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sailorhyunjinz · 3 years

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𝕴𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕷𝖔𝖘𝖙 𝕾𝖔𝖚𝖑𝖘 𝐈

Pairing; Bartender!Changbin x Fem!reader (she/her pronouns)

Warning ; ANGST!! SMUT!! skz side characters, semi-slow burn, hurt/comfort, strangers to lovers, depiction of mental disorders, consumption of alcohol, under the influence, self hatred, complicated family relationships, depersonalisation/derealisation, depression, alternative universe, implications of su-cide, semi su-cide attempt, su-cidal!reader, mentions of bl-od and injury, mentions of k-dnapping and murder, alcoholism, mentions of selfh-rm, mentions of knifes, gaslighting, smoking, mentions of weapons, mentions of pregnancies, a bunch of crying, fainting, toxic masculinity.

𝘕𝘚𝘍𝘞 ; piv, protected sex (use of condom), missionary, dry humping, nicknames, sex in semi-public place, fingering, corruption kink if you squint, orgasm (m/f), cum,,,, other then that it’s kinda vanilla.

𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 ; 14.3 k

O N E ｜ T W O

From one survivor to another; cheers you guys.

⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ Playlist ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰

[FEEL SOMETHING DIFFERENT - Bea Miller, Aminè]

[Multi-Love - Unknown Mortal Orchestra]

[Beach Baby - Bon Iver]

[High Enough - K.Flay]

[Dope Lovers - DPR IAN]

[Make Out in My Car ; Sufjan Stevens Version - Sufjan Stevens]

[I Feel it Coming ; The weekend, Daft Punk]

[Space Song ; Beach House] (ah the loml and the album is called depression cherry so it makes me happy)

𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥.

𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 18.

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈 ; 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐲

“Let me out!! LET ME OUT!”

You cry out, banging on the heavy wooden door until your knuckles bruise, red marks leaving their traces on your soft skin. The only lightsource is the tiny cell window, sun shining brightly and illuminating thousands of dust specks, floating around you like your lost hopes. The grey cement walls got closer and closer, seconds ticking in your head like a clock.

This is it.

This is how you die.

Crushed to death like a bug, your ambitions never getting their chance to prove themselves. All that you ever wanted to achieve was an impossibility as you were slowly but surely pressed together in the ever shrinking room.

Salty tears roll down your cheek, a feeling of hopelessness washing over you as you turn your back against the door, sliding down to your feet, banging the back of your head lightly against the entrance.

You feel the rough walls hitting both sides of your forearms, a last ear deafening scream leaving your parted lips.

Until you woke up.

With a series of jerking motions you sit up, panting like you just ran a marathon, the pounding of your heart audible to you. Darkness swallowed you as the night progressed, you considering yourself lucky to find yourself in your comfortable bed, still in your room.

Only after minutes do you notice your wet cheeks, the tears not being limited to your dream world. You blink, your coated eyelashes weighing heavy on your eyelids as you wipe tears with the back of your hand. The shock from your dream didn’t reside, you now being too afraid to fall back on your plushy pillow, fearful of what horrible dreams awaited you on the other side.

You grab your phone from the nightstand, immediately being hit with a bright light causing you to squint and turn away momentarily.

[Search: being crushed dream meaning]

Multiple articles from all sorts of sketchy websites popped up, you clicking on the first one.

“Stress or emotionally overwhelmed”

You laugh lazily, the dream making sense as you feel yourself slipping back into a peaceful slumber, phone still in hand as the muscles in your face relax, jaw opening, your dream world once again inviting you for a dance.

The sun woke you up with it’s radiant rays shining in your face, the closed blinds barely able to withstand them. Your phone was lying on the floor face down, you must have dropped it while sleeping you thought before rubbing your eyes from any dirt and staring up at the ceiling.

Another day

Another day that I’m here.

You wish you could pull the covers over your head, get lost in your own mind and never deal with the outside world ever again. But you had to.

You picked up your phone from the dusty floor that hadn’t been cleaned for weeks, you simply didn’t have the motivation to do it. The bright phone screen awaked you, you blinked your eyes a couple of times to see clearer.

[3 Missed Calls - Mom]

You couldn’t be bothered to call her back. She was only gonna nag at you for not calling back earlier, wondering what you’ve been up to now that you’ve been fired from your job as a receptionist at the local hotel. What were you gonna say? Drinking too much booze and crying yourself to sleep every night? You couldn’t, that would only hurt her.

Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

You got up, legs wobbling as you stumbled to the bathroom, head pounding from the amount of alcohol you consumed the night prior. Not with friends but alone, in your living room, in the one room apartment you no longer could afford.

Ice cold water splashed onto your sweaty face, that being the only hygiene you could muster today. You turned the tap off, grabbing a towel and wiping your face and looking deep into your own eyes.

That’s not me.

That’s not me looking back.

You poked your tongue out, hoping the figure in the mirror wouldn’t move and you could confirm your thoughts but alas the figure followed you. You felt crazy, it was as if you’ve died a long time ago but still saw everything that happened. You could stick your hand through a wall and it would disappear you thought, nothing was real. Not even you.

You entered your mess of a living room, seeing the wreck from yesterday night. Countless green glass bottles scattered on the table in front of the tv that was your only escape from reality. Blankets and pillows were thrown across the floor along with a box of tissues, your emotions bubbling up to the surface too often resulting in you crying and shaking on the floor, a feeling of fear washing over you late at night.

You felt alone.

But you weren’t.

Fuck, why were you so ungrateful? You had everything. A roof over your head, a family that loves you, friends, food on the table. Yet, even this couldn’t satisfy you. You blamed yourself for everything.

For your work firing you.

For your parents divorcing.

For your own pathetic life.

You shook your head as if you were shaking the negative thoughts out of your head, instead grabbing a couple of the empty bottles that were reeking with the scent of liquor and placing them on the kitchen counter. ‘Cleaning up’ in your eyes.

With a thump your back landed against the couch that swallowed you, engulfing you in a comforting embrace you got from no other person or object. This was your safe space you thought but not even your couch could save you from your intrusive reasonings. With a light click on the remote the tv screen lit up, your eyes still not used to the brightness since you’re always cooped up in your apartment where the blinds were always closed, another barrier between you and reality.

Nature documentaries, your favorite.

The calming male voice of the narrator being the only one you talked to during your lonely days. The animals could make you forget. They lived so freely, moving wherever they wanted without a care in the world, either swimming, hopping or flying. You wish you were born as another animal than human.

“The 52-hertz whale travels an astonishing 70 km a day but it’s voyage doesn’t bring social interactions. This whale is the loneliest whale in the world. It’s the only whale that is capable of emitting a whale call at such frequency, no other individuals communicating with the poor creature.”

You sat up in curiosity. It was a scream for help you thought. The whale needed help, it needed someone or something.

Just like you.

You sighed, watching the lonely whale on your tv screen, seeing it’s gracious movements despite its size. It did look lonely in that deep dark sea, wondering how it would be to fall into the abyss of water, swallowing you whole and erasing the life that once sparked your soul.

This was where you spent your entire days. The clock on the wall is ticking but the digits it displayed are oblivious to you. What did it matter if it was 5 pm or 1 am? You were still not gonna budge from your comforting seat on the couch. Drinking your feelings away no matter what time in the day.

This was you.

This was who you had become.

The sun started to set on the horizon, a delicate shade of light purple descending over it, covering the end of the world like the way a canopy covers the softness of a bed. You sigh, diverting your focus back on the tv screen after momentarily observing the life outside your window. Yet again, nature documentaries accompanied by the soft male voice, narrating every movement of the colibri that fluttered it’s wings at the speed of light on your screen in vivid colors.

You got that look in your eyes. That look of amazement which you now only had when looking at the beautiful colors of a exotic bird. You moved closer to the tv screen in the now dark living room, the sun setting at a fast pace. It reminded you of the many times your mom shouted at you to not sit so close to the screen, scaring you by saying that you’d get rectangular eyes.

Your childhood.

The only time you felt ease.

The only time your family was as one.

“y/n, what does your heart look like?” the therapist asked, scribbling mindlessly on a notepad.

“it’s a muscle that pumps blo-” you started but were quickly cut off.

“no, I mean what does your heart look like, how does it feel?”

You sighed, looking down at the grey marbled floor, your legs shaking in nervousness. You hesitated before speaking, scrambling in your mind to say something sensible before the words came pouring out of you.

“i-it looks like a house. A dark, empty house,,, but it’s comforting.”

Once again you heard the sound of a pencil writing incoherent sentences. Curious as to know what secrets were on that piece of A5-paper.

“is there anyone in the house with you?” the therapist inquired.

You shook your head before speaking.

“I don’t want to let anyone in, this is my safe space” you say, almost setting up an emotional barrier, not wanting to answer further questions.

The person sitting across from you hummed as you stared out the window behind them, the green ivy bushes already grown tall enough to cover half of the grimy window.

“is the house empty?” they asked to which you shook your head once again, avoiding the glassy-eyed stare of the therapist.

“no,,, there are dusty furniture covered in white cloths and-,,, and family photos in the drawers.”

“is it your family?”

You shook your head in disagreement.

“How did you end up here?”

You thought for a second, puffing out your cheeks, a habit of yours. You searched for a reason but not finding any.

“I just,,, was here one day.”

“The sun never shines here.” you added after a solid 30 seconds of silence.

You were stuck in that house.

The house that was once filled with happy memories of another family, you simply a ghost that was now trying to fit the broken pieces together, wanting desperately to see them smiling again.

Tears started forming in your eyes, a shiny gloss over your orbs.

But you never cried.

Not in front of others.

You thought often about that visit. Why your heart was an desolate house and why the words spilled out of you like a poisonous liquid.

You closed your eyes, the bright colors fluttering behind your eyelids as the comforting sounds of the woods blasted from the tv.

You wish you could be somewhere else.

Anywhere but here.

A single tear rolled down your cheek as a smile creeped up on your face, your butt against the floor as your knees were underneath your chin, your entire figure curled up into a small ball.

You sighed as your eyes fluttered open again. You were still here, in your apartment that smelled like nothing but alcohol and disappointment.

Firmly planting both your hands on the wooden floor you heaved yourself up with the intention of getting more tissues, the blue colored tissue box on the floor being as empty as others expectations of you.

But as you stood up the entire room started spinning, small specks of rainbow flashing by your eyes. You thought you stood up to quickly grabbing onto the wall for a second before collapsing against it, your entire body shaking. You cried louder, thinking you were about to pass out. Your hair stuck to your tear stained cheek as your puffy eyes closed once again.

What was happening?

The rain hit your unconscious body, your knees scraped from the concrete you lied on. You were soaked from head to toe, lying with your cheek against the ground in a puddle of rain. You woke up from your head pounding, your bloody knees only gaining your attention after you’ve looked around in a confused daze.

It was empty. An alleyway in the dark night. You found yourself panicked, anxiety bubbling inside of you. That’s when you saw it. A single street light above a red phone booth. You tried to stand up but fell over again as your legs could barely hold you up, now scraping your elbow against the gritty ground.

Crying out, you started shouting for help.

“HELP!! SOMEBODY HELP!”

You screamed at the top of your lungs, voice cracking as your tears started to look identical to the rain that was pouring over your cold, helpless body. Nobody came, your voice only echoing against the wall that the phone booth stood near to.

You got on all fours, crawling towards the light as pure pain shot through your body, small pebbles jabbing into the open wounds on your knees. You needed shield from the rain. Desperate huffs and groans escaping your parted lips as you dragged yourself through small puddles, the phonebooth seemingly getting further and further away from you. Looking through the soaked curtains that was your hair you were determined, this was life or death you thought as you continued to shout out for help, it appeared to be useless since the only other sound besides your own voice was the rain hitting the ground.

Shivering hands grabbed onto the corner of the crimson red phonebooth, the streetlight illuminating your teary eyes. You held onto that frigid and wet piece of metal as if you were holding onto a treasure.

As if you won a race.

As if you pleased your parents.

You looked up, dragging the inner side of your leg against the concrete, your pyjama pants wet to the bone. Desperately you got yourself together, your arms shaking as the rough pads of your hands met the ground, pushing yourself up into a standing position. You hissed at the pain in your knees as you grabbed onto the metal handle that opened the phonebooth, stepping inside.

The inside was surprisingly warm, as if someone had been there moments prior. A ripped piece of paper was taped on the glass pane to the right of the payphone, something that seemed like a phone number but could impossibly be since it wasn’t a full number.

[1800-xxx]

You looked at the payphone and then back at the washed out paper, the edges of the note curling and stained with yellow. Only when you looked back at the phone again did you notice the keypad. To your surprise there was an “x” button. Your head felt heavy, deciding to lean it against the other side of the stuffy phone booth, your hot breath creating steam on the glass.

You wanted to wake up from this nightmare.

Your entire body ached, let alone the blood that was dripping down your leg. The rusty payphone connected to the actual phone, a black handle connected to the underside of the machinery by a coiled metal rope. You picked up the phone, putting it against your ear and groaned when you remembered that you needed coins in order for the payphone to work

[0.5 gold/minute]

You rubbed your eyes. Gold? You sighed loudly, your knees barely being able to hold your weary body any longer. Hesitant fingers pressed the number that was jot down on the lined note, pressing each key accordingly. You pressed the last x before you pressed the “call” button, not expecting anything to happen.

But after a few seconds a female automated voice spoke to you.

“Thank you for calling. This place only appears to the suffering. If you are receiving this call, congratulations! Your prayers have been answered. Drink the liquid in the paper cup above this payphone. Drink the liquid. Drink the liquid. Drink the liquid.”

The voice lagged, a static sound accompanying the automated voice. Your breath got shaky as you looked around, holding the phone close to your ear with both hands. This could only be some sort of kidnapping scheme or this was a sick dream.

“It’s a dream, y/n. Calm down, nothing's gonna hurt you.”

You muttered to yourself, pinching your forearm tightly and wincing from pain. This wasn’t a dream after all.

Your gaze landed on the brown paper cup that was balancing delicately on top of the payphone, your cracking knuckles reaching for it as you let the phone fall out of your grasp, being caught mere inches from the sticky floor of the photobooth by the coil. Bringing the cup closer to your face you saw a dark viscous liquid that smelled sweet enough to sting your nose. Your face contorted into disgust, debating on whether not to drink the contents of the paper cup.

“Drink the liquid. Drink the liquid. Drink the liquid.”

The voice continued ringing in your ears. You had nothing to lose. If you died then you at least got what you wanted. Holding your breath, you brought the cup closer to your quivering lips, parting them slightly as you held your nose tightly, not wanting to feel whatever horrible taste could be found in that dark pit of goo.

It burned the moment it hit the delicate taste buds on your tongue, your voice muffled as the fluid descended down your throat, your larynx bobbing up and down with each gulp. Despite covering your nose you could taste the pungent sweetness, it tasted like pure acid. Not that you knew what that tasted like but what you assumed it would.

You coughed, accidentally spilling some of the goo on the floor, dribbling out of your mouth. The heavy rain pitter-pattered against the metal roof above your head, your eyelids threatening to shut. The cup fell out of your hand as you slammed your forehead against the payphone, not hard enough to bleed but hard enough to bruise. Your jawbone hurt from how much you’d been crying, eyes puffy as the salty tears mixed with the rain droplets on your face.

“i-i’m sorry mom, i’m so fucking sorry.”

You rolled your forehead left to right against the rusty material of the payphone, your soaked hair covering your empty eyes. Your knees bent under you causing you to fall on your butt with your knees clinking against each other, the sticky contents on the floor sticking to the soft fabric of your pants.

“I’M SO SORRY!”

You never thought a scream this loud could protrude its way out of your throat, the vibrations bouncing off the glass that to your surprise didn’t break. Everything started to become shades darker, almost as if a black and white filter settled over your vision.

No, this is how you’re gonna die.

Alone.

In the rain.

“Hyung, what are you gonna do with her?”

Muffled club music struck your ear along with a high pitched ringing, your eyelids felt as heavy as they’d been in the phonebooth. With your head pounding you slowly open your eyes, first not seeing anything but darkness before eight unknown men form a circle around you, hovering above you.

You shoot up from your lying position, fear overtaking your body. Where were you but more importantly why the fuck were you alone in a dark room with 8 young men? Not thinking straight, you decided to scream once again, thinking they would back off and let you be.

“Get away from me!!”

The males covered their ears, groaning in pain and a blonde boy throwing himself on the floor, rolling around.

“HEY!! HEY! WE’RE NOT GONNA HURT YOU!”

A strong voice overpowered yours, every word almost sounding like a grunt. You around, seeing that you were sitting on a soft leather couch before looking up at the male that was standing right infront of you. He was muscular, his biceps sitting snugly in the tight black t-shirt that covered him, a grey apron tied around his waist and his dark hair shielding his intense gaze and furrowed eyebrows. He had a jaw so sharp you could cut silence with it but silence was the last thing this room had. The boys were shouting at each other, trying to hush the others while screaming themselves.

“SHUT UP!!”

The room got quiet as the muscular guy roared, the seven other individuals coming to a halt. You looked at them all with a puzzled expression, all of them handsome, a fact you couldn’t deny.

“Where the fuck am I, who are you guys and p-please don’t kill me”

Your voice cracked at the end of your sentence as your eyes twinkled, tears teasing the corners of your eyes, fingers shaking in fear. The male closest to you sat down, the weight of the couch shifting. He rubbed his hand together before he started speaking in a calmer voice.

“I’m Changbin, bartender of the Lost Souls nightclub. That’s Chan, security guard.”

With his chin, he pointed at a guy in ripped black jeans with a white t-shirt, a sweatband across his forehead, pushing his slightly curly hair back. He didn’t look like a security guard, the only thing that might have pointed to that was the walkie-talkie hanging from his belt. You nodded before Changbin continued.

“And those are some friends, frequent visitors if you will.”

A light haired boy with shiny rhinestones under his eyes stepped forward after he’d been hugging the tallest guy in the room the entire time.

“u-uhm, the name’s Felix! This is Hyunjin, Seungmin, Jeongin, Jisung and Minho, and yeah those two, Chan and Changbin.”

He pointed at each guy respectively and the room filled with small “hi’s” and smiles. They didn’t look threatening, all of them being very timid and looking down at the ground. Your gaze diverted back to Changbin that was staring at you the entire time.

“Can somebody tell me where I am?”

Changbin cleared his throat, stomping his boot a couple of times.

“This is gonna sound,,, interesting but you have to believe me-”

You interrupted the muscular boy, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear, noticing that it had dried.

“Why should I believe you? We’ve just met?”

Changbin sighed.

“Just,,, hear me out”. You nodded before he continued.

“You answered a phone call right?”

Nodding once again your gaze drifted towards the other boys that were looking at Changbin with googly eyes.

“Well,,, this place only appears to those who are,,, struggling with themselves. Obviously you don’t have to tell us why you’re here but,,, this is a place to let go. The only rule here is no fighting”

“Or dancing on the tables” the tall blonde boy added with a snark causing a squirrel-like boy to giggle, playfully hitting the blonde before looking at Chan who glared back at him, the boy being flustered and turning serious again. Jisung, his name was.

“W-what did that phonebooth do,,, does everyone go through that?” you asked with a curious tone.

“Usually it’s a pleasant experience going in that phonebooth, the sun shining and people hanging around that alleyway before taking the phonecall and drinking the elixir,,, there must have been a glitch in the system.”

He sounded unsure, scratching the back of his head as he looked at all of the boys.

“System? What system? I’m dreaming, right?” you said in panic, wanting to get out of this oddly suffocating room.

“W-we are real and you’re not dreaming,,, it’s just that, we can’t meet in real life you know? This is a place to,,, let oneself go and I know it’s scary since you only get here randomly, it must have been hard passing out like that,,”

A boy with fluffy light brown hair and a pretty eye smile said, Seungmin! You remembered his name because you thought it fitted him, sounding both soft and sharp at the same time.

“y-yeah,,, it was scary b-but thank you for caring about me” you said with a half smile

“oh! and also, we treated all your wounds, luckily you were passed out so you couldn’t feel the pain but let me tell you,,, it looked awful, I don’t understand how you did that Chan” Jisung remarked with wide eyes, looking at you concerned before turning to Chan.

“Did what?” you inquired to which Jisung responded.

“Removing the pebbles in your wounds, h-how did you even get those in there?” he asked to which you tried to remember, seeing hazed memories of you crawling on the asphalt in the storming rain.

“I was crawling towards the phone booth'' you said quietly as the boys gazed at you with concern. The atmosphere got dusked and in an attempt to lift the mood you cleared your throat, lightly running your hands over the bandaids that were plastered on your scraped knees, wincing from the contact.

Changbin made eye contact with Chan, jerking his head towards the door to signal for him and the other boys to leave the room. Chan nodded and patted Jeongin on the shoulder, trying to scoot all the boys out of the room like a shepherd leading a bunch of silent sheep.

“Let’s have some fun! Drinks on me boys~” Chan exclaimed to get the boys off their worried thoughts about you, the curly haired male closed the door quietly and both you and Changbin stayed silent until the footsteps were faint on the other side of the black wooden door.

“Is this better?” Changbin said with a slight smile at the end. “They can be quite the bunch sometimes, either they’re very much off the deep end or they’re just a rowdy mess” he laughs, looking out in the distance before he looks at you with your knees under your chin, holding your legs close to your body.

“So,,, we’re all here for similar reasons?” you mumbled, holding your gaze stable on his dark eyes.

“yeah,,, pretty much. We’ve all dealt with something mentally draining and of course you don’t have to tell but I just want you to know that nothing will hurt you here.” Changbin replied.

“I do want to tell,,, but it’s just that I don’t want to be alone about it. I’ve never been around people that have shared the same experiences.”

Changbin slid closer to you on the couch, putting one leg over the other.

“It’s like that for,,, almost every single individual in the club, we all want to tell our stories and this is the place to do it. No one is gonna judge you for it. I remember thinking that when I first got here, ‘everyone is gonna judge me for not drinking’.”

Changbin’s last sentence caught your attention.

“but aren’t you the bartender? shouldn’t you know all the,,, liquors and such?”

Changbin sighed and you regretted you sentence, thinking that maybe you asked a too personal question.

“I do know them but not in the way one should.”

Something clicked in your head when the boy uttered those words. You nodded silently, letting your gaze fall to your wounded knees as your shaky voice spoke;

“So do I”

Changbin’s gaze was fixated on the floor as he shared what was on his mind.

“But no one judged me,,, eh,,, I never asked for your name!” the boy said to which you giggled, reassuring Changbin that you were in a stable state.

“It’s y/n, nice to meet you!” you said, stretching your hand forward to shake his. Changbin smiled towards your gesture.

“pretty name, angel” he said, shaking your hand and noticing how small it was in his grasp, the cold metal of his rings contrasting to your now warm hands. He didn’t let go immediately, instead holding your hand and feeling it’s warm temperature, running his thumb across your knuckles softly. You snarked at his comment.

“angel? didn’t know we had established pet names for each other in barely 10 minutes of meeting.”

“and I didn’t know angels landed in this place” he said back. “i’ve had to deal with 7 annoying boys that never listen to me,,, well, 8 but one of them,,, disappeared.”

You nodded, not wanting to overstep any boundaries by asking about that 8th guy incase it was an emotional topic.

“how is it? working with alcohol despite having quite a rocky relationship to it?”

The buff boy hummed, drumming his fingers on the seat next to him.

“It’s better than one might think. I get to be around it without engaging in the activity myself, simply serving clients and the boys already know it, we look out for each other. Like a family you know!” Changbin said with a happy tone, not wanting the conversation to get you in a bad mood after all you’ve been through that night.

“family,,, could use one of those” you joked and Changbin actually laughed which you’ve never felt with anyone before, the only response you usually got was your therapist writing down your self deprecating jokes with their orange lead pencil.

“you’re always welcome to us” he said, letting go of your hand that now felt empty. You felt safe. There was no way of describing it but you felt this caring aura around this man, drawing you closer to him.

“how long does this last? i’m guessing you go back to ‘the real world’ again at some point” you spoke, making quotation marks with your hands.

“it depends, it’s different every time but you will pass out just like you did when you got here but you won’t go back to the phone booth, you’ll wake up where you were last in real life. Time goes on in the real world but here,,, clocks don’t really work. We’ve tried bringing clocks or phones with us but the digits don’t change.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. This had to be a dream.

“w-whats with the gold on the phone? Does money exist in this,,, universe?” you asked with confusion to which Changbin shook his head.

“no, drinks are free and so are the phone calls, i have no idea why the phone booth says that or why Chan said that drinks are on him, he must have been stressed trying to get the boys out of here” Changbin said to which you giggled.

“i-is there any time where you never return?” you asked, earning a bittersweet smile from the male.

“yeah,,, if those issues you have get resolved but,, that rarely happens. Destructive behaviours feed of each other. Get rid of one and it gets replaced with another.”

You recognised that. It was always something, you could never live in peace without feeling the need to self sabotage.

“Poor innie knows that too well” he added with an acerbic tone.

“innie?” you tilted your head in question, gazing around the dark room that was rather empty, only a couple of dark colored shelves on the wall and the couch you were sitting on along with the ceiling lamp that was stingy with it’s light.

