep in his hotel room in a foreign country with possibly very strict drug regulations?
“I-I remembered you, sud—suddenly,” Jude stammered when you did not respond. You looked up, surprised by the weight of your presence in his memory. “You told me to drink water. I drank a lot that night, but it—it obviously wasn’t water. Water was—it’s not what we usually drink. I didn’t—but there was half a bottle in the room, so I finished that. I could see a little clearer after that. Or so I thought. I went to the sink, and—and drank as much tap water as I could bef—before I threw up.”
“You might have overdosed,” you observed, studying his appearance again. His bronze complexion had taken an unsettling, ashy pallor. His hands were shaking and he kept rubbing them together. He looked cold, but beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. “Are you—”
“I don’t—it’s not my first time taking a bit too much,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow after he sensed your scrutiny. You blinked and looked away. “I’ve never really—never thought I would die before, so that was new. B-but I don’t think that I—I didn’t overdose. I think I just lost track of time because I was—I was waiting to steal your bag. For Sid.” His right hand trembled so awfully that he had to clutch it with his left to steady himself. “I’m really sorry.”
“Jude, I’m—”
“He left me for dead,” he reiterated before you could suggest calling a doctor. “You were right. He doesn’t care. I-I could have—I was de—dehyder—”
“Dehydrated,” you supplied.
“Yeah. That,” he affirmed, pausing to give you a grateful smile, then looking at Minjun for approval. Minjun did not move. Jude lowered his gaze again. “A-and he thought I was being a nuisance. He thought another dose would help me, and he just left.”
“And are you sure you don’t need help?” you finally asked. Your tone was strict, but Jude was touched by the sentiment so much that he swayed slightly on his feet. “You look like you could use some.”
He cast a pleading look at Minjun, and you feared that he was teetering on the verge of tears.
“Shit—y-you see,” he said, though it was not clear if he was addressing you or Minjun. “That’s what I mean. I don—I am—I’m fine now. I’m—I’ll be fine. I’m going home. I won’t go back to the hotel.”
Your surprise was quick and obvious, prompting Jude to launch into a hurried, almost fanatical explanation. He was eager to break through the formidable barriers of his usual reticence, which felt awkward and embarrassing now that Sid wasn’t here to tell him to keep quiet.
“I don’t want shit—I don’t want to deal with his shit anymore,” he said. “I’m flying home. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that. Y-you don’t even—you didn’t have to say anything to me, especially after all that I’ve done, but you said that, you told me to look after myself, a-and I don’t know. You might have saved my life that night. And—and you’re—y-you want to help me now. I’m—I’ll be okay. I’m just—I’m sorry.”
You winced at his exaggeration about your conversation at the club, but Minjun was the only one who’d noticed it. Jude was oblivious in his fervent need to get the words out, to explain, to apologise, to tell you how thankful he was.
You thought his gratitude was misplaced. He would have realised what to do in that situation anyway; he’d said something similar had already happened before, even if it hadn’t been as severe. He knew he had to drink if he took substances that could lead to overheating—you just happened to repeat it to him at a convenient time.
But just as you prepared to reply, the words died on your tongue.
You realised you could use his gratitude and guilt.
“Jude,” you said, breaking the rhythm of his laboured, frantic breaths. “If you really are okay, how—how would you feel about getting even with Sid for treating you like that?”
He stopped breathing for a second, confused. “W-what do you mean?”
Your gaze shifted to Minjun, whose initial surprise quickly melted into a realisation that lit up his features. He nodded enthusiastically.
“I have this idea,” you continued, returning your attention to Jude, who remained anchored against the back wall of the room, resembling a child caught drawing on the walls with a permanent marker. “But I would need you to stay in London a bit longer. Just a day or two. Could you do that?”
“That would be fair, I think,” Minjun added hastily. Jude hadn’t even processed your request yet. “It’s the least you can do after she practically saved your life—which she really didn’t have to do. I mean, you stole her bag.”
“I—but Sid asked me to do that!” Jude protested, panicked once more. He looked at you, his brows knit in an expression of profound desperation. He genuinely felt indebted to you, and he was dying to make it right. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t want to. You’ve never done anything wrong to me.”
“Well, exactly,” Minjun continued before you could respond. He could tell that Jude’s abnormally energetic apologies troubled you. “You kind of owe her, you know?”
Jude knew. You could tell he knew because he began to rub his hands together faster, his fingers restless, agitated as they ran over his calloused skin. He looked frightened. He looked like half of a person.
You felt the first threads of remorse coil around your mind for taking advantage of him in a state like this.
“Well, I—I—o-of course, I guess,” Jude acquiesced, though his compliance seemed strained—much like the rest of his actions, really. He needed to lie in bed for a week or two. “W-what would I have to do?”
You turned back to Minjun, who appeared to be waiting for you to give Jude any command whatsoever. Jude, in turn, appeared willing to comply with any command.
It occurred to you that perhaps Jude’s obedience to Sid did not stem from a specific attachment to him. Perhaps Jude had simply chosen to surrender his free will, and now he gravitated towards anyone who could make decisions on his behalf—as long as he could justify it to himself: a decades-long friendship with Sid, or a perceived debt he owed you.
Jude—as Minjun had suggested before—just didn’t know any better. And it was so easy, so very simple for him to just let someone else take the reins. To float down the stream instead of fighting it.
“Just keep spending time with Sid like you used to, okay?” you instructed. “Act as if nothing happened between you, like everything’s alright. Yeah? And we’ll be in touch with you.”
“Yeah,” Jude replied slowly. It took him a few seconds to grasp what had been said to him. You wondered if he’d always been this way, or if this was a lingering effect of all that he had to endure in the past twenty-four hours. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“That’s great,” you said. And then, because he continued to look smaller than his shadow, you added, “I, um—I understand you’re not a fan of hospitals, but how do you feel about pharmacies? They have a great selection of supplements I think you should try.”
You handed Minjun your handbag and he watched, in bewilderment, as you led Jude out of the room. You gave Jude step-by-step instructions—in excruciating detail that Minjun thought Jude did not deserve—about what to say at the pharmacy, which vitamins to seek, what nutritional products to consider, how to drink water, what fruit to buy on the way back to the hotel, and what to tell Sid if he asked questions about any of this.
Jude wrote it all down on his phone—a process that consumed an additional twenty minutes outside the venue—before he finally thanked you, apologised another dozen times, and walked away, leaning against the side of the building for support.
When you rejoined Minjun, you felt like you had just finished teaching six kindergarten classes.
“He’s gone,” you announced, sinking into the only armchair in the cramped room. Your foot came to rest on the handle of a discarded broom. You still weren’t sure what the purpose of this room was.
“Why’d you do all that for him?” Minjun asked, handing you your bag and leaning against the wall.
“Because I don’t want Rated Riot’s opening act to be Jude dropping dead,” you retorted. “He’s severely malnourished. Does he even eat when he—anyway. I don’t know what’s going on with his nervous system, he was shaking the whole time he was here. I don’t—I’m not Sid. I can’t stand to talk to someone half-dead without trying to do something.”
“Yeah,” Minjun said, still a little amazed at your lack of hesitation when you walked Jude outside. Jude had certainly never been as terrible as Sid, but he was still Sid’s closest friend. Yet, you were eager to help him feel better, when even Minjun had given up. “You’re not Sid. That’s what got us to this point. But you, um—you still didn’t have to go to such lengths for Jude. He… he’s always had withdrawal issues. He’s going to take something as soon as he goes back to the hotel, and he’ll probably be fine again.”
You exhaled. Probably was a very heavy word to carry on your shoulders everywhere you went.
“Yeah, but at least now my conscience won’t keep me up at night,” you said, stretching your arms over your head. “Besides, we’re kind of using him, so we obviously need him alive.”
“True…” Minjun faltered, his eyes shifting to the only minuscule window in the room and squinting. He could not see anything beyond the thick glass, obscured by rain residue. “It, uh—it’s great that Jude can be our man on the inside. I’m glad he realised what a fucking bag of shit Sid is. But, honestly, I’m not sure we can trust him if we send him straight back to that hotel. He might have a change of heart.”
“I know,” you admitted. Even if Jude felt indebted to you and demonstrated that by returning Maggie’s phone, his gratitude could prove temporary. Sid had an exceptional talent for coaxing good people into bad deeds. “That’s why I’m not telling Jude anything else we’re going to do.”
Minjun turned back to look at you, intrigued. “And what is it that we’re going to do?”
“I need to do some research first,” you said, your thoughts speeding a hundred miles per minute. “Did Sid reach out to you at any point over these past few days?”
“No.”
“Alright, so it’s just Jungkook, then.” You leaned forward, considering this. “I-I don’t get it, to be honest. I mean, I get that Sid is the spawn of the devil, but really, why is he—why does he care so much? Because this isn’t some prank. He’s digging up old videos, posting pictures that could have serious consequences for us, and he’s—he made Jude hang around the club to steal my fucking bag. That’s so stupid and over-the-top that I’m not even—I mean, does he really have nothing better to do?”
Minjun did not seem to share your confusion, and your shoulders slumped in disappointment. Clearly, Minjun did not think this was out of character for Sid at all.
“Well, yeah, he doesn’t have anything else going on,” Minjun said. “He doesn’t have a job. He has money and twenty-four hours in a day. Might as well torment people. Besides, he feels wronged. He won that bet he had with Jungkook, but—”
“No, I get that,” you interrupted, your gaze drifting to the same window that Minjun had attempted to look through before. “He’s always done this. But it makes no sense to me. Fucking with people just because he thinks they’re not miserable enough. That has to be some sort of a latent inferiority complex, this need he has to prove to everyone that he’s better than them. But I don’t—he’s going to have to take his insecurities elsewhere. He’ll have to fuck off. We’ll leave him no other choice.”
When you did not succeed in seeing past the thick fog over the glass, you turned back to Minjun again. He was grinning, for some reason, his bright smile standing out against the sombre atmosphere in the room.
“What?” you asked.
“Nothing.” He chuckled, excitement twirling in his eyes. “I’m glad you and Jungkook are back together.”
You looked away, pensive.
“Come on,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “Let’s go defeat evil. I’ll help with your research.”
