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from-the-clouds · 3 years

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Kiss Me More (Part IIII) - Zemo/Reader

Masterlist | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |

Summary: Reader ponders the decision they made after meeting Zemo in Riga. Series now complete!

Words: 5.2k

Warnings: Kissing, marijuana & alcohol abuse, heavy angst & depression, small reference to suicide, implied casual sex, yearning

A/N (also check out A/N at end when finished reading): This is it, everyone! I was going to end this completely differently originally, but after some thinking -- and some light peer pressure from ya’ll, I did something a little different. I did fight with this part the most out of all of them, so I hope it’s still good. Please enjoy. And thank you for all the love on this series, it’s been so fun to write! Also I was listening to this song while writing this.

---

The incessant buzz of her alarm clock jolted her out of her dreamless sleep. Fumbling in the dark, she slapped the top of it, hitting the snooze button and looking at the interface with bleary eyes.

4:00 A.M. It stared, indifferent, back at her tired face.

She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut and lamenting, bargaining, half expecting the clock to turn back time when she opened her eyes again. Unfortunately, it did not. With a huff, she threw back the covers and stretched, disturbing the orange cat that slept in the empty spot next to her where her husband used to lay.

Snorting, the cat lifted its head to look at her as she climbed out of bed before curling back up in a ball where her feet had been.

“Don’t mind me, just getting ready for work so I can feed us,” she said, grumpily, then in a moment of repentance, affectionately scratching her behind the ears.

She had always been a night owl, so she didn’t think it would be possible to ever get used to waking this early. No human was meant to function at this time. It was the one part of the job she hated most. The rest of it was manageable, though it was still work.

Setting about her morning routine, she showered, made coffee, and donned her uniform. Eating a day-old bagel and nursing her coffee on her tiny balcony, she looked out over the darkened horizon. It was far too early to even enjoy a sunrise.

There was a saying, time heals all wounds. After her husband died, she’d heard it a lot. It was a saying she had come to find true. But it’d been well over a year since she’d left Helmut, alone in that swanky hotel room, and it still hurt like it was yesterday.

“I understand,” he’d murmured, and she felt the ghost of his kiss on her forehead, arms around her waist, even now. She shivered, not from the chill of the morning air.

She’d left her old life behind, all of it. Sam and Bucky, too, about a month after their time in Riga. She couldn’t look them in the eyes after what she’d done.

But, she was proud of what they’d accomplished. They’d defeated the Flag Smashers. Bucky seemed happier, more at peace. Sam had accepted his role as the new Captain America. John Walker seemed to have faded into irrelevancy. All the loose ends had been tied up in a pretty little bow.

Except for hers.

Which is why she moved, sold all the stuff in her tiny NYC apartment, and packed her car full with what she couldn’t bear to part with, some photos and momentos from a different lifetime. Her car didn’t stop until she hit the Atlantic Ocean, on an island just south of Charleston. All but undiscovered by tourists, the residents in the sleepy beach town kept to themselves, and she could go about her life in peace, undisturbed.

She couldn’t just run away from her problems, that was why she’d left Zemo. It seemed counterintuitive, but in her mind, it made sense. The problems would catch up to her, like they always had. The dissatisfaction she had with her life, with herself, was always going to return. And she knew she had to be alone to deal to face it head on. Like a wounded animal, crawling into the woods, there were only two ways things could end here; either she’d heal and come out stronger, or eventually she’d die. And so far, the healing part wasn’t going great.

Each day was a matter of convincing herself that she’d made the right choice. Especially now, as her eyes burned, fighting to stay open against the inviting embrace of sleep.

Despite it being dark outside, the bakery was bustling already when she walked in the service entrance. It smelled amazing, as always. Sweet and warm, a cacophony of aromas, baking bread, fresh coffee, sugar.

She set about the usual preparations to open up, packaging orders for the regulars, sweeping the floor, wiping down countertops. Once the place was open, she didn’t have to work the register, as she prepared batches of dough in the back for proofing, to be baked the next day.

Before, she’d been a terrible cook, but she’d grown comfortable in the kitchen after learning to bake. There was something satisfying about working with her hands, at this point she’d memorized all the recipes and the work became second nature to her. Now, she always had fresh bread and pastries in her kitchen, although they were the slightly disformed, ones the shop owners deemed too ugly for the glass display cases. Daylight was cherished, even if she barely saw it inside the shop. Because while she was awake, busy with work, her thoughts remained pleasant.

At night it was the hardest. Things got quiet, lonely. When she got home, she poured herself a drink. Cheap whiskey, the kind that came in a plastic bottle and burned on it’s way down. She had never been much of a drinker before, she was now. Her thoughts were more manageable after a drink. Especially because she was usually thinking of Helmut.

It was often that she wondered what he may be doing, and those thoughts usually ended with the image of him lying in the sun, poolside, on some island in the Pacific Ocean, drinking expensive champagne with a supermodel. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought to her, and yet she was plagued by some variation of it every night.

Sometimes, she’d humor herself, and imagine what they might be doing had she decided to stay with him. Unfortunately, thinking of that was more upsetting. She wanted it, selfishly, though she wasn’t willing to admit it.

When she was younger, it had been so easy to block out the pain, to just press forward, no matter what. Much to her dismay, it didn’t get easier as she got older. Years of watching those she loved in pain, years of being in pain had taken a toll on her resilience. She wasn’t the strong woman she once was, she was weak.

That night, one drink had turned into two, into three. Wallowing in her own self-pity had become second-nature, she felt like Hamlet, lamenting her circumstances, a constant turmoil monologuing in her brain. But this night felt particularly worse, for some reason.

For the record, she had been doing better. But she was all-too-familiar with how grief worked, pulling her back down the dark side of the mountain, where she was forced to fight her demons over and over again. At some point, they were going to win.

It was a funny thing. Despite the loss of her husband, who she had loved dearly, his death had been easier to accept. Final. She couldn’t bring him back. Helmut on the other hand, was still out there, an open wound that could never fully heal.

Before she knew it, she was four drinks in, at her bedside table, fumbling through the bottom drawer, until she found what she was looking for.

Back on her couch, she stared at the card in her hand, the hastily written phone number on it, an international line. Helmut had given it to her, the day she left, stuck it in her purse while she wasn’t looking. She didn’t discover it until she had returned home.

It had been months since she last did this, pulled the card out of its hidden place in her drawer, placed it on the coffee table in front of her next to her phone, and considered dialing it. It had been a frequent occurrence when she first moved here, when she couldn’t find a job and spent most of her mornings either hungover, or stumbling home from rendezvous with men whose names she wouldn’t remember, and she wouldn’t care to, because there was only one man she really wanted. She could only hope he’d be as close as one call away. But she never called.

I mean really, he’d probably moved on by this point. If she was going to call, she should have done it months ago, when there was more of a chance that he’d give a fuck.

She considered this a setback. But she’d made her way halfway through the cheap bottle of whiskey, it was the drunkest she’d been in ages and she was curious. She didn’t know whose number it was, who’d be on the other end of the line, and never knew why Helmut would want her to have it to begin with.

At this point, she wasn’t capable of good decision making. In general, it hadn’t always been her strong suit. So why did doing the right thing matter now? It didn’t, she decided.

Taking a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle, she ensured she wouldn’t remember what happened next, at least not clearly.

The phone rang twice before someone picked up. “Hello?” she didn’t recognize the sound of the man on the other end of the line immediately, so she didn’t answer. All she had wanted to do was maybe hear Helmut’s voice, he didn’t even need to know it was her that was calling.

“Hello?” the man repeated, and she realized it wasn’t completely unfamiliar. The grandfatherly, comforting tone wasn’t her former lover, but someone close to him. And she supposed that wasn’t terrible.

“Is this Oeznik?” she asked.

“It is,” he said after some hesitation. “May I ask who’s speaking?”

Truthfully, she was shocked she’d allowed herself to go this far. This was a bad idea. If she stopped now she could get off without doing any real damage. But just as she was about to hang up, she heard her name, muffled, on the other end of the line.

“H-How do you know it’s me?” She raised the phone back to her ear.

“I thought you sounded familiar,” Oeznik chuckled, low and soft. “Helmut told me you might call.”

“He did?” she squeaked. “Yes, although it was awhile ago. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I uh….I….well….” she managed. “I guess I just….I guess I wanted to see how he was doing.” Her words flowed together like the liquor she was drinking, she knew she sounded drunk.

“Good, since we last spoke,” he said. “I don’t hear from him much these days...maybe every couple months. As you might imagine, he’s trying to keep a low profile for the time being.”

She nodded. Perhaps Zemo was as lonely as she was, hidden away in some cabin in the middle of nowhere. Though she had to imagine it looked much nicer than her current place, and maybe he had better company than a portly orange cat that begrudgingly liked him. “I understand.”

“How have you been?” he asked.

It sounded stupid, but she realized it was the first time someone had asked her that. Sincerely. Checked up on her. Even if she was the one who had dialed the number in the first place.

“I’m good,” her voice cracked. “Just keeping busy.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Helmut always had such nice things to say about you.”

“Really?” she couldn’t stop herself.

“Of course, would you like me to let him know you called?”

“No, no...I wouldn’t want to bother him,” she choked on her words, something catching in her throat.

“Are you sure you’re alright, dear?”

“I’m okay, I just….” she felt tears prick at the back of her eyes, lowering her voice, since she didn’t think her normal register would come out as anything other than a whine. “I think I made a horrible mistake.”

“What’s the matter? What did you do?”

She shook her head, shaking the tears loose and now they were lining her lashes, threatening to spill over. However, she managed to make the next words she spoke come out clearly. “Nothing, I just...it’s really stupid, I really shouldn’t have called.”

He sighed on the other end of the line, and she felt like, despite her attempt at staying calm, he could still see that she wasn’t somehow. “It seemed Helmut was awfully sweet on you,” Oeznik’s words next came hesitantly, calculated. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but he told me if you ever called, to help you with whatever you might need, no matter the ask.”

Oh God, what had she done? A sob left her, one she couldn’t control, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle any more. Her tears were flowing freely now, tracking down her cheeks and along her chin. She wiped at them clumsily, clearing her throat.

“That’s very kind of him, but you can’t help me. I’m so sorry to bother you, please just forget I even called,” she forced a smile on her face so that hopefully he could hear it. “Goodbye.”

She hung up, horrified, and within seconds had deleted the call log from her phone. She’d been thoughtful enough not to memorize the number, and the lighter she used whenever she smoked sat in front of her. Without a second though, she burned the card, watching the paper blacken and disintegrate, until it was all but a pile of soot on her Wal-Mart coffee table. It was a fair punishment, and ensured she’d never get the chance to embarrass herself like that again.

And then she cried, sobbed into a pillow next to her, until her tears ran dry and she wore herself out, falling asleep on the couch alone. When she’d wake the next morning, the only evidence of her actions would be a throbbing headache and a dead phone.

She wouldn’t remember the call.

----

Life went on, as it always did. It had been about a month, and since that night she grew more indifferent, remembered how to ignore heartbreak. For now, she was stuck in her purgatory, waking up before the sun and falling asleep before it set, smoking joints, drinking cheap liquor, and going on the occasional date with people who she didn’t really like, tourists who would leave after a week and wanted temporary company.

Despite everything, she partly believed things were getting better. Maybe they weren’t, but the possibility that someday they would seemed feasible. And that was enough, for now.

On her days off, she’d walk to the beach and lay on a blanket, reading a book until the sun dipped below the horizon and lit up the sky in hues of pinks and purples. She found a record player at an antique store and began collecting vinyls, listening to obscure artists whose albums she found in the $1 bin. It wasn’t so bad. Life wasn’t so bad.

She took a shower after work. Tomorrow was her off day, and she wasn’t sure what she had planned besides maybe watching a movie and getting stoned. Maybe she’d try going to the beach. The weather was getting warmer, and she could even go swimming if the water wasn’t too cold.

Exhausted from her day of work, she laid down in her bed, still in her robe, her hair wrapped in a towel around her head. The sun was setting outside, the windchimes she’d hung outside slowly clanging together, birds singing in the warm spring air. Her cat hopped on the bed, offered an affectionate trill and curled up at her side, purring, in a rare display of affection. A cool breeze drifted through the open window. And for the first time in over a year, she felt content. Closing her eyes, she savored the moment, committed it to memory, so she could recall it the next time she was drunk-crying in front of her TV.

She fell asleep slowly, so slowly that when she woke, startled by something in her kitchen clattering to the floor, it felt like she hadn’t even been sleeping at all. The clock next to her red 11:31 p.m. and it was pitch dark outside, the cool breeze from before had grown stronger and her bedroom curtains were billowing, wind whistling loudly through the apartment. Her cat had left her side, and she frowned, shivering in the sudden cold.

Pulling the towel off her head, she made her way over to the window with the intention to close it, sleepily, lazily, until she heard something else. A creak in the floorboard. A heavy footstep in her kitchen. That wasn’t just her cat.

Some kind of muscle memory was ignited then, an ancient instinct that called to her from a different lifetime. Darting across the room, the gun she kept was in her hand, stealthily pulled from its hiding spot beneath her mattress. Truth be told, she never thought she would’ve needed it. Anyone looking for her would be smart enough to kill her in her sleep, not be so foolish as to wake her first with their heavy footsteps.

A dark silhouette stalked through her kitchen, moving slowly. It was a man, she assumed, based on his broader figure, and lack of coordination. In her experience, women were often stealthier without trying. He took another step, the floor creaking below him, shuffling on bargain linoleum.

Staying low, she crept forward, ducking stealthily behind furniture, avoiding the spots on the floor she knew made noise. It didn’t appear the intruder had a weapon, in fact, it seemed he was bumbling about, searching for something. A burglar, and a bad one at that. An island full of vacation homes owned by rich doctors and they thought they’d find valuables in her shitty apartment?

It wasn’t until she was standing directly behind him, gun aimed at his head, that she finally spoke up.

“I believe you’ve come to the wrong place,” she said flatly. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’d be in your best interest to leave empty-handed.”

Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark, but the intruder froze, arms slowly raising in defeat, empty-handed, as he turned around to face her. In the dingy room, she couldn’t make out any of his features, could only see that he was clad in all black.

“Unfortunately, liebling, that wasn’t my intention.”

She would’ve recognized that voice anywhere, though the endearment he’d used was enough to clue her in. Hitting the lightswitch with her free hand, she was face to face with the man she’d spent the past year trying to purge from her memory, Helmut Zemo.

Her gut twisted, her mind raced, but the only thing currently bubbling up, over the surface of every other emotion was the pure, seething rage left behind in the wake of fearing for her life.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she stepped towards him, gun still raised, fuming.

“Hey, hey!” he staggered backwards, hands raised, eyes averted.

“I thought you were a fucking robber!” she hissed. “I thought you were here to kill me!”

“Lower your voice,” he scolded. “You’re going to wake your neighbors.”

Taking a deep breath, she realized she still had her gun trained on him and she lowered it, clicking the safety and discarding the weapon on the countertop. “What the fuck?” she asked. “What the hell is wrong with you? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I didn’t know you had such a mouth on you,” he smirked, but she wasn’t finished, and she glowered at him.

“You broke into my apartment!” she growled.

“I had to be sure I was in the right place.”

“Yeah? You couldn’t have knocked first?”

He nodded, eyes trailing down to her hands, which were trembling, she hadn’t even realized. He seemed to understand what he’d done then, and she flexed her fingers, eyes locking with his. “I suppose...you may be right,” he said, surrendering.

She felt the rage subsiding as she took in his appearance. He looked not so different from the last time she’d seen him, except a fair amount of stubble covered his jawline in a short beard. He was still devastatingly handsome. Zemo’s dark eyes, filled with longing, drank her in, tilting his head as his gaze shifted to her lips. It was like she could read his mind, she knew what he wanted, what he was thinking. And her body was going to betray her if he kept it up.

Despite everything, she was still upset. Upset and embarrassed, as the light was doing an unflattering expose of her tiny, cluttered apartment, full of mismatched furniture and water-damaged wallpaper that her landlord refused to replace. It probably gave the prison cells that Helmut had spent years in a run for their money, and was in stark contrast to every other aspect of his life.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing to the empty liquor bottles on her countertop, stowed in her trash can. “Have you been drinking?”

“Not tonight,” she quipped, on guard. Had to be. As much as some old instinct told her to throw herself into his arms, press her lips to the underside of his jaw, and let him envelope her in the comfort of his embrace, she knew she couldn’t.

“Hmm,” he brushed past her, frowning, looking disappointed, as he made his way to her living room.