“Jeongin, the youngest among us. Poor boy has been through it all, if it’s not drugs it’s self harm and Minho is a real dick sometimes, bringing pocket knives in “defense”. He’s delusional, thinking everyone is out to get him and Jeongin knows this. We’ve found our precious little boy in the bathroom too many times, holding those stupid knifes Minho keeps having on him and crying till his cheeks puff up.”

You took a mental note to keep your distance from Minho, feeling bad for Changbin that had to be amidst this mess while dealing with his own emotions. You could relate, being the emotional pillar between your parents that hated each other to the brink of physical violence. There’s always someone that has to suffer because of other people's problems.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Changbin.” you managed to stutter out, not knowing what else to add to the conversation.

“Ah,,, don’t be, y/n! Just take good care of yourself, that’s what matters the most to me” Changbin said. You smiled, moving closer and hovered your hand above his shoulder.

“Can I?” you asked quietly to which Changbin nodded and moments later felt your warm hand patting his back. He felt listened to. Understood. And even though he was yet to tell you his entire life story he knew that you were different from the others. You actually cared about him.

The room started spinning again and you clutched onto Changbin’s black t-shirt, trying to stabilize yourself. Those rainbow colored speckles you had seen earlier appeared again, vision blurring right in front of your eyes.

“y/n? how are you?” Changbin’s voice was worried but he knew what was happening.

“it’s spinning again, I t-think I’m gonna pass,,, out” you muttered,

“It’s alright y/n, I’m here yeah?” His rough voice distinguished itself from his comforting words as you held onto the dark haired boy, a faint smell of tobacco interlacing with the air you breathed in through your nose. Your two arms were now wrapped around the male with your face against his broad shoulder, eyes shutting as tightly as they could, face contorting into fear until everything disappeared. The vague beats of the music. The pain that ached from your knees. The feeling of finally finding home in someone's arms.

Everything turned into nothing in Changbin’s embrace. You were slowly turning into his everything because he had nothing in his life.

And then you woke up.

You gasped for air as you woke up in panic, hunching over on the floor in a coughing fit, clawing at your neck for oxygen. Panting on the floor you put your forehead against the wooden laminated floorboards, your frizzy hair blocking out the little light that was in the apartment and being hit with the malodorous smell of distilled alcohol.

What was that?

You were convinced that it was some kind of wicked dream. An escape from reality even. But as Changbin said, you did wake up in the exact same place and position you passed out in. A long breath seized through your lungs as you shifted in your position on the floor.

“Son of a bitch!”

Tears prickled the corners of your eyes as the hard floor hit your wounded knees. You quickly sat down on your butt, lifting your knees up to your chin and only then did your heart drop.

It wasn’t a dream. Your eyes lingered on the bandaids that were placed with the utmost care across your both knees, a stain of dark brown blood seeping through the sticky elastic material and dried blood staining your knees in a haphazard attempt of somebody trying to wipe it off without hurting you. You managed to grab the edge of the sofa, levering yourself up with, testing out the strength left in your wobbly legs. Your phone lit up, sitting on the place you’re usually curled up in. Throwing yourself on the soft piece of furniture you observed the phone screen, lost eyes wandering mindlessly over the brightly lit display.

What you noticed wasn’t the worried text from your mother.

It was the fact that the digits hadn’t changed from when you passed out.

Your head snapped towards the tv screen and the phone fell from your hand when you stared at the screen, breath trembling.

The same documentary. The same colibri.

This couldn’t be. Surely you hadn’t just stopped time,,, right? This was not something Changbin warned you about. How long until you meet Changbin again? An hour,,, or ever?

There was nothing else you could do besides wait. Wait until the next time you pass out. And what better way to make time pass but to be confronted by your mother? You pulled up the text on your phone and read it hastily before scoffing.

[Are you eating well? Please call if you see this]

Since when did she care about you? You knew that she did care. Somewhere deep inside her motherly heart she did care but the way she displayed that so-called ‘affection’ didn’t make it obvious. You tried to justify every word, believing all the lies she fed you. You tried so hard to believe that you were healthy, that your mental health wasn’t deteriorating before the eyes of your very own mother that was refusing to see the truth. That her child was indeed in pain. You couldn’t blame her, it was her way of dealing with the issue but it didn’t make it easier for you. Your thumbs hovered above the keyboard, you couldn't think of anything better to write and quickly typed it down before you hit send.

[yes, i’m busy]

Busy contemplating your existence. Your father wasn’t exactly any better. Throwing out each one of your family members until there was only him left. He had no trouble filling that emptiness, simply creating a new family and forgetting you as if you were a chapter of the book called ‘previous life’. You didn’t mind, not after everything he did to you and your mother. There was no need for a person like that in your life but unfortunately it influenced you more than you thought, always seeking validation in either work or relationships because how could you validate yourself after your self esteem had been crushed by this tyrant?

You threw your phone on the table, a clink noise being heard as it hit a bottle, knocking it over but not breaking it. Your parental issues or mental health was for once not the biggest concern in your life, now instead wanting to search for the answers that could explain the nightclub. How did it exist? What caused it to exist and who was behind it? You needed to get back there somehow.

The tv had turned off by itself, you found yourself waking up on the couch, using a pillow as a blanket, hugging the warm material closer to your body as you whined. With confused and lost eyes you scanned the room for a clock, hitting the table a couple of times and finally getting your hands on your phone, bringing it closer to your eyes.

[3:02 am] the digits lit up. You rubbed your tired eyes with your left hand, throwing the pillow on the floor and using the phone display as a torch in the pitch dark room. There was no point in falling asleep again, you had already slept so many hours, sleeping anymore would only make you drowsy the entire next day. You yawned as you staggered towards the bathroom, flicking the lightswitch on the wall and squinting fiercely as you were blinded by the harsh bathroom ceiling light. You put the phone down and quickly caught your reflection in the mirror before you sat down on the toilet to pee, folding a couple of sheets toilet paper in your hand. You yawned again as you flushed, going to wash your hands but once again being amused by your reflection.

That’s not me.

It’s the person I’ve become but never wanted to be.

Your dark circles almost reached your cheekbones, the wounds on your knees still stinging even after hours of peaceful slumber. You poked your tongue out to which the reflection did the same, staring back at you with frizzy hair and puffy eyes from tears. You couldn’t trust it. Mirrors lie you thought and so does every single reflective surface in the entire world. You would never know what you truly looked like and that ignited panic in you, feeling your breath rapidly increasing as you held onto the white cold edge of the bathroom sink.

This happened. Too often. It was the feeling of not knowing yourself or your surroundings. Like you had just appeared in this world, scared and alone. To not know who you are and having to live with yourself til the day you die frightened you. But you didn’t know if death was any better. Sure, the thought was comforting but being buried under layers of soil, having flowers and insects living their best life above you as you simply rotted away wasn’t the solution to all your worries although a moment of eternal peace did sound tempting.

You felt a lump in your throat, trying to cough as if it was some sort of anxiety flem when in reality it was your brain setting up imaginary barricades. Your hair draped in front of your face and with furious eyes you peeked up, seeing your almost demon-like expression and smiling psychotically.

I hate you.

I fucking hate you, y/n l/n.

Your smile was wiped off the moment the room started spinning. Your reflection becomes diffuse in the mirror as if it wasn’t enough not recognising it. A loud gulp made its way down your esophagus as you continued staring at yourself in disgust. You blinked slowly, every time you closed your eyes you saw those rainbow colored specks all around, almost as if they were distracting you from what was happening, like a kaleidoscope for a child. You felt as if the ground started shaking, an earthquake in your personal world that was separated from the real one. Maybe you were going back to the nightclub, to Changbin’s reassuring arms or maybe you we’re really going crazy this time. The specks got bigger, turning into elaborate patterns in neon colors that clouded your vision. You kept eye contact with your reflection for what seemed like forever, despising the person that was staring back, your gaze broken as your eyes rolled back in your skull, your eyes white as if you’d been hexed before you collapsed on the frigid bathroom floor.

“y/n? y/n, wake up!”

The sun dazed your eyes as you woke up on the slightly toasty concrete. Changbin tilted his head as a cigarette was hanging out the corner of his mouth, bright sunlight behind him. He had on a jean jacket with patches from several underground punk and rock bands, his neck was embellished with multiple silver chains and his hair was slicked back, glistening in the heat. He knocked the wind out of you even more, as if passing out in the bathroom wasn’t enough torture.

“oh y/n! you’re awake!”

Chan says, coming closer to you, this time he’s wearing a tanktop that showed off his flawless abs, your mouth watering at the sight. You only then remembered that you looked like a mess, still in your pyjamas that consisted of an old sports event t-shirt and small basketball shorts.

“a-am i in the club again?” you say, rubbing your eyes with both hands before feeling your head pounding a bit, sitting up slowly and feeling the harsh ground beneath you.

“no! you’re at the phone booth, everyone is here now oh and, this is usual how it’s supposed to look.”

After your vision stops blurring you look around, seeing the same alleyway and the same crimson phone booth but being hit with a completely different atmosphere. People were standing in all types of fancy clothes, trendy bright colors, exaggerated makeup and 7 inch platforms. The sun was beaming, it felt like a hot summer day with friends, just like the old days back when you had friends.

“why does y/n always wear pyjamas? don’t you have any cool clothes?” Hyunjin snarks, pushing his blonde hair behind his ears, displaying his dangly silver and black earrings.

“knock it off asshat, the poor girl is probably scared off her mind” Seungmin sneaks up behind the blonde, punching him lightly in the stomach before he smiles sweetly at you. Duality was this man's second name.

“t-thank you seungmin” you said, giving a smile back but being met with a surprised facial expression.

“you remembered my name!” he said, giggling adorably. You gave a small nod before you looked back at Changbin that was drawing a breath from the cigarette, puffing out a white cloud close to your face before waving it away. You noticed how tired Changbin looked, his cheekbones sunken in and his complexion bleak. He stretched out his hand to help you up which you grabbed, the insides between his pointer and ring finger being slightly stained orange from tobacco. You wobbled up on your feet, knees slightly unstable but feeling better from sitting down a while.

“are you alright y/n? i could open that resting room if you want” he said before inhaling smoke once again, spreading in his mouth and intoxicating him. You shook your head.

“i want to see the club, why not while we’re there you know?” you said, smiling brightly and making his heart jump. Changbin hid the grin he so desperately wanted to display by dropping the cigarette bud on the concrete, stepping on it with his heavy boots that had chain details attached.

“alright, whatever you want angel” Changbin sneered which caught the attention of the 7 other boys, all staring at the jean-jacketed boy.

“angel? seems like someone has a crush” Hyunjin remarked making Jisung burst out in laughter.

“says master heartbreaker” Chan said under his breath making Hyunjin furrow his eyebrows, diverting his gaze from Changbin to Chan instead.

“come on you guys! can we not go to the club already?” Felix said, him also wearing a crop top along with a leather chest harness that accentuated his figure. Jisung nodded and made his way towards the phone booth that had droplets of steam on the inside, Felix and Hyunjin following shortly after the squirrel-like boy. You observed the alleyway. People leaning against the grey wall where the phone booth was, either smoking or chatting. Some were standing, others sitting down directly on the concrete, feeling the same heat you felt as you woke up.

With unstable steps you walked towards the phone booth behind all the boys, Changbin staying by your side and waving his hands towards the 7 boys that had somehow crammed into the humid and stuffy metal building, Chan closing the glassdoor as a couple of the boys giggled. You and Changbin stood on the other side of the door, seeing how Chan grabbed the black phone you had once held with cold dirty hands and Seungmin giggling as he took a sip out of the contents in the paper cup, passing it around to the others that did the same.

They disappeared right in front of you. Your mouth stood agape. They didn’t pass out, they just disappeared into thin air, leaving the airless crimson structure empty yet again.

“w-wait, why didn’t they pass out?” you asked, turning to Changbin as you ran a hand through your hair.

“it happens when you’re new. the body isn’t used to the entire,,, universe switch so you will probably pass out this time also but don’t worry, i’ll catch you”

Changbin grinned, opening the door and being hit by the lack of oxygen. He held the door open for you to which you smiled, stepping inside and seeing that the paper cup had been refilled automatically. The door closed behind Changbin, you standing in close proximity to the boy as you lifted the phone slowly, still feeling the warmth from Chan’s hand. The dark haired boy grabbed the brown paper cup, not even looking at the goopy substance before drinking it, seeing his adam's apple bob up and down. You put the phone towards your ear, wondering why you didn’t hear the female automated voice.

“it doesn’t work?” you said with confusion to which Changbin smiled, pressing in the infamous number on the rusty keypad.

[1800-xxx]

“yeah, it doesn’t if you don’t type in the number” he chuckled, holding the paper cup in both hands and leaning against the humid glass.

Suddenly you hear the voice you were dreading the hear.

It reminded you of that night. That dark rainy evening. The voice started to lag, just like it did last time. You hung up and turned around whereupon you saw Changbin handing you the paper cup. You gulped and put your lips on the edge of the cup, looking at him with unease but feeling comfortable with his presence. You tilted the cup, feeling the sweetness trickle down your throat, almost stinging your insides. Changbin smiled, he looked like the typical bad boy from every cliché teen movie but it made your heart flutter, slightly embarrassed at the state of yourself. He pushed away from the glass wall and swiped his thumb across the corner of your mouth, wiping off the sweet liquid and licking it off the tip of his thumb. You stood there, frozen at the sudden action, gazing softly at him.

“you had something there” he chuckled as you started to feel lightheaded again, your eyelids getting heavy.

“thanks” you said shortly, your gaze drifting down on the dirty floor beneath your feet, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Changbin didn’t say anything, catching you mere seconds after you collapsed on the grimy surface. Admiring your heavy eyes and puffy cheeks for a second before he himself disappeared into the abyss.

“One Moscow mule, please!”

An unfamiliar voice shouted through the blasting club music accompanied by what sounded like the shaking off a cocktail shaker. You groaned, your eyes fluttering open and being hit by the beams of a thousand light machines in all sorts of colors.

“Oh y/n!!” Jisung shouted on the other side of the bar, you found yourself sitting on a chair in the corner of the bar, on the same side as Changbin that was working diligently, mixing some concoction into a metal shaker. You rubbed your eyes, yawning and wondering how you could sleep sitting up. You heard Changbin set the metal cup down, telling something to the woman beside him, must be his co-worker you thought. He kneeled down next to the chair you were sitting on, looking up at you with curious eyes.

“how are you feeling?” he asked loudly, trying to overvoice the music.

“im good” you answered back just as loud, the two of you locking eyes. Changbin smiled at you with his tired face, glancing over the glasses that were located beneath the bar.

“you want something to drink?” Changbin said to which you nodded.

“give me anything” you said, messing with your hair and sighing. You felt tired, an urge to sleep despite the loud blaring music. Maybe it was more of an emotional fatigue. A lack of feeling. And that’s usually when you turn to the bottles. Changbin nodded, standing up and returning to his co-worker, starting to grab all kinds of pretty coloured alcohol.

“ay! y/n! come join us!” you heard Felix say, him standing with a glass in his hand, the other boys scattered around the club along with the other troubled individuals. You smiled widely, looking around and noticing the small exit gate connected to the bar. You patted Changbin on the back, him turning around with a grin before you exited through the gate, closing it after you and pushed through the crowd of people, making your way over to the boys.

“y/n, welcome to where you will feel alive” Jisung yelled, spreading his arms and nearly knocking someone in the hand.

It was truly living you thought. Every single way to escape reality was located here whether it would be alcohol, drugs or sex. People dancing and jumping, grinding and rubbing up against each other. In multiple booths there were people making out, touching in unknown places. Many looked outright high, moving as if their body was possessed by some dance god, not knowing how to control their limbs. You could have sworn you saw Seungmin putting a yellow pill in his mouth, smiling mischievously at someone you didn’t know.

So this was letting go.

“y/n! here!” you heard Changbin’s voice call behind you, turning around and seeing him putting a glass of clear liquid onto the stained wooden bar with coasters scattered all around, a couple lime wedges floating around with the ice in the glass.

“vodka tonic, giving you the strong ones” he said, grinning, to which you smiled back, understanding the hint to his personal life through his eyes. The glass was cold against your warm hand since you were in this stuffy environment filled with countless people and without any windows, only a ventilation system that led to nothing. You put the edge of the glass against your lips, taking a sip and swallowing harshly, feeling bitterness that tasted sweet because that’s what alcohol does when it’s consumed on a particularly bitter day. Or life.

The other boys were dancing, Chan mostly hanging around the edges of the nightclub and observing the nightlife. You made your way over to him, taking another sip in order to gain the courage to strike up a conversation.

“Sup? you feeling any better?” he asked before you had the chance to even open your mouth.

“better. why aren’t you enjoying yourself like the others?”

“i mean,,, i’m technically doing my job even though i’m not getting paid for it. i just like to be in charge i guess,,,” he said, getting more and more silent as he spoke. You nodded.

“i do work with stuff in real life as well” he added, to which you raised your eyebrows.

“what do you work with,,, if you don’t mind me asking!” you said, taking another sip of what tasted like Lucifer’s saliva.

“music producer! it’s tiresome but,,, i don’t really need sleep,,, or more like i can’t sleep. lucky there’s energy drinks and naps” he said with a giggle, his dimples displaying as he chuckled, leaning against the black walls of the nightclub.

“must be tough,,, but wait,,, i’ve never heard your music,,, and also shouldn’t you be the DJ then?” you said confused, swirling the liquid in your hand.

“but that’s the thing y/n, all these people, every single person you see in this room lives in another universe”

You gazed at him, Chan looking straight ahead towards the crowd.

“what do you mean by different universes?” you asked to which curly haired boy cocked his eyebrow.

“we will never coexist y/n, when i tell you that we’ve tried to bring our friendships to the real world i really mean it. we will never exist in your life outside of this hub and,,, it sucks.” Chan took a pause before speaking, pondering on what to say next.

“-thats what happened with a friend we had. i’m saying had because we don’t know where they are or what adventures await them. They just,,, disappeared” Chan said mellowly, you humming in response as you took a final sip of the devil’s juice, already feeling your face heating up.

“h-how does one get out of this place,,, forever i mean” you asked, leaning back against the same wall as Chan and looking right ahead as the song changed to a slower, almost psychedelic beat.

“when said person gets help,,, or starts to feel better or when you hit the casket, three options basically” he says with an acerbic smile. “what? Do you like Changbin?” Chan says teasingly. “you’ve been catching glances at him this entire conversation.”

He was right, you had been glancing over at Changbin occasionally, you couldn’t help it. Was it an excuse for you to look at his cute face from a distance or because you cared about him? You laughed it off but Chan turned serious.

“you know that’s it’s not possible.” he says quietly.

“what? what is not possible?”

“a relationship”

You choked on your own saliva, being blinded by the annoyingly bright strobe lights.

“a relat- ya! do you really think I have time for any of that? besides,,, i’m not really interested in Changbin.”

“who said only you should be interested?”

Your eyes widened when Chan said that. No way could Changbin have these weird feelings to you, the feeling shouldn’t be mutual.

“h-has Changbin said something about you?” you asked timidly, gazing over at Changbin that temporarily made eye contact across the club.

“why don’t you ask him yourself? but i’m telling you y/n,, don't get attached, you will get hurt,,, j-just like i did once”

Sure, you understood what Chan meant. Everyone was here for the time being. One day he could disappear if he decided that the life he was living now either isn’t worth it or he takes control and makes something out of it. There comes a time where you are too tired of living the way you do and so you do something about it, no matter if it’s good or bad.

Changbin waved his hand at you, wanting you to join him behind the bar where now Felix was standing and annoying Changbin by tickling him or whispering in his ear as he moved his body with much fluidity. You smiled, waving towards Chan shortly before you once again made your way through the crowd, feeling lightheaded but in a positive way, as if you really were forgetting reality for a moment.

“y/n!! come!!” Changbin yelled, bouncing slightly to the typical house beat that was now playing, barely holding the bottle of gin since Felix was pestering him playfully. Changbin’s co-worker opened the wooden gate for you, smiling sweetly at you and you doing the same back, your gaze drifting down until you notice the red marks around her throat. You were often scared by people. Not by their actions but by their way to cover them up and of course, you were guilty of this too. Looking at these people you would never guess the pain that was going on inside, the surface level happiness really is surface level. You could smile genuinely towards her, you didn’t have to understand everything she was going through but you knew how it was, smiling when bridges are burning in your mind.

Sometimes pretending hurts more.

“Changbin!” you squealed after you had passed by his co-worker, holding the empty glass that was now nothing more but half melted ice cubes and three wedges of bright green lime. Without thinking you put the glass down on his working station and pull him into a tight hug, squeezing your body against his and feeling the warmth radiate off of him. He froze awkwardly in your arms before loosening up, wrapping his arms around you and ultimately taking in your scent that was now mostly pungent with liquor and sleep, a soft scent that Changbin couldn’t get enough off. You felt safe which was rare in a nightclub especially knowing that most people were either high or carrying weapons. But there was something about him that made you feel like home. It felt familiar, like you’d visited his soul. As if the two of you were sharing the same empty house in your heart despite you never letting anyone in, too scared to be hurt again. Maybe you could let Changbin in, maybe he was different.

The hug lasted longer then you thought, his eyes darting all over the stuffy room before he slowly let go, taking a long inhale of the almost addictive smell. The two of you locked eyes, a shy red tinged his cheeks that was only visible due to there being a spotlight just above him.

“can i talk to you for a second?” you asked, rather boldy which was odd. He nodded and grabbed your wrist only to pull you in behind the same black door where you once ended up in, confused and dazed. He let go of you and closed the door behind him, you standing in the middle of the room that now had tiny light standing on the floor, nothing more new then the same old shelfs and black leather couch.

“what did you wanna talk about?,,, figured you maybe wanted to tell me somewhere more quiet”

‘Quiet’ was an overstatement, the music was making the walls shake and even though it was muffled the jumping of hundreds of people could still be heard in the small dark room where you were alone, with him.

“ehm,,, i don’t know really,,,” you stammered, not knowing what else to say.

“is something wrong y/n? Do you need to be alone for a while? i can le-”

“no, thank you,,, i just wanna be with you.” You interrupted him, his eyebrows furrowing when you uttered the last sentence. He stepped closer to you, the soles of his shoes making a pleasant sound against the floor. You lifted your gaze at him, Changbin standing right in front of you. Beauty that could make you drool. His hair was slightly messy, temples sweaty as he had worked and fetched all kinds of bottles for hours, the grey apron marking his title in the nightclub.

“but i’m here with you! Are you playing some sort of prank on me? did chan set this up?” he chuckled with a smirk, throwing a gaze at the door before diverting it back to your glossy eyes.

“n-no,,, Changbin, I want you”

His mind went blank and so did yours.

You don’t know why you said that but it was too late. The cat was out of the bag. It was too late.

“y/n? are you drunk?” he asked, looking at you seriously and putting the back of his hand against your forehead, suspecting you might be getting sick. You shook your head in response.

“no, it was only one drink, you know? i just,,, kinda,, want you”

You grabbed his hand that was still lingering on your forehead and drew it closer to your heart, holding firmly by his wrist. The clothed valleys of your breasts made contact with the rough palm of his hand, Changbin’s eyes still glued to yours. He scoffed loudly.

“and here i was,,, thinking it was some sort of unrequited love”

It felt like his hand turned into thorns, stinging your heart. So he wanted you too.

Changbin’s hand that rested on your boob snaked upwards, grabbing your jaw as he smiled at you briefly, tilting his head and slowly closing his eyes, attaching his rough lips on yours. Your eyes widened before they closed slowly, eyelashes fluttering in a flirty haze. This was how it felt to kiss someone you loved. It was as if a thousand fireworks ignited inside your beating heart, flying and exploding in an array of colors. A pure lightshow.

Your hands made their way to Changbin’s angular face, cupping his cheeks and feeling his sharp cheekbones against the palms of your hands. Your noses accidentally bumped into each other as your heads tilted from left to right, a sensual pace to the kiss to which the dark haired boy chuckled, adding some laughter to the otherwise grave situation that contained the sounds of two lips smooching each other. The music was only adding to the ambiance, Changbin’s hands wandering and exploring territory on your body that was foreign to him but very well-known to you. Your wet tongues danced around to a serenade, his kiss was strong, sure to leave an unforgettable impression on you. You would want him from now on and forever.

You moaned into the kiss as his hands rested on your ass, groping the flesh that was covered by your pyjamas-shorts. This made Changbin cock his eyebrow, pieces of his slicked back hair falling into his face as making him look like a charming 80′s prince. His fingers danced around the elastic band of your pants, fingers hooking and playfully tugging on the string, a silent plea for you to take them off. You smiled against his lips, saliva exchanging in a heavy and steamy kiss, your cheeks growing warmer by the second.

The two figures melted into one as Changbin pulled you closer to his body, feeling his cock poke through the coarse material of his jeans against your lower abdomen. Good to know that he was enjoying this as much as you were. Your hands descended downwards, traveling along his black tight t-shirt, the jean jacket from earlier being god knows where. The contour of his abs made you smirk, you knew what he was hiding beneath these clothes that you ravenously wanted to tear up. You palmed him through his pants, earning a hiss from the male that panted heavily into the kiss.

