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#*complains about the angst thrown my way*
personasintro · 7 months
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Mutual Help | #11
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𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭: @kithtaehyung
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↳ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; in order for you to pretend to be his girlfriend, he helps you with your sexual desires ⏤ he calls it mutual help
⇢ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jungkook x reader
⇢ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: fake dating au, fluff, angst, smut, slow burn
⇢ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language, mature content
⇢ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.7k+
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⇠ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯. | 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐱 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ⇢ 
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"What the hell are you doing there? We're gonna be late!"
Jungkook's muffled voice reaches your ears, settling an irritation inside of you as you adjust your breasts in the red dress for the last time. He's been whining outside of the bathroom door for the past twenty minutes, mostly complaining about time and how much it's taking you to get ready.
It's easy for him, he just put on his suit and styled his hair – that's it.
You've been struggling to make a perfect eyeliner, making sure there are no smudges underneath your eyes from mascara and your concealer doesn't move, covering any skin blemishes. The real fight was with your hair, trying to style it in a proper hairstyle but you ended up straightening it into a sleek one instead. Throwing one side behind your shoulder, enough to show a glimpse of your collarbones and shining silver choker which is just imitation of diamonds, looks good enough.
"Seriously--"
Opening the door, you arch your brow in annoyance at your best friend who's pacing in front of his bathroom door. He stops, eyes trailing down your figure as you do the same with him.
You shouldn't be surprised when you're flashed with the sight in front of you. He's wearing a casual black suit, nothing special about it, but he looks fucking good. Those damn biceps bulge as his hands are tucked in the pockets of his slacks and you're trying not to stare too much at his puffed out chest and broad shoulders. The red tie matches with your dress, the one he bought for himself after you showed him the dress, making sure you both match together.
His sleek black hair is thrown back, exposing his forehead – a complete opposite of the boy with the coconut hairstyle you remember from four years ago.
"You look... good." he says, eyeing you down again as you chuckle.
"Wow, that sounded believable." you laugh at his tone, trying not to focus on the shock decorating that handsome face.
"No! I mean.. you look fucking gorgeous," he says right away, shaking his head as he finally meets your eyes with darkened gaze. "It makes me want to fuck you." he admits shamelessly, causing you to gasp in shock before a laugh erupts in your throat.
Jungkook always knew how to compliment people, he used to compliment you a lot. But with recent events and the deal you both made, he became more blunt and explicit. Is he saying that just because you started exploring each other sexually? Or he always thought of you that way? 
"Jungkook, you can't say stuff like that." you giggle, slapping his chest playfully as he grins down at you, licking those damn pink lips.
"I can," he shrugs, still grinning at you. "I'm your boyfriend."
Your heart jumps at that almost immediately. "Fake boyfriend." you remind him.
"Whatever," he rolls his eyes, arm wrapping around your waist before he dives in.
"What are you doing?" you stop him, chuckling when he frowns at your dismissal.
"I was going to kiss you." he pouts, arms slowly sliding down from your waist in disappointment.
"You're going to ruin my lipstick," you chuckle, pinching his cheek while he grunts in annoyance at you. "Now let's go. I believe you said something about being late."
Turning around, you leave him standing there but still hear faint curses thrown at your dismissal that makes you laugh. You're trying to put the heels on, glancing at Jungkook that stands there with a solid frown settled on his brows and lips.
"Don't sulk there, big boy. Come help me." you call out to him, a grin of amusement tracing your lips at the way he huffs out and makes his way to you.
You sit on the bench that serves as a shoe rack as well, before he kneels on his one knee in front of you. He delicately touches your ankle, making sure he puts the stripe around it the right way.
"Is that okay?" he asks you, eyeing your ankle to see if it's not too tight or too loose.
"Yeah," you breathe out, eyes focused on his black sleek hair meanwhile his scent causes you to mentally hum in praise. It's not too strong, but just enough for you to smell it and appreciate the expensive scent.
He does the same thing with your other leg, and when he's done you expect him to just stand up. Instead, his fingers meet your skin as he trails them up your leg, before he stops at your calf. Closely, you watch his every move while your body shivers at the feeling of his fingertips caressing your skin. He raises your leg as it becomes more visible through the cut, the dress slipping between your legs. Your breath hitches when you see him dipping down, kissing your leg as he makes his way up. He makes sure to kiss almost every inch on the way, before he stops at the top of your knee.
Deviously, he looks up, enough to show you a little smirk lingering on his lips before he stands up. He offers you his hand, enjoying how shocked with a lust in your eyes you look. You take it, not prepared to utter a single word as you let yourself be led out of Jungkook's apartment.
++
The place of Seokjin's wedding is beautiful. As expected, there's a white color everywhere although, it's matched with soft purplish color as well, creating a soft looking environment. There are flowers everywhere, making it seem like you're in one of those fairytales' forests. Even the room is huge, making you wonder how many people have been invited. Such a wedding must cost a fortune but then you remember, he owns a restaurant.
With Jungkook's hand on your lower back, he guides you through the crowd of people, greeting most of them that seem to be closer to your age with a brief greeting. You're busy looking around, barely noticing Jungkook is walking straight to Taehyung and Jimin who are already waiting for your arrival. You notice them when you hear their voices, greeting the both of you with whistles that make you roll your eyes at them.
"Yo! You guys look hot!" Taehyung calls out, hand covering his mouth to mimic his shock.
"Hey!" Jimin says right away, hugging you before he hugs Jungkook in a brief one. The same thing Taehyung does, before they start to talk about how it should start any second.
Just as they start chatting, about something you're not paying attention to, your eyes catch Kiko in the end of the room, talking with some other woman. They're all wearing pastel purple dresses, meaning they're bridesmaids. There's no doubt she's outstanding in all of them, even though their dresses are exactly the same. She looks beautiful even from a distance, and just as you look at Jungkook, you find him already looking at her.
He feels your eyes on him, but he lets his own linger on his ex-girlfriend for a few seconds before he looks at you. He gives you a weak attempt to smile, placing his hand on your lower back.
"Come on, it's about to start." he mutters gently, following Jimin and Taehyung who keep laughing about something, looking far more comfortable than you and Jungkook.
The wedding ceremony is beautiful, bringing you to the tears that you desperately try to blink away. You don't even know them personally, yet Seokjin's tears when he first sees his future wife makes you so emotional that you nibble on your bottom lip.
Surprisingly, Jungkook doesn't notice nor cares about your sniffling state, his eyes watching the ceremony the whole time. He barely budges, and when you glance at him, you know. He's low-key staring at Kiko, averting his eyes every now and then, a smart move not to look too obvious. Still, you catch him and push the urge to roll your eyes at him.
You feel a bitter taste on your tongue, mad and annoyed at your best friend for being so whipped for her. She broke up with him, broke his heart and he's still here trying to win her over. He deserves better and you wish he could see that. He's too blind in love to notice anything else. There's someone waiting out there for him, someone who will cherish him and not dump him over a dumb reason that doesn't even make sense.
The bride's vows are touching, and understandably, her long white wedding dress catches everyone's attention right away. The last wedding you've been to was when you were six years old, so you barely remember anything about it. But this wedding is one of the most beautiful weddings for sure, even though you haven't experienced that many of them.
The bride – Kiko's best friend – says her vows with a shaky voice, causing her best friend to wipe her tears as other bridesmaids try to cheer her up.
Noticing Jungkook's twitching hands, it's almost as if he wants to run towards her and be the one who embraces her shaky and emotional form.
You hate how bitter it makes you, but you swallow that feeling and clench your jaw instead.
As much as beautiful this wedding is, you can't wait for it to be over.
After you congratulate the newlyweds, it's time for the fun part – as most people call it – but you find yourself fake smiling at everyone Jungkook introduces to you.
However, your whole body stiffens when you see Hoseok walking up to you, to the group of people that Jungkook talks with. You saw him standing beside Seokjin at the ceremony, being his best man, but you avoided even looking his way. There's just something about him – like he can see right through you and the web of lies you and Jungkook created.
"Hey, everyone. Having fun?" he cheerfully calls out, arm slinging around Jimin's shoulder as he smiles at everyone.
A bunch of cheerful greetings can be heard from Jungkook's friends and Jungkook himself, luckily your lack of response to him is blending with others' voices. Everyone seems to be in a great mood, which is understandable, something that can't be said about you. You're standing next to Jungkook's side, a glass of wine in one hand as you silently sip from it every few seconds, with unbothered gaze.
Even though you appear to be unbothered, you're glad that you've blended with the crowd and nobody directly talks to you. Well, that's until Hoseok's voice resounds, shutting up everyone in the circle as they look at you.
"What about you, Y/N? Are you having fun?"
He smiles at you, silently taking a sip from his own wine, as his eyes stay glued to you.
Devil.
He looks innocent but you notice the glint in his dark eyes as he stares at you. What's his problem?
Jungkook glances at you, his shoulder brushing against yours and if there weren't so many eyes on you, he'd probably nudge you from your frozen state. Mustering one of your fake smiles, you smile at the man in black suit.
"I do, the ceremony was beautiful."
At least half of it is true.
You glance at Seokjin who gives you an appreciative smile your way, and you return it.
"Jungkook's next." he jokes, making you widen your eyes as Jungkookś choking fills the silence.
"What?" he manages to croak out, mouth widening at his friend that smirks.
"Well, you're the only one with a girlfriend," he says, pointing with a glass of wine towards you as you look at Jungkook. Your eyes meet before Seokjin adds; "When's the wedding?"
You hear the teasing in his voice, erupting an automatic reaction from you and Jungkook as you look at each other. One look into his eyes, and the both of you snort and start to laugh at the silly idea. Jungkook's scrunched nose and crinkled eyes with his bubbly voice, mixed with your laugh and hand clutching his shoulder for support, is enough to leave the whole group of Jungkook's friends speechless. They stare at you as if you were crazy, eyeing the both of you and nothing clicks inside your head, not until you see Hoseok.
He raises his brow at you with a total straight face, almost staring at you with an attitude that makes your laugh die down.
Oh, shit.
You're supposed to look like you're in love, not snorting and laughing right into their faces at the mention of the wedding. You know Seokjin was just teasing – however, you're not sure the same thing can be said about Hoseok – but that's what made your reaction even more weird.
Whipping your head in Jungkook's direction, your eyes meet and even though he looks completely neutral, you know he caught onto their stares as well. How could he not? They're literally staring at you with confused expressions, wondering what the hell just happened.
"Hyung," Jungkook chuckles, but you can tell it's strained and not natural. "We just started dating. Slow steps, right, baby?"
Staring into his crinkled eyes, you hide the shock when he pulls you closer, his arms securely wrapped around your hips as you bump into his side.
"Jin, look at her. You scared the poor woman." One of their friends snickers, jokingly poking Seokjin's shoulder as he grins but looks at you with apologetic eyes.
"Sorry, it was supposed to be a joke." he says, but you wave your hand.
"It just shocked me, it's okay. We haven't got to the point of discussing wedding plans yet, even though he was on his knees today." you let out a mere chuckle, trying to joke which proves to be successful when you hear their laughter.
"Well, excuse us," Jungkook says, hand delicately placed against your lower back. "I need a dance with my woman."
My woman. Oh my--
Giving your empty glass to the waiter that passes by, he leads you towards the dance floor, hand still pressed against your lower back making you shiver. His chest is almost pressed against your back, you can feel him just behind you, and when he finally stops you turn around. Taking your hand with the same gentleness like when he had led you to the dance floor, he places the other one against your hip. Your body reacts automatically, you place your hand against his shoulder, appreciating how soft his suit jacket feels.
But that's not what makes your heartbeat echo in your ears.
It's his dark eyes that stare right back into yours, a softest smile adoring his lips. The weirdest warm feeling fills your chest and you almost panic, wondering why the fuck he affects you so much. There is a need to know what he's thinking right now, if he can feel the same thing or something similar to it.
You watch him lick his bottom lip, smirking down at you – almost as if he could read your mind.
A low chuckle leaves his mouth, before he opens his mouth and you wonder what he's about to say.
"Almost got caught, huh?" he chuckles, talking about what just happened.
And you can feel it. The way your heart flutters, but not with the same warm feeling, but met with coldness instead. Not realizing your deadpan expression, you see Jungkook cocking his head to the side, swaying his body along with yours.
Mustering the best smile, you let out a dry chuckle. "Yeah, imagine that."
Before he can study your weird expression and non-verbal response, you lean your cheek against his shoulder, inhaling his scent. He doesn't question it, but you feel him pressing a soft kiss into your hair.
The gentle piano music is calm, contrasting with your beating heart, but you let yourself relax in his hold.
Eyes dancing at the guests, your breath is almost knocked out of your chest. Hoseok sits on one of the bar stools, his body turned to the dance floor as he takes a glass of wine from the bar. Looking right back at you, he raises his brow along with the glass, smirking before he gulps it down.
You've no idea why, but you feel like the two of you are utterly fucked.
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inklore · 1 year
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impetuous
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premise: the little games you and joel like to play become risky when you almost get caught.
pairing: joel miller x smuggler!reader
word count: 1.4k
warnings: eighteen+ content, unprotected piv, established enemies with benefits, dirty talk, a certain clothing item being used as a gag, small mention of masturbation and bjs, hints of angst.
note: episode eight changed me as a person, the integration scene rewired my brain chemistry and i just needed to get this out before i collapsed from being in heat. the gif was made by me so don't steal pretty please.
part of this world but you don't have to read it to enjoy this!
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“Shh, shh,” Joel silences you, just as a hard thrust of his cock has your mouth falling open, a moan filling the air of the damp shed. The crunch of sticks and gravel outside makes your already thumping heart beat faster against your rib cage.
Brows drawn together, the hands gripping onto Joel’s flannel digging into his sides. The thumb that was just pressed to the column of your throat—dirty palm squeezing your airway just enough to lower your moans, enough to make you wetter and less coherent—now moves down to where you’re bare and his cock is fucking into you. The rough pad of his thumb moving along your clit, “focus right here.” 
Ignore the noises outside. 
Ignore the possibility of getting caught by someone out after dark and up to no good. 
Ignore the possibility of getting thrown in a cell by FEDRA because you two were out after dark and up to no good. 
“Fuc-Joel,” you whine. Clench your eyes shut until all you can see is little white dots behind them. Try to focus on those, on the burn you feel from the tears that are now prickling at your lash line from how hard you’re trying to focus. 
From how hard you’re trying to keep your mouth shut, to not getting caught—at least not before you’ve come. 
Joel’s words “focus right here” mocking and blaring in your head like a song you can’t stop humming, a song stuck in your head, a song you want to bodily remove from your brain stem; your focus on the footsteps outside no longer the issue; your attentions shifting to the head of his cock, hitting every spot inside of you that makes your legs tighten around his hips more, on the burning pleasure he’s delivering to your clit right now. 
You couldn’t focus on anything but him if you tried, and you’re trying really hard to focus that attention on staying quiet. 
Which the two of you know is not your forte, in and out of this situation. 
The countless times when Joel’s not fucking you come to the forefront of your mind of him complaining about your need to argue, to talk talk talk, instead of the two of you doing a trade, or making the other come. 
“Anyone ever told you you talk too much?” 
"Well, one of us has to do the talking, Mr. Resting Grump Face. Besides, you’d be bored if I didn’t make you work for what you came for.” 
“That what you call it? Workin’ for it? You mean until I give you what you want because you can’t seem to ask for it unless you’re deliverin’ me bad news,” he had smirked. Wiped the grin from your face and covered it with his mouth seconds later as he backed you into the wall, groin grinding against your front. “I got better uses for that mouth.” 
The scrape of the metal table your ass is on moves each time Joel thrusts, each time his cock drags against your sensitive walls over and over. If it weren’t for his jeans still covering half of him, the sounds of your skin moving against each other—and your wetness that was more than likely staining the front of his jeans, the small window in the back doing little to help light anything but his face and neck—would cover up the mewls and cries making your throat hoarse and raw each time they slip out when you fight to swallow them down. 
“The only way you know how to be quiet is with my cock in your mouth.” There’s humor in his tone; his heavy breaths add more heat to your face. You feel his free hand run along your leg, moving it from his hip for half a second as he pulls your underwear from your calf and over your ankle until it’s in his palm and he’s pushing the material into your mouth. 
You can taste the remnants of your arousal on the cotton, from even before the two of you started your little game. When it was still just a simple trade of stolen items and things your boss was too cowardly to hand off to the big bad grump. When he had just been scowling at you, listening to your bullshit story, and bidding the time until one of you cracked. Before both of you threw the items to the side and Joel’s hands were bending you over the nearest surface or pushing you to your knees. 
You swallow around the material, your whimpers caught by the fabric and barely audible. His lips press against the material, barely touching your lips; the sweat on his forehead mingles with your own as he presses it against yours. “Focus on comin’ for me, take what you came for. C’mon. Come with me,” he grunts. Moves his hips in a way that has your eyes rolling back and your teeth biting the salvia-soaked cotton. 
The hand not rubbing fast circles on your clit, cups the back of your skull. His dirty fingers wrapped in your hair, keeping you in place. Keeping you bent at the perfect angle so your hips can meet his. So his thumb has access to that nerve that’s making your toes curl—to push his cock further and further into you so the tip hits something pleasurably painful. 
When you’re coming, when his name is muffled against your underwear and your nails are clinging and digging into his skin from the searing heat that has your body convulsing against him—"That's it, that's it, take it” murmured against your forehead—you feel him finish seconds later. Your walls clenching and spasming around his cock. A deep grunt breathed against your skin. 
Your insides feel warm, like jell-o left out in the sun. Like if Joel never moved from between your legs and the two of you stayed connected forever, you wouldn’t mind. 
And after he’s pulled out and his warmth is gone from your body, you quickly shoot down the disappointment rising up inside of you that he didn’t stay between your legs longer. That this part of the night is over, and now you’re back to the game. 
To the reason you snuck out after dark to begin with. 
Completely denying yourself any opposing thought that could put that reason into question. The two of you have been doing this for too long for your mind to think it’s something it isn’t. 
Even when he doesn’t just take what he came for and leave or shoot you a scowl when he helps you find your pants, the way you expect him to. 
Or how he doesn’t let you go first no matter how much arguing you do against it—how he makes sure the coast is clear before signaling it’s safe. Him hanging behind to—cover his ass, you’re sure—make sure when you slip down the dark alleyway, no one is there to catch you sneaking away into the night. 
And later, when you’re laying in bed, you’ll chalk up the pounding need you feel again as you remember Joel’s rough fingers against you—your jaw, your neck, digging into your sides, your shoulder to keep you from moving anywhere but against him, anywhere but where he wouldn’t be inside of you—and his words still playing in your head “focus right here, come with me”, your heart will pick up, and you’ll have no choice but to sedate the ache you feel by making yourself come. Joel’s name on your tongue and bit into your bottom lip; you’ll blame it on his stupid mouth and your lack of options for sexual partners in this hell hole. 
It won’t be because of an attachment or attraction of any kind. 
Fuck that. 
And tomorrow, when you tell Robert to do his own fucking deliveries, it won’t be because of your feelings but instead because you almost got caught last night. This little game becoming more of a risk than entertainment for you, and you’ll be damned if you get in the mix with FEDRA over Joel and the underlying need the both of you have to pick each other apart and pull the hatred you harbor inside out with teeth, tongues, and fingers that make you see stars. 
But Robert is spineless, and you’re not convincing enough to make yourself believe you want to end anything with Joel. 
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silkscream · 3 months
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CHAPTER 5: NOT THAT I'M ANYWHERE
ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader
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In your prelude to adulthood, he’d driven himself wild about the physicality of you next to him. Smothered by him since the summertime. He liked that the two of you spoke in tongues, kiss-shaped secrets.
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ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: explicit content (18+ mdni) , oral sex (f receiving), nonconsensual voyeurism, alcohol usage, angst
ੈ✩ wc: 6.1k
ੈ✩ a/n: more satoru antics... featuring a curveball thrown by suguru. surprise
playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist
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December, 2008
You arrive a bit late, not that Satoru minds. For some reason, he had this nagging thought in his mind that you wouldn’t come at all, and he was trying to make peace with it all day. Luckily, you show up, a roseate blush adorning your cheeks that matches your lipstick. He wants to kiss it off of you. Tear off your sweater and the black tights stuck to your legs.
You situate yourself in between Shoko and Utahime, who are both engaging in the stash of alcohol in front of them that you knew belonged in a glass cabinet in the dining room, pristine and locked up. 
You hug your knees, watching Shoko and Satoru bicker about the rules of whatever game they’re attempting to force everyone to play. You accidentally make eye contact with Utahime, who smiles at you graciously as she fixes one of her pigtails. Every one of Satoru’s friends was beautiful, which suited him. You didn’t feel like you could be part of them.
She offers you a beer and you take it even though it isn’t your favorite. When you try to swallow it down, you catch Suguru’s eye. He gives you a teasing smile.
“Shoko, you always want to play strip poker. If you wanted to see Hime’s tits, I’m sure you can just ask—”
The brunette pushes Satoru roughly on the shoulder, an irritated noise groaning in her throat. 
“No, you just don’t know any other fucking card games. Don’t act like you don’t always want to get everyone naked, too,” Shoko protests.
“I will not accept such slander on my birthday—”
“It’s not even midnight, yet, idiot!” Utahime interrupts.
You and Suguru share a look, which makes you look away quickly as you snort. You feel Satoru watching, but you don’t indulge in his gaze. You used to imagine a red string between the two of you when you were in school. You would stalk the halls alone, walking past him and make enough brief eye contact with him that you would assume his eyes were on you, always. You’d exist in the world just for him to watch. You’d feel his gaze on your body even when both of you were barely teenagers.
A bottle of wine makes its way into your hands, passed around from Utahime on your right. You chug the way she does, needing the release of inhibitions. When you look up to see Satoru looking at you, he nearly gives you whiplash from the way he stumbles over to you in the circle and snatches the bottle from you.
“That’s enough, Twigs!”
“No, you’re way drunker than me!” you retort. 
“You’re a lightweight, baby,” he purrs. “I care about your brain cells.”
“You’re more of a lightweight than she is,” Suguru chuckles. 
“Shut up, Sugu!” 
“Leave him alone,” you laugh. He’s disarmed enough for you to grab the bottle back, which leaves him pouting. He rolls his eyes as he watches you share it with Suguru.
The feeling inside his chest isn’t burning. It isn’t. If anything, he likes that you’re enjoying yourself considering the shitshow on Shoko’s birthday. If anything, he wants you on his lap laughing.
“Are we doing strip poker or not?” Shoko drawls, taking a large swig out of her sake.
“I don’t even know how to play that,” you whine.
“Put on a movie,” Utahime suggests, nodding toward the flatscreen.
“Booooooring,” Satoru complains.
“You’re just a pervert who wants to see everyone fuck, Gojo.”
Satoru looks at you briefly with a shit-eating grin on his face. His eyes are starry. The length of his body exudes arrogance. “Maybe I do. It’s my birthday, anyway.”
“Not midnight yet, stupid,” you remind him. “I’ll figure out poker if it means you’ll behave.”
“No promises.”
Half an hour passes and the rules of the game don’t register in your brain, though the rest of the group helps you enough to get by. It doesn’t seem to matter anyway considering how drunk everyone is, therefore the rules are getting loosened and lost as the game progresses.
A movie is playing on the TV per Utahime’s request – an American horror film that was released last month. It’s mostly uncanny to you considering it’s American, and the vampire storyline doesn’t make much sense to you. Werewolves end up getting involved as you absentmindedly watch the screen and the plot is forgotten by you.
You’re left in your tights and your bralette. It takes over an hour to do so – meanwhile, Shoko and Utahime were down to their bare tits; Satoru and Suguru are down to their boxers.
The inclusion of the movie has everyone as distracted as you. Suguru eventually falls asleep on the couch while Shoko and Utahime retreat to the kitchen to make cocktails. Considering it’s been at least fifteen minutes since then, you assume they’re somewhere else in the house.
“Those two are definitely fucking,” Satoru deadpans, his eyes still on the screen. “Oh fuck, are they decapitating that guy?”
“I mean, he’s the bad guy that wants to eat the main character, right? It only makes sense.”
Satoru rests his head on your lap. It reminds you of the sight you saw at Shoko’s birthday party. Your throat tightens. When the movie ends, Satoru nestles himself into your stomach like a cat.
“I wanna go to bed.”
“So go to bed,” you say softly.
“Come with me.”
“Okay,” you breathe. 
You follow him. 
Satoru’s bedroom is an oasis. You felt weary about getting so used to it for months, but his soft sheets and king-sized mattress have begun feeling like home since September. Not to mention Satoru’s affinity for spooning you, arms around your waist, and a leg draped over yours to cage you.
He doesn’t give you much time before he has you pushed onto the bed, his larger frame engulfing yours as he kisses you and runs his hands along your soft body. He grins at the way you moan for him and grinds his hips into yours because he knows how wild you get when you can feel him. You buck your hips up the way he expects you to. You’re malleable in his hands, just the way he likes you.
“Satoru, w–wait—”
“What is it?”
“Got a present for you,” you laugh. You crawl to grab the coat you came with to fish something small from the pocket. You cover his eyes with your hand. “Okay, just— close your eyes. It’s not that special but I wanna put it on you.”
He closes his eyes. You slip a ring on his hand — a silver band with a glittering turquoise gem. It’s not extravagant, nor were you sure if it was Satoru’s style, but it had spoken to you in the tiny shop you were in and it mirrored the color of his eyes. 
“Is this how you’re proposing to me, baby?”
“Shut up,” you say, rolling your eyes. “Don’t make a huge deal out of it. You can open your eyes.”
When he settles his gaze on the ring you’d placed on his left index finger, his gaze softens. The stone is as bright as his eyes and it’s also elegant. Elegant in the same way you are, he thinks.
“It would look good with what you usually wear,” you stammer. “And– it matches your eyes or whatever. A good luck charm and stuff.”
“Twigs,” he grins. “I love it.”
He almost says he loves you with how drunk he is. But he knows better. He’d rather show it through actions, anyway. Mostly, he wants to fucking eat you out with how sheer your black tights are and how little fabric your bralette provides to cover your breasts.
“Wanna give you head,” he mumbles, parting your legs.
“I feel like I should be the one that– aah!”
He’s yanked down your tights and underwear in half a second, mouth already closing in your pulsating clit. He moans at the taste of you and how wet and warm you are. 
So fucking sweet. You were made for him ever since you’d entered his life.
“S-Satoru–”
“This is all I want, baby.”
“But–”
“But what?” He stops, pulling away as he wipes off your slick from his mouth. He looks at you for a second, brows raised.
“Nothing. Happy birthday, Satoru,” you coo. You stroke his hair with your fingers, then settle your warm hands on both of his cheeks. Cupping them. Reveling in the blush of his pale face. When both of you look, you see that the clock on his bedside table is close to one in the morning. 
“Thank you,” he chuckles. His laugh is saccharine-sweet, dulcet in your ears. “I want to indulge in my gift, now.”
“Okay.”
You let him, because how could you deny him? There’s no way in your right mind you could let go of him right now — it all feels so fucking good. The way he kisses you like he wants to suck out your bone marrow, plush lips on your clit as he massages it with his tongue. 
You whine when you feel the loss of contact. Of course he wants to tease you, ease you into turning into a brainless puddle for him until you beg. He sucks love-bites into your inner thigh while he rubs his long fingers along your folds in a languid motion. He chuckles at the sound of you whining.
“What’re you whining about?”
“Want your mouth.”
“Let the birthday boy take his time, yeah?” 
You squirm in his grasp, bucking your hips up, desperate for him to bury his face in your wet cunt like you’re his favorite dessert. He groans something, snapping a mumbled command at you as he continues to teethe on the delicate skin of your thigh. 
His mouth cascades down your thigh, pressing a kiss to each of your knees.
“What if I made you cum nineteen times? Doesn’t that sound fun?” he teases. 
“N-no, I can’t take it–”
“You sure? I’d do it if my dick physically could. You can cum as many times as you want, though.”
“Satoru–” you groan.
He simply laughs, then licks a stripe from your knee up to your clit. When you feel his tongue again, you shiver. His white lashes flutter when you whimper. You reach down to smooth his hair back to see his eyes darkened with lust.
He’s sloppier than usual because of his inhibited senses, but he makes a mess of your pussy as he laps up the taste of you. Every rhythmic pass of his tongue over your clit sends sparks to your stomach and short-circuits your brain. You remember the first time Satoru had eaten you out months before, how he’d made you cry. It’s similar to how you feel now.
He moans against your cunt as you close your legs around his face, but he pries them apart and takes a handful of your ass to squeeze. You mewl when you feel his hand slap the soft skin of your ass, and you can almost hear him laugh.
You can barely say his name fully. Your voice only comes out in gasps. You have to keep yourself from crying out when you feel his fingers enter you while he sucks on your clit. Your eyes roll back in ecstasy. 
Satoru loves to spoil you. It’s his favorite thing to fuck your cunt with his tongue, laving your clit until you’re melting before he switches his method. The combination of his tongue with his fingers inside your hole has you convulsing. He loves to watch your face during it. His own is spellbound and hungry.
After you cum, you’re begging for him.
“Satoru, let me–”
“No,” he breathes. “Want you. Stay still for me, sweetheart.”
“I– I can’t–
“You can,” he laughs, slapping your ass again. “And you will.”
Your head is in the clouds, high as can be, and far away from reality. The way Satoru thumbs over your clit while his mouth works on your pussy has you nearly ascending. Drunk and crumbling, squirming underneath his touch. Desperate for him. Pathetic for him.
“Oh, fuck, you look so good,” he pants. “Fuck, just like that. Let go for me.”
“Oh my god–”
“You’re gonna wake the whole house, baby.”
“You said– Sugu was a d-deep sleeper– aah!”
Your head is full of air. Your cunt is petal-soft, throbbing from his touch, and he makes you come undone above him again as he laps up your cum right before he sucks hickeys into your thighs.
You whine at the feeling of him nipping you, pulling his arms toward you. He groans, grunting as he hits the mattress face-down.
“Satoru, let me return the favor—”
He swats you away when you try to touch him, which surprises you.
“I’m okay.”
“What? It’s your birthday.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles, his cheeks red. He’s breathing hard, panting like an animal. Your eyes widen when you realize.
“Satoru, did you just cum in your boxers?”
“Babe, I’m so fucking drunk—”
“You came in your fucking pants from eating me out!” you laugh.
Satoru groans as loud as can be, an annoyed grunt in his throat rolling out into a petulant roar. He runs his fingers haphazardly through his hair as he enters the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it behind him.
“Satoru!” you beckon, knocking on the door. “It’s okay to come fast—”
“Go to bed, woman!”
You can’t help but laugh, realizing there’s no point in arguing with him. If you knew any better, you’d assume he was jacking off right now into the toilet just from having to face you after getting embarrassed.
That might be true, to be fair. It’s hard to look you in the eye when you smell so fucking good and when you look at him like that—
“Fuck,” Satoru grunts before he releases into the toilet. He’s never cum so much in one night — certainly not so much in a night where he consumed so many different kinds of alcohol.
It didn’t matter, he supposed. You were the only real drug to him. 
He feels grateful when he returns to your sleeping figure in his bed, breathing soundly. Satoru is too drunk to remember how much Suguru hates falling asleep anywhere that isn’t a bed. Too drunk to care about what room Shoko and Utahime might be fucking in. It didn’t matter.
He’s nineteen now and dead-tired, satiated after eating you. Maybe a little in love, too, but he’s too drunk to think about it very hard. He’ll shut off yearning’s broken record the same way you do. He only cares about your warmth at the moment. The softness of your skin lulls him to sleep.
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“How are you the first one up? And you’re making pancakes on your own birthday?”
“Twigs helped me, duh,” Satoru says, turning around to meet a disheveled Suguru stalking toward the kitchen island. “She knows how I like ‘em.”
“Good morning, Suguru,” you greet him, placing a plate in front of him.
“Oh, she uses my name now.”
You laugh while Satoru rolls his eyes, shoving a strawberry in his mouth along with a dollop of whipped cream. He notices your constant glances at him, grinning at you teasingly as your eyes rake the expanse of his bare back and grey sweatpants. You’d had to resist him this morning, complaining about your hangover and the fact that he’d woken up at 7 am sharp like a little kid. You’d let him fuck you in the shower, anyway. It had woken you up, at least.
Shoko and Utahime emerge minutes later, to which Satoru teases them about their midnight excursion.
“At least tell me what room you guys stayed in so I can get the sheets cleaned, my god.”
Utahime bickers with him as Shoko watches with amusement. Satoru argues back, bored, eyes drifting to you across the table as you talk to Suguru about some book the two of you have read before. He’s absentminded, mostly thinking about the way your mouth parts when he hits the right spot in your cunt, and how plush your thighs are, especially with hot water running down your body–
“You dickhead, you aren’t even listening!” Utahime seethes.
“I don’t get how you’re so stressed out this morning. Shoko didn’t give it to you good enough?”
“Satoru!” Shoko whines, punching him on the arm. She’ll surely excuse herself for a cigarette within the next five minutes because of him. 
“These are really good,” Suguru smiles, nudging you with his elbow.
“Thanks. They’re Satoru’s favorite.”
Suguru opens his mouth to speak again, but not before Satoru reaches over the table to wipe blueberry syrup off your bottom lip. The action dazes you, has you blinking up at him. 
“So messy,” he chuckles. You roll your eyes.
He has the urge to switch seats so he can be next to you and talk your ear off, be the one to make you laugh. He frowns when you ease back into your conversation with Suguru effortlessly. He decides to be a nuisance in other ways. Kicking your feet under the table. Sneaking sips of  Suguru’s orange juice.
You looked good together. It put a lump in his throat, thinking about how Suguru would ask you to go with him to the party. How you would say yes. 
Satoru contains himself. He’s distracted by your face anyway, the way your nose twitches, and the way you bite your lip when you think. He’s barely tuned into the conversation. Something about international politics. Anticipations for Jujutsu Tech. A Grade 3 curse that nearly wiped out Utahime before Suguru caught up to her.
“How are you going to get to Grade 2 if someone who isn’t even a first-year yet is saving your ass, Uta?” Satoru yawns.
“Utahime-senpai,” she corrects, grumbling. “And Geto-kun was just at the right place at the right time–”
“You were cowering a little,” Suguru adds, chuckling.
“Hey, leave her alone,” Shoko scolds the boys. She turns her face to you. “I don’t know how you can stand being around them all the time.”
“Aren’t you always around them?” you ask.
“Well, yes, but they’re a package deal. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. I don’t think Satoru even had friends when he met Suguru–”
“Hey!” Satoru whines. “Twigs is right here.”
“You’ve been holding her hostage since she was a child. That’s Stockholm syndrome at this point,” Suguru jokes. 
You smile a little. Satoru knows better. When he glances at you, you look away. If you were in a better mood, maybe you would’ve laughed, because there was some truth to it. 
Satoru swallows down the rest of his coffee, too sugary, tooth-rotting. He thinks about how he would pretend to kidnap you when you were kids. Cops and robbers. Trapping you in the nest he’d made in his tree house for hours, forcing you to play video games with him. He would try and fail to braid your hair and you would feed him sour gummy worms.
It had been a while since the two of you had innocent fun like that, he realized. In your prelude to adulthood, he’d driven himself wild about the physicality of you next to him. Smothered by him since the summertime. He liked that the two of you spoke in tongues, kiss-shaped secrets. He wants to be alone with you again even if he’d had you in the morning and the night before.
“I’m a victim,” you huff, sarcastic but lighthearted. “Save me, Suguru.”
Satoru frowns at that. You stick your tongue out at him, trying not to appear flushed when you take in Suguru’s laugh.
You weren’t sure how Suguru felt about you, but you knew you hated that he had an inkling to your relationship with Satoru. Maybe he knew that the two of you were fucking, but that particular aspect didn’t matter. It was the fact that it was easy to figure out that you were attached to Satoru like an accessory, his pet since he was young. A chew toy. 
When you talk with Suguru alone, you find that you feel separate from Satoru for once. Your own person. You could exist as yourself, and you found the idea of Suguru liking you for yourself rather alluring. Not that Satoru didn’t like you for you, but it was… different. He had always known you, possessed you. Like you were assigned to him, almost.
A sick part of you enjoyed that, at least when he was inside you. At the moment, in front of his friends, it makes your skin itch.