“How did you find me?” she asked, eyeing him wearily.

“I’m a wanted man, I trace every call that comes into my estate,” he said over his shoulder.

Helmut was taking inventory of the cramped space, staring at the photos she’d hung in a collage on the wall behind her couch, with a few watercolors painted by her late husband. One in particular, that he was focused on now, was from her wedding. Of all the memories she chose to hang, this one was her fondest, her former partner was all dark curly hair falling into deep blue eyes, and she was the portrait of a blushing bride, wearing a dopey love-drunk smile, gazing at him, ignoring the camera.

“You looked so beautiful on your wedding day,” he said, turning over his shoulder to look at her. He was so out of place here, standing in her living room, for a moment she thought he might be a hallucination, some physical manifestation of the heartbreak she’d experienced. “Although that doesn’t surprise me.”

She flushed, suddenly self-conscious in her thin black robe and still-damp hair. It occurred to her that she wasn’t looking her best, which made this whole situation that much more disconcerting. However, the compliment disarmed her slightly, and the anger she felt began to dissipate, slowly. She was going to offer him something to drink until her cat, who had been absent through the chaos, suddenly jumped up on the back of the couch and promptly hissed at him in an attempt to defend her territory.

“Pumpkin, be nice,” she said, although it was mostly to placate Helmut. Pumpkin never listened to her.

Helmut let her sniff his hand, and she was stunned when the cat rubbed her face against it. Of course, Pumpkin would like him of all people. That made sense. Then again, she supposed it made them not so different. He turned away to look at the rest of the room. “I see you haven’t kicked that bad habit you told me about,” he gestured at the ashtray full of roaches on the coffee table.

“Did you just come to my place to insult me?” she asked, putting her hands on her lips and feigning confidence. She could’ve rolled over and cried and told him how much she missed him, how many nights she’d spent crying over him, and while all of it was true, she felt indignation was the better option for her self-preservation.

“That’s a good question,” Helmut turned to face her now, hands in the pockets of the leather jacket he was wearing. Completely inappropriate for the weather here, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care. “Why do you think I’m here?” he asked.

She shrugged, feigning indifference. “I don’t know, but you shouldn’t be.”

He snorted, his frustration evident, and she saw a glimpse of the man that so many feared, the side that had earned him his dangerous reputation, that had him locked away in a high-security prison for nearly a decade. “I didn’t come all this way for nothing, draga, we’re going to have it out.”

“Fine,” she said, lacing as much venom as she could into her words to prepare herself. “Then get on with it.”

He stared her down, and the expression her wore startled her, something sparkled in his eyes, mischief, relief maybe? It was insulting. Like he didn’t take her seriously. But there was something else there, too, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it was wiped from his visage before it registered.

The tension in the room dissipated slightly when Zemo sat on the arm of the worn couch she’d bought from a yard sale, and she winced. “I spoke to Oeznik the other day,” he said flatly, snorting, eyes focused on a stain on one of the rugs she owned. “He told me he had the pleasure of speaking to a friend of mine about a month ago.”

Frowning, she tilted her head, her eyes meeting Helmut’s. Something in her brain sparked a memory she’d once dismissed as a dream after a particularly bad night of drinking.

“He was concerned, you see, because this friend didn’t seem to be in the best state of mind,” Helmut rose from the arm of the couch, stalking forward slowly, and she couldn’t move backwards, not even if she wanted to, as he could pin her easily against the front door. His voice grew louder, faster as he went on. “He said she was crying, slurring her words, he told me he thought maybe she might be-” Helmut cut himself off abruptly and closed his eyes, clenching one of his fists, a look of distress on his face as he took in a terse breath. “I won’t finish that thought, but you’re a smart girl, you can imagine what I’m getting at.”

Swallowing hard, the phone call came back to her in pieces, the tears, sobbing on the phone to a man she hardly knew. It was the night she finally admitted to herself she’d made a mistake, even though she’d already known it, deep down when she left him in the hotel room.

“Please forgive me for breaking in tonight,” Helmut said. “But I couldn’t bear the thought of you not answering the door, I needed to see with my own eyes that you were okay.”

Exhaling through her nose, she looked at the floor. “It’s not like that. I had too much to drink.” she said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “It was just a bad night.”

“Then tell me, what was the horrible mistake you made?” he asked, stepping closer. He was close to her, now. So close. And his proximity made everything more difficult.

God, if only she could remember exactly what she’d said, the only thing that came to her were the emotions, desperation, sadness, grief. It was all too much, and he was threatening to bring them all back to destroy her again.

“I shouldn’t have called,” she said, shaking her head. “And I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? What do you want from me?”

“What do I want from you?” He asked, tilting his head, his eyebrows pulling together. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? How hard it was to sit on a plane when all I wanted to do was be here? With you?” His hand rose to cup her cheek, stopping just short of her face when she flinched away from his touch.

“Please stop,” she managed, the burn of tears behind her eyes almost menacing. The last thing she needed was to cry in front of him. “You’re undoing everything.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You’re….you’re here,” she murmured weakly, wetness seeping, glossing over her pupils. “I only have so much capacity for pain right now, if you touch me now, you’ll ruin everything.”

No one ever had this kind of hold on her, she’d never bent her rules to appease anyone else, and she’d gone toe to toe with super soldiers. He was just a man, and yet, he terrified her.

“You really want me to leave?”

She couldn’t answer, but one tear escaped, sliding down her cheekbone, and she sniffled.

“I’m not the one who did this to you,” his thumb, swiped along her face gently, wiping it away. He’d touched her, just barely, and she was reeling.

“I know,” she stuttered, gasping. “I know it was me, but I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You are so stubborn.” His expression softened as he looked upon her, his thumb tracing underneath her jaw, tilting her head upwards to look at him. Malleable, she obliged. “I’ve thought about you everyday since the night we spent together. You’ve plagued me. That can’t be a coincidence. Are you really happier this way? You must be honest with me.”

She shook her head, blinking out fresh tears. “No, I’m not. I just thought...by the time I realized I made the wrong choice, you’d have moved on. People like us don’t get to be happy.”

“Says who?”

How could she refuse him anymore? This would continue to go on until she gave in. And from the beginning, she wanted to give in. There was no use in fighting the inevitable. The small point of contact -- his hand on her chin -- radiated impressive warmth, and she could feel every part of herself being attracted to him, quelling some ache deep within her.

Reaching up, she clutched at Helmut’s palm, which didn’t last long, because he pulled her into his arms, nestling her head underneath his chin. She melted into his embrace, finding solace in the warmth of his solid frame.

“Come home with me,” he coaxed softly.

“I will,” she murmured, surrendering to the comfort of his presence. “But you have to let me bring Pumpkin.”

He chuckled, warm and amiable, the vibration of his chest echoing in her own. “Of course, you’ll bring Pumpkin,” he murmured into her hair. Oh, how she had missed hearing him laugh. They could’ve stayed that way for hours, and she would’ve been content, but he pulled away, hands on either side of her face as he studied her.

Unable to hold back any longer, she leaned in to kiss him. It was chaste at first, all the memories of her last night with him came flooding back quickly when he parted his lips to deepen the kiss, but she didn’t want that quite yet, just needed a moment to process this. The simple comfort of being held by him, kissed by him, was more than enough for now. He’d been waiting for this, she could assume in the way that he responded, pulling her impossibly close so she was engulfed in him.

Her stomach flipped, a warmth blossoming in her chest as he pulled away, their foreheads touching. “Oh, I missed you,” she sighed, shivering as his beard tickled her neck, his mouth on her sensitive skin.

“And I, you,” he murmured. His eyes studied her, carefully, up close, and for the first time since meeting him, she really let him see her, teary-eyed and vulnerable.

She would never let him go again.

---

A/N: So here we are! I know it’s been a ride, but I’m really excited for these two. However, I don’t feel like I’m done writing for Zemo yet. If ya’ll have any headcanons, thoughts, questions, requests, etc, feel free to drop them in my ask box or shoot me a DM. I’d love to talk more about him. I also would be down to write more oneshots based around this series, because I am sort of like….okay, they obviously have a connection, but they don’t know that much about each other, and I may or may not have a light future already mapped out for them. I might do an epilogue at some point even. But if you have anything you’d like to add, let me know!

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illfoandillfie · 3 years

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A Different Kind of Education: I Is For Impact Play (Chapter 8)

ADKoE MASTERLIST

Pairing: Professor!Roger Taylor x Fem!Reader

Series Summery: After being broken up with for not being kinky enough, Reader seeks out her professor to give her some private tutoring so she can win her boyfriend back.

Chapter Summery: A new week and a new lesson, but also a new challenge. How can you possibly find the courage to talk to your professor about your period?

Warnings: Modern AU, smut (18+), slow burn romance, dom/sub dynamics, dom!roger and sub!reader, professor x student sex, dialogue heavy, conversations about and mentions of menstrual cycles/periods, discussions of impact play including: spanking, kicking, slapping, punching, floggers, paddles, crops, whips, and canes

Words: 10,391

A/N: Better late than never, right? Big apologies for taking so long to get this one up! Once again I've had to split a single topic into multiple chapters lmao. This one is mostly the theory part of the lesson and a bit of an info dump, but the next part will focus more on the actual smut.

Taglist: @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor @hannafuckingsucks @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming @queenmylovely @ilovequeenmorethanyou @johndeaconshands @borhapbois @stardust-galaxies @cherries-n-rocknroll @rogersslave @scorpiogemini

@80s-roger @libsterslobsters @okilover02 @cjand10 @dealorgirl32 @youngpastafanmug @onceuponadetectivedemigod

You knew it was something you’d have to deal with eventually, that having your period would affect your lessons with Roger. But still you felt reluctant to broach the topic with him. It wasn’t something you generally discussed with people, especially not your professor (even if you were regularly sleeping with him). And you could already hear the lecture he’d give you about why you shouldn’t be embarrassed to tell your sexual partner about your cycle, and about how he’d taught reproduction enough to not be phased by it. The problem was you weren’t really sure how you felt about having sex during it and you knew even less about whether Roger would want to. You were definitely going to have to talk to him about it, no matter how much you didn’t want to. So, wondering when the best time to bring it up would be, you checked the curriculum he’d written for you. Impact play. That was the topic for the week. Roger might consider you clueless about kink (as you’d learnt during the previous week’s munch), but you at least knew enough to know that impact play meant spanking. For a moment you were distracted from your worries about the conversation you were going to have, rather excited by what you’d just read. Spanking was one of those things you’d been expecting to try. When you thought about BDSM, spanking was the second thing to come to mind after bondage. It was one of those things Dylan had hinted at being into. A couple of times during sex he’d given your arse a slap and, though you’d never really asked for it you also hadn’t told him to stop. He never hit too hard and it added a bit of excitement so there was no harm in it. And you suspected he might be interested in pushing it further if you ever suggested as much. So, to know that Roger was going to run you through the basics of it and show you how it felt, you couldn’t help but be a bit excited. And maybe you’d be able to keep things over the clothes to start and you wouldn’t have to tell Roger about your period after all. The good thing with having an implant was that it reduced the duration of your period. It would have been nice if it stopped it entirely but at least it shortened it and made it a little lighter. So maybe you could organise a second session later in the week for the more hands on part of the lesson, and not have to explain at all. You left your apartment feeling happier and excited to see Roger that night. But you didn’t have to wait so long to see him.

You’d barely taken two steps inside when a familiar voice called out Ms Y/L/N and you found Roger walking towards you, his hand raised in a lazy wave. “Hi Professor,” you smiled, surprised but happy to see him, “I’m just on my way to class, what’s up?” “Oh, in that case,” he glanced over to a group of students ambling past you, “do you have time for a meeting before you leave this afternoon?” Your heart rate sped up at the serious way he looked at you over his glasses, “Umm sure.” “Good. I’ll see you this afternoon then. Don’t forget.” You nodded but a new worry had taken over your mind. There was only one reason he could want to talk to you. Your degree. If it was anything to do with his tutoring sessions then he would have just said it when you got to his place that evening. No, it must be to do with your class work. Maybe something had been wrong with your last exam? Possibilities were turning over in your mind as you resumed your path to your first class, each worse than the other. Maybe you’d misunderstood a question and gotten it completely wrong. Maybe he’d had to fail you. Maybe your overall grade had dropped. Maybe he was going to call the whole tutoring thing off because you’d gotten too distracted and done so badly on your recent assessment. You spent the entire day trying not to get too worked up about it, trying to tell yourself that if your work had slipped even a little he would have called to talk about it earlier, that if it really was as bad as failing his subject you’d have discussed it long before now. By the time your last class of the day ended you were somewhere between terrified about what Roger was going to say and relieved that you were about to find out.

Your hand was shaking as you knocked on Roger’s office door and pushed it open at his word. “AH, Ms Y/L/N, shut the door please and take a seat.” he said, shifting a stack of papers to the side of his desk. It was only once you were sitting that he seemed to look at you properly, “Are you alright? You look a bit pale.” “Professor I’m so sorry, I swear if something was wrong with my last exam then it wasn’t because of our lessons and I promise I’m not letting them distract me at all. I put so much time and effort into studying and if-” “Woah, woah, hang on. No one said anything was wrong.” Your breath caught in your throat and it seemed to take you twice as long as it normally would for you to understand what he’d said, “There’s not? Then....why am I here?” “It’s about tonight’s tutoring session.” “Oh?” “I wondered if you’d be okay making a small change to the plan.” “S-so nothing's wrong with my work?” Roger shook his head, “Your work is impeccable Ms Y/L/N. Sorry, I didn’t realise you’d assume the worst. I had no intention of worrying you like that. I was intending to mention it this morning but you seemed to be in a bit of a rush and I didn’t want anyone to overhear so...” he gestured vaguely towards you with his hands. You let out a relieved chuckle, feeling a weight lift from your shoulders, “What was the change you wanted to make?” “Do you know what we’ll be focusing on this week?” “Impact play, Professor.” “Very good. And do you know what that entails?” “It’s like spanking isn’t it?” “Spanking is definitely part of it, yes.” “Cool. But you’re not wanting to switch topic are you? Only I’ve been kind of looking forward to this one since it’s like proper BDSM stuff....or like, not that other things aren’t I just mean that spanking is part of what I initially imagined, y’know?” Roger held up his hand to quiet you, “I understand what you mean Ms Y/L/N. And it’s not that I want to change the topic, I just wanted to change where the lesson would take place.” “Okay...” you were a little surprised by that. Where else could he have in mind when your lessons were supposed to be secret. “I thought we might have the first lesson here.” “Here?!” “Keep your voice down, Ms Y/L/N. Not here exactly, not this office. In the first-year bio room actually.” “Why? Isn’t that kind of risky? What if someone saw?” Roger shrugged one shoulder, “It might be, but I think what I intend to show you could be covered as a biological experiment. Let me explain,” he said upon seeing your confused face, “So, as you no doubt remember, first years do a lot of dissection of various animals, working their way up to human.” You nodded, remembering hours spent bent over various carcases and cadavers. “Well, I thought it might be beneficial to show you some of the impact play tools we can use, demonstrating how they work and what effects they can have, but I don’t want to demonstrate them on you straight away. Luckily, it just so happens that one of the animals my first years are studying right now is pigs, so I thought we might use a pig carcass instead. Pig and human flesh are quite similar so you should get a decent sense of how being spanked with various tools will look and the impact they would have on your skin. We can compare being spanked by hand to flogging to a crop and so on. All without experiencing any pain at all. Of course, it is a dead pig so it won’t be exactly the same and you probably won’t see the same levels of bruising you would on a living human being, but it’s a good starting point. Plus this way you could try wielding the tools too, so you can get a sense for how they feel to use them and how much force is required to make them work.” You were taken aback by the explanation and had to stop your jaw from falling open as you listened. But Roger waited patiently for you to think it over and you quickly concluded it was a good plan. You could easily write it off as related to your dissertation if anyone saw and asked what was going on. It wasn’t at all related but Roger was about the only person who knew what topic you were researching so no one else would pick up the lie. “Okay then, let’s have the lesson here.” “Excellent. You really don’t mind hanging back?” “Not at all.” “Good. I think we should possibly wait until a little later before we start, just to let the place clear out a bit. Perhaps we could get some dinner and eat it in here before we head down to the room. You can tell me how you’re getting on with your dissertation.” “Okay, I like that idea.” “Shall I duck out and get us some food then? What would you like?”