You broke the kiss, taking a moment to breathe as your lips were separated by a lonely string of saliva. You grabbed Changbin’s wrist, pushing him down on the leather couch as you straddled his lap, feeling his hard-on against your aching wet cunt. You wanted him so bad and here he was, in front of you for only you to devour. Changbin grabbed onto your hips, pinning them down against his cock and leaning forward to reattach his lips on yours, teeth accidentally clicking against each other moments before your sloppy hot tongues met, feeling his tongue against the soft surface of yours. The sound of lips meeting ringed through your ears, your hips grinding against Changbin’s crotch in a steady pace, feeling your neediness grow. Your hands ran along his abdomen, sneaking them up inside his shirt and tugging on the black material of his t-shirt, pulling it above his head. What was hiding underneath his clothes was more than a pleasant surprise. Your lips moved swiftly against his jawline, peppering kisses on his delicate neck as your hands teased the supple skin of his abdomen, feeling the outline of his muscles against your touch.

Changbin placed his hands near your stomach, pulling your oversized sleeping shirt over your head in the same fashion you did moments earlier. You gasped as the fabric danced over your now hardened nipples, freeing your tits. Of course you didn’t wear a bra when you were in the comfort of your own home but you didn’t think anyone would actually undress you, especially not Changbin. He hummed at the sight, cupping your tits in his hands that were covered in metal rings, feeling the coldness against your heated skin. You shuddered, the sensation shooting down to your dripping core. He kneaded them in his hands as you rubbed against his cock, his boner having a visible outline through his pants, you couldn’t help but to fiddle with his belt buckle, undoing it and hearing the clicking sound of the buckle hitting itself. Changbin pulled away from your swollen lips, tapping you on the thigh to step off in order for him to pull his pants down. You moved to the seat next to him on the couch, the leather sticking back as you laid down, lifting your hips up to remove your pyjama pants along with your panties that quickly hid underneath the fussy pants due to it’s rather interesting print, small teddy bears printed on the fabric. You kicked off your shoes, more like slippers that you wore indoors.

Changbin swiftly pulled down his jeans and black boxers in one motion, throwing them close to your pile of clothes at the base of the couch. Your eyes widened, mouth watering at the pure sight of his cock, a pretty bead of precum decorating his slit, contrasting with the crimson shiny tip. A big gulp descended down your esophagus, heat tinging your cheeks. He chuckled from seeing you stare at his member with shiny doe eyes that reflected in the small lamp on the floor.

“You seem,,, intrigued” he chuckled to which you giggled, not believing that you were really in this small room together with him.

“Y-yeah,,, maybe I am” you snarked, moving your gaze to his eyes and smiling. Only on your way upwards his well-sculpted body did you see the boy holding a small blue plastic item. You furrowed your eyebrows when Changbin opened the packet, retrieving a slightly slippery condom from inside.

“Do we even need that?” you laughed before continuing. “I mean if nothing gets transferred to the real world neither should pregnancies or STD’s”

Changbin tsked, rolling the condom onto his veiny cock, turning slightly away from you to avoid your intense eyes.

“Ask Chan, he would know” Changbin said, turning back to you and making his way over to the couch.

“N-no,,, no way.” You shook your head, your mouth agape as your eyes still danced over Changbin’s buff thighs.

“Yup, knocked up a girl” he said, suppressing a laugh. “And that’s why y/n, you never think with your dick”.

“Being completely honest,,, I expected more from Chan, he seems really,,, responsible” you remarked, Changbin hovering over you and placing a soft kiss on your lips, his hands on either side of your figure.

“He is but I think love is his weak spot or more like,,, lack of love. He often confuses love with either sex, money or fame,,, might I even say drugs.”

You simply nodded not knowing what more to add to the conversation, Changbin’s fingers tracing small circles around your nipples, sneaking them down between your legs where your cunt was aching after him. Anything, as long as it was him. His middle- and ring finger dipped into your heat, feeling the wetness between your folds causing you to hold on to Changbin’s sturdy shoulder. Without warning his fingers entered your dripping hole, fingers curling upwards and grazing your g-spot. You flinched, feeling his cold metal rings against your clit. The dark haired boy shushed, reassuring you that you were in safe hands and that he would make you feel good. Nothing else mattered besides you.

His fingers grazed your velvety walls, thrusting up into your cunt with just enough vigor to make you clutch to his bicep, the firm muscles making you swoon. You whined, spreading your legs even wider, your left leg hanging over the leather couch, sticking to your thigh as your body was heating up from arousal. The wet sounds of Changbin’s fingers playing with your cunt along with your soft whimpers were louder than the music outside, you pressing your head back onto the couch, rubbing your hair on the material. Changbin licked his plump lips upon seeing your face contorting into all kinds of lewd facial expressions, his cock needing to feel your warmth wrapped around it. The pad of his thumb played with your clit, laying it flat against the nub and teasing it in small circles causing tears to prickle in the corners of your shut eyes.

“a-are you alright y/n?” he whispered softly in your ear, kissing the shell of your ear. You nodded, your hands cupping your tits, pinching your hardened nipples, adding pleasure and heat to the burning in your core. Changbin pulled out his fingers, putting the slick covered digits in his mouth and watching you with hawk eyes as he lapped up your juices, humming in delight.

“fuck you taste so good angel” he stated, making you blush, covering your face with your hands. Changbin chuckled, tapping the tip of his dick against your swollen clit and aligning himself with your entrance. You moaned from the sensations, wrapping your legs around him to pull him in, you growing impatient the more he teased.

“p-please fuck me Changbin” you said uttered in a faint voice, barely audible due to the music. It was as if his eyes tinged with a dark color, full of lust. His eyes were hooded, looking down at you with half closed lids, sighing loudly with sexual frustration. He wanted to destroy you, make you his but he had to hold onto his composure. Holding you firmly by your hips he slowly pushed the tip of his cock inside you, grunting at the warmness that comforted him. You hissed, biting the inside of your cheek, your nose scrunching up at the feeling of being stretched out by his girthy length.

“can I go all the way? does it feel alright?” he asked. You answered with a small “yes”, more worried about the door being unlocked, anyone could burst through the door in seconds only to witness Changbin fucking you on the couch. That thought was quickly wiped from your mind as his cock stuffed into your cunt, your eyes rolling back into your skull as he slowly thrusts into you, using the hands on your hips as a way to guide him, nailing your cervix with each movement. The tips of his ears turned red, the silver chain around his neck reflecting on the dim light in the room as it rocked back and forward above you. You placed your hands around his wrists, looking boldly into his eyes with, a feeling brewing inside you that was hard to describe. It was titillation mixed with yearning. You knew you got him here. He was safe in your arms. You wanted to save him from everything bad in this world but how is that possible when you can’t even save yourself?

“c-changbin” you said in broken syllables, his thrusts only quickening. “changbin!” you repeated, shutting your eyes tightly, curling your toes in pleasure as a string of pretty moans melodically fell from your mouth along with his name. You couldn’t take it, his cock ramming into you in a both mindful and eager manner causing you to claw at his forearms, nails digging into the soft skin. Your tongues were once again caught in a kiss, the taste of your tongue being irresistible to the boy but not sure if it was your love that was drawing him in or the subtle taste of liquor from earlier. His lips felt parched against your, his tongue gliding on your bottom lip before kissing it, his saliva feeling hot in your mouth. The boy above you pulled away for a moment.

“you’re so pretty like this y/n,, fuck, i think i love you”

You gulped but your silence was soon cut off from Changbin slamming his hips against yours, his cock hitting your that specific spot that made you go crazy, the familiar feeling of your orgasm penting up inside you. You moaned with desperation, the lewd sounds bouncing off the dark colored walls. This was music for Changbin’s ears. His grunts accompanied by your whimpers and the squelching sound of your walls engulfing his dick so tightly, the sounds alone was heaven for him. With every move against your body you felt the well-acquainted smell of cigarettes that you could almost feel in your lungs, an addictive scent.

“i love you too, Changbin” you mumbled, slurring on your words from nervousness, feeling shy even though you were naked in front of him. He smiled, peering down at you as his hair fell from it’s perfect gelled state. You smiled softly at him, his cheeks slowly turning a red that matched his lips. Your moans turned to borderline screams, his cock twitching inside of you as he slowly got closer to his sweet release. Clenching around him, Changbin grabbed bent your legs towards you, gently rolling his head backwards as the pace got quicker.

“i’m g-gonna cum! don’t stop!” you yelped, your heart thumping at the speed of light, tiny sweat droplets forming on your forehead. Changbin reached so deep inside of you causing you to thrash around, fiercely trying to grip to the edges of the couch. The burning in your core got intense, it felt as if a thousand stars were falling at the same time, bursting with amativeness. The sudden feeling of warmth took over your body, a pleasant tingle surging. A breathy moan leaving you stunned, grabbing onto Changbin’s hands that were pushing your knees towards you. Just as your orgasm washed over you like a ton of bricks falling to the ground, your body jolted with the last couple of powerful thrusts, a loud gasp slipping from his lips. His girthy cock released it’s seed into the condom, his hot breath lingering near you.

He let go of your quivering legs, them flopping down on either side of him. Your chest heaved up and down as you breathed through your parted lips. Changbin pulled off, carefully removing the condom and discarding it somewhere on the floor. He snuggled close to you on the narrow couch, pressing his sweaty body against yours, taking a moment to catch his breath before speaking.

“So you love me too?” he chuckled. You turned to face him, looking deep into his dark brown eyes that looked pitch black in the dim light. After a loud exhale you answered him.

“No, I think I can’t live without you” you whispered, rubbing the tip of your nose against his. His stable breath tickled against your chin, your eyes slowly closing as Changbin was observing your features that he found insanely attractive. And it was even more attractive that you were his. But this couldn’t last.

“You know this is not possible y/n” he said with sadness in his voice as he gulped, his adams apple protruding. You knew it, the thing you dreamt of wasn’t possible since the two of you didn’t exist in each other's worlds.

“I feel fucking stupid” you said with closed eyes, sighing after your words. Changbin shook his head.

“Don’t give up that easily y/n, we can try”. He was right but what relationship was only visible in the darkness of a nightclub? Only a promiscuous one. Yet, you didn’t want to give up. Not matter what kind of relationship it was you wanted to be with him.

“So,,, what does that mean? That we are-”

“Dating, I guess” he added shortly, the corner of his lips lifting upwards. It sounded weird in your ears. Dating someone you had only met a couple of times but it felt right. This was where you belonged. In his arms, away from all your demons. He truly cared for you, not like the others. He was unlike those in your life that said that they cared but never wanted to know more than the surface level of your character. He wanted to know everything about you. Your hurt, your sorrows, your pain but also your happiness, your joy and your solace. He wanted to know you.

Your hands trailed up and down his upper arms, his skin feeling soft against your touch. The two of you cuddled like this for a while, Changbin running his hands along your hair, its smell reminding him of a green meadow of millions of flowers in all shapes, colors and sizes. He didn’t want to leave but if he wasn’t back in the bar the boys would start looking for him and the last thing he wanted was 7 boys teasing him for getting it on. You were more than a hookup. More than just a fling.

Changbin stood up, squinting his eyes in order to look for his clothes and finding them scattered all over the room. He pulled his underwear and jeans over his lower body before pulling his shirt over his top half, the black t-shirt sitting snugly around his muscles. He ran a hand through his dark hair, shaking his head before smirking at you. Such a tease.

“Do you have to leave?” you asked with a whiny voice, your arms felt empty once again. He nodded.

“i’m afraid so, don’t want them thinking I've been transported back without them knowing, they get worried but that’s only natural I guess.”

You nodded back, putting your cheek against the leather on the seat, your arm hanging straight down, the back of your hand limp against the floor.

“Get dressed if you want to have some more fun or you can chill here for a moment but I have to warn you, that door doesn’t have a lock” Changbin said, pointing at the only door in the room.

“i’ve already noticed that” you remarked, grabbing your panties and only after you’ve pulled them halfway up your thigh did you see Changbin smirking at you.

“You’re cuter than I thought” he said, pointing at your teddy bear panties with his chin, stepping closer to you. You looked away, biting your lip in embarrassment as you felt his hand on your hair, ruffling it sloppily.

“You’re making fun of me!” you said back with a pout, pulling your pyjama pants over your bottom.

“yeah, because you’re adorable” he said, placing a peck on your lips. You wanted more of him. He was simply addictive.

But not even this universe wanted to see you two together.

Your eyelids got heavier, your eyebrows furrowing at the familiar yet distant feeling. It felt unknown until you saw the small specks clouding up your vision once again.

“y/n? y/n, how are you?” Changbin said with worry, grabbing you by your shoulders and looking at your apathetic gaze. “N-no, y/n, don’t leave now”

You didn’t want to but you didn’t decide when you left.

You harshly held Changbin in your arms, putting your forehead against his shoulder, rubbing against it. Changbin slowly put his hands around you, patting your back as salty tears rolled down your warm cheek, putting wet stains on his shirt.

“shh,,, it’s ok y/n, are you feeling dizzy?” he asked carefully to which you nodded mellowly, your bottom lip quivering as the multicolored boxes of light flashed before your eyes. The room felt unstable, like your legs wouldn’t hold you much longer and they didn’t when you collapsed into Changbin’s arms, him holding you tightly to his chest as your knees buckled. Your voice was unstable, a silent cry pleading to be heard.

“I love you” you whispered in a frail voice. The ear-deafening music from outside was tuning out from your hearing, your words slurring at the end as you repeated yourself for the last time.

“I love y-you”

Changbin was left hugging air, his arms empty as he opened his sparkling eyes. He was close to tears because he was left there. Without you.

“HEY! WHERE IS- oh”

Jisung burst through the black door, the six other boys standing close behind him as they looked around the room, eventually catching eye contact with Changbin.

“She went home” Changbin said softly, letting his arms fall to the sides. Jisung inched closer to him, patting him on the shoulder where your tears were still left as a souvenir of your love.

“She’ll come back, don’t worry about it” Jisung said with a reassuring smile, leading Changbin to the door, out of the room that smelled like sex and tenderness.

“Euw,, what is this doing here? Does nobody know how to clean up?” Felix said pointing at the used condom on the floor. Changbin’s face went cold, stopping dead in his tracks.

“is it yours or something Changbin?” Hyunjin laughed, pushing the youngest, Jeongin, in a fit of laughter.

The room went quiet after Hyunjin’s cold laughter. It was pretty obvious.

“YOU FUCKED HER?” Jisung screamed in Changbin’s ear, making him flinch away and holding his ear in pain. The room filled with all sorts of teasing sounds, everything from “ooh~" to “AYE” in obnoxious voices.

“Luckily he used a condom!” Minho snarled, glancing over at Chan that was ready to beat Minho into pulp. Chan sighed, regretting that he didn’t shove the condom in Minho’s smirky face.

“No but seriously you guys, y/n is more than you think. It’s not just another person I fucked, she actually means something to me.”

Just when Changbin thought he had something special some of the boys started laughing even harder, ruffling his hair and poking his cheeks.

“yeah right,,, what? are you guys dating or something?” Seungmin asked, rolling his eyes.

“yes, i’m serious you guys! I love her,,,” he said with a frown, already missing your touch.

“What idiot gets into a relationship 3 months before they have to go to rehab?” Minho says, retrieving a cigarette from the red packaging in the pocket of his leather jacket.

Oh fuck.

Rehab.

When someone recovers from their pain is when you disappear from the club. You are no longer a lost soul. You are no longer lost within yourself. And that’s when you return to the real world, your real world.

Keeping secrets in a relationship was deceitful in Changbin’s eyes. If you belong to someone you should be as transparent as the liquor he poured into his ice cold glass every evening. He felt guilty. You poured your heart out for him, telling him everything that had hurt for so many years and here he was, pretending. He did that a lot, mainly because he was taught to be a reliable man. It wasn’t manly to feel.

Which is why he left his home at a young age. He didn’t care if he worked a minimum wage job and lived in a destitute area, he was content as long as he didn’t live with his parents. But when you live alone it’s not rare that isolation creeps up on you and strokes your cheek with a feather light touch, inviting you over to a dance with the demons that would soon cloud up your mind. Alcohol was Changbin’s comfort. It was the only one that didn’t fail to reassure him. It was as if the bottles spoke to him, promising him that a life intoxicated was better than the life he was currently living.

And he fell for it.

Every time.

He couldn’t take it anymore, he wanted to live a life that is actually worth living. Change comes from within but he needed help and he had only recently realized that he had a problem, that these toxic liquids were what’s keeping him from chasing the dream life. He didn’t dream of much, just the average life would be more than enough, with someone he loved.

But what was he supposed to do?

Take the step to recover or continue his addiction for the sake of being with you?

The demons whispered softly in his ears.

Life or Love?

Taglist ; @minholuvs @liz820 @skztrashbag @lix-freckle3

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kkusuka · 3 years

Note

oh how about this lol- s/o cooing over kuroo, bokuto, semi, tsukishima, osamu and noya! s/o saying 'you're so cute' or 'you're so adorable' maybe squishes his cheeks too and peppers kisses all over his face. hcs please! tysm!

oooooo~

Kuroo Tetsurou

Honestly, he probably egged this on

It's just in his nature, he’ll just be talking then he’ll hit you with a “aren’t I the cutest y/n?”

And of course, the answer is always yes, then he’ll have you tell him just how cute he was, that leads to him being upset that your hands and fingers can only go so wide

So that turns to him asking you to really show him

(you wish he'd just say when he wants affection it cuts out all the time to do the whole bit)

He’ll lead you over to him and just let you have at it

You have found out a few things about kuroo during these things

He really likes when you run hands through his hair

He loves when you press little kisses against his closed eyelids

Also in between every action, there has to be a praise of some sort, just feed into his ego a bit

(you also won't tell him that he practically purrs when you do this)

But when you’re finally done he’ll flip you over and start to shower you with praise and affection

(you also wish he would just tell you when he wants to give you affection)

Bokuto Koutarou

Your entire relationship is filled with random fluffy and cuddly events

With bokuto that is mandatory

He won't even speak, he’ll make these grabby hands at you

And then he looks up at you with the puppy dog eyes and a pouty lip and you're done for

It just an overwhelming feeling that you need to tell him all about you pretty he is and how amazing he always does

You have to give every place on his face a kiss or he’ll get fussy

He’ll ask you follow up questions too, like “am I really that pretty”

And the correct response is always yes, ALWAYS yes

Once he’s happy again, he’ll let you keep going until something interrupts

It always ends in some sort of cuddle, or him holding onto you in some way

Can't forget about the dopey smile he always has after

Semi Eita

You are his greatest inspiration

So he practically lets you do what you want to him, it gives him ideas for songs

And sometimes when he’s writing, he puffs out his cheeks and creases his eyebrows, and you just have to touch

It starts with pokes, and he just ready’s himself for the small coos about how squishy he is

And he’s a talker-backer

He’ll let you know how funny he finds the fact that you even do this

(he likes it, don't let him say otherwise)

As much as he makes fun of you he does nuzzle and press himself into your hands

And he sticks his face out for kisses an awful lot

And you should tell him that, he does have the cutest blush

Of course, when you're finished he sits there, basking in his afterglow

Then it's your turn

Tsukishima Kei

He “hates” it (no he does not)

(curious because he seems to do nothing to stop it)

The second he sees your eyes light up he knows what’s going to happen

Yeah he’ll whine and complain about how it’s embarrassing

But he’ll pull you ever so slightly closer to him

and he’ll sigh as you pepper kisses on his cheeks and run your hands through his hair

He opens his eyes to watch you place little kisses on his nose and chin

He fights with all of his power when you tell him that he’s just the cutest

And to his embarrassment, you do it in front of the team all the time which just adds to the list of reasons he “hates” it

(bull, he likes his team seeing that he has someone who loves him, especially Kageyama and Hinata)

Maybe, JUST MAYBE, he gives you a little kiss back

(he always gives you a little kiss back)

Osamu Miya

It’s just that Osamu always looks like he’s in heaven when he eats

And when he smiling and eating at the same time his cheeks puff up and sometimes you just can’t help yourself

It also doesn't help that his face is impossibly soft

(you’re sure he has better skin than you do)

It always starts the same “you’re so cute ‘Samu”

Just from that, he’ll know what's coming, so he’ll swallow whatever he had in his mouth and accept his fate

And whenever this happens you're usually standing in front of him (whether he’s sitting or not)

For a better angle of course

Then the candooling begins, in public or not, he isn't one to stop this

In fact, whenever you press a hand to his cheek he presses back

And he’ll laugh when you press little kisses on the button of his nose

He’ll also have his hands on you in some way, maybe your hips or the backs of your thighs

he won’t do it back but he just really likes it when you do it, but at the end of the cooing session (as Kita calls them)

He places a little kiss on either your forehead or your chin <3

Nishinoya Yuu

He straight-up asks for little kisses

Which always makes you take things way farther than little kisses

He’ll let you take the lead in the beginning, so he can see where you want to go

Then once he sees what you're doing he’ll go in

People can swear that they can see hearts flying out of the two of you

He’s also a master at the “no u” bit

“You are so so so cute”

“Nuh-uh, y/n, you’re the cutest”

“Nope”

“Yes”

And so on until you give up, the boy is relentless

one thing is that he only lets you run your hands through his hair when you are alone or hanging out

It takes a lot of time to spike it up and he’ll just let you ruin it later anyway so you can wait

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jadedpen · 3 years

Text

Welcomed with open arms

Sibling!Half phantom!GN!Reader x Sbi family (+ Tubbo)

Summary: You are stuck in the cold snow as a small toddler in a basket. As the snowstorm roared, Phantoms circle around you, letting out wails of woe and sorrow. Suddenly, you hear the flapping of big feathery wings and see the Phantoms fly away. You then see a mysterious man with a white and green striped hat and welcoming blue eyes.

For context: Wilbur and Techno are twins, the reader is the youngest of the family with Tubbo being 1 year older than Tommy. The twins are 11 years old, Tommy is 4 and Tubbo is 5.

TW: There is a small part in the beginning where the reader almost dies from hypothermia, so be mindful of that, please!

Also, don’t worry, this work will have multiple chapters, so stay tuned!

Sorry if this is kinda bad. This is my first time writing a reader fanfic.

Ao3 link here

___________________________________________________________________________________________

The bitter cold touched your skin as your breath came out slow and steady. Your fingertips glowed blue and your thin wings weren’t much help to warm you up. The basket you were placed in by your unknown parents barely kept you alive all these hours, the thin blanket wrapped around you.

Phantoms circled you, seeing you as one of their own. You could sense the distraught and worry in their cries and their wails. As they swooped down, they tried to pick up the basket that carried you, but to no avail. Your tiny toddler hands tried to reach out to them, wanting nothing more but to be carried somewhere where you won’t freeze in the storm. You let out small wails and cries, those very much akin to a Phantom, until you heard a caw.

One caw became ten, and suddenly there was a whole murder of them, so many that the amount started to block the storm. Some even tried to attack the phantoms, but they wouldn’t leave you alone. They’d rather die than let the crows have their way with you.

But, there came a large beating of wings. Ones way more than the huge murder swirling around you. As the beating wings died down, you could hear the thumps of footsteps coming towards you, and feel something or someone pick you up. The hands were the warmest thing you’ve ever felt, and your eyes met the mysterious person’s bright welcoming blue. The eyes could convey so much; uneasiness, pity, curiosity.

They wore a large hat, one that was green and white striped. Medium blond hair came out of the sides with a small braid in the front and little knickknacks hanging from the strange hat. Huge black wings stood behind them, making them seem larger than the storm from your view. Even though your vision was impaired from the cold, you could see a small bit of what they was wearing aside from their head; a green opened kimono with a black turtleneck and a strange red heart in the middle.

The person looked up at the phantoms, not noticing that their wails were of worry. They pulled out a bow and a sharp arrow, aiming it at the phantoms. You could tell that the person meant harm, and so you wailed at them to make them stop. The person looked at you, and then the phantoms. They finally noticed the roars of the Phantoms were wails and cries, meaning only woe. The person seemed to call to the crows, and the crows obeyed. Birds swooped down to the ground where you and the person were set, no longer focusing on the Phantoms.

The snowstorm got worse, cold even colder. It became harder and harder to breathe or keep your eyelids open. Eyes barely open, you could see the person holding you have panic in their eyes, looking up ahead and wings wide open. Your tiny hands clutched the cloth on their chest, trying to find even the slightest bit of warmth you could feel as the person held you and carried the basket in hand.

You felt the person run, and then take flight. Wind blew on your head as your eyes closed all the way, hearing the caws of crows seem to follow this mysterious person.

A few minutes later, you hear the storm dying down, becoming only a midnight breeze. The person carrying you descended down to the ground, walking towards something warm. Despite the storm now over, you couldn’t open your eyes, seeming to be iced shut.

A huge wave of warmth filled the air as the person opened the door to what you assumed to be their house. You heard childlike voices, 3 to be exact. You weren’t able to understand them, but you were happy to know that you weren’t the only person anymore.

“Who’s that?” A small voice said; you could feel their beady eyes staring at you. ”It’s a baby. I found them freezing in the cold. I’m happy I saved them; any longer and they might’ve been left to die. Poor thing.” The deeper voice came from above you, seeming to come from the person who saved you. The person then sat on something soft and held you in their lap.

“Are you seriously considering adopting another sibling? We already have to deal with Tommy-” “HEY!” Two voices argued, one being slightly deeper and older but still young, and the other being loud and boisterous, being the same small voice you first heard.