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December, 2008 (One week later)
The last month of the year is a dull ache. Swollen numbness. Frostbitten heart. 
The shock of warmth inside the kissaten makes your cheeks hot despite your face feeling frozen moments before. It’s Western-inspired and cutesy with its overflowing hanging plants and vintage movie posters. 
You think about texting Satoru, knowing how much he’d indulge in the sweets, though you refrain. He would never be able to let you study. How he received such high marks in school was beyond you — he had to have some kind of attention disorder with how distracted he could get and his outright refusal to be academically sensible. And yet, he was at the top of the class. 
For the first time in a while, you don’t care much for your exams. You don’t really care much about anything, lately. The thought of attending university in the spring hadn’t yet come to fruition in your head. Nothing remotely tangible — the future is a void where reality should be. Ironically, the fantastical nature of Jujutsu Tech started to sound more and more appealing the more time you spent with Satoru and his friends. You curse how easily influenced you are. If you feel small where you are now, you would certainly feel small there. 
Thirty pages into your book, your brooding is interrupted by the presence of another. A glass is pushed towards you, green with whipped cream on top. When you look up, a cat-like grin beams back.
“This seat taken?”
“Not at all,” you say. “Is this– for me?”
Suguru shrugs. “They fucked up my order. Wanted a regular matcha, not whatever… this is.”
“A matcha… float?”
“Something like that.”
“Thanks,” you laugh. 
Suguru’s hair is up like it always is, in a half-up bun with the rest of his hair down. His broad body drowns in an oversized black sweater. A vision of comfort. You always liked that he smelled like white tea and pine. 
“Where’s your guard dog?”
“Hm?” you look up at him quizzically, eyes narrowed. “Oh. Ah, probably home, I dunno. Don’t you usually keep track of him? Package deal and all.”
He laughs and holds his jaw in his palm as he leans closer to you. Satoru was obsessive when it came to you, Suguru had noticed. He wasn’t sure if Satoru knew – always oblivious to the shit that fell out of his mouth. He was arrogant that way, not that Suguru cared. He could sense that you cared, though. 
You’d never been alone with Suguru, you realized, nor had you ever been this close to him. He always had an air of aloofness about him from afar, but the crease in his eyes brought comfort up close. It made sense that Satoru kept him around. He was grounding and stable whereas Satoru was unconventional and wild – the moon that controlled the tide.
In between them, you felt like a stray. 
“He’s obnoxious when you’re around. Barely gives you any room to breathe, that brat.” 
He says it with a playful tease in his voice, yet still apologetic. Maybe Satoru was more of Suguru’s pet, able to be tamed by him. 
“He’s alright.”
You smile shyly into your matcha float, hair falling into your face. Suguru gets it – Satoru’s weird fixation with you. Attached to you like a baby blanket. He could feel guilty about wanting to steal you away, but the desire wasn’t for the sake of cruel entertainment. He was merely curious. He liked your face. Your mannerisms.
Suguru’s name gets called from the counter. You watch him collect his drink and a plate of ogura toast. 
“Have you eaten?”
“Suguru, you don’t have to offer me your food after you just gave me a free drink.”
“Fine,” he smiles. “It’ll cost you then.”
You shove him in the arm, gently. Bashful. He thinks it’s a good look on you. 
“Sorry. You were studying, weren’t you?”
“You can stay,” you shrug. “Just don’t be too distracting.”
“So you think I’m distracting.”
“I didn’t say that.”
You can’t resist his Cheshire-like grin, robbing you of your pride. Satoru did mention that Suguru slept around more than he did, which surprised you at first considering how quiet and reserved he seemed. Now, you understand why, examining him as he flips through the pages of the book he brought. He was beautiful. 
The hour passes quietly. You steal a few glances, but nothing major. Suguru wordlessly feeds you small pieces of his toast dipped in the red bean jam, surprising you at first. Blushing when his fingertips are so close to your mouth. 
Satoru would be pissed.
“Okay, I’ve had enough,” you sigh, rolling your shoulders and resting your head on your folded arms. 
“Of my company?” Suguru asks.
“Never.” You shake your head. You yawn. “Of studying.”
Bleary-eyed, you look at him, hiding your face less. His eyes are dark, absorbing light. The inverse of Satoru’s clear blues. You scrunch your nose when the boy pokes your cheek.
“Hey, you doing anything for New Year’s?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” you admit. “I barely know what I’m doing for Christmas.”
You’ve never celebrated New Year’s like other teenagers. Maybe you’d stay up watching television with your mother, sharing a barely-alcohol champagne as a treat. The clock would turn and you would go to sleep. It was always quiet like that in your household. 
The same would go for Christmas – you hadn’t been to church in years even though your mother insisted. On some odd years, you and your mother would show up at the Gojo household and help make breakfast, and watch Satoru open endless gifts.
“You know about the annual Gojo formal, right? For New Year’s?”
“I do.”
“Would you like to go with me?” 
He waits patiently, even though you must look like a deer in the headlights. You aren’t sure if you heard him right.
“Like as– as a date?”
“Sure,” Suguru answers. “As friends. Or whatever you’d like.”
You echo the statement in your head, mulling it over. Whatever you’d like. Was he flirting with you?
“Did Satoru put you up to this?” You pick at a loose thread on the sleeve of your sweater, blinking at anywhere but his face. He had to be asking out of pity. It wasn’t like Satoru would take you, you knew that. You didn’t belong at one of his parties.
“Hey, don’t,” he coos. You had only started spending more time with Suguru in the past few months, usually with Satoru, yet it seemed that you didn’t mind when he touched you. It still shocks you a little bit, but it mostly comforts you – the way he caresses your chin softly, turning your face to look at him. 
“It was my idea to take you.”
You want to ask who Satoru is going with, but you think it would give the two of you away, regardless of Satoru’s lack of discretion. As if Suguru didn’t already know about your feelings. You’d be naive to assume so, but you still didn’t want to have to talk about it all so candidly. It was easier to swallow it all down, to keep Satoru like a secret the way he kept you. 
“I’ll think about it,” you smile meekly. “I should check with my mother, anyway. I’ve never… attended one of the Gojo parties as a real guest.”
“Let me know,” Suguru nods. “Shoko and Uta mentioned they wanted to take you dress-shopping.”
You aren’t even sure if you can afford a dress suitable for the formal. Maybe you could borrow one of your mother’s old kimonos. You’re dazed trying to process it all. You imagine standing next to Suguru at a formal event and it lights your insides on fire.
“I’ll let you know.”
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Satoru’s birthday, a week prior
He’d woken up past midnight to blue light flooding the room – the television on standby in the otherwise dark room. Suguru rolls his neck, head swimming from alcohol and a bad taste in his mouth. They all were probably playing video games in Satoru’s room upstairs.
Losers.
He trudges upstairs to take a piss and brush his teeth but pauses at the crack of warm light outside of Satoru’s room. He hears you whine. Rasps of pleasure rumbled from the deep parts of Satoru’s throat. 
When he steps forward and tilts his head, he sees you. Sprawled like a ragdoll, heat-flushed from the boy’s tongue in your cunt. 
You curse pornographically, palm to your mouth after an outburst. Satoru laughs darkly.
Gonna wake up the whole house, baby.
You said Sugu was a deep sleeper.
Apparently not.
The nickname coming from your mouth – mewling, teased out by Satoru’s large fingers in you – hearing it makes Suguru’s cock twitch in his pants. The sight of you is seraphic. Hair a mess on those stupid luxurious bed sheets. Bralette barely hanging off your tits and stockings down to your ankles like a real mistress.
If it were him, he’d use more fingers, he thinks. You could take it like a good girl like Satoru calls you. A princess.
Suguru remembers your reaction to being called that. It had awoken him in a small way back then, something on the brink of hunger, now full-fledged as he watches you.
Maybe he’s dreaming. 
He’d had his fair share of weird homoerotic experiences with Satoru. Boyish flirting that would end in wrestling. Drunk open-mouthed kisses before Shoko would pick them up to go to the movies. Absent-minded touching. 
They’d fucked the same girl at least once, never together. Satoru never cared about any of them. Suguru would be kinder to save face. You, though – you were beyond a dream. Of course, Satoru was obsessed with you. It was the first time the idea of sharing irked him, Suguru realized. It was why he nearly kept you on a leash, tight-lipped whenever you were mentioned.
Sometimes I want to kidnap her, I swear. Never leave her out of my sight.
“Fuck.”
He adjusts his pants, palming his dick just a little, knowing he should probably go to the bathroom already in case he gets caught. He groans quietly at your noises in tandem with Satoru’s. 
The two of you look like angels. Bodies snug like puzzle pieces. 
Satoru is kissing you, marking you up. Suguru can taste your skin in his mind, the shape of his name in your mouth. He wonders what you look like when you’re crying. He thinks of glistening cheeks. Heart-shaped bruises.
He could get you both alone, maybe, if Satoru wasn’t so goddamn stubborn. Possessive. Suguru wouldn’t be surprised if you were already branded by him, a tattoo of his name on you.
For now, he leaves to go to the bathroom.
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Mid-December, 2008
You miss the summer. Before the white plague of snow and seasonal depression, you might even admit that you were a little happy. Wrapped around your lover’s finger, of course. Heart bursting like new lilies.
It takes more than a few missed texts for him to come barging into your room unannounced, interrupting your hypnagogic peace. He frowns at the sight of you in bed and flips the record you were playing – an old Ryuichi Sakamoto from your mother. He’s annoying as he crawls into bed with you, all six feet and three inches of him engulfing the bed. He playfully snaps his teeth at you when you try to shove his face away.
“So clingy,” you mumble.
“You like me that way,” Satoru says. “I don’t like when you ignore me.”
“I have a life separate from you.”
A lie. Nothing occupies you much, these days. 
Satoru yanks down your sweater and bites your shoulder. He must’ve been bored to come all the way to your house just for this. A puppy running out of toys to play with. Apparently, he has teeth like one, too.
“Stop,” you grit. “You’re so annoying.”
He insists on tangling his long legs with yours despite your short-lived struggle. You’re nose to nose. It reminds you of when you were both small, seven years old, and sleepy. Swapping words of a made-up language and Pokemon cards. 
He was annoying then, too, tugging at your sleeve and pulling your hair at any opportunity he could. Spoiled rotten. It was probably one of the worst things about him.
“So rude,” he pouts, curling into you. He inhales your scent and pauses. You don’t notice, but discontent flashes in his sky-blue eyes underneath his sunglasses. 
“Weird. You smell like Suguru.”
“How would you know that?”
He rolls his eyes. He wears Suguru’s clothes sometimes, knows what his mouth tastes like. It was always clean, similar to himself, but somehow more masculine. Earthy, like a forest. Not that Satoru would relay the details to you.
“I recognize it. That and his residuals on your clothes. Six Eyes, remember?”
“I ran into him today. We had lunch together.”
“Oh,” he murmurs. “I didn’t know you guys hung out.”
You clear your throat, avoiding his gaze. 
“He asked me to your family’s New Year’s formal. As a date.”
Satoru clenches his jaw, unfairly irritated. He refuses to let it be known, but his poker face is starting to crack. 
“What did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it.” 
He knows it’s selfish of him to be pissed off. No matter how much he wanted to claim you, he ultimately wouldn’t. He didn’t even particularly care about the formal, anyway – considered an afterthought. As usual, he didn’t think ahead. Didn’t imagine the hurt look on your face when you asked him who he was going with. Of course, it didn’t even occur to him that you would want to go.
“Mei,” he answers. “A family friend of sorts. It was my parents’ idea. Sort of a networking thing, I don’t know.”
“Have you slept with her?” you ask, hiding your face.
“God– no. Mei Mei doesn’t care about anything except status, anyway,” he stammers. “We’re friends.”
“Like how you and I are friends.”
“What? No– I mean,” Satoru sighs. His heart sinks a little when he tries to touch you and you turn your head away. “It’s different with us. You’re different.”
“I know I’m different, thanks,” you mumble.
You wish he wasn’t so close to you. You wish the smell of him wasn’t so sweet, so captivating. The warmth of his body next to yours. You wish he’d leave.
“You know what I mean. Hey, look at me. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m fine,” you snap. “Will you let me nap?”
“No, because you’re upset about me having a family obligation–”
“It’s not about her, it’s about–” You choke up. He wouldn’t understand. 
Family obligation. The statement makes you laugh a bit. You flash him a sardonic glare as he stares back. He would never understand what it felt like to be lesser. Barely second-best, barely an option. You imagine him in a suit, his arm around a prettier girl, a girl that exudes the same opulence as him. Cut from the same divine cloth. It would never be you. 
Maybe you shouldn’t feel angry. If it was something that his parents forced him to do, being upset about it wouldn’t change anything. But the mere fact of it reminds you of how long you might have with him – if any of this was worth the trouble. 
“Never mind,” you mutter. “I understand.”
He frowns, his eyes pleading for more from you.
“Makes sense for me to go with Suguru, then, I suppose.”
“Oh.”
Satoru almost winces at the sound of Suguru’s name. His throat tightens. 
You’re right. If anything, beyond a date at the formal, perhaps Suguru deserved you more. He was more polite. Golden-hearted. Never as trivial or obnoxious as Satoru. Always honest. The thought of you two together makes something in Satoru’s stomach lurch. 
Your face is calm, suddenly. A little blank. There’s nothing left to say.
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238 notes · View notes
sailoryooons · 9 months
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okay, Yoongi rec time. I am prepared for you to ruin my life, lessgo~~~
Gimme feelings and vibes, babe!!!! These two understand each other, they are the safe space for one another, their quiet compatibility is god tier.
Premise: Yoongi is 'the one that got away' to you. When you're unexpectedly thrown into each other's worlds again, every old feeling you had takes over like he never left - and it's clear that it's mutual. Problem... Yoongi has a girlfriend.
(Prefer no infidelity, just Yoongi having to make a hard choice, realizing the depth of what he had/and could have again now with reader is more substantial. And reader not being completely sure (maybe from miscommunication or lack of it) what his choice will be.)
honestly idc how smutty you make it, if you want to throw me a bone (huhuhu) and have some spice you know i'm not complaining :)
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❀ Pairing: Yoongi x f. reader
❀ Summary: Unresolved feelings lead to nothing but heartache when you run into Yoongi at a wedding five years after breaking up. Especially when you realize that despite Yoongi have feelings for you, there is still another woman on his arm. 
❀ Word Count: 3,641
❀ Genre: Angst, exes to lovers, smut
❀ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. 
❀ Warnings: STUPID PINNING!!!! LIKE JUST TWO IDIOTS WHO NEED TO GET OVER THEIR PRIDE AND GET BACK TOGETHER!!!!!! Angst, a lot of internal pondering on relationships and life, Yoongi is honestly a terrible boyfriend to his current girlfriend (he is in love with reader and it’s very obvious) bickering about relationships, Hyori seems like a bitch but tbh she is in the worst situation lmao, depiction of a breakup, a lot of aching and being wistfully sad, explicit language, sexua content including vaginal fingering, light nipple play, unprotected vaginal sex, some cum and fluids idk they’re sweaty, this is more of an emotional/prosey smut scene than filth, FeElInGs
❀ Published: August 1, 2023
❀ A/N: JO IT TOOK ME A YEAR TO FILL THIS REQUEST FOR YOU BUT GOD DAMMIT I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE THIS REQUEST. I HOPE THAT THIS FITS THE VIBE OF WHAT YOU WERE THINKING AFTER WAITING FOR ME TO FUCKING WRITE IT FOR LITERALLY 365 DAYS. I LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH AND THIS IS UNEDITED OKAY. HERE'S TO HALI'S HAPPY AGUST'S FIRST REQUEST DROP!
❀ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.
| Masterlist | Ask | Song Inspiration | Hali's Happy Agust
“Is that her?” Yoongi doesn’t have to turn to look at who Hyori is talking about. Her tone, tightening grip on his arm, and the way she stiffens says all that he needs to know. “Well? Is it?”
Yoongi doesn’t want to turn around and look. His back and shoulders hurt from sleeping on the hotel couch, his eyes burn from being unable to sleep after staying up most of the night fighting with Hyori, and he knows that Hyori knows what you look like. As if she has not spent hours scrutinizing every part of your life on social media. 
Perhaps it’s Yoongi’s fault. He thinks of all the things he’s done for the last two years. Or better - he thinks of all the things that he hasn’t done that have landed him here at this wedding with Hyori seething at your very presence in the same room. 
It’s only partially Hyori’s fault. Yoongi could have done better to make her feel secure, to ensure that she felt like he was in this relationship without thoughts of you, to make her feel like he would always be about her and not you. 
Yoongi loves quietly, though. Too quietly for a bright, burning star like Hyori, who has turned into a flaring nova over the last year, burning Yoongi when he dares to get too close but freezing him out when he gets too far. 
He doesn’t know what to do, so Yoongi does what Hyori wants him to do. He turns and looks over his shoulder, eyes scanning the entrance to the garden that Seokjin and his fiance have selected for their reception. 
When he sees you, Yoongi swears he could die. His heart squeezes, his stomach flips. He keeps his features schooled as much as he can, knowing that his girlfriend is watching his every movement, waiting for another reason to dig her nails in deeper, waiting to say I told you so. 
“Yeah,” he mumbles and turns back around without looking back again. “That’s her.” 
Hyori hums, seemingly satisfied with Yoongi’s lack of interest in you. Her grip softens and she melts into him a little. He fights the urge to lean away, the sudden sight of you making him want to put distance between himself and Hyori.
She did tell me so, he thinks when he realizes that his first instinct of being in the same room with you again is to be away from anyone else. Fuck. 
“I don’t like her dress.”
Yoongi hums in agreement, but he couldn’t disagree more. He thinks you look stunning in your silk, sky blue gown. It glows against your skin and Yoongi already knows you’ll smell like vanilla with a hint of cherries, a scent that used to drive him wild. He knows you taste as sweet as you smell, skin warm and soft and-
“Are you listening?” Hyori asks, voice ringing with annoyance. 
He wasn’t. “Sorry, I was wondering how many people they invited.”
“Looks like a hundred or so. Did you see who Taehyung brought?”
Hyori launches into assessing the dates brought to the wedding as people are seated for the ceremony. Yoongi hums and nods when appropriate, but his thoughts are miles away from petty conversations with his girlfriend.
Instead, he’s focused on you. Three rows up and on the other side of the aisle, sitting next to Hoseok. You laugh and Yoongi begins to bleed at the seams, all of his wounds that he’s spent the last five years trying to heal opening up for him to drip with pain. 
It’s stupid, this endless longing for you. You’d broke it off with him because it was getting too complicated and because Yoongi had missed every opportunity to give you reasons to stay. He knows that you’re happy and he loves seeing you happy, knows that you have no ill will toward him. You wish each other happy birthday, and he texted you when a mutual friend passed away. 
So why is it so painful? Yoongi was happy with Hyori at first. She is everything he is not: bright, outspoken, full of energy, adventurous and social. He liked the way that she compliments him, where she makes up for where he lacks. But now, all of those differences have become obstacles, and what they had once admired one another for has become irritations. 
When the ceremony starts, Yoongi knows he’s supposed to look back at the bride and watch her enter. Knows that she will be beautiful and it is her day and she is owed all of the attention in the world. But it’s you he watches, waiting with his breath held as you turn, eyes sweeping to watch the bride enter.
And then you’re looking at him and Yoongi breaks. A single look in five years and he knows with sudden, lightning-strike clarity that he cannot do this anymore. The stab of longing is far greater than looking at you from a distance, the weight of your gaze crushing.
Yoongi realizes that there is nothing worse than watching two people proclaim their love in front of their family and friends while the love of his life is sitting three rows, and an aisle away. 
-
Letting out a shaky breath, you bring the flute of champagne to your lips, knocking back the entire thing. It burns on the way down and the carbonation fluxes, making you cough as a sudden burning sensation singes your nose, making you choke.
You set the glass down quickly, coughing your way through swallowing the alcohol the wrong way. Hoseok appears, patting your back and asking, “Shit, you okay?”
“Wrong pipe.”
“Maybe don’t chug your champagne like you’re using a beer bong in college.”
“Well maybe I need stronger champagne,” you shoot back. You immediately wince at your tone, Hoseok raising his brows. “Sorry. Very on edge. I knew seeing him would suck but I didn’t expect to feel like my rib cage would crack open.”
“By the looks of it, you’re not the only one.” 
Gritting your teeth, you follow Hoseok’s gaze, glancing over your shoulder toward the far end of the reception room. Yoongi is leaning back in his seat, slouched slightly in his chair and staring off into the distance unseeing. Next to him, his girlfriend Hyori giggles with the woman next to her at their table, either unaware of her boyfriend disassociating or over it. 
The worst part about Hoseok’s comment is that it’s true. Seeing Yoongi’s face during the ceremony was all you needed to see to know that it isn’t just you being burned by the fire. You aren’t alone in your pain, but you're not the one in a committed relationship. You’re not the one who has sat passively and let the world and love pass you by. 
It’s knowing that hurts so much, you think. Knowing that you love Yoongi more than anyone else in the room. Knowing that maybe walking away because you were too young to understand his love language or how he could do better for you was a mistake. 
Five years has given you a lot to think about. You don’t move through the world the same way, and you have a better understanding of the way that people pour love into relationships. You can’t help but wonder what it would be like now that distance has made you understand Yoongi more. You cannot help but ache over imagining that he has fixed all the things about himself you struggled with for another. 
“He loves her,” Hoseok murmurs, speaking your thoughts. “But not… like he loves you.”
“Well, that’s his problem.” You pick at a stray hair on your dress. “I admit I was immature and impatient and didn’t give him the chances to be what I needed, but… if he wants me and won’t take me, isn’t that why I left in the first place?”
Hoseok hums his agreement with an undercurrent of sadness. “Come on, let’s dance. Weddings are for celebrating love, not watching it die.” 
Hand in Hoseok’s, you let him lead you out onto the floor, spinning you wildly until you’re crashing into Jungkook and Taehyung’s arms, laughing and letting the music sweep you up and away from the hurt. The pain of knowing Yoongi is right there dulls a little. 
Being with your friends helps. It takes your thoughts away from thinking of all the things that you did wrong, like ignoring the ways Yoongi was silently telling you that he loved you, like getting mad for not seeing what he was saying in his own, quiet way. 
Yoongi isn’t faultless but neither are you blameless, which is perhaps why it hurts so much when you catch glances of him on the other side of the room. His hair is longer than it’s ever been and you wonder if it’s just as soft as it used to be. His face is just as round and soft, and yet he looks older somehow, more mature. 
It’s hard not to wonder what it would be like if you’d just given him the chance to be better for you. What it would be like if you had been more patient and understanding of him.
Yoongi does not love loud. He does not exist brightly splashed across paper the way that you do. He loves gently, with your cup of coffee waiting and ready for you every morning, and the oil in your car changed, and the broken shelf in your library mended. He is a soft shadow, the gentle hand on your back at an art gallery you wanted to visit and a held hand at a show he didn’t like but you did. 
Sweat lines your forehead and sticks to your arms from dancing. You excuse yourself to take a break and freshen up in the bathroom, the cool air of the venu making you shiver as you wend through candle-lit tables filled with sleeping elders and children stealing wedding cake. 
In the hall, you teeter toward the bathroom. After being plied with champagne and some tequila from Taehyung to loosen you up, you feel a little too loose, like you might melt on the floor if you don’t get some water and a seat somewhere underneath an air vent. 
“Fuck you,” someone hisses, their voice loud enough to stop you from turning the corner of where the bathrooms are. This section of the hotel is empty, reserved only for events and Seokjin’s wedding is the only event for the evening. “Why did you fucking bring me, then? I told you it would be just like this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You will be. I have tried, Yoongi. I have tried for a year now, and nothing I do matters. No matter how hard I love you, you still love her. It isn’t fair and it’s cruel.”
Your heart speeds up when you realize it’s Hyori’s hissing voice you hear and Yoongi’s soft baritone. You chew your bottom lip, turning to look at the empty hall behind you. There’s no one around, the wedding working into the late hours of the evening. There doesn’t seem to be another set of bathrooms, and you can’t imagine trying to walk past Hyori and Yoongi in the middle of this. 
“You’re right,” Yoongi sighs. You know that sound. Defeated. Sad. 
“That’s all you have to say? That I’m right?” 
“I don’t know what else to say. You are right. You don’t deserve the effort that I’ve given you, I have been incredibly unfair, and though I love you, it doesn’t erase what I feel for her. It is the worst kind of cruelty I can think of, and I thought I’d get over it. I didn’t.” 
“You are the worst kind of person.”
Before you can get yourself together at the sound of Hyori’s clicking heels, she’s turning the corner and nearly slamming into you. She takes a few steps back, eyes wide and blinking in surprise. When she realizes it's you, her face twists into something cruel and venomous. 
Instead of saying anything, Hyori rushes by you, shoulder smacking yours. You teeter but don’t stumble, staring at the empty space where she was moments ago. You’re not sure you deserve her wrath, but you understand it. You don’t blame her for it. There is no happiness at her pain, no twist of pride at winning. Knowing that her pain is because it’s still about you. Always has been. 
Licking your lips, you take a shaky breath and peek around the corner. Yoongi is standing in the empty hall with his head tilted back toward the ceiling, eyes closed. His long hair falls to his shoulders around him. He looks so beautiful in a suit and bowtie, a picture perfect groom if you thought about it long enough.
Tears sparkle in the corner of his eyes before tracking down his face. His pain is tangible, and before you know what it is you’re doing, you’re walking toward him. He either doesn’t hear you coming or doesn’t care that there is someone to see him cry, because he doesn’t look down at you until your hand is in his and you’re squeezing. 
Warmth blooms between your palms. His are rough and calloused like you remember, all from playing guitar and taking the woodshop classes he loves so much. He still smells like cedar and sage, hypnotizing and dark in a way that makes you want to fall into him each time you inhale. 
Yoongi’s eyes open, lined in silver-tears. He looks so in pain and so beautiful, this soft boy who is now a man. Different but familiar. A burn and a balm. 
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, quick to speak first. Your hand squeezes his more as Yoongi opens up in front of you on command. As if he only has a moment to correct all of his mistakes in a single breath. “I get it now,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I do, and I’m sorry. And you look beautiful, and happy and I am so happy for you.” 
“I know.” You feel a burn in your eyes and realize there are tears threatening to break free. “I- me too. Can we just?” 
You don’t have to say what you mean. Yoongi gets it - has always gotten it. From the beginning, to the end. Even when he’s confused, he figures it out. Knows how to put the pieces of your puzzle together for the full image. 
Just a tiny exchange leads you to a twist of muttered words, spilled tears and Yoongi’s mouth on yours. You don’t know when he kisses you first or if it was you, but you know that his mouth is on yours and he is warm warm warm and his mouth tastes like whiskey. You breathe him in, fingers pulling at the lapels of his jacket. You want more more more - you always do with him.
Yoongi is a giver. He never takes. He lets you take from him. He crushes you with the weight of his love on the bed, hands feverish and hungry as he pulls your legs up to wrap around his waist. You moan as his rough palms skate up your exposed thigh, lighting a fight as he strokes your skin. 
It feels like you might suffocate. The air between you is static as Yoongi sucks your tongue into his mouth, making you shiver. Kissing him has always been your greatest weakness and you forget the way he breaks you apart with gentle swipes of his tongue, the soft nibbling of your bottom lip between his teeth. 
You feel like an exposed wire, sparking under Yoongi’s touch. He pulls the dress from your overwhelmed skin, your nipples pebbling in the cold air as his mouth moves from your tips, to your jaw, to your throat. Your pulse beats wildly under the careful touch of his teeth against your skin, the sting of his bites soothed by a swipe of his tongue.
Trembling and panting, you pull at his pants. Yoongi’s skin is hot to the touch, firm in places you don’t remember and soft in places that you do. Your fingers trace his lines and curves, remembering, discovering. You want to learn all of the new things about him and recall the things you already knew. 
“Fuck,” you gasp as Yoongi’s wet mouth wraps around a pert nipple. He hums and gives a vicious suck, making your back arch off of the bed. His tongue flicks across your hardened bud a few times, making you twitch under him. “Yoongi.”
He lets go with a pop, a string of spit connecting his mouth and your skin. “Say it again,” he whispers, voice ragged. “Missed hearing you say it.”
“Yoongi,” you say again.
You don’t stop saying his name - can’t stop saying his name. Not when he slides his hands between your legs, fingers trailing through your soaking cunt. Not when he circles those nimble fingers around your clit, sparking pleasure deep inside of you.
It feels like you’re on the edge of madness. Years of want and hurt and desire come bursting to the surface all at once. Your hands slide through Yoongi’s hair, just as soft as you remember it being. You tug hard on the locks, making him moan deeply into your shoulder. His breath is hot against your skin as he teases you, fingers tracing your entrance but doing nothing.
“Please,” you whisper. “Don’t.”
“Just wanted to see if you still get all worked up.” His laugh turns into a groan when you pull his hair harder. You feel his cock straining against your thigh, sticky tip tacky against your skin. “You still do.”
“You have some nerve saying that like your cocks not drooling on my thigh, Yoongi.”
“Fuck, I know.” He slowly slides a finger into your dripping heat. You curse, arching up into him. It isn’t enough. “Could bust just fingering this tight fucking pussy.”
“More.”
“Yeah?” Yoongi inserts another finger and you feel fuller, better. You nod, eyes fluttering shut as he sets a gentle pace, fucking his fingers into you at an angle to press up against that soft spot inside of you that makes you whine. “I still got it.” 
“Shut up.”
Yoongi has a right to be smug. It feels like you’re going to shatter, your hips coming off the bed to meet his thrusting hand. Your mouths smash together, teeth and tongues colliding. It’s messy and wet but Yoongi is yours again - maybe not forever, but he is in this moment and it's all you want. All that matters. 
Dizzy and drunk on him, you let him work you toward your high, the wet-smack of his fingers between your thighs bracketing the high-pitched sounds escaping you. He attaches his mouth to the sensitive spot beneath your ear, licking and sucking until you’re trembling under him, hands shooting to his arms and legs squeezing his hips as you come apart around his fingers, walls squeezing him tight.
Curses drip from his mouth as he shifts forward, pressing you further into the mattress, thrusting his fingers harder. Your orgasm reaches a peak and your mind is near breaking, ears ringing as he drags it out. You try to move away from him but pull him with you, reaching over stimulation but wanting more. 
Yoongi drives you mad. Has always driven you mad. You crave him even more as he pulls his fingers from your fluttering cunt, smearing your slick down your thigh as he gets up on his knees. Your legs fall open for him, butterflied as he strokes his heavy cock in his hand, watching you catch your breath.
Sweat sticks to your skin, the sheets clinging to you. Your thighs protest as Yoongi presses you open and slides his cock along your sticky folds. You twitch when his tip catches your clit, little shockwaves pulsing through you from the stimulation. 
Biting his bottom lip, Yoongi angles his hips to push in on his next teasing upstroke and you gasp. The stretch is painful and good, the pressure mounting as he pries you open. You feel yourself drift a little, lost in the feeling as he presses into the hilt, stopping to let your walls flutter around him. 
“So fucking tight,” he mutters, falling forward to cage you in with his arms. “Fuck.”
“So fucking big,” you shoot back. “Not my fucking fauuult.”
Your words turn into a mewl as he pulls out and slams back in, hips smacking with bruising force against yours. Yoongi’s laughter is dark against your mouth as he presses his lips to yours. You breathe hard against one another, sharing breath as he fucks you hard and deep.
Sliding your hands along his back, you grab him and pull him closer. Press your fingers into his shoulder blades, grip sliding with the sweat on his back. He works you so easily that within a few moments you’re delirious, babbling under him and near tears that finally - finally - you have him again. Something you’d never thought you’d get. 
Apologies spill from his mouth. Yoongi tells you everything he always meant to say. Everything you always wanted from him. You mutter it back, pull sweet words from his tongue, claw him open and make him shudder at your touch. 
Forehead pressed to yours, dark eyes burning, Yoongi brings you back to the precipice again. This time when you come, it’s together, your body squeezing tight, muscles spasming. Yoongi kisses you then, shaking above you as you ride it out together, unable to think of anything else but Yoongi. 
Later, when he’s asleep next to you and you’re wreathed in the warm cage of his arms, you think never again. Never again will you risk this heartache and let him go. 
469 notes · View notes
harlowhockeystick · 3 months
Note
wordless apology being accepted
pretty pls need this with sidney, can be coach!sidney or not, whatever you wanna do 💞
february prompts | coach!sidney x fem!reader
remember how y'all said you wanted the angst....yeah...
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"hey, ryan's doing great in practice. he is the best kid a coach could ask for, really," sidney gave his players parents praise in the stands. it was thirty minutes until puck drop. occasionally before games sidney would go up in the bleachers and talk to parents while he could. he wanted to keep the relationship with his player's parent's strong, knowing that he was for their kids just as much as they were.
he sat next to y/n right before going back down to the bench on the ice. his hand subtly rested on her thigh as he listened to you talk about all you did that day, the parent meetings after class. he wished that he had time to actually talk to her, had time to sit with y/n and hear her go into more detail. but mid season he has to find a little bit of time to sit with her where he can.
"carter's getting better every day. i talked to the coach from arizona state today, he called wanting to know about him." sidney said, taking some of the popcorn she held in her hand. whipping her head to make eye contact she felt a few butterflies fluttering about in her stomach, college coaches already?
"but he's a freshman? are they even allowed to reach out when they're freshmen?" those were the questions that y/n was able to put words to, but in her head she had a thousand and one roaming about.
"all i told him was that he's everything a good program needs, he'll only get better with time, but to give me a call in a couple more years. coaches can go look and scout players as young as they want, but typically they don't get offered until they're a junior," sidney explained, "but if they're good...which carter is, then yeah. they can call, i got calls when i was in the eighth grade."
y/n felt intimidated, she isn't ready for conversations with college coaches and she knows carter isn't either. y/n just wants carter to enjoy the innocence of it all before dollar signs get thrown in his face.
"ten minute mark, i better get down there. want me to meet you guys at the restaurant?" she nodded her head and gave him a kiss on the cheek for good luck. by now parents had put two and two together of y/n and sindey's relationship. she had been approached and so has sidney, but for the most part it's been supportive. a few rumors here and there, but how can they complain when their son has the best coach in the country?
sidney starts to walk down the steps and takes a second to get somewhat of an outside perspective on warmups. hands in his pants pocket watching the opposing team but his thoughts were interrupted when a man approached him.
"i have a, uh, question," the man seemed nervous. he was stuttering over his words, not in a drunk way but he was extremely anxious over something. "can you maybe tell me," he took a breath before moving on, "which one my son is?"
sidney was taken back- no, he was floored. is this a joke? is this man serious?
"are you joking with me man?" sidney asked, taking a half step back to face the mans body with his. but from the way sidney looked in his eyes, they were nearly glossed over with fear and intimidation. the man shook his head as he looked on the ice again.
"i've been out of his life, i haven't been a good man and i'll be the first to admit that but, please i gotta start somewhere. saw his picture in the paper and i recognized him from the letters and stuff my mom sends me- his name's carter."
sidney pulled his lip between his teeth. he felt his leg start to shake and his stomach coil from anger, his hands grew sweaty as he balled them up in fists. he looked this man, this small weak man in the eye, he leaned into his level, "your son is number eighty in black. now get the fuck out of my arena before i have you kicked out, you fuckin-"
before sidney could say what he wanted to he felt y/n's hands on his chest pushing him back, "go to the bench, i'll handle him."
sidney looked down at her then back at the man behind y/n. he was still raging with anger on the inside, but did as told and walked down to the bench. when he got down there he watched as she talked to him a little bit before walking him out of the arena.
"what the hell are you doing here, john?" y/n finally asked as they stood out in the cold. she had kept in vague contact with john, trying since they divorced when carter was five to get him to come by at least once. for a birthday, christmas, or even an easter. but he never did.
occasionally he would send a gift card or a card with some cash, but y/n wasn't fully convinced it was him. she had her suspicions that his mother did it. she was involved in her grandson's life; she repeatedly apologized for her son's actions and for his absence. she was just as disappointed as anyone else was.
"'cause i feel horrible, y/n." was all he could say. it was all he had been thinking the past year. "i...i started going to therapy, and i've been trying to get the courage over a year and i just...i wanna be involved. i wanna be there, i wanna get to know my son."