After what could only be described as a minor argument about the merits of Mexican food, you and Roger eventually settled on a nearby Greek place. He tapped the order into Uber Eats and then went to wait for the delivery out on the street so the driver wouldn’t have to find their way through the numerous carparks and laneways on campus. You ducked out to your own car to drop off your bag full of books, though you kept your laptop to make notes on. It would also make your story seem more legitimate if anyone did stumble onto the lesson and ask what was going on. The thought of the lesson made you smile. Partly because you were keen to learn about the topic but also partly because you knew there was no way sex would be part of it. Roger would definitely draw the line at fucking his student in his classroom where anyone could catch you. And if you were going to be spanking a dead pig then you wouldn’t be asked to remove clothes or anything like that. So you wouldn’t have to discuss your menstrual cycle with Roger at all. You’d just say you were busy until later in the week when your period stopped and organise the follow-up lesson then and Roger wouldn’t be any the wiser. It was perfect. That, in addition to knowing nothing was wrong with your actual schoolwork, put you in a very good mood and you could have whistled with joy as you made your way back to Roger’s office.

By the time you’d finished eating, the sky outside the window had changed from a mix of warm pinks and yellows as the sun set and was gradually darkening the longer you watched. It was only when Roger glanced at his watch and saw that it was a quarter to seven that he decided the building would be empty enough for your lesson to start. He grabbed his own laptop as you grabbed yours and then led you along the corridor and down a set of stairs, taking you towards the back of the building where the hands-on biology lessons were held. Roger made sure the door was shut and locked before dumping his belongings onto a desk. “Can you give me a hand?” he asked, before moving to the door to a walk-in freezer at the back of the room. Together you hoisted a large pig carcass onto a cart and wheeled it out into the main room. Roger then ducked back into the freezer returning, after a little rummaging, with what looked to be a child’s toy crate. It was made of yellow plastic and seemed light enough that Roger had no trouble hoisting it onto one of the desks, but it was not full of children’s toys. You couldn’t see everything immediately but poking out of the top was a long black handle with a leather flap hanging off the end. “Is that what we’ll be using then?” You were eyeing the box warily. “Yup,” Roger began pulling the items from the box one by one, laying them out on the desk, “I brought the box in earlier and hid it down here so no one would stumble onto it. I didn’t want any awkward questions. Or to have any of them stolen since they’re mine,” he added with a chuckle. You looked over the collection with interest, some of the objects familiar to you and some only vaguely recognisable, “Is that a hair brush?” “It is,” Roger winked playfully, “Kink can be very D.I.Y and the back of a hairbrush makes for a good makeshift paddle. The front of the hairbrush can be fun too actually. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m going to go through everything individually, explain what they are and what sort of effect they have and I’ll demonstrate them on our piggy participant. There’s also a few things I don’t have which we can run through at the end, sound good?” “Sounds great.” You sank into one of the nearby seats, pulling your laptop towards you, ready to take notes. “Right well. Impact play is a BDSM practice where one partner strikes another for sexual gratification. As you rightly said earlier this includes spanking but there's a little more to it than just that. You can slap your partner, punch them, kick them, whip them or flog them. There’re numerous ways to play with impact and as with all BDSM it’s important to negotiate what you want before you start. Being struck can leave marks of course. Brusies, welts, scratches, right through to cuts that draw blood. For some people, the marking aspect is an important part of their enjoyment, and they might go so far as to intentionally make the marks more apparent. But whether or not you want visible marks might be influenced by your job or the season or your social life or any number of other things. Personally, the marks are secondary to why I enjoy the forms of impact play I partake in. But my feelings aside, the nature of our lessons and the secrecy required, means I won’t intentionally be marking you anywhere that isn’t easy to cover up. If you even want to try it out. You might see everything today and decide it’s not for you and that would be okay.” “I don’t think there’s much danger of that Roger. Dylan’s spanked me a little before and I’m interested enough to try more.” “In that case then, you should know that physical pain is part of impact play no matter what aspect you try. And it can bring up more mental pain too, depending on the individual. Which is why I want to start with testing some implements on this pig. We can go through a few things and you’ll get a sense of them and then we can talk about what you might actually want to try or if any of it seems wrong for you. I’m also going to be much more diligent with your safe word in these lessons than any before. So what is your safe word?” “Pizazz, Roger,” “Good. Remember you can use it whenever you need to, even today. If things get too much for you I want to know.” “I know. I promise I’ll use it.” You were struck by how serious Roger’s tone was but understood it, after the conversation you’d had during your previous lesson. And, for the first time, you wondered if this would be a topic Roger would find hard to teach. “Thank you. I’ll check in with you every so often, especially when we move onto the practical lesson and you’re experiencing it firsthand. So, if I ask you what your safe word is, I need you to respond as loudly and as quickly as you can. It’s a way for me to gauge how well you’re coping and to make sure you’re still capable of using it.” “That makes sense.” Having assured himself of your understanding, Roger took a deep breath and smiled again, “Well, I have a range of different implements you can use here today but we’ll start with the most basic,” he held his two hands in front of him, palms towards you, fingers wiggling, “Hands.” You smiled at his showmanship but your gaze lingered on the offered view. His hands had always seemed quite lovely, even when he was just teaching you biology. The way they moved so delicately as he demonstrated necessary scientific processes for the class, or rapidly twirled pens around his fingers to impress new students. Of course, you’d felt them too since you’re first private lesson, the way he caressed you and held you. His fist tightening in your hair and his fingers plunging into you and making you moan and the way he’d gently stroke your skin as you were both regaining your breath. You were excited to feel the power in them as he spanked you. “Spanking is entry level impact play. Everyone and their mother has heard of it. It’s a common thing to see in pornography and even in Hollywood movies when they want to show sex as kinky. And because you don’t need more than your hands it’s easy to experiment with. Do you want to see what it looks like?” You nodded and Roger stepped closer to the pig, angling himself so you could see. Suddenly there was the sound of a clap as Roger’s palm hit the pig’s flesh. “See how my hand was open and my palm was flat?” Roger demonstrated again but slower so the hit barely made a sound, “But what if I do this?” He hit the pig again but changed the position of his hand. The sound of his hand colliding with the pig was deeper the second time around, “If you cup your hand, curve it slightly, you can change the way the spank feels and sounds. Just like clapping.” You experimentally clapped your hands together, first with open palms and then with each hand cupped so that the fingers wrapped around the back of the other. “Now you give the pig a try.” Feeling a surge of nervously excited butterflies, you got out of your seat and took your place at the pig. With a breath and a swallow you quickly brought your hand down. The slapping sound seemed to echo in the quiet room but it wasn’t as crisp as the noise Roger’s hits had made. With a look to Roger for permission, you tried it again, creating a slightly more impressive sound. “Good, now cupped?” You did it again, curving your fingers in a bit and bringing it down again. It felt more awkward than the open palm hit had so you repositioned yourself to hit the pig from a slightly different angle and tried once more. “Don’t be afraid to pull your arm back further. The more your rear back, the more force will be in the spank. Like this,” he pulled his hand back past his ear and swung down hard, the spank echoing around you. “Of course, you can also spank from a nearer point too. Spanking, and a lot of impact play, is best if you mix it up a bit, don’t stay in one rhythm too long, do some spanks with your fingers spread, or change how hard or fast they are. I might give a sub two or three hard hits each with a pause between but then I’ll switch to a more rapid series of spanks that don’t have as much force behind them but come faster.” You nodded and experimented with taking your arm back further, testing out ways to change the strength of each spank, until Roger finally called you to stop. “How did that feel?” he asked as you took your seat again. “My hand tingles.” “That’s normal,” Roger laughed, “in fact it’s one thing I really enjoy about spanking by hand. The sub isn’t the only one who feels the spanks, the dom gets some of the pain in his hand too, especially if the intensity ramps up or there's a section of quick-fire spanks. And that can a) help the dom understand what the sub is feeling and work out how long the scene should go and b) brings a sort of intimacy to the scene that is harder to achieve with a tool.” You hummed as you noted down what he’d said, “Have you ever spanked someone so much you injured your wrist or anything?” “No.” Roger shook his head, amused by the question, “My wrists are pretty sturdy. But a few times I’ve been left with a stingy, tingly hand for an hour or two. Which brings me to an important note about pain. There are two main types of pain you can experience in impact play. We refer to them as thuddy and stingy.” “Thuddy and stingy? What is this, an afternoon kids show?” Roger rolled his eyes, “The names are simple but they explain exactly what they mean. Some types of impact will have a stingy sensation which is usually superficial. It won’t go deeper than the first few layers of skin and probably leaves the skin feeling warm and a little tingly or like sunburn, y’know? It’s typical of spanks and slaps. Thuddy pain is deeper, it gets into the fat and muscles and tissue and aches more. And I’ll go through which tools cause which sort of pain as I get to them. Generally though, people who enjoy impact play have a preference for one or the other.” “And your preference is what?” “Thuddy. Definitely. Although I prefer inflicting stingy.” You hummed thoughtfully. “Now, I’ll go into details about ways to actually incorporate spanking into a scene later. We can talk about it while we’re negotiating our scene. Today is just about the practicalities and sensations involved in the different types of impact play. So are you okay to move on?” “Yup, definitely.” And then, sensing Roger might ask, you added, “Pizazz.” feeling pleased when you saw him smile.

“I don’t expect us to delve too deep into them but I think I should touch on kicking, punching and slapping. Kicking and punching are things I’ve not done. They can, obviously, be quite painful. But they’re pretty self-explanatory. From what I understand about it, and what I’ve heard others who enjoy that kind of thing say, kicking and punching can both be very intimate, similar to the way spanking by hand is, but in a more primal or animalistic way. Punching is, of course, done without any accessories but kicking often includes footwear of some kind. A lot of time it’s something like a steel-toed boot or something with a bit of weight to it.” “That isn't something I want to try.” You’d learnt a lot about how far kink went so weren’t completely shocked that some people would enjoy something as forceful as kicking, but it did take you by surprise to hear Roger talking about it. “What about slapping?” “How is that different to spanking?” “Well, you’re right, they are similar. But slapping generally refers to slapping on the face whereas spanking is usually on the, uh, derriere. Of course you can slap or spank other parts too. For clarity’s sake, if I say slapping assume I mean on the face whereas spanking is anywhere else on the body.” You thought about it for a second, “I’m not sure if I’d be game to try it but I do want to know more.” “Slapping can be fun. Again, it’s not one I do a lot but I have played with it in the past. It comes in handy for particular scenes and there’s a fairly bratty sub I’ve worked with who responds really well to it. The most important thing to know is that if you are slapping someone’s face only ever aim for the cheeks. There’s a lot of fragile places around the face and it’s close to the brain so you need to be careful not to do any lasting damage. Never hit the temples because you hit them with enough force and it can kill a person. Nose and ears are off limits too, anything that is important. You knew enough about biology to know Roger wasn’t making those rules up for fun. Noses were easy to break and hitting an ear too hard could damage someone’s hearing. But face slapping did still intrigue you.

“Well, I’d say the next – let's call it the next level – of impact play is paddling.” He picked up what looked to be a wooden plank with a handle. It was an inch or two longer and wider than his hand with small holes cut out in a repeating pattern over the flat side so you could look right through it. “They don’t always look like this. Paddles come in lots of different shapes and sizes. This is a wooden one but they’re also frequently made of leather and sometimes the leather ones will have one side that’s a little more padded than the other. That gives you a bit of versatility with the pain. You can start off lightly with the padded side to get you in the zone and then during the scene switch it to the firmer side that hurts more. Or, if you don’t have access to a paddle at all, you can substitute a hairbrush.” He picked the hairbrush up and waved it back and forth. “And that-” you pointed at the hair brush, “will feel the same as that?” you pointed at the wooden paddle, not quite able to reconcile the two in your mind. “Not exactly the same but close. Honestly you can get really creative with impact play and not spend any money to get nearly the same results. I mean a plastic hairbrush might take a few extra hits or a little more force to really bruise someone but they’ll still end up sore from it. Or, if the hairbrush doesn’t do it for you, dig through your draws and see what else you can find. Wooden spoons, cutting boards, rulers, leather belts, spatulas, rolling pins, ping pong paddles, anything you can get your hands on. Just be mindful of how easily they’d break or them causing more pain than you expect.” Again, you weren’t necessarily surprised by the lengths people would go to for sexual gratification, as Roger had put it, but it was a bit astounding. Still, you noted it all down just in case. “Now a paddle generally falls under the stingy category but you do tend to get a deeper bruise than with your hand. Different factors could alter the way it feels too. If you put less force into it the pain will fall more on the thuddy side, same goes for if your hits are slower. But the pain call also be influenced by the size of the paddle, the material it’s made out of, the texture of it.” “Texture?” “Sometimes paddles have added texture, so they aren’t just a smooth, flat board. They might have metal studs that are more raised than the surface of the blade – the part you hit with – or ridging that will imprint the skin. This one has holes in it which definitely changes the feeling, makes it more intense. As you strike and the blade hits, the holes do two things. They stop any air cushions forming that would lessen the impact and they sort of push the skin into the holes which means the pain isn't completely even along where was hit. Plus it also leaves these cool circle marks behind which is fun.” You realised you’d held your breath through the explanation, eyes following the paddle as Roger waved it through the air and ran his hands over it unconsciously. You hoped he had something more beginner friendly at home, though you couldn’t pretend you weren’t turned on by the way he wielded his weapon. “Using it is quite similar to spanking but your hand isn’t hitting, it’s holding onto the paddle handle. So you just pull back,” Roger’s arm went back and the paddle swung backwards,” and then hit,” he swung his arm forward, the paddle cutting through the air and landing directly against the soft flesh of the pig. It made a satisfying thwack sound on impact and when Roger’ brought it back again you could see the circular patterns he’d talked about. He demonstrated a few more times before he handed the plank to you. It was heavier than you’d been expecting, solid wood, but the handle fit into your palm comfortably. You ran your hands over the flat part, what Roger had called the blade, and felt the holes with your fingers. The weight made it a little hard to swing but not impossible. You managed to mark the pig as well, stroking the circular imprints with your fingers. “Try the hairbrush,” Roger said, swapping it for the paddle. Its handle wasn’t quiet as long, but it was lighter and you found your hits were harder with it, without you even trying. “Something to be aware of if you use an ordinary household item, or even just a different sort of impact toy. Because it’s lighter you can pull it back further and swing harder. A dom has to be aware of how much is going into each hit and how much their sub can handle.”

“So what’s after paddles?” “Floggers.” Roger picked his up off the table, “This is a fairly typical flogger. As you can see it’s made of black leather. It has the handle which is the thickest part and then a number of smaller tails. The tails is where you get the most variation which can be a stylistic choice or just a side effect of its price and overall quality. There’s a trick for knowing if a flogger is good quality or not. It should be pretty evenly balanced between the handle and the tails, so you should be able to do this,” he held out a finger and balanced the flogger on it carefully, the handle pointing out one way and the tails dangling over the other. You thought for sure it would tip forward onto the tails and tumble to the ground but it hung there perfectly. “Sometimes there will be more tails or they'll look different but no matter what, it should be balanced.” Roger gave a practiced flick of his hand so the flogger leapt into the air and he was able to catch the handle before it fell. “From a more stylistic point of view, you could get a flogger with less tails but they’ll be made of braids of leather which makes them heavier and thicker. Braided tails are also likely to have knots in the ends which can be a bit scratchy and even draw blood. They don’t have to be made of leather either. Rubber floggers are also popular. The tails on them tend to be more rectangular in shape, still flat but they have more edges and it actually feels like you’re being hit with more tails then there really are. And if you’re looking to really fuck someone up you can get hemp floggers. Sometimes they’ll look similar to this leather one but hemp is fairly stiff material and sometimes the tails will be shaped so that they’re sort of squiggly rather than flat lines. The squiggles hurt like a bitch, especially if they have knots at the end. Definitely start off with simple leather and work up once you’re more experienced.” Roger dragged the ends of the tails over his hand as he spoke, “I’d say this falls into the more thuddy type of pain. It can cover a large area of your body since the tails spread out and each of them creates an individual pain point. And because you’re being hit six or seven or nine or however many times at once, you can build up quite a rapid movement over a short period of time.” You eyed the dancing tails as Roger moved his hand through them, “How long are the tails? Isn’t it a bit dangerous to have so many bits flying in all directions?” Roger laughed, “Well yeah, kinda. I mean, that’s BDSM for you though, it gets dangerous which is why we’re all obsessed with safety. It’s a good thing to have noticed though, well done. The tails on this one are on the shorter side but some floggers will have much longer ones which means the dom can stand further back and still inflict a lot of pain. But you’re right, you do have to be mindful of the length and where they’re flying because a longer tail can potentially wrap around to somewhere you aren’t intending to hit. For instance, if you’re standing behind a person and flogging the back of their shoulder, you don’t want one of the tails to fly past their shoulder and around their neck. That would be incredibly painful and probably not what they expected or wanted from the scene.” “So you have to take into account the length of the tails when you’re negotiating the scene then? And know where on the body to focus the hits so you don’t risk causing the wrong sort of pain and ending it early.” “Exactly. That’s why negotiating the scene is important. Then both the dom and the sub will know what they want to achieve, what they want to get out of the experience, and they can tailor things to fit better. A lot of doms who are into impact play are likely to have multiple versions of their favourite toys – I myself have a few different paddles at home, I just didn’t bring them all in with me today – so by talking through what you want they’ll be able to choose the style of toy that will best fit the scene.” “So how do you use a flogger then? Is it the same as spanking and paddling where you just swing your arm forward?” “Sort of. Floggers have a few different ways to use them. There is of course the single strike option where, yeah, you do just hit them like you would with a paddle. I find that you don’t need to bring your arm back so far though, the movement comes from your elbow more than your shoulder.” Roger bent his arm so his hand and the flogger were roughly head height and then brought it down on the pig, “And you can change the angle of your single strike so that you hit them overhand or underhand or from one of the sides.” He demonstrated each direction as he said them, first bringing the flogger down from above, then swinging it up from below, then from the right side and finally a backhanded hit from the left. “But you don’t have to just pick a side to hit from. Paddles and hands are limited in how you can swing them but floggers have more movement. One way to use them is to swing them in a circle.” He moved back towards the pig to demonstrate, standing side on so that the tails whipped around and struck the pig, “I like starting off with circles because you can keep the pressure quite light. The tails sort of brush over the sub as they pass and it can be a good way to slowly build up. And then you can move into a figure eight as you get a bit harder.” Roger shifted his circles so they made a sideways eight in the air, subtly adjusting his stance so that the tail swished over the pig’s skin on both the forward and back motion. You watched, awe-struck by how easily Roger swung the flogger, falling into a rhythm quickly. It wasn’t hard to imagine how he’d suddenly change the speed or the force of the swing when you were least expecting it.