“Both of you shut up. Who cares if we have another sibling, this ones adorable.” A separate voice spoke up, setting a warm hand on your tiny toddler one. You lightly grabbed the person’s bigger hands, warming your seemingly frozen hand even more.

“So… do we have a new sibling now?” “Seems like it.” The two older voices continued, “Well, I just hope they don’t turn out like Tommy- “GOD DAMMIT TECHNO-“ Loud arguing could be heard while you continued to hold the mysterious boy’s hand. Opposite to the loudness, the mysterious man from before spoke, “Would you like to hold them Wil?”

You assumed he nodded his head as the striped hat man handed you to ‘Wil’. The boy held you in his arms while the striped hat man softly caressed your head lovingly. You climbed onto the Wil’s sweater, burying your face into the soft material.

“Boys, could you stop arguing before you upset the baby.” “But Techno is being a bitch!” “Tommy! Where did you hear that word?” “Nowhere!” “Shut up Tommy. Before you cause Phil to finally get those hearing aids.”

The three continue bickering while you and Wil just vibe with Wil patting your head and you snuggling into his warmth. After a few minutes of arguing, they finally calm down and crowd around you.

“Alright. I’m going to go and fix up some proper clothes for them. In the meantime, try not to make the child cry, okay?” The striped hat man said, walking out of the room.

You could feel their eyes on you, with Wil still patting your head while a hand held yours. You slowly opened your eyes for the first time in the house and finally saw your new family.

The boy named Wil had curly brown hair with bangs to right of his face, pointed ears, and brown eyes; big round glasses adorned his face and a red beanie upon his head, with a big yellow sweater. The person holding your hand looked almost exactly like him. His hair was the same as Wil’s, though it was to the right, with square glasses and the same pointed ears, with his sweater being pink. A small tusk grew out of each of their mouths, being on opposite sides.,

Wilbur swooned to you, “Hi there. I’m Wilbur.”, smiling at you with a big smile. “This here is my twin, Technoblade, but just call him Techno or Tech.” He looked over to said twin, with Techno staring at you and then patting your head.

The smaller one, who had blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a white shirt with the sleeves being red, looked just as boisterous and loud as he acted. He looked at you curiously as you turned your head to look at him, and to your surprise started poking you in the cheek rather annoyingly with you groaning out of annoyance and snuggling up to Wilbur.

“Tommy, stop poking them you’re gonna make them hate you.” “Shut it Wil, you know I will be the favorite brother. Better than you or Techno or even Tubbo.”

Speaking of the devil, the one you assumed was ‘Tubbo’, due to his name only now being said and the rest having said their names, walked down the creaky stairs; a blanket over his shoulders. The boy had messy brown hair and goat pupils in his blue eyes.

Tubbo walked towards the couch, rubbing his eyes in tiredness. “Phil told me that we apparently have a new sibling.” He walked towards you and sat in front of Wilbur, staring into your (e/c) eyes. “What’s their name? Have you guys even figured out a name?” “I think we should wait until Phil gets back. We don’t want Tommy to try and name them ‘Big Man’.” Saying this, Techno squeezes your hand. “But anyway, I had this super weird dream-“

As Tubbo started ranting about various dreams he’s had over the week, Wilbur nudges Techno and hands you to him. Reluctantly, Techno holds you, with you snuggling into his sweater, which was made of the same material as Wilbur’s.

A few minutes pass and Tubbo is still talking about his dreams when Phil comes in. “Alright. I’ve set up a room for the little one. Considering they seem to be half Phantom, there aren’t any windows since I don’t know if they are affected by the sun or not.”

“Great. Speaking of, what are we going to name them?” “I say we name them Big Man!” “That’s a horrible idea Tommy!” Wilbur and Tommy continue to argue while Phil, Techno, and Tubbo all crowd around you on the couch. “So… what should we name them?” Tubbo started. “Well, what about something nice? Something… simple but fitting.” Tubbo and Phil listed off possible names, seeing if anything would stick.

“What about… y/n?” The rest of the family looked at Techno, the person who suggested the name. “Y/n?” Wilbur stated, thinking over the name. “Y/n. A lovely name.” Phil smiled, looking at you.

“Welcome to the family, Y/n.”

#Reader x Sbi #sbi x y/n #sbi x reader #gender neutral y/n #dadza #dadza x reader #WWOP

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cobaincreates · 3 years

Text

touch

warnings: freshly served smut :), oral (male receiving), 18+

count: 4k+

this is part one & wow i really did that. taglist is totally open by the way! let me know what you think!

— — —

what the hell was it about veins sticking out of an arm that had you nearly drooling? they shouldn’t be so attractive, yet here you were in a deep trance thinking about licking the prominent flexing of them in a specific forearm. you supposed it was your brain sending a slew of chemicals through your body, making your heartbeat spread from your chest to your fingertips. the longer you stared at the tiny mounds, the quicker the thrum of your heart spread to your center. science wasn’t really your strong suit, so you didn’t dare try to knit pick the core reason you were feeling a little (very) hot (and bothered).

if you could push down with the pad of your thumb at the peak of the vein, you’d most likely be grossed out, but it’d be intriguing to see it bloom back to its original place. you’d feel the warmth underneath the buttery skin, maybe even feel the pulse of a heartbeat. god, what you’d give to just—

“y/n?”

you jerked, eyelids fluttering as you processed where you were and why sarah was holding a large bowl out to you. the contents were leafy greens with pops of orange and yellow peppers. a few cherry tomatoes poked from under the blanket of lettuce. right, you thought, dinner. on the cameron’s boat. where you’d been for the past seven hours.

“you okay?” she asked slowly as your hands moved to life to take the bowl from her.

“mhm,” you hummed and picked out a good amount of salad to have. you then placed the tongs back in the bowl and held it across the table. catching sight of those veins from earlier, you swallowed thickly and flicked your eyes to a very interesting pepper.

“thanks.” sarah’s brother said as he lifted the weight from your hands. you swallowed again and sat up straight as the sounds of silverware scooping from dishes continued. once everyone had what they wanted and a conversation had started, you dove into your salad like it was your last meal on earth.

you stole a few glances directly across from you, your eyes skimming over rafe’s skin under his light blue t-shirt. it wasn’t helping that he was moving, making the veins pop more whenever he used his muscles in his forearm. you busied yourself with your food and nearly choked when rafe caught your glance. you thought you were being sly and not obvious in your stare, but you caught a glimpse of that tiny little curve at the corner of his mouth as he chewed.

you’d known the camerons for some time now, thanks to your parents mingling once you moved to the island. you had sparked an instant joy to having sarah cameron as one of your best friends and you loved her so much that it hurt even worse when you finally met her older, very infamous brother. it was like you’d been struck by lightning. you were left with a sensation you couldn’t quite put your finger on. sometimes it felt like the jolts of electricity whenever you caught his eye.

you weren’t in love. you knew that much. you were just very, very attracted to rafe. a perfect example would be your ridiculous obsession with the veins in his arms. god, why were they so addicting?

“what are you girls up to tonight?” rose, sarah’s stepmother, questioned from beside you. you chewed the food in your mouth, not quite tasting it as you waited for sarah to answer. you honestly had no idea what you planned to do during your sleepover.

“probably junk food and rom-coms.” sarah answered easily.

you were fine with the suggestion; it was usually what you two did during sleepovers. sometimes you’d sneak out to meet your friends at the boneyard, but it had been months since the last kegger and you weren’t exactly fond of the memory. maybe sarah would ditch you for a secret rendezvous with john b again, which would leave you in her room all by yourself. you could imagine yourself spread out on her floor, listening for soft shuffles in the hallway, and looking for rafe to come through the door. you shifted in your seat, coming back to reality on the cameron boat.

“when are we heading back?” wheezie asked, looking at ward at the head of the table.

“are we boring you?” rafe asked, causing your attention to shift from the youngest cameron to the oldest. and sexiest.

“i have plans tonight and to be honest, i'd much rather be anywhere but here.”

“you weren’t dragged on the boat. you had a choice to come just like any of us.” sarah said.

you looked at her then gauged wheezie’s reaction. she just sighed and sank into her seat. you pushed around a few noodles from the pasta salad rose had made earlier this morning.

“we’ll head out as soon as everyone is done.” ward said, reaching over to pat wheezie on the back of the hand.

sarah, wheezie, rafe, and you were on cleanup duty while ward prepped the boat to head back to tannyhill. you stacked all the dishes and brought them over to sarah at the sink in the makeshift kitchen. wheezie was on drying duty, leaving rafe to take care of the leftovers and cover all of the dishes back up. you watched for a moment as he picked up one of the dishes that was nearly empty and threw the rest out in the trash. you held your hands out for it to bring to sarah and he smiled at you.

“rafe!” you looked up at the sound of ward’s voice floating from above then over at rafe. “come up here please!”

rafe brushed his hands off on his thighs and moved around the table. “can you cover the rest?”

“sure.” you nodded and reached across the table for the pasta salad. a hot warmth appeared on your waist as rafe brushed past you, his hand touching your skin. you swallowed as the contact sent a whole heatwave through you and watched his back as he walked out onto the lower deck, his shirt brightening under the sun. going back to covering the food up, you turned around to bring them to rose who brought over the cooler. just as you did, you realized that rafe touching you had no correlation between needing to get by. he had perfectly enough space to do so in the dining area and kitchen. nothing was blocking his way.

—

“i'm really upset that i didn’t get to witness rob lowe in the 80s in person. like, really upset.” sarah whined with her hands over her eyes.

“he had no right with that hair and that stupid earring.” you said, arms crossed with a pout on your face.

“and that jumpsuit!” you both cried in unison then laughed loudly. st. elmo’s fire had been a whirlwind of emotions, strictly from rob lowe’s appearance. it just wasn’t fair to be born so late.

“okay,” sarah said as she snuggled further under her covers. “i'm exhausted.”

“no follow up with the outsiders?”

“say hi to rob lowe for me. night.” she said and turned onto her side with her back to you. the tv was still rolling the credits before you stopped it and got out of her bed to change the discs. you weren’t ready to sleep just yet. maybe seeing dally would coax you to dream of greased up characters played by actors who were now twice your age.

given that it was only eleven, it was too early for sarah to be going to sleep. usually she was all for staying up until three and munching on popcorn or playing a board game with dice. you knew she was only falling asleep early because john b had texted her about an early morning date he wanted to take her on. it was so disgustingly cute how quickly she wanted to sleep after reading his words. so while she fell asleep, you tried to focus on ponyboy and his dyed blonde locks instead of the veiny-armed off-limits cameron across the hall.

obviously, you failed. by the time it was nearing two and you already turned the tv off, you still weren’t tired. the ceiling wasn’t moving closer to you or providing any interesting details as you continued to stare up at it. your heart beat rhythmically throughout your body as you thought about the instance of rafe touching you today. you closed your eyes and felt his warm hand on your waist again, but then you felt it moving all over you. sarah made a small noise in her sleep as rafe’s hand was gliding over your stomach.

your eyes opened, his hand disappearing, and a huff leaving your lips. you looked toward sarah’s door, shut tight and separating you from her family, from her brother. you covered your eyes and rolled away from your sleeping best friend. you peeked through your fingers, looking where you last placed your phone and debating on sending an innocent text. maybe you could pretend you meant to send it to someone else. but maybe rafe would find it weird since you didn’t have a texting history with him. no, it would be too obvious.

rubbing your face, you sighed again and sat up. you needed a drink of water. the glass that sat beside you was empty from earlier and you and sarah had exhausted all the stashed drinks from your earlier preparations.

closing her door quietly behind you so you wouldn’t wake her, or anyone for that matter, you breathed a little easier and found your way to the stairs. about three steps down, you noticed a faint light from the ground floor, but you guessed it was a nightlight just in case anyone like you came down, looking for a snack or drink.

the tiled floor was crisply cold under your feet, sending a shiver up your bare legs and eliciting goosebumps on all exposed skin. you wound your arms across your chest for some semblance of warmth.

the chill you felt two seconds ago reappeared as you entered the large kitchen and found the source of the light coming from the fridge. it wasn’t a nightlight like you thought.

rafe stood there illuminated by the light, very shirtless and sweatpants hanging very low on his hips. you swallowed as you watched him munching on something.

“hey,” you whispered quietly so you wouldn’t scare him.

he looked over, stopping mid-bite. “hey. you okay?”

“yeah. just came to get some water.” you held the glass up as proof and stepped carefully to the sink installed in the island. rafe had a slew of condiments spread out on the countertop and you glanced over them curiously as you filled the glass. he had made himself a sandwich, the other half not in his hand sitting on a plate beside you. just as you turned the water off, his hand appeared and slid the plate over.

“you hungry?”

turning slightly and placing your hip against the island, you knew you needed something to lean on from the way he looked right now. as if you hadn’t just been thinking about him upstairs, it all came rushing back.

“don’t you want it?” you asked, taking a shaky sip from the glass.

rafe shook his head and swallowed his next bite. “i'd rather you eat it if you’re hungry.”

you looked away from him and picked up the sandwich, taking a small bite. rafe reached into the fridge and pulled out the pasta salad. fishing for a fork from the silverware drawer beside you, he leaned his elbows on the island and pierced a few noodles. you looked away from the muscles in his shoulders and took another bite in silence.

“it was nice having you on the boat today.” rafe said without prompt. you stopped chewing as you gauged his expression. “did you have fun?”

it was difficult to answer when he was looking at you as if you looked stunning in a tank top and sleep shorts. it was two in the morning. you should’ve been sleeping. but your heart leapt at his question.

“i did.” you nodded once you swallowed the next bite. you then thought about his hand on your waist and felt those shivers all over again like someone had opened a door behind you, letting the wintriest winter air in.

you decided on one more bite even though you weren’t hungry at all and now you were feeling rather nauseous with the way your stomach was rolling and leaping and doing all kinds of things. all the while, your heart started to beat louder in your chest. your fingers pulsed. rafe pushed off the counter, trapping the fork in between his lips to hold as he closed the container and put it back in the fridge. it was darker once he closed it, taking away any light so you couldn’t watch him as closely.

but once your eyes adjusted, you watched rafe come closer. you pressed yourself up against the counter, knowing that he needed to get to the sink when he took the fork from his mouth. you picked up your glass, taking a generous gulp. the water failed to distract you as rafe’s hand appeared on your hip, his chest brushing against you as he put the fork in the sink. your skin was totally exposed to his since your tank top had ridden up. you let out a shaky breath into the glass, your eyes closing momentarily until his hand disappeared and he stood next to you.

“why do you keep doing that?” you asked, your voice shaking a bit but you hoped he didn’t notice.

“doing what?” he busied himself with cleaning up the countertop. you stared at his back as he opened the fridge again.

“touching me.” you said. he turned to grab the packaged cheese, opening the drawer to drop it into. it annoyed you that he wasn’t paying attention or giving you all of his attention. “you’re either doing it just because or you’re trying to tell me something.”

rafe closed the fridge and gave you a questioning look. “you don’t touch people, rafe,” you clarified.

“how are you so sure?”

you wanted to groan about him playing dumb with you. why couldn’t he just tell you?

“because i've known you for a while now, at least i think i do, and i've never once seen you touch someone else.” rafe picked up the dish with your half the sandwich on it and tossed it into the trash. you stepped back so he could reach into the sink to leave the plate there. “so, what is it?”

“isn’t it obvious?” he questioned, frustrating you even further. you were getting confused, getting off track of trying to figure him out. you wanted to pull at your hair. why did he have to be mysterious all of the sudden?

“what do you want from me?” you questioned, hoping you’d get to the bottom of it. sure, you had ideas of what his answer would be, but you weren’t going to do anything until he told you himself.

your mouth nearly dropped open when he took your glass and downed a long sip. becoming angry, you reached up and took the glass from him, splashing a bit of water on his face from the sudden movement. he held in a laugh, water still in his mouth.

the grin fell from his face as you wedged yourself between him and the countertop. you knew you’d only done it out of frustration from his lack of answer. he was driving you crazy. rafe stared down at you, moving his hips away from yours very noticeably while his hands found your waist for extra measure. you looked at him almost daringly, trying to egg him on.

when he stayed put on his decision not to say much, you found your hands appearing over top of his. they were warm on your waist and under your palms. the hammer of your pulse started to feel like a cartoon character was taking a mallet and whacking as fast as they could to your insides.

you couldn’t describe how it felt touching rafe’s forearms finally after stressing over them hours earlier. if you had stayed a little while longer, you might have felt his own pulse through the vein. instead, you wanted to learn the contours of his biceps all the way up to his shoulders.

“this would be a lot easier if you just told me what you wanted.” you whispered like you’d done when you first walked into the kitchen.

rafe’s fingers dug a little deeper into your skin and his hips hovered over yours like they weren’t even there. you swallowed thickly and watched your fingers run down his chest, his torso that flexed faintly you thought you missed it like missing a sunset change color. rafe stayed still even as you traced his jutting hipbone down into his sweats. you lifted your eyes to his, finding his lips parted and slick. you licked at your own, watching his eyes never leave your face as you felt him through the fabric of his pants. he let out a shaky breath. his hips moved ever so slightly.

you stroked him once, painstakingly slow from the soft lift of his eyebrows. his eyes nearly slipped closed when his forehead sank to yours. it was as if he was so weak, he couldn’t stand to be touched. it made the mallet in your chest hammer harder.

the second time you stroked over him, tightening your grip a little, rafe let out a noise and shook his head softly against yours.

“what?” you prompted.

rafe removed a hand from your waist to catch your wrist. “not here.” he squeezed out and pulled away reluctantly before tugging you along.

you watched his back, taking in a few shaky breaths. you focused on controlling your breathing as he opened one of the french doors that led out onto the wrap-around porch. the air was cooler than the one you just shared with rafe. it was refreshing as it helped you relax. you heard a few chirps of the insects and the bloats from a few frogs somewhere closer to the marsh.

rafe led you over to the patio furniture. he sat down in one of rose’s white wicker chairs, creaking under his weight. he tried to pull you with him but wasn’t expecting you to sink down to your knees in front of him. he sat up in confusion, his hands resting on your shoulders as he watched you reach for his sweatpants. you needed them to come off, or at least be pulled down. you needed to taste him.

rafe’s hands slipped from your shoulders as he leaned back so you could tug his pants down. you bit your lip rather harshly as the sight of him. the whacking continued and sounded louder in your ears. you wanted to cry out of joy and laugh ridiculously at the vein running up the underside of him. you had to swallow to control the salivating, like a kid anticipating chocolate cake for breakfast.

the moon wasn’t even out, but you could see rafe’s arousal on his tip. you reached for it, wrapping your hand around him like a blanket. rafe heaved a breath.

“is this what you wanted?” you asked him, running your thumb over him and collecting the warm liquid.

rafe groaned. “oh, fuck. yes.”

you rubbed his thigh as your other hand moved over him slowly. the hairs tickled under your palm as you brought it all the way up and settled over his hip. you rubbed your thumb over him again, eyeing that vein that seemed to be taunting you now. rising higher on your knees, you looked up at rafe’s expectant and waiting gaze.

“tell me, rafe.”

you drew your lips between your teeth, waiting patiently for him to speak. he looked down at you between his legs and held back a moan as your hand moved over him. “i want you to suck my dick. fuck,” he panted in anticipation. “i want those pretty lips wrapped around me. please.”

you breathed in deeply with excitement, careful not to show it so you didn’t blow your cover of how badly you’d been wanting to do this. would he think it was ridiculous?

lowering your face closer, you dragged your hand to the base of him and pressed a kiss to his tip. you coated your lips with his arousal and wondered if he was coming undone at the seams. what did you look like, between his knees, on your own? you saw his hands reaching to grip the armrests at the precise moment you stuck your tongue out, finally tasting him. it was an innocent lick, probably showcasing just how anxious you were to have him in your mouth. but once you had that initial first taste, you were gone.

“oh, fuck.” he repeated, his chest heaving. you licked him again then traveled down the length of him in open-mouthed kisses. feeling that vein against your lips sent a large wave of shivers to your core. you hummed in delight to yourself without realizing until rafe’s hand appeared over yours on his hip. catching his eye at the right moment, you tilted your head upright, flattened your tongue on the underside of him, and licked all the way up that delicious vein. rafe’s face screwed up in agony, but you weren’t even done yet.

taking his tip between your lips, you applied the slightest bit of pressure. you swirled your tongue, moving your hand around him at the same time. “shit,” he said as his hips flinched off the chair in return, rutting into your mouth further. his fingers appeared at the side of your head, pushing into your hair. “fuck, baby, keep going.”

you did as he said, closing your eyes and willing yourself not to choke. you were unsuccessful as you gagged and recoiled off of him.

“go slow,” he coaxed and loosened his hold on your hair. your cheeks began to burn from the embarrassment. rafe rubbed soothingly into your scalp. you tried to relax; you didn’t want to stop now just because you couldn’t take all of him. you breathed through your nose and concentrated on taking him slowly. you took a little past his tip, sucking your lips around him. the second time, you took a little more and licked back up that vein.

“good girl,” he praised, reminding you that he was there and that you were doing okay. the phrase alone sent ripples down your spine.

minutes later with rafe’s grip on your hair not hurting anymore, he rutted his hips and pushed himself into your mouth. you took him, quite surprised at your ability to do so, but it felt good.

“y/n, i'm gonna come.” he gasped. the new opportunity had you rolling with determination as you moved your mouth over him. he groaned louder and for the first time, you thought about his sleeping family inside. god, what if you were caught? what if someone had already heard everything?

the possibility edged you on to go faster, to make rafe explode into your mouth. you then thought about tasting him, all of him, about how you’d have him in your system. it seemed weird almost, but you didn’t care as you listened to him coming undone beneath you and felt his fingers in your hair. he swore left and right just before you made your own noise, surprised, when he finally did come undone. he spilled into your mouth, coating your tongue. you slowed your movements over him, helping him through his high as his chest heaved.

you sank back onto your legs once you parted from him. you licked your lips, swallowing, and wiped the corner of your mouth. it was almost criminal the way you had the dark to hide your grin, like it was an accomplice. you looked up at rafe still lounged in the chair and felt another heatwave at the sight of him glistening in his lap. what you wouldn’t give to have another go.

“fuck.” he sighed to himself once he caught his breath. “where are you going?”

you looked down at him when you stood, adjusting your shorts. when you saw how he was looking up at you, you wanted to do everything you could to just crawl into his lap and stay there, to have the sun never come up. instead, you knew tomorrow had to come. “to bed. i'm tired.”

for a second, you pleaded with the universe to have him ask you to sleep with him. you wanted to walk upstairs hand-in-hand and close yourselves in his bedroom. you wanted to lay down under his covers, to have him touch you until the sun came up. but you knew you couldn’t risk that all in one night. you could wait, only if he wanted to.

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tetsurobunni · 3 years

Text

Kita Shinsuke : Matchmaker

☽ suna x reader ; 2.6k words

☞ characters mentioned : kita shinsuke, aran ojiro, atsumu miya, osamu miya

☽ fluff, he takes care of you when ur sick ! even tho he’s a menace, kita being an angel

☽ a slight mention of adult themes (its a teasing joke)

☽ notes : hiii i wrote this for a friend and i figured id add it here teehee :))

hey Jesus, i know we don’t talk much but...fuck you. i feel like literal dog shit

You groaned as you shoved yet another tissue in your nose. You were sick, and God forbid it wasn’t the worst cold you’d ever had.

This morning you had pulled on your uniform in a haze; honestly it's a miracle you even made it to school. Aran had stopped you in the hallway when you arrived, putting a hand on your shoulder and placing the back of his palm against your forehead.

He immediately got out his phone and texted someone-presumably Kita, since he was the one most qualified to handle this. The captain had dealt with him and Atsumu both when they were sick so he could surely help you and get you to go the hell home.

You had pushed weakly at Kita when he ushered you towards the entrance of the building, assuring that you were a-o-kay. You ended up making friends with a nearby trashcan and emptying your guts right after the claim. Kita had held your hair back and rubbed your shoulders reassuringly. Afterwards, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to someone. Who? You didn’t know.

Kita had made sure to get you home in one piece. He tucked you into bed, placed a cold rag onto your head, and you think you heard him say something about bringing you soup later. Sleep crept up on you quickly and you were out before he even stepped out the door.

Now you were unfortunately awake, cursing whatever God could hear. This was absolutely awful. A dull throb ran through your skull insistently, mucus clotted your nose and throat, making your breaths uneven and raspy. You wanted to quench the ache in your throat but even the idea of sitting up seemed to drain too much energy, so you laid there in pain.

You assumed it was mid-afternoon. Kita had drawn the curtains above the window closed, leaving the room dark. You were especially grateful for this, for you knew any light would make your eyes hurt.

Your phone lay unchecked on the table face-down. The fear of worsening your headache is what caused it to stay there. Whoever wanted to talk would have to wait. You switched out the tissue in your nose for a fresh one, groaning again.

You wanted to take a shower so bad. You hated getting sick because you felt disgusting and knew you looked it too. Embarrassment bloomed when the events from this morning played in your mind.

Aran’s gonna joke about that for weeks.

A soft knock from the door drew you away from your thoughts. That’s probably Kita. A hoarse “come in” fell from your chapped lips and you internally cringed at how awful you sounded, even if it was just your childhood friend.

“You look like shit.”

That was not Kita.

“Suna? what the fuck?”

“Shut Up. You’re going to hurt your throat worse.”