"well you should've thought about that before you walked out on me and your son with your secretary, john. you should have thought about that before you chose a woman who was barely twenty years old over your wife and your child, you had the chance but you lost it."
y/n had so much more to say. she had thought for a long time what she would say if she got the chance. she often rehearsed in her head all that she would say, all that she would yell and scream at john for. she thought about all of it.
"y/n just give me a chance!" john shouted, taking a step closer to y/n not caring about the people who were walking past.
"no. it's not my chance to give. if carter wants to meet up with you then i'll get with your mom, but i could care less. to me you're a fucking loser, john." she felt tears begin to fall down her cheeks as she looked the man she loathed in the eyes for the first time since she last saw him after the divorce was finalized ten years ago.
"leave, just leave. this isn't how carter would want to see you for the first time in ten years anyway," john ducked his head and walked toward the parking lot. y/n turned and went back into the arena to where she was sitting.
a few parents asked her if she was okay, those who knew her and carter's story giving her a hug and a pat on the back. she was appreciative of those around her who supported her and her son.
y/n could barely focus on the game that had already started when she sat back down, her perspective and head space too foggy to even comprehend the game unfolding before her. all she could do was think about the worst days of her life replaying over and over in her head. she was replaying the minute she found out about john's affair, when she packed up her and carter's things and went to her parents house for the time being. she was replaying the divorce meetings, the arguments, the tears.
she was replaying having to explain to her five year old son where his dad went and why he wasn't going to be at home anymore. y/n hadn't gone into full detail with sidney about all of this yet. their relationship was just a few months old and she wanted to protect carter as much as she could. y/n knows and trusts that sidney was and is a good man, but she wants carter to tell what he wants to, not tell for him.
but now she will probably have to.
-
she went ahead and sat in sidney's office, she walked down there a few minutes before the last period ended. she knew that carter had a couple of points on the board, but y/n couldn't remember how he got them. her mind was full of remembering the worst years of her life with her ex husband.
she sat in a chair next to his desk, silently staring at the mess of practice plans, rosters, and scheduling papers strung along his desk. he walked in and shut the door behind him with a thud, plopping his game folder down on his desk. he didn't sit down, he stood with his hands in his pockets looking down at her as she remained sitting.
"you okay?" he asked. she could tell that he was tense, she couldn't figure out why though. they had won the game, the boys played well, and he didn't have anything to worry about. why was he so tense?
y/n nodded her head in response.
"i'll uh, make sure that he doesn't come to another game again." sidney sat down in his chair, resting his chin on his hand. there was an awkward tension in the room. sidney didn't know much about her past marriage, she didn't reveal too much to him. but now he had more questions than ever, he wanted to ask but it was clear she wanted nothing but to keep everything bottled at the moment.
"he seemed like a dick, don't know why anyone would want to marry him." sidney muttered, moving a few things around his desk. but y/n heard him loud and clear.
"what did you just say?" she asked, speaking for the first time since he walked into his office. oh no. he registered what he said, he didn't think before he spoke. he just let his thoughts flow freely off his tongue, shoulda held that one in.
"i- i didn't mean it, y/n i-"
"no, you think i don't regret being married to a man like that? one who was a complete horror of a man? who cheated, who left his wife and child? do you think i'm not embarrassed?" y/n felt tears brim her eyes and she stood up in front of him.
"y/n you know that's not what i meant," he stood up with her and walked around the desk. he put his hands on her shoulders but she slapped them away walking toward the door. she quickly opened it and headed toward the stairs. he thought about running after her but he didn't want to cause a scene. walking back into his office and closing the door he took a spare hockey stick that sat in the corner of the small space and smashed it as hard as he could against the wall, solving his anger in just that moment.
he fucked up.
-
sidney saw a text from carter which had him gathering his keys and putting shoes on his feet.
hey mom hasn't stopped crying since we got home, you know something i don't?
sidney picked up a to-go order on the way to her house, he knew that she wouldn't have eaten anything since leaving the arena. when sidney walked into her house he saw carter sitting at the dinner table eating a bowl of soup watching youtube videos on his laptop. "everything okay?" sidney asked, dumb question.
"i don't know, when i got in the car she was crying. i asked what was wrong and she just shook her head, i thought you guys broke up or something. did you?" carter asked, pausing the video.
"no, we didn't. it's not my place to tell you what happened, but i'll go talk to her." sidney patted carter on the back and walked toward the back master bedroom. he softly knocked on the door, he tried turning the doorknob but she had it locked. "y/n?" he softly asked, knocking again.
he heard sniffles and light footsteps across the wooden door. she unlocked the door and opened it. his heart softened at the sight, her eyes were puffy and her lips were chapped, she wore soft clothes.
walking back to her bed she got in it, pulling the covers over her legs. sidney sat at the foot of her bed and handed the greasy paper sack to her, his form of an apology in that moment. she took the bag and looked inside, a little grin coming on her lips as she saw the bag was full of fries.
she ate the fries in silence, her brain is dull and her head is hurting from crying for two hours straight. sidney sat on the bed with his hand on her leg, just hoping she feels comforted by his presence. he thinks she is, since she didn't take the bag of fries and kick him out.
she sat up, setting the now empty bag on her bedside table, leaned forward to take his hand in hers. sidney scooted closer to her on the bed when she folded her legs. then she gave him a kiss on the cheek, accepting his apology that came in the form of fries.
"i'm sorry for what i said y/n," he whispered again, pressing his forehead against hers. "it slipped out, i shouldn't have said it, i didn't even mean it i-"
"shh, you're forgiven sidney." y/n placed both hands on either side of his face, keeping her forehead against his. she sniffled and sidney parted for a moment, pressing his lips against her soft skin, taking both of her hands in his.
"you don't have to tell me anything about your marriage right now, but i promise, you say the word and i will make sure that he never steps foot anywhere near you or carter again." he tucked some hair behind her ears and kissed the top of her hands.
y/n shook her head, "you don't have to do that." she scooted back toward the pillows that leaned against the headboard, sidney moved on the bed to sit next to her. he put his arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head while she laced her fingers with his.
she told him everything that happened in her marriage; she told him about the way john would speak to her in such degrading ways, how john never really made efforts to go to carters special events, how he would make excuses and say things he's in preschool how special could it be? she explained how she found out about john's affair and the messy divorce. right after the divorce john left the state and she never heard from him until five years later. y/n explained how john's mom still keeps in contact with herself and carter, and that she sends john letters and cards with pictures of carter.
sidney felt himself boiling with anger inside, how could someone be that bad of a person? why would anyone want to do such a thing?
"this was the first time in...years that i had seen him in person and it just brought back, everything." tears began to flow through once more and sidney wrapped both arms around her and pulled her in as close as she could. "i don't know what i'd do without you."
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bills-unpaid · 10 months
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‘Morning After’ (Gojo Satoru x M!Reader)
Gojo Satoru x m. reader (uses he/him)
established relationship, mlm, mentions of sex, use of y/n
sfw, fluff, comfort, teasing, manhandling(?) reader is smaller than Gojo (he’s LITERALLY 6’6”), use of nicknames, slightly suggestive, angst if you squint, edited at 4am
hi before you read it’s been years since I’ve written anything. at all. if Gojo’s a little ooc and the story’s… mediocre in grammar, I apologize.
also this is putely self indulgent bc i am starving for this man and I’ve ran out of m/m self inserts to read okthxbai
y/n woke with a groan, the sun that hit him through the curtains rudely woke him up from his sleep. He was trapped under his boyfriend’s arm that tugged him into his side—the white haired oaf drooling as he slept. 
He looked rather… cute. He would be even cuter, y/n thinks, if he wasn’t snoring into my ear.
As y/n struggled to crawl out of his partner’s grasp, he became increasingly frustrated when he still finds himself trapped. It was no surprise his partner was this strong but… seriously?
“Satoru.” he says, shaking his boyfriend’s shoulder.
In response, he hugs y/n closer to him. 
“Satoru” y/n knows the sorcerer well enough to see that he was well awake and just being an asshole for a laugh—that shit eating grin proving him right, when he turns his face for y/n to see.
“Aww, babe, I just wanna be closer to you…” *Gojo pouted, batting his eyelashes at his partner, “After all the… demands you made of me last night, I think this is the least you can do for me, hm?” 
y/n blushed at the mention of last night—red tinting his cheeks. “You’re suffocating me, Satoru,” was all he could reply without losing his composure, “Just let me breathe for a moment.”
He looked at y/n with a neutral expression, silently complying to the smaller man. y/n took time to observe the rather messy state the two were in—both of their hair were disheveled, their sheets were messy and thrown about… Gojo wasn’t even wearing a shirt.
y/n sat up on the bed, his back to the headboard as he looked down at Gojo, just silently admiring him. Some days he woke up worrying he wouldn’t even see his love again, after days, hell, weeks without seeing him—just so he can protect others. He knew it was an irrational fear—He was the strongest jujutsu sorcerer after all, and he always bounced back from any situation. But the fear never ceased—only dissipating when Gojo was with him. 
Maybe that’s why they allowed themselves to go overboard, like last night—maybe that’s why Gojo always indulged him. He knew that fear was there—and it was reasonable given his line of work… So maybe it would give him some comfort.
“y/n, you’re staring.” Gojo teased, bringing his lover out of his thoughts
“I can’t help it Satoru, you’re beautiful.” y/n’s hands found themselves in Gojo’s snowy hair, his gaze lost in those ocean-blue eyes. His words came out almost thoughtlessly, though his lover was all he was thinking about.
y/n didn’t miss the way Gojo blushed at his sudden compliment, chuckling to himself.
“Aww, am I making the great Gojo Satoru blush?”
The blue eyed sorcerer simply laughed, pulling his boyfriend so that he landed on top of him in an awkward position.
Satoru shushed him before he could complain, laughing as he did so. 
“You flatter me, you really do.” he said, all high and mighty like he made himself to be—before lowering his voice to a whisper, “You’re handsome yourself, I hope you know that,” he planted a soft kiss on his cheek.
The smaller man became flustered.
“I… I appreciate that Satoru but did you really have to throw me onto you like this to tell me??” 
“Nah, I didn’t have to but, I just thought it’d be funny.” 
y/n sighed, rolling his eyes. He had to remember that it wasn’t his choice to fall in love with such an idiot—but rather his fault. He could live with that fault.
“Don’t give me that look—I really just want you close to me.” He whined, it was clear as day how needy the man was to have his boyfriend close.
So you two stayed there—enjoying each other’s warmth, in your lack of clothes and messy bedsheets. 
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seren1tyhaze · 11 months
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sunflower dreams
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PAIRING: haechan x afab reader
WORD COUNT: 3k
SUMMARY: you have a new roommate who spends most of his time teasing you during the hours of games you play together online with your friends, but when it comes time to pick a new bed for your room, a sunflower shaped one seems like the perfect way to crack through his bratty exterior.
THANK YOU: A very belated happy birthday to our hyuckie and all my haechan smut lovers out there <3 Once I saw this photo on twitter I knew exactly what I would write for his birthday and I sincerely hope you all enjoy this brief drabble. @strwbrysunday as always, you know what I want to say to you. I'm so glad you enjoyed this <3
WARNINGS: explicit smut, angst, weed smoking, vaping, breakup flashbacks
PLAYLIST: Sunflower, Vol. 6 by Harry Styles - Stronger by NCT Dream - Sunflower (P.E.L) by Choi Yoojung - Sunflower by Vampire Weekend
--
“What the HELL is in here?!” your roommate nearly screeched as he struggled to drag the heavy object in front of him over the door frame of your apartment.
“It’s for my room, I just need help getting it in there and then you can go back to your lame solo queuing and getting your ass kicked by 12 year olds,” you shouted back over the large cardboard box, tucking an annoying strand of hair back into your ponytail.
Hyuck huffed and tossed his phone onto the couch so he could pull the box easier. You could see his forehead over the top of the box as you pushed, sweat gathering at his brow under long, black bangs.
To be fair, the box was way bigger than you had thought it would be. The listing had said “minimal assembly” which you thought meant it would somehow not be huge - but it turned out to be the opposite. You felt slightly guilty that you had had to get Hyuck to help you come drag the box upstairs and inside.
You smirked deviously, hoping Hyuck’s annoyance would soon be replaced with excitement when he found out what you had ordered for your bedroom. The two of you had recently become roommates after you had ended things with your toxic ex and his roommate had taken a new job in another city.
“You’re letting a girl move in?!” Mark had exclaimed over the steaming hot pot, nearly choking on the clear glass noodles dangling from his lips.
“Mark, chill,” Hyuck had replied, rolling his eyes before dipping a thin piece of beef into the spicy broth in between them. “She’s cool and you know she’s better than half our friends at Valo and on the court.”
Hyuck wasn’t wrong, Mark had watched you pull through as the match MVP quite a few times and was always first picked whenever they played pick up games on the weekends at the gym.
Similarly, Johnny had almost blown a gasket when you had shared the news in a final screaming match the day you were supposed to be meeting your landlord for final checks of your unit. It started with him complaining that you hadn’t cleaned the kitchen well enough before he started asking about where you had moved to.
“Lee Donghyuck? That little twerp?” he had spat at you, looking you up and down, making you suddenly self conscious in the thin tank and sweats you had thrown on for the early morning appointment.
“Leave him alone, Johnny, he’s very nice to let me sublet the extra room at his place. Plus it’s all the way across town which means you don’t have to run into me,” you had rolled your eyes, glancing down at your phone to check the time, wondering how long you were going to have to talk to this asshole.
“I always knew he was desperate to fuck you,” Johnny mumbled. Jealousy and hatred laced his tone, and before you could ask for clarification, your landlord appeared in the doorway.
The two of you finally managed to drag the huge box down the hallway and you immediately grabbed your box cutter, desperate to get to work and get rid of all the extra packaging.
“I’ll leave you to it?” he commented, his statement coming out more as a question as he watched you begin to tackle the large box.
“Yeah yeah, I promise, I’m good! I’ll text you if I need help,” you added, pulling out a copious amount of bubble wrap and tossing it behind him.
“Please don’t,” he quipped back, turning on his heel and closing his door behind him.
Soon you could hear him yelling at Jeno to stop running ahead, knowing they had to be back grinding Fortnite ranks together and failing miserably. The two of them were awful at working together in duos and the only time they were even remotely successful at clearing out teams quickly was when you and Jaemin played with them in squads.
You laughed lightly, rolling your eyes and finally placing your hand on a dark green, velvety pillow. Ripping the plastic bag open, you placed the pillow on your desk, beginning to unpack other pieces of soft, yellow cushions.
You had been scrolling through Pinterest one afternoon at work, hoping to find some ideas to decorate your new room. While you were able to take most of your furniture from your shared apartment with Johnny, the bed had been his, so you desperately needed to find a new one. You had been sleeping on a thin air mattress for the last couple weeks and Hyuck was tired of hearing you complain about your back.
The minute you had laid your eyes on the piece of furniture housed in the giant box you had just hauled in, you knew you had to get it. It matched your style perfectly and was also perfect in so many other ways.
The parts were awkward to fit together without a second set of hands, but it didn’t take too long to assemble. Once you stuffed all the packaging back into the box and pushed it back out into the living room, you stood sweaty but proud in front of your new, giant sunflower bed.
It was round, so it was hard to say if it was King sized, but it seemed pretty close based on the dimensions. The center was dark brown and fuzzy, with giant yellow petals spanning across the frame. You had already had your best friend crochet you some smaller sunflower and leaf decorative pillows that she had dropped off earlier that week. She had also shown up with a small panda plushie with a matching leaf on its head, giving you a long hug in your doorway and reminding you of how strong you were for finally dumping Johnny’s stupid ass.
Grabbing your towel, you headed to the bathroom to shower, letting the hot water cascade over your aching shoulders and scrubbing your body and hair quickly, desperate to take a nap in your new bed. When you passed Hyuck’s room again, you heard him still yelling at Jeno, but based on his call out it sounded like they were playing League and you decided against disturbing him. He would see your new furniture eventually and the growing pit in your stomach was preventing you from showing him anyways, nervous for his reaction.
Once back in your room, you dimmed the lights and put on your chill playlist. You lit some candles on your desk, followed by a blunt, letting the haze flow through the afternoon light streaming through your blinds. As soon as you had ordered the bed, you had found other matching decor for your room, hanging some lighted vines from your ceiling, cascading down the corner near the bed, blending into pale pink and green sheer curtains covering the window. A small mushroom side table held crystals, an ashtray, and your phone charger next to your bed. You smiled, looking around your new space that felt safe and unique to you.
During your relationship with Johnny, you felt like you had lost parts of yourself that had previously brought you so much confidence. He hated when you gamed with the guys, complaining that they were all flirting with you and in the midst of heated comms he would often unplug the router, blaming it on a power surge.
Whenever Jungwoo would come over for face masks and binging the latest season of Single’s Inferno, Johnny would watch with a chilly gaze from the kitchen, sharpening his chef’s knife before slicing up an apple. His possessiveness broke your relationship apart and while you still missed him, you would never miss that disease that plagued your time together.
After you slipped into a soft set of sleep shorts and a cropped tank, you finally let yourself fall onto the center of the large flower. The mattress was as comfortable as all the reviews had said, maybe even more. Taking a long, final drag of the blunt, you extinguished it in the ashtray and curled up into the pillows, smiling as you moved the small bear to your bedside table.
The soothing music, weed, and scent of your favorite candles made your eyes heavy, watching as the hazy smoke flowed through the rays of light across your ceiling, sun warming your bare legs. You don't know when exactly you drifted off to sleep but before you knew it you were stirred awake by a soft knock at the door.
“Hey…did you need any…” came Hyuck’s voice as the door swung open, barely giving you a chance to adjust your shirt that had ridden high up your side, exposing the underside of your breast. The waistband of your shorts had also ridden up your waist in your sleep, exposing much of your thigh.
“Oh…I uh, sorry I didn’t know you were sleeping,” he stuttered, moving to blow out the two candles on your desk, nervously avoiding eye contact with you.
“It’s okay, I should have said something but didn’t want to interrupt your game,” you replied groggily, lifting a heavy hand up to your eyes to rub at them.
“Wait…is that…”Hyuck trailed off, finally noticing the bed design. He looked adorable in the afternoon light, hood pulled up over messy hair, small sections of pink peeking through the black locks.
“A sunflower, yeah,” you replied with a smile, sitting up and leaning back on your arms, neglecting to adjust your shirt, chest pushed out at your new position. You dragged your legs up lightly, digging your feet into the fuzzy brown center of the bed and swaying your knees lighty as you spoke.
“A sunflower,” Hyuck repeated, unable to keep his eyes from dragging up and down your half naked body and damp hair. You looked ethereal in the golden hour sunlight and he let out a sigh before pulling his lime vape pen to his lips for a long drag. He kept eye contact with you through the cloud of smoke, a small smile breaking out onto his lips.
The bed was “perfect in many other ways” due to Hyuck’s gamer tag, SunnyFlowerz, one he had made years ago but had stuck. He had accumulated some sunflower related items over the years, including some stickers on his pc, a bright neon light that hung on the wall behind him and always visible on call, and the small crochet holder he kept his vape in. Some of the guys teased him about it but he always had new facts about the resilient flower to share, including how they track the sun and can self-pollinate.
You knew all these things because even before you had started dating Johnny you had always been intrigued by Donghyuck, the loud, whiny friend who sometimes had hot pink hair and laughed at all your stupid jokes when getting high in the park. You had thought about him late at night or as you touched yourself in the shower more times than you cared to admit. The first thing you had thought of when you saw the sunflower bed was how getting fucked by him in the middle of it would be the sweetest revenge you could ever imagine.
But now in the moment, with your legs inching open wider under Hyuck’s tense gaze, you knew it was more than revenge. You wanted to fall apart underneath him and the way he was looking at you right now confirmed he wanted it too.
Pulling one hand back over his shoulder, Hyuck pulled his hoodie off in a swift motion, dropping it to the floor as he stepped close to the bed, pausing at the edge as his shins touched the soft yellow petals.
“Is this for me?” he asked, dragging the back of his hand lightly against your bare calf.
“Maybe…” you trailed off, shivering slightly at his touch and pulling your chin up, silently begging him to come closer.
Dropping his knees to the bed one by one, he crawled between your legs, caging you in as he crowded over you, tight abs tensing as he leaned over you. His hair was dangling in his eyes, darkened with lust.
Your breath caught in your throat as he brought a hand up to your chest, playing with the thin strap of your shirt, pushing it down to expose your collar bone.
“A pretty flower, all opened up for me,” he murmured, dipping down to nip lightly at the skin of your neck, already on fire from the gentle touch of his fingers.
You felt your core tighten and breath pick up, desperate for him to touch you. Leaning your head back, you opened up more of your neck for him to mouth at, letting out a light moan as he dragged his lips up and down the column of your throat, laving his tongue over a particularly sensitive spot.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” you can’t help yourself from mumbling and you swear you can feel him smile against your skin.
“You hid it so well, PandaBare,” he hissed out mockingly, using your own gamer tag, causing you to flush.
“Maybe I have something to show you too,” he added, standing up on his knees to pull at the waistband of his loose gray sweats.
You sat up further on your elbows, gulping and eyes widening. You watched as he first pulled down the sweats and then moved achingly slow to slip his thumbs under the band of his black boxers.
“If you’re about to try to impress me with your massive cock, Lee Donghyuck, you should remember that I used to date the Johnny Suh,” you replied, rolling your eyes at him, even as your heart picked up speed in your chest.
He merely chuckled, ripping down his boxers suddenly, half hard cock springing out and demanding your attention. 
Your eyes widened, not at the sight of his arousal, but at the black ink on his hip bone, suddenly visible to you for the first time. You had been to the pool with the boys a few times, but never seen this far below his shorts. 
“Is that…” you croaked out, equally as speechless as he had been in your doorway earlier.
“A panda bear? Yeah, it is,” he smiled, running his thumb over the small line art before moving over you again.
“Guess we both weren’t fake flirting on vc then…” you sighed as everything flooded into place in your mind.
Hyuck had been the first to offer you a place to stay and none of the boys had dared say anything in opposition. Even your best friend had encouraged you to move in.
He was always the first one to ream out a sexist team mate on voice chat when they complained about a female voice in the lobby. He always sent you a game off your wishlist on Steam for your birthday, saying he did it for everyone, even if you knew he hadn’t gotten Mark a gift in years. And if Johnny’s reaction had told you anything, it seemed like everyone had been picking up on the vibes for a long time.
“We’re both idiots,” he laughed out, dipping down to finally capture your lips with his, pressing warmly against your mouth.
Your hands flew immediately into his long hair as he yanked down your shorts, grinding his bare crotch against yours. You moaned loudly into his mouth at the feeling of him against your core, wrapping your legs around him tightly, drawing him closer to you.
“Wait,” you gasped into his mouth, reaching your hand over to fumble for your phone.
“Important Twitter update to post?” he asked, cocking a brow as he lifted up, toying with the edge of your top and letting his fingertips brush across your nipples that were peeking out under the neon green fabric.
“No, I have something better,” you said slyly, opening your camera and pulling Hyuck back down on top of you by the back of his neck. Holding the phone out, you snapped a slightly blurry photo that clearly showed Hyuck’s muscular and bare back with you spread out underneath him on the sunflower bed.
You tapped into a phone conversation you hadn’t messaged in in a month, sending off the photo without a caption before letting your phone fall back to the bed.
“Oh you’re evil,” Hyuck laughed maniacally, crashing his lips against yours and snaking a hand between your bodies to drag a finger through your dripping folds.
“Hold on, send him another one like this,” Hyuck murmured against your mouth, kissing down your throat before pulling his face between your thighs and smiling up at you.
You grabbed your phone eagerly, arching your back and tugging your bottom lip between your teeth in ecstasy as you snapped a few photos and videos. A loud moan escaped your throat, causing you to drop the phone and focus back on Hyuck and the long night that seemed to be ahead of you as he pulled his tongue slowly up to your clit, moaning into you in pleasure.
Yes, the sunflower bed was for Hyuck. But also the perfect fuck you to the man who had broken your heart and spent so much time gaslighting and manipulating you.
Across town, a loud string of curses rang out in a tiny apartment, causing Taeyong to rip his headphones off in concern and push open Johnny’s bedroom door. Without replying to his friend, Johnny glanced down at the small sunflower tattoo on his arm and threw his phone violently across the room, knowing the screen most likely shattered as it bounced off the wall.
His angry, jealous comments he had made when he last saw you had been right. Hyuck had always wanted to fuck you and while this was the first time, it looked like this wasn’t going to be the last.
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kinktae · 8 months
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novocaine pt. 4 || (M)
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↳ PART OF MY REWIND SERIES
Going home was hard – painful even. But falling back in love with Jimin, the boy you left behind? Downright gut-wrenching.
pairing: punk!jimin x reader
word count: 8.7k
genre: 1990s au, exes au, angst, smut
warnings: 90s slang, alcohol, fighting, car sex, oc has dead parents, bittersweet ending
A/N: PLS MAKE SURE REREAD 1-3, I KNOW ITS BEEN A FAT MINUTE BUT PLEASE CONSIDER ALL CHAPTERS WHEN READING THIS ENDING
01 | 02 | 03 | 04
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PART FOUR (FINAL)
“You’re gonna break my damn neck!” Jimin complained, eyes shutting as you moved his head closer to the shower’s stream.
“Shh,” You giggled, fingers gingerly rinsing your boyfriend’s head. 
Jimin was fully clothed, head thrown over the tub’s edge, insisting that he remain dry as you washed the orange dye from his hair.
Just the other day you had MTV playing in the background as Grams and you were making cookies when the video for The Flaming Lips’ She Don’t Use Jelly came on. You hadn’t heard the song in ages; Hoseok used to belt the nonsensical lyrics religiously on early morning bus rides to high school. But more importantly, you had never seen the music video and became consumed by the lead singer’s tangerine-colored hair. 
It quickly became a topic of conversation between you and Jimin, nudging a shoulder into his side anytime you’d pass by an orange car or a shelf of hair dye. A week of your less-than-subtle teasing had gone by when he finally begrudgingly agreed to dye his hair orange. You were beyond excited, even if he had only agreed to get you to finally shut up.
So here the two of you were, kneeled on the tile floor of your bathroom, random splotches of bleach and dye on your shirts, the sound of The Smashing Pumpkin’s latest CD coming from your room.
“You should be grateful you have a girlfriend that’s willing to dye your hair for free.”
“Is that what you’re doing? I thought you were trying to drown me.”
“Alright, you big baby,” You rolled your eyes, reaching over him to turn off the shower head. “I’m done.”
“Pass me a towel, please?” 
His eyes were scrunched shut, hand flailing about for the towel rack aimlessly. Chuckling, you passed the wet-haired boy a towel, sitting back on your heels as you watched him pat his face dry.
“Here, let me get your hair.” You offered, grabbing the towel back from his face and onto his head, careful to be gentle as you had bleached it earlier today.
Jimin sat obediently, quietly admiring the way you took your time and cleaned the dye-stained skin around his hairline. He loved having your attention; you were always so gentle with him. His chest tightened as you hummed along to the song in the background, oblivious to the splashes of orange dye that had found your cheek.
“Oh my god. It’s hella orange.” You giggled. 
Jimin pulled you onto his lap, partly to help you work more comfortably, mainly because he liked having you close.
“Does it look bad?” His warm eyes peered into yours, sounding somewhat unsure. 
Brows furrowing, you paused to press a kiss on Jimin’s pouting mouth. As if there were any universe in which Jimin looked bad. Seeing as his frown ceased to let up, you kissed him once more, “You look great, Minnie. My little pumpkin.”
“Real convincing.” He glared. Stealing one more kiss from you, he helped you off him and back up off the bathroom floor.
You watched intently as he moved towards the bathroom mirror. You weren’t anticipating him to hate it, but should the situation present itself, you had made a point to buy an emergency bottle of black hair dye, ready to remedy the situation at a moment’s notice. 
Jimin said nothing at first, merely tilting his head from side to side as he ran his hands threw his newly orange, somewhat damp hair. A smile broke across his handsome face.
“It’s actually pretty sick.” He grinned, clearly pleased with the final result. You let out a breath of relief.
“I told you! Admit it, I was right, you look fucking hot. No one ever trusts my artistic vision.” You sighed dramatically, earning you a chuckle.
“Alright, Picasso. Remind me again the plan for tonight?” He rolled his eyes, reaching for the hairbrush he had laid out on the sink counter earlier.
“Well,” You watched as he sorted through his hair, “Hobi left a message saying he scored all of us tickets tonight for the drive-in theater but failed to mention what time or what movie it was.”
Jimin chuckled, “Typical. And you tried calling Hobi’s line?”
“No one picks up. I went and knocked on his door before you came over. The Jungs are out of town so he’s probably kicking it at Gwen’s.” You shrugged.
While you could in theory go and look up Gwen’s landline in the phone book, it seemed like a tremendous amount of work just to locate someone who quite literally lived right next door. He’d show up eventually. He always did.
You sighed, “Man, I can’t believe that old drive-in is still kicking. I thought for sure it went under in the time I left town.”
Jimin nodded, “Nah, it’s still around. But the only people using it are the old folks who were around when it was first built. They’re still playing the same ten shitty movies on repeat.”
“Let’s just get ready and go hunt him down in an hour, yeah?”
And so the two of you spent the next hour readying yourself, Jimin styling his new hair and you waging war against the blue eyeliner Gwen had somehow convinced you to purchase.
It was just around the one-hour mark that you received a call from the very person you had been hoping to find.
“Yo, kid! Come on out, I got two tickets with your name on them!”
Jimin and you ran out onto your grandmother’s driveway eagerly, laughing as Hobi slammed on his car horn melodically, a bright smile written across his face.
“Great timing, we were just about to go break down your door.” You smiled, grabbing the two bright yellow admission tickets that Hoseok had dangling out his car window. “Thanks, Hobi.”
“Where’ve you been, man?” Jimin questioned his best friend.
“Why? You keeping tabs on me, Carrot Top?” Hoseok giggled, eyeing your boyfriend’s new hair. 
“Funny.”
“I’m playin’, it looks fresh, dude. I dig.” Hoseok assured, holding his hands up as if to show he meant no harm.
You rolled your eyes, “Lemme guess, you were at Gwen’s.”
“You kidding? Her place? Her dad’s sheriff— hell no!” Hobi shook his head before a greasy grin took hold of him. “Besides, I’ve got the open crib, a pretty girlfriend, and stamina like a racehorse.” 
Jimin’s giggle was instantaneous, immediately clueing you in on what exactly Hobi was implying.
“You pig. I rang you and knocked on your door!” You scrunched your nose at him.
“Like a racehorse, kid,” Hobi emphasized, only furthering your frown.
“Jeez, okay, got it… TMI.”
“So we ready to watch Jurassic Park or what?” Hoseok first pumped the air.
Jimin’s eyes went wide, “They’re playing Jurassic Park tonight?! Sweet!”
You too were shocked. The film had come out only a few years ago.
“How the hell did that lame-ass drive-in get the license for a film that recent?”
“Got the old lady to pull some strings.” Hobi flashed you both a smug look, reaching over to pop his collar out theatrically.
“So your mom gave you the tickets? Councilwoman Jung sure has pull in this town.”
You were thoroughly impressed. Hoseok struck out in the parents department. Not only did they tolerate his tomfoolery throughout his teen years, but as his mother was on the city council, they were often occupied with work, giving Hobi free reign to do as he pleased as long as he remained out of jail. 
His mother’s words, not yours.
“Oh Nah, I got the tickets myself.” Hobi corrected.
You squinted at him, suspicious, “…Should I even ask how you got these tickets?” 
“Depends,” His voice lowered suddenly, eyes flickering from side to side, “are you gonna snitch?”
“No?”
“I broke into the ticket booth last night and just grabbed a bunch of tickets from the drawer.” He shrugged.
Your jaw fell, “Hobi!”
“Dude!” Jimin burst out laughing. 
“What?!” Hoseok’s eyes went wide, as if entirely innocent of any crime. “Why are we wigging out? It’s not like I stole money from the register! Besides, is it my fault that so many places here are easy to break and enter?”
“Tell that to Gwen’s dad when he finally locks your ass up.” Jimin teased. Your childhood friend tutted, shifting his car into reverse.
“Whatever. You still took the tickets, ungrateful bastards. Your hands aren’t clean either. The movie is in twenty minutes. I dropped Gwen off at hers so she could go get changed so I gotta bounce and pick her back up. You guys need a ride?” 
“Nah, we’ll take my car,” Jimin assured him.
Hoseok began to pull out the driveway, window still rolled down. “Meet up at mine after for drinks?”
“Sure. Thanks, Hobi!”
“See ya later, man!”
The three friends waved goodbye to one another as the eldest pulled out onto the street and drove off.
“Do you really think he and Gwen were busy fucking all this time?” Jimin pondered the second Hoseok was out of earshot, making you scowl.
“I think that Hobi is like a brother to me and if I think about it too much I’ll actually barf.” 
Jimin chuckled, throwing an arm over your shoulder as the two of you made your way to his car.
———
“A medium popcorn, one Junior Mints, and Buncha Crunch please.” You smiled at the concession’s attendee.
You were about 20 minutes into Jurassic Park and could make out the sound of the film as you ordered Jimin and yourself some snacks. He had offered to go make the snack run himself, of course, but seeing as it was his favorite movie playing, you decided that the sacrifice would be yours to make.
Handing over the necessary cash, you moved to the side, watching patiently as the attendant assembled your order. Just then, someone else approached the concession counter. You glanced over at the person not particularly interested, before realizing at once just who the next patron was.
“Yoongi?” You called out before you could stop yourself.
A head of faded mint hair turned towards you, his dark eyes meeting yours, and took on an expression that you could only guess mirrored your own. The kind of expression that can only be shared between two people who had their tongues down each other’s throats not too long ago.
A pregnant pause fell between you. 
“Y/N. Hey.” He breathed after a beat.
Chewing on the inside of your lip, you contemplated your next words, wondering what exactly to say to your boyfriend’s ex. You know… the one you had tried to have sex with.
Thankfully, the arrival of your popcorn and other snacks made it so you didn’t have to respond, a flustered ‘thank you’ escaping your lips as you grabbed your order.
“Uh, two medium sprites,” Yoongi told the attendant once she moved to take his order. You tried your best to look occupied, not wanting to look like you were waiting on the mint-haired boy even though you most definitely were.
Within a minute, he moved towards you, drinks in either hand and a sheepish smile on his face.
“So, uh… this is awkward.” He admitted honestly, joining you as began to walk away from the concession stand, deciding the spare the innocent concession girl from the unfortunate conversation that was about to unfold.
“Super awkward.” You affirmed with a nervous chuckle, hands gripping around your bucket of popcorn.
He nodded.
“Hey, so,” He came to a stop suddenly, halting your stride. “I’m sorry if I caused problems for you the other night. I wouldn’t have… I mean, I didn’t know that you were… We were also both probably way too drunk–”
“No, no, honestly, don’t sweat it!” You were quick to cut him off, not wanting him to assume that he had done anything to make you uncomfortable that night. “I didn’t know who you were either. You seemed cool and hot and, you know… I wanted to. So… yeah. ”
Wow. This just nearly beat the moment Jimin walked in on you two in the scale of awkwardness. At least you weren’t sober then.
Yoongi nodded once more, “Cool. I also wanted to. But, um… listen, you’re a cool chick and all but you should know there’s someone else. Plus, there’s the whole you being my ex’s ex thing…”
Oh god. Was Yoongi… rejecting you? Fuck, he totally thought you were still coming onto him. How utterly humiliating. 
“Yeah, no, gotcha. That can literally never happen again. It’s all good.” You laughed, purely because of how ridiculous this entire conversation was. He grinned back at you, remembering exactly why he liked you in the first place that night at Guyi’s.
“No hard feelings?” He offered you a crooked smile.
“Deal.” You mused, eyes falling on the two drinks in his hand. “So are you here alone?”
You watched in interest as Yoongi suddenly turned a shade of pink.
“No, actually… I’m here with a coworker.” He told you, a certain bashfulness to his tone.
“Oh, a coworker.” A knowing smirk grew.
“I’m kind of seeing him, I guess. I don’t know, it’s too soon for labels.” He shrugged.
“So you’re seeing your coworker. Scandalous.” You teased.