You were brought back to the present by Roger clearing his throat as he stilled the flogger, “The figure eight is why you should practice your backhand swing as much as any other. Because the tails will hit the sub on both the forward and back swings and you want them to be as even as possible.” He flipped the flogger in his hands, holding the handle out to you. It felt smooth and cool in your hand, lighter than the paddle had been. You swished it experimentally, trying to get a sense of how it felt in motion.” “Show me your overhand hit.” Roger said, leaning back against the nearest desk to watch. You tried to imitate how he’d swung it, elbow bent, flogger raised. It must have been good enough because Roger nodded and said, “how about underhand?” He kept calling out different directions for a while, testing your reactions but you felt it helped you get a better grip on the toy and you found yourself adjusting how you held it so your movements became more fluid. Roger watched you as you tried to keep up, his eyes locked onto your hands. Had you been looking, you might have caught sight of him subtly adjusting himself in his pants. Finally, he seemed satisfied that you could successfully single strike from any direction and asked you to try the circle and figure eight motions. They were harder to start, more awkward as you tried to work out the best way to move the flogger, and you caught Roger chuckling.” “Oi, stop laughing,” “Do you want some help?” he was still smiling but his request was genuine and when you nodded he stepped towards you. One of his hands moved to your waist as the other lay over yours on the handle of the flogger. You tried not to grin too much as he did exactly why you’d hoped, and you felt him so close behind you. “Like this,” His arm gently directed yours, the flogger beginning to move in a smooth circle. “Oh, not so hard then,” you laughed, half turning to face him, “Y’know if someone walked in now this would be pretty hard to explain.” His eyes darted to your lips, “Good thing we locked the door then.” You hummed, waiting to see if Roger would close the gap. He did a few seconds later, leaning in to kiss you softly. But the movement caused you both to forget about the flogger, your hands falling out of rhythm, and the tails whacking against your outstretched arms as they fell. “Ow,” you both groaned, Roger stepping away from you. It was disappointing but the disappointment was a little confusing. Surely you weren’t hoping for your professor to kiss you when you had no intention of sleeping with him that night. Roger laughed, “Maybe that’s enough of the flogger today.” “Might be for the best. Good thing I was so bad at it, otherwise we might have been really hurt.” “You weren’t that bad. You actually looked good with it before I brought in the circles. Quite sexy really.” “Thanks,” you said softly, trying to hide how pleased you were at that praise, “What else is there then?”

“There's only one more that I can demonstrate but then there’s a few others I’ll touch on quickly too. So the last one I own is a crop.” He picked it up off the table, his fingers sliding along the length of it’s handle as he spoke, “This one I would put in the stingy category. It’s fast and sharp. Again, you can get crops in a few different styles. They will all have a handle like this, long and thin and probably with a slightly thicker point towards the end that’s easy to hold onto. The difference will be in the bit you hit with. This one is based on the sort of riding crop that's used on horses, so it’s quite plain. There’s just this loop of leather which hangs off the end. But others can be more decorative. I’ve seen crops which had ends shaped like hearts or that had studs pushed into them. Some of them are padded and some have a more rounded shape. We like our variety.” “It looks scarier than the others I think,” “Yeah, they’re quite intimidating aren’t they. And if you do it right, it’ll make a noise through the air, which just adds to how intimidating it can be.” “Can you show me how to swing it now?” “Absolutely. Now, you want to stand a bit further back with a crop because there is such a long handle. And the magic is in the wrist with these. You just flick the wrist and...” You could hear the whooshing sound of it flying through the air before it cracked against the pig. “Now some crops are more bendy and some are more stiff so, if you get one, you’ll want to practice swinging it a bit before you use it on a person, to get a feel for it. The flexibility of it might dictate how you stand or how strong the swing has to be. Give this one a go though.” You felt oddly powerful as you took the crop and tightened your fist around the end. For a moment a vision of you decked out in leather dominatrix gear popped into your head and you nearly laughed. Unfortunately, the intimidating whooshing noise Roger had achieved was not as easy for you to make as you’d hoped, and the imagined power soon dissipated as you struggled to make the weapon sing. Roger however was not disappointed. “It takes practice,” was what he said when you lamented your inability to create the sound, “And you don’t have to have the sound to make a good hit. It’s just kind of cool.” When you still seemed disappointed he sighed. “If it’s any help, I can’t always make the sound either. And besides, I wasn’t intending to use that one on you, unless you really, really want to. I mostly brought it to show you as an interesting part of your theory lessons. And so you’d have a sense of what a cane is like, even though I don’t have any of them to demonstrate.” “A cane? Like....caning? Like what Victorian kids used to have done if they misbehaved or whatever?” Roger laughed, “Kind of, yeah. It does have a history in corporal punishment. Which, might I add, wasn’t just for Victorian kids. It was still a thing when I was a kid. We didn’t get caned, more likely to be whacked over the knuckles with a ruler, but still. I don’t think it really left schools until the 80s.” “Jesus,” “Yeah. Occasionally I do wish I could bring out a ruler to shut a kid up,” he winked in jest, “Anyway, caning for BDSM is similar and uses the same sort of tool. A cane, funnily enough. Canes are long and thin like a crop but without the leather flap at the end or the more padded handle area. Traditionally they’re made from rattan which is a type of plant, but you can also get synthetic canes which are covered in leather. In my experience synthetic canes are actually harder. Not to use, I mean in the way they feel when you’re hit with them. The traditional rattan ones require a lot of maintenance though. You have to water them between uses, literally soaking them in a bath of water so they don’t dry out and break. But the benefit with a rattan cane is that if you get it home and realise you’d like something a bit shorter, you can cut it off yourself and just sandpaper down the rough edge and it’s good as new.” “So are there any different version aside from synthetic? All the other toys had lots of variety.” “Hmmm, not really. Most of the difference will be in how thick the cane is, which can effect the feel of it a lot. A thinner cane will sting when it hits and the force will make the skin hug the cane so it leaves these long marks behind. A thicker cane though might sting less but it’ll still hurt a lot, just more thuddy. And you tend to get more bruising from the thicker ones.” “And do you use it the same as a crop?” “Mostly, yes. The biggest difference is that you can use a larger section of a cane. The crop has the specific bit at the end to hit with whereas a cane doesn’t have that limit. The most important thing to remember is to try and aim a little short of where you want to hit because if you hit with a part of the cane six inches down, those top six inches are going to hit as well, and with force behind them they will wrap around the person’s side or arse or whatever until they make contact. But other than that, it’s a similar motion from the wrist and uses a similar amount of energy. And canes can make the cool whippy noise too.”

“Is that everything then?” “One last one, really quick. Whips.” “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of whipping in kink.” “Yeah, it’s one of those things that gets mentioned a lot even if comparatively fewer people are actually into it. But everyone’s heard the phrase chains and whips in relation to BDSM. There's a few different varieties of whips but I don’t really know enough about them to know the difference. They all look like whips to me. Very cowboy. But they’re one of the more intense versions of impact play. The pain they cause is quite sharp and stingy and will be very localised to a specific point because they have the one tail, as opposed to floggers which have multiple tails. Whips are very capable of breaking the skin though and feel very intensely painful. I do not recommend them unless you discover you’re a masochist and you’ve tried everything else impact play has to offer.” “No need to tell me twice, Professor. Definitely do not want to try whips any time soon.” “That’s very reasonable. And that is all of the impact play options I wanted to go through. There’s a little more to cover regarding safety before I let you go for the night, but how about we put the pig away and hope no one notices it’s been marked by crops and floggers.” You chuckled and quickly moved to help Roger push the trolley back towards the freezer, locking the dead pig away securely, and to help pack up his toys. When everything was tidy again you re-took your seat, Roger taking the one beside you. It made the end of the lesson feel less like a lesson and more of just a casual chat, the topic of which happened to be BDSM. “The most important thing to remember when trying impact play is which parts of the body are safest to hit.” He paused for a moment, considering you, “But you’ve been studying biology for a while now, Ms Y/L/N. Care to guess which parts are safe and which parts you should avoid?” You hadn’t expected to be asked so took a moment to consider your answer, “Well, the arse obviously. Ummm.... I guess I’d assume the best places to hit are the bits with more meat on them.” “Very good. Entirely correct. There’s a reason most people think about spanking on the arse and that’s because it’s one of the best places to spank. Well, that and the fact that spanking is used so frequently in punishment scenes where you bend the naughty girl over your knee. But, yes, hitting the arse is good. Hitting the thighs can also be good, though the bit just under the arse cheek where it connects to the thighs hurts a lot. Which isn’t to say don’t ever spank there, just be mindful that it’s going to hurt more than directly on the arse cheeks. The pecks or breasts can be good places to hit, even the upper back where the shoulder blade is can be good. What about places to avoid hitting? Any ideas what those might be?” You hummed in thought, “I’d imagine you wouldn’t want to hit the spine since it’s so important.” “Right again Ms Y/L/N. The spine is definitely something to avoid. I don’t like hitting on the back much at all because there's too much important stuff there but I do know some others who don’t mind using a flogger there, especially while warming up before things get too intense. There are also the kidneys to watch out for,” he moved his hand to press against the spot on his own back, “because, as you no doubt know, part of the kidneys stick out under the ribcage so aren’t fully protected. Then a little lower down, just above the arse, is the tailbone which should also be avoided. “What about the neck? That would be bad to hit too, right?” “Yup. And that’s something to watch for if you’re doing anything on the shoulder blades. The spine of course runs all the way up the back of the neck and hitting there can do some very serious and lasting damage if you’re not careful. I know some people who will only flog the shoulder blades if the sub is wearing a collar because that adds a bit of protection around the C5 and C6 vertebrae but even so, better safe than sorry in my opinion. The front of the neck is also not good to hit since that’s where the vocal cords and all that is.” “Which is why you have to be careful with a flogger’s tails, right?” “Right. But what about on the front? Is there anywhere else you’d avoid?” “Pussy,” you said with a laugh. Roger laughed too, “Actually, depending on how it’s done, spanking a pussy can be quite enjoyable.” “Wait really?” “Yeah. I prefer doing it with my hand since you can feel when it makes the sub wet but it’s not totally unusual to use paddles or crops or even floggers down there too. I’m sure some people whip as well.” You gulped at the thought. “The biggest area to avoid on a person’s front side is the diaphragm and middle of the chest. There’s a lot of important stuff in there and a lot less tissue than elsewhere.” “Do people get badly hurt doing impact play?” you glanced over the list of places Roger said to avoid. It made it seem like almost any spanking was running the risk of more than just some bad bruising. “Sometimes.” Roger said seriously. He paused for a moment, thinking, and then continued, “Things can go wrong. And when you’re playing with intentionally hurting someone, things going wrong can be very serious. I won’t pretend there aren’t stories of people trying impact play and ending up paralysed or worse. But if you’re careful, if you pay attention and only hit certain areas and are mindful of how hard you’re hitting, then you’re going to be fine. And that’s why we come up with safe words and talk through scenes before we do them. So that you can minimize those risks and have a chance to communicate any worries or concerns.” “But how can safe words help if you say them after you’ve already been hurt too much?” “Well, for one, even if you’ve been hurt badly, using your safe word can stop things from being made worse. But you don’t have to wait until you’re hurt to use the safe word. Yes, if I spank you four times in a row and the fourth one feels so bad you can’t go on, then you should use your safe word before I give you a fifth. But you could also use it after the third hit when you aren’t sure if you want the fourth. And safe words aren’t just about physical pain. If you start off excited but then feel anxious after two hits you are well within your rights to safe word. You don’t have to wait until the damage is done. And, obviously, it’s not always easy to tell if that one hit more is going to be enough to make you want to stop. You can’t always know if the next hit is going to catch your neck wrong and do serious damage. But if you feel at all worried that it might, speak up. Not just worried either. If you feel distracted or you think I’m not paying enough attention to how I’m spanking you, or if I move to spank and area you don’t want me to touch, tell me. There is no wrong reason to use a safe word, even if we’re only a few minutes into the scene. I’ve said before that I’d rather you tell me to stop than for us to go on and you not feel comfortable, and I mean it.” “I know, I guess I just never really thought about it being for mental stuff as well as physical.” “Mmm, I should have checked that.” “Well, let’s face it, you probably tried and I just didn’t pay attention. But, y’know, you’re very good at reassuring me when I start to get nervous.” “I hope that’s a good thing.” “It definitely is. I think if I didn’t have the reassurance, I’d chicken out of some things.” “As long as you’re aware of the difference between some healthy nerves and anxiety that could be a sign you should slow down. And that you keep telling me how you’re feeling.” “Of course I will.” “Good girl.”

