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wisteriashouse · 3 years

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three pointer.

pairing: rengoku kyoujurou x reader

genre: fluff, romance, college!au

word count: 2453

remarks: for @kyojoroo who mentioned something about a college!au for kyojuro!! this is a bit of an ugly draft, but i just wanted to post it anyway (because i spent too much time on it) i hope you enjoy it!

“Great game!”

“Yeah, you were a beast on the court, captain!”

“That last shot was insane! We wouldn’t have won without you!”

“Thanks, everyone,” Kyoujurou laughs as he steps into the communal showers, peeling off his basketball jersey as he goes. After a whole after non of so called friendly matches against a rival college, Kyoujurou can’t wait to get into the showers to wash all the sweat and grime that has accumulated off his body. “We all did great today, not just me. It’s our victory.”

“Oh, stop it with the humility, Rengoku, it’s embarrassing to watch,” someone shoves his shoulder playfully from the back - Kyoujurou turns around to see Tengen grinning at him as he steps into the shower next to his, tossing his own jersey to the side. “I’ll eat my gym socks if the headhunters aren’t brawling over you at this year’s nationals. They’ll be like a bunch of piranhas trying to get a piece of that ass.”

Kyoujurou shakes his head, but there’s a pleased smile curling at the corners of his lips. “Let’s just focus on making it to the finals firsts,” he says with a quick laugh, stripping off his shorts and stepping into the shower. Cold water runs down his back, splashes over his face. He glances at the clock hanging on the wall.

Five minutes to eight.

He reaches for the soap just as one of his teammates starts asking around where the rest want to head to for dinner. There’s a smattering of replies from the team, consisting of answers ranging from Wendy’s to the sushi place down the street, punctuated by the sound of running water. Kyoujurou, however, does not answer, focusing his attention on rinsing his hair clean of any soap suds before he’s reaching for his towel to dry himself off.

Tengen, who’s in the shower next to him, notices how quickly he’s moving.

“What’s with the rush?” Tengen calls as Kyoujurou roughly dries his hair. “Are you that eager to head to dinner? Or,” his smile turns sly, “is it because of the cute waitress there who has the hots for you?”

“What? Don’t be stupid,” Kyoujurou reaches for his shirt, tugging it over his head and casting another glance at the clock. Eight o’ clock now. Damn, he’s late. “Besides, I’m not having dinner with you guys today. I have something else on.”

Tengen raises his eyebrows so fast Kyoujurou thinks that they might just fly off his forehead. “You have something else on?” He repeats, so loudly he might as well be trying to broadcast it to Mars. And to nobody’s surprise, least of all Kyoujurou’s, everyone in the showers is immediately aware of Kyoujurou’s dinner plans.

“Ehh? Captain, you’re not coming with us for dinner?”

“Yeah, we were gonna treat you and have some drinks after!”

“No, no, everyone, let him go,” Tengen’s eyes glint, and instantly Kyoujurou knows that his thoughts are ballooning far beyond the reaches of reality. “He’s definitely got himself a date, fucking finally-” Kyoujurou slaps a hand over Tengen’s mouth to shut him up before another word can leave him. The man might be one of his best friends, but god can he be annoying sometimes.

“I am going to dinner with a friend.” Kyoujurou emphasizes on the word ‘friend’. Tengen waggles his eyebrows very suggestively at him.

“A very… flamboyant type of friend?” He suggests, and Kyoujurou throws his towel at him. This, unfortunately, only serves to make Tengen all the more insufferable than he already is, the man dissolving into a bout of uncontrollable laughter. Kyoujurou groans.

“Stop it.” Sending one last look at the clock, he gathers up his things and shoves them into his backpack before pulling on his varsity jacket as fast as he can. “I’m meeting a very friend sort of friend for dinner, so don’t get any funny ideas. And stop it with the moaning noises,” he directs his last comment at Tengen, who’s still laughing at him. “I’ll see you guys for training tomorrow!”

As expected, a few shout goodbye in return while the rest hoot and holler for him to introduce them to his ‘special friend’ soon. With a quiet laugh and a shake of the head, Kyoujurou steps out of the sports hall, grateful for the cool evening air against his warm cheeks. Really, why do they feel the need to tease him like that?

He’s just about to take off at a light jog when his phone vibrates in the front pocket of his jeans.

Wincing around a slight smile, he hits ‘answer’ and raises the phone to his ear without a glance at the caller ID, the soles of the shoes slapping lightly against the pavement as he picks up a steady pace.

“Hey.” Kyojuro says. He hopes his voice doesn’t sound too breathless.

“You’re late.”

“We went into overtime and the match ended late.” The lights are red when he reaches the crossroads, so he slows his pace and takes a moment to catch his breath. A car honks loudly opposite him. “Sorry about that.”