“Again, sorry. If you were literally anyone but Jimin’s ex-girlfriend–“
“Oh, shut up.” You rolled your eyes at his joke, making him laugh.
The sound of various screams rolled over the area, catching both of your attentions, undoubtedly belonging to the moviegoers in response to a scary scene that must’ve just played out.
“I’m not really into dinosaurs,” Yoongi admitted lightheartedly to which you giggled, agreeing.
“Where do you work by the way?” You made casual conversation. “I just realized I never asked.”
“I work at a daycare.” He told you, making your smile drop.
Right. The daycare. 
You supposed that was the thing about ghosts. They tended to haunt you.
Your chest felt hollow once more as he took a sip from one of the drinks. “Not huge on snot and boogers but the pay is decent so who cares, right?”
“Whatever happened between you and Jimin? I mean, why did you guys break up?” You said suddenly. 
It had just made its way out like word vomit, desperate to change the conversation. The last thing you wanted was for him to ask if you were at all familiar with the property.
Yoongi looked at you in surprise for a split second before shaking his head.
“Jeez, how ironic.” He said, mostly to himself.
“Huh?”
“No, nothing I just… it’s funny you asked me that. Because it was you. You were the reason we broke up.” He confessed, bringing the straw of his drink back up to his mouth.
Weirdly, a feeling of guilt washed over you at his words. It rendered you silent.
“At the time it pissed me the hell off. He was dumping me for an ex-girlfriend he hadn’t seen in what? Four years? Took a hit to my ego for sure.”
All you could do was stand there looking dumb. You hadn’t the slightest idea how to react to what he was saying. Part of you was… delighted? Happy that Jimin wasn’t as dedicated to that relationship as you feared he might’ve been. But another part, a much more prominent part, felt awful. Terrible that you had hurt Jimin so deeply that he couldn’t even commit himself to another person. That he couldn’t move on.
“But anyway, it was for the best. Weirdly he did me a favor. No point in being hung up on a guy who was still hung up on the past.” Yoongi paused suddenly, scrunching his nose as he shook out his mint locks. “Dammit, I sound like such a cliche bitter ex, huh?”
“At least you’re not the shitty ex who broke his heart.” You offered half-heartedly.
Yoongi stared at you for a moment, allowing himself to freely admire the girl who had captured Jimin’s heart all those years ago. Despite your otherwise neutral expression, there was a gloom around you that he couldn’t quite ignore. 
He pressed his lips together, wondering if he could offer you any solace.
“If it makes you feel any better, there’s no guarantee it would’ve worked out even if you had stayed.”
Your head tilted in confusion. Yoongi stole a piece of popcorn cheekily, popping a piece into your mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you told me yourself that night. You’re a city girl. You would’ve wanted to go see the world eventually and everyone knows Jimin has no plans to ever leave this tiny ass town. Maybe you just got the inevitable over with. So don’t beat yourself up over it.”
You were suddenly acutely aware that Yoongi had no idea that you and Jimin were back together. A wave of nausea rolled over you as you considered his words.
He was right, of course. You had always dreamed of making it out of here. Even when you were young and running down the halls of your grandmother’s house, your adventures took you far away, towards weather unlike your own, towards faces and cities you’d never recognize. 
So what was it that you were doing now? Getting closure by opening up a chapter with Jimin you had closed years ago?
Jimin was the boy who had his kids' names picked out when he was in elementary school. He was the boy whose biggest dream was remodeling his parents' home so that it would one day fit his own family, the family that he wanted to start here. He was the boy who looked for you months after you went missing, and who ended a relationship because he was unable to let go of the past. He put his life on hold for you. And who was to say he wouldn’t do it again when you left?
Your feet felt heavy as if you were sinking into the dirt of the drive-in lot, crushing guilt piling onto you.
“Hey.” A voice called out, making both Yoongi and you turn to face whoever was trying to grab your attention.
It was Jimin. Of course, it was. You had gotten caught up in conversation, taking far too long to get snacks. It was only a matter of time that Jimin would head over to check in on you. His hands were tucked away in his jeans, expression unreadable as he eyed the two of you from where he stood.
“Oh. Hey.” Yoongi replied, eyebrows pulling up in surprise. His surprise was quickly replaced with confusion as Jimin walked over, pressing a kiss to your cheek as he took the snacks from you, always the gentleman.
“Sorry, I took so long. We bumped into each other and lost track of the time.” You explained awkwardly to your boyfriend through warm cheeks.
“I see that.”
You could see the way Jimin’s jaw was tense as if swallowing back words that weren’t exactly pleasant. You almost see the puzzle piece coming together in Yoongi’s mind as he looked at the two of you interact.
“Well… it was nice seeing you again. Good luck with everything.” You waved Yoongi goodbye, already heading back where Jimin had set up the car, eager to walk far from the second most awkward situation the three of you had found yourselves.
“You too.” You heard Yoongi called back, a note of disbelief in his tone, one that you forced yourself not to dissect further.
———————
You did your best to keep your eyes on the screen ahead of you, but the tension in the car was palpable. Jimin was taking those sharp short breaths through his nose like he always did when he was angry. You licked your dry lips.
“You’re upset.” You broke the ice.
“No, I’m not.”
You tilted your head against the car seat’s headrest, facing your troubled lover.
“Yes, you are.” Your tone took a soft timbre. “You’re doing that angry sulky thing you do.”
“I don’t sulk,” Jimin said, bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly.
“Minnie, you sulk.” You chuckled but failed to receive a chuckle back in return from him.
You straightened up in your seat.
“Nothing is going on between Yoongi and I.”
“I know.” He said.
Your brows furrowed at his words, “Okay. Then is it something else?”
Jimin said nothing, eyes pressed against the movie screen but clearly not paying attention to the film at all. You sighed.
“Can you roll your window up?” You asked. Your boyfriend met your eyes curiously, seeing that you had done so on your side before complying and rolling his up.
The second his window was up, you were unbuckling your seat belt and maneuvering yourself across the car and onto his lap.
Pressing kisses onto his neck, you felt as he noticeably relaxed, a soft sigh falling from his pillowy lips.
“Talk to me.” Your mouth traveled onto his jaw, kisses sweet and reassuring.
“I love you.” Was his breathy response, hands gripping to sides of your thighs, pulling you closer to him.
He couldn’t say how insecure seeing Yoongi made him feel. He didn't know how to say that if you left him once, what was to stop you from leaving him again? If he wasn’t good enough to make you stay all those years ago, what would be different this time?
“I love you too, Minnie.”
His hand found the side of your cheek, drawing your mouth into his, kissing you with intention. 
You pulled back suddenly, “Wait, this isn’t talking.”
“Don’t wanna talk. Just wanna touch you.” His voice was lower than usual.
Your face flushed at his honesty, unsure of whether to press further. Ultimately you gave in.
“Okay.” 
Your fingers curled into his t-shirt, tongue finding his, heavy breaths filling the small space of the car as you lost yourselves in each other.
Breaking the kiss with a groan, you pulled up at your shirt. You nearly laughed at the way Jimin had already begun to tug at your bra clasp before you had even successfully removed the garment from you. 
The lacy bra fell down your body, tossed aside mindlessly as he pressed a kiss onto your chest, hand working your soft flesh. You let out a breath as he sucked the supple flesh into his mouth, thumb rolling over your pert buds.
“Wait, drop your seat back, I don’t want someone from another car seeing.”
Jimin nodded, leaving your chest to comply with your request. Immediately though, his hand found the back of your neck, pulling you towards him and into a kiss.
Making out in Jimin’s car was admittedly nostalgic — the two of you having spent many afternoons fooling around whenever you got the chance. And maybe that's what the two of you were going for, slipping back into each other in a way that came naturally.
You rolled your hips into his desperately, every inch of you buzzing at the way you could feel the way he had hardened underneath you.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He muttered as his thumb lolled over your sensitive nipple. You whimpered.
The sound took him back to the night of the bonfire when he had buried his head between your angelic thighs that night of the bonfire, your greedy fingers tugging at his scalp as you cried against the feeling of his tongue.
Fuck, he was hard.
His hand reached down to undo his jeans in desperation, the pressure of his strained cock in his thigh jeans too much to bare. His actions caught your attention, your teeth finding your bottom lip as you watched the anguished boy reach into his underwear and readjust himself. 
Suddenly, his mouth was on yours again, hand angling one of your thighs so that he could grind his hips against it. 
You were getting far more worked up than you anticipated, his hot mouth leaving marks across your exposed skin. You needed more of him.
“Do you wanna fuck me?” You asked innocently, hand pressed against his abdomen.
“Fuck yes.”
“Hm...”
Your hand dipped into his underwear, eyes glimmering in mischief as you pulled his cock out, wasting no time in working the shaft. 
“Fuuuuuck.” Jimin’s voice was drawn out and pleading, chest rising and falling in rhythm to the pace your hand had set around his cock.
“Does it feel good, Minnie?” You cooed teasingly, sucking a bruise into his pretty neck.
You preened as his hips suddenly jerked up, a whine pushing past his swollen lips before he cleared his throat.
“You’re gonna fucking kill me. Sit on my cock already.” He begged.
You smiled into his skin, head moving back up to kiss him as you ran your thumb over his red tip, swallowing his moan.
“You feel so good in my hand though.”
You weren’t lying. Hot, engorged, and pulsing under your fingers, his cock was truly a fine piece of craftsmanship. If it weren’t for the cramped location that was the front seat of his car, you would’ve had your lips wrapped around him, using your tongue to remind yourself of every vein and ridge.
“I promise I’ll feel even better inside you.” He groaned.
“What’s the rush? I don’t remember you ever turning down a handjob.”
“And I don’t remember you being such a fucking tease. Clearly, things change.” He tutted.
You frowned at his tone but allowed one of Jimin’s hands to push its way between your legs and down your underwear.
You stifled a noise as he ran his fingers up and down your slit.
“Oh, love bug, you’re so wet. That for me?”
You fought back a blush, somehow still flustered at the way Jimin’s dirty talk after all these years.
“You got yourself this worked up over touching me, yeah? Fuck.”
A shutter ran through your body, pleasure running over you as he toyed with your clit. Your hand fell from his member altogether, finding leverage against his thigh as you pushed yourself closer to his feathery touches.
Your hips moved on their own accord, mouth opening as a silent moan tumbled out.
“Bet that feels so good, huh? So cute.” He praised, pinching one of your cheeks.
“Now whose teasing?” You pouted. 
A whimper escaped you against your better judgment as his fingers suddenly made their way down, spreading you open as he lightly pressed against your entrance.
“Acting so tough but losing the act as soon as I touch you.” He placed a kiss against your head, spurred on by the way you had suddenly become pliant and placid under his touch. “You're practically sucking my fingers in.”
You weren’t certain if the whine that greeted him in response was from his words or the way he pulled his hand back every time you tried to sink onto his fingers.
“Please.”
“Sorry, angel. I’m not gonna finger fuck you. Just gonna sit here and play with what’s mine.”
Jimin was not usually particularly possessive but god was it hot.
If his fingers hadn’t immediately moved back to roll over your clit, you might have had the energy in you to complain, but instead, you found yourself plaint in his arm, thighs trembling.
“I’ll... shit... I’ll cum if you keep that up.”
“Bummer. Guess there won’t be any need to fuck you then.”
“Dammit! Just fuck me, Minnie!”
“Hm... I dunno, I think I’m going to need a little bit more convincing before I do–“
“Oh, please, please!” You were rambling before he could finish his sentence. “Fill me up, Minnie. I need it so badly. I can take it I promise.”
“H-Holy fuck, okay. Dirty fucking mouth. Come here, baby.”
And just like that, you pushed yourself back up onto your knees, moving to hover over Jimin’s painfully erect cock. 
Your boyfriend’s hands cradled your hips as you aligned the two of you, kneading the soft flesh tenderly.
“I love you.” You promised as you sank down. He threw his head back as you fell into the rhythm that felt as natural as breathing with him.
“Damn right you do, you're my fucking girl. Mine.”
He loved the way you moved with him - loved the way you felt like the piece he was missing. He loved everything about you and couldn’t help but shower you with praise as you rode his cock, wishing he could give you more than just car sex. He felt helpless near you, nowhere near as confident as he came across. You were spectacular in every single way, smiling as you leaned over to kiss him.
——
“Tell me about New York City,” Jimin ran his fingers down your arm.
The two of you had long forgotten about Jurassic Park, now reclothed and cuddled up in the back of his car.
You raised an eyebrow, “Honesty? It’s loud and dirty. Not to mention traffic is shit.”
“That sounds… terrible?”
“It is,” You breathed, “But it’s not. It’s the perfect place to disappear. No one gives you a shit about what you’ve got going on, no matter how fucked up you feel. Everyone is just trying to deal with their own chaos and get through the day.”
“Sounds kind of lonely.” He muttered. You hummed in contemplation, wondering how it was that you felt just the opposite. It was weirdly comforting to know that no matter your story, those in the city had seen worse.
“Did you know that when you’re deep in the city, there isn’t a single star in the night sky. Not a single one.” You recounted.
Jimin tilted his head, “What do you mean there are no stars?”
“It’s like they’ve all gone missing and the sky is just this massive empty black hole.”
“How can there be no stars? Where do they go?” He laughed.
“My theory? The city needs so much power to run that they had to steal every star from the sky above them… Though I’m told it’s something called light pollution that just covers the stars.”
“I like your theory better.” He smiled.
You turned towards the massive screen, watching as dinosaurs wreaked havoc.
“There’s a complex above the bar I used to work at. They have a rooftop that you’re not technically supposed to access but everyone does anyway. At night you have the most perfect view of the city skyline. The sky is just this hazy gray color but the further out you look, the lights from the surrounding buildings start to look like little stars sprinkled on the ground. I’ve always thought of it as New York’s version of the night sky. Like looking at the world upside down. It’s just… spectacular.” You marveled.
You could still see it so vividly in your mind, how the empty sky glowed and the buildings twinkled.
“You’ve always had stars in your eyes,” Jimin said suddenly, eyes fixated on you. You turned to meet his gaze.
“Hm?”
There was an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, “Do you remember the first night we met?”
You blinked, taken aback by his abrupt question.
“Hoseok introduced us. Second year of high school. Homeroom.”
Jimin shook his head.
“Do you remember the last home football game of our freshman year?”
Freshman year? Football game? Yeah, you remembered that.
“I mean, yeah. That was before I decided I hated school functions and only wanted to hang out with social rejects and lowlives. First and only high school football game I attended. Why?” You pondered.
“You and Hoseok were standing on the top of the bleachers. I think the two of you were trying to figure out how to climb the announcer building without dying or getting caught.” Jimin went on to recount.
“Oh, snap! I remember that! We did it, too. I remember it took me ages to convince Guyi to come climb up. Hoseok got a bunch of kids to come and join us… You were there?”
Jimin nodded at you, also remembering the way you and the thick-framed girl were close back then.
Jimin actually remembered much more than that. He recalled almost vividly how he and a few friends were called to follow the rowdy boy he knew from history class and how he led them through the bleachers and toward side the side of a building. There were two girls sitting on top already, the louder of the two turned around and waved at the newcomers, before turning back towards the sky, legs stretched out in front of her as she chatted with her best friend.
The other girl you were with, which he would later learn was Guyi, was sitting away from the edge, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she shivered at the night’s chill. She looked uncomfortable and he could hear her muttering about wanting to go back down but you insisted that the view of the stars was better where up here, leaning back on your palms as you faced the night sky.
He was taken by you immediately and spent the rest of the time on the roof glancing your way in hopes even just a quick peek of how the twinkling lights reflected off your irises.
You were all he could think about, even as the principal came screaming at you guys to come down. He thought of you as his older brother Jihoon drove him back home, silent in his seat as he stared up at the very same sky that captured your attention. He thought of you throughout that following summer and the very first day of your sophomore year, when he finally worked up the courage to tell Hoseok how he felt, leading the more extroverted boy to introduce the two of you.
And he had loved you ever since. Even now he loved you, eight years later, sat on Hoseok’s couch as you and the people you grew up with all played a drinking game, the movie since wrapped up, and the function heading back to Hoseok’s place.
He watched as you smiled and laughed with the others and imagined a world in which this could become your guys' new normal. Where every day could be just like how things were and he could just love you as easily as breathing.
But real life was never as easy as fantasies. Real-life consisted of messes and trauma and hurt feelings; there was no glossing over the past four years. And the more Jimin drank from his cup, the harder it was to keep up this game of pretend the two of you agreed on. One day you would have enough and you would leave him again. 
He knew this was temporary - he agreed to it after all. He had kept you in this town despite how much he knew it hurt you to be here. Truthfully, as he sat on the couch getting far more inebriated than he should’ve, Jimin was angry. Perhaps with himself, perhaps with the world, perhaps with both — it didn’t matter in the end. 
Because every day with you meant waiting for the day you would leave and what was he to do but keep on loving you?
He felt helpless.
“Where did you go?” Were his words as you sank back next to him on the couch, having been eliminated from the game taking place at the coffee table. Hoseok, Gwen, and a few other familiar faces were still sitting around it, laughing and joking with one another drunkenly.
“Huh? What do you mean? I was sitting right there.” You giggled, glancing down at the cup of liquor that Jimin had in his hand. “Don’t tell me you’re still a lightweight, Minnie?”
He was boiling, and the words were spilling up and over faster than he could make sense of.
“Where were you, Y/N? I tried to find you I– You left me.”
Something was wrong. You could hear it in his words, and see it in the way his glossy eyes threatened to spill over. He brought his cup back up to his mouth, taking a large sip. You took it from him the second you realized just how drunk he was.
“Hey, that’s enough… let’s go outside, okay? Get some air.” You were up on your feet in an instant, eyes flickering over to the group to see if anyone had heard.
“You left me,” Jimin repeated.
“Jimin. Please.” There was a desperate look in your eyes, clearly not wanting to have this conversation with other people present.
Blinking away the lump in his throat, he got up from the couch and followed you out of the room, slipping through the sliding glass door onto the patio.
The patio door shut with a quiet click, the chill of the cold night greeting you both.
“How did you just... pack your bags and leave it all behind? Leave us behind? I thought you loved me.” Jimin wiped away at his cheeks blindly, unsure of when he started crying. 
“I did— Minnie, I do.” You tried your best to keep your voice level, growing emotional at the topic at hand and at the man you loved hurting.
“Was I not enough of a reason to stay?”
Your mouth opened and closed repeatedly as you struggled to answer him. You, just like him, were intoxicated and nowhere in the right state of mind to be having this conversation.
“I mean, fuck, love bug! You just left!” His voice pitched up in disbelief, clearly not aware of his volume raising as well. 
You were trembling. Though from the cold or the guilt you weren’t sure.
“I-I know, I-”
“You just left and never came back? This is your home–”
“Don’t fucking say that!” You snapped, surprising both you and Jimin.
A tsunami of emotion crashed into you.
“My parents are dead, Jimin. And I know you get it, I know you lost your brother but… Minnie, I couldn’t breathe! I-I felt trapped, and… god, after they died— it was me who was dying. Yes, I was wrong to leave but I was young and hurting and.. I just couldn’t let this town kill me too.”
Your hands found your face, covering it as a wave of melancholy rushed over you. 
“I was supposed to be in that fire. I ran off to Grams because of a stupid, meaningless fight with my mom. After they died, I spent an entire year wondering if I shouldn’t have just died right there with them.”
You couldn’t bear to look up at Jimin. You couldn’t bear to see the pity in his eyes as you laid out the worst of you for him to hear.
“The second I stepped out of this town was the first real breath of air I had taken since they died. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life but I know that this town stopped being my home the second they died.”
Any and all anger had melted away from the orange-haired man.
“Y/N–”
You looked up suddenly, frown furrowed and eyes blurry with tears.
“I don’t need forever. I just need right now, okay, that’s what you said to me the night of the bonfire. You said that, remember?”
“I remember.” He sounded sorrowful.
“I love you, Minnie. I never stopped loving you. But they’re gone.” You mourned, breaths uneven. “And they’re everywhere I look in this town. I mean… why can I come back but they can’t? How is that fucking fair?!”
You were nearly inconsolable, watery eyes barely widening as your face was suddenly taken into Jimin’s hands, his thumbs brushing past your wet cheeks.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You’re right. I’ve already asked so much of you. This town has taken too much.” His eyes searched yours. “I... I wish you would’ve told me. When they died… for a year you said nothing. I thought you needed your space so I gave it to you, but I never would have if I knew you were planning to leave. What if I could’ve helped? You helped me when we lost Jihoon, remember?”
“I know...” Your answer was lackluster. Because you didn’t have an answer for him. You didn’t know why you pushed away those who loved you when your parents first died.
Was it teenage naivety? Was it fear of losing anyone else? 
You wished you could give the sweet boy a solid answer. But you weren’t even sure that sober you could. God, he deserved so much more than you had given him.
“It was you and me against the world, remember? Through all the shit and garbage life throws at us. You were my person. You still are.”
“I just… there is so much out there, Jimin. So much this small town can never offer. If you only saw the cities, the kinds of people that come in and out.” You emphasized, suddenly inspired.
“What if… what if you come with me.” Your voice was small, knowing the impossibility of what you were asking him.
His eyes told you the answer to your question he even spoke.
“Bug, I… My family needs me here. Everything is here… I don’t know if I can just leave. This… this is my home.” His brows fell, rubbing your cheek apologetically.
“I know. But I can’t let you put your life on hold for me. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I strung you along for another four years. When I leave I don’t want you holding onto me. You deserve to move on and find a life here like you’ve always wanted.”
“The life here that I always wanted was with you.” Jimin cried, pulling you into him. 
You buried your face into his neck and for a moment the two of you just held each other and cried.
“I’m sorry.” You said, knowing that neither of you could do this anymore.
“I’m sorry, too.” He held you tighter.
The game of pretend had drawn to a close and neither of you had won.
Your grandmother was awake and doing a crossword in the kitchen when you walked back home later that night without Jimin.
“Hi, darling.” Your grandmother greeted, only noticing the way your hair stuck onto your wet cheeks once you came into the kitchen light. 
“Oh, bless your little cotton socks, come here.”
She held you as you cried — she cried too, knowing that this meant goodbye in more ways than one. 
She slept in your bed that night, holding you close in a way that she did for your mother and that your mother once did for you. There was so much you could never repay your grandmother for. You’d spend the rest of your life calling her from every city apologizing if that's what it took for her to forgive you for choosing to leave once again. But even if hadn’t told your grandmother you were leaving, even if she didn’t help you pack your bags that very next morning, she would forgive you because all she ever wanted was for you to follow your heart. 
The same heart that had her drop you off at Jimin’s the next day.
Your knuckles rapped a somber tune onto his door, the sun pleasantly hitting on your skin, very polar opposite to how cold your insides felt.
You could hear a scuffling from inside the shed, suddenly embarrassingly aware of how little soundproofing Jimin’s room had. Thank goodness it was far from the main house.
“Y/N?” Jimin called out, the door handle turning. 
Panicking, you gripped the handle, holding the door shut.
“Wait! Don’t open the door.” You warned, not exactly sure what came over you.
“Why? Bug, what’s wrong?” Jimin sounded concerned but let go of the handle regardless.
You fought with your thoughts for a moment.
“I can’t... If I see your face I’ll...”
You were a coward. You swore this time you wouldn’t just disappear, you had seen the pain you had caused him. But even still, even when you came to tell him you were leaving, you couldn’t bear to see his face. You could not see the face of the man you loved so much and tell him you were leaving him. You just couldn’t. 
You didn’t feel strong or brave or anything Jimin insisted you were. Hand pressed against the closed door to Jimin’s room, you felt small and pitiful, far from someone who should be asking what you were about to do.
“I’m going to say something. It doesn’t need a response now, okay?” You called out, loud enough so he could hear.
You swallowed roughly, your throat dry. “My bus ride back home is today. Noon.”
Silence fell.
Your heart was pounding in your throat, nearly blocking out the words you had spent all night rehearsing.
“If you don’t show up, I’ll go. And I won’t come back. I mean it. I want you to move on. You have to try. Don’t give up your life for me.”
Jimin was just on the other side of the door, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, having just rolled out of bed. You didn’t explain yourself further, and perhaps you didn’t need to. He mulled over your words in his head. 
If he didn’t show up, you’d hop on the train and slip out of his life forever. 
“But if you show up...” you trailed off as if losing your nerve. But he understood all the same.
If he showed up to stop you, you’d stay. 
You knew he could never physically ask you, but if he wanted you to stay, you would. Just seeing him would crumble your resolve and you’d stay with him here forever, even if it killed you.
“This isn’t a test or anything.” You said after a moment as if the thought came to you suddenly. “I know you love me. You don’t have to prove that to me.”
His shoulders sank, realizing what you were asking of him. 
“I just... I didn’t give you a choice last time.”
Your words wrapping around Jimin like an old shirt— warm but ill-fitting.
How many nights had he dreamt of you saying those exact words? How many times had he pictured the night you left going different, with you telling him your plans of leaving and him convincing you to stay? Nothing would’ve changed and you’d go back to spending every night tangled up together and every day in his passenger seat, window cracked and wind brushing past your hair as you sang along to one of his playlists.
All he ever wanted was to go back to loving you like he used to. Loving you and imagining the life the two of you would build here.
“I-I’ll stay here and… and love you and figure out all my emotional garbage. I won’t leave you again.” Your voice was shaking. “If you ask me to, I’ll stay.”
Tears found Jimin’s eyes. 
From the moment he met you, way back in high school, you had talked about seeing the world. You had big dreams that couldn’t fit in this tiny town. You were larger than life and he always knew to an extent that he have to spend the rest of his life running in order to catch up to where you were.
He just never thought you’d run further than he could go.
Don’t give up your life for me, you had said as you offered to do exactly that for him.
He saw the spark behind your eyes whenever you spoke of the city. He saw the way you turned into a shell of yourself at old memories. He would break his own heart ten times over before he would ever keep you here. 
But you would break your own heart ten times if it meant you could save his heart from breaking again. Because if he wanted you to say, you could try to be happy here. Maybe you could try to be happy and try to be with Jimin and try for a nice ordinary life. You wouldn’t stay for you but you would stay for him. 
Because you loved him far more than you loved yourself.
“If this is goodbye, then just know that… I love you. And I’m sorry.” 
Sorry was all you could ever feel in this town. Sorry for all the hurt you caused and the mess you always left behind. Sorry for yourself and the life you would never get back. Perhaps it would’ve been better if you had turned down Jimin’s advances that night at the bonfire. More likely it would’ve been better if you hadn’t come back at all. 
But the one-sided conversation through Jimin’s door was your best attempt at undoing a fraction of the hurt you had caused him, however pathetic it was.
——
You were standing amongst a crowd of moving bodies, watching anxiously as other buses began to board.
“He might show up.” You muttered to yourself. “It's not too late, he might show up.”
“Darling!”
You heard your grandmother call out, and you scoured the crowd before finding her, a breath of relief finding you. She had driven you to the bus station and left momentarily to use the bathroom for a moment — you feared you might have to board your bus without seeing her again.
“They just called for my bus.” You said the second she was within earshot. She looked around with you, watching as a line began to form in front of your bus. But your eyes wandered further, looking past the line, past your bus, and Elvie knew at once who you were looking for.
“You don’t have to go, you know.” She placed a hand on your cheek, pulling your attention back onto her.
“I know…” You nodded back at her, biting on the inside of your cheek.
“…But you want to.” She acknowledged. You were her blood after all. And no time apart could undo the way she knew her grandchild.
You met her eyes regretfully, guilt written all over you.
“I’ll call you every week.” You promised.
She pinched your cheek, “Even every month would do. I will miss you greatly. And I love you dearly.”
“I love you, Grams.” You pulled her into a tight embrace.
“Stay safe, darling.”
The two once estranged family members shared one final hug before the final call for your bus rang out. Shooting the bus station one final once over for a shade of orange, you waved your grandmother farewell and joined the line, boarding and sitting on the bus within a few minutes.
Elvie stayed at her spot for ten minutes, watching as the bus drove off and took her grandchild with it, waving goodbye even when you were too far to even see her.
A tear ran down her face as she clasped her hands together, hoping that you might find whatever you are continuing to search for.
A man joined her just then, emerging from behind the wall where he had been hiding, yanking off his grey beanie to reveal a bright mop of orange hair.
“There you are. Thought you were going to stand behind that wall forever.” Elvie acknowledged him, wiping away her tears.
“Sorry... And sorry to bombard you while you were on the way to the bathroom. Did you manage to slip it into her bag?” He asked.
“Of course I did. She was too busy looking for you to even notice.” Elvie reassured, watching as Jimin stared off in the direction you had left.
Jimin wasn’t sure when you’d find it, but eventually you’d find the black cassette tape he had dedicated to you all those years ago.
“It’s a playlist I made of all the songs that remind me of you.”
If it weren’t for you rummaging through his car, the tape would’ve continued to slip his mind— a forgotten relic forged from the time in which he swore he would never see you again. Carefully selected songs forming a cacophony of bitterness, longing, anger and sorrow.
After you left him this morning, Jimin lay across his bed, listening to your mixtape for the first time in years. An emotional time capsule in the form of plastic film and faded sharpie. He remembered vividly what every song meant, he remembered every raw unfiltered feeling he held for the last four years.
He held onto you for so long.
"Thank you for giving that to her."
“I have to ask… I mean, you showed up. You could’ve given her that mixtape in person. Why hide?” Your grandmother pressed.
“I had to see her. But I knew if she saw me she wouldn’t have left, and she would’ve continued to hurt herself just for me.” Jimin’s eyes welled up with emotion. “She deserves so much more than that, even if she doesn’t see it yet.”
Because you were the girl with stars in her eyes and big dreams and he was just the boy who loved you just enough to let you go.
------------------
THE END and before you yell at me, please respect my artistic vision EEEEP!! I love these characters and want what is best for them and the only way to do that is to honor the life that both truly deserve, even if that means it's not a life with each other. I thought long and hard about how to end this series, just putting that out there bc I know a bittersweet ending can be disappointing. AAHHH ILY MWAH! <3
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shunshunrika · 6 months
Note
can you make a headcanon of gojo accidentally making his s/o cry?
please and thank you!
ooo let's go.
warnings: mentions of smut, some angst, some fluff, swearing
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"Sweetie, what's up?" Gojo asks, placing his opaque sunglasses on the nightstand and looking at your bundled up form on bed curious. He wouldn't have even noticed you were hiding under the sheets and the pillows if he didn't spot your toe sticking out.
"Sweets." He asks again, poking the top of the sheet mountain when he doesn't get his reply. "Are you okay? You left early too."
Static.
"Okay then." Gojo starts, raising his hand and chanting something. His 'Blue' activation pulls your entire barricade away from you leaving you alarmed and sore-faced like a naked cat.
"Satoru, what the hell!" you yelp, covering your face up quickly. "Can't you leave me alone for a bit? The whole of tonight maybe?" You really felt naked and raw right now. You had stripped out of your expensive spaghetti strap dress that you had bought to tease Satoru and thrown your heels into some forgotten corner of the room. You had laid in this bed for a good 2 hours, only in your bra and underwear, crying your eyes out over what he did.
"You want me to go away?" Satoru asks you with a pout, standing his ground, clearly having no intention of leaving.
"Yes, please. Just leave me alone." you croak. Your throat hurts.
"How can I leave my pretty baby all alone?" he asks, sitting down on the bed beside your hunched over form. "-especially when she seems to have cried an ocean?"
"Don't look at me-" you scramble to hide your face with your hands but Satoru grabs both of your wrists in one hand of his.
"What's wrong?" he asks, now serious, his azure gaze piercing you. "Did someone at the party do something?"
You look at him for a second, gathering some courage. No matter how beautiful Gojo's eyes were, to you, they had always been eerily terrifying as well.
"Why would I need someone to do something when my own boyfriend was there to spoil my night," you smile at him bitterly making him scrunch his brows.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't act stupid Satoru." you scoff. "Everyone saw you flirt with MeiMei at the party. Don't tell me I misunderstood; everyone saw it. It was embarrassing." you spit out.
"Wha-" Gojo almost begun to protest but then stopped.
"Well," he clears his throat. "You don't have the right to complain. You were off flirting with Nanami yourself. Were you not?"
"What do you mean?" you question him. You don't recall flirting with Nanami? Yes, you did have a long and important conversation with him but you never flirted?
"You were looking into his eyes, smiling, you were so interested in what he had to say, you were glued to him for hours!" Satoru said, making his angry-cat face.
"Are you serious?" you ask. "I was talking to him about my promotion. He wants to champion me in front of the higher ups. Nanami is my fucking boss for god's sake, not some tinder date."
"But...." before Satoru could finish his statement, he already knew he had lost the argument, even worse, he had fucked up by doubting you and trying to take petty revenge.
"Satoru Gojo." you grit your teeth. "You stupid, overgrown child."
"I am sorry. I am so sorry, Y/N!" he says, getting down on his knees.
"You know I don't have eyes for anyone else but you right? Mei-san? no way, she's scary as hell."
"I don't know Satoru," you say placing a bare foot on Satoru's chest. "Prove your innocence."
"How?"
"I don't know," you say, pushing your arms together to plump up your cleavage and lean over him.
"Figure something out, you leashless mutt."
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rel124c41 · 22 days
Text
SCHISM. jade leech
You could not grab a full-bodied mushroom, that had already lived a life outdoors, and stick it into a terrarium. "I know the pieces fit because I watch them tumble down" - TOOL, Track 5 on Lateralus
tags: established relationship, relationship issues, soul bond, ghost camera, angst w a happy? ending, character study, parental crewel, mental breakdown(s), crowley finds a way to send the prefect home, grimms fairytales, tattoos
word count: 16,920
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“No! NoNONO! Wait, Jade! Cut it out Jade! Jade!” 
The words you let out are overflowing with terror. Fear makes itself familiar and known in your vocal cords.
Out of you comes one last fruitless, ignored shriek of his name before you cry like a child on a rollercoaster. With you in his arms, Jade falls back first off the cliffside.
Catlike, you cling onto your boyfriend. Pointed nails dig deeply into his neck, causing little injuries and indents. The fall is short and, before you know it, you are both underwater, weightless.
It is freezing and awful and warm and great all at the same time. You want to resurface immediately. Which you do, kicking yourself out of the constricting arms around your waist. Lake water ripples and billows. Once you surface, you expect to hear that mocking laughter. Rivulets of water cascade down your neck and face as you bring two soaking wet hands up to your temple to wipe away water – rather fruitless. But you clear the skin over your eyes and open them, searching for what you thought you would find in sound.
“My clothes are drenched, Jade,” you whine, knowing he can hear you no matter if he is underwater. 
The lake remains a calm surface, no body popping up. Kicking your legs and waiting, you glance up at the cliffside Jade had thrown both of you off of. Sun burns the palm you face up to its golden rays, protecting your eyes. There is, sitting all pretty. The mushroom you had been going to collect lies unplucked. Next to it, your pair of sunglasses that had fallen off your nose when you were lifted as easily as a mischievous cat.
Though, you are not the mischievous one in this. That description belongs to another: the one sly predator swimming underwater and avoiding surfacing for mischievous reasons most likely. Who were kidding, you think watching still waters, definitely for those types of reasons.
And you only get one warning – a hand pinched on your nose and a hand cupping your mouth – before you are dragged right back underwater. 
You thrash wildly. A lean body folds and tilts itself over you. You punch at where you think his shoulder or rib-cage is. He spins you once then twice underwater, disorienting you. You clutch at his shirt and pull. He kicks at your right leg and bends your body as if it is a bow. Wrestling against one another, your objective to resurface and his objective to dance clash until finally Jade pulls you up for air.
This time mocking laughter accompanies the cool sting of air. “Ugh, you jerk! You absolute – ugh!! My clothes!” Your punching fist is caught. Jade twists it and wraps it around his neck in an amorous hold like you two were going to start tango-ing. He laughs, subdued chortling at your furious expression. 
“Fufufu, you should’ve seen your face.”
“This is Floyd level behavior! I cannot believe you!”
“Come now, (Name). You were just complaining about the heat.”
You gasp, offended. “The heat?! You did this because –”
“Because I wanted to assist my love however I could? Yes, of course. I do need to take care of you after all.”
“Oh, you ass,” you growl and dig your nails in the back of his neck. 