An understanding seemed to pass between you as you sat in near silence, eyes on the other. Until Roger drew in a long breath and stood up. “Right well, I think that’s just about everything. Obviously we weren’t able to see the levels of bruising that different implements can cause but it’s kind of dependent on the individual anyway. Everything can influence the severity of bruises and other marks. Tell me what a bruise is.” “It’s broken blood vessels under the skin which cause discolouration.” “Bingo. Now, obviously being spanked with a hand will leave less obvious bruises than being hit with a crop will and usually a paddle will bruise less than....i don’t know, a leather belt. But there's lots of factors to consider. The sub’s age, diet, the colour of their skin, their hydration level, how much sun exposure they’ve had recently, stress levels, hormones. And the biggest of all is how much stimulus they receive on that part of the body. The more you hit a spot, the deeper it will bruise. So, don’t expect bruises and marks to appear exactly the same every time you make them. There are some ways to heighten or lessen marks left during BDSM, but I’ll go through those when you’re ready for our practical lessons. And we’ll also go through some ideas for popular scenes and positions before we settle on what our scene will look like.” Roger seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, “Of course, it’s not so late we have to stop. If you did want to start testing out some light impact play, or if you wanted to revisit a previous topic, you’re more than welcome to come back to mine.” “No,” you said much too fast, the suggestion catching you completely off guard. “Okay, no problem,” Roger said, his eyes downcast. “I didn’t mean...just that tonight’s not great timing.” You’d really thought you’d got out of having to talk about it but you could see Roger was going to ask what you were talking about when on a regular tutoring night you’d likely still be in his bed. All the same you couldn’t quite make eye contact as you explained, “My period started last night, that’s all. Makes things a bit awkward.” “Oh is that all?” You shrugged, “Yeah.” “Well there’s no need to feel awkward or embarrassed about that. And there’s no reason to hide it from me. Aside from the fact that I’ve been married and had kids, I’ve also been teaching biology for longer than I care to count, so I’m very familiar with the reproductive processes and the reality of the menstrual cycle.” “I knew you were going to say something like that.” “Because it’s true. And besides, periods are important to factor into our lessons because they can change how you’ll respond to various kinks. Fluctuating hormone levels can change how much you enjoy or desire sex, as well as the physical sensation of different forms of touch. A lot of women find breast stimulation uncomfortable in the lead up to their period because their breasts become tender at that stage of their cycle. It can also make vaginal sex undesirable, at least in the first couple of days if not longer, whether because of a physical discomfort or pain, or just because it makes sex messier and more annoying to clean up after. The hormonal shifts in a menstrual cycle can also effect libido too, either stopping you from feeling aroused or causing hyper arousal. And all of that is important to consider, especially when we get to other things like orgasm denial. So, don’t feel you have to hide your periods from me, okay? I want to know if something is going to effect how enjoyable these lessons are for you. And plus, I factored periods into the timeline, remember? If you want to postpone for a week we can. His little speech did put you at ease a bit, the weight of admitting the truth no longer as heavy now that he knew, but it still wasn’t an especially comfortable conversation, “Well, I should be okay to go in a few days.” “Would you be up for having sex on one of the last days of your period when your flow is a little lighter? Or would you rather wait until after it was finished?” You tried not to cringe too much upon hearing Roger talk about your flow, “After I think. I don’t know. How do you feel about it?” Roger shrugged, “If we were just having sex without the kinky stuff I’d be okay with period sex. It’s a little more effort since we’d need to put towels down and all that but I’m not completely opposed to it if we’re both in the mood. However, I think since we’re playing with BDSM it’s probably a good idea to wait.” You nodded, glad the topic was almost settled, “Yeah, that makes sense. I think I’d feel too self-conscious to enjoy any period sex but you’re definitely right about the BDSM stuff. Just makes it easier for my first time trying things out if I’m not worrying about, um, bleeding everywhere.” Roger gave you a reassuring smile which made your heart flutter, grateful he hadn’t made things too difficult or drawn out, “That’s settled then. We can put a pin in all of this for now and come back to it when you’re ready.” “Thanks. Will Friday suit? I think I should be right by then.” “Friday sounds great.” “Really? You don’t have to, like, pick up the kids or anything?” Roger shook his head, amused, “No. It is technically my weekend with them but they’re both staying at friend’s placed over night so I won’t see them until Saturday. Friday we can start testing some things and if we need to, we can come back next Monday and go through more. And I finish a bit earlier on Fridays so maybe we could start a bit earlier.” “Yeah that works for me.” “Great. I guess we should get out of here then.” Roger ushered you from the classroom and walked beside you all the way to the carpark, your footsteps echoing down the corridors. He chatted to you quietly about non-kinky topics, as if you’d merely ended up walking the same direction by accident, just in case anyone was looking. You were almost sad to reach your car, drawing the conversation to an end, “This is me.” “One last thing, Ms Y/L/M.” “Mmm?” “For homework-” “Homework?” “Yes. For homework I want you to watch some porn with impact play in it. You’ll find a few examples linked in a document I’ve dropped in our folder but feel free to find your own too. It can be spanking by hand or flogging or any other form of impact we discussed today, whatever turns you on most. Because I want you horny when I see you on Friday. I want you to spend all week thinking about naughty sluts who get spanks, knowing you’ll soon be one of them. I want you excited to be hit and wet at the thought of me spanking your arse and cunt while I fill your holes with cock. Is that clear?” Roger had leant closer as he talked and your stomach did a backflip as he stood up. All you could do was nod, completely lost for words as Roger chuckled and walked into the dark towards his own car.

#my writing #my fics #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor smut #roger taylor imagine #gonna try and get the next one written a bit quicker lmao

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gukyi · 4 years

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if i told you | jjk

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

{friends to lovers!au, college!au}

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

check out the post-script drabble here!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You knew that already. How could you have forgotten?

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

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

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

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

“Have you tried babysitting?” Chaewon supplies helpfully.

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

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

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

Jungkook pouts. He knows you’re right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jeon Jungkook is the sole best decision of your life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s so hard to say no to him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So I’ve heard,” you muse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And who are you to resist?

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

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

You’re best friends.

This is normal.

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

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

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

God.

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

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

Sighing, you pick up.

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

“Chaewon—”

“Oh, Y/N! How’s it going?”

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

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

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

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

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

“You did?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing.

“Who’s that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Chaewon,” you tell him.

“Oh, why was she calling?”

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

“To do what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What about food?”

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

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

“Gross.”

“Let’s not sit in bed all day.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure thing, is Chaewon coming?”

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

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

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

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

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

Who else could it be?

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

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

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

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

You: ok next time then!

[October 23rd, 1:03PM]

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

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

You: yummm sure thing!

[October 30th, 9:58AM]

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

[October 30th, 11:13PM]

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

[October 31st, 2:02AM]

You: ok You: thanks for telling me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s a knock on your door.

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

And then, you hear,

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

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

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

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

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

“What was Yeonjoo dressed as?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, don’t you want that?” You ask.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He dashes down the hallway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thanks?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s a goddess.”

“Indeed.”

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

Not surprising. Jungkook excels at everything he does.

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

“She said I’d make a good boyfriend.”

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

“You good?” He asks, brows furrowed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How about a dress?”

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

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

“Me?” You frown. “Why not Jungkook?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing separates the rich from the poor like morality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Im Chaewon, is that you?”

“Mrs. Kim!”

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

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

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

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

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

You are not pre-law.

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

“Yes, definitely,” you say awkwardly.

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

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

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

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

“Just murder me.”

“Have any tips?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tired?”

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

“I’m honored,” you say sarcastically.

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

And then, you spot him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That night, you stay at Chaewon’s place.

“You’ve been acting weird.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it? How?” Chaewon says.

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

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

“You?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Bullshit.”

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

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

“Why would I?”

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

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

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

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

“Jungkook?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good?”

Jungkook moans again in response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, you aren’t that lonely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Y/N?”

Oh, God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t say you didn’t do the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jungkook, what—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, it did, but Jungkook, I can’t—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know, I’m sorry.” He sighs.

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

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

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

“You do?” Jungkook asks.

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

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

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

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

“Mine too.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

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

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bakugoukatsukiswife · 4 years

Text

Use Me

Words: 2K

Warnings: Overstimulation, smut, 18+.

Pairings: Female Reader x Sub! Hawks

You gently tapped your fingers against the glass table, letting out an exhale of breath as you looked down at your phone. It’s not like you would normally be this disappointed at your boyfriend-the number two hero at that-to miss dinner that you had reservations for. But this time it was different, since with Hawks working all the time, you barely got any alone time with him anymore. He was the one who had made the reservations at this upscale restaurant in Japan, and bought you a new dress to wear just for the occasion.

You downed the rest of the wine that you had ordered before relieving the waiter of his duty with a generous tip, your blood boiling slightly as you went outside to hail a cab to take you to your shared apartment with Hawks. You made sure to stop at the liquor store on your way home and order the most expensive bottle of wine with Keigo’s credit card before getting back in the cab, finally arriving at your apartment.

“Good evening Miss (Y/N)! How was your anniversary dinner with-.” The normally enthusiastic front door man started, but stopped when he saw your sour expression. You got in the elevator before hitting the button to the penthouse, rolling your eyes as you leaned back against the cool metal of the elevator. Always had to show out with everything he had, that Keigo. You walked inside the apartment, the lights turning on to a low dim as you walked in and to the bedroom to shed out of the dress and into a satin set of PJs.

“Damn him,” you muttered to yourself as you walked to the kitchen, grabbing your favorite ice cream before plopping down on the leather couch and turning on some romance anime. Might as well swoon over boys that didn’t exist that were more perfect than real men, right? You spooned the ice cream in your mouth, uncorking the bottle of wine before shrugging and drinking it straight from the source. You heard your phone ping and you looked down to see a notification from a local news article talking about Hawks rescuing a young, attractive woman before taking her home-after escorting her around Tokyo all day and night. If your blood wasn’t boiling before, it sure as hell was now.

“Hawks, being the charmer as always,” you scoffed as you drank more of the wine, relishing in the feeling of the alcohol flooding through your system. Your ears perked up as you heard the sliding glass window from the living room balcony slide open and Hawks’ feet land quietly on the hardwood floor.

“I can hear you, bird boy,” you said, bitterness in your voice as you got up to put the ice cream away. You took another drink of the wine, cursing yourself for the way your heart melted at seeing those familiar golden eyes that you loved so much. You licked the melted sugary treat off the spoon before tossing it in the sink, eyebrow raised as Hawks came over to you.

“Hey baby. Listen, about tonight-.” Hawks started but you held a hand up, stopping him.

“Nope. I don’t want to hear it.” You said as you walked past him, hearing as Hawks let out a sigh.

“(Y/N), I know I fucked up. Work had let me off but they needed me to come in anyway and work a few hours.” He said and you turned to face him, noticing the flowers in his hand. “I know you’ve already seen the articles talking about me and that woman, but I had to keep an eye on her so the League wouldn’t get her. She had a very unusual quirk,” Hawks said softly and you knew that he was being serious. He never talked about work with you, it was too dangerous. But you knew that him sharing even this with you was dangerous in itself. You sighed as you looked back at him before moving your head in a ‘follow me’ motion to let him know you weren’t kicking him to the couch tonight.

You slowly settled down into the bed, relishing in the feel of the satin sheets and the plush pillows behind you.

“Baby, let me make it up to you. Please?” Hawks said, and you could hear the way his voice took on a tone of urgency. Maybe it was the alcohol in your system, but the way he was practically pleading with you made a heat form in your stomach. “I’ll do anything.”

You raised an eyebrow as you looked over at Keigo, a small smirk forming on your face. “Anything?” You questioned and watched as Hawks simply nodded. Wanting to dea; with your frustrations from tonight, you grabbed Hawks by the shirt, crashing your lips against his. As much as he frustrated you to no end, you couldn’t get enough of him. He was like a drug to you, and you wanted him in every possible way. You slowly moved to get on top of Keigo, feeling as he sank down into the mattress as his hands held at your hips while a moan left his lips. You slowly moved your hips against his as your lips connected with his neck, a small shudder running through Keigo when you bit down at the smooth skin.

“B-baby?” Hawks asked, his voice slightly breathless as one of your hands trailed under his shirt and to his back where his wings started at the base. A small gasp left his mouth when your fingers brushed right below where his wings started. “Hey now… careful with the wings,” Hawks managed to mutter out, a groan leaving his mouth when your hand rubbed at the base of his wings.

“Seems like you’re just kind of spoiling me right now, baby.” Hawks managed to get out, not aware of the fact that you had discarded your sleep shorts and underwear.

“Hmm, not really cause you’re about to spoil me with that mouth of yours.” You said before hovering yourself above Hawks’ face. “You missed dinner, so eat up Keigo.”

Hawks wasn’t able to speak before you lowered yourself onto him, your hand going to rest on the headboard as his tongue started to lap against your folds. You let out a moan as your other hand went to thread in his ash blonde hair, guiding his head to where you wanted him. Hawks let out a small groan when you pulled slightly on his golden locks, his tongue working more eagerly to bring you closer to the edge. You moved your hips against him, feeling as his stubble brushed against your skin as you gripped at the headboard tighter. You felt as his hands gripped at your hips, fingers leaving slight indents in your skin as he flattened his tongue to lick a strip up from your folds to your clit, his lips wrapping around the sensitive bud.

“Fuck.. K-Keigo, I’m going to….” you trailed off, his golden brown eyes meeting your (e/c) ones as you released. Hawks let out a happy little sigh, licking your essence up before you got off of him; going to retrieve a pair of handcuffs that you and Hawks used-mainly on you.

“Keigo, I want you to strip for me.” You said, and Keigo’s eyes widened slightly at the command in your voice. He slowly did as you said, tossing his shirt aside before he removed his pants and boxers, his cock hard and the tip leaking pre. His golden eyes were darkened with lust and they trailed over your body, stopping when they saw the handcuffs dangling from your fingers.

“What exactly do you plan to do with those, hmm?” Keigo teased, his voice unwavering. Although his wings twitching told a different story. You slowly walked over to him before kissing him deeply, grabbing his wrists gently before slapping the handcuffs on them and pulling away. You heard the gulp as he swallowed nervously, trying to cover it up with a chuckle.

“C’mon Keigo, you don’t think you’re done being punished yet, do you?” You asked, sugar in your voice as you looked down at him.

“No, not at all. I just… didn’t expect this,” Keigo said, the handcuffs clinking as he held his wrists up slightly. “Normally I’m the one doing the… punishing,” he said with a small smirk as he thought fondly over the way he would be the one in charge. But not tonight.

You slowly got on the bed, your sex now glistening from your slick as you kissed at Keigo’s thighs, causing a sigh to escape his lips. You bit down slightly, leaving bite marks on his thighs before grabbing at his throbbing cock; noticing the pre was oozing out now, the head a slightly irritated red now. You looked up at Hawks expression to see that it was slightly pained and you couldn’t help but let out a small giggle.

“You know… if you beg, I might just take care of this,” you teased as your finger trailed down one of the prominent veins on his cock.

“You know I don’t beg,” Hawks shot back, a hiss escaping his mouth as your tongue licked at the vein you had trailed your finger down.

“Not even a little?” You said, a smirk on your face as you looked up at Keigo. His eyes narrowed slightly, a small gasp escaping his mouth as your hand moved up to brush against his feathers.

“N-no.” He stuttered as he looked up at the ceiling, eyes refusing to focus on you as you continued to stroke at his feathers. You could hear his breathing was becoming slightly labored, his back arching slightly as your fingers moved in between two of his feathers to rub against the soft wings. Your tongue came out to flick at the tip of his cock and Hawks let out a curse.

“(Y/N)... please baby.” He pleaded and you let out a chuckle.

“Please what, Keigo?” You asked and Hawks shuddered, his wings spreading out slightly when you reached up and touched where they started at his back.

“Please… fuck me. I’ve been bad, I haven’t given you what you needed. Use me, whatever you want to do. Just please… fuck me.” Hawks begged and you rubbed your thighs together, biting your lip at the heat that flooded your system from how desperate Keigo sounded. You wrapped your lips around his cock, tongue flicking at the tip as you took him into your mouth. Keigo let out a moan as you took him further in your mouth, your drool now lube as Keigo moved his hips up against you. You released his cock with a pop and you swear you heard Keigo let out a whimper.

You straddled his waist, hovering over his cock with your dripping cunt before looking down at Keigo. He started to reach for you, but realized that the handcuffs were still around his wrists and he groaned.

“You want this?” You teased as you rubbed your folds against his cockhead, watching as Hawks’ eyes fluttered shut.

“Y-yes. Please, (Y/N).” Hawks begged and you slowly lowered yourself down onto his cock, a moan escaping you both as he settled nicely inside of you. You started to move your hips against him, one of your hands going to rest in his hair as you kept a rhythm against him. Hawks let out a moan, his wings shuddering behind him as he moved his hips to keep your pace.

“Fuck, I’m going to c-cum.” Keigo said, a moan escaping his mouth as you picked up your pace. He chanted your name like a mantra, a loud groan filling the room as Hawks painted your walls white; his wings spreading out on the bed and flapping slightly as he filled you to the brim with his cum. You stopped for a minute to let him catch his breath before you started moving again, his moans now louder. “F-fuck (Y/N). I’m too sensitive. I can’t handle much more.” Hawks admitted, his voice a bit higher from how sensitive his cock was.

“You said you wanted me to use you, right Keigo?” You teased and Hawks nodded, unable to speak as your walls squeezed his cock like a vice.

“S-shit.”

You moved against him, your walls gripping his cock deliciously before your high caught up with you; flooding your system as you released but not before making him cum again. The room was filled with loud moans as he released inside you again, his wings shuddering as he painted your walls white again.

You uncuffed Hawks’ wrists, helping the blood circulate back into them as he wrapped his arms around you. You rested against his chest, feeling as his fingers combed through your hair.

“So… does this mean I’m forgiven then?” He asked and you smiled before looking up at him.

“Yes, bird brain. It does,” you said as you planted a kiss to his nose.

#hawks fanfiction #hawks smut #hawks mha #hawks bnha #keigo #keigo takami x reader #mha keigo takami #my hero academia keigo takami #keigo takami bnha #keigo takami mha #wing hero hawks #bnha x reader #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfic #mha smut #mha fanfiction

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hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years

Text

13. Trust

It’s not fun to be put into a situation where the only person you can count on is the person who wants to kill you, nor is it fun to have to be put in a situation where you have to trust the person that you really want to kill, but Henry and Malice don’t really get a choice in the matter. (Set in an AU Where Allison and Tom capture both Henry and Malice alive.)