Minjun ended up providing fantastic assistance, and by the time the two of you had exhausted all the keywords in your Google search, you had a rough outline of what you’d do with Sid. You and Minjun both agreed that you needed Jungkook’s input, so the three of you would need to meet sometime later to finalise your strategy and set it into motion.
In the meantime, you had to find your friends, return Maggie’s phone, and update them on everything that had happened since you’d last seen them.
When you entered Rated Riot’s dressing room, the walls were pulsating with the beat of an old Arctic Monkeys song, blaring unapologetically from Yoongi’s Bluetooth speaker. You had thought you felt completely drained from this day, but the sight of everyone celebrating as they always did—as if it were the final show of the tour, the venue filled with their laughter, the floor wet from their spilt drinks—lifted your mood and your energy levels immeasurably.
Maggie was the first to catch your eye in the crowd of people. As soon as you returned her phone, a tipsy Yoongi interjected affectionately, “you find everyone’s lost eletornicks!”—which was almost an actual word, so you figured he still had room for more alcohol. He drifted away before you could say anything else, moving his shoulders to the rhythm of “Snap Out Of It” and joining Hoseok by the drinks table.
Luna noticed the slight commotion and approached you. As soon as you finished telling the girls what happened to your handbag, she broke into a surprisingly graceful, but very, very drunken performance of flailing her limbs and singing, “I knew it! I fucking knew it!” while Taehyung watched her from the doorway with unmistakable fondness. He had genuinely never looked more in love.
Then Maggie caught you off guard by wrapping her arms around you—as if you’d crossed Middle Earth and battled Smeagol for her phone—and you realised how safe, happy, and comfortable you felt here. It was such a stark contrast to the unease you had felt in Jude’s presence that you found yourself laughing, your chest feather-light.
Someone behind you suddenly cleared their throat—with such force that it sounded like they coughed up half of a lung—and Maggie pulled back, allowing you both to turn around.
Jungkook looked like he had been waiting for you to notice him for a while. Your friend snickered and hugged you once more before taking an intentionally ostentatious step back and bowing.
“She’s all yours if she wishes,” Maggie proclaimed to Jungkook, who turned to you, his eyebrows raised.
You nodded. “She wishes.”
Chuckling, he pulled you close. He was still high from the concert and just as lively and animated as everyone else in the room. The second he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face in your neck, he refused to let go, finding that only fair since you had ended up missing his show tonight.
You realised, while fighting for breath in his suffocating grip, that the two of you did not look strange or inappropriate to anyone who noticed you, despite standing almost in the middle of the room, wrapped around each other. You expected to feel anxious about the public display, and were surprised to feel comforted instead.
No one cared.
Unbeknownst to you, the bet backstage had ended, and now that everyone here knew that you and Jungkook were back together, they were no longer invested. They won their money—or lost, in a few cases—and moved on to make bets about whether Taehyung, who was too prideful to sing without his bass, would start singing along to Luna’s playlist on Yoongi’s phone.
No one cared.
Surrendering to Jungkook’s touch, you abandoned your other plans and relocated with him to the far corner of the room, separated from most of the dangerous festivities—Seokjin and Hoseok had bumped foreheads while dancing just as you walked past them—by a heavy rack of clothes.
Jungkook lied down on the couch with his head on your lap, recounting how he had accidentally turned off his microphone in the middle of his break during the encore and had to yell his speech at the audience because he couldn’t turn it back on.
“I’m glad your throat is alright,” you remarked. The warmth of your touch and the lightness of your tone filled him with something that tasted like honey on his tongue. “The rest of the guys also sound like they just got off the tallest ride at the amusement park.”
Jungkook’s laughter was soft, laced with a lingering echo of the concert that still reverberated in his mind amidst the lively chatter and the music in the dressing room.
“After the show,” he said with an unusual gravity in his tone, juxtaposed against the serenity in his eyes while you ran your fingers through his hair, “someone asked Yoongi and me about our new music. They asked if the picture on Sid’s account was a leaked album cover. We said yes. So, that—that’s confirmed now.”
Your hand stilled, and Jungkook lifted his head. He did not like the emotion he saw in your eyes when he looked at you and he felt melancholy, all of a sudden, for the moment you’d just shared. He wished he hadn’t said anything.
“Oh,” you replied. “That’s good.”
But it didn’t feel good. He couldn’t shake the memory of the way you’d looked after the band had unanimously decided to use the picture as the cover art for their next single. It seemed like the fact that everyone knew about your relationship was physically weighing on you.
He hadn’t said anything to you earlier, not wanting to exacerbate your anxiety, but he couldn’t keep this to himself now.
You’d promised each other communication.
“I—uh,” he sat up properly and you felt an odd ache inside when his head was no longer resting in your lap, “I know you’re not comfortable with us using the picture for that, um—for that particular purpose. And—and I get that. I just, uh—I just wanted to ask if y—if the actual problem here is that others know about us.”
The look on his face was an echo of your conversation last night. It threw you off balance, this statement, not even an actual question, and you were all the more aware of the loud beating in your chest and in your head. The music drowned out any chance of others overhearing your conversation, but it also muffled your thoughts.
You took a deep breath, so you could explain everything.
“No,” you said. Then once more, to make sure he heard you, “no. That’s not it. I don’t want—my problem is that we barely had one day together, you know? I would have liked some time alone with you before it all exploded. But Sid posted that picture, and now—now everyone in this room knows we’re definitely together. I mean, they already suspected it, since we’re not as discreet as I liked to think. But, uh, still. I am learning to be okay with others knowing, though. And I want you despite that. Despite others. Despite everything. I want to be with you. I just wanted to reveal our relationship to the public in our own time. Not Sid’s.”
Jungkook was not sure if you said anything else after I want you, because he certainly had not heard a word.
Frankly, he didn’t care about any public pictures. He wouldn’t have cared if a hurricane swept through the place, tearing down buildings and leaving debris that spelled out your names in the shape of a heart. But he knew you cared.
And yet—I want you despite everything.
He was crazy. Positively mad. A raving lunatic, really. He wondered if there was any medicine to subdue his symptoms because he did not think this was good for his health.
“Okay,” he said, looking down to get his feelings and his thoughts together. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re good,” you said. “It was—a lot of things happened today, and I was—I feel like I’m losing my head a little bit. But you and I are not—we’re not one of the things I’m confused about.”
He gave you a concerned look as he settled back on the couch. “What happened?”
You took a breath and recounted the story about Maggie’s missing phone, Luna’s observation—manifestation, almost—and Jude’s visit, which sparked the idea to include him in your plan to retaliate against Sid.
Jungkook spent a minute nodding, rubbing his chin, and moving his eyebrows up and down and sideways.
“Okay, that—that’s a lot of—and, uh—” He leaned forward, feeling a bit like the two of you had lived through an entire decade in one day. He could not summarise it all in one word. “What’s your plan?”
You took another breath. You and Minjun had checked and double-checked everything, so you were sure you had this part of your research right. The challenge of your plan came from the parts that couldn’t be researched in advance—the parts where you needed Jungkook.
“Did you know,” you started, “that the penalty for methamphetamine possession in the UK is up to seven years in prison? Apparently, it’s a class A drug.”
Furrowing his brows, Jungkook gave a slight nod of his head. “Uh… okay.”
“Right. Well, see,” you were sitting on the very edge of the couch, restless suddenly, “Jude mentioned tripping on ecstasy and speed that night I saw him at the club. And now, while returning Maggie’s phone, he mentioned Sid casually giving him a bag of meth. Just there, in his hotel room.”
“Mmhm, he—wait.” Jungkook straightened. “W-what are you saying?”
Someone jostled the rack of clothes next to your couch, causing a few hangers to clatter to the floor. You heard an excited shriek, followed by laughter, as two pairs of hands scrambled to pick up the clothes and hang them back in place.
You lowered your voice and moved closer to Jungkook on the couch. “You know what I’m saying.”
“I’m—”
“If a penalty exceeds twelve months,” you continued, “a person may be deported. That also sounds alright.”
Jungkook paused to listen to the sounds inside the room: the clothes rack had now been pushed back, shielding you from the rest of the room again, but limiting his view. He could hear Taehyung singing along to “Do I Wanna Know?” by the drinks table while Luna and Maggie waved the flashlights on their phones dreamily for extra ambience in the dimly lit room. He could also see, most unusually, the way Hoseok and Jimin seemed to be exchanging money right behind the two girls.
Jungkook leaned in even closer to you.
“You want to deport Sid?” he asked. You could feel his warm breath on your cheek when he spoke. “A-and lock him up?”
“Actually, I want to wring his neck and use his head to scare off pigeons,” you said. “But that would result in me getting locked up, and I really don’t have time for that right now.”
You watched the corners of Jungkook’s lips twitch as he tried to suppress a smile.
“No?” he teased, unable to resist. “I might like that. Think about all the street cred I’d get with a jailbird girlfriend.”
You snorted. “Yeah? Two one-hour visits every four weeks sound hot to you?”
“Hmm.” He pursed his lips. “No. You have a point, that won’t do it. I need you with me. Should we—should we tell Minjun about this plan, then?”
“Minjun knows. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay? But I—I promise we’re going to teach Sid a fucking lesson,” you said. “And then I’m going to tell the label we’re together, and all will be right in the world for fucking once.”
Jungkook didn’t think he’d ever wanted to kiss you more than he did right then. The air around you felt static, and the bodies behind the clothes rack did not feel particularly corporeal. The side of his chest was pressed against yours and he could feel your heartbeat speed up when his gaze flickered to your lips.
“You know, you can be really evil sometimes,” he remarked, chuckling when you raised your eyebrows. “I love it. Count me in. Sid won’t know what fucking hit him, and I want to be there to see it. Not going to lie, though, it does sound like Operation: Escape from Londo—”
“No.”
You thought you could feel his laughter resonating in your chest.
“Can we do that, though?” he whispered after a moment. “Can we—you know? Deal with Sid? In-between dealing with the label?”
You nodded. You were determined to find your happy ending and, watching the faint lights reflected in Jungkook’s eyes, you thought you could already see it, waiting for you in the distance.
“If we handle Sid,” you said quietly, “we can handle anything.”