Is this what I get for saying fuck you? I apologize so much anything but this please

“You’ve gone through two boxes of tissues already? Kita wasn’t lying, damn.”

You turned your head away from Suna’s voice, attempting to cover your sick-stricken face. Out of all people. It wasn’t that you didn’t like Suna- the two of you actually got along (if you count bickering back and forth all the time getting along). The problem was you happened to have a humongous crush on him.

The wing spiker had gotten on your nerves at first- smirks hidden behind a hand, foot sticking out to trip you in the hallway, drawing on your notes- he was almost unbearable. But as the both of you got older, you started returning his remarks, nudging him lightly into lockers, laughing at the twins together and sharing footage of their stupid fights.

Your crush had crept up on you almost unknowingly until one day he slung an arm over your shoulder and shot you one of his signature smirks and you were gone. It was infuriating, to say the least.

“Earth to y/n, hello y/n.”

“What.”

“Ah-ah, no speaking, remember?” You shot him a glare, receiving that smirk yet again. You cursed at the butterflies swarming your stomach.

Infuriating.

“You’re shivering.”

It was a simple comment. You realized after a beat that he was right and pulled the blanket farther up your body. He sat down the bag he held in his hand and made his way over to your bed. You squirmed in protest, trying to scooch away from his outstretched hand. Your actions caused Suna’s brows to furrow, a small line creasing on his forehead.

“I’m just going to check if you still have a fever,” he whispered, moving forward despite your futile attempts at moving away. You gave in, allowing him to gently place his hand on your forehead.

He wasn’t terribly close, he had been closer to you before this, but this felt different. More intimate.

“You’re burning up,” he said, leaning back with a sigh. “Sit tight, I’ll start a bath for you.”

You tried to keep your swarming thoughts at bay with no luck. Your crush, Suna Rintaro, is drawing a bath for you. A bath. He’s taking care of you.

Why is he being so nice? This has to be a set up, or Kita probably forced him. There’s no other way he would willingly be doing this...is there? You shut down the thought as quickly as it came. No sense in getting flustered over nothing. No need to fuel your growing crush.

You weren’t fit to complain anyways. The exact thing you wanted is being done right now, so you did as you were told, slightly sitting up to fetch yet another tissue. The pounding in your head still hadn’t ceased and a sudden cough racked your body. You wanted to cry- and you didn’t cry often. But you felt horrible.

“Hey, you okay?”

Apparently you hadn’t held up your facade well enough because a look of concern washed over Suna’s face the instant he stepped back into the room. You shook your head lightly in response to his question, feeling tears welling up behind your eyelids in spite of your attempts to keep them at bay.

The last thing you wanted to do was cry in front of Suna. It was practically a death wish. You could imagine the jokes and poking laughter he would send your way over the next few weeks, and it made you feel even worse.

“Hey, hey now, look at me.”

The words were whispered closer to you than you anticipated. Suna had sat down on the edge of your bed while you were caught up in your thoughts, that same line present between his brows. You fought the urge to touch it, facing away from him again and reaching up to wipe your eyes.

“I’m fine.” That instigated a scoff.

“No you’re not. Now c’mon, let’s get you into the bath. You’ll feel better.”

Right. A bath. Despite the fact that Suna’s presence was wearing you thin, a bath sounded great. The only problem was, you knew you were too weak to walk to your bathroom across the hall. It took so much energy to even sit up, much less actually get on your feet.

Suna must have sensed something was wrong because in mere seconds he was lifting the heavy blanket off of your body and moving closer. Your breath hitched when he moved one strong arm under your back and another under your knees, eyes concentrated.

“Put your arm around my neck,” Suna murmured. You failed to notice the blush that had lifted to his ears because your own was blossoming on your face, making your already warm cheeks heat up even more.

This is purgatory.

You did as he said, lightly wrapping your arm up his shoulder and around his neck. He picked you up in one smooth motion, shocking you. You knew he worked out because of volleyball, but jesus christ. Your head throbbed in protest to the movement, and you winced involuntarily.

“Sorry, shouldn’t have moved so fast.”

“S’fine.”

Your heart was beating frantically in your chest from the proximity. You were so close you could see the long eyelashes that framed his eyes, light traces of black eyeliner around the corners. You saved that in the back of your mind to ask about later.

Suna carried you into the bathroom and placed you gently on the counter. You pushed away the noise of protest that you wanted to let out from the loss of contact. No need to embarrass yourself even more.

“I’ll get you some clothes and leave them outside, take as long as you want.”

You murmured a small thank you as you watched him move towards the door. You hated that you missed him already.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be here the whole time.”

“Like I care.”

“Yea, okay princess.”

You glared at him as he closed the door behind him with a small chuckle. Princess. You fumed at the reaction you had to the pet name.

This is horrible. I’m horrible. I’ll just blame it on him. Him and that stupidly hot smirk.

The bath became increasingly inviting as you sat, eventually leading you to strip of your dirty clothes and step into the warm water. It felt amazing. After a few minutes you felt your eyes begin to droop, the steam luring you to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You didn’t know how long you had slept but judging by the temperature of the water, at least 15 minutes, maybe longer. The water hadn’t cooled completely but had lost its comfortable warmth. Begrudgingly you stepped out of the water and dried off.

You wrapped the towel around yourself and padded towards the door, opening it to retrieve the clothes Suna said he left for you. Just like he said, a small stack of clothes laid on the floor. You grabbed them and faced back towards the sink, wincing at your reflection in the mirror.

You really did look awful. Embarrassment settled into your bones again as you unfolded the clothes to put them on. A small part of your brain pointed out that they were big, too big to be your clothes, but a fit of coughs cut off your train of thought.

A knock came from the door. “Y/n? You okay?”

“Ye-“ Another cough broke off your sentence.

“Knock twice if you’re dressed.”

A small smile crept up on your face at the thought of Suna being considerate. You knocked on the door twice signaling him that it was okay for him to come in. A moment later it opened. Suna was holding what seemed to be a cup of tea in his hands and you reached for it with a sigh.

“Lavender, right?” You halted in your movements.

“Yea...how did you-“

“I pay attention.”

Your face flushed. His gaze never faltered from your face. How did he say that so casually?

“You look good in my clothes.”

So that’s why they were big. You looked in the mirror again, eyes locking in on the large “Inarizaki Volleyball” plastered on the front of the black material.

“Should wear ‘em more often.”

“Shut- shut up.”

“Mhm, okay. Feelin’ better?” You nodded.

“A little. Still feel like shit.”

“Look it, too.”

“Thanks, asshole.”

A light chuckle escaped him and he moved closer towards you. Something felt different. You noticed his eyes linger on you longer, many lapses of silence filled the spaces where playful arguing usually was.

“Cap texted me and asked to bring you soup, he had to do some more shit before he came over.”

“Hm.”

“What do you mean, hm?”

You didn’t get it. Why of all people would Kita send Suna to tend to you? What about Aran? Osamu? Hell, even Atsumu would have been higher on the list than Suna. Maybe…

“That bastard.”

“Woah now, what did Cap do to you?”

Kita was one of the only people who knew about your crush. Of course he would pull some strings to get Suna to come over. That little-

“Hey now pretty thing, don’t frown too much. You’ll get wrinkles.”

It was then you noticed a light touch on your forehead, right in between your eyebrows. Suna was rubbing the space there, just like you had wanted to do to him.

You hoped Suna couldn’t tell how fast your heart was beating or just how much you knew you were blushing.

After a moment of silence Suna still hadn’t removed the touch on your face. He met your eyes, slowly moving to cup your cheek.

“Why are you here, Rin?” His thumb stroked your cheek with a feather-like graze and you swore you saw his eyes flit downwards to your lips. “To take care of you, of course.”

“You’re going to catch my cold.”

“You’ll just have to pay me back later, yeah?”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips, the corners of his mouth edging upwards.

what the fuck did i do to deserve this?

You pushed his hand away and looked away from his gaze. You could manage standing from afar and pining, sure, but what you couldn’t deal with was Suna messing around with you like this. You ignored the ache in your chest, choosing to cover it up by reaching for another tissue.

“Y/n.” You ignored him.

“Y/n, look at me.” You braced your arms on the bathroom sink with a sigh.

“What, Suna.”

“Rin. It’s Rin, to you.” You scoffed.

“Why am I any different than anyone else?”

“Because…”

You turned to face him again, confusion and slight annoyance bubbling under your skin. “Because what?” Suna groaned and ran a hand over his face. “You’re so oblivious.”

Okay, now you were annoyed.

“Oblivious? How am I oblivious?”

“Because you haven’t realized how different you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you fucking messing with me Suna? Look, I’m in no mood for your stupid games-“

“Would you shut up for one second and think.”

You leaned back against the sink with a cough, wincing as another throb of pain shot through your head. Any traces of anger or annoyance vanished from Suna’s face in an instant. He left the bathroom and you heard him rustling through the bag he left in your room. He returned with a bottle of pills and an ice pack.

“Here. Take these.” You took the small pills from his outstretched hand and washed them down with the now lukewarm tea. “Have you thought about it?” You rolled your eyes dramatically, placing your hand under your chin to mock a thinking position. “No, I don’t think I have.” He rolled his eyes in return. “Fine. Would I be doing this for anyone else? Hm?”

It’s a good point. One you didn’t bother thinking about. Sure, maybe he would do it for his teammates, but that was a hard maybe. He just wasn’t the caretaker type, much less with someone he wasn’t close with. You realized the implication behind his words in an instant.

“You...you like me?”

“‘Bout time you figured that out, sweetheart.”

All of the moments between you two passed through your mind in a frenzy, and you started to laugh. It was hysterical, really. All this time you just knew Suna could never like you back.

i take it back. thank you. sorry for saying fuck you

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” He scoffed, “And risk losing my appearance? Hell no,” he said, sending you that damn smirk again.

“You are a menace, Rintaro.”

“Yea, but I’m your menace. You’re stuck with me.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“Oh shush, ya love me.”

“Yea, yea. Now, get me back in my bed. I need to sleep.”

“Inviting me to bed already? Wow y/n.”

“I hate you.” He reached over and pecked your cheek.

“Hate you, too.”

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#fanfic #suna rintarō #suna x reader #suna rinatro #suna x you #hq fluff #haikyuu x reader

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1plus1kiyoomi · 4 years

Text

Chapter 7: Boyfriend Recommendation

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[masterlist]

It has been 2 months since you moved to Hyogo. In those 2 months, it’s safe to say that you and Kita have gotten pretty close. You didn’t develop a romantic dynamic, but it certainly isn’t platonic either, considering how vocal you are about liking him.

Kita allows you to tease him and do pretty much anything you want as long as you don’t cross the line he never mentioned, but you know is there. It’s all fun and jokes between the two of you, or at least you’re enjoying. You’re not really sure about Kita’s feelings. He never reacts or reciprocates to your actions.

On Kita’s side, he’s not really sure about you. There are times he feels like he likes you, but then the contrast of your personalities make him question your compatibility as a couple, if ever you become one. He just can’t imagine dating someones like you: extravagant, outgoing, impulsive, sometimes childish. His heart is telling him to go for it, but his mind is just so hesitant.

The only thing you have in common is Rice. That’s it. You both own Rice. But even how you raise the dog is conflicting.

He wants Rice to sleep in the living room? You want Rice to sleep in your room.

He wants Rice to eat less food because the dog’s getting fat? You feed him more and give unnecessary snacks.

For the meantime, your relationship label is: Rice’s parents.

“Rice, come here,” you call the dog, patting the space in between your legs. “Wanna join me in today’s live?” Rice barks as a response and excitedly goes between your legs. He doesn’t understand what you’re saying, but the way you’re patting the mat is making his tail wag.

You go to your Instagram and start a live. A few seconds later, you see people coming in so you greet them. “Hello everyone! Did you have a nice day? Ohh... Some of you are still at cram school. Then why are you watching my live? Shouldn’t you be studying?”

You continue to go on live, showing your viewers what Rice has learned in the span of two months. Sit, down, roll, play dead, paw, other paw, nose: those are all you’ve taught him. Kita taught him the more practical tricks. Like, get your bowl, go to your bed, stay, wait, don’t go out. Sometimes, when you go to school, Rice goes to the fields with Kita and help him carry his towel.

“Can you do the my boyfriend does my makeup challenge?” You read, making you laugh. “I love the video recommendation but can you also recommend a boyfriend?”

You see names pop up in the replies but you don’t actually mind them. You look for questions but you just see names, so you decide to end the video like that. “I have to go now. I will consider your recommendation hahaha. Bye!”

Turning the live off, you hear the door open. Rice hears it, too, so he excitedly runs to your door, waiting for you to open it. “Dad’s here? Are you excited?” Rice barks so you rise from your bed and open the door for him. He runs to the front door and you wait for Kita at the living room.

“Hi,” you greet him with your usual smile. He ignores you and heads to the kitchen, holding Rice in his arms. “Why does he look mad?” You mutter to yourself. You follow him in the kitchen, linking your arms with his. “Bad day?”

He humms then shakes you off. You pout. You hug him from behind this time and he lets you stay like that, knowing you won’t give up on your tactics. “I watched your live,” he speaks up after a long moment of silence.

“All of it?” You ask him, burying your face on his back. You take in his scent and sigh in satisfaction. He smells really fresh despite staying under the sun the whole day. He smells like home. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Let’s do the makeup challenge your fans suggested,” he suddenly tells you, ignoring your question. You let go of him and pinch his side, but he still doesn’t give you a reaction.

You cross your arms, leaning on the counter top behind you. “No.” You reject his offer and he faces you with his stone ace.

“Is it because I’m not your boyfriend?” He raises an eyebrow.

You shake your head. “You don’t even like being in front of the camera. Why would you film a video with me?”

He dodges your question again. “I can hide my face from the frame.”

“You are acting suspicious right now,” you furrowed your eyebrows, eyes squiented. “What’s the catch?”

“Nothing. You just get new content,” Kita answers which Rice barks at. “See? Even Rice agrees.”

“Are you sure you’re okay about filming? What even went in your mind that you’re suddenly on board about this makeup challenge?” You chuckle, not believing what’s happening. Kita hates being filmed. He doesn’t even want his pictures to be taken. He’s private like that.

“The boyfriend recommendations,” he mumbles quickly as he turns so you don’t hear him. “Nothing. Just felt like it.”

After a lot of thinking you finally say yes to him. You set up the camera in your room, the screen hidden from you. The mirror is also covered with a piece of cloth so Kita can surprise you with the look he’s going to do on you. He finally enters your room in his matching cotton maroon pajama pants and sweats.

“I have a nightgown that matches yours! I wanna wear it, too!” You excitedly tell him, shoving him out of the room so you can change.

After changing into a plain silk slip on dress in the same shade, you call him to come back in. He stops at the doorway as he sees you. The way you look so simple yet so attractive causes blood to rush on his face and somewhere else in his lower body. He won’t admit the latter, but he can feel it.

“Want to start filming?” You ask him, not noticing his red ears. He nods at you and stands at the side, waiting for a signal for him to come in the frame.

You do your usual introduction then finally explain what’s going to happen in the video. “So for today’s video, I will do a challenge that has been requested a lot and for a very long time now. Today I will be doing the ‘boyfriend does my makeup’ challenge. But the man in this film is not my boyfriend. I want to clarify that before you jump to conclusions. He’s...” you take a glance at him and he’s looking at you nonchalantly so you feel shy. “Umm... he’s the other parent of Rice. We are co-parenting Rice. I guess you can say that we are good friends.”

Kita finally enters the frame, but only his shoulder to hip can be seen in the camera. “What do I call you?” You ask him and he just shrugs. You smile, an idea popping into you’re mind. “I’ll call you baby.”

“No,” he firmly says, but you just stick your tongue out to him. He looks down at you, then gulps. The sexual tension between the two of you is growing, and you’re aware. You have fun teasing Kita because you know he won’t do anything about it, which is something that made you fall deeper for him.

“Whatever, baby,” you giggle. He pinches your cheek in irritation so you whine jokingly. You go back to recording and leave the fate of your face on the man beside you. “So we will now start the challenge. Baby, go on.”

Kita does a sarcastic gagging face at the nickname before he goes through your makeup box. He picks up a random sponge and foundation. “Is this right?” He asks you but you don’t answer him. “Wait, you really don’t help me even just a bit?”

“No, baby,” you tell him. The nickname coming out of your mouth sounds so natural. He likes it, but he won’t tell you that, but he won’t stop you from calling him that either.

“If you turn out ugly after this, it’s your face’s fault,” he says in a serious tone so you jokingly punch his side. He puts an amount of liquid foundation on your forehead, and you feel it drip down the nose of your bridge. “I don’t think I’m doing this right.”

After doing your foundation, he grabs an eyeliner. “Already?” You chuckle and he puts it back on the table. He takes a contour palette and confidently grabs an eyeshadow brush. He does random strokes on your eyelids, lowkey scaring you.

He stares at you intensely before looking away with a disappointed look on your face. “Baby, what did you do?”

“Wait, I think this will fix it.” Kita takes the eyeliner again so you close your eyes, allowing him to draw on your lids. “It doesn’t look that bad with your eyes closed.”

“Should I just close my eyes the whole time?” You snort. You hear him say open, so you look up to him, your eyes meeting his. He takes his lower lip in between his lips, concentrating on your lids. ‘May all the gods help me not do anything to this man.’

He continued doing your makeup in silence, while you do almost all of the talking, asking him the most random questions which he answers calmly despite how weird the question may get.

“Baby, if a cockroach lands on a soap, will the cockroach be cleaned or will the soap be dirty?”

“You know what (Y/N), this is by far the most stupid question you’ve asked, not just in this video but ever since we’ve met.”

Kita is putting mascara on you when you suddenly open your eyes, causing him to poke the stick in your eye. You groan in pain so he drops the mascara on the table and attends to you.

“Baby, are you okay? Let me see.” He grabs both of your cheeks, and checks your reddening eye. The pain has subsided due to him calling you baby. He blows on your eyes, his face getting closer to you.

“Baby, huh?” You mock and he rolls his eyes at you. He continues to do your makeup, being extra careful this time.

“I think we’re done,” he says after putting wand of the lipgloss back on. He takes a look at you and chuckles.

“How bad is it?” You ask him in worry.

“Don’t you trust me?” He pouts and you shake your head. He puts his hand on top of your head, and shakes it gently, making you laugh. “You’re so annoying.”

“You like me like that!”

‘I do.’

Kita finally removes the cloth from the mirror so you see yourself. You gasp, not expecting Kita to do a good job. It’s not the best, but it’s something you can wear out. It’s simple but somehow looks so elegant. Just like Kita.

“You did a really good job.” You smile at him. You start filming for the outro of your video after that.

After doing the outro, Kita just stands there and looks at you. “What?” You chuckle, looking his way.

“Nothing. You look good,” he replies, making you a flustered mess.

“Stop saying that. I won’t be able to resist and kiss you,” you threaten him with a pout.

He shrugs. “Go for it.”

Heat spreads across your face from his words. You scream in frustration and he just chuckles. Kita walks closer to you while you hide your blushing face in the palm of your hands. “Don’t move any closer. I swear I will do it.”

“I told you already, go for it.” He bends down to your sitting height, but you look away. “This is the only time I will allow you to do it.”

You remove your hands away from your face, then you see that Kita’s face is close to yours. “What is with you today?” You groan, turning your back on him.

Kita spins your chair to make you face him again. “I don’t know. The jealousy and your nightgown I guess.”

“What?” You stutter, not comprehending his words.

Before you can even ask what he means, Kita’s lips are already on top of yours. Your eyes widen in shock, not processing anything. A few moments later, you give in to his lips. And at that same time, he pulls away, leaving you disappointed.

“Good night, baby.”

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Note: Just a short update because school and work are taking so much of my time skskksksks hopefully I get to go back to my daily updates after hell week :|

Taglist: @vicassa @ptv-hades @steggy4ever @booklover240 @toripersonalacc @mkazuyuh @smoltiddygf @adrasteiaxandromedaa @leinnah @a-applepi @kellesvt @xxlightsaberxx @youpieceofwasabi @bandolls @wheelzzzies @apollochjld @sakusa-simp @neomuxuxi @aquzairus @ynjimenez @sempiternal-amour @tnu-ree @mindofess @alittlebitofrain @agaashesmilktea @aquzairus @ynjimenez @sempiternal-amour @diyosku @dinablossom @atomicpie1115 @lililiynx @onlyshinji @melodiamore @bunnybitesthedust @angrylittleriri @rogueofbullshit @8zmingi @aam1na @yuueisteria @4kaashl

#haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu series #kita shinsuke smau #kita shinsuke x reader #kita imagines #kita x reader #kita smau #haikyuu kita #kita shinsuke

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batarella · 3 years

Text

Wallpaper (Jason Todd x Reader)

A smile so palpable, a smile you saw him look at and return, for only just so few a second, it stayed and delved into this threshold with him you never would have foreseen.

A/N: I just realized I haven’t done a one shot since before Bullet. Here’s a little coffee shop one where you find out your best friend’s home screen on his phone is a picture of you.

WORDS: 2081 WARNINGS: NONE BUT FLUFF

MASTERLIST

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Two espressos at ten that night. At this hour, there were three types of people in the café with you. The hard-working strivers with bloodshot eyes and five different highlighters, the laid back, unbothered students on their phones even with a book wide open in front of them, and the likes of Jason, the friends of the mentioned two, asleep on the couch and/or their desks.

And it was just that when you got to your table and Jason had already settled into his seat, crouched over and unmoving. You poked his shoulder with your elbow to wake him. “Drink.”

“I didn’t order one.”

“I thought you needed it, with you on patrol tonight.”

“How’d you know?”

“It’s Wednesday.”

Wednesdays he patrols the alley, so he won't be getting any shut eye for the whole of the night. And he had an hour, maybe two, before he leaves. Still you convinced him to come with or the lack of company lulls you to boredom. And that wasn’t much an option even when it’d be inevitable having a paper due before AM.

Jason didn’t argue, and he wasn’t much to have caffeine before he goes on patrol. He just took the cup and sipped.

You pulled out your laptop. “Got anything to do for the night?”

From your screen, you looked up and Jason was on his phone. “Errands.”

“Errands?”

“Yeah,” he showed you his screen. It opened a text from Roy. “Is Roy asking you to do something for him?”

“Nah. I just need to reply. It’s been two days.”

“So errands to you is replying to text messages-“

“You know I don’t like texting when it isn’t necessary.”

“You reply to me.”

He snorted and sipped from his cup. “’Cuz you're tolerable.”

“Thanks so much.” You stretched out your fingers. “Now be quiet. I need to finish this.”

You never once would have thought that was the last thing you’d ever say to him that didn’t have any unusual undertones, when you didn’t have to think too much about what you’d say and what light you’d put yourself into. And what was worse, it wasn’t one you’d prepared for, neither was it anything to expect even when it was all in front of your nose for so many years.

“Bathroom,” he said to you after half an hour of silence.

And all else would have stayed that way if you let it. But even that had proven to be something so difficult for you to do.

It started when, out of the gaps from the supposed noise cancelling headphones you got from Wish, his phone rang. It was Roy. Because of those headphones, and how they failed at their one job, you heard that ringtone, the first of this descent, this succession you’d no longer knew how to stop.

You picked up his phone and told Roy he’d call him back.

Another step was looking too closely at his lock screen that opened just as you hung up.

It was taken from a couch. Your couch it seems. The one in your apartment that faced your window. And in front of it, too far for you to recognize immediately but close enough that you’d know, was a head of hair, back turned and facing out the curtains, with an arm outstretched so she was holding the fabric out the way to look out the glass.

Her hair was, however, something you could tell was yours. Because then you remembered the day this picture was taken. You invited him over to your apartment and a parade went on just outside your building. Jason didn’t care for it and stuck to the couch. You wanted to at least take a peek.

But it would have been nothing to think much of if it weren’t for the fact that the whole picture was centered on you, that it wasn’t the curtains or the windows or even the blank wall perfectly shined on was what the photo was so focused on.

It was ignorance, genuine confusion you just wanted an answer to.

But something, some voice perhaps, told you it was a good idea to snoop around your best friend’s phone, because that very voice knew there was so much more to this than you ever would have thought.

Another step you didn’t know would push you further into this fall was guessing his password right the first time.

It was then when you knew there wasn’t any turning back, whatever it was you’d gotten yourself into.

All it was, and all it should be, was a photo of you, one of you turning your back to tell him you’d seen god knows what outside your window, something that seemingly made you smile in a way you’ve never seen yourself before, so raw and candid, one you could never force yourself to have if you tried. Because it seems it came out when you weren’t. A photo that Jason had set as his home screen. All it should be was a photo, and a few taps of his fingers that should mean just as much as saying you looked at all decent. All it should be was pixels, a moment captured just because, something he’d look at amusingly that had nothing to do with depth nor thought.

All it was is you, his best friend, someone he took to prom once and ended up skipping because you had food poisoning that night, and he spent the night holding up your hair with your head in the toilet. All it was is you, the girl who tried and miserably failed to hook him up with so many others because no one seemed to stick with him long enough, longer than just a fling or enough to have meaning.

All it was is you. It was him. It was just Jason.

It can’t be anything more.

You put the phone down just as Jason came back from the bathroom.

“Roy called.” You found it difficult to even talk. “He wants you to call him back.”

The man just scoffed. “All he’s getting is a text outta me. You didn’t have to answer.”