When Malice came charging at Henry, she was stopped by being tackled into unconsciousness by an almost identical angel.

His assumed savior hoisted her body up with ease, while the Boris with the mechanical arm had glared at both of them.

Henry tried to explain the situation to the newcomers, but the angry looking wolf simply ignored him as he walked up to the man and whacked him out with the pipe.

Both the angel and the Animator woke up in a cramped, tiny, makeshift prison while one of their kidnappers was singing and painting on the wall.

It was very tense and awkward when that happened.

Malice was clearly pissed off about sharing her cell with Henry (the man had similar opinions on the arrangement as he was rightfully upset about what she did to his Buddy Boris), but the animator could tell that she also seemed scared, outright terrified, of their captor.

While he wasn’t her biggest cheerleader, he did see some flickers of Susie still in there, there were still glimpses of a woman who poured her heart and soul into her role, and loved every minute of it until her betrayal broke her. Seeing the fallen angel so scared, and dare he say, helpless in this instance, reminded him of that tape in the Angel side room.

“Everything feels like it’s coming apart…”

His own heart broke when he first heard that tape, while he had never seen Susie get her role as Alice, he did see her voice some of those talking chairs, dancing chickens, and other minor roles. She always seemed to have fun with them and if Sammy didn’t pick her for Alice first, then he would’ve asked her himself.

The animator reached out, then hesitated, wondering if it was better to try to comfort her or to give her space.

The one who broke the silence between the three was the free angel who noticed that Henry was up when he moved.

“I know her, but who are you? Why are you here?”

“I was invited by an old friend, and now I can’t leave.”

Malice rolled her eye and muttered something under her breath.

“Then you know more than we do. One minute we don’t even exist… just… thoughts. And the next minute, this place.”

“Henry.” Malice whispered in his ear as she grabbed his hand. “I know I’m the last person you’d listen to, but don’t fall for her act! I know her, and I know she’s no better than Joey...”

Henry nodded in acknowledgement and turned back to the captor angel.

“Are you gonna let us out of here?”

“She’s dangerous and down here, strangers aren’t good things. How can we trust you?”

“If we’re so dangerous, then why lock us up instead of killing us when you had the chance to?” Malice spoke through gritted teeth. “Why bother with the cage at all?”

The other angel stayed silent as she did not have an answer, leaving the other two in silence as well.

-----

It’s only for a few hours. No need to worry, I won’t go far… Only up to level six. Just stay here. Keep an eye on them, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”

The Boris menacingly slapped the axe against his palm while watching over the pair, Malice refused to look him in the eye as he did so.

-----

“You’re drawing him again?” His cellmate asked curiously.

“Yeah, it’s just… I miss him. He was one of the only good things about this studio.”

While he was focused on his work, he did notice the twinge of guilt cross her features before her face fell into thought.

“...If it makes you feel any better, he’s not truly gone. The ink probably spat him back out a while ago and he’s probably wandering the studio looking for you.”

Henry raised an eyebrow.

“What makes you think that?”

“He disintegrated when you defeated him. Have you ever noticed that when you die, you come up somewhere else and you don’t find a corpse of yourself laying around the spot you were killed?”

“Come to think of it… I have noticed that.”

“When the Ink’s done with people, it leaves their bodies alone. When it’s not done with them, then if they die, it disintegrates their bodies and spits them out of the puddles somewhere else.”

“I have a feeling you know this from a lot of experience…”

“How very observant of you.” She deadpanned.

“Thanks, it’s a strong suit of mine.” He also deadpanned.

-----

“Henry? Susie?”

Malice shot the ‘clueless’ angel a glare as she set two bowls of bacon soup on the edge.

“Here, you two must be hungry.” She sheepishly looked down at the bowls. “Sorry, it’s all we have.”

The free angel turned and walked away while the Boris put his arms around the bowls, turned to glare at them, knocked the bowls onto the floor, and made a threatening gesture before leaving himself.

“They never planned on giving us the soup anyway.” Malice whispered to Henry. “It’s just their ‘good cop bad cop’ routine; “miss goody-two shoes” is the good cop who generously gives us dangerous monsters some of her and her guard dog’s limited portions of endless soup, while the “Mean wolf” is the bad cop who knocks over the soup and threatens us, out of her sight, but not out of her earshot.”

“Huh, ...Did they lock you up before?”

“No, I just know what they’re like; the happy little Bonnie and Clyde couple…”

------

“I know you’re watching me, it’s just... a little creepy.”

“It’s not like we have anything else to do.” Malice muttered under her breath.

The animator would’ve stayed silent, but as he watched his vocal captor write on the walls, he noticed how similar her own handwriting was to the messages on the other walls.

“You’re the one who writes on the walls!”

“Everyone does that.”

“-We all do.” The captor angel interjected as if she did not hear her prisoner. “For some poor souls down here, it’s the only way they can be heard. But you don’t want to touch the ink for too long! It can claim you… ...pull you back. That’s how I met Tom. I was messing with things I shouldn’t have been and he... ...he was there.”

“Why do you call him ‘Tom’?”

“He just seems to respond to it.”

“Well I don’t think he’s very fond of either of us.”

“Let me show you something...” She approached the cage. “A while back, I was mapping out one of the upper levels… ...when I noticed something reflecting off a piece of glass. I held up the glass, looked through, and on the wall behind me was a hidden message! Right there! In plain sight! So I kept looking, and found more and more messages everywhere in the studio! But you can’t see them with your eyes. Only through this! Take a look!”

Malice scoffed dismissively as the freed angel handed Henry the seeing eye tool.

‘SHE WILL LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD.’

“I don’t know who’s leaving them, but I think they know how to get out of here.”

“Where does it all lead to?”

“Nowhere.” she sighed. “I followed them for a long time... just leads me in circles. I don’t think I’m meant to leave this place Henry, but maybe… you are.”

“And yet, you keep him locked up like a little bird…” Malice muttered.

“Alice, please let us out of here.”

“...Tom thinks you’re both dangerous.”

“Of course.”

“And what do you think?”

“I… I think… ...you’re the hope I’ve been waiting for. Go to sleep, maybe tomorrow will be better.”

-----

“I Hope you’re not taking everything she says at face value.”

“She seems harmless enough...”

“That’s what she’s trying to do- Look, I know you don’t trust me, and I can’t say I blame you for that. I don’t expect you, or WANT you to trust me. But Listen to me when I say this: I ended up as what you see me as BECAUSE I trusted her. Don’t make the same mistake I did, Henry, if you really want to get involved with her and make it out unscathed, then keep your guard up.”

Henry gestured for Malice to come closer and held the seeing glass up to show her the ‘SHE WILL LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD’ message.

“...Did you write this?”

“Yes Henry.” She sarcastically droned. “While I was working to achieve my perfection and setting up Bendy land’s obstacles, I went down to the secret lair of my worst enemy aside from the Ink Demon, both risking my life in the process and putting my goals into jeopardy, and wrote that message in invisible ink, just on the off chance that if she’d capture both of us alive instead of killing me.”

“I see.”

-----

“That was really stupid Tom! You shouldn’t have gone out there! Now that he’s seen you... it’s only a matter of time…” She grunted through adjusting his arm. “before he finds us here.”

She then waved at her captives, something that Tom noticed and began threateningly slapping the axe against his hand again.

-----

“We can’t just leave them! Not with the Ink Demon right outside the door!”

“What’s going on?”

“He’s coming. We have to move on.” A loud rumble echoed above them as Malice curled up in a corner praying for her safety. “Tom! We have to let them out!”

She pulled on the boards, Tom shook his head.

“...I’m Sorry.”

“No you’re NOT! DON’T LIE TO ME!” Malice Snapped. “YOU HAVE A SWORD! HE HAS AN AXE! IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT EITHER OF US EVEN THE TINIEST BIT, YOU’D CUT THE SHIT AND CUT DOWN THE BOARDS!”

Alice hesitated, but ran anyway, with Tom close behind her. Leaving them to their doom.

Malice fell to the ground and started to cry, she was shaking violently and saying things that Henry couldn’t make out because she was bawling so hard, but he could definitely make out the words ‘Ink Demon’ and ‘We’re going to die’ here and there.

“Alice?” He put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “Alice, we’re not going to die here.”

“How…” She sniffled. “How do you know that?”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to trust me on this, but...” He held up the seeing eye tool, showing her the messages in their cell itself. “I think whoever’s leaving these is trying to help.”

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #Henry Stein #susie campbell #Malice Angel #allison pendle #Thomas Conner #fanfic #ink demonth

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strandedcrow · 3 years

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thoughts on the glass animals album dreamland? (info dump welcome)

YES hi hello thank you

I talked like,, a lot so I’m sparing y'all with a cut

The album itself is just so well organized and executed it’s insane. The entire album just captures the feeling of taking a nostalgic trip through your own life and the way that it ends up forgotten in a way, sickly sweet and vague, subdued, and so easy to get completely lost in. And part of what makes it so well done is the pure authenticity it’s completely drenched in. The album itself didn’t exist until quarantine hit, they had been taking a break after a band member was injured and had to recover, and that isolation had that same impact on them as it did on most of us, and the result was this extremely genuine album embodying nostalgia itself.

As a band they’ve always done such an incredible job of maintaining a theme throughout their album that is consistent without becoming repetitive. The song Dreamland does such a perfect job of pulling you into the album, easing you into a subdued album, fuzzy around the edges but clear once you can hone in on the details, on what’s being said, perfectly reflective of the theme it’s introducing you to. While it’s doing that it’s also providing a smooth shift from the last song on the album before it, HTBAHB. Agnes leaves that album off on such an extremely a somber, desperate, and lost note, which Dreamland picks up, just as lost in itself, taking off so beautifully from Agnes’ “You’re gone but you’re on my mind, I’m lost but I don’t know why,” and getting into the why. But it does so by warning you first, “You see in kodachrome, you see in pink and gold.” This album is distorted, it’s not right, the colors are wrong and everything is sweeter than it should be. At the same time, it sets up for the songs to follow, like “That worst thing you said” for It’s All So Incredibly Loud and “You were ten years old, holding hands in the classroom, he had a gun on the first day of high school” for Space Ghost Coast to Coast.It’s those vague, unconnected memories that you haven't quite grasped onto yet in full, but you know you’re going to get lost in them once you do. You’re stepping back from the overload of information and action today to visit who you used to be and what made you who you are now.

Right after it, Tangerine does something that Life Itself did for HTBAHB, it smoothened the general sound’s transition between albums. Just as Life Itself, with its beat similar to the album before its own could have fit into ZABA with no issue, Tangerine could have been on HTBAHB without disrupting the album. The “retro” vibe, the themes revolving around both the nostalgia of Dreamland and those of past relationships deteriorating because of missed opportunities and growing apart fits so well into both albums, it’s such a great transition from the past album to the current. The “I’m begging, hands knees please, tangerine” is also a common expression used (often as a double entendre) by them, again like in Life Itself, with its chorus being “Come back down to my knees, gotta get back, gotta get free, come back down to my knees, lean back now, lean back and breathe,” which just sets up for a really smooth callback to previous songs and album. Something else that Tangerine establishes is something that’s been a running theme with Glass Animals since ZABA: fruit. There is a lot of fruit here. It used to be a running joke that Glass Animals wasn’t actually a band, but a cryptic pineapple worshipping cult (no amount of music made will fool me, this is definitely a pineapple cult). This album uses fruit to remind you of the sugary sweetness of nostalgia, but there’s more history and, well, fan specific nostalgia that goes with that metaphor, too.

Hot Sugar is similar to a later song, Waterfalls Coming Out Your mouth, in that it’s about someone who is so cool that they aren’t actually cool. The person isn’t genuine, the idea of them isn’t actually them, but this was someone that you still want to be anyways, because who wouldn’t want to be that cool? The song doesn’t have much deeper meaning underlying it compared to some other’s because that depth doesn’t exist here, with this person. You know they’re “faking it,” but it doesn’t really matter beyond deciding if you actually like them or if you just want to be them, and the answer is the latter. This song is also similar to another, later song, Tokyo Drifting, introducing the listener to this person that he wants to be like, referencing “Hot rubber on the tar,” and setting the stage for the later song to tell you more about what he wanted to be like. Also, once again, through a mention of watermelon, fruit continues to be a recurring theme in the earlier tracks on this album, when the trip through nostalgic memories is still more sweet than bitter.

Right after we get introduced to this idea of who he wanted to be, we move onto what became of someone he knew closely, shared a lot with, and very suddenly lost touch with through Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The music itself is reminiscent of the music he listened to at the time. This song, being a telling of something that actually happened, is so authentic and raw in how it ends up, all still told through the layer of confusion, hurt, and again, that sweetness of nostalgia, with “You look bizarre in the apricot” establishing a deceptively sweet but confused tone over something heavy through yet another fruit metaphor. This song also manages to hit on other songs from the album when he tries to delve into why his friend did what he did, “Were you bored of gender norms,” matching with Dreamland’s “Go ask your questions like “What makes a man?”,” “… of being alone,” matching Heat Waves’ “I don’t wanna be alone, you know it hurts me too,” and “… no mama home, a bad divorce” matching pretty much the entirety of Domestic Bliss. Like Hot Sugar, this song sets up for Tokyo Drifting, with his idea of who he wants to be but isn’t, with “Remember when you stole mom’s old Geo Metro, you wore her old bathrobe, too small to see the road.” There’s also more blatant references being made to both past shooters (Black cap back with a trench coat, ay) and the arguments afterwards of what motivated them (Playing too much of that GTA, playing too much of that Dr. Dre). While he still wants to understand his old friend, and what happened for him to change so abruptly and dangerously, he does not want anything to do with him anymore. It’s a song about a loss of innocence and the understanding that sometimes you just won’t understand why someone does something. It’s just a complete banger in general.

Which then takes us to Tokyo Drifting, which absolutely slaps. The song itself revolves around what he wanted to be like, singing from a new persona rather than his own (Cane Suga from HTBAHB was done through the same persona). It breaks the pattern of referencing to fruit, instead focusing on drugs and alcohol, dropping the sickly sweet lens of nostalgia for something more fitting of the song’s specific theme. Don’t worry, though, dragonfruit was used extremely heavily in this songs promotion as a single, so the fruit is still there, just not directly, and that lack of directly referring to a fruit in the song itself fits with the way that the song breaks from nostalgia of things that have happened and people he knew into something that was never real. There is no rose colored glasses needed for something that never even happened. I don’t have much else to say on it, it just goes hard, this was my most listened to song two years in a row lmao.

Melon and the Coconut is just sheer Glass Animals. It’s weird, it’s fun, and it sounds great. It cleanly splits the album in half, splitting the POV’s straight down the middle while making a reference to its own position in the album, “Sometimes B-sides are the best songs.” Needless to say, there are some super subtle references to fruit in Melon and the Coconut, the song about two fruit.

Then, the second half of the album kicks off with Your Love (Deja Vu), a song extremely similar in theme to previous songs about missed timing, like ZABA’s Pools and HTBAHB’s Pork Soda. Instead of fruit, “juice” is mentioned in this song. It takes the turn from thinking about people you were friends with, what you wanted to be like, to people that you were with, and things that just didn’t work out.

And then there’s Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth. It’s such a clean parallel to looking back on things with nostalgia and seeing them through the fake sweetness that time brings, with this song being about the rose colored glasses that were present in the moment, the time when you start getting to know someone but you aren’t actually getting to know them, you’re getting to know this other, more impressive version of them instead, and they get the exact same experience of you on their own end. He’s letting this other person have their own version of him while he has his own version of them in his head, and he knows their version of him is wrong, so he also knows whatever he thinks of them is going to be wrong, too. He knows them, but at the same time he doesn’t. He’s realizing here, that this person, like the Hot Sugar person, is too cool, and they aren’t real, it’s all just talk, and it’s all fake like the “chemical warfare, red lips and television eyewear, raspberry soda hair, in the pool with a blow up gummy bear.” It’s sweet, sure, but it’s also fake. “Chat shit but where’s the real you? Never seen The Price Is Right, I’m a liar been on that shit since ’99. You make me look like a clown, clap clap, you’re a clever clever cookie now” has no right go that hard, and yet it Does.