Jungkook liked the sound of that very much—almost as much as he liked the song playing in the background while he breathed in your scent, while he allowed it to engulf him, to drown his senses, to annihilate any sanity he had left.
However, he was aware that for a long time before this moment, he had been making all the wrong choices while dreaming of the right outcomes. It would take some time for him to adjust to the fact that he lived a different life now—a life where you were by his side, and his reality was suddenly significantly better than his dreams. He would need to hear you tell him that it was going to be okay just a few more times.
“And if the label says that no, we can’t, actually?” he asked, his tone hushed.
He was very close and you could no longer look at him without your vision clouding. Your head spun so much that your thoughts felt tipsy. You lowered your gaze to his chest, avoiding the sight of him biting his lip.
“I’ll just leave, then,” you replied.
Jungkook pulled back suddenly. “You—but—no.”
You were breathless and slightly disoriented when you raised your head. The room was very dark, and he was very far away.
“We—we’re staying together regardless,” you said, distracted.
He still looked wounded.
“But that’s not fair to you,” he argued.
You shook your head and sighed. The Arctic Monkeys song on the speakers faded, changing to Rated Riot’s “Cursed,” and the room erupted into cheers as if the band members themselves had stood up to perform the song. You shivered under Jungkook’s gaze.
“That—it doesn’t matter,” you said. “I already told you before. If that’s the only way we can work, I don’t mind leaving the company. I’ll miss everyone, but I’m—we’d stay in touch anyway, I’m sure.”
Jungkook was torn. He wanted to tell you not to go—cast a spell or a curse, whichever worked—but his song played in the background, and you were trying very hard to keep a straight face on the couch next to him. It felt like a spell had already been cast.
He didn’t want you to leave, and in this moment, he felt convinced that you never would. You were not meant to.
“At least fight back,” he said, “if these fucking lawyers have a problem with us being together.”
A smile finally broke through your restraints.
“I will,” you promised. “You want me to punch someone? Knock out their teeth for good measure?”
He grinned, too. His black eye had already healed, save for a few stubborn cuts around his cheekbone. The altercation he’d had with Sid seemed a lifetime away—a lifetime that he was not sure belonged to him anymore.
“Please,” he said.
“Hmm.” You leaned in closer, brushing your fingers over the side of his neck. “I’ll see what I can do without joining Sid in prison.”
He felt the way his skin came to life, the way all of his cells leapt up and screeched, as soon as you touched him. He thought that perhaps he had contracted some sort of eye disease on top of his blatant insanity, too, because the dark room had brightened all of a sudden.
He knew he had gone right out of his mind, and he’d never felt better.
“I love you,” he whispered, and his nose touched yours when he said it.
“I love you,” you whispered back, and the happy ending that you had seen in his eyes felt no more than a breath away.
It approached you in silence, dimming the lights in the room, and in the building, and on this side of the world, so it could light the ones in your eyes and your chests.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Jungkook whispered, the tips of his fingers tracing tenderly over your cheek. He felt it coming, too. “And I hope you stay.”
You closed your eyes. “I promise I’ll do everything to stay.”
Your lips finally touched his, and he discovered that you tasted exactly like the medicine he needed to halt his descent into madness, to calm the anxious beating of his heart, to clear his uncertain mind, and to dry the ink he’d used to engrave your name onto his soul.
chapter title credits: bad omens, “exit wounds”
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#jungkook x reader#jungkook fluff#jungkook angst#jungkook smut#jungkook fanfiction#bts reactions#bts imagines#bts fanfiction#jungkook x you#bts au#jungkook au#bts x you#bts x reader#bts rockstar au#jungkook rockstar au#jungkook fanfic#bts fanfic#jungkook scenarios#jungkook fic#jeon jungkook x reader
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I See You, Darling (3)
[Astarion x reader] As I mentioned in a previous post, this came along surprisingly easier than the last one. The same can’t be said about the quality though maybe– sorry for that. :,DDD|Word count: 2.6k.|
Content Warnings: Mentions of cooking, handling knives, blood, one sex joke (lol), the normal warnings that you’d associate with the game
Part 2 here!!
Next Part here!!
As an outsider to most of everyone’s problems, you find your place by helping in whatever way you can. Even if that may be at the expense of your own comfort, but at least it’s been fun so far.
Alternatively: Reader can't catch a break from anything, can they?
————━─━────༺༻────━─━————
Being resident camp caretaker was surprising, for lack of a better term. You were away from the stresses of technology, corporate assholes, and disappointing family with your choice to pursue unpractical careers. Instead living the “cottagecore lifestyle” of foraging for food and cooking with a cauldron that those from the digital world claimed to be the best. What they failed to mention were the incessant pests coming in to nibble through rucksacks if you were not careful, and the occasional swarms of ants or flies coming in to nip at your flesh.
The experience was a mixed bag, so it would seem. But the tired smiles that the group would give you when you greet them with a warm and filling meal was always a comfort that you would have.
And it would seem they needed it now more especially than ever.
Your band of misfits planned to venture out and defeat the goblins at their camp in order to aid the tieflings’ journey to Baulder’s Gate. Per your instruction, you convinced the more solipsistic members of the benefits of eradicating the sect. Namely, they wouldn’t hinder you as much in the future if they were taken care of. Hence your plan to slightly increase the amount of portions for supper tonight.
By twilight, you had a good broth steeping in your cauldron. The camp having returned just a few moments prior from an earlier excursion. You were making a pottage that the others have expressed their enjoyment for. A stew of sorts that you had made when you had quite the number of items that would have spoiled before consumption had you not done anything about it. A mixture of fruits and meat, stewed in a consomme of a pig’s head and various mushroom caps.
This time around, you’ll be using fresher ingredients to hopefully lift their spirits.
As you’re chopping up fruits, you think about all that’s happened to you and possible explanations for why your character suddenly ceased to exist in order to make room for you. What’s more is that no matter how many nights pass, you never end up waking from your dream. Which you fear is lasting longer than your usual ones.
Your working theory is that whatever force, be it magic or fate, tethering you to this world is also responsible for removing Tav. Astarion claimed that he couldn’t remember the finer details when you had confronted him. And so you settled with that hypothesis. That like how a thread that unravels opens a seam in a garment, a new thread must be used to darn the cloth together again.
You laugh at the disgustingly poetic analogy you created in your head. You fear that you’re becoming more and more deranged as—
“My, aren’t you busy?” The intrusive voice causes the knife to slip out of your hand a bit, thankfully only cutting off a portion of your index finger’s nail. Your shoulders, that were raised in alarm, release their tension after feeling the sudden chill leave your body.
“Astarion,” Exasperated, you put the knife down on the cutting board to catch your breath for a while.
“I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped sneaking up on me when I’m doing something dangerous.”
The high-elf offers a mischievous smile in response. “Very sorry, pet. But it’s hardly my fault when you’ve barely been paying attention to me.” There’s regret in his words, but not in his tone.
Because while perhaps it’s an odd interest, he enjoys hearing the quickened pace of your heart. The pulse getting louder, as it stays that way for longer.
“I’d feel sorry for doing so if you were too, but you’re not.”
You laugh out, breath still shaky but steadying slowly, as you pick up your knife again.
“I heard you’re part of the encampment that’s finishing off the goblins by midmorn.” Chopping the rest of the fruits, you feel his presence move from behind you to off to your side so you can see him from your peripherals.
“Hm? Yes. Although I would have preferred if we didn’t do this at all. It’s too much work, and the goblins could be entertaining! Killing useful spoils seems like an awful waste.”
This must be the reason why he approached you, to persuade you to call off the hunt. And his unfading smile supports that thought. When you voice said thought, it earns you a playful scoff.
“Don’t you have anything else on your mind other than the parasite lounging in it?”
The mood is light as you say this, the banter welcomed by you both.
And as you continue to converse, a few eyes begin to follow the two of you. They’ve never really seen Astarion interact with you for this long, at least not away from your private spaces. And even less without hushed voices. The interlocution is definitely a welcome spectacle to them.
“On my honor, the only thing on my mind is depraved, carnal lust.” He says, proudly. Gesturing to himself with one hand, and the other held high like he was swearing an oath.
Your closed mouth drops into frown, eyes wide, and your eyebrows skew upwards. A very undignified, but small, squeak coming from the back of your throat. You swore you heard someone groan in disappointment from far away too.
You know full well that the look of shock that you were sporting was by no means attractive, but the flagrant revelation, though not at all out of character, was shocking to have directed towards you. You’ve been trying to romance the elven vampire with your character, only to end up nowhere. Therefore you are completely unsure if the dialogue he was spewing was completely a figment of your imagination, or is, indeed, canon.
The elf in question has seen this expression of yours before. Quite often, too. And while he doesn’t think it a, “pleasant sight,” it is rather… charming to him.
Whether it be on purpose or not, people have the tendency to be on guard around him, preserving any twitch and sound that could give them away to themselves. Not that much had ever evaded him before with his naturally cunning behavior. But this clearly unscripted response, with the blatant confusion swimming in your eyes, is a rather refreshing sight to see.
“I see–” you clear your throat to lower your voice back to its normal octave. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to uh, bring those thoughts into fruition! Uh–,” You slide the rest of the cut fruits off of your cutting board and into the stew.
“Is there anything else you wanted to tell me? Something I should know?” You turn to face him. He laughs at first, but then his brows furrow in question, as if he did have something to say and forgot about it or thinks it is no longer an appropriate time to ask. He shakes his head and says something along the lines of, “letting you do all the hard work” and returns to his tent.
But you are not left alone for long as another member of your little ragtag team joins you to ask about dinner. To which you ask them for which meat would be better to toss into it.
—————————
After dinner, your little rapport concerning the plan and new findings with everyone is adjourned. Some thanked you before they left, and others simply walked away. From what you have learned from them, the Archdruid that was taken prisoner by the goblins was named, “Halsin.” He was a topic of interest as they said he might be able to aid you in your search for moonrise and understanding the Mindflayer worms.
Wyll had also approached you alone after dinner and offhandedly mentioned a dead boar being on the road. He had planned to return to camp with it if it could have been useful, but he had claimed that the animal had been unnervingly light. As if half of its weight was no longer there despite seemingly just keeling over for no reason.