You shrugged. Maybe you shouldn’t have.

But it shouldn’t matter if it didn’t mean anything.

That he didn’t actively choose to have your face to look at every day when you weren’t around, on his phone which he was on so much of the time, even when he barely talks to anyone.

That it wasn’t you, at a moment you didn’t even notice, and a photo he’d cropped out so it was you and you alone that he could see, that he didn’t care for the curtains, the view out the window, or the blank wall, that he only cared to see you.

That he didn’t choose to have you to look at every time he closes an app or sends a text or takes a photo or do anything with that little device.

It shouldn’t be any of those things.

But, even with your efforts not too futile, it didn’t even matter.

Ten years, more than that, without seeing him anywhere near that light.

But not one day out of those years did you remember looking up from where you were sitting quietly across him and notice how lightly his tongue dragged over his top lip to clean off the coffee’s brown, or how he ignores it when his hair tickles his eyelids but can’t stand it when it was on his nose.

You thought you’d never notice how that night, the dark circles under his eyes were more eminent than they’d so often be, how when he answered your call that late afternoon, he’d just woken up from a nap, or more likely, just had the time to at all sleep. How he didn’t even sound like it was a bother and went with you anyway.

How he’s never rejected a night with you at the café even when you thought he would, even when he’d barely do anything more than nap or fiddle with his phone. Sometimes he’d pretend to ask about what you were up to, pretend to be interested.

How he’s never said no to you at all. Even for the most trivial things, even when it seemed so unlike him to be invested in what you do, even when it doesn’t concern him at the least.

You never saw him in that light.

Suddenly he was shining under it brighter than any beautiful woman’s eyes or a concert stadium’s stage lighting.

At one point you couldn’t remember, you were told it was possible to fall in love in a day, and naturally you didn’t believe it. Or if it were true, that it wasn’t at all any deeper than a child’s play pool or a pond outside a garden.

And it was all too unlikely that you’d know all these with what time you had.

But you did.

All it took was an hour. Less than two.

And it was your chest burning, jumping even, that went with your stomach when he slid the small cake he’d ordered over to your side of the table so you could have a bite, even when you knew that little slice was barely enough to stuff him.

It was your eyes that took too long to linger on what was just his face, no longer just a face, but was now one you could stare at for so long as you could see, for so long that you’d take advantage of your sight and choose to only ever look at things so beautiful, such as him.

It was your hands, sweating profusely and defying all effort you’d pathetically exert, how they shook so much you had to fist them just to have some kind of conscious control.

But even that wasn’t possible. You had no control in any of this at all.

It was the opposite of gradual falling, the kind you thought would only bring out something so intense and genuine and at all real, something that’d last and evolve from the frantic beating in your chest into comfort you’d find in no one else.

It wasn’t something you’d seen come from so far and prepared for even with it so clear, that you’d look to yourself and actually watch yourself fall and at all have a say in any of it.

Because, if anything, it was tripping over a cliff that suddenly appeared behind you, or a beaver dam you thought was made of stone, but instead was filled with leaves and branches so brittle and fragile that the water broke through it easier with one, single ripple from its surface.

You watched yourself then, as everything you felt, every ounce of redness in your face that morphed into this fire that never would stop burning even with what you’d try to extinguish, that this shaking in your palms turned to this reeling, this desire to hold something or someone, someone that was him and only him, when you looked up and saw his hand and you realized it was what you were crying out to hold.

Like you’d transcended out your own body and saw what you never thought existed suddenly unfold.

It wasn’t possible.

But you didn’t even allow yourself the time to deny it.

“Want me to get you more?” Jason asked you, and you realized you’d finished the cake he’d given. And you didn’t even like cake.

“I’d love one.”

Just as he started to get up from his chair, he looked at you quizzically.

“You alright?”

The nod you gave him was too subtle to imply truth, but he didn’t look into it twice. He just got up and bought you another slice.

Then he handed the whole thing to you, took one bite, then gave you the same fork he’d just raked over his lips.

A smile so palpable, a smile you saw him look at and return, for only just so few a second, it stayed and delved into this threshold with him you never would have foreseen.

But it was that very smile that sealed it, that locked you in, and right then you knew that perhaps, this was what you’ve wanted in a good life for so long.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

You couldn’t possibly have fallen in love with him in eighty-three minutes.

But at the end of it, you didn’t even try to deny.

You did.

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MASTERLIST

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A/N: Let me know if you want on my taglist!

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MAIN TAGLIST:

@idkmanicantenglish, @wunderstell, @birdy-bat-writes, @multifandomgirl-us, @icequeen208, @offendedfishnoises, @elsenthal, @lucy-roo, @loxbbg, @reclusive-chicken-nugget, @l-inkage, @http-cherries, @river9noble, @zphilophobiaz, @annoylinglyaries, @knightfall05x, @hyp-oh-critical, @satan-s-ass, @1-800-starmora, @flowersgirl02, @nahcho, @thatonecroc, @trixie-bb, @daddyissuesmademe, @shadowsndaisies @jaybirdbooty @writing2sirvive @spaceservicestation, @thedeadlythoughts, @vanessafabricius,

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd fluff #batarella #batarella fluff #reader insert #jason todd reader insert

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myelocin · 3 years

Text

of stars & skies | bokuto k.

Synopsis: Things sort of fall out of plan.

Genre: smut, fluff | WC: 1400+

Characters: Bokuto Koutarou

A/N: this is a commissioned piece by @hvnlydmn

i love you more - son of cloud

commissions

If someone were to ask Bokuto Koutarou to summarize the things he feels about you, at best he’d answer with just a grin.

A grin, for now, because in the moment his thoughts are anything but coherent. He can faintly recall that it’s only sometime between four or five in the morning, and the both of you really should be asleep but that’s far from the case.

Still, it’s the feel of your fingers clawing at his thighs that make him grin. Head thrown back, groan hoarse and throat scratched, he parts his legs further apart.

It’s a nice sight, he thinks. 5ams and the dim light just barely starting to peek through from the blinds. Your hair, messy and sticking out in more places in one beneath him and the marks on his thighs in the exact shape of your fingernails painted red and angry. Bokuto knows by now that he really should be saying something before he busts a fucking nut right then and there, but you do the thing and swallow—again, and his head blanks.

You smirk; your jaw’s been aching for a while now, the skin on your knees not doing any better. When you inhale, you’re a little more careful than usual, trying to regain control.

Bokuto just arrived home from a game overseas a little over two hours ago, and you had planned for him to catch up on sleep before doing anything else—truly, but five steps through the door his tongue was shoved down your throat and his hands were behind you unclasping your bra and plans went to shit.

He groans again, hands tightening around your hair as he pushes his cock in deeper, profanities spilling from his lips. Beneath your fingers his thigh trembles, and when his grip relaxes, you take it as an opportunity to ease off of his cock, eyes locked on him.

He leans back, one elbow bent to support his weight as the other runs over the deep flush of his face at the sight of you. Bokuto had always been thick, and he’s always been more than aware of that, so it just does something to him to see you taking him whole despite looking so perfectly wrecked.

His cock twitches on your hand, and you smirk.

“Fucker,” he groans, eyes never leaving your form as you poke your tongue out and lean forward, swiping at the slick that’s gathered at the tip of his cock.

“Good fucking girl,” you hear him moan, the vibration of his voice doing its job in sending a shiver that shot through your body and right to your core.

And even though sex with Bokuto plays out like it’s some kind of routine, it’s little moments that differ from yesterday and today that makes things worth it. Much like him, you can never really get enough. The weight of his cock on your tongue is familiar, but the way his jaw tenses just a little different in today than last week’s makes your heart leap. Half lidded eyes that glimmer different every single time show you all the shades of the moon when it hangs like gold in the sky stare at you like you are the world itself, and even though your slick’s dripping down your thighs, all the feelings of love still beats in your chest.

Bokuto peers at you, words caught in his throat before he count think to say them, moans half groaned out, your name repeated like a prayer in pants.

He feels you swallow around his cock and he stills. By now he already knows that all it would probably take for him to cum was a couple more licks to his slit, and he should be focusing on that, but the dawn chooses the exact same moment to break through the sky.

Then it’s soft orange and pale yellow, filtered through the blinds. Spilling on the floor, climbing up the walls, and illuminating your eyes that stare at him.

You recognize the look too, and the timing of your lover’s sentimentality should be comedic if anything, but when his shoulders soften and you feel him pull you up and away from him, seating you on his lap, your brain blanks.

Love, like a wordless exchange in the mornings, because even if the dawn has broken through the black of the sky, you choose to let the silence linger just for a little while longer. Bokuto holds you by the waist, lifting you up and over his cock before he eases himself in with a low groan. Eyes locked towards you, from your end you see the colors of the stars while he’s awestruck, gazing at the sky.

He’s panting, and you’re shaking—a newfound presence that’s always blended itself in the atmosphere of the room even when you’re fucking enveloping the two of you like a warm blanket on a cold day.

“I love you,” he says, the truth in his words finally breaking past its earlier barriers.

“I love you, I love you, I fucking love you,” Bokuto whispers, the tone of his voice half a moan and a confession, bottom lip in between his teeth as he thrusts up, and pulls your waist down to meet him halfway simultaneously.

And you feel it.

The kind of love that’s always found you ever since you met him.

Because love—the kind that’s raw and real and present, flows better through feelings instead of words. Though when he thinks of it, he had never been exactly the type to have been much for words, so he supposes the sentiment remains.

He likes to think that love—his sort of love—has a habit of being uncovered in the mornings. Mornings like 5ams right before the dawn breaks and the world stirs. The frost from last night’s chilly air still on the windowpanes and the sun just barely waking. A world that thrives in progress and motion, the days starting with the intention to be lived before it ends. The forgiving kind of sun during sunrise, because it feels more warm than scathing on his skin.

Bokuto likes to memorize everything about you under a light like this.

He knows he’ll see all the shades of blue when you open your eyes, but for now it’s the hue of the skin on your eyelids and blush of your cheeks that he sees. Bokuto chokes out another confession that reaches you, his fingers digging deeper into the skin of your waist, his breaths labored and roughed, perfectly matching yours.

Another inbetween makes itself known, coming as the thought that mornings have always been your sort of thing. It’s always been funny how little epiphanies of just how in love he is with you choose to unravel in moments like these, but it fits.

The sound of your voice—his name on your lips, moaned, and huffed out in short breaths fits. If you lean forward and press your chest against his, which he knows you only do when you’re getting close and wanting to bury your face somewhere—fits.

(Like a puzzle piece that clicks in place, it fits.)

Love fits, and nestles in the cracks and corners of his life, and he’s only felt fulfillment since.

You feel his hips stutter, his grip tightening even more before he slams you to him once, twice, as he buries himself to the hilt and cums.

Bokuto feels you shaking, in a way he knows is good against him, so he laughs. And he’s quiet with his words as he sounds out the vowels of your name. Hands, gentle in the way it holds you—cradles you to him, because love is like that too.

As much as it bursts and makes him feel like he’s racing through a highway, blind and breathless, and euphoric—it’s also just holding you close to him at daybreak. You allow the silence to resettle, your hands reaching forward to cup his face as you open your eyes and look at the colors of the stars again, and Bokuto’s smiling.

(You are too.)

He sniffles, as do you.

Love hangs like the vines of a plant that resurfaces into the earth again and again despite the rough hands that time never ceases to bring.

“Hey,” you whisper, your forehead pressed against his, the smell of home and him a familiar one to you.

(I love you.)

And he knows you mean to say that, so he closes your eyes and leans in to your touch, because he’s safe, and here, and home.

(The way his thumbs rub circles on the skin of your waist tells you that he means to say I love you too.)

#nc.commissions #nc.ns//fw #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu smut #hq x reader #hq smut #bokuto koutarou #bokuto koutarou x reader #bokuto koutarou smut #bokuto x reader #bokuto smut #bokuto imagines #bokuto scenarios #bokuto x reader fluff #haikyuu x reader fluff

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marveldc-imagines-hub · 3 years

Text

Subtitles: Episode 2, Don’t Touch That Dial

Subtitles Masterlist

Summary: A nondescript amount of time has passed since [Y/N] has met the Maximoff couple and the trio has since then gotten better settled in Westview, although none of them have yet to make the best impressions with their neighbors. [Y/N], Vision, and Wanda have found friends and confidants in each other when they haven’t much elsewhere but [Y/N]’s crush remains, begging the question, ‘Is there anything more to come?’ Meanwhile, the people of the cul-de-sac are planning a talent show and the atmosphere in Westview appears to be shifting. Follow along as the happy little world of Westview begins fraying at the seams while strange happenings occur and an unseen power desperately seeks to stitch it back together…

Word count: 13,766

Warnings: This one’s even longer. Fluff, sappy rom-com vibes, more possible second-hand embarrassment. It’s just as weird as the episode.