Jade is unaffected by your humane strength. Instead, Jade smiles at your attempt to inflict any harm on him. His lips pull up and you are struck breathless by the visage of him. Sunlight falls on his glass-clear skin in an evangelical way. Teal hair is pressed down by water, slick with a rare shine. Even with black eyeliner smudged raccoon-esque, his eyes are piercing and vibrant. A lemon and an olive, rich like plucked from a painting. You punch his latissimus for being so effortlessly handsome at times.
With clipped and vexed words, you say, “I’m cool now. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure.” His white smile is aggravatingly handsome too. “Don’t I get a reward for my consideration,” Jade asks, not missing a beat, simply floating with you in his arms.
“Take me back to the shore?”
“Of course I will.”
“Okay, here’s your reward,” you say, pecking him on the lips. “Now then.” Your gaze sharpens. “Shore. Now.”
When you two finally reach the lake’s sandy border, you start to wring out your button-up. You will not walk around in wet clothes. The dripping fabric of your tank top suctions itself to your skin in an unrelenting, octopus-like grip. You glare when Jade openly stares. Half-lidded eyes trace up and down the curvatures of you. Taking the shoulder ends of your button-up, you whip the material down hard once then twice then thrice, watching as water droplets splash your boyfriend.
Take that, you think triumphantly as you remove another article of clothing.
Jade gets back at you by taking his own wet button-up and wringing it out over your head rather than over the dirt like you had done. Dropping the shoe you were shaking water out of, you attack him and his self-satisfied, coy smirk. 
It takes about five minutes of horseplaying until you two get back on task. 
You sit on shore, squeezing water out of socks and mourning when Jade was more cowardly about touching. All two sets of teeth yet no bite. Endearing courting methods involved gifts, and even then, he was earnestly timid about it. Hand like a shield on his heart all the time as if to translate, be gentle with me. 
Rolling a still damp sock back on your foot, you think that message was truly worth ignoring. Jade Leech and gentle were antonymous. 
Still, there was a certain charm about his slyness. The fake humanitarianism he wore in his finely pressed uniform and neat bow was attractive. The glowing, angular silhouette of those sharp, up-turned eyes could still make you swoon. Something about him being out of reach was magnetizing. 
But … you watch as Jade walks up to you, your mushroom and sunglasses in his hand, there is something equally magnetizing in unlocking this part of him. 
And you have to admit the dip into the lake did wonders dropping down your temperature. Now you were not losing by such a large margin in the battle against heat stroke. 
You let him have this win. And you let him come to you. Accepting your sunglasses, you lay them to perch on the crown of your head. Before he offers a hand out to you, Jade carefully places your mushroom in the bucket you two have been wandering around with. He drapes his wet button-up over the button, electing to stay in his own tank top.
“Not going to dry out your socks?”
“No, I happen to enjoy the feeling of walking around in wet socks. Reminds me of home”
“You’re incorrigible.”
A smile splits across Jade’s face at your harsh words. Stalactites and stalagmites of razor enamel shine in his mouth, menacingly. And yet he offers out a hand to you, nails trimmed down to the plate, safe and warm even if it is calloused a bit.
Your eyes trail over him. Past shoes and compression tights and white cargo shorts. Gliding over the palm of his pallid hand and over the black eel skeleton made of tattoo ink which wraps itself from elbow to shoulder. Up to his collarbone, to his face, and to his eyes. 
A fond thought arrives in the mailbox of your mind. It is a letter perfumed in heart, base, and top notes of aquatic and woody scents. The smell of stepping on the beach and breathing it all in so deeply that your ribs ache. As the letter’s wax seal melts off, you read and transcribe the letter into the passionate smile on your lips and the way you trust yourself with holding Jade’s hand. The letter reads: I think I want to spend the rest of my life with him.
That was only yesterday.
That was only yesterday. Now, that mental letter means nothing to you. 
How quickly our opinions can change, you reflect, standing in Crowley’s office with a pearl of torment clutched in the bowels of a stomach ready to puke. 
When you were summoned to Dire Crowley’s office, you were vexed more than anxious. In your head bounced around the theories on what under-the-table job the Headmaster was kindly electing for you to take care of. Another thirty plus stack of papers he did not want to write his signature on or another school activity that you would be generously put in charge of. You weighed the options of work as Grim (perched on your shoulder) weighed the options of what you would ask for as a reward.
“Tuna croquettes, Henchman, imagine the taste of those! When Crowley gives us our job, ask for those! Ask for tuna –”
“What even is a croquette? When did you learn a French word?” You can already guess the answer to the second question: if it involves food, not even a language barrier can stop Grim from learning about it.
“They’re these breaded balls of tuna that are deep-fried.” You stick your tongue out in disgust. “They look delicious. You can dip them in honey or put them on crackers. Oh, Henchman, you have to ask for them. And we should pick up more honey for home.”
“I’ll remember to pick up honey. I can’t promise any tuna coqu –”
“Croquettes.”
“Croquettes. You know, you need to stop watching food blogs or going on websites like Food & Wine. I found my phone opened up to twelves tabs of just food blog recipes last week.”
“I’m not the one browsing them. Jade is.”
“Well, I’m cutting both you and Jade off. You’re grounded from looking at food blogs together. I can only handle so many different ways to organize a bento box before I go crazy.”
“Henchman,” Grim whines, nuzzling his fur against your cheek. “But they all look so yummy.”
“Grounded,” you had declared just before pushing open the door to Dire Crowley’s office, knowing he was already expecting you. How you wish you could re-spark that easy conversation between you and Grim. How you yearn to have the foresight to ignore his summoning.Now, you stand in front of Crowley, frozen. 
“He-Henchman,” Grim whines, trying to get you to speak or at the very least blink.
Blind-sighted is the only accurate description for you. Your eyes sit in your skull like wispy white spider eggs, paralyzed. If breathing were not a necessity, you would dare not even breathe. Vision blurring, you focus on the thin lips of Crowley underneath his raven masquerade mask, replaying all he had said. Salted water twitches on your bottom eyelashes. 
After seven volatile overblots, the too close for comfort spell of comatose casted over the entire world, and two years of rapidly draining hope, you had a way to go home through the assistance of the Dark Mirror and Dire Crowley.
You think you really are going to puke.
The only thing that halts your throat from cleaning itself of previous dishes is the bite of Grim’s fangs on your cheek. Like four tiny needles, his fangs sink in with a vengeance. You startle back with a yelp, stepping back, fruitlessly because your attacker is still laying on your shoulder. “Grim, ouch!” Blood holds itself unsteady in the puncture mark before one droplet slides down your cheek. You bat him off your shoulder. “That hurt.”
Grim lands gracefully in the space between you and the Headmaster. He turns around on two legs, neck craning to look up at you. His eyes are wishing wells of cerulean blue. You know what that sorrowful color means without his frowning eyebrows telling you his thoughts indirectly. “You’re not planning on going are you, (Name)?”
You are not a fantastic multitasker but you might just find yourself puking and crying. The wobble in his voice as if his emotions were an earthquake. How were you to explain what it was to yearn for family when Grim’s only family was … his only family was you. 
“Gr-Gri,” your bottom lip trembles. 
You find yourself unable to do anything but react to physical pain. Speaking meant acknowledging it. Ignoring Grim’s question, you look up at Crowley, past his lips to those glowing eyes. “Headmaster, I –” Your words pitifully stop there. No section of your mind can construct a sentence and you cannot even say Grim’s name fully.
You look at him with child-like vulnerability. Vulnerability seen in the eyes of kindergartens who are squeamish that the world has become big — the world offering more than just their four walled home — and thus look up at their teachers for guidance. Nervous without their parents around. Sevens, you are only nineteen. 
You cannot lie; I want to see them again.
Perhaps the desperation in your eyes is prominent because Dire Crowley quickly amends, “Now, this is not without some wiggle-room. I am not an unreasonable person! According to the Magic Mirror, you have exactly a month before the carriage arrives. Plenty of time! 
“Now, I have done my part in delivering the news,” Crowley says jovially. Jovially as if he has not turned your entire world on its head. 
“Wai –” 
You stutter. A hand is already pressed firmly on the small of your back. Your body shudders with a riptide of thoughts. Thinking about the conditions of how you will get home, thinking about asking for an extension, thinking about how unfair it all is. After Tsunotaro’s overblot, you managed to accept your place in Twisted Wonderland and one raindrop day causes all that to shift into a storm.
All the conditions of Crowley’s instruction fight in your head. Five talons on your back fight to move your catatonic body. You feel as elastic as rubber and as stone as granite. Somewhere far away, you think you hear Grim hiss. What are you going to tell Jade? And with that horrible thought, you allow yourself to be pushed out of the office.
You think you feel Grim crawl back up to your shoulder but you feel as if some supernatural force has kicked you into the back of the line, kicked you out of your mind. 
“Now (Name), please remember the Dark Mirror says this event only lasts for four hours. Think of it like a solar eclipse; it is a change of elements allowing this method to work. The carriage will ride past the –'' The rest of Crowley’s words waterfall out his mouth like white static. There is a strange ringing in your ears. You think you might pass out.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” you wag your tongue, speaking words you will not remember tomorrow. 
Crowley says something more but it is a breeze, wordless and untranslatable, before closing his door. You stare at the gradient of wood. There is an urge to knock on it again, worrying your memory is wrong and now is the first time you were called into Crowley’s office. But you know … how you know what reality this is. It feels like you left parts of your brain lobotomized and body amputated, lying beyond that gradient wood; missing parts of yourself.
You rub your cheek, a little blood gathering on your knuckle. Grim’s bite, you remember, bleeding as if you had dug into a pimple. “Huh? I.” Without fully gathering all the parts of yourself back up, you walk off after a breath of hesitation.
Grim hops off your shoulder as you two glide away. The physical burden of this situation is already a heavy weight on your shoulder, you do not need him adding to it. Observing that, Grim stays quiet on his two legs, keeping stride.
He feels his skin bubbling with questions. Your eyes are full of water refusing to fall. Will you two be returning to class or Ramshackle? You were called into Crowley’s office in the middle of Magic Analysis class. Would you really still have the fortitude to write up answers? 
Your mind was swimming with something much more tantalizing than the differences of divination magic in users like the Fates to users like Jafar. 
Grim watches you stop in the corridor. About two hallways away from Magic Analysis class. You stare ahead, blank and dollike; then, as if a horrid thought has passed into your mind, you move as fast as a scorpion. 
For the briefest moment, horror is in your eyes. A tight, clenching hand flies up to your face, slapping itself over your mouth as if you are going to vomit or scream. You squeeze your eyes tightly together, doubling over at the hip. Nails dig (four on the left and one thumb on the right side) into your cheek, forceful enough to leave marks. 
The pain is grounding. 
Hyperventilating for no more than ten seconds, you suddenly straighten up, taking a deep breath. You put the thought away like a child pushing their shoes into a cubby. When you look down at Grim, your eyes are dry as his big blue eyes implore you to speak. Your body shakes slightly like you have goosebumps running up and down your skin.
“Henchman?”
“Tuna croquettes. What would you say if I made some tonight,” you give Grim an unsteady smile but your voice is magically even. “You’ll have to pull your weight and help me. It’s been a while since we cooked together, right?”
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Heartslabyul is the first to know. Thus is the natural law of order. 
There is probably an unconventional rule written down: lies can only be told on a Tuesday if the liar has prematurely prepared mealworms for the hedgehogs during noon … or … something eccentrically long like that. A rule only plausible for Heartslabyul standards. But you predicted, walking into Magic Analysis class yesterday, that Ace and Deuce were going to find out the truth first. Even if you were not prepared to tell them it.
The reveal was a far leap from graceful. Unplanned, your woes spilled out of Grim’s mouth, something about you not being there for finals. Sudden cobblestone hits your back. Wincing at the bite of the school wall, you wilt at the rapid fire of Ace and Deuce, not even getting space to speak, Ace starting:
“You only get a month! How long have you known!”
“Grim just told us you aren’t going to be here for finals, and he well – he!”
“He’s gotta be joking, right?”
“After Draconia’s overblot, I thought it was impossible to –”
“Prefect, I can not go through that again. I know I joke about sleeping forever. But those are jokes!”
“Ace! … But really how did Crowley and the Dark Mirror figure it out?”
“They haven’t contacted Briar Valley have they? Not even Crowley can be that suicidal.”
“I mean, I can totally understand if you want to go; we all have families but –”
“But you don’t want to go right, Prefect?”
“Ace, don’t just ask them that!”
“Oh shut it! Why shouldn’t I ask, you coward? No one else is gonna but us!”
“Wait, does anyone else know, (Name), besides Grim.”
“So no one else knows.” You nod. “Wait, when will you tell Jade?”
Never, a part of you thinks. Wanting to save yourself from the hurt, you judge wrongly that you can continue through this month without having to face Jade and tell him. You just want to avoid the pain. Cobblestone-made bruises hum on your shoulders, deep in reminder. 
You did not even get to break the news in Ramshackle, away from prying eyes. When you finally got a word in edgewise, you were still pressed against the outdoor wall of Night Raven College. The walking crowd was gratefully small … yet you stayed anxious over the idea anyone else would find out. The college was a hunting ground for weakness and each dorm was not above spreading a rumor. 
Your anger at Grim for revealing your predicament lasts only ten minutes. What good was fruitless anger when these might be your last days in Twisted Wonderland? 
Eventually, the group of five in Heartslabyul come to know. If Ace and Deuce knew something, the information eventually falls like dominoes to Cater, Trey, and Riddle. 
Even with two of the three away on their internship, the information was passed over. Your favorite cake appears glittering with magic residue on the porch of Ramshackle with a letter signed by Trey that leaves you shaking. Quotes on eternalism – specifically time’s finiteness – from books and poetry start to bloom on Cater’s Magicam stories, not enough to change his feed but enough to stir up suspicion, and you feel that pit in your stomach deepen.
Other than the five in Heartslabyul, you keep the predicament from everyone else. Tears welling up in Kalim’s eyes; disbelief writing itself on Ruggie’s face; the volume of Sebek’s concern mounting in your ears. You do not want to deal with any of it.
Jade … you do not want to even think of how that will blow over. Would you get tears? Most likely not. Would you be shouted at? No, you have not heard Jade really shout. Would his expression reveal his inner turmoil and disbelief? No, he is a master at schooling his expressions. So predictable yet not, you mourn, walking down the hallways to your next class.
When we are at the height of our most paranoid, we think that every conversation that we cannot hear is about us. 
You reflect upon this philosophy as you walk. Whenever glancing or idle eyes fall upon you, you get this stabbing pain running itself through your spinal cord. Your heart spikes when you see Riddle interact with Silver in class, jumping to the obvious: they are talking about me. Lips move yet sounds are unheard; in response, your heart drums a solo of fortissimo fear.
About three-fourth through the day, you leave Grim who has been gluing himself to your side with Deuce. Citing that you are feeling unwell and need to go to the nurse. No one argues with your firm insistence that you do not need a guide. 
Your feet carrying you to the Mostro Lounge is simply muscle memory. If you want to calm down, you go to Jade. Knowing his schedule too is all ingrained in you. 
The host sits you in a booth pressed snuggly against the aquarium’s glass. Upon your request, he neglects to give you a menu or coaster. This one time you will not be dining. You know it will vex Azul, taking up space where a paying customer could be, but you will make him forgive you. 
Underneath electric, pulsing blue lights, you sit like an egg in an incubator. Facing the stretching walls of a sixteen foot tall aquarium. Shielded and blanketed by cerulean and black shadows. Entirely still. 
What are you going to do? More people will come to know – people you care for and would not like to be torn from. And they will try to gauge or guide your decision, perhaps do both at once. You abhor that idea. All you really want right now is someone to be your rock to latch to when there is a riptide around you, someone who will be calm in the stare of a calamity. 
Questioning, your eyes trace the motions of a codfish. It is odd for one of them to be swimming off from the school. He swims on the very belly of the conjoined body the school has made, pressing the limits of harmony. 
The yellow-olive codfish starts to break the formation completely. Curious thing. You wonder if it has a disease. Determined, the codfish swims to the bottom of the aquarium, tail dilating back and forth as it heads down. But if a fish has an illness, usually they float? Ah, you are no marine biologist so you can never tell. 
Then, you finally spot what it wants. A mollusk resting against a rock formation, just shy of a fake shipwreck punched full of holes. The codfish descends down to it. Cold fingers go up to your lips, concealing a smile, effortlessly. Adopting his mannerisms, you think with a laugh. Ah … you really have been spending far too much time with Jade to the point where you mimic him.
You anticipate it this time. Sediment explodes in a puffing cloud. The codfish retreats almost comically. And, slowly like savoring his success, the moray eel slinks his head back through the cavern of the starboard, mollusk caught in his mouth. 
“Chamomile tea. It is known to soothe even the most anxious of souls.” 
To be honest, you would have expected that voice to be much closer. His chin hovering over your shoulder and teeth too close to your ear is typical. Turning to drink in the sight of him still in his waiter attire, you concede that you will have to get closer to him later.
You glance down at the ceramic, steam still rising from its watery mouth. “And you just happened to have it on hand?” It looks to be the perfect temperature too. The stream is not excessive or lacking. 
“On hand, why of course. I anticipated you coming here today.”
You raise a brow.
“It actually belongs to Table 5.”
Smiling, you pick up the teacup. Warm ceramic nuzzles into your palms and you take a generous sip. Near you like a guiding presence, Jade watches with one hand over his heart and the other holding the tray behind his back. “Well, I say my soul is subsequently soothed now. Thank you.”
He bows, bent at the hip, like a chivalrous knight. “Now,” he says as he tucks the tray under his arm, pulling out his notepad, “I sure hope the scenery alone hasn’t brought you to us today. Would you like to order now or later?”
“Aw, why do I get on the clock Jade and not boyfriend Jade.”
“Because I am paid by the customer.”
“But aren’t I just priceless?”
“The special of the day is also priceless. Monkfish. Though I’m assuming lobster rolls sound more appetizing to you than monkfish piccata.”
You hear your stomach growl at the notion. You gasp when Jade’s pen starts to move across the paper. Leaning off the booth, you push at the side of his stomach, glaring playfully. “Hey, no writing! I’m here to freeload; don’t ruin that for me.”
Chuckling, Jade starts to lean down to you, teeth all on his display. He looks ready to bite at your lips, all mischievous and elevated that you will definitely bite back. Staring each other down, you startle suddenly at Jade’s next move. Quite quickly, Jade shoots back up, wincing with his gloved knuckle pressed under his nose. 
“Jade?” You blink up at him as he furiously rubs the bridge of his nose. “Do you need a tissue?” 
“No, I'm fine, my love.” He gives one last rub to his nose. “Felt a sneeze coming on.” 
Looking at him unconvinced, you hum when Jade pushes your teacup of chamomile closer to you. Then, he grabs your right hand sweetly, squeezing it. Your eyes meet again. Sevens, you could fall into those eyes as easily as a suicidal man falls into a noose. 
“Why don’t you drink some more and I’ll be back shortly with food for us?”
“Us? Aren’t you on the clock?”
“You’re stressed,” he states like he is noting that you are wearing a certain article of clothes. As if it is obvious. His thumb runs itself up and down the ladder of your tense knuckles. “It’s a little evident, dear.”
Panic writes itself on your face. “Is it really?”
“Hm, now it is.” Referring to the way your eyebrows clench and your voice whispers in fearful tones. A manipulative, proud smile crawls onto his face. “But I know your soul after all, so it is evident to me.”
Jade lets your hand go, making sure you rest it on the teacup. Urging you one last time to drink, he stalks off to get you both some food for an impromptu lunch together. You watch his back as he disappears into the kitchen, blue light raining down on him.
Sweet and mild dyed water runs down your throat, on a mission to relieve you of stress. When you have about half a cup left, you set it down, contemplating.
You were so grateful for Jade. If you were only friends with him, you would have told him about this first. Advice from a Leech with benevolent intentions is often the best advice. Even Floyd, who is very go with the flow, is so emotionally intelligent. And Jade … Jade would not pressure you to give his details about your misfortune but he would also not allow misfortune to ruin you. Refusing to intervene too early or too late. He is like that sacred rock in the riptide. 
However, you and him are dating. That makes certain topics difficult to breach. 
Chamomile tea still the ideal temperature, you stare back at your reflection in the liquid. They pull down their lips. Worry has gathered fast and voluminous in their eyes like ants crawling all across a dead mouse on the ground, coating the brown fur to a patchy, thick black. Sizing up a reflection, you reflect on previous conversation.
Chamomile tea. It is known to soothe even the most anxious of souls. 
But I know your soul after all.
Souls. Soul. 
Perhaps you can tell Jade what is going on, just without directly telling him.
The Ghost Camera is a bulky thing. All heavy brass, that precious metal silver, and nickel. It almost tumbled out of your hands and into water during Camp Vargas; you could only imagine the speed it would have sunk at if Floyd had shorter arms. Eventually, you stop carrying it daily after your first year. Yet, you refuse to part from it entirely, still taking photos when you have it on you.
Perhaps it is an effect of being born in the very early 2000s but you adore having photo albums. Your parents had ten of you alone, separate from your siblings, and half of your childhood on camcorder films. It is in your DNA to keep memories. 
Or Memories as the fragments are called.
Though, you sympathize with Grim that a whole room of photo albums might be extensive. But you have a whole house to yourself! And Sam sold you photo album books at a very cheap price because no one at a college wants to have physical reminders of being at college. 
And how they could become physical reminders.
There is no system for the room crammed with albums. You do not have not enough time to delegate a day to organize each album by person, dorm, or month. So, letting fate guide you, you pick up three books, cradle them in your arms, and announce to an unimpressed cover, “Okay, let’s do this.”
The Ghost Camera is unique. Takes ordinary, unsuspecting photos then does a full 180 by being enchanted with magic. 
When the user photographs a subject, it photographs a part of their soul along with the physical form. Memories are those soul fragments. If a soulbond between user and subject comes to be, it allows Memories to move across the surface like twenty second animated clips. If a soulbond between user and subject deepens, Memories can slip out of the photograph and take on corporal forms. 
One night you dreamt of chasing a rabbit and woke to Ace, who had slipped out of the photo, standing over your bed. How you screamed. Until he floated silently back into the photo you had on your nightstand.
Once, a fake Floyd had tried to juggle three glasses of spice in your kitchen before one had fallen through his flickering, tangible then not-tangible hand. Then, the Memory had the nerve to melt away, leaving you with three broken spice jars. 
Malleus had once strolled down the hallways of Ramshackle, mumbling over the decorations you hang onto walls of a once abandoned building, before sliding down a hallway, never to be seen from again that day. 
The only way you can feel a Memory from the real person is the lack of warmth. It is like stepping out of a toasty car at the peak of winter. Memories carry along with them an icy breeze, unable to be fully human. 
Grim is in bed asleep, warm, and you really only have time to do this now. Walking down to the lobby, you slide your hand over the spine of the albums. If you can ask whoever is in here for their advice, you never have to reveal the situation until you are at the ready. 
A dodge on your part but who readily jumps into despair? 
You collapse on the couch. With the weight of the albums in hand, a horrid thought passes in your mind. Cinderella’s stepsisters and the glass slippers.
Cinderella’s stepsisters, you will always be like them. You will have to slice off your heel and toes — as if you are carving into an apple or slicing down into a row of carrots — to fit into the glass slipper of Twisted Wonderland. Of Sage’s Island. Of the Coral Sea and Queendom of Roses, if you ever visit. You walk magicless in a world of magic, limping while blood soaks the inside of your crystal heels.
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The thing about mushrooms is that you cannot just plant one into a terrarium. 
Originally, you were under the assumption that it was like moving flowers from bed to bed. Jade cleared up the misinformation for you. You could not grab a full-bodied mushroom, that had already lived a life outdoors, and stick it into a terrarium. Full-bodied mushrooms would come to reject the ecosystem. The key to get them to stay? The key was to get the mycelium into the ecosystem; without the support system underneath the soil, the mushroom would wither and leave in a few days.
As you rummage around in the bucket from your recent Sunday date with Jade, you know there is little you can do. Some would take and others would not. Shifting, latex-covered fingers stir through the rather common mushrooms, passing over maybe only two or three rare ones.
Apparently, the one you tried to pluck off the cliffside six days ago was poisonous to the touch. Not enough to be fatal but you would have gotten a nasty itch coating itself over your hand. Even with the latex on, you avoid touching it. Jade’s hand is still a pinkish-red after all.
Stupid Jade, you think fondly on the protective eel and take a mushroom out of the bucket. 
Terrariums are beautiful but mushrooms are rather fleeting. As you start to crumple up the gold-hued chanterelle mushroom in hand, you reflect upon the matter. Take for example the terrarium tank you are working on currently in Jade’s dorm. He has three on his bed-side shelf: one cylinder, one spherical, and one square. The one you laid on his desk is the spherical one. 
This one terrarium has housed pholiota adiposa, then albino pleurotus ostreatus, and now gomphus clavatus mushrooms (known as pig ears), and has probably housed more before you even knew Jade. 
Mushrooms are decaying plants. It is nearly impossible to curate an enclosure that can house a certain fungi all year round. After a while, Jade simply scraped all that death up in his hand, threw it into the compost bin of the botanical gardens, and departed from it.
A part of you would never understand how Jade could deal with it. All that hard work only for it to naturally wither and go. You suppose he dealt with it because he adored change. Who would have thought? The always-in-control Jade Leech actually enjoys seeing things shift and change. You understood his love of a challenge though. His unfinished magnum opus was a terrarium breaking the laws of nature, trying to get nine species of mushrooms that mimicked a coral reef in one single environment. 
“Each species of fungi have different growing conditions that they favor, so it is impossible for me to recreate all of these in the same ecosystem,” he once said.
“So why even try?”
“I think it is most enjoyable and eye-opening to covet after the impossible.”
He then looked at you like you were a meal, speaking double meanings with a honeyed tongue. Scandalous yet not, so you could never accuse him of being scandalous at any moment. Ah … even the memories of Jade could make your face feel warm. 
Distracting yourself, you start to add little bites of the gold-hued fungi in hand, tucking them under the moss and placing them on the tree bark. 
Jade’s unfinished magnum opus involved this glasshouse– the pig ears, gomphus mushrooms. Gomphus mushrooms could not be successfully cultivated as they are mycorrhizal, meaning they form a special relationship with their host plant. Two of the nine species he was working with for his coral reef terrarium were mycorrhizal, pig ears and indigo milky. And Jade finally got a mycorrhizal species of mushroom to sustain itself in an ecosystem made of glass. Proving the impossible was possible. A smile reaches your features, feeding more of the common mushroom in the terrarium so the pig ears could feast. 
Though that one project was going to have a long way to go, you had faith Jade would be able to complete it, despite the ecosystem and biology of fungi fighting against him. Would you be there to share in that victory? You dip your hand back into the bucket, ignoring the squirming of your stomach. 
The door clicks open. 
You look up to be greeted with the sight of teal hair and spindly limbs reaching up to six feet and one inch. Tongue already forming around the ‘J’, you stop suddenly. One then two Dunhill shoes – costing more than you will ever keep in a month’s pay – are kicked across the pale lilac floor. You watch cap-toe shoes sumersault and tumble. 
As he falls into bed with a groan, you greet, “Hi Floyd.”
“Shrimpy!” You blink in surprise as the exhaustion seemingly disappears out of Floyd. He props himself on his elbow, legs shuffling a bit further up the bed, and a predator’s smile pulls on his lips. Energetic at the sight of his twin’s significant other.
“Was wonderin’ why my bed was so neat,'' Floyd hums … and oh, he must still be exhausted, you observe. Lying back down in the bed you cleared of candy wrappers and sheets you straightened, Floyd slightly props his head up with his crossed elbows and a pillow so he can keep talking to you. “What ya doin’ here?”
“Just helping Jade with his terrariums. I wanted to repay him for the chamomile tea.”
“Shrimpy’s so sappy.”
“Hey, I just adopted the Octavinelle values. Can’t be walking around with a debt. Got to keep us on an even playing field.”
“Mmm … which ones?”
“The pig ears. They’re so volatile. I’m worried if they’re going to stay or not.”
“Is that what has Shrimpy so stressed?”
“Hm? I wouldn’t say stressed. Just trying to figure out how I should handle them.” 
You pick another mushroom out of the bucket. Gomphus mushrooms were so sensitive. Cousin to chanterelles mushrooms, you could safely add the gold mushroom in – as you had just done. Looking down at the mushroom you now hold, you consider if it would be safe fertilizer for the pig ears. You do not want to jeopardize the delicate balance. 
Under Floyd’s watchful eyes, you put the mushroom you picked up back into the bucket. You start to rummage again before the eel’s words interrupt your work. “So what’s got ya so stressed?” 
Not catching his drift, you say, “Nothing? I’m not too stressed right now.” It is a true statement. Your body feels entirely at ease, just measuring how you can help here and there with the terrariums. You cap the glass enclosure with the glass cover. If Floyd wants to sleep, you should not impose. 
“Ya smell stressed.”
“You’re a real gentleman, you know that, Floyd?”
Ah, that old reliable nose of an eel. Hiding a playful smirk, you sing, “Well, I’ll get out your hair so my musk doesn’t ruin your sleep. I was just about done with everything anyways. I think Jade’s going to use the rest of the mushrooms from our hunt to cook something.”
“I’m serious. Ya stunk ever since Tuesday and ya stunk real bad on Friday,” Floyd says in a low tone, eyes glued to your back. “Kinda still smells now too. Not as bad but still.”
You are glad you get the terrarium down safely on Jade’s bed-side shelf because your hands shake at Floyd’s words. Ah, that vexingly reliable nose of an eel. Trust their olfactory system to even pick up the stench of tension like a dog picking up frequencies unheard. You sit back down on Jade’s bed, spine facing Floyd.
“Just school stuff. Crewel’s been on my ass about a test. I need to get mine and Grim’s shared grade back up in Animal Languages. Things like that.” 
You can lie successfully with your body, keeping it from tensing in betrayal. You can lie successfully with your vocal cords, keeping them even and precise. However, you found you can never lie eye-to-eye with Floyd. It did not matter whether the golden eye was on the left or right. Somehow that flaming, glittering sun burns you to the core and figures out the undeniable, obsidian truth.
Already, you are mapping the escape route. Just a quick spin off Jade’s bed, grab your phone from his desk, and exit out the door. Avoid his eyes at all cost as if is a predator, and that he is. Moving off the bed, you say, “Like I said, I’ll leave so my musk doesn’t –”
“(Name).”
Your eyes snap up; a gasp is pinched tight in your mouth. Floyd challenges you back with his luminesce eyes. Bristling a hissy cat, the back of your thighs hit Jade’s mattress and you whine, “I hate when you two do that!”
Floyd laughs. He laughs in his normal, nasally drawl instead of the deep, sinister tone that Jade has. As Floyd takes pleasure in your surprise at his perfect impersonation of his twin, you refuse to look at him. The gloating jerk. In a rush, you grab your phone just as Floyd starts to speak, “Ya always fall for it, Shrimpy. It’s cute.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Ya stressed around Jade?”
“No.”
“Really? Ya reek right now. All stressed out after hearin’ ‘Jade’ speak. Smells like wet dog and cigarette smoke.”
“I’m not stressed,” you argue, flipping on your phone to check the time. Above Jade’s head, white numbers stare back at you, 4:43, and you watch it change to the next minute with a scowl. The screen goes black; angelic numbers and the photo of Jade leaning over Ramshackle’s oven, cooking a meal for your one year anniversary, disappear. “Look, I’ll –”
The words die in your throat when you and Floyd lock eyes. He knows I’m scared but just not of what. You cannot blame Floyd with the way his mismatched eyes narrow, little squinting fireballs of suspicion. He is only looking after his twin. 
“I just need a little time before I can tell him, okay?”
“Kay, Shrimpy.”
Glance around the bedroom; check that you got everything in hand. You lock eyes with yourself, heart agonizing in your chest like a clawed talon has made it its footstool. Your happier, lighter face smiles back at your crinkled expression. Frozen in mirth. Stuck in a moment of easy breathing and thoughts. The photograph on the desk of you and Jade taken from the Ghost Camera. Only one of you looks at the lenses and the other stares down at the person pulling them into the surprise photo. 
Uneasy thoughts fill your head. This is the photograph Jade wakes up to every morning. He had even cut Azul and Floyd off the edges of the polaroid, chuckling evilly when Floyd gapped and Azul sneered, instead of just folding them off the edges. Always wanting to get a reaction. 
Would the facsimile of your soul one day be all that was left for Jade to keep? A photo that might fleetingly speak the words of your heart to him. You imagine it with a wince: Jade talking to a facsimile of you, empty of your warmth, but still there. Staying when you would not. 
I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for me!
I want to see them again. 
Gomphus mushrooms. School assignments. The dinner you have to cook. Whatever lingers in your brain, you try to focus on it to distract yourself from the conflicting yearnings of your soul. Eventually, you will come to tell Jade. It might be procrastinated upon already, but better late than never. When you left the Leech twins shared bedroom, you did not realize how right you were. Eventually, you did come to tell Jade. You told him that very night, at 2:13 A.M., on the porch of Ramshackle.
You have not been sleeping well since Crowley broke the news to you. Everyone knows this. The concern is clearly written in Ace and Deuce’s faces when you two have classes and lunch together. Epel gives you the caffeine and Vitamin C eye-roller that he never used his first year. Sebek and Jack take to allowing their large hands to be the barrier between your cheek and a cold desk that might startle you awake. 
Crawling out of bed, swollen eyebags aching like a bruise, careful to let Grim sleep, this is normal now. 
Stumbling feet successfully walk themselves down spiraling stairs. One foot by one foot. Out of the corner of your lidded eyes, ghosts move like the undulating waves of a storm, pellucid bodies pulsing without a heartbeat. Sweat rolls down your neck, soaking into the nook of your collarbone. You miss the last step, bump hard into the wall, and that is all it takes. You start crying.
Uncertain of why you are down on the first floor instead of the second, you cry and cry, confused. When did you get out of bed? Your only answer is the raspy noise your mouth exhales. The loose t-shirt that is three sizes bigger than yourself is constricting and choking you. 
The waterfall on your face continues steady even when the warm breeze of spring-turning-summer fights against it. You would take in a deep breath of fresh air if each breath you did take did not feel like drowning. Engine lungs refuse to start smoothly, instead churning with gasps and coughs of water.
I want my Momma. I want my Jade. I want my Dad. 
Your butt falls heavy on the steps of Ramshackle, knowing there is no one coming for you. There will no longer be any hortative, glowing green fireflies coming to save you tonight. You sit there, presuming you will fall asleep from the exhaustion of weeping.
You feel like you are on a boat. A boat in the middle of a snow-globe. Turning and turning is fruitless because the sight is never changing eternalness: blue waves and a lighter blue sky. Color that cuts into sadness. Color that swallows. You can pirouette, jump, do handstands, but the sight remains. Blue on blue. On a boat that you do not even attempt to steer because there is no direction you want to go in.
Your mother once said she was so in love with your father that she knew he was the one because she would put him above her parents. Never getting enough of each other. Time spent with him was just better than time spent without. Better than being with her own parents.
That is love; when you find your person, you put them above everything else.
The iron gate to Ramshackle creaks. 
You would like to say you watch Jade Leech climb up the cobblestone path to Ramshackle, thinking about the definition of love, but you cannot see past your tears. All you see is an emulsified blur of black, teal, and dark green water. Furious hands whip at your face. Eyes red and face warm, you look up. He is still a haze of skin, hair, and clothes sliced into little horizontal lines of color.
“Ja-Jade?”
“Pardon me if it sounds odd … but I heard you crying in my dorm. Of course, you weren’t there. But it still made me anxious so I decided to check.”
You sniff, scrubbing your eyes harshly to clear them.
“And here, I do find you crying in the exact same volume and manner.”
“Sorry. I —”
“Nonsense. You need not apologize for your tender disposition.”
“Sorry,” you say again. You drop your head at Jade’s exaggerated look. The exaggerated look on his face is only a squinting of his eyes. However, you can decipher and tell the differences between the twenty eye-squints Jade Leech can make. 
You keep wiping away tears as Jade sits down by you on the porch. Vision clear, you smile at the rare sight of Jade in his pajamas. Oh, those are the fleece pants you bought him with a blue flannel pattern. A bit comforted by that, you lean into him as he rests an arm upon your shoulder. 