You take note of that in one of your many journals, including additional information about the Archdruid and their kind in general. The book appearing more and more like the game’s quest booklet, with the exception of a few crossouts and colored ink to emphasize each quest’s urgency and relevance to finding a cure. When you successfully rescue the druid of the grove, it seems you will have to move out quite soon after, so you fixed up your pack just a bit to make it easier later on.
You look around, everyone seems to be in their respective areas. Doing whatever it is they usually do with the exception of Astarion. Though he has been known to either sneak off or hide away from time to time in his tent, so you think nothing of it.
You return to the communal chest, tallying up the remaining supplies and inspecting the wares. You sort the tradeable objects in one rucksack and appraise its worth. The chest also has pieces of gold, some that others have placed, and others you picked up and added. You prefer to let the others keep what they think is valuable to them, and only place what they want to share in the vessel.
If the party’s gold ever runs out, you think that the rucksack is worth a few nights of food when you travel out again. Assured by this knowledge, you placed your writing materials back in, closed the chest, and turned in for the night.
Maybe this time, you’ll wake up. But you also don’t really want to. Not just yet.
—————————————
As you slept, you wondered about the longevity of your knowledge of the media. You hadn’t finished the game, and although you’ve accomplished a fair bit of it, you worry about how you will face the events to come. One of the only reasons why you haven’t flinched so much at the terrors that occurred was because you had anticipated them. Braced yourself for the dangers ahead.
You fear what might happen when you no longer have that power at your disposal.
Perhaps it's the worry, perhaps it's the stiff, compact ground that you have yet to be accustomed to sleep on despite the bedroll, or perhaps it's the presence of something suddenly cool that stirs you awake.
But what you did not expect was Astarion’s face hovering over yours to be the reason. Fangs bared, and ready to bite. Your eyes go wide and you let out a small gasp, hands moving up in a gesture akin to clawing at yourself.
The elf realizes that you’re awake now and he curses. Moving away as you scramble upright just like you did all those nights ago. The look of genuine fear at the prospect of being bitten is apparent on your face, and he feels almost guilty to be greeted with it.
“Please, I wasn’t going to hurt you— I just needed, well, blood.” He says it in a panic. Worried that you might run off, losing his only sure chance, and possibly enraging the rest of the camp.
In this moment, you realized the error in your ways. Astarion had been hunting nearly every other night in the same area. And if you were progressing through the events like how the game did, he couldn’t have had the time nor energy to venture too far after feeding from most of the creatures in the vicinity.
‘The exsanguinated boar…’ You remember.
“You’ve been feeding on animals for the past few nights, haven’t you?”
“It seems like word got around then.” Although unknowingly, he’s referencing what Wyll delivered to you earlier in the night.
“I’m not some monster, I feed on boars, deer, kobolds– whatever I can get. I’m just too slow right now. And with the damned excursion,” He stops himself, complaining is only doing worse for his condition.
“It’s not enough. I feel so…weak. If I just had a little blood, I could think clearer. Fight better.” You’re conflicted. You had no problem offering yourself as your character for him to feed on, but even witnessing that through a disconnected screen was enough to make you feel uncomfortable imagining it. You care about him, want to give him what he deserves, but this…
What’s more is that you know what he’s saying is necessary, not at all overstating how dire his need to satiate his hunger is, making it all the more difficult.
He needs to convince you, if he wants to continue on, that is. Without the presence of the illithid, he resorts to more practical means of doing so. Similar to what he did to many.
Noticing the slight tremor of your hands, he takes the chance to slowly kneel down on your bedroll. Closing the distance between you. He takes your hand, now rougher from the work you do, and meets your shaken gaze with his dark eyes.
“Please. I only need a taste, I swear.” He had meant to tell you before dinner, had he not felt the eyes of the others on the two of you. This discovery is not lost on you. He needs you specifically. And you realize it's out of convenience because you’re an expendable resource. If you pass, the group can venture on, but he also still needs you alive for whatever reason. He can’t have the others finding out, not until they trust him.
He needs you to trust him. And this is the only way you can help him in this moment.
With that, you strengthen your resolve.
“I…I trust you, Astarion. But no more than what you need.” A dangerous bet, but you hope it would be worth it.
“Really? I–”
“Can I trust you on that?” The shock on his face fades, and he agrees.
“Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?” You lay down, preparing yourself to faint during the process and allowing your blood to flow throughout your body. He observes the rapid movement of your eyes as he drapes himself above you. Your sight flitting from anywhere but him and then returning all the same. No doubt that you fear being at his mercy.
He feels almost sorry that you have to do this for him.
So he graces you with what mercy he can give.
The bite is quick. You would have felt the flesh of your neck parting for him, had he not done so. You feel tears prick at your eyes and start to feel the area from your neck and upwards go cold.
A momentary, sharp pain, that lulls to a chilling numbness in what seems like a matter of seconds.
You feel his body start to grow warmer at your expense and you feel satisfied knowing that you could help him.
When he doesn't stop, you start to worry.
Your breath catches in staccato beats, pulse quickening in tandem. You try to stop him, hands coming up to push or tug, but the heavy sensation that washes over you only permits them to find purchase on his form.
You try to speak, but it seems as if the common tongue does not reach him.
Your mind goes into overdrive, all of a sudden it doesn’t feel like a dream anymore and genuine fear courses through your veins.
You need him to stop, and you try to think of more efficient ways of doing so.
But your mind starts slowing as well. The pain has certainly faded, but the presence of the vampire at your throat reminds you in case you’ve forgotten.
As a last ditch effort, you try to use whatever might appeal to him, to break him out of the trance that he was in from finally replenishing himself.
“Isalhal–” One of the few Elvish words you recalled.
The effort thankfully makes him pull back in shock, stopping him. Your eyes finally close, thankful for the reprieve you're finally granted. You hear a distant, “thank you,” and a more distant “shit” before rest takes over.
You worry about waking up tomorrow.
But for now, you’re thankful that Astarion will be able to fight well.
For himself and for everyone else’s sake.
━─━────༺༻────━─━
Thank you to @rey26, @shyminnie07, @lynnloveshobi, @iggee-rose, @automnepoet, @tiannamortis, @aoirohi, @sarkara211, @jane-3043, @h3110-dar1in9, @h3ll0k1ttyl0ver333, @mimziethealien, @squichymochi, @sharabay, @furblrwurblr, @dork-of-the-universe, @thedevilssinner, @fuckalrighty, @queenofthespacesquids, @perseny, @goldenplutus, @h4nluv, @awkward-d3rs3-dr3amer, and @auszimbo for asking to be tagged!!
#astarion ancunin#astarion x reader#astarion x you#astarion ancunin x reader#baldur's gate 3 x reader#aware!astarion#bg3 x reader isekai(?)#bg3 x reader
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okay hear me out on the yandere stardew valley…sebastian? or shane? 🫣
How about option 3?: BOTH!
Yandere Sebastian and Yandere Shane Headcanons (Separate):
TW: Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Alcoholism, Suicidal Thoughts, Stalking, Noncon Photo Taking, Implied Violence/Murder
Sebastian:
He most likely took some time to fall for you. He's a natural loner, with only a few friends in town. That isn't to say he is rude. He just has a bit of a shell you have to break through to get his attention, and as shallow as it sounds, your appearance can really help. He believes a person's clothing style or aesthetic can say a lot about themselves. If you have a very bombastic and out there style, he believes you have a higher chance of getting along with him. You would seem to be more open about who you are, which is something he likes in people.
Once you catch his attention, you have it completely. He slowly feels himself falling in love with you. From the strange little quirks you have, shared interests with him, differing interests... You teach him so many things about the city, random fandoms you find online, aesthetics, whatever your interests are. The love he feels slowly turns to an obsession. So slowly, in fact, that he doesn't realize that it has become unhealthy. He thinks that it is still as normal and wholesome as it was when it began.
You will barely notice him following you around, taking photos, and leaving presents for you on your doorstep. Pelican Town is a relatively small area compared to the city. You simply think it makes sense that you would keep meeting with him. For the pictures, you just think he is trying to take pictures of the scenery, trying out a new hobbie. You don't ever see him leaving the gifts, though, and they make you a bit uncomfortable. You never told anybody about the interests contained in those gifts. Be it a cookbook, new album from your favorite band, or maybe a new sword for fighting, you know for sure you never let people know you were interested in that. You find those interests too embarrassing to share.
The next thing you know, your friends seem to avoid you. Harvey makes his check ups quicker. Pierre gives you large discounts on every item. Even Gus keeps each conversation short, to the point, and lets you know about this brand new discount for you and only you! You don't know what is going on, but at least Sebastian has stayed by your side through everything...
Shane:
You were a pest, at first. He just wanted to be left alone. At least, that's what he always told himself. He doesn't know when his views on you changed, but it did. Maybe it was because you stuck by him, even when he was actively trying to drive you away? Maybe it was how you treated him so kindly, despite his rude behavior towards you? Maybe he just always secretly wanted someone to keep pushing him to be better...
His obsession truly begins once you see him in Cindersnap Forest, lying by the cliff and ready to let himself fall. He doesn't remember much about what actually happened when he woke up in Harvey's clinic, but Harvey gave him the rundown. You were worried, you helped him get to the hospital, you stayed for a bit to make sure he was fine. The next day, when he went to tell you he was going to counseling, you gave him encouragement. You mentioned how concerned you were that night, told him how you were so happy he was still here, and even gave a few small tips you heard on how to distract yourself when you have the urge to relapse. You believed in him, even when he gave up on himself. You don't treat him like a burden, instead trying to help him become the best version of himself he can be. He loves you for that.
Although he is an atheist, that doesn't mean he can't worship you, in his own way. He may not believe in angels, but he feels like you are the closest the world will get to one. After that night, he makes sure to go out of his way to speak to you. Even while working at Joja Mart, he will begin to talk to you as he stocks the shelves, cleans the floors, and does whatever he needs. He constantly visits your farm with gifts, asking if he could come inside and hang out. He says things like "Talking to you helps me distract myself when I feel the urge to drink. You gave me that tip, right? I found it useful." or "I just feel a bit lonely today. I feel most comfortable talking to you, so I was wondering if I could visit your place? You've already seen mine." Really, though, he just couldn't get you out of his head.