Tag List: @madamevirgo

~~~

“[Y/N], hon. I really think you should cool it on the coffee for the rest of the day.”

It’s possible that Agnes was right. The tiredness that was caused by a windy, sleepless night has recently been replaced by chaotic, synthetic energy that had your eyes wide and hands shaking slightly. You were on your fourth cup now, which you’d brought with you from the diner you and Agnes had had breakfast at. The two of you were going to pick up Wanda and go over to Dottie’s for actual breakfast—well, brunch—but you both had rocky relationships with the queen of the neighborhood and needed to mentally prepare. You had been up for a better part of the last night due to bushes and tree branches rattling against your windows, not to mention all your previous encounters with Dottie have been disastrous; you needed the caffeinated courage. Agnes just wanted to have something on her stomach beforehand so the alcohol hidden away in her handbag would sit better.

You hummed around your mouthful of coffee in response to Agnes’s mild worrying. You swallowed, then threw back the last of the no longer hot beverage and scurried over to a random trash can to toss the cup away. “There, see? All done. All nifty.” Just as an extra bit of proof, you gave her some jazz hands and shimmied as you walked back over to link your arm with hers.

Agnes tried to hold down a smirk but broke into a laugh when the shimmying started. “You look as jittery as a squirrel.”

“Not as fluffy as a bunny?” you asked with a wide-eyed pout, then reached over to poke a finger in the cage that your companion held; the rabbit inside, Agnes’s pet, immediately offered his head to be scratched. “Señor Scratchy, more like Mr. Cutie Patootie.”

“Fluffy too, of course,” Agnes offered, giving your curled updo a ruffle. “In a good mood too, which I suppose isn’t a bad thing. With Dottie around, we’ll need it.”

You almost cracked a grin but then thought about how you’d feel hearing someone say that about you and felt somewhat sad. Luckily, you found a quick reason to grin anyway as Wanda’s house came into view up ahead—

Only for the grin to turn into a look of confusion as a buzzing suddenly started in your ear.

You stopped cold, cocking your head as you strained to listen. The buzzing sounded almost like a lawnmower but coming from the sky—a helicopter, perhaps, but there was something off about it like it was happening inside your head—and the sound grew louder until it stopped with a sudden bang, making you jump.

“[Y/N]?” Agnes’s voice called. “[Y/N], are you alright?”

Drawn back to your surroundings, you felt a cold sweat on your back and noticed your hands had become clammy; the hair on your neck and arms stood straight up and your body felt suddenly achy, almost have you had come down with a cold out of the blue. You looked at Agnes with wide eyes and saw her staring at you, concerned with both arms gripping your sleeve.

It took you several moments to recover and when you did, you asked, “Did you hear that?”

Agnes looked at you incredulously, shaking her head just slightly. “Hear what?”

She hadn’t heard it? You felt like the strange sounds had happened right next to you.

The woman at your side continued, “I didn’t hear anything at all, except for Wanda coming outside. Then you just stopped walking and stood there, I couldn’t even budge you.”

Agnes nodded in the direction in Wanda’s direction and you looked that way. Wanda was indeed outside now, though she hadn’t seemed to notice you two coming up the sidewalk yet. Instead, she was looking down in the bushes near her fence, seemingly distressed. You followed her gaze and saw something glittering in the sunlight there.

“Well,” Agnes said loudly, officially snapping you out of your daze, “you seem fine now, at least. I told you all that caffeine was going to make you go looney!” She picked up the rabbit cage she apparently put down while you were… doing whatever it had been that you were doing, then kept walking as if nothing had happened.

You watched her for a moment before following. Then you noticed Wanda lean over and pick up whatever it was she was looking at but you couldn’t see what it was as Agnes obscured most of the view. You could, however, see Wanda’s distraught expression and it made you want to run and make sure she was okay; you noted that Agnes still had no reaction, though, and decided perhaps all that caffeine was the actual cause of all these weird feelings.

You felt the familiar pang of a headache as you and Agnes got closer.

“Look, it’s the star of the show!” Agnes chirped, leaning against the fence bordering the Maximoff lawn. You saw Wanda gasp and drop the thing back into the bushes but Agnes just grinned.

“Agnes!” Wanda replied in a way that seemed a little strained. She leaned over and covered the bush with an arm. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Then she noticed you, still a little ways behind Agnes, and the tension in her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. “And [Y/N]!”

You gave her a sheepish wave, still trying to recollect yourself. The faint headache was still there, getting a bit stronger whenever your eyes or thoughts drifted to the object Wanda was obviously trying to hide. At least you weren’t sweaty and clammy anymore, though. Not that that would matter. It’s not like you would be holding anybody’s hand on the way to Dottie’s.

You wouldn’t mind doing so if it happened to happen though.

Stop, you chided yourself, Bad. No holding hands with Wanda.

Unless you hold hands with both her and her husband, your brain decided to think on its own, which is totally cool too.

No, you chided your brain this time, no holding hands with married couples.

Fine, your brain conceded. Then after a moment, Just kiss them instead.

No!

Good god, that had been too much coffee.

You shook your head slightly and watched and Agnes handed Señor Scratchy over to Wanda who headed back to the house with him, though you hadn’t been paying attention to what they were saying prior.

“...he played baby Jesus in last year’s Christmas pageant!” Agnes was saying, to which Wanda looked over her shoulder and answered, “Ah!”

Then Agnes looked over her shoulder, and yours, and said, “Oh, morning, Dennis!”

You side-stepped to let the man pass and took the advantage to move to Agnes’s other side as she chatted the mailman up. You couldn’t help laughing a bit as she made finger guns at him and told him to stick ‘em up.

“Ho,” Dennis responded, putting his hands up momentarily and smiling, “Don’t shoot, I’m just the messenger.”

“Pew pew!” Agnes sounded, waggling her “guns” at him.

You offered your own, less theatrical greeting to Dennis as he walked by, then leaned over and bumped hips with Agnes when you caught her watching him walk away.

“Please tell me you’re not having an affair with the mailman,” you said.

Agnes choked, then threw back her head and did what you could only describe as a cackle. “What? Heavens no!”

“Good,” you replied, then slid a bit closer. Shimmying your shoulders at her, you teased, “Because I’m the only one you need.”

Agnes snorted and swatted you over the head but she was smiling. “You bird dog, get out of here. I’m married!”

“And I will duel your husband at dawn,” you cried, “I am the only one who gets to fight bar stools for the lady’s affections!”

The two of you chortled and separated as Wanda came walking out of the house and back towards you. She looked rather lovely in the pants and cardigan combo that she wore; you also quite liked the pattern of her shirt.

She looked between the two of you—you felt like her eyes settled on you for just a second longer but that was probably the caffeine too—and as she got closer said, “Shall we?”

“Oh, we shall,” Agnes replied, stepping back from leaning on the fence and offering Wanda her arm.

You saw Wanda glance back at the bushes and she linked her arm with Agnes’s and before you could think about your headache and stop yourself, you followed her gaze. You were now standing on the other side of the fence of the bushes that Wanda had tried to hide the object she’d found in and with a quick peer, you could make out a toy helicopter within the branches.

There was something very off about the helicopter, as there had been about the sound earlier. Looking at it was like the effects of one of your worse migraines but without the intense pain. Time appeared to slow way down and your head somehow felt like it was both floating and behind crushed at the same time. When you tried to look around it was like you were moving outside of your body, as if you had turned around to look at your own house across the street and yet hadn’t moved at all. Images of Wanda and Agnes’s faces, the Maximoff house and your own, faces and places that you didn’t quite recognize, the helicopter all floated through your line of vision, mushing together or overlaying on top of each other, and you couldn’t be sure whether you were actually looking around or if you had closed your eyes and this was all happening behind your eyelids.

After what seemed like a century but you were sure was only a very slow second, the helicopter came into focus again, and you felt like you were gasping or squinting or both, but without actually doing either. The toy had a very bizarre color scheme as if the colors didn’t exist in this realm of existence; you couldn’t quite place the names of them no matter how hard you tried. The helicopter’s bright colors—almost too bright to you; it felt like looking at the sun but you couldn’t look away—appeared to turn the entire world around you to shades of gray, including yourself. Yet again, you felt like you moved without actually doing so as you raised your hand, a shade of gray instead of your skin tone. Looking further, your entire outfit wasn’t the combination of your two favorite colors that you thought it was but a variety of grays, as well as the sidewalk you stood on and the fence and bushes you stood next to.

Your gaze settled on the toy helicopter again even though you were pretty sure you’d never actually looked away.

Blood? The helicopter was the color of blood and sand, with a touch of the color you suddenly hated with every fiber of your being, shimmery gray.

Then there was a sound like a thunderclap happening directly inside your head and everything was back to normal.

Wanda has just finished linking arms with Agnes and the girls were stepping to one side so you could join their line. Looking at Wanda’s smile directed at Agnes, and Agnes’s scheming look directed at you, the world didn’t seem so out of sorts anymore. You felt both very solid and like you needed to steady yourself but you didn’t have time for the latter and instead, you stepped forward, seeming much more confident than you felt, to link arms with Agnes.

Agnes, with her scheming look, clearly had other ideas. She suddenly stepped off the curb, jerking herself and Wanda to the side, not only blocking the way you were walking but pulling Wanda directly in front of you. Agnes herself settled easily but Wanda, who had no idea what just happened, stumbled and tripped; she tried to catch herself on Agnes’s arm she held, only to find it was no longer there and ended up falling backward.

Your arms shot out reflexively and caught her around the waist. Wanda, in response, reached behind her and braced herself by throwing one arm around your shoulders while the other caught one of your wrists and twisting in such a way that caused her to turn towards you and kick one leg up so she could steady herself on the other. The result was an almost picture-perfect dip, with you cradling Wanda’s upper body in your arms, her embracing you, and the two of you staring at each other in pure shock.

Then there was Agnes, standing next to the curb and brushing out a crease in her dress, looking oh so pleased with herself.

A deep blush bloomed across your face as you looked down at the woman—the very married and greatly loved by her husband woman—and your outsides and insides had the same idea of wanting to curl in on themselves and… either scream in joy or die, you couldn’t be sure. Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to let go of Wanda right away; along with the longing you often felt when seeing either her or her husband, though it was multiplied by infinity in the current moment, you felt a sudden fierce protectiveness over her come almost out of nowhere. You wanted Wanda Maximoff to be as happy and as safe as could be and it felt like if you let her go any moment before she was properly standing and solid on her feet that something very bad would happen like she would tip and fall and shatter into a million pieces.

Holding her was just very nice in general too.

You felt your fingers twitch at her waist and it drew you back out of your head. You noticed Wanda hadn’t yet pulled away either or moved in general, and you felt like you were going to spontaneously combust when you focused back on the face looking up at you.

Although she couldn’t possibly as red as you were, Wanda was flushed from her neck to the tips of her ears—she had the prettiest blushing face you’d ever seen, you were sure of it—and she was looking up at you from under her lashes, the expression on her face a mix of surprise and embarrassment and something softer than you couldn’t quite place. You felt her arm, warm and strong against the back of your shoulders, and her hands still tightly gripping your shoulder and wrist. For a moment, you felt the hand on your shoulder lightly knead the fabric of your jacket, as if testing something, before her entire grip on you loosened.

“Um,” she started, her voice sounding as dry as your throat felt, “thank you. For catching me.”

“Happy to help,” you croaked, then mentally kicked yourself and cleared your throat; the slight smile that appeared on Wanda’s lips wasn’t lost on you, though.

“Oh, lovebirds,” Agnes hollered over her shoulder as she walked ahead of you and Wanda, “the Queen of the Cul de Sac will order off with our heads if we don’t hurry!”

I had no idea that the devil wears plaid, you thought. Then you weren’t how long you and Wanda had been standing like that, or who had seen, and you were panicking.

You thought that maybe the two of you might scramble away from each other but it was quite the opposite. Wanda lowered the leg she still had raised and in one fluid motion, Wanda was back standing upright; in another, you twirled her around to your side and linked arms with her, and then the two of you were hustling after Agnes, who stopped and waited with her arm out so that you could link up with her too.

It was like something out of an old rom-com movie. Except it was a rom-com movie where the main character fancied both the love interest and her husband, something far too farfetched to end happily.

“Dottie can’t possibly be as bad as you say,” Wanda said. She looked from Agnes to you and you gave her a sympathetic look.

“Well, you’ll notice her roses bloom under penalty of death,” Agnes affirmed as the three of you made it to the outskirts of Queen Dottie’s castle and paused there. “If you don’t believe me, ask [Y/N].”

Wanda’s eyebrows raised.

You sighed. “The first day of meeting her I spilled wine on her dress and now I’m ninety percent sure that she thinks I want her dead. She also very much dislikes the idea of a lone stray cat living in her neighborhood.” You unlinked your arms with the ladies to gesture at yourself. “I was getting home late from work one night and she saw me, stepped outside to make sure I wasn’t going to dig through her trash bins.”

“Oh,” Wanda said with a grimace, “goodness.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, though,” you added quickly, “You’re lovely; I can’t imagine anyone not loving you.”

�� Agnes rolled her eyes while you blushed and scratched your neck. You could already see her gearing up for a pre-Dottie tutoring session.

And then she started with a look-over of Wanda’s outfit. “Wanda—”

“Hm?”

“—can I give you a bit of friendly advice?” Wanda must have caught the look too because she glanced over her outfit, the outfit you quite liked. Raising a hand to her chest, she asked, “Is it about the way I’m dressed?”

“Yes, but it’s too late for that.”

You scowled as worry bloomed on Wanda’s face. Unfortunately, you yourself had to learn how important dress was at these social events. You’d expected it to be just a gathering of friendly neighbors but it’s much more like a secret society and you had to look just right to fit it. Now you regretted not telling her sooner; you’d failed your first and only attempt at making a good impression so were content wearing whatever you wanted for the most part but Wanda definitely deserve the poor treatment she was going to get.

“Dottie is the key to everything in this town,” Agnes continued, unphased. “Country club memberships.”

Something you didn’t have.

“Parties.”

Something you didn’t go to.

“School admissions.”

Something you didn’t have to worry about any time soon but the way Agnes’s gaze drifted towards Wanda’s stomach made you wonder if the Maximoffs did. The thought made your stomach churn but you couldn’t figure out why.

“Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Wanda interjected with a smile and roll of her eyes. She happened to look your way and you thought the smile softened with her gaze just a tad.

You relaxed your shoulders.

Agnes trudged on. “You get in with Dottie and it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out. Just mind your P’s and Q’s and you’re gonna do just fine.”

“Or maybe I could just be myself, more or less.”

“I quite like that idea,” you offered. A wide-eyed glance from Agnes went unnoticed as you were too focused on the smile Wanda definitely gave you that time.

“Oh, Wanda, [Y/N]” Agnes said with a laugh, “that’s good.”

Wanda’s excitement for the event today seemed to lessen and you, apparently still high off the moment you thought you two had, gave her arm a gentle squeeze and an encouraging look.

She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she gave you an appreciative glance and pat on the hand. Your and her hands lingered for perhaps a second or two too long before they dropped back to your sides.

And then the queen and her merry homemakers sauntered their way out the front door.

“Everybody, hurry up please!” Dottie sang over her shoulder as she quickly walked down the front steps, followed by a line of housewives carrying various covered dishes.

Agnes twisted to look her way and waved. “Hiya, Dottie, your roses are divine!”

Both you and Wanda offered a polite wave as Dottie thanked Agnes, although she didn’t stop to chat. Her eyes did do a scan of your trio, though, and you felt your ears burn when a distasteful look was sent your way.

Agnes gave you a sympathetic smile and Wanda a look that said “Good luck; you’ll need it!” before sliding her arms under one of each of Wanda’s and yours and tugging the two of you along.

Your eyes wandered as one of the wives, Bev, talked animatedly about the setup for the talent show happening this weekend. Bored and feeling out of place, you looked over the group of women sitting a circle underneath the canopy tent by Dottie’s pool, purposely excluding Dottie and the woman talking, then the man jumping into said pool, then the man cleaning said pool.

You shouldn’t be here. This gathering really was a secret society of women of the neighborhood—not only women but wives in particular—to discuss homely and neighborhood business matters; you weren’t a wife and after screwing up with Dottie, you certainly weren’t involved in any of the other important business, nor did you have any interesting household gossip since you lived alone. The main you were here was because while out of place, you got along more decently with the wives than the husbands and when you’d first moved to town, Agnes thought you would be entertaining company to keep. She’d immediately hung you out to dry by telling her fellow women about you calling out their husbands’ poor attempts at comedy, which amused some of them enough to welcome you; in fact, Dottie had been one of those people, impressed by your initiative if nothing else, until you ruined your chances by ruining her dress. At the current meeting, you’d been specifically invited only because you were taking part in the talent show performance, which had also happened because Agnes heard you singing while doing garden work one day and somewhat strong-armed you in.

Your bored eyes eventually settled on watching Wanda, who sat a couple of chairs away on the other side of your mutual companion, and you were no longer bored. While you watched Wanda, she was watching Dottie like a hawk, awkwardly but cutely trying to mimic everything the other woman was doing. She stopped when Dottie started speaking, gripping the cup she was holding a lifeline and you chuckled moments before catty laughter erupted around you. You hadn’t heard what caused it, so you decided to tune back in.

“The devil’s in the details, Bev,” Dottie criticized, masking disdain with the lightness of her voice.

You heard Agnes mutter to Wanda, “That’s not the only place he is.” You couldn’t help but snicker.

Dottie was standing now and continued on, “As you all know, the talent show is the sole fundraiser for Westview Elementary…”

Agnes passed a flask to Bev with a cheeky grin as she sat down next to you and after taking a sip, Bev offered it to you. You didn’t have to think twice before snagging a drink of your own and handing it back over to its home.

“I hear you’re singing,” Bev chirped quietly to you, “For the talent show? I bet you’re a lovely singer, can’t wait to hear it.”

You blushed slightly and thanked her but didn’t say much more to avoid Dottie’s wrath.

The wrath that Wanda and her current companion, a woman with dark skin who looked oddly familiar but whose name you couldn’t place, weren’t able to avoid themselves, apparently.

“We only have a few hours until showtime,” Dottie said, “so a little less cross-chatter and a little more focus.”

As Dottie prattled on, you observed the two women curiously.

“...is for the children,” Dottie finished.

“For the children,” the other women echoed.

“For the children,” Wanda added after everyone else had already spoken, earning several displeased looks.

You didn’t bother to say anything, opting to take Agnes’s flask and have another sip.

“So, I want you all to give yourselves a big hand—”

Wanda, looking petrified, stopped in the middle of taking a bite of a cookie and started clapping. You hid your laugh behind a hand; she still had an entire cookie hanging from her mouth.

“—at the appropriate time, of course,” Dottie chastised, then continued on yet again.

Oh, darling Wanda, you thought with a grin, you poor, sweet thing, you. You rested your chin in your hand and watched as she made herself proper until Bev nudged you to take your elbow off the table. You huffed slightly but did so anyway, then tried to catch Wanda’s eye for a moment of solidarity, only to see her talking to the dark-skinned woman again.

Your gaze shifted from Wanda to the other woman and your brows furrowed. You swore you knew her from somewhere though try as you might, you just couldn’t place that face, those eyes, that awkward but friendly smile. Perhaps another newcomer to the area that you’ve seen t on the streets or at a shop? You couldn’t imagine where she moved into, though, as you were sure the last two open houses had been the ones occupied by you and Wanda and Vision.

You felt a sharp pang in your temple and grunted softly. You weren’t about to have an episode here of all places, so you quickly looked away and put the thoughts aside.

Just as Wanda and the stranger shook hands over their table. Uh-oh.

“I’m Wanda.”

“I’m, uh, Geraldine!”

“And I’m irritated!”

After getting scolded by Dottie a second time, Wanda locked her jaw and resigned to sitting in her seat with her hands tucked in her lap. She finally looked over at you with helplessness in her eyes.

You responded with a mouthed “I told you so” and a wink, then silently told her that you’d talk to her after the meeting.

A comforting face seemed to be what she needed because she relaxed again, though not completely. She settled in for the rest of the meeting and, finishing off Agnes’s flask, so did you.

After the meeting was over, Dottie asked Wanda to sit back and help her clean up, which you knew meant Dottie doing nothing but being condescending while Wanda did all the work. While Agnes tried to get you to walk her home and then warned you against your plan, you were adamant about staying back and making sure Wanda got through the rest of her first Dottie encounter in one piece. At this point, you knew fitting in and having people’s positive opinions was important to Wanda; you oftentimes felt like that yourself. Unfortunately, Dottie wasn’t the type of person to give out positive opinions easily—you had to earn it, which was hard enough without accidentally interrupting the main meeting multiple times—and that protective feeling for Wanda that had come out of nowhere earlier today still hadn’t faded. You knew Wanda Maximoff of all people didn’t necessarily need you but you wanted to stick around, just in case she did.

Maybe you were hoping that she would.

That and you couldn’t help but take one last shot at getting on Dottie’s good side.

“...and that is why you never do a seating chart on an empty stomach,” Dottie was finishing from her perch on the edge of a pool chair.

Wanda walked over to where you stood organizing a cart of dirty dishes so they didn’t all come tumbling down when whichever pretty busboy that Dottie paid finally came to take it away. She was huffing, carrying over yet another pile of dirty plates on a large tray; you skirted around the dish cart and quickly came to her aid, taking as much as your hands could carry from off the top. She offered a grateful smile that you returned before you both unloaded onto the cart.

Who owned or even used this ungodly amount of dishes?

A person who paid various pretty people to just be around, you concluded a moment later.

As you continued to organize, Wanda turned back around to grab a pair of three-tiered dessert stands, both of which had a decent amount of desserts left on them. “Golly, you’re a wiz at all this committee stuff, Dottie. Thank you for choosing me to help you clean up today, I feel so lucky.”

“You are,” Dottie agreed.

Wanda turned back to you again and made a face, then stuck out her tongue. You choked down a laugh after catching Dottie’s steely gaze over Wanda’s shoulder, settling for a smile as you took the trays.

Dottie was just as displeased as you’d expected she’d be that you insisted to stay behind and help.

“I really should try to make amends before this is over, shouldn’t I?” Wanda muttered. She caught a few plates slipping from the top of a pile and rearranged them.

“If you manage to do so, you really would be a Westview miracle,” you replied, taking a cup Wanda managed to catch before it tipped off the cart. “But first, how about I make you look ten times better, hm?”

Wanda gave you a confused look but you just patted her hand before switching places with Wanda and going to grab another tray of dishes.

You put on your friendliest smile as you began stacking as many cups as you could balance in one arm. “Say, Dottie—”

“Be careful,” Dottie chimed back, “or at least let me get out of your way first. Wouldn’t want a repeat of our first meeting, hm?” She ended her sentence with a venom-laced laugh, then gave you a tight smile.

You were pretty sure your eye twitched but you carried on, chuckling with her, “No, I suppose not. I really do apologize about that but you really shouldn’t hold such grudges. Worrying so much causes early-set wrinkles, you know.”

Dottie’s smile tightened further. You heard Wanda gasp and choke from behind you.

“Anyway, though, I really would like to make it up to you some time. My boss’s wife gave me two tickets to a food tasting event in town next weekend. I thought it might be something nice to do, plus it might give you some ideas for catering during the next event—”

“My husband and I would love to go out next weekend, thank you so much. Feel free to drop the tickets in the mailbox the next time you come around.” Dottie paused, then added. “Mailbox, on the opposite side of the porch than the trash bins.”

Your eye definitely twitched, maybe even both of them. You feigned an appreciative look as you finished stacking your dishes, then scowled as soon as you turned around and walked back to Wanda.

“Now,” you grumbled, “I beg the sweet release of death to come in a more timely manner. Oh, and whatever you do can’t possibly be worse than me, although I’m sure that was the case either way.”

“You poor thing.” Was all Wanda could manage, giving your arm a squeeze. “Guess it’s my turn.”

“Good luck, darling,” you said, then almost immediately regretted it. You don’t know why you decided to fake a British accent, nor why you felt the need to call her darling, but you couldn’t take back either of them now.

Wanda blinked, then laughed— before it was cut off by Dottie telling you both to get back to work.

“It’s more dahrling, less dahling,” Wanda teased. “British people do still use R’s.”

“Fascinating.”

Wanda grinned, gave you a final pat on the arm, then turned around to take her shot with Dottie. “I can’t help but wonder if you and I haven’t gotten off on the wrong foot, Dottie, and I would like to correct that if I can.”

A much better approach than you, you noted with an impressed nod. You walked a little ways off to grab another cart to even out the load of dishes; the current one seemed to sag under the weight.

“And how would you do that?” Dottie asked and you heard the rustle of fabrics rubbing together as she stood. “I’ve heard things about you. You and your husband.”

You stopped from your place behind the canopy’s pulled-back curtain. What on earth could she be talking about?

Wanda has the same thought. “Well, I don’t know what… you’ve been told… but I assure you, I don’t mean anyone… any harm.”

Your brows knitted together and you shuffled around the canopy’s aluminum frame to hear a little better. You couldn’t imagine Wanda hurting anybody, not on purpose anyway.

A pang in your temple. A surge of that fierce protectiveness.

You poked your head out just slightly from behind the canopy. All you could see was Wanda’s back and Dottie’s determined expression from beyond Wanda’s shoulder, and the fact that they were standing very close together.

“I don’t believe you,” Dottie stated simply.

As if on cue, the radio on the table started acting up, the music cutting to static combined with a jumble of noises. Like many things today, though, it sounded strange, as if it was coming from all around you, or directly from inside your skull. It stopped almost immediately as it started and music, regular-sounding music, returned. Normal, you thought, until you focused harder, and noticed a voice creeping from the background. It continued to creep closer, get louder like a person walking towards you would, until it was as loud as the static had been and the music was no longer audible. Your head throbbed as the voice sounded like it was coming out of your brain instead of into your ears but you couldn’t anything other than tighten your grip on the canopy.

The voice said, “Wanda. Wanda. Who’s doing this to you, Wanda? Wanda. Wanda. Wan—”

The radio shorted out, there was the sound of the glass Dottie was shattered, and there was another thunderclap in your head as the world around briefly flared into color. Color, not shades of gray, but then the gray was back as quickly as it had left. You didn’t know whether Dottie or the bizarre radio’s frequencies had crushed the glass or whether it had just been dropped, but you were walking over with a cloth in hand before you’d even gotten your senses back in order.

“Dottie,” Wanda gasped, her eyes flitting about.

Dottie caught a glimpse of the overly saturated blood spreading out from the gash in her palm—and seemed only mildly annoyed.

Wanda kept making sounds like she was trying to speak but didn’t quite know how to. She spun around to grab something to press to the wound and almost ran into you. She stared at you, cloth in hand, with wide eyes filled with equal amounts of fear and surprise, like your existence had been completely forgotten until that moment. Then Wanda grabbed the cloth, and your hand in the process; she gave you a silent thank you, your hand a squeeze so tight you felt her fingernails dig into the skin, then turned back to Dottie and pressed the cloth to her bloody palm.

Dottie grabbed her hand and said, somehow completely aware of the situation and also seeming totally spaced out, “Pop quiz, Wanda: How does a housewife get a bloodstain out of white linen? By doing it herself.”

Then she smiled and walked into her house.

You and Wanda stood in silence and it was then that you realized you felt the same way you figured Dottie did, similar to how you felt earlier today when you saw the toy helicopter in Wanda’s yard. You felt light and spacey and almost dizzy but without the world spinning, almost like you were a mind outside of your body, or a consciousness inside of a body that wasn’t yours. Time didn’t slow but rather sped up; you didn’t know when you’d started walking to Wanda’s aid and you didn’t remember the feeling of ever grabbing the cloth that you’d given her, and the whole event seemed to have fixed itself as soon as it started with the end result being your mind painfully aware of something being wrong but your body refusing to act like anything was.

All you’d really felt was your head throbbing, not with pain but with pressure, and the desperate urge to help Wanda. Then you did and everything was over.

Wanda.

You repeated her name in the form of a question; it felt different this time. She didn’t respond or really even move aside from reaching back towards you. You rushed over and grasped her arm and she let out a choked gasp.

“[Y/N].” She said it as if trying it out for the first time. It took her a bit longer to pry her eyes away from the spot where Dottie had been, then she held a hand to her mouth and looked at you. “What just happened?”

“I’m… I’m not sure myself.”

It took a bit longer again for her to speak, her eyes darting from you to the door Dottie had disappeared to and back. “Would you walk me home? Please?”

“Of course, Wanda.”

The walk home was quiet. The two of you had your arms linked as you did on the walk over but now Wanda gripped your arm with her other hand too. Like at Dottie’s pool, it was almost eerily silent except for your and Wanda’s footsteps. Tou could have chalked it up to being because everyone was already in town setting up for the talent show, something about it had you glancing around ever so often, as though you could catch someone peering at you through the bushes or through the crack of a partially opened manhole at any moment.

When you got to Wanda’s door, you had a quick chat about the talent show—as if none of the day’s earlier events had happened; she was very excited to hear you sing—and then she headed up the steps to her door. You gave her a wave and turned to walk home.

“[Y/N]?”

You stopped and turned back around, eyebrows raised slightly.

Wanda walked the three steps back down from her door and gave you a hug. “Thank you for being around today.”

“‘Scuse me, coming through!”

Of course, you’d be late. Of course, you’d get home, start practicing for your performance, pass out on your couch, and wake up five minutes before the show started with a suit and dress combo to still pull on and a few instruments to properly secure in their trunk.

You weaved your way between folks who were either going to the talent show or trying to ignore it and stumbled your way upstairs to the backstage.

Wanda was standing there in a magician’s assistant costume that almost had you on your knees and begging for mercy before you remembered you had a show to do that you were also very late for. She and the Black woman she’d been talking to at Dottie’s meeting—Geraldine, Wanda had informed you later—spun on you with an expectant gasp, only to slump in disappointment when they saw it was you.

“Golly, thanks for the warm welcome,” you muttered, setting your trunk down and popping it open. “Suppose I deserve it for missing most of the show, though.”

“I’m so sorry, [Y/N],” Wanda said as she paced over, “You look fab and I’m sure your performance will be a blast—”

“If I’m still performing?” you asked, directing the question at Geraldine with a hopeful smile.

“If you’re ready before the husband gets here, you can take their place,” Geraldine offered, “If not, you can finish the show off.”

Finishing the talent show, not nerve-wracking at all.

“Vision’s not here?” You gave Wanda a questioning look as you walked past her to look

at yourself in a full-body mirror on the other side of the stage to make sure your look was still in order. The top half of your outfit was a full, simple, black and white tuxedo with a matching black fedora that slightly offset on top of your hair; one of Dottie’s white roses, which you acquired after stuffing her and her husband’s food taster tickets in her mailbox on your way into town, poked out from the hat’s band. The bottom half was a simple skirt—actually, the skirt and undershirt of your outfit was a dress that your mother had pieced together and sent you for your “big night”—that was fashionable for the time but in a sleek shade of black that matched the rest of your tuxedo and with a white band around the hem, paired with a sheer stocking of a plaid pattern and low-heeled shoes that you would return to the shop tomorrow. Finally, for a little touch of color and a little for pop, a golden bejeweled broach was pinned to a crimson pocket square poked out of the chest pocket of your tuxedo jacket, golden geometric earrings hung from your lobes, and a couple of bejeweled bracelets and rings in the same colors adorned your hands. You wore bright, unglossed lipstick and nail polish to match, despite that not being in fashion. Luckily everything still seemed in order.