Then, abruptly, we get to It’s All So Incredibly Loud. The song itself is subdued, it’s that point in your trip through your own memories where you remember why things went wrong. You get shaken from your train of thought and lose your place in it, because you aren’t there anymore, you’re here and you can’t go back, you can’t fix anything, all that’s left for you to do now is mourn the wrongs and accept them, even though its painful. This is remembering what Dreamland meant by “That worst thing you said,” the realization that you have to break someone else’s heart, and how much that hurts.

((home movie: rockets)) is the longest home movie audio in the album, and creates a smooth transition back into childhood, journeying back through a sound similar to that of their first album, ZABA, on the way there for the album to transition into Domestic Bliss. This time, with someone else entirely’s perspective falling back onto knees, but this time under an entirely different tone, “Fight for me. We can leave I’m begging, please, on my on my knees.” These two songs back to back continue the downward spiral that too much nostalgia can leave you falling into, the wrongs, the regrets, this trip down memory lane has lasted too long, now.

Which drops us off at Heat Waves, which returns back to his own perspective after Domestic Bliss focused on a friend of his. It fits the bittersweet feeling in nostalgia, the understanding and acceptance that you can’t go back, you just have to keep going forward and separate instead for everyone’s sake, a followup less to the tangent in thought that is Domestic Bliss, and more to It’s All So Incredibly Loud. It also wraps up those previous album’s songs, Pools and Pork Soda in a way, bringing a sense of closure to the nostalgic feelings, as well as to the entire album.

And finally Helium, the bookend opposite to Dreamland. This song flawlessly embodies that feeling of when you realize you’ve just been sitting and staring at a photo album for an hour now, and you finally take a look around you, feeling the air conditioning on your skin, hearing the sounds of the world around you, snapping back out of your train of thought and into real life again. Things didn’t work the way that you used to think they would, but that’s a good thing. It is such a perfect ending to the nostalgic journey that is this entire album. Fading back into the melody that started this journey of sickly sweet memories of people you looked up to, when you learned for the first time that people can change and you might not ever understand why, ideas of who you once wanted to be, finding something light that you can laugh about, realizing how similar so many things in your life have been to each other, the realization that the people you used to look up to might not have actually been that impressive the whole time, your regrets, times you wish you could have done more, and the understanding that sometimes you shouldn’t have done so much.

I love this album so much man

#hi glass an/imals is my favroite band i have listened to them since 2013 and i love them thank u amen #ask #anon

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breadboylovin · 3 years

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NEW POST FOR MY 95060 PLAYLIST!!! complete with explanations of every song choice under the cut because i love explaining my own creative decisions for some reason (PLEASE DO NOT FEEL COMPELLED TO READ ALL OF IT IF YOU DONT WANT TO ITS VERY LONG LOL). i may add a few songs here and there later on, or more likely rearrange what i've already put in slightly, but for now i consider it done.

alright now heres a look into my twisted mind

PART 1: TEMPTATION

Franz Ferdinand - Michael: It's a song about seducing someone named Michael. What more can I ask for (serious explanation is that it’s also very homosexually charged like you just have to listen to it… also feels taunting in a way where it’s like ‘oooooh you want me so bad’ and he’s RIGHT Michael DOES want him so bad). Also credit to this post for letting me know this song existed and inspiring me to make this playlist in the first place :-3

Mystery Skulls - Paralyzed: Just another song about how Michael is awestruck by David and feels compelled to follow him for whatever reason (the reason is that he wants him so bad)

TAEMIN - WANT: This is one of three Taemin songs on here because I think if David survived until present day he would fucking LOVE Taemin. Anyways this is a song about knowing you’re hot shit and everyone wants you and I think after seducing Michael through fucking?? Fatal motorcycle races and evil noodle mind tricks??? David deserves to feel that

Glass Animals - Gooey: OHGHGHGHFH THIS SONG… the vibes are impeccable on this one, Dave Bayley’s alluring voice feels like a slight remix of what David is going for and the way it feels like the singer is trying to convince the listener of something (even though it’s purposely vague) just FEELS like David with Michael. The line “I can’t take this place, I can’t take this place/I just need to go where I can get some space” especially fits when imagining how Michael is new to Santa Carla and may want a place to belong that David and the boys are happy to provide

TAEMIN - Impressionable: I see this as the moment that Michael downs the bottle of “wine”, where this song is David’s internal monologue reveling in how easy it was to charm Michael and get him to join. I always thought this sounded like a taunting villain song so it just fits. Also it’s like ridiculously horny which is a plus

PART 2: THE RELATIONSHIP ITSELF

MGMT - Me and Michael: In my head this is directly after Michael drinks the “wine”, and if it were an actual song in the movie, it’d play instead of Cry Little Sister in that scene. I already made art related to this but I really just love the juxtaposition between something that Michael will later see as horrible (becoming a half-vampire) and David seeing it as a perfect slow-dance moment. Also “Me and Michael, it’s not a question now” because the blood drinking has now linked them together… mmmmm. Credit to this post again for making me find this song!!

ALI - DESPERADO: This one is less about David and Michael specifically and more about how the night in the cave went down for everyone there, starting with a soft slowness as they ate and then descending into chaos as Michael downs the wine and they celebrate a new addition to the pack. The bacchanal energy is off the charts

Dorian Electra - Man to Man: This song is just one that I attribute to all of the boys because I think they do a lot of homoerotic sparring. Also the part of the movie where Michael punches David in the face and David just goes >:-3 back at him

Chase Atlantic - Friends: I don't know what it is about this one but it just Hits… The chorus kinda sounds like David and the boys trying to convince Michael to stay with them instead of coming back to human society after drinking the blood, in the same sort of taunting manner that they had when David (presumably?) made Michael hallucinate the bike lights and sounds outside of his house

Taking Back Sunday - You're So Last Summer: THIS SONG IS JUST REALLY GOOD. I don't know what it is about this one either… I guess the “Maybe I should hate you for this/Never really did ever quite get that far” part could represent the first glimpse of Michael’s more conflicted feelings about David. Also the second half of verse 2 not only fucks so hard but could also be indicative of Michael’s repressed gay feelings, lying to himself about how he wanted to be around David because he’s cool or whatever but he actually just has the hots for him and would let him do anything if he asked to

MGMT - Little Dark Age: Mostly here just for vibes. Have y’all seen that one edit set to this song? Yeah

The Neighborhood - Prey: I feel like this song captures the general unease that Michael feels right before he sees the boys kill for the first time, knowing that he’s probably turning into a vampire and something horrible is happening… especially with “Something is wrong, I feel like prey” just generally describing what it must feel like to be a human among vampires (though he’s not fully human anymore at this point)

PART 3: REALIZATION + FIGHTING BACK

TAEMIN - Criminal: YET ANOTHER TAEMIN SONG!!!! It’s all about realizing you're with someone who’s like, an evil manipulative villain and genuinely bad for you but you can’t escape just yet because you’re kinda into it. I don't think David is THAT bad of a guy, but Michael could be like “I need to get out of this situation because this man is a vampire but I feel attracted to him and it’s hard to really get away”. Also the line “My hands holding yours that stabbed me are not clean either” just HITS cus Michael hates David’s vampirism but HE’S a half-vampire now so it’s not like he’s innocent either. This is just a really good 95060 song AND a good song in general, listen to it even if you don't normally like K-pop cus it slaps

Glass Animals - Wyrd: This would be the moment where Michael snaps out of it and just starts running away, but to no avail, because he’s still a half-vampire (“You can’t run so you must hide” meaning that he can’t outrun his new monstrous nature, the best he can do is hide it until it eats him alive). Meanwhile David laments over how this is a stupid decision from his perspective (“So, my friend, our time is done/You and I could’ve had so much”)

Moonface - Minotaur Forgiving Theseus: This is a very veeeeery bitter song from Michael’s perspective about David being a vampire… with the “You’re just a hitman” repetition referencing how David. Y’know. Eats people. And the “I heard you're coming for me now” references both how David first approached him and the impending confrontation

The Neighborhood - The Beach: This song goes from the bitterness of the previous one to a pseudo-acceptance of the end of their brief friendship and what’s inevitably going to happen next. However, I think the bridge of the song illustrates the little bit of Michael that doesn’t want this to happen, that wants this relationship to somehow work out because he cares about David even if he is a vampire (unfortunately he ends up repressing this because he feels a duty to kill David now)

Gorillaz - Rhinestone Eyes: This is mostly in here because of the music video, the buildup to a battle just echoes in my head whenever I hear this song now. In the context of this playlist it makes me imagine David looking up at the Emerson’s house from the hotel (and Michael doing the opposite) knowing that something’s about to happen and it’s going to be horrible

Glass Animals - JDNT: This entire song feels like the climax of the movie. Verse 1 feels like the Emersons and Frogs getting ready to attack the cave (“I’m all armored up”) with “I feel that final poke” being when Marko gets staked, and the chorus right after is a tinge of regret that Michael feels once the plan starts to take shape. Verse 2 is the other boys waking up to see that Marko is dead + them dying themselves (“Where my funny friends gone?”) and the bridge is Michael and David’s fight before Michael finally gores David on the antlers. The outro of “You can’t breathe without me” VERY much feels like David taunting Michael from beyond the grave, knowing how much Michael loved him and how horrible what he’s just done is

PART 4: GRIEF

The Brazen Youth - Burn Slowly/I Love You: Ooooooghghgh the conflicted feelings about their relationship is STRONG in this one… The “Burn Slowly” part being him trying to convince himself that he did the right thing by killing David while the “I Love You” part is him realizing that he really did love David and it fucking hurts

Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us: MAN. MAN… Everything past “I can’t explain the state that I'm in” is just so… it’s Michael realizing what he had even more and just how much it hurts that he’s lost it. He knows he was in love now and it fucking hurts SO MUCH!!!!!

Sufjan Stevens - The Only Thing: [head in my fucking hands] Michael moping around Santa Carla because it feels empty without David. All the “should I tear my eyes out now?/Should I tear my heart out now?” parts oh my GOOOOOOOOD sufjan stevens i'm going to slap you on the head.

Paramore - Tell Me How: THIS SONG HURTS SO MUCH ITS SO. It’s another one about conflicting feelings so theoretically it should be earlier in the story but I always envision something very morbid when listening to this (and have now written a fic about it so check that out)… Michael going back to the hotel where he put David’s body and musing to no one, asking how he’s supposed to feel now, the “And always coming to your defenses” where Michael keeps defending David and their relationship to his family who all think David was a horrible monster… this song fucking hurts. Also I unintentionally drew a parallel between JDNT’s “You can’t breathe without me” and this song’s “Do I suffocate or let go?” and now that I’ve realized that it hurts even more. Fuck this song

#the lost boys #michael emerson #the lost boys david #95060 #michael x david #david x michael #text #Spotify #i have thought sooooo hard about this playlist fr and theres so many individual lyrics and bits that i want to make art for #if i had all the time in the world i would #but. for now. enjoy :-3

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cagestark · 4 years

Text

A Hole in the Head//4

Tw: Spanking, graphic depictions of violence (not between our ot3)

SORRY ABOUT THE REPOST. Still being shadowbanned. Always going to be pursuing why </3

The dining room table is far too big for two, but Barnes refuses to join them for dinner. He takes up residence in the doorway leaning against the frame, his eyes on his phone. Earlier in the day, Pepper had received an anonymous threat via snail mail that had everyone on high alert. Since it was impossible to tell by the ambiguity whether the letter was in connection with Toomes or just with her work at Stark Industries in San Francisco, no immediate quarantine measures were being taken.

Apparently Tony’s mother was so far off the map in Italy that her own security detail had spent the last three days just trying to find her. Tony had laughed and cursed in equal measure, surrounded by anxious men who couldn’t decide whether to laugh as well or apologize. Afterward, Tony and Peter had spent time in their room unwinding, and that was when he had given the man every last detail about his day. The car. The mall. Running from Barnes. The alley. Tony had listened, thoughtful. He’d stalked to the window and looked out over the grounds, and Peter (not for the first time, not even that day) regretted having such a big fat mouth.

Tony had enough on his plate without adding Peter’s bullshit.

Enough on his plate, including the vegetarian tabbouleh salad with edamame and feta that they’re having for dinner. It’s so rich with pesto that just the scent of it makes Peter’s stomach grumble eagerly. Tony selects the wine because Peter knows nothing about wines (“Your palate needs work, sweet thing,”) and pours a generous glass only to place his hand across the top before Peter can pick it up. The message is clear: wait.

Tony takes his seat, unbuttoning the top button on his suit jacket. He unfolds his dinner napkin, but before Peter can touch his fork, he speaks: “Barnes.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark?”

“Come and take Peter’s seat.”

There is no invitation. It’s an order. Peter finds himself slipping from his chair and standing awkwardly beside it while Barnes crosses the room with slow, thoughtful steps. He brings with him the scent of leather and cologne. It makes Peter grit his teeth.

“Where am I supposed to sit?” Peter asks. He tacks on at the end, “Sir?”

Tony points to the space between his chair and Barnes’s. To the floor.

“But it’s tabbouleh salad night,” Peter whines.

“I won’t repeat myself,” Tony says. His tone rumbles over Peter like thunder, makes the hairs on his arms stand on end and his head bow. As embarrassing as it is, Peter moves to kneel on the hardwood floor, sitting back on his heels. Tony’s hand cards briefly through his hair before returning to his fork. “Please,” he says to Barnes. “Eat.”

Barnes, who ‘hadn’t been hungry’ ten minutes prior, is no idiot. He picks up the fork.

“Peter told me about your eventful day together,” Tony says. Barnes just nods, the movement visible from the corner of Peter’s eye. “And now I want you to tell me your version of the events.”

“You left at a quarter ‘til seven. Peter slept until nine in the morning. Breakfast at nine-thirty. We left for the mall in the black Cadillac before ten. Traffic outside Manhattan was typical. We made it to the Brookfield Place mall at eleven-thirty, where I parked at the—”

“I’m so tempted to let you go on,” Tony says. “I really am. I bet I could quiz you about anything from what Peter had for breakfast to what the license plate on the Cadillac was and you’d know every last detail.”

Barnes bows his head.

“But I think we both know the parts I’m most interested in. Pick it up from inside the fitting room.”

“I told him to stay out of the fitting rooms from now on. He said that he wanted to grab a shirt to go with the pants he was wearing, and that if I let him, he’d come without a fuss. It was an error on my part. I factored thirty seconds for him to find and return with the shirt, but within ten, my phone pinged to say that he had gone further than twenty feet away from me—”

Peter’s head snaps up. “You’ve been tracking me? Are you kidding? That’s such an invasion of privacy!”

Tony grips Peter’s hair in his fist, close to the roots so that Peter can’t squirm away. With his other hand, he reaches out for his wine glass to take a generous sip. “You’re in enough trouble, Peter,” he says after he swallows. “Say another word without me explicitly asking you to and you’re looking at astronomical trouble, baby. The likes of which you’ve never seen. Understood?”

“Yessir,” he murmurs, lowering his chin when Tony lets go of his hair.

“Bucky—go on.”

“I figured there were three options. He would stay in the mall, he would leave the mall for the street, or he would leave the mall for the car. I took my chances and went down to the bottom floor to head him off should he leave. Based on his rising elevation, he rode the elevator or escalators up to the top and then took the stairs down. He went out onto Vesey heading east. It wasn’t hard to cut him off.

“Once I did, I lost my temper. I broke his sunglasses. I pressed him against the wall and threatened him.” Barnes stops speaking. In the abrupt silence, Peter feels like everyone is holding their breath, waiting for confirmation of what they all know is coming.

“It’s okay,” says Tony, face no more expressive than a wall of stone. “Go on.”

“He—pressed against me. And he felt it.”

“Felt what?”

“That I was hard.”

Tony hums. Barnes is no longer eating, just holding the fork in his hand with knuckles turning white. For a moment, Peter sees the knife with the silver handle clutched in Beck’s fist, the one they had melted down and destroyed afterward. He has to blink away the illusion. “And then what?”

“I told him it would never happen and to give it up before he got us both killed.” Barnes pauses, and when Tony doesn’t fill the silence immediately, he asks, “Are you going to kill me?”

Peter doesn’t believe that Tony would kill Barnes, but there is a seed of doubt in him planted by Beck’s betrayal and Peter’s own inexperience when it comes to strategy. His tongue feels thick and useless in his mouth, unsure whether he should speak up and try to save the man’s life (he doesn’t want Barnes dead ) or stay silent and out of trouble.

“Only one thing will ever get you killed here,” Tony says. “And that’s betraying me. Are you going to betray me?”