He is... slightly aware that these feelings aren't normal. He goes to counseling, after all. He has mentioned you and how he feels towards you, only for his counselor to reply with concern at how strong those feeling were and how they seemed obsessive. He throws those concerns to the side, however, and goes about his days like it is normal. You are his anchor. His light. His will to live, really. He needs you to be happy with him in order for himself to be happy. He can't have anybody else take you away, or else he'd have nothing! He would never use these feelings against you, however. Far from it. He wants you to not feel pressured to be with him. That wouldn't be right. You never pressured him to get better, so why would he pressure you in any way? You encouraged him, gave him tips, and showed your support for him. As such, he'd do the same for you, hoping you would feel just as strongly about him as he does you.
Anybody who gets in the way, however, could rot for all he cares. It wouldn't hurt to get rid of a few of them, right?
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ASL thoughts and head canons.
1. Sabo’s missing tooth he had as a kid didn’t actually fall out. He chipped it back when he was still living with his family. And his parents thinking that made him look disgusting and rowdy had the rest of the tooth removed before his adult tooth was even remotely ready to move in. Thus there was a gap in his teeth for ages. It started growing in when Sabo set sail.
2. Luffy loved using Ace’s freckles as a dot to dot. Both brothers heavily think he doesn’t have a fucking clue what animals he’s trying to conjure and Ace is getting sick of having to fight him tooth and nail every time Luffy finds a marker
3. In his early days of friendship with Ace. Sabo refused to believe that he could eat an entire bear by himself. He thought Ace was exaggerating like when someone says “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” yet when he saw it with his own eyes he was horrified. Ace was also confused why Sabo didn’t want a bear to himself. But didn’t complain. Hunting one bear for the both of them and fighting over it was pretty fun. And scavenging berries for a desert never bothered them.
4. Sabo grew his hair out while he was a run away. He hated how it looked buzzed. And while he probably didn’t let it get any longer then his brother’s he loved the freedom. His mother cut his hair the second he was taken back home
5. Ace and Sabo hadn’t thought twice about bugs. Ace saw them as pests like the moths that would huddle around the candle light and Sabo was taught that they were gross. Luffy on the other hand adored them. He showed them bug fighting and showed them all sorts of cool and pretty bugs. He would also put beetles in his brothers’ shoes for fun but in the end they had come out of it for a new respect for bugs and a little bit more love-hate for Luffy.
6. Sabo tried to tell his adopted brother about his real brothers but he refused to believe Sabo was telling the truth. I mean beating up a giant tiger in the woods? Being made of rubber? Being able to eat 5 times their body weight in a matter of minutes? He thought Sabo was loony.
7. When taken back to his parents, Sabo refused to eat with his brother. Sharing a meal with someone made you friends and sharing a cup of sake made you brothers. And he wanted nothing to do with him.
8. Sabo was Dadans favourite. At first. Originally Sabo was… as well behaved as he was going to be around his brothers because that need to respect authority was so engrained in him. Though as he grew more comfortable with Dadan and trusting she really wasn’t going to kick him out other dumb things. He started joining in on the bullying Dadan band wagon. And she hated them all equally again.
9. Luffy and Ace find it absolutely hilarious how bad Sabo would get sun burnt in the summer. They would chase him around trying to slap him for hours. Dadan taught him how to make a remedy and over the years he gained a tan and freckles that he knew would have his bio dad blow a fuse.
10. Luffy always wants to be in fights of strength with his brothers to prove he’s strong. You know, arm wrestling. That weird thing were you put your feet together and push with all you’re might. And of course rough housing. But in the super early years of being a rubber man that was impossible cause his body would just. Bend. Arm wrestling? Womp womp no elbow for you. Foot wrestle? His legs fold like a piece of paper. He was humiliated and his face was bright red every time Ace and Sabo would laugh.
11. One of the best training methods the brothers had found for Luffy was actually made as a joke. Still completely pathetic at landing a damn punch Sabo jokingly said he should train by trying to catch bugs by stretching your arms. And after a lot of frustrated afternoons his aim did improve an alarming amount. Luffy to this day continues to train that way and he always thinks of Sabo when he does.
12. They never finished that bottle of sake they stole from Dadan. At the time they all thought the drink was absolutely putrid though drank their cups if it meant they were brothers. The bottle is still in the treehouse. Even after everything. It’s completely oxidised but the smell keeps animal from making their treehouse a nest so Ace and Luffy never minded all that much.
#unintentional Sabo favouritism#if there is a spelling or grammar mistake suck my metaphorical dick#asl brothers#no post time skip spoilers please#one piece sabo#sabo#luffy#monkey d. luffy#ace#portgas d ace#one piece#that little blonde boy could fit so much trauma in him#if you didn’t sunburn slap or foot wrestle your sibling are you even real?#one piece headcanons#asl brothers headcanons#Luffy and his bugs#rambles
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Heated Jealousy
Hobie Brown x Jealous Punk FEM!reader
🔞No Kids Allowed🔞 not my problem if you get traumatized.
Summary: Jealousy can get someone hurt.
Ever since the 'new girl' joined the band it was hell and back. Watching everyone act fondly with her as if she was here from day one. Even Hobie liked her, which was surprising. Considering things hardly peeled at his interest.
You can't deny it. You weren't going too. You were 'jealous'. You weren't jealous of how everyone liked her. You were jealous of how she acted with your boyfriend, Trying to get close to him every time they were together.
Swatting your presence away when you two stood near each other. She was a bitch, you could see it clearly. Yet you couldn't muster up the courage to say something. Swiping her off like she was nothing but a pest, She was one infact.
You watched her small tantrums when Hobie denied going somewhere with her. Bluntly stating how you were the only one for him straight to her face. You felt proud to hear that melody fall from his lips. Yet she never gives up that easily it seems.
She started crossing the line, Touching his arm as you watch him pull away. Annoyance plastered on your face as he walks towards Gwen or Miles for company. You wanted to beat the breaks off that bitch for making your man feel uncomfortable.
She was a two-faced slut who'd probably only wanted to get into Hobie's pants. The thought sickening you as you resist the urge to punch her. Simply walking up to her and speaking like a normalized citizen.
"He's mine. A bitch like you can't have him." She just scoffed, Lying to your face as she doesn't understand what you were talking about. A fake smile plastered on her face as she reapplied her makeup.
You were inches away from making her bleed if Hobie didn't stop you. His fingertips intertwined with yours as he asked if you were hungry. You silently agreed, your blood still boiling as you say fuck it, turning around and punching the shit outta her.
Hobie stopped you, his hand gripping tightly onto your arm as he pulls you away. Making sure to get further enough, pinning you against the wall. His lips attached to yours as you peer up at him in confusion.
"Took you foreva' to do that luv." You glared at him before pulling him in for another kiss, laughter filling the alley way as you both scurry off, Leaving the bitch too taste her own blood.
//--------------------------------------------------------\\
You both arrived home shortly after, your arms in the air as you stretch out your worries. A hefty sigh escaping you once the tension in your body melts away.
"What's the deal luv?" You hummed as Hobie wrapped his arms around you, planting a kiss on your cheek before setting the food on the kitchen counter. You simply said nothing before following his lead, grabbing your dinner for tonight and sitting on the couch.
Putting something random on TV before enjoying your meal. A few minutes had past since then, The scent of cannabis in the air as you lit a blunt, Letting the drug take you on an adventure.
Soothing music playing in the background, you both were burnt out, silently enjoying each other's company. You weren't even paying attention to the TV, the man below you captivating as he rests on your lap.
You had the urge to shower his face in kisses. Leaning down and planting the first one on his cheek, Letting your lips guide you. Despite Hobie feeling all of them he didn't move, opening his eyes and simply smirking at you. He sat up, pulling you onto his lap before returning the kisses. His cold hands roaming up your shirt.
It led with both of you being naked on the couch. Your nipples pinched between Hobie's fingers as he traced your stomach with kisses. Your legs over his shoulders as he eats you out. His tongue flicking your clit, Earning rewards that slipped from your mouth.
His cold lip piercing sending shivers all throughout your body. His tongue parting your folds from one another. Your head in the clouds as he dives his tongue into your cunt. Your back arching off the couch as he fingers your pussy.
Your grip on the couch tightening as you feel your orgasm growing near. Hobie's name unconsciously escaping your lips as you grasp onto his wicks. His hands holding your hips down firmly as he assaults your clit with his tongue piercing.
A loud cry filling the air as you cum all over his face. You eyes seeing colors as your orgasm hits you harshly. A groan leaving the man below you as you clasp your knees together.
A hum overstimulating you as Hobie slowly pulls away. His chest heaving heavily as he takes in a deep breath. Cooing you back from your euphoria by slapping your cunt, Earning more whimpers from you.
Your legs being pinned down as the tip of his cock pushes past your entrance, Stretching you out. The thickness of his dick sending your nerve systems into a frenzy. Feeling every inch of him as he slows down. Putting a pillow under you before he'd started to abuse your pussy, Giving it a harsh slap as he puts pressure on your clitoris.
Lovely incoherent words emitting from you as you plead him to go faster. Your pussy clenching around him as you try to pull him in deeper. Soft mewls crumbling from you as you grasp onto his forearm. Your eyes seeing the back of your eyelids as he kisses your cervix.
Nails digging into his skin as you feel your second orgasm already approaching. Your shortened breath making your throat dry.
"H-hobie!" His name slurred from your mouth, Overstimulation taking control as you cum on his cock, Your arousal coating his dick as you twitch violently from the aftermath. Tears swelled in your eyes as Hobie chases his orgasm, Pulling out and cumming all over your abdomen.
His body collapsing onto yours as he gives you a tired kiss. Your eyes seeing black as you slowly succumb to the slumber that took you.
AUTHOR NOTE: I didn't intend to make a small jealousy chapter 🧍🏾♀️ I'm running out of ideas
#hobart brown#hobie brown#hobie my beloved#atsv hobie#hobie x reader#hobie brown x reader#hobie x you#hobart brown x reader#hobbie brown#hobie#hobie atsv#hobie brown fanfiction#hobie brown x you#hobiebrown#hobie brown x fem!reader#hobie brown x y/n#spiderpunk#spiderpunk x reader#punk spiderman#18+ fanfic#18+ obviously#18+ readings#18+ post#18+ content#hobie brown smut#hobie x y/n#spiderpunk smut#spider punk x reader#spider punk x you#spider punk
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What are the Harbingers like while drunk?