“If my own disposition is not seen as rude, what is troubling you? You are not known for being so out of sorts. Crying is one thing, crying outside Ramshackle at 2 o’clock  is another.”
“Do you think I smell?”
The smile grows a bit on your face as Jade quickly tries to submerge a laugh with his hand. 
“Sorry, that was ah, a bit unexpected.”
“Heh, I know.”
“But?”
“Floyd made a comment early. I smell like stress.”
“Well, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed too.”
“I think I could tell when you pull back from that kiss all the sudden. The sneeze excuse wasn’t very convincing.”
“Come now, I am an excellent actor.”
“Not around me.” You warm up when Jade trails his hand up and down your arm. Not around me. I can always read what is on your mind, Jade. 
“Ah and there goes my dreams of being the first eel-mer movie star. Why are you so cruel, my love? Crushing a poor eel’s dreams?”
“Ah, my apologies,” you say remorselessly. Playful, your hand falls into Jade’s hand. You take to drawing swirls and seashells into the rough, warm center of his palm. Above, a few droplets of water start to sprinkle out of the sky. A slight change in the weather as you start to draw more seriously.
“Thank you.” He plants a kiss on the crown of your head. It settles on you like a flower petal, soft. “Now, would you like to tell me what has made you so incredibly stressed? I can be very patient, forewarning.”
“When you graduate, where do you want to live, land or sea?” You watch three droplets hit Jade’s hand, feeling a few pepper themselves on your shoulders and back. You take one droplet and smooth it out into the image of a starfish. That is not what you wanted to come out of your mouth. However, the chronic worry you have had about graduation slides out of your mind easily. 
In the dust of rain, you listen to Jade’s answer. “If I were to choose … between land or sea … why that certain is a weighty question. And to think you have been all alone in your musing about it. How sobering, I cannot even imagine such a barnacle of a thought.”
“You’re stalling.”
“Hah, I can never keep things hidden from you, can I? Let me think.” He cannot draw up an arm to his chin but he definitely has that same contemplative look on his face. As rain kisses his crown, he slowly says, “Both land and sea come with advantages. Though I have only known land for three years, it has gifted me with wonderful consequences that I have never thought I of all merfolk would know.”
“I’m a consequence?”
“Quite. My favorite consequence,” Jade replies tenderly. “The sea can be seen as inhospitable to visitors. I happen to enjoy the cold and dark where others do not. I suppose I would have to measure the decision through memories. Am I fonder of the memories of my childhood or am I fonder of the memories of my education?
“I still have the chance to cultivate and reap the benefits of my education, unlike my childhood which is long gone. But, in the end, I would want both land and sea. And somehow, I would find a way to make that possible, no matter ecosystemic limits.” 
You wilt as the rain starts to grow more constant. A few twenty or so dots of water are not gathered on Jade’s palm. Taking the abundance of paint, you draw the face of an eel with the water. “But it would matter: the consequences and the people you could possibly leave behind.”
“Your worry is about whether I would stay with you or my family?” You cannot nod because that is selfish of you, pushing your dilemma onto your boyfriend. Jade can tell what exactly the root of your stress is even as you draw. Leaning to be heard better over the rain, he says, “I would never leave you, (Name).”
“Crowley found a way to send me home.”
Jade tenses up. You wilt when the canvas of his hand suddenly changes , hand gripping your hand in a tight, binding hold. 
“Pardon?”
“Crowley, he found a way to send me back to my home. I–” The clouds of your eyes grow heavy. “I don’t know what to do, Jade.” 
Holding hands, you look up, hoping the answer can be found on Jade’s face. He is the decision  maker in the relationship, picking the food you eat, offering advice on homework; Jade always has this way of knowing how to solve anything. His expression; you need to see so it can guide you. 
Oh.
Oh. That is not good.
Profile stone and staring off into the dark beyond Ramshackle, Jade is unreadable to you. You wilt a third time. 
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“Cater’s been talking about getting Kalim to throw one huge going away party. I told him you would really enjoy it if the Pop Music Club played Supertramp’s Goodbye Stranger during it.”
That sentence gets you to stop cutting the strawberries. Jaw dropping, you turn towards Trey’s villainous smirk as he pretends to innocently pipe frosting on the second cake. Only his profile faces you, acting arrogant to your mortification. “You … absolutely did not.” The response you get is the crinkle of Trey’s cheek as he tries to push down his smile. 
You whack him, taking vindictive joy in the icing that runs down the side of the mousse cake, and shout, “You jerk!”
“Hey, I just think the Ramshackle Prefect should go out with something memorable.”
“Isn’t being magicless enough?”
Trey takes to fixing the frosting as he replies, “You know Cater won’t do something so big without permission. He might just livestream all of it.” He picks back up the icing bag to resume and cover up the slight imperfection. “Would a party really be so bad?”
“Goodbye parties defeat the whole purpose of the word party,” you grumble. One by one, you plant the scales of cut strawberries on top of the strawberry tart. They extend out in the space of a lotus. “I’d be covered in tears and snot by the end of it. Ugh.”
“Hm, I suppose I see what you mean.” 
Trey and Cater, after being alerted of the news with your permission, manage to return to Night Raven College from their internships for the weekend. The use of magic makes it easy for them to travel in quickly, popping by for an unbirthday party.
Currently, you and Trey prepare the strawberry tarts (as is customary for unbirthday parties) and a chocolate mousse cake (as is customary for you to enjoy). Riddle has meticulously plotted out each faucet of this unbirthday party. Nostalgically, he reminds you a lot like his old tryantical self, barking orders as his stress rockets, meticulous to give you the perfect unbirthday party. When asking where you were wanted, Trey happily scoops you up before anyone else can. 
Playing catchup, you and Trey talk about a wide variety: how his internship is going, new recipes or meals you two have been introduced to or learned, the shenanigans of Ace and Deuce that Trey missed, and how your shared friend Jade Leech is doing.
To be frank, you enjoy Trey’s company a lot. Despite being a graduate of NRC, he makes you feel the closest to home. Normalcy. He expels this aura of normalcy that is absent from the rest of the student body. Pearly white, non-serrated teeth smile at you. Regular brown eyes shimmer behind his glasses. Within his presence, it is easy to masquerade around with the facade that NRC is a quotidian college. Protected by the walls of the kitchen, you can forget about the flamingos being used as croquet mallets and the magic pens waving through the air.
You are kicked from this fantasy comfort when Trey asks you for a favor. As Grim happily slurps up the leftover frosting from the plastic bag, a question is posed. “Can you do me a favor and grab the chocolate sprinkles?”
“Ah, of course.” Back on the paper plate goes your knife and quarter sliced strawberry. 
You turn to where the shaker of chocolate sprinkles lies. Ah, unfortunately it is on a pretty high up shelf. No matter, you stretch out your body and reach. Fingers only scrap the glass surface. You move to your tiptoes, stomach pinched by the countertop.
“Don’t worry, Henchman! I got it!” On stubby legs, Grim stands up from his spot on the counter. He squints at the cabinet overhead and stands on his tiptoes too. He makes it about halfway less than your reach. Ribs pressing into Grim’s fur, you stretch out like an uncoiling snake. 
You watch your finger slide down the glass. So close. You stretch when the sprinkles container suddenly starts to move. Putting your hands in front of your face in the shape of a triangle, you instantly coil back into a tight position and squeeze your eyes close. The impact never comes.
A wary eye opens and watches as the red glow of Trey’s pen and the sprinkled shaker that floats over the mousse cake. No matter how much you pretend, no matter how many times you stumble into your boring Wonderland, hoping all the magic is gone, it always comes back to catch you by surprise. Normalcy … you cannot get that back unless you go home.
Trey notices how eerily silent you are as you go about cutting up strawberries and hanging some of the banged up fruit to Grim. There is only one mousse cake but plenty of tarts waiting to be served in the kitchen. Well, it can’t hurt. “Here. For you.” You blink as two empty plates are put in front of you. “The piece of cake, or tart, typically goes to the Housewarden. However, I doubt Riddle will be too mad at this development.”
“Only been gone from Heartslabyul one semester and you’re already breaking rules,” you gasp with fake terror.
He simply puts a finger to his lips, eyes shining under his glasses. Trained, he empties a slice from each sweet with deadly, applause-worthy accuracy. Two confectioneries are put on the plates in front of you. As calm as an executioner, you stare at the two slices: a tart with scales of strawberries running across it and a cake with layers of mousse and bread laddering across it. 
And you suddenly know this is something deeper than just picking which treat you want to eat. Ah, Trey Clover is a Night Raven graduate after all.
Under watchful amber eyes, you pick up your fork. 
“Ha greedy, aren’t you?”
You admonish Trey for his teasing comment. Balancing the two sweets on a fumbling fork, you take the biggest bite of the overlap. Chocolate stains your lips. Despite that, it is the strawberry tart that you taste first. 
“Aren’t I the unbirthday girl/boy? I get to be greedy!” You grin like Grim does and stab back into the confectioneries. Your fork picks off a bit of the mousse then moves to scoop off a bit of the tart before returning to your mouth. So what if you are greedy for wanting both? You can make a Wonderland for yourself.
Right?
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A week and a half left. A week and a half passed. Time falls on a perfectly split down the middle day. Wednesday, the day Mountain Lovers club meetings fall on.
As time marches on, voices become more vocal about wanting you to stay. The Unbirthday party had gone swimmingly with a few rough waves. You sympathize with it. Yet you feel you have to be so careful when conversing about it, any wrong word might cause anyone to jump to a conclusion. So, with the loss of sleep, you are also talking less. 
You wonder if everyone takes your silence as a sign you have made the definite answer. 
Not everyone though. Jade Leech. Jade is the only one not acting erratically. When no filter Ace had asked him to agree with them he wanted you to stay, the eel-mer had only put a hand on your shoulder, picking you up after the Unbirthday party, and said, “Why that is not in my expertise to answer. I’m afraid that I would have to vote for a no comment statement.” 
Calm, level-headed Jade. Calculating Jade. How you adore that detached yet sly nature of his. He is the sight of land after days of aimless traveling blue waters. He is chamomile tea on a sleepless night. He is a neat white pill of xanax. 
And today, you are blessed to bask in that tranquil presence after school. Waiting to be received after knocking on his dorm door, you think upon it. No interrogation. No stress. Just you and him, hunting and sketching mushrooms. You even picked up a new set of charcoal pencils at Sam’s Shop for today. You light up when the dorm door opens. 
“Ja – oh, hi Floyd.”
Something has set off Floyd. It is evident in the deep scowl cutting itself on his face. His discord eyes are dull. His posture is slouching like a deflating house made of bad wood. When you spoke, you even saw his hand twitch into a fist. Instead of attacking, Floyd blinks down at you and sighs out, “Sorry Shrimpy.”
Your grip on your bag tightens. “Um, why are you apolog –”
“Hello (Name).” 
A little of that happy fire comes back to your soul. Smiling, you look behind Floyd to see Jade dressed in his pair of cargo pants and lightweight thermal henley. Foraging bag slung over his shoulder, he is like a breath of fresh air, the normalcy that sweats from him. “Hi honey,” your smile is innocent.
You only notice it for a brief flicker of time: a nasty glare directed from olive and gold eyes to mirroring gold and olive eyes, so hateful that your heart pats in worry that you might witness a fight between them. Then the loathing bleeds out of Floyd. He nudges you out the way, stomping down into Octavinelle’s halls.
“I’ma go. Can’t stomach watchin’ this.” Words that depart with Floyd.
“Jade?”
“What are you doing here, (Name)?”
Your stomach drops. “I - uh,” your neck is growing foolishly warm, you have not heard Jade speak so monotone in a while “, well, today is Wednesday and so I came to – uh.”
“Did my lack of response not clearly indicate that I would not be needing you for this hike?”
Further and further, your stomach sinks. You know what he is referencing, the single text you sent about thirty minutes ago: Did you want me to bring anything for tonight? It was just a quick check-up on your part. It is unlike Jade to take more than ten minutes to respond to you.
“I just thought you were busy.”
“No. I was trying to indicate that I would not need you on this particular night.”
“But … but this is our thing.” 
Much like Floyd, Jade nudges you on the way. You stumble, staring at the expanse of his shoulders and back. He refuses to turn around, “Yes, but if I am to be alone in the Mountain Lovers club for the rest of my third year, then I should slowly wane off your company. A rational decision, yes?”
A hairline fracture snakes itself up your heart. Splatting, your stomach lands on the ground. Jade will not turn around to look at you. You look down your own foraging bag where those new, suddenly silly charcoal pencils lie.
“Um, yeah, that does actually make a lot of sense.”
“I will see you tomorrow though. So don’t fret so much.”
“I’m not fretting.”
“I know you won’t. That’s what I admire about you.” 
And then, he leaves, back still a wall facing you. Perhaps you do not adore that detached yet sly nature of Jade’s in its entirety.
It is only natural that things decay. Jade knows that. Observed it happen with mushrooms a hundred plus times. Brown rot, soft rot, white rot. The fear of rot gives way to the fear of death. Death: that final departure. He wonders if when you inevitably step through into the carriage, ebon stallions with steely gray eyes as cold as the Grim Reaper’s scythe carting you away forever, if it will be like death or decay. 
Jade knows you will not stay. Who would? So he is going to do better by you right now, be kinder and more unaffected, after tonight. He just needs this solitude for a few hours.
Memories of his twin’s face are dancing in Jade’s mind when he really wants to be focusing on you. It cannot be helped. They fought physically before, but never departed from one another still needing to fight. They would have fought. They should have fought. It was only the knowledge that you were arriving in fifteen minutes that kept them shouting at each other.
Floyd thought Jade was doing wrong by you. 
Jade told Floyd to stay the fuck out of his relationship. 
“Dad always said you were the fuckin’ coward of the family.”
Jade should have thrown a punch there. Walking down the hiking trail, he feels the knot of nails into palms. Easily falling back into the therapy of forming fists, Jade relocates his hands to the strap of his bag. Not yet. He cannot get destructive yet.
“You’re not gonna even fight for them!”
No. Jade was not because he knew your soul. It would only be natural for you to return home. It would only be natural for him to return to the sea. It is only natural for things to decay, Jade reminds himself as he finally makes it deep enough into the thicket of Sage Island’s forest.
Not this though. I wanted this to stay. 
“Nothing to be done except support them.” 
Jade says this to a peculiar looking tree as he removes the forage bag off his shoulder. He deposits it down by a peculiar looking rock. He is a master of nature but it is better to have landmarks for his belongings. Rolling up the sleeve of his thermal henley, the skeletal eel tail and filigrane ends of the waves tattooed on his left side peek shy from the rolled cotton. 
“Nothing to be done.” He finalizes the word with a nod. Then, he breaks off the path into a brisk jog. 
Jade has gotten much better with the usage of legs since freshman year. Experience conducts improvement. None of them had quite taken to it fluidly. Jade can still remember when he tried stairs for the first time, shaking like a lamb, yet still finding the ability to laugh smoothly when Floyd fell down them. Though Floyd had laughed even harder at Jade when he experienced his first calf cramp, thinking he had been shot. Thank the Sevens most of their blunders had been in training camp, away from ill-intent eyes.
I hate fighting with my brother, Jade thinks as he moves slightly to the right to avoid a rock too big to jump over. He keeps pumping his arms and jogging. 
Fighting is natural for moray eels. You have to fight in the Coral Sea to keep what you covet. It is not like Jade is lacking that urge to change the situation and make you stay. But this situation? It is too close to resembling a scenario where a person quits a job for the sake of their wife’s promotion; or someone changes their dream college to settle with the one their boyfriend is choosing to attend. 
This is something I cannot put up a fuss about. Jade passes a blackberry bush and tries to stomp out the memories that come with it. 
Your excited face — hand-feeding him some berries — laughing as you gather them up — pouring them into a muffin tin — a sweet and tart memory
You have to do what is right for you, not him, not Grim, not anybody else. He should not infer or try to influence you this upcoming week and half. Jade takes a meaningless right turn, trying to get lost deeper in the woods.
Yet as he falls deeper into the thicket of trees, spores, rocks, and leaves, he finds memories returning to him:
The smell of you, distinctive like red to a bull, swimming in the college hallways or in Mostro Lounge. 
The look of pride on your face when you find yourself able to read his true intentions better than all but two of the student body. 
The feel of the first time Grim chose his lap over yours, a reluctant purr vibrating against the cotton of his gloves.
The sound of you shuffling morning sheets and the sensation of the kisses you press to his face to arouse him from sleep.
Your smiling voice left like a voicemail —
— That happy world tumbles down upon Jade like a Jenga tower, suddenly unreachable, as he too tumbles. A loose tree root snags his foot; ground flies towards him. Barely expecting it, Jade gasps as cold and wet hits his face.
Mud. Mud from the previous days’ rain presses itself to his face, soaking into his cuts and unraveled hair. Throat undulating, Jade starts to spit back the wet dirt he had taken from the earth. The crust of sediment coats his lips like a cosmetic. He watches brown saliva bubble under him.
Jade’s hands embrace the ground as he positions himself up on all fours. He watches his hand. Cold blue of his veins like the tassels of a jellyfish. Red-pink heat of his knuckles and palm bed. Contrast to the pale calcite-like bloodlessness of his skin. All of his skin ill-fitting. Pale dough splitting apart in gaping ovulate mouths. Himself. Splitting apart down to the last atom. 
I – I – I –
He can barely feel his frozen body move as he lifts up one fist. Mud-stained teeth grit. His fist flies in a frenzy. Two, five, seven, eleven, twelve, fifteen. Moving like an electric chisel, Jade punches and punches and punches into the ground until a tiny crater is left into the earth where he fell.
It is not enough and Jade knows it. He pulls his hand back, chocolate-dipped with mud and leaking from the new wounds a rock had given him, as he sits on his haunches. 
Both of his hands go up to his face, covering off where open mouth breathes flicker out of him. It is not enough.
As if he was kicked into the back of line; as if he has lost his mind; Jade jumps up with a spark, turns towards the nearest tree, and punches it. Pain splits down his arm like lightning and it feels calming. Now, red is flowing in equal measure with the brown. He wants to do it again. He wants to fight until his fiery soul is extinguished. 
People think him so different from his twin. Floyd and Jade are the same; both yearn for a good fight now and then. Jade simply hides just a small percentage better than his brother, under a sheep’s skin like an ill-fitting and tearing apart in oval holes. 
There is no need to wear that soft suit when he is alone, in a far off corner of Sage’s Island that no one is going to be at this hour.
Jade goes through the motions of his emotions, all of them rocking him as violently as Charybdis’s whirlpool. His fist falls like a meteor into tree bark. Hair is pulled and yanked, just to give him the satisfaction of pain. The ground stirs at the violence of his long legs. Finds a rock, kicks it. Finds a bigger rock, kicks it harder. Trying to break one of his toes. 
His hand flows through wet leaves and mud, grabbing a stray branch. Jade turns towards a different tree. “FUCKING SHIT!” Slices his branch down like a claymore, a hum of satisfaction blooms up as the thick twig breaks into an explosion of wooden chunks with a deafening crack. 
“FUUUCKAAAARRRGGG!” He shouts back at the answering wilderness, two inhuman sets of teeth on display. A vein in his neck strains with the pressure of his harrowing, soul-tearing screams. 
When Jade returns to his dorm, covered in mud and blood, he finds Floyd asleep. It seems his twin found his own way to relieve himself from the cliffhanger urge to fight. Jade mourns that because he has not. His own energy and need to fight seems as vast as the ocean in his anxiety of losing you. 
He wants you to stay. 
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“He wants me to leave. I can see it in his face. He wants me out of his life, and this is the ideal situation to do it without directly saying it. Agh, he is such a coward at times. And what’s worse! Is that he keeps acting like nothing is wrong. He took the hike alone and came back like nothing was wrong. Same old Jade. Not a word of the situation. Oh God, what if he does want me to leave,” you lament, shaking. 
A tissue box is nudged closer to you. You stir, looking up from the hands you had shelled up your crying face into. With a sniff, you grab a tissue, “Thank you.” You blow your nose and settle back into the loveseat.
Kleenex clutched tightly in hand, you continue speaking a voice clogged with tears, “You know, I’ve been wondering why Jade won’t let me in. He obviously has an opinion on the situation yet he isn’t saying it. So then, I start thinking he is being petty because I didn’t come to him about the situation first. Like maybe he thinks I don’t trust him with that information. But it was so hard to talk to him about because he’s my boyfriend. And I just want to talk now but I’m so scared about what he will say.
“I could always read him before. I just somehow knew what he was thinking at times. Now, I feel like he’s a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece yet I don’t even know what the picture is of anymore.” 
You hesitate and pass the moment by blowing your nose again. “Honestly, I feel like that too.” With teary eyes, you look towards your confidant. He gives a tiny huff of his snout, chin resting on the loveseat’s armrest between you. His big brown eyes simply stare wistfully at you.
“Are you going to communicate that to him or just to Pongo?” 
Eyes drawn away from Pongo, Crewel’s dalmatian, you glance towards the opening of the kitchen connecting to the living room. Your professor is deep enough inside the adjacent room where you cannot see, only hear him. You reply, “I’m trying to keep us on amicable terms. I don’t want him to think that I’ve made the decision to leave.”
“Then, tell him that very sentence, pup: I have not made the decision to leave yet. If you start off with that then you can continue on with explaining the rest. Do you think he has already thought you have made the decision yet,” Crewel says as he walks out of the kitchen. 
He carries a platter out in his lavious living room. Crewel is much more of a casual manner of dressing; a devil-red button-up with a silk evening tie, ebon with engravement of flora. He puts the platter down on the table in front of the two chairs, scolding Pongo off his chair. 
“That’s just the thing: I can’t tell what he is thinking anymore. I never really understood what Ace, Deuce, and Grim meant when they said they couldn’t really read Jade’s true intentions. Now, I feel the exact same way. Just second-guessing everything that comes out of his mouth,” you vent as Crewel accesses your bad posture. 
He must feel generous because he makes no note of it. “Well, mind-reading is a magical skill that not many mages master. So, though it is unfavorable, we have to learn to trust words at face value.”
“You say that if he is not Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden. Words are Jade’s sword. And he knows better than anyone that words can be manipulative, exploitative, and false. Since I didn’t come to him first, he is going to think –”
“Octavinelle students at their best are deeply intune with the world around them. That young pup is Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden because he is deeply observant and intuitive … and deeply sympathetic. I agree that words are his sword. A sword can be used to defend and help too. Do not restrict it.”
You wait until you have finished chewing around the carrot chip in your mouth before you speak, “I know that. To me, those are some of his best qualities … But! Octavinelle students work to solve problems. Jade hasn’t even given me his thoughts on my problem.”
“Perhaps he feels that if he says a certain thing, you will resent him. Or you will suddenly pick your decision because of what he says. I’m certain he wants you to make the decision for yourself.”
“But he’s one of the main reasons this is so hard to decide upon. Him and Grim.” Crewel’s face scrunches at the mention of your troublesome cat. “I love Jade dearly and I think of Grim as family. I know Grim’s thoughts. I cannot read a single thought on Jade’s face.”
Your eyes fall down to the floor, suddenly too damp to maintain proper eye-contact. “It is like he is shutting me out while staying robotically in the same relationship we had.” 
In your ribcage, the valves and arteries of your heart give a painful jerk of agony. As if noticing, Pongo empathically rests his head upon your knee. You greet him with a soft whisper, stroking down the crown of his head to his neck. You are still shaking.
“Nothing happens when you do nothing, pup. If you keep shuffling your feet upon the matter, eventually, when it comes for you to decide, you will be making a decision purely from your soul and nothing else. But that won’t give you closure. It won’t be good for you.”
“I don’t want Jade to resent me. I don’t,” you bit back a cry. Harshly, you pick up a tissue and press it over your eyes. After a few deep breaths, you manage to gain yourself before you slip down a watery, steep incline of the mountain of your emotions. 
“If neither of you talks to each other, nothing grows. Nothing changes unless one of you manages to talk to the other.”
“It’ll be such a painful conversation.”
“The ones that reap the most rewards are often the most painful of them all.”
You look up, eyes still incredibly wet. Crewel’s eyes resemble something like dark storm clouds. That color would suggest a bit of hardships but his advice flows off him naturally. You cannot look at Crewel like he is a surrogate father if you chose this world over your own. But, you will hold onto this relationship fondly, if this world is the one you stay in.
“I want him to know my soul again. I want to be able to read his soul again.”
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Sometimes, Jade seems like a mountain. A bit too poetic comparing a hiker to the very structure they climb but it is suiting. Height aside, he is out of reach frequently. Scaling him – boots slipping on sediment walls, fingers bleeding with each desperate grab of sharp rocks – had been a trail as harsh as Everest. The view from above is breathtakingly beautiful and a sweet reward trumping all others.  
Your first kiss felt like being on top of a mountain. 
Mountains are rewarding but they are still mountains. A simple slip on slick rock and you bust open the crown of your head like a senile king or an old ram. Incredibly foolish of you to trust a jagged summit to keep you safe. 
Right now, he seems quite like a mountain. You worry over each of your premedicated steps in approaching this. Sizing up which indent of rocks you are going to trust putting your weight on. One breaking underneath you will not end it. Two breaks though … Jade might pull away from you. 
Studying the eminence of his back, you pick yourself up from Ramshackle’s couch and start the hike.
Jade does not even jump when you wrap yourself around his torso. You trap him in with an embrace, X-ing arms over his chest, underneath his arms. Steadfast, Jade continues with slicing long strips of fat into precise, 12 millimeter squares. Over the side of his arm, you look at the air-tight bag of hog casing and chop onions sizzling on the stove.
“Smells delicious. You look really good when you cook.”
“You say that no matter what I do.”
“Well, I can’t help that my boyfriend’s good-looking and I have to tell him so. It is just natural that I let you know.”
“Ah, then I thank you for the wonderful insight,” Jade says, all coy allurement in his voice. His knife falls and repositions itself to the start of the sausage, again and again like a guillotine at the height of revolution. “Can I ask you to add these in the skillet? I think you happen to look delectable when cooking too.”
“Good enough to eat?”
All you get is a quick flash of teeth, playfully biting air, as you reach over Jade’s body to grab the bowl he gestured to. You smile warmly. In the bowl lies chopped shallots, parsley, scallions, and a dozen more minor ingredients that you can identify. You take them, dumping them into the skillet. A tantalizing smell rises up to you along with a cloud of steam.
Taking a spatula, you start to stir the mixture. What is on the pan bubbles and cooks. As you maneuver the ingredients to burn evenly, you cannot help but think this is exactly what you wanted to avoid.
The environment of normalcy.
The ease of talking to Jade.
What a foolish thing to want to ruin, you sneer as you push at ginger and grounded cloves. But those two things have a masquerade mask slipped over them. Neither of you have brought up the issue once since the time you spent past midnight on Ramshackle’s porch. 
“Jade?” Jade hums, letting you know he is listening. Your hundred questions feel like acid in your throat. “What are we making?”
“It is Boudin Noir de Lyon. A French blood sausage. I’ve only attempted it twice before.” With his knife, Jade points at the long glass of goose blood that you have on your counter, next to the bag of hog casing.
“Ah, I see.” 
To be honest, you were unaware you had the components in stock to make Boudin Noir de Lyon. Sometimes, Grim and Jade just showed up with bags upon bags of food or food ingredients. You could understand why Azul wanted Ramshackle as a second Mostro Lounge. Shelves are bottomless and the kitchen is so spacious after your remodel.
It is a house wasted on you. You can easily look around and imagine all those industrious chefs roaming around, cooking and serving. Would Jade be content with the tradeoff?
“Jade?” This time you are going to try to go in and not dodge the subject again.
“Yes, my love?”
“You once said eels mate for life. Was that just sweet talking or is that a fact?”
“I thought the biology of merman species didn’t interest you much.” 
You remember that, saying that you did not need biology to let you know that Jade liked you very much and you liked him very much. So what if there were hints and nuances to learn about his biology. You just liked him; you felt at ease around him. “Just please … Please answer the question, Jade.”
“Eels and eel-mers usually pick only one to spend their life with.”
“Usually?”
“In the occurrence of a death or loss of a mate before one reaches adulthood fully at twenty, some eel-mers find someone else.” Jade elects to hold your hand instead of his knife, halting your worry-energized stirring and letting the spatula rest. The only thing you notice about his touch is that he is as cold as a December death. “We were only seventeen and eighteen when we met.”
“So you could find someone else if I left,” you say with a mix of relief and sadness. Then, your hand slips through Jade’s hand. You look at it with a gut-wrenching guilt, the collision of flickering skin and your tangible skin.
“No,” he says firmly, just barely managing to keep a growl out of his voice. “No, I couldn’t find anyone else but you.” And as if saying those words restore some of the bond you had, your hand floats back up as fake bones, muscle, and skin reappears. He squeezes your hand tightly.
You take Crewel’s advice. “Jade, I haven't made my decision whether I’m going to stay or not. I want you to know that: I haven’t decided yet.”
“I know.” He says those words. But he looks at you like you are something fleeting, like you are a mushroom collapsing in on itself, mildewed and smoldering, premature decay. His ice cold hand around yours is painful tight. 
“If I leave,” you choke on your words. With a gasp, you quickly pull away from him to wipe away the tears you were unprepared to feel fall. Ice rises up to press its thumb to wipe away the water. “I-If I leave, I want to know you’ll be okay. I want to know that you aren’t hiding away all your anguish from me.”
Clipped and short: “I can’t burden you with that. The weight on your shoulders is enough.”
“You ignoring this situation is a burden. I want us to talk. I want to know what’s on your mind, what’s in your soul.”
Jade holds his tongue. You try to pull your cheek away from him but that just worsens the misery in his eyes. You fall still, waiting.
“Jade?”
“I’d never be able to recover.”
“Huh,” you gasp breathless.
Even after such powerful words, Jade still holds his tongue in the cage of his mouth. The influence of words is not lost on a man such as him. If anything it is evident as emotions are on his twin’s face, unhidden. So very unlike Jade who keeps everything hidden to a certain degree.
Lifting a rock off his chest, unburdening himself, Jade confesses, “If you were to leave, I’d never be able to recover. There would be a hole in my heart always ready to receive you again.” 
Disconnected, you feel one tear race down the right side of your face and another tear catch on the curve of your left cheek, hanging and warm.
You were not ready to hear that. You thought you could handle hearing Jade’s true emotions but you had expected him to be losing interest. In his first year, he was fascinated with manholes; in his second year, he was fascinated with mushrooms; you expected this romantic interest to be fleeting. He learned to play bass in middle school then never picked it up again. Jade grows bored, he tosses things away, thus is nature.
He still has an interest in mushrooms, you think, he is settling down with his interests.
Were you two fleeting? An insecure part of you expected to be fleeting to him. I’d never recover. That is a far cry from a passing fancy that washes and recedes like the tide. 
“I’m sorry for saying my true feelings.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” you say, blinded by tears.
“But I’m making you cry. I’m cruel.”
You take his face in your hands, fingers clumsy due to impaired sight. “I’m glad to know it though. I’m glad you can say that.” Then, shaking, you go in for a kiss. And the fake Jade vanishes back into the photograph, leaving you puckering up for cold air.
With the sweet smell of a French meal you do not know how to cook lingering in the air, you cry and cry. 
You only have three days left to make a decision.
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I’d never be able to recover. 
You have been rotating those words around in your head for thirty-eight hours. Moving the sentence around like it is a puzzle piece in a game. Dissecting it like it is the evidence that a serial killer left in the heat of crime. Even considering the weight of the punctuation mark. 
The true feelings of the soul of Jade Leech.
Grief comes without any sort of recovery. Instead, hurt erodes from the turret of time that passes through and splashes about but ultimately without cure.
I’d never be able to recover? Who’s to say that’s true?
But, the same sentiment rings true in your soul. Whichever you choose, the recovery path for the only choice will be fierce and full of regret. You will slice a part of your soul up and crush it no matter whether you go home or you stay in Twisted Wonderland. You pluck yourself out of the memory as you pluck a bottle of nightshade off Professor Crewel’s supply rack in potionology. 
Despite everything, you attend classes and unbirthday parties and … well, you would have attended club meetings, to procrastinate on the decision. If you leave, you leave with nothing but the skin on your back. You pour the deadly nightshade in the cauldron as Riddle, your lab partner, keeps stirring. You only have a day left. The phone in your pocket has been buzzing all day with concern but among the ladder of contracts you slide through you never see Jade 💕 among them. 
Pulling away to save us both the hurt, you think with a smile. That is so Jade, I should have been able to predict that. You watch the whirlpool of the gray mixture. Yeah, I’d never recover either. Then your lab goggles slowly but surely start to fill with tears. 
Riddle stops stirring, tool falling from his hand, when he sees you remove your goggles out of the corner of his eyes. You push them up and reveal bright red eyes brimming with tears. Tears so glutinous and heavy that it almost looks like melted wax. 
You cry because you know what you are going to pick. Your soul may fiercely want both options, impossibly greedy. Yet, now in the blimp of time, this pocket of your life, you have chosen the one you will go with. Removing the gloves from your hands, you start to furiously scrub away the ocean draining from you. It is so difficult to see. 
“Prefect, do you need to use the eyewash station? (Name)?”
“Ri-Rid,” you wheeze out. The waterfall is cascading down your face, clogging your voice. Gradually, the sound of you crying is starting to pick up a bit in volume.
“Prefect, what’s wrong? Here, I can use a spell to get it out of your eyes if you need. Did something splash up from the mixture?” You feel his smaller hand timidly rest on your quivering bicep. Sevens, your entire body is shaking like a power-drill. 
Students are starting to look in your direction. Morbid curiosity draws their eyes to you, listening to the gut-wrenching sobs you expel. Riddle’s face hardens in a glare. Frustration lies pink on his cheeks. With the force of your sobs, your knees start to tremble, tipping over the fence edge of buckling. You are a wreck.
“Professor Crewel –.” 
“Every single pup is excused from class. Right now.” 
The door is already magic-ed open. It takes a minute for others to pile out, some lingering in curiosity and some leaving steadfast in their recoil to no longer hear your cries. The click of the door breaks you and you finally collapse. Riddle goes down with you, gentle hand glued to your arm. 
“I need to make a call,” you manage to get out from your wet throat, crying as if you are grieving. You suppose it is appropriate. You are grieving someone who you will lose tomorrow and never see again. “I need to –”
“Who do you need to call, (Name)? I can call them for you.”
“Pup.” Crewel does not finish his thought.
You are back to being incomprehensible, crying like you have never cried before. Water coats your face and no matter which direction or what material you use, you cannot dry your face against the assault. Jade. You want Jade so badly. 
Riddle – top of his class yet failing the grade of life – stares, not knowing who you want or how to solve this. He grew up isolated; comforting others is not his specialty. “I could call Ace and Deuce. I can –” Riddle quickly locates his phone, fingers frantic. The phone slips out of his grip when a hand starts pounding against the classroom door. 
Beyond the tears, you hear:
“Class is dismissed –”
“Striped beakfish, move it.”
“Pup, I’ll have you –”
“Professor Crewel, I need to –”
“Shrimpy’s in there move it.”
“I don’t have time for this – move.” 
The arm in Riddle’s hand is suddenly wrenched away. You puppet your head up forcefully despite your tears. You should have known. Jade knows your soul after all. 
If it was under any other circumstances, it would be either terrifying or oddly hilarious, the open concern on Jade’s face. He collapses right down on the ground in front of you after pushing Professor Crewel out of his way. His face is taut with the emotions on it, a far cry from the always composed look he has. Only you could get such a reaction. His knee bumps your knee but you do not mind, throwing yourself on him and crying yourself dry of grief. 
“It’s okay. I got you. I’m not going to let you go, my love. I got you in my arms, okay?”
Jade’s single yellow eye manages to catch the bewildered look on Riddle’s face. There is a question in the housewarden’s expression: what’s wrong? It is obvious to Jade. You picked whether you want to stay or go.
A soul bond is engrained in the two holders. It allows them to read each other easily when they are at their strongest in a relationship. Thus, Jade knows exactly what you cry for. Riddle misjudges it as stress or a laboratory accident. Jade knows exactly why those tears fall down your face. You are staying in Twisted Wonderland. He knows in the beautiful, snotty, and wrinkled mess on your face: you are staying with him.