“No, Mr. Stark,” Barnes says. His shoulders lower a fraction, the only hint of his relief. “My loyalty—it runs deep.”

“Loyalty to me or to Steve?”

Barnes frowns. “Both.”

“Loyalty to Peter?”

Barnes gives Peter a glance where he kneels on his heels in his Armani outfit, stomach aching with hunger because tabbouleh is his favorite. Peter keeps his stare on the edge of the table, stomach doing rolls knowing that Barnes is looking at him. At last, the man nods. “Yes.”

“If he wished for it, you could bend Peter over this table and eat his ass instead of this edamame, and I wouldn’t kill you for it.”

“I’m—always grateful not to be killed.”

Tony laughs, the sudden noise startling a flinch out of both of them. “You really are hard to get a rise out of. No wonder Peter was so, ah, animated telling me about your time together in the alley. I think if I managed to get a reaction out of you like that, I’d probably do cartwheels.

“My point is that if a part of this...tension between you and Peter centers on fear of me?—that’s needless. Baseless. I knew from the day you volunteered in my office to watch him that you must have had an ulterior motive. I didn’t think there was anything in the world that could have parted you from Steve’s side, but there you were, begging him to let you go. I knew then, and I was fine with it. Peter is handsome, he is smart, he is fun. I’ve seen straight men get hard-ons for him. It’s nothing new, and if we’re having honesty hour? I like it .

“You’re valuable to me, and I am not willing to lose you for any forgivable indiscretion. Understood?”

“Yes,” Barnes says, voice raspy. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony smiles. “Call me Tony. Actually, don’t , I like the way you say my name like that, Mr. Stark . Fucking gold. Now, Peter on the other hand is in very big trouble. I had a long talk with him just the night before about how important it was to listen to your directions and follow any rules you laid down. Running away from you in a crowded public place definitely broke those rules, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Peter, apologize to Bucky.”

“Sorry,” Peter mutters.

Tony laughs as if Peter’s sulking insincerity is the funniest joke he’s heard all day. “That? That was just the preliminary apology, Bucky. You will be given a second and much more sincere apology as well, and he will keep apologizing until you see fit to forgive him. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

Tony stands, the legs of his chair scraping against the hardwood floor. He removes his jacket and lays it gently over the back of his chair so as to minimize wrinkles. Peter’s eyes fall to the gun on his hip on instinct, even though he feels no fear from it. Next to come off are Tony’s cufflinks, two palladium rectangles that he sits beside his half-eaten plate. Both Barnes and Peter are entranced watching him roll up his sleeves to the forearms, revealing tanned, scarred skin. Those hands break men all the time, and tonight they are meant to break Peter.

“Peter, Peter,” Tony sighs. “What the fuck am I going to do with you, kid? Give me an answer, just for giggles.”

“Forgive me, sir?” Peter asks, showing every last tooth in a winning smile.

“Of course, sweet thing,” Tony says, petting a fond hand through Peter’s hair. He grips it tight, like slapping away the softness of a kiss. “ Eventually . Now, stand up and drop your pants.”

“What?” Peter gasps. His eyes flicker to Barnes who stares hard at the plate in front of him, fork still clenched in his fist. “What for, sir?”

“For a spanking. What else do rotten little boys get?’

“In front of him ?”

“They were his rules you broke.”

Peter shakes his head. The idea of Barnes seeing him that way is a delightful cocktail of embarrassing and arousing. He wants it and dreads it in equal measure, and for much the same reasons. Humiliating himself in front of people has more repercussions than just making his cock hard. It changes the way people see him.

Then the fear rolls off of him like water off a duck. Maybe he doesn’t want to give in. But a larger part of him wants to be forced to give in, and tonight, it’s exactly the thing he needs. Choices (he’s always fucking up these days, always making choices that get him in trouble or get him hurt) wrenched from his hands. Except that, for them to be taken away, he has to be holding on to them in the first place.

On the other side of the table, Tony plants his palms flat on the glossy wood, his eyes glittering because he knows . Their safeword sits between them like a dish they know neither of them will touch. Not tonight.

“No, sir,” says Peter, prolonging the inevitable. “I won’t.”

“Would you like a choice?”

His eyes narrow—Peter knows that when Tony gives a choice, it’s only because either will benefit him. His tone alone hints at a scheme, but begrudgingly, Peter nods. Curiosity killed the cat.

“You can bend over this table and take a spanking. Or ! You can sleep in the guest room tonight.”

Oh , he thinks as numbness prickles over his skin. Right. Either Tony knows he will win either way, or one option is so terrible that he knows it won’t be chosen at all.

Spankings are barely punishments—both of them know that. Tony had to find a real way to discipline Peter many years ago, and the options are all loathsome to the younger man: spending time in the corner without acknowledgment, eating dinner separate from Tony, or sleeping alone in the guest room. In all their time together, Peter had never done something serious enough to warrant sleeping alone. The meaning is clear. This is the worst thing Peter has ever done—and this is the angriest with him that Tony has ever been.

Peter doesn’t bend to his will, he breaks to it.

His eyes prickle as he stands and unbuttons his chinos. He undresses with shaking hands, taking off the jacket to lay it over the back of the chair atop Tony’s and then slipping his pants down past his hips. Leaning forward, he puts his elbows flat on the table, choosing instead to look down at the swirling wood grain rather than stare Barnes in the eye.

“You don’t need to count them,” says Tony, putting a hand on Peter’s flank and squeezing gently. It’s tears on a pillow to Peter’s hurt, the knot in his chest that’s wound tighter than a fist. But he appreciates it. “You can make whatever noise you need to, including your safeword . Understood?”

“Yessir,” Peter mumbles. His lips feel a little tingly, like when he gets stung by a bee.

Tony begins a strong rhythm over the fabric of Peter’s boxer-briefs. Peter braces himself so the force of the spanks don’t have his elbows squeaking across the polished wood, and still he can’t bring himself to look up at Barnes. He doesn’t want to see himself being seen.

When Peter’s skin is warm and red, Tony tugs the boxers down. Across the table like this, Barnes can’t see any of the goods, not Peter’s cock (which is hard, though he’s hardly enjoying this, it’s nothing but a reflex thanks to the Terrible thought of sleeping alone poisoning Peter’s arousal) and not his ass, but still, Peter feels exposed. Even more so when Tony begins to speak, his sentences punctuated with spanks from the flat of his palm that crack like thunder in the large room.

“You think I’m being unfair, sweet thing? Threatening you with the guest room?” Peter doesn’t answer or look up. With his head ducked down, at least if his eyes go misty, no one will be able to see. “I will do whatever it takes to make you see that there is a time for play and a time to be serious. You think one night apart would be rough? Imagine if Toomes took you. Killed you. Imagine how many nights both of us would spend alone then, Peter.”

“Quit, please,” Peter says around the lump in his throat, eyes burning with imminent tears. He’s got that fuzziness in his brain, the kind that reduces his world down to only Tony. Tony, who he let down today. Who he is always, always letting down. “I get it now.”

“You don’t . I bring in my most capable man to watch over you; he agrees to put his life before your own, and you put him at risk in every way. My fucking heart lives in your chest, and you put it at risk.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter says through his chattering teeth. Tears drip from his eyes onto the wood beneath his face and he wants to reach out and smear them away with his hands, but he’s worried he won’t be able to support himself again. As it is, he feels them shaking, sapped of energy.

“Will you run again? Next time you’re bored, next time you’re scared, next time you have a few moments too long to think, are you going to run again?”

“No!” Peter cries, his whole body shivering with the force of Tony’s strikes. The pain goes deeper than his skin, deep, deep inside him. One arm gives away, sliding against the glossy wood and he lets himself go, clothed-chest pressed flat to the table. He cradles his arms around his head and lets himself shake with tears inside his hiding place.

But there is no hiding. Not when Tony presses flush against him, leaning over his bent form to take a handful of his hair and coax his head up from his arms.

Directly in his line of sight is Barnes. The look on his face isn’t something Peter can identify. There is no pleasure there, but no disgust either. His brows are lower than ever while he watches, still as a statue, like a man trying to be polite at the strangest dinner-and-a-show. Tony uses his free hand to take one of Peter’s wrists in a gentle grip, and Peter realizes that Tony has spoken only for it to be lost.

“Tell him you’re sorry, sweet thing,” Tony says again in his ear.

“’m sorry, Mr. Barnes,” Peter says, tears dripping off his chin. He searches the other man’s face, looking for the forgiveness that he needs. It feels like life or death.

But all Barnes does is nod and say, “Call me Bucky.”

-BUCKY-

In the den, Bucky pours the drinks. Help yourself to whatever you like, but grab me a whiskey neat, Tony says from his spot on the couch. Peter lays with his head in the man’s lap, dressed in nothing but his little see-through sweater and navy pants, the boss’s jacket thrown over him to keep him warm. The kid’s eyes are closed in rest though not in sleep, not for the way he shudders and sniffles.

Bucky keeps his eyes on the glasses while he pours expensive whiskey for the both of them, but in his mind he sees the young man bent over the dining room table, the arch of his back, the defeated slope of his neck as he braced himself on his elbows and took a pounding from the flat of Tony Stark’s hand. It’s a sight he won’t forget.

Something inside him has shifted now, maybe something that’s been shifting all along but slow, like tectonic plates moving against each other until an earthquake brings down everything. He won’t be able to look at either of those men the same.

His hands don’t shake when he crosses the room to hand Tony his glass, not even when the man tilts his head back baring his throat and drains the two fingers’ worth of alcohol in one gulp that has Bucky’s mouth feeling dry. God, to put his lips against that throat, to suck livid bruises and leave the imprints of his teeth on that throat...

“Thanks,” sighs Tony. “I could use about a dozen more.”

Bucky takes the glass back to the bar where he shrugs one shoulder and pours another drink. “It’s your whiskey,” he says.

“Don’t enable me,” Tony says, half his handsome mouth lifting in a smirk. He takes the drink, one hand slipping warmly through the kid’s curls (and curls have no right looking so soft, Bucky thinks bitterly) before nodding towards the armchair closest to his end of the sofa. “Sit, will you? Peter won’t be up for conversation while he’s locked in like this. But I have something I want to discuss.”

Bucky sits, hoping that the pounding of his pulse isn’t visible.

Tony is right about Bucky having an ulterior motive for offering to guard Peter, but it doesn’t seem like the man has any clue about the real reason, about the effect the older man has on him. It was grossly self-indulgent and more than a little masochistic for Bucky to take a job just beneath the boss he has an unhealthy obsession with.

And that was before he met the terror (the wild, beautiful terror) that is Peter Parker.

“He’s special,” Tony says, stroking the hair back from Peter’s forehead. Bucky realizes that he’s been staring at the kid’s face, glass of whiskey unsipped in his hands. Wincing at being caught, he lifts the glass to take a generous drink, savoring the flavor. “Like holding a live grenade. I knew from the moment I met him, but I thought even then that if it all exploded in my face, it would have been worth it.”

Bucky says nothing. He’s never experienced anything like that.

“But I didn’t keep you here to wax poetry. The explicit information I’m about to tell you is information only three other people have—” Tony smiles, coldly. “And one of them is dead.”

In his lap, Peter shivers where he’s feigning sleep, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. Maybe it’s easier that way. Bucky stands and goes to the closet where he knows the linens are kept (he knows every closet of this house, every nook and cranny). The blankets are the softest he’s ever touched, thick and rich. He drapes it over Peter and only notices at the end the tender, grateful look Tony is giving him.

After he takes his seat again, Bucky says the name: “Beck.”

Tony touches his nose with the finger of the hand that holds his whiskey.

“Quentin Beck. Born in California. Moved to New York after a less than sensational acting career finally was pronounced dead. He came to me the same way all of you do: through a friend of a friend, through some relation or acquaintance who refers you to me. He was good at stealth and had a flair for creative liberty during the year he worked under Vis in the Bronx. When the time came for promotion, he was lifted through the ranks and had the chance to come and work here at the house.

“Peter acted the way I would have expected Peter to. He flirts. Maybe his mother didn’t hold him enough as a child,” Tony says, smirking when Peter wrinkles his nose and pinches the man’s thigh. They all pretend not to see it. “But he craves the attention and the flattery. He’s always had my permission to find enjoyment when and where he can—I’m a busy man, and not nearly as young as I once was. But it seemed like every time someone began to return his, ah, affections, Peter would lose interest.

“Beck was the first to keep him enthralled. He was handsome enough. Sometimes, I would walk in on them kissing like teenagers, and getting caught just seemed to make Peter burn hotter. He wanted me to watch. I wanted to watch. We spent so many nights fucking and talking about it; we built it up in our minds, the way we expected it to go.”

Tony pauses, and Bucky finds that he’s been leaning forward more and more, entranced by the story. After Tony’s injury and Beck’s death, there had been much speculation about what had happened. The basis was obvious and well known: Beck had fucked Peter, and Tony had killed him. But in the details—that’s where the devil is. That’s where Bucky is right now, lost.

Beck, you lucky son of a bitch, Bucky thinks to himself. You didn’t even know what you had, and you fucked it up.

“I made a mistake, though,” Tony says at length. In his lap where Peter lies with his eyes closed, the kid reaches out, looking for his hand to lace their fingers together. There’s no room there for Bucky’s hand, he thinks to himself. God, he’s fucked. “Whenever they were together, I was looking at Peter. And that meant that I never really saw Beck.

“The sex between them was poor. Maybe Beck was nervous, maybe Peter was too. Maybe he was too used to me and the tastes we’d, ah, cultivated together. Anyway, it was a bad show, and I could tell that Peter was disappointed. He hadn’t even cum before Beck was blowing his load—into a condom, of course. I wasn’t letting anyone fuck my boy raw. After they fucked, we were supposed to end it, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Peter looked half-debauched. Hard, annoyed, naked on the bed we made together. Before I knew it, I was unbuckling my pants. Just the look in Peter’s eyes—God, I’ll never forget it. He knew what was coming. A real cock. A real man to fuck him within an inch of his life. I pressed his legs up, nearly folding him in half and then I gave him what he needed. He was just a little loose from Beck’s cock, no more than if I had opened him up with a few of my fingers.

“The whole time, my mouth never closed. Fuck, the things I said to him. Asking him how it felt to be with a real man, asking him if he’d even felt Beck inside him, telling him how no one else could ever fill him up the way I did. It made me all the hotter to know that Beck was right where I left him sitting in the armchair, tugging on his clothes, ready to slip away and take his walk of shame. Peter looked fucked-out, his hands clutching the bedsheets, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open. But—! That was always my problem, wasn’t it? Whenever I was looking at Peter, I should have been looking at Beck .

“Maybe Beck was in love with him; I wouldn’t have put that past him. Peter is very easy to fall in love with. We didn’t factor that in, didn’t consider that Beck might not be up for sharing. I still remember Peter’s face when he saw Beck coming up behind us. I turned, and for a moment I thought he was trying to come and join us, can you believe it? I barely felt the blade. It struck my sternum and slid off the bone, down and away from my heart, piercing a lung. Beck had poor form.

“Peter was the one to crawl to the bedside table for his gun. Beck had dragged me from the bed down to the floor, and I think he was planning to finish me off—that was his mistake. He was looking at me when he should have been looking at Peter. The kid is only an okay shot with a handgun, but at close range, he blew Beck’s fucking head off. The end.” Tony’s hand pets at Peter’s hair, tracing the shell of his ear. “Kept pressure on the wound, too, until Bruce could get there and get me to one of the hospitals where I have pull. The kid saved my life.”

“Jesus,” says Bucky. “That’s a hell of a story.”

Tony smiles. “He’s a hell of a kid. I thought it was important of you to know all this. If you’re going to be afraid of anyone, you should probably be afraid of Peter. He’d kill for me. Won’t you, baby?”

Peter hums. His eyes begin to flicker beneath his lids, thin mouth going lax as he drifts off into sleep.

“We have that in common,” Bucky says without thinking.

“What’s that?” Tony asks.

Bucky finishes his drink, stalling, trying to think of an explanation that doesn’t sound so fucking lovesick. When none comes and he’s stuck with the truth, he resigns himself to it. To how lame it sounds coming from his clumsy lips and in his rusty voice: “We’d kill for you.”

Tony stares at him with an inscrutable expression, and for a moment Bucky thinks that he’s gone too far, made himself too obvious. Then it’s almost worth it for the way the man’s mouth slips up into a half-smile. So handsome it hurts, but it’s a good hurt, the kind Bucky would subject himself to again and again.

“I’ll drink to that,” Tony says, holding out his cup in solidarity before draining his glass.

#starker #winterironspider #nff

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