── ୨୧：fatui harbingers x reader
୨୧﹑synopsis :: a night of drinking usually leads to a far more chaotic band of harbingers than usual, a horrible nightmare for everyone else involved considering their behaviour. it is not all terrible however, admittedly.
୨୧﹑genre :: some are a little fluffy it varies though
୨୧﹑content :: gn reader, it is chaotic, columbina does touch reader like very publicly how far that goes is ambiguous, obviously consumption of alcohol
୨୧﹑words :: 1.9k
by this I actually mean how many drinks does it take for them to be all over you (optionally their s/o) which will find its answer, this includes every Harbinger because there is no grandpa discrimination in this household 🙏 requests will start getting posted again tomorrow
The youngest Harbinger is alright, but arguably one of the worst when it comes to how drunk he'll get and how quick. If being a massive casual flirt with you already doesn't help (which it does not), then getting a couple drinks in him can only make him worse. As if stealing all of his restraint and boundaries— possibly mistakable for sense of reason— it unlocks a secondary urge that somehow overtakes his need to fight everything that does or does not move. He can take you (not in a fight tho). A few drinks in, and you better take them away from him before he becomes too over-eager and starts on his quest to fight the other Harbingers once more. Usually, it's quite easy to get him to settle if you just tie him to the nearest pole and leave him for a while to get through his fight with a rope first.
Arlecchino is surprisingly good in this respect, though more so because it's hard to tell when she's drunk except for the fact that she speaks differently, more open with her feelings than when she's sober, and unabashedly will speak her mind in the same tone she usually speaks her insults unless it is to you. For some reason, her equally shameless words and advances always comes out something not like a question and a borderline nag to go with her somewhere—to her room, no doubt—down to outright admitting that she wants you. She barely leaves any room for your decline or contemplation when she's following you around all night like a lost, stray dog whimpering at your feet, and it's kind of cute. You won't go with her, though, because you know what she wants, so she'll just have to wait until you get to enjoy yourself a little at the very least. She's still so ridiculously cute asking with a straight face, however, especially once you manage to settle her to the point she falls asleep head on the table out like a light.
Unfortunately too used to drinking over business, Pantalone is tipsy at best as he's no stranger to drinking some ornate expensive wine after a long day of work, though the flush in his cheeks tells you he's at least a little gone. He rests his head on your shoulder without a word most of the time, perhaps purposefully gluing you to your place by his side so that you cannot be stolen away. He says he's not tired whenever you ask, and you don't doubt that somehow. He's got an added boisterous charm to his laugh, but his voice is low, and he stares at you through his lashes as he's coaxing you into drinking with him. Drink some more, loosen up, there's nothing to worry about. Of course, there's always something to worry about with him, never able to just let you be when he's drunk as he's a bit of a pest.
Insisting that you drink two glasses for her single finished one, Signora is far more focused on getting you drunk than herself. She holds drinks to your lips, practically forcing you to down them to get her to get off your back, all with an arm over your shoulders, keeping you from backing away. She's shockingly promiscuous in a way—though not explicitly—this night will just most definitely end with the two of you having drunkenly made out at least twice, and she's got a good amount of glasses of wine under her belt, as well as you stumbling and at your limit needing her help to find your bearings. Her chest is soft, of course you can use her as your pillow all you want, and of course she'll get you home safe.
An interesting case is the mysterious disappearance of Sandrone's stoic exterior, her usual abrasiveness replaced by a giggly and borderline childish self far more interested in finding something funny in everything and bothering you to carry her around, including back to her room— or yours. She's not picky. Only two drinks in, she behaves like she has never heard of subtlety in her life. Often she will question why you keep doing the things you do, especially if that happens to ruin all her fun, like pulling her away from Tartaglia so that she will stop teasing the poor boy, or to get her to stop loudly asking all of the details of the ins and outs of Scaramouche's workings when he's shifting in his seat trying to hide his discomfort behind his own abrasiveness. Eventually, you may have to carry her back to her room, if only to get her to go to bed and try to get all the rest she can before she wakes up the next morning hungover and miserable.
Scaramouche may only be a puppet, but his other functions seem to work just fine…it still surprises you that he manages to get drunk, much less that he starts getting overly emotional when he does and ends up crying over nothing until you manage to cheer him up as he buries his head in your chest. Apparently, he's just very happy to see you, despite you having been there all night, and he doesn't want you to go anywhere despite the fact you never had any intention of doing so yet. It's so strange but not unwelcome, just hard to get used to, though you let him loiter around you and cling a little. Every time you have to go somewhere, he's asking where you're going, and only when you provide a good enough answer does he stare a little before nodding slowly and resting his head on his arms for comfort, waiting for you to come back.
Over time you learned to stop getting Pulcinella drunk as it leads to him telling the same stories of his youth he's convinced beyond a doubt that you've never heard before. His earlier days in the Fatui are practically ingrained in your mind as you have little choice but to grin and bear it, hoping he doesn't notice that you're not really listening. Of course he notices, however, and in his usual exaggerated movements, taps your nose to draw your attention back, threatening to steal it if you don't pay attention. Youngsters these days is his usual grumble, and as always, you must remind him you are not, in fact, a 'youngster'. It is quieter, more intimate storytelling between the two of you, maybe only Pierro at your side interested in hearing all of this though you're pretty sure Pulcinella hasn't even noticed he's there considering he's so fixated on you and where your eyes are, anywhere but him and he's promptly drawing your attention right back.
Capitano holds his liquor so well you're a little worried for his liver, as the worst offence he manages is making a couple of bad jokes. Barely does he seem affected by it, but you wonder if managing to conceal his face well enough has anything to do with it or if he simply hasn't had anything to drink at all in the absence of any desire to take his helmet off just yet. Considering his demeanour has changed slightly, you're willing to bet the former. He is awfully touchy and forward in all of his advances, though his boldness would never overstep too far. He can hear a no and accept it, but by the time that helmet is resting on the table by his side and he's buried his face in his hands, far too drunk to reason with himself to keep it on, he does begin to get far closer than before with every word said just a half inch from your ear in a hushed tone and his arm around you so comfortably you may begin to forget it's even there.
Ever your biggest fan, Columbina wants you to do all sorts of things, not for any discernible reason. She just claims you're quite adorable. She absolutely must see the face you make after a kiss, and when someone touches your face, when you have your hair pulled and how flushed your face is when her hands travel down from your face toward your body. Of course, she will largely refrain from going too far in the presence of others, though she is touchy, almost like dangling off you, and most importantly, she is hopelessly convincing. Regardless of whether you told yourself at the start of the night that you would not hear a word of her requests, it began so slowly and spiralled so quickly that giving her just a little more leeway won't be too bad, right? It'll be fine to allow her to lay he head down on your chest and wrap her arms around you, continuing to speak to others all the while capturing all of your attention, and with how sleepy she sounds, you imagine you have hers as well with what little energy she has to spare still contributing to the conversation.
Dottore is usually such a butch that you initially thought getting him drunk would only make him bitchier, but one drink in and his experience with alcohol is showing. By the second, he claims to not want any more, and god forbid someone tries to convince him a third is a good idea because he will proceed to complain of feeling sick and deflate until he can leave. His second, however…his second has him talking shop, just not the way you thought it might. He's telling you about all these things that—while certainly not completely objectively interesting—have him genuinely smiling even just a little as he passionately explains the many things he has pursued solely based on whims and fixations. For a man who seldom speaks to anyone, drinks get him talking, and with no inclination to stop him, you sit and listen as he tells you about the ways his segments are made and how he went about discovering and acquiring the materials to do so. He wants you to come with him to his lab so he can show you these things, but with very little desire to allow him to accidentally ruin something of his while drunk, you quickly dissuade him from that and decide to take him elsewhere to let him cool off instead.
Conservative in his drinking in the first place, Pierro does not allow himself much freedom to relax in a setting where he has to watch everyone, at least at the start of the night when tensions are still high, and everyone is sensible enough to remember their quarrels with each other. as the night progresses, however, the small sips of his drink become more frequent, and his appearance follows suit, hair a bit dishevelled from the number of times he's touched it, clothing loosened to allow himself more room to breathe and hands often finding their way to you as he speaks, resting on your shoulder or on your thighs, fingers brushing against your cheek or thumb tracing your lips. to be honest you kind of like him like this, less reserved but restrained enough to be fighting his own resolve not to do something that may be too forward. You can tell in the way that resolve and the will to fight against his own wants slips away bit by bit, touches lasting longer, kisses first on your forehead finding their way to your lips and his arm, which had been resting on the table, finally around your waist as you both walk back to whichever of your respective rooms finds you first.
#✦ — headcanons.#childe#childe x reader#tartaglia#tartaglia x reader#arlecchino#arlecchino x reader#pantalone#pantalone x reader#signora#la signora#signora x reader#la signora x reader#sandrone#sandrone x reader#scaramouche#scaramouche x reader#pulcinella#pulcinella x reader#capitano#capitano x reader#columbina#columbina x reader#dottore#il dottore#dottore x reader#il dottore x reader#pierro#pierro x reader#genshin impact
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♡ Obsessed Delusional Reader x Sinclair Brother's ♡
Bo Sinclair:
- "Wow, so you want me that bad, huh? 🤭😏 You tied me up because you want to keep me here? That's so romantic! 😍 And out of everyone in my group it was me?"
- Bo is staring at you, trying to scare you and even hurt you but...The drive isn't there with you being so...Willing? Like, there's no fun in this you lil nutjob!
- Match made in hell
- "Are you there? Is your head just decoration or somethin'? What the fuck is your problem?? I am CRAZY and EVIL and will FUCK YOU UP." You: "Okay bby, if you say so. 🥰" All while Bo is short circuiting.
- Alright, that's it. You're getting the glue on your mouth.
- Honestly about to cut something off to make you afraid or hurt...He might but also might not because you fascinate him so are you a person that fascinates him or a toy he needs to break?