It is odd; all you wanted before was to talk, discuss, have a heart to heart vocally. You wanted so badly to restore your crippled communication. Now, you do not need a single word to let him know the entire situation, all the nuances are laid bare on your soul. 
“I got you. I’ll always be here, my love.”
He wipes flushed, wet cheeks and pulls you back in for a tight hug. You know when you feel tears fall onto your collarbone that they are his own soul thanking you for trusting him. 
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The hand on Jade’s bicep is like ice.
Jade twitches, nose scrunching up. His bed tries to lure him back and make him ignore the comatose-cold hand on his arm. It is not a hard task; he is exhausted beyond belief and wants to sleep. His head tousles in the lilac pillow, falling back off the cliff into dreams, when the frozen hand starts to shake his arm.
“Mmm.”
“J … Ja … Jade.”
“Mmmmmm.”
Leave him alone. He is tired. Binding his pallid arms around the pillow in an amorous hold, he tries to dream. The room swelters with summer heat and the silk is like a balm to him. His bare stomach lies the inner sheets and the muscular expanse of rhomboids block out whoever is calling his name. Leave him alone.
“Jade, wake up please. Please Jade.”
“Leave me alone,” Jade groans into the pillow, words distorted with fatigue.
Above him, a sniffle and pathetic hissing cry breaks the heat. The sound is familiar. Out of mouth that is stringy with prison bars of salvia, tears, and snot, his name is called again. Around his eel sleeve tattoo, the hand remains shackled to him, gently shaking with each hiccup of tears. 
“Jade. Wake up.”
“Love?”
He blinks and there you are. Blue tears fall down your face and ice fingers pinch into ink. Jade is suddenly awake, releasing the pillow he was embracing and turning on his back, motions hazy with sleep. “Love?” His warm fingers reach up to thumb away the steady waterfall on your cheeks. Sevens, you are freezing. 
“What’s wrong,” he asks as he sits up in bed. For some odd reason, you are dressed up in your white button-up and slacks like you have somewhere to be going. His other hand reaches up and then he cups your face in his embrace. “What’s wrong, (Name)?”
“I wanna go home. Oh, Jade, I really want to go home,” you blubber breathlessly between your bawling. “I just – oh God – I want to go home.” Then, you fall into his shoulder, squeezing him tightly and sobbing anew. Sobbing inconsolable for your mother.
Jade knows that there are fresh tears wetting his bare collarbone but he feels distinctly out of his mind. Like his skin is not really his own, floating in a stranger’s body. Grasped in the throes of selfish panic, he pushes you tighter into his shirtless torso. Sleepy strands of hair are in his mouth; haunted eyes are unfocused in the dark of his room. Despite his large height, he truly does feel like he cannot come to terms with your words and is kicked out of his body because of it. 
Subconsciously, his dominant hand runs over your back in circles. Trying to use it as a rope to come back to his senses more than to comfort you. 
Home? But he had thought — had he mistakenly pushed his own soul’s objective onto you — you cannot go home!
“(N-Name). (Name), love,” Jade says into your ear. You do not respond, hysterically loud enough to drown out his voice.
He is surprised that Floyd has not woken up. The pitch and volume that you cry at is like someone screaming in a cave, knowing they are in solitude and can let it all go. Even when your teeth bite into his shoulder, your cries are far from quieting. 
It does not matter if Floyd was a deep sleeper — which he isn’t, Jade is the deeper sleeper of the two — no one should be able to sleep through this.
Yet, grateful Floyd is asleep, Jade hugs you tightly to his warmer skin. Shushing, he runs a hand down the crown of your head to your shoulder, hoping his touch will ground both of you from the cloud of agony. His grip is piercing, dug tight into your skin, but you do not bleed. Holding you so you do not escape him and leave for your home world. Selfish Selfish Selfish. 
Eventually you fall asleep; no one can cry like that without exhausting themselves. 
Eventually he falls asleep, blinking watery at his desk, thinking something is wrong with the image and doubly petrified for the morning. 
When he wakes up, there is no one in his bed.
81 notes · View notes
k-marzolf · 4 months
Text
My lover’s got humor.
Established relationship, kissing, reader with ADHD (my own experience with it, as someone diagnosed), fluff and angst, smoking, fem!reader.
914 words.
&&&&
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“Am I boring you?” Billy asked, exhaling smoke, watching you bounce your legs.
“What? Huh? No.” You said, “I like the way your smoke smells. Reminds me of dad.” You said, scooting closer.
You hadn’t been listening to what he’d been saying, too lost in your own world. “Yeah?” He husked, smiling at how you played with a loose thread on his sweater.
“We should play cards.” You blurted, still fidgeting.
He didn’t mention how you’d get bored in a few minutes and want to move onto something else. He never did. Instead, he said; “Sure, sweet pea.”
He walked into your apartment after you’d invited him over for takeout the next night. It was a mess, and you played with the strings on the hoodie of his that you wore. “Not very organized, I know. I always get distracted.” You said sheepishly.
There were books all over the floor, piles of laundry laying around, coffee mugs on the coffee table, but at least there was no garbage. You regularly took your garbage out.
Billy rolled his sleeves up, “Let's get to work, sweet pea.”
He couldn’t count the amount of times you’d find something, and get distracted and ramble about the memory associated with it. He never complained. Never. Just guided you back to the task at hand.
“You got me this panda at the fair. It’s my favorite stuffy. My scout sniper specialist. 134 confirmed kills. My badass Marine.” You said, nuzzling the panda.
Billy smiled, putting your books in alphabetical order, heart aching at how much you clearly loved him. It made him awkward, having never been truly loved before besides Frank.
You were indifferent to Billy’s looks, and so he knew it was for more than he looks and money. You loved him as he was. Even when he was an asshole.
“I’m sorry, I’m distracted again.” You said, setting the panda on your couch.
Billy kissed your forehead. “I got you, sweetheart.”
You put your laundry in the washing machine, humming to yourself.
Billy walked by, squeezing your hips, and kissing your neck. You giggled. “Your beard tickles.” You said, throwing in a detergent pod.
Billy laughed, and scratched his beard purposefully against your neck. You squirmed, bottom pressed to his groin, and he groaned, pinning your hips against the washer. His tongue teasing your ear.
You whined, “Billy…”
He pulled back, “Do I have your attention now?”
You pouted, “You’re being an ass.” You said, wiggling against the front of him.
“And you’re bein’ a little minx.” He shot back.
You only smiled softly.
“Thanks for helping me clean my apartment. Takeout on me.” You said, eagerly pressing a kiss to his mouth. That was the one thing you never got bored of, kissing Billy.
He hummed against your mouth, fingers lazily stroking your hips.
“If kissin’ was an Olympic sport, you’d have the gold medal.” You giggled, nose bumping his. “You give me dopamine, or maybe it’s serotonin. I dunno. You get my chemicals cheering.”
Billy laughed, “How about some tacos?”
Your eyes lit up as you grinned, “Crunchy ones?” You asked.
Billy smirked, “Of course.”
“Billy, will you stay the night? Promise not to hog the bed. And it’s cuddle season anyway. Well, I like to cuddle with you any season, but this season in particular—“ You rambled sweetly, sipping from your glass of wine, tummy full of tacos.
Billy smirked, shaking his head, a cigarette in his hand. He liked to smoke after eating. “Yeah, you’ll hog the bed, but sure I’ll stay. I like your face.” He teased you, exhaling smoke.
You smiled, softly. “Love ya, Bill.”
Billy’s heart skipped a beat.
He laid with you that night, and as predicted he was clinging to the side of the bed, with you pressed into his side snoring. He looked down at you. Your nose twitched, and your leg was thrown over his hip.
He knew life had been hard on you. Your father loved you but your hyperactivity and tendency to ramble made it hard on him being a single parent, so you were often isolated and on your own sensing the people around you were put off by you.
It wasn’t until Billy. He’d met you at a bar, and you’d been drinking so you weren’t as guarded, and rambled about Henry the Eighth. “Some people believe he was a psychopath, or that he had repeated traumatic brain injuries that caused his raging and memory problems. I’ve read a lot about it, sorry I’m rambling. Infodumping. Whatever.” You’d said, turning shy.
But Billy had smirked. “You’re so goddamn cute.”
You scooted closer now, as though you couldn’t get close enough. And you probably couldn’t, being isolated you’d gotten very little affection.
“It was hard for dad to raise me. He was not verbose, and I was. I think it just stressed him out. You’re the only one that lets me talk. You let me be me.” You’d told him softly one night, legs tangled together in his bed.
“That’s because you’re mine.” Billy said, the only way he knew to tell you he loved you.
And you had understood as perceptive as you were.
He kissed the top of your head now, eyes feeling heavy now. The last thing he remembered was the feel of your fingers in his hair, and a contentment he’d never felt before.
Things had never lasted before for Billy, but god, he wanted it to last with you.
118 notes · View notes
ashwhowrites · 1 year
Note
Yay! You’re talking requests! I love your writing and I really hope you like this idea!
Okay, mutual pining, idiots in love, friends to lovers
Reader is a hot alt chick and has been friends with Eddie for a while. He’s had so many chances to make a move, but he never did despite all the mutual bonding and heart eyes
Reader can’t be led on anymore and has to get over him. So, she relents and goes out with Billy since he keeps asking
*chaos ensues*
Eddie and Billy confrontation?
Eddie spills his guts?
Of course, take what elements you want and leave the rest. These are just ideas and don’t all need to be used. I trust you to craft a good story, even if you only pick one element
Thank you so much! And it's definitely a fun idea :)
I got your other message about smut with Dom Eddie so I'll give it my best shot. I'm new to Dom Eddie so sorry if he sucks
⚠️angst at first then smut
Not proofread
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Y/N and Eddie, the name just fit together. They looked great together. They were alternative, matching t-shirts and ripped jeans. Black boots with matching colored laces. The left shoe is blue for Eddie, the right is red for her. No matter where they went, those laces never changed colors.
The two were side by side no matter what. His arm was thrown over her shoulder and her body tucked into his side. Anyone who saw them knew they were in love.
But yet, they weren't together, just friends.
Friends who were in love but weren't good at communicating it.
She made it clear that she was down badly for Eddie Munson, straight to his face. Always touching him in places a friend isn't supposed to touch. Staring deep in his eyes when her foot trailed up his leg. Quite literally scared of any girl that looked in his direction.
But he didn't pick up on anything
Until new years
~~
She wasn't drunk at all, she was stone cold sober because she had a plan for tonight and she wanted to remember it. She was going to kiss her best friend. If he was too dumb to pick up any of her hints, she'll shove it down his throat instead.
She was searching for the whole party as the countdown started. Anxiety in her that she was going to miss this chance.
"slow down sweetheart"
She rolled her eyes as Billy Hargrove blocked her pathway. A smirk on his pretty lips and devious in his blue eyes
"Billy not now!"
She rushed past him.
Billy Hargrove has been after her for months. But she always said no, she wanted Eddie and she wasn't going to miss her chance. Billy didn't quite take no as an answer. Always pestering and asking.
She finally found him, sipping on a red solo cup as his eyes scanned the crowd
3
She raced quicker to him, pushing back everyone in her way
2
"EDDIE!" she screamed, grabbing his attention fast as he smiled. Laughing as she threw girls over left and right
"what's up pretty girl?"
1
She didn't respond. Smashing her lips on to his with everything she had. Throwing her body into him harshly, feeling his drink drop to the floor as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Moaning as he yanked her closer. Her hands got lost in his hair. His mouth tasted of cheap beer and cigarettes but she loved it.
He pulled away first, eyes blown huge as he looked down at her.
Her lipstick was smudged, no doubt all over him.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" he yelled, screaming over the music
"NEW YEARS" she yelled back, a proud smile on her face. Kissing him again like she couldn't get enough.
If that didn't show him then she doesn't know what will
~~
Apparently it STILL wasn't enough to show him she liked him
The next morning she felt happier than ever. She got dressed for the winter cold fast, the gang were going ice skating today. The thought of holding Eddie's hand as they raced on the ice had her heart racing. Imagine him in a cute beanie with a red nose. Complaining about how stupid it is to be skating on actual ice in negative degree weather.
She pulled up to the rink excitedly, a bounce in her step as she reached the group.
Her eyes fell on Eddie first, then to the hand he was holding. It was like all get excitement vanished.
"um who is this?" She asked awkwardly. She had her tongue down his throat less than 24 hours ago and he brought a girl to their ice skating hangout.
"I'm Lia!" The girl said excitedly, high pitched voice rang through the rink
Everyone's body flinched at the sound but kept a smile on their face to be polite.
"let's get you some skates!" Nancy said, grabbing Lia and the gang with her. Leaving Y/N and Eddie alone.
"Eddie what the fuck!" She scoffed, eyes glaring at his face. She hated that he wore the stupid hat and the fact that his nose was red
"what?"
"you bring a girl on a date? When did you even meet her?"
"at the party. Look we hooked up and she wouldn't leave! She heard Dustin talk about ice skating and basically got in my van. I didn't know what to do" he explained. Flinching as he heard her loud giggle
"you slept with her?" Now that hurts Y/N way more than just getting plain rejected. She was pissed and it was clear on her face
"yeah? What's with the attitude?" He scoffed, shaking his head like he was disappointed and embarrassed by her behavior
" you are such an asshole" she practically spat in his face
"woah! Hey I didn't do shit" he defended
The one flaw about these two, they were both hard headed. Easily refusing to ever be wrong.
"are you kidding me? I kiss you and you brought another girl home?"
"yeah we kissed. It was new years. I didn't think it was a big deal. Not like it meant anything" he defended his actions. Eyes searching her face for what emotion she was feeling
And she felt her heart snap. The way he said it so carefree, like to him it was just a stupid kiss.
Her silence shook him to his core. Stepping closer as he let out a shaky breath
"it didn't mean anything right?" His voice cracked in nerves. If that kiss meant something to her he fucked up. He easily just hurt his only best friends feelings.
"yeah, you're right. Just new years" she spat, knocking into his shoulder roughly as she went to grab her skates.
"oh fuck" he sighed to himself. He fucked up and he fucked up bad. Of course the kiss meant something to him but he was scared she only did it for the sake of the holiday. Or that she was so drunk she didn't know what she was doing. When he left with Lia she was chatting it up with a boy on the basketball team. He figured she was planning to leave with someone else so he should do the same.
"wait!" He said fast. Turning around to run after her when he saw Billy Hargrove walk up to her. Jealousy burning in his skin as she giggled and smiled.
~~
"Okay Max made me come but I have never once skated. Can you please help me?" He practically begged
"is Billy Hargrove admitting he is bad at something?" She gasped, laughing as he glared over at her
"it's not funny. I can't make a fool of myself in front of this gorgeous girl so you need to help me" he winked, stepping closer to her.
At this point she usually brushes him off. Ignoring his advances because of Eddie.
But Eddie didn't seem to like her
She was just a friend to him
And a boy like Billy Hargrove can make her forget
~~
Eddie glared as he watched Y/N hold Billy's hand as they skated on the ice.
It may have been negatives out but he felt hot to the touch.
He wanted to punch the smile right off of Billy's lips
Kick him in the balls so he wouldn't get any ideas
"sorry dude. But he really likes her and that never happens. He won't give up" Max sighed as she stopped next to Eddie, leaning on the edge as she took a breather.
"well he should. Not like she's ever been interested" Eddie growled. His arms crossed over his chest as he watched them skate closer and closer
"after the big fuck up you just did, he definitely has a shot" Max laughed, smacking Eddie on the shoulder as she staked to join the couple.
Eddie watched as Billy spun Y/N around on the ice. Max laughing as she spun around too.
For once Y/N's eyes never landed on Eddie.
~~
It didn't get much better for Eddie.
Billy officially asked her on a date and she said yes.
Eddie hated that the date went well. She talked about it for days. Billy was romantic and completely took her breath away.
And Eddie hated it.
He hated watching her in her tiny dress, smiling in the mirror as she sprayed on her perfume.
Anger and jealousy forming in his stomach when she smeared the perfume on her ankles
"slutting it up tonight are we?" He growled out
She rolled her eyes and set down her perfume bottle
Ignoring him as she went to put on her boots
"no tights? You are going to give him the wrong idea!" Eddie spat out
She ignored him again, standing up as she checked herself in the mirror
"don't ignore me"
She shivered as he growled behind her, right on her ear. His hot body was practically smashed into her back.
"you want him to fuck you or something?" Eddie mocked.
She could see how pissed off he was in the mirror. Smirking at him, "jealous Eddie?"
She turned around to face him. Her own face stone cold of any expression
"no. I just don't think you need to be a whore and sleep with him on the second date"
"that's too bad. Because honestly I've been dripping ever since new years" she spat, shoving his shoulder as she walked to her bed, going to grab her jacket when she felt Eddie force her on the sheets
Growling as he laid on top of her. His knee shoved between her thighs
Air got caught in her throat as she tried to ignore the pulsing in her cunt.
"for him or me baby?" He teased, a dark smirk on his face as his hand slowly worked up her dress. Teasing her body over the thin material
"fuck you" she spat, she wanted to shove him off but one wrong move and her clit would be pressing against his knee. Making her even more weak.
"oh pretty girl. You will and you're going to like it" he growled, sitting up, his knee still in between her thighs
He yanked off his shirt, smirking as her eyes traced over his skin.
He leaned over her body, mouth close to her ear as he kissed her neck. Wet and sloppy kisses all over her throat, moving down to her collar bones
"Eddie" she moaned. Her hands wanted to dig into his hair but she needed some self control
He smirked at her moans, yanking down the top of her dress, growling as her tits spilled out
He bit down on the skin, swirling his tongue around her nipples. Leaving blotchy hickies everywhere. His hands groped them as he moved his knee further up, easily hitting her clit
"Fuck" she whined. Her head thrown back as he pressed against her clit harder. Hands still working on her tits
"you like that don't you? Pretty tits baby" he groaned, kissing the skin before pulling away
She didn't even know she was doing it at first. Her hips rocking against his knee as she pleased herself. Moaning as his rough jeans rubbed her just right.
"riding my knee baby?" He mocked. Loving how her body was moving against his
He laughed as she stopped. Eyes closing as she covered her face
"don't be embarrassed. It's so fucking hot. Ride my knee baby, make yourself cum" he growled his hands ripping hers away.
She looked at him and nodded. Watery eyes as she began to move her hips again
Moaning loudly as he moved his knee with her
He could die happily listening to her needy and pitchy moans. So submissive just like he thought she would be.
"not so tough now are you baby? You are pissed at me, hate me but yet rubbing your pretty pussy on my knee. Desperate to cum"
She whined at his teasing. Hating the way it made her body hotter and hips move faster. Closing her eyes as she desperately moved against him
"just shut up" she moaned, lifting up her dress as she moved herself faster on his knee.
He clicked his tongue with a shake of his head. Ripping his knee away from her thighs
"WAIT NO" she cried. Eyes flying open as she watched him stand up
"bad girls with bad mouths don't get to cum when they want" he hissed. Unbuckling his jeans as she breathed hard
A pout on her lips as she shivered under his heated glare
She moaned as he removed his boxers, his cock was hard and already dripping with precum.
He didn't say a word, just yanking off her dress and tearing off her panties. She moaned at his roughness as he threw her clothes around her room.
Taking a step back to look at her naked body. Slowly pumping himself as he stared at every piece of her skin
"stop staring" she whined. Going to cover herself when he threw her arms over her head, holding them in a rough grip
His voice was deep and hard as he spoke to her. His eyes are full of lust and desire. She's never seen his eyes so black and dark before
"don't you even think about hiding from me. So fucking gorgeous"
She moaned as he teased his cock over her clit. Moving himself between her lips but never once entering her. Loving the way she squirmed, her hands still being held by his harsh grip
"you want this?" He asked softly, the old Eddie appearing back in his eyes. She was dripping from the fact he was so ready to ruin her but could switch back in seconds
"yes fuck me Eddie. Please" she whined, her head thrown back as he slapped his hard cock against her clit. Her thighs twitching and trapping him between her
Then he switched back
His eyes dark as he shoved himself inside of her. Fully and stuffing her completely
"EDDIE GOD" she screamed. He released her grip, allowing her nails to scratch down his back as she tried to get used to feeling him inside of her
He gave her a few seconds to adjust. Just slowly moving his hips, using every bit of self control to not completely ruin her
"shh. You can take it" he whispered in her ear, slowly pulling out and shoving himself back in. She screamed as he picked up his pace. Roughly fucking her. Loving the way she clenched around him.
Her eyes rolling in the back of her head as she tried to grip onto his skin
Hissing as her nails continued to break his skin open but he loved it
He was moaning as he lost himself inside of her
She was wet, warm and tight. Everything he pretended his hand was when he touched himself
Always thinking about this exact moment
"SHIT...FUCK" she was screaming as he somehow went faster
His hands gripped her head board as he thrusted himself in and out of her. As hard as he can. Loving the way his balls slapped against her ass. The sound of their bodies smacking into each other. The sound of her bed creaking as he fucked out all of his anger and jealousy.
"bet he couldn't fuck you like this" Eddie growled as he grabbed her legs, throwing them over his shoulders
Inhaling the perfume she smeared earlier
Smirking as fucked her harder
"he doesn't have a good enough cock like I do. He wouldn't know how to make you fucking scream" he growled as he smashed his body on hers. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders as he pounded into her. Moaning as his naked chest was rubbing against her nipples.
She was a screaming, blabbering mess. No real words leaving her mouth
"fucked stupid now aren't you?" He mocked, his hand gripping around her throat
She whined even louder. One of her hands holding on the one that was choking her
"you don't know how long I've thought about this pussy. How many girls I fucked imagining you" he growled as he got himself closer. She was too tight, she was clenching him too good
"mhhm yeah?" She choked out. A small smirk on her face. She was taking all of it and she loved it. She loved him thinking of her, loved that no matter where she was, she was in his head
"yeah baby. Even say your name when I cum. They get so pissed"
"oh fuck" she moaned. The thought alone had her close
"you like that? Huh? Knowing I scream your name when I bust my load into other girls? You jealous slut" he released the grip on her neck
Moving between their bodies as he rubbed her clit
"YES RIGHT THERE" she screamed. Her legs unhooking from his shoulders as they shook
Her body thrashing as she moved her hips with his
"you are a jealous asshole" she teased. Yanking his hair as she dug her teeth in his neck
"yeah I am. No one gets to fuck this pussy but me. Mine now right?"
The way he was staring into her eyes had her clenching. Gasping as she felt her orgasm a blink away
"say it or you don't get to cum" he stopped his fingers completely. Just resting them on her clit, no pressure added
"NO KEEP GOING PLEASE" she cried, feeling his hips also still inside of her
"say this pussy is mine and you get to cum"
"Eddie please"
"say it baby"
"please fuck"
"say it"
"MY PUSSY IS YOURS. IT'S YOURS. ALL YOURS"
He smirked as he rubbed her faster, fucking her hard
"IM CUMMING" she screamed. Her arms reached over his shoulders. Clinging on him as she came. Soaking his cock completely in her cum. Her thighs shaking against the bed as she screamed in his ear. Holding on to him as hard as she could. Otherwise she felt she might disappear into the mattress
"good girl. Keep cumming. I got you. Make a mess on my cock. Come on"
She shuttered as he rubbed her clit through her orgasm
His cock still pumping inside of her as he chased his own orgasm
"fuck" he moaned, going to pull out but she gripped his ass
Shoving him inside of her
"cum in me please" she whined
Eddie's eyes rolled in the back of his head
"want me to cum in you? Huh? Have both our cum inside your pussy?"
"yes Eddie fuck. Cum for me. Cum in me. Fill me up" he moaned at her words
Few last thrusts and his body was shaking. His thrusts got sloppy as he shuttered against her body. Moaning as he felt his balls tighten and his load shooting inside of her
"fuck I love you" he groaned into her wet skin
"I love you too" she gasped, feeling his hot load fill her
He collapsed on her
Both breathing heavy as he slowly slipped out
Watching as their mix cum began to spill out
His quickly scooped it up and shoved it back in
She whined and tried to push his hand away from her sensitive cunt
"no more" she said breathlessly
"I know baby. Just got to keep it on you" softly fingering it back into her
They laid there for a few seconds to catch their breath, under the covers
"what time is the date?" Eddie asked as he looked over her naked body to check the clock
"there isn't one" she smirked, rolling on top of him
"are you shitting me? You brought me here to watch you get ready for a fake date?" He laughed
"how else was I gonna get you to fuck me" she teased, kissing his lips softly. Finally tasting him again. Allowing herself to fall into this kiss. Every emotion and everything she wanted to say
He kissed her back just as hard. Wrapping his arms around her naked body. Tongue slipping into her mouth as she grinded on his soft cock
"don't do that" he gasped, gripping her hips to stop her
"I'm not done with you Eddie" she smirked
Slowly disappearing under the covers
Eddie definitely got the hint now
Tags!
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bloomingdog · 9 months
Text
𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 — 𝐇𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐱 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫
data: your basic florist au, bit of angst, identity reveal, all that stuff. 4k words, no use of Y/N.
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You know him, you know what the looks like at the very least. Once a week—the day never stays the same—him and a group of other instrument-carrying people go into the small venue in front of your shop at nine in the evening, an hour after closing the shop, when you’re about to head home. One early morning, out of curiosity, you checked the schedules adhered and covering the roller shutter in a poor attempt to find who this mysterious guy was. You found no useful information in that regard, you did foind, however, that the club opened at ten and most concerts held there started at least half an hour later. With that new gathered intel your best guess was that they came early to get everything set or a rather quick sound-check.
The venue is on one of the corners that limit the four way pedestrian crossing, the two corners on either side both hold pubs, and diagonally there’s you. “For the Roses” is a name given by its old owner, a sweet lady—and Joni Mitchell fan—you had worked for since you were seventeen, and four years later she had decided it was time to retire. For the last five months it’s been just you, it was easier to take care of it when you were two people working, that much is true, but having to close the shop has given you staring privileges. Years ago, when you first started working here the placement of the shop seemed rather odd, between clubs, pubs and the many other forms of amusement, this, however, was a strategical position. A big part of the clientele consisted of repenting boyfriends and enamoured halves of a first date, and they kept the business afloat.
You recognise him the moment he walks in.
“Hello! How may I help you?” The clock ticks away the last minutes before closing as you try to put on your cheeriest voice.
“Hi, sorry about comin’ in so late. My mate’s playing a gig, I just want some flowers to throw on stage, whole dramatics and all.” His voice is smooth with only the slightest rasp to it. He’s a fun last client.
“Do you want the classic roses then?”
“Nah don’t bother, give me the leftovers.” There are one or two extra cuttings and a bouquet that never got picked up you wouldn’t mind getting rid of. 
You excuse yourself to pick out the best leftover flowers you could in an attempt to make a half-decent bouquet. He’s oggling your shop, he’s particularly eye-catching inside your light coloured, slightly old-fashioned establishment. He likes it there, it’s cosy, the floors are filled with different types of flower arrengements and the walls display an amalgamation of different decorations gathered throughout the years, his inspection is only interrupted by your coming back behind the counter.
“Here, I tried to make it as cohesive as I could.”
“It’s alright, love, it’s gonna get thrown anyway.” Oh, that pet name went straight to your chest.
“It felt unprofessional not to give you at least a small sample of my usual, better, quality.” He gave a side smile as a response.
“How much do I owe you?”
“It’s on the house, no worries, I wouldn’t make you pay for only scraps.”
“That’s quite nice, take this as a tip, then.” He slid a twenty pound note on the counter, right before turning around a saying his goodbyes with a single wave of his hands.
Spinning the sign at the glass door so it reads “Closed” you turn to sweeping the floor and leaving your workplace as neat as possible, you hum along to the song playing from your phone on the counter. The 20 dollars he gave you felt a bit too much, not that you’re going to complain, not with the cost of everything, a flower shop isn’t a luxurious job to have, so it’s much appreciated. 
Drawing the curtain-like metal you spot a group of people walking into the club, one of them must be his friend.
A mere day later, he’s back, making the dainty bells above the door chime.
“Hello! Got another show you need to throw flowers at?” You quip and he chuckles.
“Nah. Only wanted to get actual flowers to have a good reason to ask you out.” He’s confident, maybe overly so, and Hobie is well aware of that, it’s not often that his confidence fails him, though. You look surprised before laughing, it’s ridiculous.
“And what were you thinking of getting?”
“I was hoping you could recommend me something.”
“Roses are usually the go-to flower, although I much prefer freesias.”
“Sick, I’d like a single freesia, please.” He says it in an overly polite manner, the whole situation is laughable.
“That’ll be two pounds.” You say as you hand him the flower.
“Here you go.” You mutter a thank you for an answer. “My band’s playing tonight, at ten, just on the other street, you could come and we could get a drink after.”
No way you’re attending a club on a Wednesday night, with a stranger nonetheless. 
“Sure.” 
“Sweet, I’ll see you. My name’s Hobie by the way.”
And it sounds like proper fun, really.
You’ve managed to avoid the biggest wave of people going home during rush hour and, thankfully, your ride home is as pleasant as the tube allows it to be and yet, you’re restless. His invite plays around in your mind. He’s handsome, that’s for sure, and it would satiate your curiosity on the other side it would also make you tired for work the next day, you’re too old for that, you think and softly laugh at your own joke. The walk home gives you time to ponder on wasted opportunities and the best years of your life, your flat instead greets you with the promise of a reheated dinner and an eight-hour-long sleep which for a moment makes you think about ditching him. 
The commute back feels longer than it usually does. You ate in a rush and got ready far too fast after your flatmate complained about needing to use the bathroom. Your phone marks 10:05PM, fashionably late. You’re thankful the show hasn’t started by the time you sit by the bar, ordering a beer. You still haven’t decided if it’s brave or cocky to ask someone out to your own show.
The whirring of a guitar being plugged signals the beginning of the show.
“Hello, we’re The Spider-Slayers! One two three!” Is your only warning before they start playing. They’re quite good, you have to admit, Hobie, as you’ve recently learned he’s named, exudes power and confidence while on stage, he’s rather skilled. It’s enjoyable, half of the audience is too plastered—it's only ten in the evening—to pay attention to the actual music and are merely glad to have a loud noise playing for them, but they’re well-liked, no doubt an established part of the community. It passes faster than you had anticipated, not even an hour later he’s walking your way while another band prepares to play.
He’s sweaty as he sits down and orders a rum and coke, he looks at you questioning if you also want one. “Make it two.” He indicates the bartender. “Did you like it?” 
He’s tall but not intimidating in the slightest, the metal in his face a contrast to all of his warm side smiles. 
“Yes!” You’re quick to answer. “It was really nice, you guys are good.” He fully smiles at the compliment, he’s got a pretty smile.
“Thanks. I forgot to ask your name earlier, sorry about that.”
“No worries, it’s Y/N.”
“Pretty.” It’s flirty. 
“Did your mate like the flowers?” You ask as the man behind the bar hands you your drinks.
“Totally, made a mess on stage and everything. She was grateful, seriously, funny and praising in equal parts, the bouquet was beautiful too, such a shame it ended like that.” You laugh at that. “How’s it working at a flower shop?”
“Good, actually, better than one good expect, I’d say it’s one of the better retail jobs out there.”
“Seems hard.”
“It is at the beginning, you should’ve seen some of my first arrangements, they were bloody awful, I’m still wondering how we didn’t get any complaints.” It’s Hobie’s turn to laugh.
“You’ve made some improvement then, your shop’s beautiful.” You beam and thank him, you’re proud of the way it’s looking these days. “How’d you end up working there? Do you need a degree to be a florist?”
“Not really, no. I’ve taken a couple courses but for the most part I was trained by my old boss.”
“Hm.” He nods. “Strange place to set up a flower shop, innit? I see you closing all the time and wonder who in their right mind would think of opening it at a nightlife epicenter.” Good to know you’re not the only observer.
“You’d think so! We get a lot of our clientele thanks to that, not all flower shops open until eight either way. Flowers make both great apologies and gifts, you can only imagine the kind of people who walk in there.”
“What, like me?” 
“No way, I’d put you in the normal bunch.” He quirks an eyebrow, an invitation to tell him more about yourself. And that you do. You talk for the two hours that the club remains open, he’s fun, you’re both chatty, you’ve got a multitude of things in common, he tells you about his bandmates, you exchange numbers, he’s a cat person by the way. 
“You want me to walk you home?” The underground closed an hour ago, it wasn’t that big of a trek to your place, you could say yes if not for the stranger—acquaintance—danger middle school talks flashing in your memory. The bus, though taking longer than the tube, was still an option.
“It’s fine, really. I’d rather take the bus.” 
“Got it, I can wait with you if you’d like.” Yeah, yeah, you’d like that. The two of you walk close to each other to the nearest stop. The pavement is damp, it gives you another reason to be glad that you wore your trusty old, slightly dirty, converse instead of a more sophisticated option.
“Thank you for inviting me, I had a nice time, you’re fun.”
“So are you, love.” How could an overused term like that have such a big effect on you when he says it remains a mystery.
You sit in a comfortable silence until the right bus gets there and as you bid your goodbyes you’re unable to contain the big smile you give him, blame it on the drinks. You send him a quick text noticing him that you got home safe and sound before falling into deep sleep.
Your phone rings and vibrates from the bedside table, it always goes off at the same time and yet today it manages to scare you awake. The trip to the bathroom and coffee making is accompanied by a string of curses: music, bad choices, the opening hours of your business and pretty boys all fall victim to your vulgarities. The lack of proper sleep makes your day go by twice as slowly, nodding off and almost missing your stop and doomscrolling during work hours to pass the time, even turning to reading an article from The Daily Bugle, it’s laughable, it’s says something something Spider-Man, something juvenile delinquent something menace for the city.
The chime of little bells half an hour before closing wakes you up better than your alarm had done earlier in the day. Looking up from your phone you spot the same bright eyes and confident stroll that kept you company last night.
“You need to stop coming in right before closing.” You scold him. You’re confident he’s aware that it’s an invitation for him to keep showing up.
“My bad. Do you like food?”
“I-What?” Indeed, what? “I like food, yes.”
“Peng. You want to grab dinner?” And he also needs to stop proposing last-minute plans.
“Where?”
“What do you fancy?”
“Thai?”
“Sure.” 
“I close in half an hour, you can stay here if you want.” Not that you’re expecting any more costumers.
He asks if he can help with anything and you hand him the broom and dustpan that hangs in the back of the shop, he laughs and takes it as payment for having you get out earlier. The floors aren’t dirty per se, it’s mostly leaves and bits of cutting that have fallen. He sweeps while you get everything ready for tomorrow and put away what’s been used today. Half an hour later you hang your work apron and close the shutters. 
There’s a nice restaurant a couple blocks away you’ve got food to-go from before. You order a spicy noodle soup, khanom jeen nam ngiaw, and he settles for stir-fry noodles. It’s good, warm and comforting, you take a bite from his plate and he follows suit with a spoonful of your broth. The conversation picked up while cleaning and it has yet to die down, he tells you about his hobbies—you can't help to make fun of him by saying Hobie's hobbies—and you share your love for museums with him, ‘We should visit one.’ he says to which you agree in excitement. 
You don’t let go of his hand until your bedroom door is closed and you softly push him into bed. Taking only a short break to take off both of your shoes you don’t waist time in straddling him, his hands on your hips as you return to kissing. Soft moans mark the tempo for your exploring hands and you stare at his bare abdomen with much less shame than you think you should have. His hands are slightly calloused and scarred, it doesn’t matter with how skilled they are. It feels like you’re drowning in him, you hope he feels half as good as he’s making you feel, if his breathless mutters of ‘fuck’ and ‘good girl’ are any indicator you can pat yourself on the back after it’s over.
The dinner is paid for, the night chilly compared to the warmth inside the restaurant. He offers to walk you home again, this time you agree because you’re no longer strangers, right? You make it half of the way before puts his hand on your lower back, you don’t make an effort to move it, it’s comfortable.
You make it three quarters of the way until you start kissing, your back against the wall of a mildly busy street, you feel like a horny teenager. You climb up the stairs to your flat two-steps at a time, your hand holding his and praying that your flatmate has confined herself to her room so you don’t have to introduce one to the other, not right now at least.
The morning after your alarm not only scares you awake but it also makes him sit up in bed with a jolt.
“Sorry.” Sleep is still evident in your voice.