Wanda gave an exaggerated shrug as you walked back over to your instrument trunk. “Nowhere to be found, like he vanished!”

As if summoned, Vision came wobbling around the corner and up the steps. Well, he almost did; it took him two tries to get up the steps without falling back down.

“Oh, is that him?” Geraldine asked, her face twisting into a look of concern. “Looks like he’s gots a little hitch in his giddyup. Whoa!”

You twisted around, ukulele in hand to check if it was tuned, just as Vision was making it upstairs the second time. You smiled, quirking an eyebrow, only to stumble as the British man threw his arm around you to steady himself.

“Wanda, my little cabbage, you look smashing!” Vision exclaimed, his words slurring together just slightly. He began swaying and decided to lean almost his full weight on you; when you grunted and moved the instrument you were holding out of the danger zone of getting smacked is when Vision appeared to notice that he was balancing against a person instead of the railing by the stairs. He leaned his face closer and squinted at you—now that you weren’t concerned about going onstage immediately, it was significantly easier to get flustered by Vision and his, yes, absolutely smashing wife—then grinned and said, “Why it’s [Y/N] too, and looking equally as ravishing!”

You tried to keep yourself in check. “Heya cool head, not your wife. That being said, I’d say you look smashing yourself but you just seem positively smashed.”

“Oh, I know,” Vision replied, “I already told her that she looked nice. You heard me right, honey?” He went from so close to your face that his bangs were getting in your eye to only a hand gripping your shoulder as he flung his limbs wide, which was apparently a necessary move to look at his wife’s face.

You gave Wanda a look that was equal parts worried and amused. The look she returned was just worried.

Wanda walked over to you and helped maneuver you out of Vision’s grip so you could continue tuning your ukulele—actually, it was Vision’s that you were borrowing—then tugged her husband so you were at least a couple feet out of reach. “Vis, where have you been?”

“Oh, uh… me and the boys were playing a rather thrilling game of horses and shoes,” Vision responded, talking in a way that sounded like he was trying to talk under his breath while still speaking at full volume. “No, wait, that’s not it. Shoe horses! Oh, hrn… Ah! Horse’s shoes!” He put two thumbs up and smiled lopsidedly, clearly pleased with himself.

“Horseshoes,” you offered from your corner by the railing. You were done playing with the ukulele and checked to make sure your tambourine was safe and sound.

“Oh, yes!” Vision was his thumbs up towards you, both arms stretched out as far as they could reach. “Brilliant, you’re absolutely brilliant, [Y/N]! Aren’t they brilliant, Wanda, very brilliant and very nice-looking?”

“Well, uh, yes, I suppose,” Wanda agreed awkwardly, glancing over at you before pulling Vision back to face her; you swore you even saw her cheeks turn a shade darker. “Listen, something strange happened with Dottie.”

You were too busy biting back a smile to hear the rest of the conversation. You rearranged your hat and jacket back into place from Vision knocking them askew, then brushed any wrinkles out of your skirt. You glanced over at Geraldine, who was peeking through the curtains at the main part of the stage.

“I was just playing with his shoes!” Vision suddenly hollered, as the members of the previous act, including someone dressed in a horse costume, made their way around the stage.

“What is going on?” Wanda cried.

Geraldine responded in kind, “You are!”

You considered taking their places so Wanda had time to knock some sense into her husband but you knew if you went out now, you would sound like fingers on a chalkboard, and going out on stage at all was bad enough. Instead, you walked over and gave the couple an encouraging pat on the shoulder and a “Good luck!” before making your way down the steps and around to the viewing area to find a place to sit.

Dottie was onstage. Her hand seemed fine now. “I want to thank you all for coming out to support Westview Elementary, for the children.”

“For the children,” the crowd echoed, mostly deadpan.

“I have yet to see a child,” you stated at the same time, sitting back in an extra chair off to the side of the stage as to not annoy audience members with the vocal warmups you were about to start doing.

Dottie continued, “And for our final act—”

Geraldine scurried out from behind the curtains at muttered something in Dottie’s ear before rushing away again.

Dottie quickly picked you on the sidelines and gave a strained smile, although the daggers she was glaring made you sink down in your chair. “Sorry, everyone. For our next to final act, I give you Wanda and Vision.”

Wanda sauntered out from behind the curtains and down to the front of the stage, then planted herself slightly off to the side and threw one hand up as an entrance cue to Vision. At first, he didn’t appear and Wanda’s bravado faltered slightly as she looked out into the crowd.

You caught her eye and gave her an assuring nod.

Then Vision flying out of curtains and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Hello Westview! Good afternoon!” Still introducing, he stumbled down to the main part of the stage, bumping into a railing at some point and apologizing to it. He sort of settled and continued, “I am Glamour and this is my delightful assistant Illusion.”

“I am Glamour,” Wanda chimed in, talking and moving with even more animation than she normally would, “and he’s Illusion.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Vision said simply, then rambled on, “Tonight, we will lie to you, and yet you will believe our little deceptions because human beings are easily fooled due to their limited understanding of the inner workings of the universe.” He ended this definitely off-script statement with a matter-of-fact shrug and nod.

You regretted not going on first.

“Flourish!” Vision suddenly hollered, waving his hands in such a way.

This was going to be chaos, you decided, and it was.

Wanda and Vision’s act was a mess but at least it was an entertaining one. While the act did go on, Vision spent most of his time prattling on and yelling “Flourish!” while Wanda tried to keep things in check. Some of the tricks were good and even impressive at times before the “inner workings of the universe” became clear moments later. Vision’s first trick was to float up into the air, only for a pulley system to be revealed as Wanda moved a sign offstage. For the second, he picked up a piano with one hand only for the jarringly realistic instrument only for Wanda to slip up while carrying the one-dimensional prop away and show its bare wooden back with a large handle to grasp.

At one point, though, Vision trotted offstage and tried to perform a card trick for a friend while Wanda was helpless to stop him, but the end result was him going through an entire deck of cards trying to find the correct one. Then he went to pull Señor Scratchy out of his hat, only to find his hat laying on stage and Agnes’s rabbit hopping across it until Wanda managed to catch him and take him backstage.

Regardless of which tricks hit and which went wonky, the crowd, you included, seemed to love the Maximoff duo and hung onto the entire act. There were gasps and awes and you were personally still dumbfounded by the one where Vision pulled a hat through his body; the backstage curtains happened to fall at the perfect time to reveal a multitude of mirrors, only one of which that you knew had been back there previously, but a dull throb in the back of your head warned you to just let the mystery slide. After all, it wasn’t as fun if you spent the entire show pondering.

For Vision and Wanda’s final trick, Wanda brought out a large box called the Cabinet of Mysteries. At first, Vision stated that he was going to make his wife disappear but then he started locking up the Cabinet without her inside.

You caught Wanda’s act begin to slip again as her smile faltered and she began scanning the crowd. No else did, though, because Agnes suddenly hollered an offer of audience participation in the form of her husband, which caused everyone including Vision to laugh.

Then Vision was back to his trick, slapping the Cabinet’s side with a plastic wand and yelling, “Abrakadabra!”

“Uh, sweetheart,” Wanda murmured without breaking her pose.

Vision responded loudly, “Yeah?”

“Hi.”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward pause and you chewed your lip as you glanced around. People were waiting for the finale and Vision had just messed it up big time.

A chant of “What’s in the box?” started up.

Then you happened to look back to the stage just in time to make eye contact with Wanda as she looked around.

She grinned.

And then you were somewhere else, surrounded by darkness and wood panels.

You were only there for a moment but your eyes still needed a moment to adjust as Wanda and Vision open the Cabinet of Mysteries’ doors and you were greeted with a gasping and then applauding crowd. You blinked and, disoriented but not wanting to ruin Wanda and Vision’s successful grand finale, you put on your best smile and hopped out of the wooden box to strike a flourished pose.

“Ah-ha,” Vision voiced, seeming just as surprised as the crowd before grinning walking stepping up to your side.

Wanda stepped up to your other side and when you raised an eyebrow at her, she gave you a cheeky grin and mouthed, “Magic.” The wink she gave you afterward could have sent you to the moon but you still had your own performance to do. She made sure you were reminded of that by holding up a microphone.

Wanda and Vision each slipped an arm around your waist and you did the same to them despite their touch feeling very warm underneath the jacket of your uniform, and with one last “Flourish!” from Vision, the three of you bowed. The three of you bowed two more times before standing fully again. Wanda and Vision began to move away from you but you slid your arms to grab their own, keeping them there.

Wanda leaned in slightly, talking through her smile. “What are you doing?”

“Grab the tambourine in my trunk and go sit by Agnes. Ask her to inform you and wait for the cue.” When Wanda looked at you with a raised brow, you mimicked her cheeky grin and wink, mouthing, “Music.”

Vision leaned in now, although way too close. “What are we doing?”

“Tambourine, apparently,” Wanda responded, stepping away from you. You figured they were going to go and do as you asked but instead, Wanda continued, “Vis, take the cabinet and grab the tambourine; I have an introduction to do.”

Vision stood around for a moment before doing what Wanda told him to and Wanda slipped her arm around your waist once more and brought you a few steps farther to the front of the stage.

Now sitting at the edge of it was Vision’s ukulele and the mic stand, probably courtesy of Geraldine.

With you close at her side and you unsure where to put your hands, Wanda attached the microphone she held to the stand and turned it on. “As Dottie has said several times tonight, thank you once more for coming to support Westview Elementary, for the children.”

“For the children,” the audience echoed, still mostly deadpan.

“I still haven’t seen a single one,” you muttered. This earned you a pinch to the hip from the hand around your waist and you suddenly felt like your body was the same temperature as the surface of the sun.

“Now,” Wanda continued without missing a beat, “allow me to introduce helper of Illusion and Glamour’s grand finale and the final final act of tonight’s talent show, [Y/N]!”

The audience clapped and Wanda did with it as she detached from your side and slipped backstage after giving you an electric smile. Suddenly, you were much more aware of being on a stage in front of your entire town, save for the two people you actually wanted to see in it.

“Um, yes, hello,” you said into the mic, standing a little too close. You didn’t know it was possible to feel the amount of heat burning behind your cheeks and ears, and you wished to could shed your jacket but figured that would ruin the ensemble. You shook your head to clear it as you bent down to pick up your ukulele—

—and when you stood back up, you spotted Wanda and Vision—who seemed to have sobered up somehow—sitting at Agnes’s table with a tambourine on the table between them.

You bit back a smile as your gaze flitted between them; they each gave you a smile in turn before you continued, “Um, so, as you heard, I am the final act. My name is [Y/N] and I will be performing a song, “Can’t Take My Eyes off You” by Frankie Valli, acoustic on ukulele.”

You strummed the ukulele once, just to make sure it was still in tune, then you began to play. You leaned back from the mic to clear your throat and after a couple of bars, you came in:

“You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off of you

You'd be like Heaven to touch

I wanna hold you so much

At long last, love has arrived

And I thank God I'm alive

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off of you

Pardon the way that I stare

There's nothin' else to compare

The sight of you leaves me weak

There are no words left to speak

But if you feel like I feel

Please let me know that it's real

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off of you”

You were a bit pitchy in the beginning but it didn’t take you too long to find where you needed to be, then it was smooth sailing from there; you even put a bit of a beat into it with a tap of your foot, which with a hard heel on a wooden floor in front of a silent crowd wasn’t too difficult to hear. At first, you kept your gaze pointed directly ahead and slightly above the crowd but as you began to relax and get into it, you couldn’t help but catch glances of a tapping foot here or a finger tapping on a glass cup there. Finally, your eyes drifted to where they wanted to be and you couldn’t look away from the pair seated next to Agnes even if you’d wanted to.

Vision was bopping along as he would when he was teaching you the chords and notes you were looking for, both feet and all ten fingers tapping, though his smile was particularly bright. Wanda was looking at you some type of sweet way, with that soft expression she’d had when you’d caught her in a dip earlier just today.

“I love you, baby

And if it's quite alright

I need you, baby

To warm the lonely night

I love you, baby

Trust in me when I say

Oh, pretty baby

Don't bring me down, I pray

Oh, pretty baby

Now that I've found you, stay

And let me love you, baby

Let me love you”

You wanted the first part of the song to be softer but as you hit the second part of the chorus you smoothly added in a little action. You put a little flourish in your strumming—and almost missed a word because the idea of calling it a flourish made you almost laugh—added a little more power to your voice, and cued Agnes in, who began clapping along to the proper beat. It didn’t take too long for your audience, especially those who’d you caught tapping along earlier, to join in until the entire crowd was doing it, and happened you catch Vision’s eye while he clapping along a little more animated than everyone else. He grinned, a little bashful by the look of it.

Once she’d gotten everyone in, Agnes stopped clapping herself and instead pulled a tambourine of her own out of her handbag. You watched her nudge Wanda, who stopped her clapping and picked up the other tambourine, then followed Agnes’s lead until she got a hang of it. You’d think two tambourines would be a little hard to hear over a sea of clapping but it was Agnes and Wanda and as usual, they figured out a way.

You knew you’d chosen a popular song and you knew that some people would know it in full but despite Agnes trying to convince you that she’d have everyone joining in, you definitely didn’t expect the entire crowd to be able to stay in sync and follow the ebbs and flows of the entire song. It really was a bit of a magical moment and you found with that thought, you found your eyes settling on Wanda, who was jamming away on her tambourine and dancing in her seat, without missing a beat.

She must have noticed because she raised her head and looked back at you.

The song ended not long after and you couldn’t help clapping for the crowd as they did for you. You took your second set of bows on stage that day, hollered a “Thank you” to the crowd, and took off to the section of backstage that was still hidden by curtains with a wave as Dottie took your place to do the talent show’s conclusion. With layers of dark fabric now between you and the rest of the talent show, you could only hear muffled voices, which was perfectly fine with you as you were too busy tossing your tux jacket and hat aside and shaking out the tautness in your limbs caused by the nerves of performing on your own in front of a decently sized crowd. Although, technically, you and the crowd were performing by the end of it.

You tried to tune in to Dottie’s voice as you bounced over to look yourself over in one of the mirrors left over from Vision and Wanda’s performance. Your outfit was intact, albeit a little bit ruffled from the dancing around you just finished doing, with your hair looking a bit flat from being stuck under a hat. Your face was flushed with a warmth that you felt from your toes to your hairline but what little makeup you wore looked just as it did earlier minus your lipstick having faded somewhat. The best and worst part of your current state, you thought, came from that part; the smile you were wearing was radiant but it was lasting so long that your cheeks were starting to hurt, and even if you purposely tried to frown it away, it popped back up a few seconds later.

Especially when you thought about how much Wanda and Vision were enjoying themselves, because of you.

“Um, excuse me.”

Your gaze turned its attention to look at the reflection of Geraldine, who was standing behind you, in the mirror. “Oh, hey.”

She smiled, pleased that you didn’t seem disrupted. “Your singing was really twitchin’, you had the whole crowd into it!”

“I think that was more Agnes’s glaring than anything, but thanks.” You sent a less starstruck smile at her in the mirror, then picked up your hat to fan yourself as you turned around to face her.

“Agnes is way out herself,” Geraldine agreed, though you saw her smile falter and caught her fingers tapping nervously on the clipboard she held. “She could probably out-power Dottie if she really wanted to.”

“She doesn’t,” you affirmed, “she likes to use Dottie as a reason to sneak drinks into social gatherings too much.”

Geraldine smiled again but she wouldn’t fully look at you and when she did, her eyes looked like they were searching for something.

“You okay?” When Geraldine looked at you, surprised, you nodded to her hands that couldn’t seem to keep still. “Seem a little unglued and you keep looking at me funny.”

“Oh, uh, well,” Geraldine stammered a bit, then stopped. She took a deep breath, then tried again, “I know we saw each other at Dottie’s earlier and before you went onstage but… Do you know me?”

Your eyebrows rose high up on your forehead.

“It’s just,” she continued, sounding like she was forcing herself to talk slower, “you look familiar to me and I’m wondering if you think the same thing.”

“I… I suppose I did when I first saw you,” you said, setting your hat aside. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, you couldn’t help glancing around; specifically, you looked towards the curtains separating you and Geraldine from the outside world and wished that wasn’t the case. “I figured we’d met in passing, tooling or something.”

When you looked back at Geraldine, it was as if your personalities had changed. You were the meek one, shifting around unsettled, while she stood watching you with a thoughtfulness that was far from the nervousness you saw in her earlier. “I don’t know where I’m from or why I’m here. Do you?”

You couldn’t be sure whether she was asking you about yourself or her but your head was suddenly too foggy to care. Foggy and throbbing with a pain that made darkness tinge the corners of your vision. You went to step to the side and steady yourself on a nearby chair but found yourself reeling backwards. You smashed into the mirror behind you, which smashed into the wall behind it and shattered; you managed to stumble away from it before you got too badly hurt but you still felt shocks of pain up your right arm and a particularly bad one in your hand as you caught glass.

Before you could run into something else or completely lose balance and fall to the ground, you slowly maneuvered to the floor and braced yourself on one knee and your unharmed hand and you were vaguely aware that Geraldine had disappeared. You squinted through blurriness at your other arm and watched as spots of blood bloomed across the white fabric of your sleeve, weeped from the gash across your palm.

No, wait.

Not only blood but color spread out your bleeding wounds. Flesh tone bled from your palm and color wetted the jewels on your bracelets and rings, color seeped from a tattered tear in your shirt and faded into the wooden floor in your line of vision, as if everything was on one piece of paper and watercolor paint was bleeding across the lines of a sketch.

“[Y/N?]” Vision’s voice called, “Are you back here?”

You tried to hide your hurt arm behind your back and jerked your head in the direction of voices getting closer. You immediately regretted the sudden movement and tried to blink away pain—

When you opened your eyes, you were standing, completely fine, in front of the mirror, completely unbroken, and fanning yourself with your hat with your other arm, completely unharmed, at your side. When your eyes flitted around, looking for Geraldine in the mirror’s reflection, she was nowhere backstage.

Instead, your eyes settled on Vision and Wanda walking through the curtains, smiling and animatedly chatting and holding a small trophy between them.

Once they were through the fabric they looked around, Vision’s bright eyes settling on you just a moment before Wanda’s did.

You could have melted. Whatever concern or worries you had just a moment earlier certainly did.

“[Y/N],” Wanda beamed, “look at what we won!” She pointed and Vision raised the trophy for you to properly see; you managed to read “Inaugural Comedy Performance of the Year” etched into its base before the pair walked over.

You turned to meet them, placing your hat back on your head and snagging your tuxedo jacket to slip back into. “A trophy, congrats!”

“We tried to get you to come up on stage with us,” Vision said, “but we couldn’t find you!”

He certainly seemed to have sobered up since you last stood face to face with him.

You apologized, “Sorry, I had to come backstage. I was overheated and far too overwhelmed by the crowd, I don’t think I could have it up there again either way!”

“Oh, you poor thing.” Her expression shifted from proud to worried in a moment and she went to press a hand to your forehead before she seemed to decide against it. “Are you feeling any better?”

You felt the need to take a quick glance around backstage, though you couldn’t explain why. Then you nodded. “I am, much. Actually, since I wasn’t able to join you on stage and congratulate you there, how about we all get changed into clothes a little less eye-catching and we have dinner at my place, hm? I’ll cook and everything.”

“They can cook?” Vision teased to Wanda without lowering his voice at all.

“They can,” you responded, giving his side a quick jab, then smiled and slid around them. Stopping at the edge of the stage, you offered out your arms to them both. “At least a little bit. Shall we?”

Wanda faked a thinking pose and when Vision caught on he did the same.

“We-ell,” Wanda sang, tilting her head from side to side, “Oh, alright, we shall.” She walked over, tugging Vision along with her, and they each linked arms with you.

The three of you headed offstage.

“I disagree about changing, though,” Vision claimed suddenly; both you and Wanda gave him a look. “I think we all look—”

“Smashing?” offered Wanda.

“Ravishing?” you suggested.

“—absolutely neato,” Vision finished, nodding. “And I think we should show off to the town!”

You shook your head but you were smiling. “I already showed off to the town enough today.”

“And I’m still showing off too much,” Wanda agreed. She kicked one stocking-covered leg out for good measure.

“Oh, fine.” Vision scoffed.

He certainly did not admit defeat, though, and spent the rest of the walk home trying to convince the two of you.

Wanda and Vision, without his human disguise, danced into their home after a lovely dinner at [Y/N]’s—they could cook a bit!—and as they walked through the door, Wanda spun herself into Vision’s arm.

Vision slightly dipped her and said in a voice that was an octave or two lower, “You were tremendous Glamour.”

“As were you, Illusion,” Wanda responded with a pearly smile. She stood up straight and walked over to put their new trophy on the coffee table as Vision shut the front door. “Oh, I don’t know what I was so worried about. It wasn’t so hard to fit in after all!”

Wanda sat and got comfortable on the couch and Vision soon followed. “And all we had to do was be ourselves.”

“Well, with a few modifications,” Wanda said as she curled in closer under her husband’s arm.

“And it was all for the children,” Vision said. Halfway through the phrase, Wanda joined in, then they chuckled and gently bumped their foreheads together.

Then Wanda leaned back into the couch and Vision’s side, quiet. She glanced around the room, absentmindedly playing with Vision’s fingers.

“Wanda, darling, is something wrong?”

Vision’s voice brought her attention back to him. She smiled, leaned in, and gave him a peck on the lips, then looked at their joined hands. Her smile faltered; she felt like something was missing.

“[Y/N] made this funny point at the talent show, about the ‘for the children’ thing; ‘I haven’t seen one yet’ or something like it,” she said out of the blue. “They were an angel with me today.”

“Oh?” Vision responded softly. He seemed to cue into her befuddled emotions and leaned back, looking at her intently.

“At Dottie’s,” she clarified, then added, “They also walked me home because I was a little shaken up. Very sweet.”

“That’s right,” Vision said, “You said something strange happened at Dottie’s today?”

“More like a few weird things,” Wanda confirmed, then recounted the details. Most of them anyway; she kept out the part about the radio talking to her for the sake of her and Vision’s sanity. It sounded legitimately insane and was probably the result of her fear at the time making her imagine things.

Then again, Dottie had heard it as well… She couldn’t confirm that [Y/N] had.

“My, that is indeed bizarre,” Vision said. His hairless brow furrowed. “Is Dottie alright?”

“Well, she must be,” Wanda replied, “She was perfectly fine at the show today and didn’t say a word about it, so…”

Vision gave a thoughtful nod, then shrugged. “Must be.”

They both faded into cozy, albeit wondering, silence. Wanda began playing with Vision’s fingers again and she happened to look towards the front door.

“Hey Vis?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think [Y/N]’s attractive?”

Vision took in an unneeded breath so fast that he almost choked on his tongue. He spluttered, “Pardon?”

“You know,” Wanda continued, turning back in his direction but not looking at him, “A fox. A hunk. Ravishing.”

If Vision could blush he probably would have. He removed his arm from around Wanda’s shoulders and scratched the side of his face. “I was feeling weird when I said that. You know, the gum. I didn’t mean—well that’s not to say they’re not attractive either! Because they are. I mean, they look fine, I certainly wouldn’t say unattractive by any means, and I quite like their company. But love, I didn’t mean anything serious by it, I didn’t mean to offend—”

“I think they’re attractive,” Wanda stated simply, bringing Vision’s rambling to a quick halt. Her gaze drifted back towards the front door and she briefly used her magic to view the home across the street. Some of the lights were still on; she imagined their dinner companion was in the kitchen, washing up the dishes from their meal.

She wouldn’t mind cooking with [Y/N] or washing dishes with them after meals. Or having both Vision and them coming home in the evenings.

“Oh. Um, well… Oh?”

“Quite like their company too,” Wanda went on, agreeing with one of Vision’s earlier statements. Her eyes moved to the plant [Y/N] had brought them not long after they’d first moved in; the plant had outgrown its old pot at this point but had its original ribbon still intact on the current one. “And they’ve always got manners and compliments and they’re always getting so nervous that they're going to come off the wrong way.”

“Yes,” Vision said slowly, “They treat me the same way. Sometimes, if I’m not working, I’ll come to work the next day and have files on my desk with little notes clipped to them. And they’ll sometimes even bring me a snack or a water cup after coming back from their break or lunch, even though I’ve never even pretended to drink or eat in front of them.”

“Well, to be fair,” Wanda said, “regular humans do just randomly eat and drink things, and they do think you’re a regular human.”

“I often wish they didn’t, though,” Vision mumbled, rubbing his jaw, “because I’m not a big fan of lying to them and pretending as I do. I keep their snacks in my drawer until I’m heading home and then throw it out on the way because I don’t want them to see and feel bad.”

Wanda nodded, understanding. “I’m not exactly jazzed about lying to them either.”

They simultaneously sighed and slumped together.

What odd feelings, Wanda thought, for a married couple to have about their neighbor across the street.

“Wanda?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you feel the same way about them as you do me?”

Wanda tilted her head from side to side and tapped her chin as she thought. “Not how I feel about you now, no. But how I felt about when I first met you? Maybe. Or, at least, something like it.”

Vision hummed. “They feel a bit familiar, don’t they?”

“And we have such a good time together, the three of us,” Wanda added.

A small spell of silence again.

Then Wanda said, “I think we should ask them on a date.”

Vision almost choked on his tongue again. “You think we should— I mean— You and me? As you and me together or you and me separately?”

“Why not both?”

Wanda’s husband’s eyes bugged out of his head. If they weren’t in the middle of a serious conversation, she may have laughed.

“Can we… Can we even do that?” Vision asked.

“I mean, I don’t see why not,” Wanda answered, shrugging. “It’s not illegal to date another person. Just marry them, I think. Actually, I’m not even sure if it’s illegal to do that.”

“But isn’t that… An affair? Of sorts?” Vision squinted, quickly glancing between his wife and the window, whose curtains shielded his view from the person in question’s home. It almost felt disrespectful talking about [Y/N] without them present, which was odd in itself.

“No, not if we’re both dating the person in question, I don’t think,” Wanda said. Her brows knitted together a bit but then she perked up and placed her hands on Vision’s thigh. “I know when we can do it!”

“When?”

“We forgot to get your ukulele back,” She responded with a big smile. “We can go get it and ask them on a date.”

“What would we even do on a… three-way date?” Vision cringed at himself. He would never call them a three-way again.

“Picnic,” Wanda offered, then listed off, “Dinner out. A walk. Trip to a passion pit for a movie. Dancing but that would require one of us to know how to dance. Maybe [Y/N] knows how to dance!”

“I know how to dance,” Vision said with a scowl.

“No, hon, you don’t, but you’re wonderful all the same,” Wanda said and kissed him on the nose. “Besides, the three of us have almost been attached at the hip since we’ve gotten to know each other; it wouldn’t exactly be odd for us to go out and do things together. Hell, we did the talent show together today and it went very well!”

“The gum?”

“It went decently well!”

Wanda could see Vision warming up to the idea just as much as she was. She could practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to come up with dates fit for three people.

After a moment, Vision gave her a solid nod. “Alright then! When we see them to get my ukulele, we’ll ask them on a date.”

“Yay!” Wanda clapped. “A date!” She hopped up from her seat and, drifting back to their previous conversation, she said, “Well, I think the children need some popcorn!” Vision said her name and she spun back to look at him. “Hm, what?”

Vision slowly stood and looked pointedly down at her stomach. She did too, then gasped and touched her ballooned out stomach. She looked as if she were a few months pregnant and after holding her stomach for a bit longer, she knew she was. Wanda looked up at her husband with a mixture of fear and wonder in her eyes; the look on his face mimicked her own.

“Vision,” she said softly, “is this really happening?”

Vision searched her face as he gently grasped her hands. His mouth quirked up just slightly as he answered, “Yes, my love, it’s really happening.”

They leaned for a kiss.

They were interrupted by a crash outside.

Both Wanda and Vision jumped as they looked towards the door. Then Vision scowled and released Wanda’s hands to walk over to the door.

“If it’s that damn tree again,” he loudly grumbled, “I am going to… rip it out by the roots!”

He walked outside and Wanda quickly followed.

You jumped back from your sink, almost dropping a dish in shock from the crash that had just come out front. You couple a couple breaths to calm yourself, then put your dish and drying rag down and headed to the living room.

“I swear,” you warned, loud enough so the trees outside could hear you, “I’ll come out there with a chainsaw! I don’t have one but I’ll find one and I’ll do it!”

You walked to the front door. You peeled back the curtain hanging from its window to see Wanda and Vision—who looked strange, though it was too dark outside to tell why—walking outside their own home and out to the sidewalk. You watched them, debating on whether to walk outside as well and help investigate or not.

“I don’t see anything!” you heard Wanda holler. Almost immediately, her and her husband’s gaze were drawn to a manhole cover in the middle of the street.

You followed their gaze and your eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as the three of you watched the manhole slowly move out of place. From the corner of your eye, you saw Vision closer to Wanda, and you wished you could too, but you were stuck watching as someone climbed out of the now gaping hole in the road.

A… beekeeper?

A beekeeper and swarm of bees climbed out of the manhole.

You felt that now-familiar feeling again, foggy-headed but not in pain and fiercely protective of, this time, both her and her husband and her children.

Children?

You scrambled to get your front door open as the strange beekeeper of the sewer turned to look at the Maximoffs. You looked down to mess with the doorknob—

When you looked up again, you were standing on the front porch of the Maximoff house.

How weird.

You spun and looked around wildly, your eyes settling on the manhole cover closed tightly shut it in the street for just a few seconds longer than the rest of the environment, but everything seemed in order. Slowly relaxing, you turned back to your task of returning Vision’s ukulele.

You raised your right hand to knock, then stopped.

Color began blooming across your arm, beginning from the same spots you vaguely remembered cutting yourself on a broken mirror recently. This time, though, there were no cuts or blood, just gray tones coming to life in bright, vivid color. Gray turned to the color of skin and the green of your blouse—you’d thought it’d been green before but now you could properly see it—and when you spun around to observe the rest of the neighborhood, it was suddenly in color too. When you slowly, awestruck, turned back to Wanda and Vision’s house, it was wonderfully colored too, as was the ukulele in your lovely, now-in-color hand.

You grinned and excitedly knocked on the door, only for it to be opened moments later by Vision, wearing a very nice yellow and blue sweater or a white-colored shirt.

“Oh, [Y/N]!” He said it in a way that was a little too loud and he nervously glanced over his shoulder at Wanda, who stood a few feet back in a beautiful outfit of bright red with her hands on her expecting stomach.

You really did like her shirt.

You just liked her.

You just liked her and her husband quite a lot.

“Sorry, bad time?” You held out Vision’s ukulele to him. “I finished cleaning up and was about to go to bed when I noticed this still sitting on my coffee table.”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Vision chirped, still just a little too loud than necessary.

“Oh, goodness, Vis, come inside.” Wanda walked over and nudged Vision out of the way, then smiled at you and took the ukulele out of your hand.

“Remember when we first met and you said he wasn’t always like that?” you quipped with a crooked smile, which broke into a cheek-hurting grin when Wanda giggled in response.

“Suppose I hadn’t realized it yet,” Wanda teased back. She offered the ukulele to Vision, who was still standing nearby and who was now pouting, then she moved to do the side. “Would you like to come in for a drink? We were just talking about you.”

Now you were the awkward one. “Um, yeah, sure.” You stepped inside and, glancing again at Wanda’s belly, added, “I can’t believe I forgot a baby gift. Congratulations, if I haven’t said it already.”

Wanda blinked, then shut the door behind you. “Oh nonsense. There’s plenty of time left for that.”

“I feel like it came out of nowhere; they might be here sooner than you think!”

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