- The bondage sex is probably banging though ngl he's even a bit enthralled by how eager you are compared to most victims
- When you are still not afraid and looking at him in a way that melts most hearts even his icy one he can't even truly torture you properly. Most victims he can shut that off because they trigger his sadism by screaming and fighting or cussing him out or begging him but all these years he's never had a victim act so lovey dovey even after finding out his darkest secrets
- At first this has him so frustrated he has to leave the gas station room; having a crisis cause this has never happened before!
- Doesn't trust you but decided to undo the mouth glue or tape and untie you after all the fun to see what you would do...When you follow him around like a love sick puppy he's both annoyed yet enjoys it
- Mad lil unloved boy in a man's body that is both flustered and irritated at his captive being so fucking smitten for him without manipulation on his part. He has to be in control and your feelings for him is out of his control and he hates it.
- "...What the fuck" -Bo after finding you drawing his name with hearts in a notebook and planning your wedding and future with your captor while your chained up in his bedroom instead of the gas station room bc he obviously is in love with you to move you to someplace more comfy; how sweet of him ♡
- You are dead ass scarying him.
- He should kill you but he thinks you're so crazy he's kinda nervous if he misses with his shotgun and what you'll do if he does because you so obsessed with him is a level of coocoo he ain't never had before
- Once you start to show dimension other than flirting with him (Bonus points if you have trauma like he does and it's why you're lovebombing him and so attached) he starts to look at you as less a pest and more a clingy pet.
- Like...You really just have that much of a crush on him after everything he's done? You both can trauma bond and lovebomb each other? (And manipulate even if he's too dumb to realize you're manipulating him too to love you)
- Is actually willing to be crazy with you after awhile and have you obsessed with him because why not? It gets lonely in Ambrose and he likes you as a pet at times. He'd put a ring on your finger as his spouse just to shut you up, claim you like someone claims their chair, and as an act to lure victims
- If you get extremely possesive and jealous and refuse him having anyone strapped in that chair in that room but you; he actually is so flattered you're that possesive of him. Like he secretly always craved a person making him theirs like this PLUS you know his dark side and still want him.
- He'd probably ease up on being so mean and try acting like a crazy possesive delusional married couple together after that even if he still treats you as a thing to easily manipulate and control and he's CLEARLY not being manipulated either (Poor dumb bastard.)
- Vincent is internally screaming and questioning why this person is in their house and has a wedding band from a victim on their finger and his brother is...Being sweet on them??? Lester is happy for you though.
Vincent Sinclair:
- "Wow...I'm your muse? 🥺💘 That's so swee-" *Paralyzing agent kicks in but you have heart eyes still*
- He literally cannot work with you looking at him like that. Stop. He can't even wax your brows off because you're looking at him in a way no one has before
- You weren't even afraid and it makes him hesitate because...He forgot his tools upstairs! Obviously...He'll try again later.
- Once the agent wears off and your spared for now it's ten times worse
- He is blushing so bad under his mask at all your praise and admiring his work and admiring him you're gonna melt his damn mask!
- He is harder to get through to than his twin (HC Bo is more desperate for affection as the least favorite bad seed unloved child than he let's on he just acts cold but they both crave acceptance)
- Vincent pats your head like Jonesy the dog when you smile at him while he works...You're not so bad. As long as you stay outta the way.
- May have to pick you up and move you where he wants like furniture sorry his people skills kinda suck being sheltered for his face then stuck in abandoned Ambrose half his life
- Bo acts annoyed with your obsessed ways but secretly enjoys the neediness for him. Vince is actually annoyed being much more reclusive than Bo and now you're staring at him while he works.
- Dead stares at you when you sculpt tiny little figures of you both holding hands with wax he let you have...He loves it or else he'd destroy it obviously ♡♡♡
- When he lost his mask and you fawned over him (He acted like Erik in Phantom of the Opera the DRAMATICS) he's absolutely panicking and startled
- Once you kiss that side of his face and praise him maskless how on Earth could he not fall for you too despite your odd ways??
- Becomes just as obsessed with you only in a more lowkey way than you. Making sculptures and drawing you all the time. Enjoys you talking, keeping him company etc.
- Bo is bewildered when you verbal rip his ass so viciously when he made a nasty remark to your angel bby his twin brother that this big guy was reeling back thinking you were gonna jump him. Probably said shit that he'll be secretly thinking about tonight with a heavy heart too. Vincent snickers and pulls his guard dog away as you glare at Bo the entire way back downstairs.
- You and Bo do not get along because of how protective you are of Vince and how mean Bo can be
Lester Sinclair:
- "Oooo, you got such a big hunting knife! Is it in reference to...Other big things?🤭😘"
- HUH!?
- His brain shut off because he had never had a victim he took to his brothers flirt with him like this. And while he's covered in grime and roadkill?!
- It's okay it just adds to his manliness. We love a man with hobbies! ♡
- Like...Are you being mean and joking? Are you...Alright up there in your noggin? He would take the long way and other roads to Ambrose just to talk to you more and figure you out (Even when Bo is in a hot ass suit in a Church with no air waiting and is ringing Lester's cell off the hook)
- When you are fascinated by what he does, praising his job, asking about him; he is a blushing mess driving. Then he tries flirting back and cracks his cheesy jokes. And when you laugh??? Ooooh it's over. He's crushing severely.
- Easiest brother to woe. He's keeping you. Gonna show up to the house like Spencer in that one episode of ICarly.
Bo: "...What is that?"
Lester drinking a smoothie while you cheerfully wave love struck on his arm: "A smoothie??"
- He did question your mental state at first but hell he grew up with Bo and Vince so what the hell? He's a lil crazy too! Just part of your charm is all.
- When you are talking about the future he gets a little nervous but not out right opposing it just give him some time, babe! He could give you a ring made of deer antler or bone wittled down and you'd cry and say yes.
- He acts cute with you. You both are so disgustingly sweet on each other it makes Bo gag and Vincent roll his eye whenever you both come to town.
- Both twins are so jealous their goofy dirty lil brother found love before them and they can't stand it
#house of wax bo sinclair#house of wax (2005)#house of wax 2005#house of wax imagine#house of wax#house of wax vincent sinclair#house of wax lester#house of wax imagines
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YOUR PEST BAND- “Reflecting Board” 12” now available!
Check out the title track over at NoEcho.net & snag the vinyl at deadbrokedistro.com
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ehehehe i have so many ideas (specifically regarding familiars and such)
m6 with an mc who has a maine coon familiar? (big fluffy boy) (i really like cats lol)
(also kind of unrelated but in like either third or fifth grade we had to choose a state to do a project on and i chose maine. and wouldn’t you know it, the maine coon is the state cat. who would’ve guessed)
The Arcana Mini-HCs: When MC has a cat familiar
Julian: in case you couldn't tell with Pepi, he loves cats. and regularly gets trapped under them because he refuses to move when they inevitably fall asleep on his lap. Unironically calls it "your majesty"
Asra: fluffy animal that likes to nap in sunbeams, meet fluffy human that likes to nap in sunbeams. It's normal now to walk in from errands with Faust to find the cat curled up on their chest while they snooze
Nadia: she loves it. she loves it so much. she loves it so much that she gets a tailor-made apron/robe to cover her outfits so she can snuggle it without worrying about all the cat hair getting on her
Muriel: he has a healthy respect for cats, if only because they do a good job of keeping pests out of the hut. will completely freeze in place and stand for hours if the cat climbs on his shoulder to nap
Portia: awww, Pepi has a friend!! She goes out of her way to make sure that both cats get equal amounts of treats. Nearly died of cuteness when she walked in to the two of them napping together
Lucio: did you know that cats and dogs generally disagree? well, so did your cat and his dogs until they had to band together and provide the emotional support you need. (though it still avoids his cold arm)
#ask arcana brainrot#the arcana#the arcana headcanons#the arcana hc#the arcana game#asra the arcana#julian the arcana#nadia the arcana#muriel the arcana#portia the arcana#lucio the arcana#asra alnazar#julian devorak#nadia satrinava#muriel of the kokhuri#portia devorak#lucio morgasson
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— MY ‘LIL STAR
Spider punk x rockstar!Black Fem reader
Including: British slang (ill do my best!), slight cursing, flirty hobie, pet names: (pretty, star, doll,dolly), slight suggestiveness
Summary:You were preforming one day, and happened to catch the attention of wandering eyes. Hobies eyes </3
🎸: 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐭. 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐲
You’ve hung out with a lot of weird ‘blokes’ as Hobie would say but, he’s one to talk since he’s one of the weirdest (HOTTESTTT ASF) though you think his look on the world is quite interesting, and confusing at the same time. But nevertheless you find yourself feeling as though you could tell him anything, which is how he feels about you. Which surprised himself because for the longest time he tried to find out what is was about you that made him wanna stare at your face talking about different guitars you used to play as a kid for hours on end. Then it clicked, your love and appreciation for music. When you first told him that you were in a band he already knew. He saw a villain lurking around the venue you had apparently rented out and got distracted by your voice that he almost forgot about the building wrecking villain. Who he quickly dealt with since he wanted to hear your angelic voice, ( it was all he could think about during the fight).
He stayed a bit after the show to see how you spoke with your fans, and..no surprise you were an absolute sweetheart. You spotted him in a dark corner and got slightly excited to see the spider at one of your shows, after you said your goodbyes you quickly made your way over to him as to not get spotted by any more fans. “Soo how was I? I’m hoping it was somewhat good since thats atleast 4 minutes that you could’ve been using to save someone.” Your heart fluttered at his chuckle, “It was good, I like your style dolly. ‘Suits you.” You smiled, trying to distract yourself from how weirdly attractive it was to see the spider leaning up against a corner of a wall. “Thanks, and thanks for coming out. Hope I’ll get to see you at my next show, but make sure you don’t get distracted while getting rid of a villain or whatever the hell those things are.” He hums at your comment, his eyes locked on your pretty ones. Hobies spider sense starts to tingle slightly, “Sum blokes looking for you-Widow?” Your heart flutters at the way he says your stage name, “Oh yeah, thats just my preforming name. It’s actually y/n.” You say sweetly, your black acrylics fiddling with the chain on your shorts. “Widow get your ass in here!” You roll your eyes, quickly pulling out a pen that was tucked between your waist and the clothing of your jean shorts. You gestured for his forearm, and wrote your number on it. ‘Pretty n a singer damn.’ Hobie took note of the cute heart you left behind the series of numbers.