“S’okay.” He replies before giving you a chaste kiss on the lips, you don’t think either of you wants to deal with each other’s morning breath, it’s a tad early for that.
You offer him breakfast. Your flatmate has left for work but she won’t forgive you if you don’t tell her of last night’s events. At least it won’t make this morning awkward, or more awkward than it already is, it happens with first breakfasts: sleepy, a mess, cranky from waking up, it’s not anyone’s best look. 
You take the underground while he chooses to walk home, it’s not crazy far away from yours, apparently. In the meantime, the work day is spent looking up frantically every time the bells over your door chime, hoping that it will be him at some point. He does come over, at ten past eight, and he has to knock on the door to catch your attention. Your strange arrangement goes on for the better part of the next two months, he comes over when you’re about to close, you eat together multiple times per week, he’s quite a skilled at making exactly seven different dishes, he invites you to his shows and you’ve met his bandmates, you’ve had every cliché date imaginable: the park, the cinema, the natural history museum, markets, the full deal. You don’t call them dates though, you’re not a couple even with all the kissing and sleeping together—literally and figuratively—he’s told you he doesn’t like labels, but he’s being exclusive with you so you’re okay with it. 
He shows up with little cuts and bruises, you attributed to being clumsy at first but it’s become more common lately, he excuses it as a protest that went south, a moshpit or just a friendly scuffle with his mates. It doesn’t ease your nerves. But you're soon to forget all about it once you’re outside, walking hand in hand and sharing headphones, he’s incorporated bits and pieces of your music to his playlist and he makes sure to show you the songs he thinks you’ll like first than anything.
Your phone lights up with a text notification from Hobie, he’s coming over soon. It shouldn’t be, but it reads as ominous, he doesn’t usually tell you in advance and would rather showing up unannounced.
“Hey pet.” He greets, it’s his latest nickname for you, you’ve always thought it ridiculous but he’s making you grow fond of it.
“Hi Bee” An animal-related nickname you gave him after he tried calling you ‘duck’ that has stuck. “You want to do something or should we head home?”
“Home’s fine, I’m tired.” It’s fair, he’s always running around doing things, you’re okay with a night in. 
He sweeps the floor, it’s his assigned task, you feel bad but he says he doesn’t mind and likes helping you. The ride back to your place is quieter than usual, he seems pensive. You’re about to open the door to your building when you notice him stuck a meter away.
“Are you okay?” Your heart is picking up speed.
“Listen, love.” Oh no. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to come up.” You’re on the second and final step of the stairway while he’s at ground level, he looks smaller than he’s ever been. “I’ve had a lot of fun, really, but I don’t think I can go on with our thing, you know? I’m not good at commitment anyway.” Your lack of a response get’s him speaking again. “I’m truly sorry, I just don’t wanna go on with this and end up hurtin’ you.”
“Okay.” Is the only thing your brain is able to formulate.
“Okay.” He replies. “I’ll be leaving now.” He says as he kisses your temple, turning around and giving you a single wave of the hand for a goodbye.
You feel the tears beginning to fill up your eyes, your vision blurry, at least you were able to hold them until he left, it’s already embarrassing as it is. You don’t bother re-heating dinner that night, choosing to go straight to bed and waking up with puffy eyes in the morning. For the first time in a while you’re sure you won’t have any visits at work, it’s terrible. You feel stupid. He told you enough about himself to know that the two of you weren’t in for a long-term relationship and still you held onto some sort of hope of being an exception. 
That was two weeks ago. You’ve seen him two times since, while leaving for home. He waves your way and you wave back, out of politeness more than anything. Two weeks of radio silence that break your established routine and fill you with a sense of expectation during the last hours of work. 
It’s nine-twenty on a Sunday, it’s usual for you to stay until late at the end of your work week, Hobie knew that and would make sure to keep you company and take you home those days. The early November weather has made it so it’s already been dark for hours, the city is rather calm, you don’t suppose there’s much to do on a cold November night. A series of knocks on the door alerts you of the presence of someone outside, it startles you as you hold the broom you were using against your chest.
Nothing could have prepared you for the sight outside the door. Spider-Man was doubling down and leaning against the glass of your shopfront, electric guitar strapped across him and hanging in his back, clad in his usual metal decorations while his suit had been torn. You let him in a hurry, it’s not ideal to have an idol of the working class dead on your welcome mat. He limps to the back of the shop, in your current state of panic you don’t stop to wonder how he knows the way so well, until he’s sitting on the floor and leaning against one of the walls, guitar forgotten besides him. You follow him and crouch at his side just in time for him to take off his mask. 
“Fuck off.”
“Hi pet.”
You were so excited to be done with work and head home to watch a film, lucky for you, your ex-situationship still has a habit of coming in right before you leave. 
“Bloody hell Hobie.” 
“Please don’t be shocked right now, we can talk about it tomorrow.” He can’t be serious. “I’m knackered.” I wonder why, you think. He looks like proper shit.
“Hobie you’re bleeding.” You’re trying your best to be helpful and not panic.
“It’s fine love, it’ll heal in no time, I kinda have superpowers.” You’re choosing to ignore that and get up to retrieve your first aid kit, it’s far too basic to be useful right now, only equipped to help with cuts and minor injuries.
You can feel his eyes on you and your whole body is shaking as you kneel by his side. You try your best to keep your hands steady while pouring rubbing alcohol into a cotton pad.
“You don’t have to, I’ll be fine.”
“Let me clean it, please, so it doesn’t get infected.” He lets you, wincing at the alcohol making contact with his open injuries. He knows you're doing it more for yourself than him. “Sorry.” He shakes his head as a way of saying ‘no worries’.
You reach for his face with your bare hand once you’ve considered him clean enough, you cradle his cheek and can’t hold your tears from spilling.
“This is why I cut thing off with you, you know? Don’t wan’ you getting hurt.”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t say that.” He pleads. 
“What about you getting hurt? Does that not matter?” He laughs and winces right after.
“You’re a sweet thing. I don’t have a choice but you do.”
“And what if my choice is to stand by your side?”
“You can’t.”
“Yes I do!” You’re reaching tour breaking point and can’t help but raise your voice. “I didn’t know I loved you as much as I do until these last weeks without you. It’s been torture.”
“It’s been torture for me too.” His words soften you, and it’s only then you realize what you said, you don’t dare acknowledge them, maybe he didn’t notice or the head trauma will make him forget it.
You’re crying now and it feels awful because you should be the one comforting him, he’s hurt not you. He holds you as you shake and places a kiss to your head.
“Can we sleep here?” He asks once you’ve calmed down. The tile floor is anything but comfortable and still you nod yes.
You fix a make-shift bed consisting of your bunched up jumper and apron for pillows and your big coat, that barely covers his upper body, for a blanket. Not that it matters, you chose to turn the radiator up and it’s hard to get cold while curled up to a human heater. You’re careful while laying with him, both out of fear of hurting him and prudence of this hurting you even more. He doesn’t care and brings you closer, your head on his chest and his hand drawing shapes on your back over your clothes, you can’t help but worry about the state of his back in the morning. 
You find sleep easier than you have since your “break-up”, his rhythmic breathing lulls you and his caresses calm you down. You’re in the before-falling-asleep-limbo when you hear his voice, he says “I love you too” like a confession secret, you’re not sure if you were even supposed to hear it. It’s too late for you to react, his words mix with the beginning of your dreams into a spiralling nonsense.
🕷 i really enjoyed writing this! i was thinking of maybe doing a part 2? tell me your thoughts if you dont mind too! i haven't written anything that isnt academic in years and i feel rusty
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macaroonff · 1 month
Text
Deep side of the pool- Yang Jungwon
feat. Wingman Jungwon but he's secretly in love with you
Lowkey angst
1.1k words (this was meant to be a short drabble but it became longer >"< )
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"Falling in love is similar to how someone gets into a pool," Jungwon says philosophically, staring into the distance, particularly at the chaos unfolding, with the others dragging Sunoo into the pool.
"Weird metaphor, what makes you say that?" you ask, humoured by his timing, as Sunoo falls in with a resounding splash.
"Well, there's people like me who dive into it headfirst, uncaring of how deep it is, unafraid of the fact that our feet may not touch the ground," he continues now looking at you ,"and then there's people like you, who dip your toes in first, checking if the temperature's alright, then you'll put your entire feet in sitting along the edge, testing the waters to see if its ok to go in. If you like it, you'll go in, if you don't then you won't; even if you see the other person frolicking in a frenzy."
"What about Sunoo? He was pushed in without a warning," you ask playfully.
"That's just fate I suppose; life, as well as love is unpredictable."
You laugh his observations off, although somewhere you knew he made sense. Sure, you liked to take your time, ensuring that the person you were going to invite into your life was deserving of that trust.
"I'm quite proactive actually," you retort.
"Yeah if proactive means hanging on the edge of this pool, worrying about your crush balancing on a floatie. Just go talk to him," the red haired boy notions towards Jake, who, despite being the best swimmer amongst you could barely keep himself up on his pink donut floatie.
You look down at your feet, kicking it gently until the tiny waves spread like a stack of rings around the two of you. After a few minutes of repeating this action, Jungwon lets out a sigh in boredom.
"Let me show you how I fall in love y/n," he says getting up, while you watch in curiosity. Water drips from his thighs when he's up, and creates a trail as he moves a little further from the edge. He looks at you and waves his hand in a motion telling you to move, and so you do, out of his way. He runs towards you as fast as he could before taking a big jump, another splash that gets droplets of chlorinated water on your hair. You were about to complain until you see him laughing until his eyes resemble those familiar crescents, his entire head, now wet thrown back as he does so.
"Look, my feet touches the floor. You'll be alright too," he adds as reassurance, holding out his hand, offering to help you as you get in.
You accept graciously, and walk through the shallow parts with him, hands gripping on tightly. Slowly he leads you towards Jake, a grin taking over as you get close. Was what he was going to do next middle-school-boy-who-doesn't-know-how-to-talk-to-their-crush-level-silly? Yes. Was it going to work? "You don't know until you try," he thinks to himself. He lets go of your hand and pushes you towards Jake, who was in the deeper side of the pool.
You're taken by surprise and feel yourself fall below the surface, as you try to keep your hands above water, feeling it go into your ears, the chlorinated water stinging your eyes. The feeling was only temporary though, as you feel arms wrap around your waist firmly, pulling you up until you feel the sun hitting your closed eyelids. You feel someone pushing your hair back gently, water dripping from their wet hands. When you do blink your eyes open, you have your breath taken away. Jake stood their under the sunlight, his wet hair slicked back, his golden tan glowing. He was ethereal, and you catch your self staring at him as he scolds the younger one. "Jungwon-ah! Why did you push her?"
Jungwon shrugs, "It wasn't me," he screams, sending you a poor attempt at a wink, before getting out of the pool to join Heesung in the basketball arcade game.
"I'm so sorry for that," Jake says, in his familiar accent that you loved so much. "Here, hold on ," he takes your hands and puts them on his shoulders, where you could feel his muscles flex as his grip on your waist became lighter, leading you towards the floatie he was on. You offer him a small smile, because you were too nervous to physically thank him.
"Wasn't Jungwon teaching you how to swim?" he asks, reaching an arm out to pull the floatie closer to the two of you. "Not really, it's just that we start of serious, but end up splashing about, and I don't end up learning much. He chuckles, and you hear the melody resonate around you, causing your cheeks to heat up. "I'm looking for someone to teach me properly actually," you say shyly, hoping he got your hint. Since he was a fantastic swimmer, this excuse might actually work.
"I don't mind teaching you," he replies, a small smile settling on his face, "If you're okay with that?" You nod in excitement, and he finally lifts you up onto the floatie, gently dragging you along the pool as you continue in conversation. All in all you were glad Jungwon had given you that one push, physically and metaphorically. You look back to give him a smile of appreciation, and see his brows furrowed, what you assumed was because of the harsh sun.
From the other side, Jungwon couldn't help but be somewhat bitter. He was bitter about the fact that he lied to himself. Unlike what he told you, Jungwon loved similarly to you. He was definitely the type to dip his toes in carefully, testing to see if the temperature was okay, except this time, he went a step further- running away. Did he smile back at you when you acknowledge his efforts at match-making, being oblivious to his love? Of course he did, because even being friends, and assuming this unassuming role would be okay as long as you continued speaking to him. He was too scared to cross this invisible line, too scared to end up near the deep side of this massive pool in your heart.
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sanjoongie · 5 months
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𐊇𝒆𝞪r𝗹𝟈𝘴𝔰 𝘊𝒽𝒶𝛐ꜱ
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🏴‍☠️A/N: this is in retaliation to space pirate hwa you threw at me and all the other 'suffer with topaz' tags missy @smallfrye 🏴‍☠️Pairing: Jung Wooyoung x Reader (f) 🏴‍☠️Au: pirate au, ghost au, historical au 🏴‍☠️Genre: smut, angst 🏴‍☠️Trope: strangers to lovers 🏴‍☠️Warnings: mentions of death, fire, strangulation > kinks: fingering (f), dom!wooyoung, sub!reader, temperature play? (woo is a cold ghost, you're a hot human), penetrative sex without a barrier, slight begging kink, slight praise kink 🏴‍☠️Rated: 18+, MDNI 🏴‍☠️Word count: 1,750 🏴‍☠️Summary: You purchase a one way ticket across the Atlantic ocean on a refitted ship to flee the ghosts of your past, only to encounter a new ghost, one who isn't looking to torture you but give you pleasure
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You woke up to your entire cabin shaking. You had no idea how, since every item was nailed down on this passenger ship, but it was like your ship was being sucked into a maelstrom and being struck by lightning at the same time. Except, you were calm. Your basin was thrown across the room and smashed next to your head and still you didn't flinch. 
You sat up and wrapped the blankets around you instinctively. It was chaos reincarnated but you did not hear screams from outside of your room. It was completely, oddly, possible that this was only happening in your room. It stopped just as suddenly as it started and when you blinked, everything was back in place like nothing ever happened.
When you woke up the next morning, you listened to the other passengers talk about a good night’s sleep with the lull of the ship rocking them. No one complained about a rocky sleep or a storm. You're not exactly sure what’s going on but you believe you’re being targeted.
Each night you suffer through the same crazy night but sometimes the scenes change. You got chaos, you got carnage, you got terrifying noises that would keep any sane person up. You woke up to observe your surroundings, and to ensure your survival, but you were not shaken by what you watched happen within your cabin. You had been through worse…
The flames lick up the plush curtains, creating otherworldly colors. The hands around your throat tighten and tighten, despite how you claw at them. The light brown eyes above you swirl with insanity. “You and me forever, my love.”
A wisp of dust and light pushed through the door to your cabin and a man walked through it. Well, clearly he wasn’t a man considering the lines around him were fuzzy and unsolid, but he took the form of a man. His ruffled shirt, tight pants and high boots said he was not of the current world but the authority in his step said he was used to giving orders and them being followed.
“Explain to me why you never scream no matter what I do to haunt you?!” The man demanded, fussing with the ruffles at his wrist. He snapped his fingers and the entire room dripped of blood, as if a massacre had occurred while you slept. You stared at him with an even gaze and he rolled his eyes. “This is what I’m talking about! You’re supposed to be scared!”
“I have once lived a hell worse than this,” You informed him. 
Unimpressed eyes scanned over your form. With his tongue between his lips in contemplation, his eyes swept over the curve of your bare shoulder, down to where you held your sheets to modestly cover your chest. “What woman dare sleep in the nude aboard my ship?”
You tilted your head. “Your ship?”
“I am the captain!” The man announced, dramatically sweeping his arms out wide. “Or, I was. Until my stupid crew mutinied and gave themselves up to the navy in hopes of a pardon. They killed me in my own room, you know?” His eyes narrowed down at you. “This room.”
“Oh,” You murmured, “You’re a ghost.”
The man sighed. “A ghost? I am THE Jung Wooyoung, Fearless Chaos, the one who discovered the--” Wooyoung’s tirade stopped as you laid back down and turned your back to him. “Wait a minute, you’re going back to sleep?”
“If you’re not going to throw my things around the room, I’d like to sleep, thank you,” You responded a-matter-of-factly.
The heeled boots of the once-captain clicked across the well-worn wood floor as Wooyoung moved from the door to your bed--his bed. His cold hand held your shoulder and turned your body to make you lie on your back. “You are an intriguing woman,” He muttered to himself. 
You stared up at him patiently, waiting for his next move. Goosebumps covered your skin at his ghostly touch. Wooyoung’s eyes swept over the arch of your eyebrows and the slump of your nose and your lips and he felt something he hadn't felt in perhaps decades since he was killed: lust. He wanted to break your mask and make you show something other than cool disregard for him. He wanted you to fall apart from his touches.
“I am not scared of you,” You said with the slightest tilt of your chin. “Do your worst.”
Wooyoung whipped the blankets off your form and smirked in delight to find your entire body naked underneath. His eyes were eager to discover more of your delightful body. His cool hands traced a wonderful pattern on your skin, the texture unlike anything he has seen before… you winced as he did so, but it was not a wince of pain.
“I am not scared either,” Wooyoung admitted quietly. In fact, his fingers travel past the burn marks and move towards the junction of your thighs. 
Your eyes snapped to his face, almost searching for a mocking quality to it, but there was none to find. Wooyoung has appreciated your burns from that horrible night but he’d much rather provide you pleasure than give you pain. That was a first.
“Yeosang!” You pleaded with a strangled voice. Your fingers look for purchase to pull away his hands from your throat but he’s too strong.
The flames of the fire roaring around you and the flames of lunacy in your beloved's eyes compete with each other. “Don’t fight it,” He murmured in a quiet voice, “Let us enter the afterlife together, my love.”
Wooyoung patiently spread your legs, a hand pushing your thighs apart so that he could have easier access to your cunt. He licked his lips in anticipation. He wished he could taste what was there but at the very least, he could ease the frown between your eyebrows.
You didn't look at Wooyoung but you did tilt your hips in a silent offering. Wooyoung dipped his fingers to the juncture of your thighs and you whined pitifully. Wooyoung swirled his finger, cold against the heat of your pussy, in the slick that gathered there. “So wet,” He observed, before pinching your clit with his other hand. 
The captain ghost played your body like a fiddle. With your clit between his thumb and forefinger, he pinched and rubbed the sensitive flesh there, all the while fucking your cunt with his middle and ring finger of his other hand. The harsh line of pain and pleasure had you floating, small whimpers escaping your lips as Wooyoung gave you something you had not experienced in months.
“Please…” You panted, bucking your hips to meet Wooyoung’s thrusts of his fingers, “More.”
Wooyoung halted both of his hands, pressing one hand to your knee as he turned around to face you. “What else could a miserable ghost of a captain give a lady like you?” His words are gentlemanly but his voice is low and gravelly and sends a shiver down your spine.
You wetted your lips carefully. “Your cock,” you whispered. 
“You women are all the same,” Wooyoung chuckled, “Go on, precious, get on your hands and knees for me. Prepare yourself for my cock.”
Your body almost moved on its own, offering your ass to the ghost captain like you were all his. “Fuck me, Wooyoung,” You whined.
Yeosang, your dead husband, who had set fire to your mansion and almost killed you in the process, slowly began to fade to the far recesses of your mind. The ghost of him haunted you during the day and during the night. But the minute that Wooyoung pushed and grunted, and squeezed his way into your cunt, he dismissed the mental ghost of yours. His cold fingers dug into your hips, the slap of his thighs against your ass a welcome relief to the hotness of your body. The more cold reality Wooyoung brought to you, the further away your demons were driven. 
“Such a divine creature,” Wooyoung praised you. He raised your body so it was flush with his; his chest to your back. His fingers found the burn marks on your body and he traced them with awe. Wooyoung could find no flaw in you, especially the way your cunt took his thrusts. 
“Wooyoung,” You whispered as he kissed the nape of your neck. 
“I can give you the release you need,” Wooyoung promised, tongue sweeping along the skin behind your ear before carefully taking the lobe of your ear between his teeth. 
Wooyoung can’t come, of course, he’s a ghost, but he swore it was as if his dick was alive for you. He didn’t care if he couldn't truly feel your pussy walls clenching down on him. He could hear the moans dropping from your lips and he believed he had discovered his newfound purpose in his afterlife. “I’ll take over this ship again. I’ll make it a ghost ship with a ghost crew. And you will be my figurehead, the lady of the ship. I will bring you untold pleasure and steal all the treasure in the seven seas to drape along your body. And you will remain in my cabin, in my bed, with my head between your legs, my body for your satisfaction.” Wooyoung promised to lay the world at your feet, and after what you had endured, you found that perhaps you’d rather someone burn the world down for you then burn your world down around you.
Wooyoung continued his tirade, fucking you so well, the drag of his cock against your walls pushing you towards a release you had not known you so desperately needed.
“I'll revive the pirate era and I'll make you the queen of the pirates and all will know you for the way you are spoiled. No one would dare look at you in fear I would cut them down.” Your cries were starting to crescendo, so Wooyoung slipped his finger between your outer lips and circled your clit. “I will give you the world for simply making me feel alive again,” Wooyoung whispered almost like a prayer in thanks.
You came, and hard, finally screaming for Wooyoung. He clamped a chilly hand over your mouth so as to not alert anyone of your carnal affairs in his cabin. That secret could come out later, but not before he attempted to lick your cunt and see if he couldn't help that haunted look in your eyes leave permanently.
Special thanks once again to @starlitmark for helping me make such pretty pretty posts for my revenge month!
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loveshotzz · 2 years
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New Years Eve
Steve Harrington X Fem Reader
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Summary: Steve throws a New Years Eve party in hopes to win Nancy back, when she shows up with Jonathan and your best friend Eddie show’s up to the same party with his new girlfriend Chrissy you need Steve just as bad as he needs you.
Warnings: word count 3K. Angst, Comfort, Smut, fluff. We got it all here folks. Minors DNI.
Author’s Note: This is my first Steve Fan fic, I was nervous to write this but the idea came into my head and I couldn’t get it out. Comments, feedback, Likes, and reblogs are all appreciated!
Tag list: @emotionaldreamer
Master list
All I do is cry and complain because second’s not the same.
It was the way Eddie looked at her like she put the stars in the sky that really killed you. You kept telling yourself to stop staring at them, but the masochist in you kept yourself pressed against the wall in Steve Harrington’s living room. Red solo cup in hand filled whatever concoction that was thrown together in the large punch bowl, watching your best friend fall in love with someone that wasn’t you from across the party.
“One hour till Midnight!”
Rolling your eyes you throw back the rest of your drink, the warmth of the liquor coating your stomach. When you see Eddie start playing with Chrissy’s perfect pony tail while he’s got her caged between himself and table you decide you’ve finally had enough. Pushing yourself off the wall that had been your home for most of the night you shove through the sea of dancing drunks, the bass of the loud music vibrating under your feet. You don’t even understand why Steve throws these parties, every time you would find him at one he never seemed like he was ever having any fun. This one though, this one you knew he threw in hopes Nancy would come. Ever since Jonathan moved to California his determination to get her back has been at an all time high. But when Nancy shows up tucked under Jonathan’s arm excitedly telling every one the story about how he surprised her, Steve disappears. Unlike you he didn’t like to torture himself. At least not to the degree you were willing to go.
The kitchen is empty when you walk in, letting out a relived sigh not having to engage in small talk with anyone. You make your way to the crystal punch bowl in the middle of the kitchen island, stepping on cups, streamers, and party hats on the way.
“Slobs” you mutter under your breath.
You’ll help Steve clean up tomorrow, misery loves company right? At the rate you were drinking you weren’t making it home tonight. Even after a night of pathetic pining you weren’t going to subject yourself to a car ride home with the two of them.
“It’s still not midnight yet?” The sound of Steve’s voice makes your blue eyes snap up from the red liquid you were pouring in your cup. He looks like someone kicked his dog. You can’t help but want to reach out and hug him because you know exactly how it feels, and something tells you that you probably look the same.
“I’m afraid not.” You hum with an equally sullen tone taking a big gulp from your cup.
Steve’s eyes go soft on you taking in your slightly wobbly frame, filling up your red solo cup for probably the sixth time that night. Steve knows how you feel about Eddie, you two had actually become closer in your similar predicaments. It just felt good to be with someone who understood how much it hurt all the time. On nights where neither one of you could stand being alone, you’d keep him company in his giant empty house, with his parents never anywhere to be found It had become a comfort to both of you. So much of a comfort that your weekly hangs outs had become almost nightly. You’d spend your evenings watching whatever movies Robin sent him home with, talking till the sun would slowly peak through his blinds. Sometimes you two wouldn’t even talk at all, wrapped up in each other’s arms you’d do your best to will the loneliness away.
“Wanna get out of here?”
Steve doesn’t even have to ask you twice.
No one notices when the two of you sneak off to the basement together, hand in hand. You can’t help yourself when you take one last look in the direction of Eddie, breaking your own heart into oblivion when you see his lips pressed firmly against hers, fingers still wrapped in that damn pony.
Squeezing Steve’s hand tighter you follow him down the stairs vowing to yourself to never look back.
Steve flicks on the light revealing the one part of the house he’s kept off limits from the rest of the party. It’s your special place.
The sliding glass door that leads to his back yard gives you the perfect view of the crisp cool winter night. The trees look frozen in the cold. There’s a small bar nestled in the corner opposite of the worn leather couch that you had grown to be your favorite place to sleep. His Dad’s expensive crystal glasses twinkle in the moonlight, A half drank glass of already poured bourbon sits on the wood of the coffee table. The TV was on but muted, some New Year’s Eve count down show playing silently. So this is where Steve had been hiding. There’s a small part of you thats mad he left you up there alone to fend for yourself, but a new feeling rises up in you one that you weren’t expecting when you realize tonight was never about you. Jealousy.
“Wanna glass? It’s better then whatever that punch is that you’ve been pounding all night.” He’s smirking slightly reaching over to grab the solo cup from your hands, his finger tips brush against the top of yours and you think it’s the alcohol that makes his light touch go straight to your core. You couldn’t actually like Steve could you? You were in love with Eddie and he was in love with Nancy. You two didn’t make sense. His hazel eyes stare intently into yours almost as if mirroring your thoughts pouring the expensive liquor into an even more expensive glass. You run your fingers along the top of the couch nervously before taking your usual spot next to his empty one.
“Thanks for finally saving me Harrington, only took you less then an hour till midnight to do it.” you can’t help but give him a hard time, hoping your usual banter will ease the new tension you can feel stifling the air.
“Yeah, look I’m sorry about that I just needed to be alone for a minute. This whole night kinda blew up in my face if you hadn’t noticed.” There’s a light clink of the matching bottle closing before he makes his way over to you, Steve’s fingers are gripping around the rim of the glass when he’s hands it to you, your eyes becoming eye level with the crotch of his jeans. How had you never noticed how well they fit before? The sight makes you swallow thickly shaking your head, a creeping guilt for thinking of someone other then Eddie like that.
When you meet his apologetic eyes you can see they are slightly bloodshot. Steve had been crying and it almost makes you want to burst into tears yourself.
Taking the drink from him you quickly reach out with your free hand grabbing tightly onto his before he can pull it away. Steve doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t try to move, his eyes locked onto yours the two of you stay in a comfortable silence. The bass and muffled chatter from the party upstairs drown out the sound of the quickened beats of your hearts.
“It’s okay Steve.” It’s simple when it leaves your mouth in just above a whisper afraid your voice might crack “We’re gonna be okay.” You decide in this moment comforting Steve is going to be the only way to make you feel better too.
You rub soft circles with your thumb on the top of his hand there’s something unrecognizable dancing behind his eyes when they darken, the intensity of it making you shift deeper into the cushions of the couch tugging at him as you go.
For the first time all night you see Steve smile, this one just reaching his eyes but you’ll take it. Grabbing his own drink off the table Steve only lets go of your hand to get situated in his usual spot next to you. The short sleeves of his dark blue polo accentuate the muscles in his arm as it lifts to wrap around you, tucking you tightly into his side. His fingers tangle themselves into your hair scratching lightly at your scalp, a position you two have found yourselves in before. Something felt different about this time, the lazy strokes of his fingers make your eyes roll in the back of your head the smell of his cologne swirling around you invading your senses makes you dizzy.
“At least we have each other tonight.” He whispers his lips ghosting over your hair line all you can do is nod into his chest, lost in the feeling of his touch. You wished you weren’t holding this damn glass of bourbon you didn’t even want, the strong urge to wrap your arms around him greedy to get him closer.
“We got 15 minutes left of this god awful night.” Your eyes snap open to see the countdown on the TV screen, the seconds slowly clicking down. The thought of Eddie pulling Chrissy in for a kiss instead of the sloppy cheek kisses you’d grown accustomed to every year at midnight made you want to slam the expensive liquor down your throat, and that’s exactly what you did. Pulling roughly away from Steve you down your drink, it’s surprisingly smooth as it slides down your throat. Warmth tingling through your whole body as you slam the glass down on the coffee table burying your face in your hands.
“hey, hey! Holy shit that was a sipper y/n” It takes Steve a minute to process your sudden outburst when his eyes go back to the TV he sees a couple kissing giddily confetti falling around them. Setting his glass down he scoots closer to you, your thighs press together as his hand starts rubbing softly up an down your back with gentle pressure. It was Steve’s turn to comfort you.
“He’s an idiot, I should know he’s my friend too.” Steve tries when you don’t lift your head up he bites his lip desperately wanting you back. “It’s never gonna want to work with him and Chrissy, not in the long run.”
That makes you snap you head up at him, the rage and hurt in your eyes has him drowning.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s second choice Steve, someone’s after thought. Like ‘Oh, I guess y/n’s always been there lets give that a try.’ “
With your faces inches from each other Steve is finally noticing just how beautiful you are. Steve had always thought you were attractive but with you both so wrapped up in other people he never noticed just how much you took his breath away. The way the moonlight from the window is hitting the shine in your hair makes it look like there’s a halo on top of your head.
“What if someone didn’t know you were a choice.”
Your eyes widen at the double meaning in Steve’s words, his hazel eyes hold a nervous glint in them as they dart back and fourth from your lips.
“Steve” his name falls from your lips in a whisper, you don’t pull away too afraid to say anything but not wanting him to stop either. His hand travels from your back to the nape of your neck, his fingers wrap around the curve pulling you towards him. Your eyes are locked on each other, silently trying to communicate how much you both need this right now.
His lips brush against yours for the first time and it makes you suck a breath in, your body already reacting to him. His other hand comes up finger tips dancing across your cheek, before they tangle themselves into your hair pulling you in finally closing the gap.
You weren’t expecting to like kissing Steve so much, but when his tongue runs along your bottom lip all you want is more. When you finally push the unnecessary guilt away and lose yourself in him you can’t help but finally shove both hands in his infamous hair pulling yourself closer, and it’s just as soft as you thought it would be.
Steve grunts lightly when you give his hair a gentle tug, your tongues dancing for dominance in each other’s mouth, his fingers leave their place from your neck to dig into the soft flesh of your hips the thin material of your dress riding up as he pulls you on his lap, the bulge hidden underneath his denim hits your clit at just the right angle when your knees rest on either side of his thighs, the moan that leaves your mouth is almost pornographic. With just the fabric of your underwear as a barrier you know exactly why his pants fit him so well now, and you can feel Steve’s lips turn up into a cocky smirk against yours.
His mouth leaves yours to leave wet sloppy kisses down your neck, licking and sucking at the special spot in the dip that you never told anyone about. Rocking your hips against his you can feel the pressure of your orgasm starting to build at the delicious friction of his denim. Your hands still buried in his hair you pull him even closer needing more. Steve was making you needy.
“Tell me what you want.” he breaks away nipping the spot he as just sucking on, his hands keeping a firm grip on your hips, rocking you at a slow pace against him. When he looks up at you, you’ve only seen his eyes look like that when they were directed at Nancy. But Steve was looking at you like that tonight.
“I want you.” You hold his gaze when you say it, you want him to know that you’re sure. You’re sure of him.
Leaving his place from your neck he captures your lips again, your words giving him all the confidence he needs. They move against you more sure and deliberate then before, slower. When your tongues meet each other again they move lazily against each other, your hips still grinding at his slow pace you know you’re leaving a mark on his jeans.
“Need you Steve.” You can’t wait anymore reaching down between you two popping the button of his jeans, helping you he shimmy’s his pants down just enough for his erection to pop out of its painful confines. He was even bigger then you had pictured, with a slight curve you could see the large vein popping out of the side. All the rumors you heard in school were true.
Biting your lip you reach out wrapping your hands around him his hips jutting up to meet your grip.
“Fuck- you got me so hard baby.” Hearing how worked up you had Steve made your strokes more deliberate loving how good you were making him feel, you could feel yourself becoming addicted to it. “Need to be inside you before midnight.”
Almost forgetting there was an entire New Years Eve Party going on upstairs you turn around to look at the TV to see 3 minutes. 3 minutes until everything changes.
Lifting yourself up on your knees you push your soaked panties to the side, lining him up at your entrance. His tip hits your barrier and it makes him throw his head back against the couch, his fingers leaving bruises on your hips.
“So fucking wet - jesus.”
Working slowly at his length you push yourself down on him, your walls sucking him in tightly and it makes you feel full when you are completely sat on his lap. Your hands shoot out grabbing onto his shoulders needing him to feel grounded.
“You’re so big baby, fuck you feel so good Steve.” Your voice comes out in a whine as you slowly start to rock yourself against him, the curve of his dick hitting your sweet spot with every jut of your hips.
“God, it’s like your swallowing me alive sweetheart. I’m not gonna last long” he makes quick work of the straps of your dress pulling it down to reveal the blue lace of your bra, taking two handfuls his eyes watch as your tits move up and down with each bounce. The moon light hitting you perfectly for the second time tonight, Steve thinks you look absolutely gorgeous riding his dick. You’ve been here this whole time.
“10”
The chant of the party upstairs has both of you becoming desperate to find your release, Steve’s hips starting to meet yours with every thrust. The new intensity has you teetering over the edge, and you can feel your eyes start to close as the tension builds.
“9”
Steve’s movements become more sporadic as his own orgasm threatens to burst, and he wants your lips again. He needs your lips again, grabbing your chin he roughly pulls you to him. You kiss like your trying to devour each other both of you needing more even this close and you can feel your walls start to flutter around him.
“8”
“I’m so close Steve, I’m gonna cum.” Your lips break away from his as you focus your attention on finding your high, rolling your hips trying to take him even deeper. His hands rest on your thighs giving you an encouraging squeeze sitting back slightly watching you take what you want from him. “Look at me when you cum, you’re so beautiful like this.”
“7”
Steve’s words are enough to send you flying over the edge, your eyes never leave his when your orgasm washes over you, nails digging into his shoulders, back arched, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.
“6”
“Jesus- that was so fucking hot, you’re gonna make me cum baby.” Steve’s grip on your hips gets even tighter as he starts chasing his own release, his hips pushing up into you in a desperate rhythm. He’s close.
“5”
When you finally calm down enough to get a good look at Steve, his hair is everywhere but somehow looks like it’s exactly where it’s suppose to be, bouncing with each thrust of his hips. His eyes look blown out, completely taken over by lust and they swallow you whole. His bottom lip is tugged between his teeth and all you can think about is how much you can’t wait to kiss him again.
“4”
You hands leave their place from Steve’s shoulders to cup his cheeks holding his face as his thrusts become short and quick you kiss the tip of his nose and his cheeks before you hover above his lips “Let go for me baby, you did so good.”
“3”
When Steve cums he thinks he might cry, your words mixed with the way your walls continued to close around him the entire time milking him for everything he was worth, he doesn’t think he’s ever cum this hard in his life. Perched on his lap, your hair mussed up from his fingers, your lips swollen from his lips, Steve wishes he could take a picture.
“2”
Both your hands find their way back into his hair, knowing him you better be careful with that not wanting him to think you’re obsessed but you can’t resist. You can feel him starting to soften inside you, the remains of you two slowly leaking out as you pull yourself closer to him.
“What do you want for the new year Harrington?”
“1 - HAPPY NEW YEAR”
Steve doesn’t answer you, crashing his lips into yours he does his best to try and show you just how special this night was, how special all your nights have been. He’d just been a fool to not see what was in front of him and if Eddie wasn’t going to show you how special you were he was going to his damnedest to try to.
PART TWO RIGHT HERE BB’S
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