This was your fit btw
You capped the pen, looking behind you to see your manger still looking. You groaned, “Fuckin pest.” You muttered beneath your breath, earning a snicker from the spider. You turned back to him, with a sigh but a smile. “Call me okay? Wanna let you know when I have another show.” You stated, giving him a wink and a wave before you left to deal with your annoying manager. After that day, you would try and find the spider around town. Which hardly ever worked, but you were equally busy with practice and vocal training. Though you had to admit you did miss the spiders company and you were hoping to see him to give him backstage passes to your show.
Late one night on the balcony of your penthouse, you laid on your plush couch playing your electric guitar. Bored and thinking of Hobie you started to play a tune absent minded, not sensing that he was behind you listening and watching your pretty fingers work the instrument. “Aren’t you just full of surprises.” You jumped, turning around to see the masked spider. “Jesus dude, your gonna give a bitch a heart attack.” You almost dropped your guitar because of his sudden presence. “Sorry doll, was just swinging by the see how the lil star was.” He explained, walking around and sitting down in the chair in front of you. Leaving his own guitar leaned up against it. You noticed this and looked at him curiously, “You play too?” He hummed in response, before manspreading in the chair. You smiled softly, looking over his figure before seeing a cut stretch across his forearm. “My god are you okay?” You asked, getting up and going around your small glass table to get a better look at his wound. “Don’t worry doc I’m fine.” You gave him a look, “Yeah no, I’m fine my ass. Stay here don’t move I’ll be right back.” You rush inside to get your med kit, not feeling hobies eyes wander down to your ass and hips as you left.
Once you returned, you had a med kit clutched in your hand. You set it down on the glass table, opening the case you pulled out some peroxide and bandages. “This might hurt a little, sorry if it does.” You say softly, looking at the eyes of the mask as if asking if he’s okay. “I’m fine pretty, go ahead do your thing.” That same flutter you felt the first time you met him you felt again, your actions becoming more hesitant and nervous as it felt as though he was watching intently. You tried to ignore it as you doused a big cotton ball with peroxide, slowly dabbing it on his wound. Causing him to hiss, letting out a groan, “Fuck..that some strong stuff you got dolly.” Your heart stopped as you tried to ignore how hot it was to hear him curse, throwing the now used cotton ball in the trash can and wrapping his wound up and sealing it. “That looks a lot better, sorry if it hurt too bad.” He shook his head, “Nah it wasn’t that bad, could use a kiss though.” You rolled your eyes shoved his shoulder. “You would like that wouldn’t you?” You giggled, as you turned around walking away to put the stuff back up. Your hips swaying, which slowly started to make Hobie loose his mind a little. “What you wouldn’t star?” He asked, sounding closer than usual, which made sense as he was right behind you.
“Haven’t thought of kissing me once? Hm?”
Part two?
#🎸.𝐀 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐎 𝐁𝐘 𝐊𝐀𝐌#atsv fluff#atsv x you#atsv x black reader#hobie x y/n#hobie headcanons#astv hobie#hobie x reader#hobie x fem!reader#hobie x black!reader#hobie brown x fem!reader#hobie brown x black!reader#atsv hobie#hobie brown x reader#hobie brown fluff#hobie brown imagine#hobie brown x y/n#atsv x black!reader
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Stardust Crusaders × Reader: Motion Pictures
(+ bonus card at the bottom of the cereal box!)
Finally, you and your travelling band of troubadours have arrived at a hotel for the first time in days. It's early in the evening, everybody's exhausted, so you decide to retire to your rooms early and decompress. But you want to take some time, either with the group or your special someone and unwind with a movie.
(Trying to stay as canon-compliant as possible, so only movies that came out in or before 1988. Enjoy! Feedback welcome.)
I. THE MAGICIAN
Muhammad Avdol hasn't watched a lot of movies tbh. Down for most anything. Spending time with you is the true privilege.
Tbh I am struggling so much with picking a movie for him. His favourite movie canonically is Midnight Run, so maybe he'd recommend something like From Russia With Love?
I think he would let you pick if it was only the two of you and just be happy for the time together. He is the sweetest of men.
Respectfully tender. You want to share a blanket? You want snacks? You want to kiss? He's prepared and willing for anything.
Toasty warm if you want to cuddle. Leaves him delightly flustered.
V. THE HIEROPHANT
Omg this bean. 💕 Kakyoin Noriaki wants you to watch something that is of great personal significance to him but he's fearful of rejection.
He'll pick something a little bit artsy (and maybe pretentious), but something he holds dear to his heart. But it's Kakyoin, and he's also kind of a weirdo. He's gonna pick something a little out there like Blade Runner. The Princess Bride?
Please, bear with him. He's doing his best. Does the movie fit the vibe? Maybe not. But it's about being next to you.
Wants to cuddle, is too nervous to ask. You're gonna have to be the bold one here.
Watch his face flush to match his hair if you pull him in close and kiss his cheek. He's gonna want to do this every night from now on.
VII. THE CHARIOT
Oh Lord, Jean Pierre Polnareff has been waiting for this moment. He wants to fall in love. This is his chance to woo you, mademoiselle.
Already has a running list of appropriately romantic movies. Settles on Dirty Dancing (he is incorrigible). He doesn't actually care about the movie, this is all just a scheme to set the mood.
Chatty as fuck during the movie. Sweet nothings in your ear and distracted commentary on the movie. His stream of consciousness, really. Wants to see you blush.
Offers to let you sit/put your head in his lap. C'est magnifique if you take him up on that.
He is a gentleman, he won't try anything you don't want. He is going to ask to kiss you, though. Even if it's not the first time you've kissed today. He can't help himself.
IX. THE HERMIT
Joseph Joestar is either trying to inspire the group with some big moral lesson or he's leaning on his comfort films in private with you. No in-between.
"Comfort films" means Indiana Jones. That's it. There's a new one coming out next year, you know? You'll go see it with him, right? He's just as handsome as Sean Connery!
He's gonna try the ol' big yawn and stretch into holding you trick. Thinks he's slick.
Somehow he's already eaten the snacks. Pest. Will get more if you ask nicely.
The type of man who waits til you're very engrossed in the movie, then distracts you by kissing your neck. Success may vary. What do you mean Indiana Jones doesn't get you in the mood?
XVII. THE STAR
Good grief, why do you have to do this right now? Kujo Jotaro is tired and wants to sleep. You're so needy.
(He's thrilled by the idea and would love to turn his brain off for a night).
In front of the guys, he wants to watch some cool action movie. Top Gun? Yojimbo? More of a cinephile than he lets on. In private, he is more comfortable being the dork we know he is. Might suggest detective fiction or a documentary.
Adores these quiet moments of respite. Will play with your hair. Pamper him a little bit with soft affection and see his brows finally relax right before your eyes.
Will end up falling asleep on your shoulder, with his arms wrapped around you. Will beat up anybody that tries to tease him about it. RIP Joseph
0. THE FOOL
(He's a dog. Obviously platonic)
You're done. Fuck these guys. Fuck this whole trip. They have tried your patience for the last time today.
You and Iggy will cuddle up on a soft hotel bed and watch a Disney movie or something and have a self-care night.
Do a face mask. Realign your chakras. Enjoy strange flavours of gum. Live your best life.
Iggy is suprisingly okay with this turn of events. He lays in your lap and lets you pet him. Finally, he has found peace.
The men are distraught grumpy about missing out on this. Open the door, please. They're sorry, they promise they won't fuck up and do any stupid shit without listening to you again. Please!
Bonus Card:
IV. THE EMPORER
Baby, he's never wanted to do anything more in his life. He swears! Hol Horse loves taking time to unwind with you!
You already know this man is going to try to charm you with a spaghetti western. Fistful of Dollars it is.
THIS AIN'T HIS FIRST RODEO. He's already got all the pieces together to make this a proper romantic night. Popcorn? Check. Comfy seating? Check. Cologne? Check. Handsome smile? Baby, you're screwed.
Takes it slow, lets you make the first move. Will make you swoon.
Like a bandit, he is gone in the morning, with a note telling you he'll be back again soon and to keep him in your heart. ♡
#jjba#jojo no kimyou na bouken#jojo's bizarre adventure#stardust crusaders#part 3#mohammed avdol#noriaki kakyoin#jotaro kujo#jean pierre polnareff#iggy jjba#hol horse#jean pierre polnareff x reader#kujo jotaro x reader#kakyoin noriaki × reader#joseph joestar x reader#old joseph joestar#muhammad avdol x reader#hol horse × reader#ramblingsfromzawarudo
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Tips for figure collectors:
Don't be a completionist. It will drain the fun out of your hobby. You will be forced to look at expensive figures that you don't even like, just because they happen to be part of a set
Buy figures because you actually like them. Buy them because you like looking at them, because they're fun to display, and because they bring you joy
When you get the urge to buy, don't immediately give in. Try spending some time maintaining the figures you already have. Fix their hair, if the have any, dust them off, and rearrange them
Don't buy the figure you want first chance you get. They always get relisted eventually. Take note of the prices and wait until there's a decent offer up. If you just buy it first chance you get, you may scam yourself out of a lot of money
Supply and demand affect prices, but "rarity" is a useless term used to price gouge
Never use figures as an investment. Figure markets are volatile as hell, and you're likely to just lose money on it
Rinse your figures if you get them used. Just give them a quick scrub in soapy water. You have no idea where they've been
Please please please dust off your figures every once in a while, even if you keep them in a cabinet. It's better to dust them off regularly than allow the dust to cement itself onto their surface
A NIB figure is not a maintenance-free figure. Please inspect the box regularly, check that the figure isn't suffering from plasticizer leakage, water damage, bugs, dried-up rubber bands, or any other pests. If possible, remove the figure from its packaging and inspect it every once in a while.
Make the hobby your own. If you want to customize a rare figure or remove a it from its box, do it. Even if other collectors tell you not to do it. Especially if other collectors tell you not to do it. This is YOUR hobby and YOUR collection!
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