“Hmm.” A noncommittal noise, and then a pause. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Dinner?” He repeats. The lights turn green, and he begins to jog once more. “Uhh… a double cheeseburger set and a coke zero.” It’s difficult to run and talk at the same time, more so over the phone with his backpack jostling with every step he takes.

“Tempura side?”

A short bark of laughter leaves him. “You know me too well.” There’s a smile stubbornly clinging to his lips. He doesn’t want to get rid of it.

“You’re about as easy to read as a piece of paper.” A snort, then quieter, “I’ll be waiting for you at the diner.” Before Kyoujurou has the chance to say his own goodbye, the call hangs up on him. He holds the phone up, looks at it for a moment in amusement and laughs, before shoving his phone back into his pocket and quickening his pace, a new spring in his step.

You’re not a person who likes to be kept waiting.

>>>

The distance to the diner isn’t very far from the sports hall, so Kyoujurou takes only about ten minutes, at a light jog, to make it there. Slightly out of breath from the exertion, he takes a moment to catch his breath and collect himself, before he pushes open the door to the diner, eyes immediately searching the inside for-

You’re seated at one of the booths, dressed in a comfy oversized hoodie and idly scrolling through your phone as you wait for him, two trays of untouched food on the table in front of you. At the sight of you, his mood lifts instantly - you don’t seem to have noticed him yet, so he waits for a moment before he makes his way over to you, sliding into the seat opposite.

You look up from your phone, and Kyoujurou beams, shucking his bag to the side.

“Hey.”

You raise an eyebrow at his chipper attitude, glancing at the screen of your phone as you set it to the side. “You are,” your tongue pokes at the inside of your cheek, “twenty minutes late.”

Kyojuro puts his palms flat on the table and bows his head sincerely. “I am very sorry,” he says, suitably chastened. “Please forgive me.” You look at him for a moment, then open your mouth to speak.

“Did you win?”

At that, the smile that Kyoujurou has been trying so hard to keep down inevitably breaks through. “Mmhmm,” he says, and he swears he catches a ghost of a smile touching your lips as well.

“Then I’ll let you off this time.” You push his tray towards him, condensation gathering on the outside of his drink. You’ve been waiting twenty minutes for him, after all.

“You could have started eating first, you know?” Kyoujurou says, slightly worried as he begins unwrapping his burger. “It’s not healthy to eat too late, and I know you skipped lunch for your project today.”

You shrug off his concern, lazily stealing a fry from his tray before he can stop you (not that he would, even if he could). “Wanted to eat together.” Is all you say in form of an answer, before popping it into your mouth.

Kyoujurou blinks at you, then reaches over to put a few more fries on your tray. He really needs to work on hiding his smile.

“Have some more, then.”

The two of you eat in comfortable silence amidst the chatter and noise ongoing behind you. Occasionally, Kyoujurou pauses between bites to ask you about your day, how your tests went. Conversation swells and ebbs easily between the two of you, never awkward, and the silence is always comfortable.

He finishes his meal first, demolishing the entire tray of food in a few big bites that would make Godzilla proud. Calling for an ice cream (because he’s still hungry), Kyoujurou settles his head on his hands, content to watch you eat, but to his surprise, you’re the one who speaks up first with an unexpected question.

“So, nationals.” You say, slowly. “When are they?”

Kyoujurou pauses, then blinks up at you, unsure if he’s mistaken the word ‘finals’ for ‘nationals’. You’ve never showed an interest in any of his basketball matches before, due to your dislike of large crowds and excessive screaming - hence, almost every basketball game ever. As far as he remembers, you’ve never even been to a game since… well, ever. Still, you asked, so Kyoujurou will answer.

“They start next month.” Kyoujurou sits up, back a little more straight. “Why?”

Ignoring his question, you simply continue. “It’s a big deal for you, isn’t it?” You lift your burger and take a bite out of it. “Your future, and all that.”

Kyoujurou exhales a bit before he smiles again. “Yeah, it’s huge. All the headhunters from the professional teams will be watching. I can’t afford to show them anything but my best if I’m serious about becoming a professional athlete in the future.”

You make a face. “That sounds… awful, to be honest.” Kyoujurou laughs at that. Instead of taking another bite of your burger, you take a breath, set it to the side and look at Kyoujurou seriously. Confused by the sudden change in mood, Kyoujurou looks back at you, back straightening subconsciously and leaning forward more so that he can hear you better. “Since that’s the case, do you…” you pause for a second, seemingly hesitant, which really piques Kyoujurou’s interest. “Do you want me to-”

Kyoujurou never does find out what it is that you’re suggesting, because in the next second you’re interrupted by an ice cream being set down on the table between you. You, as usual, fall silent in the presence of an unexpected stranger, and Kyoujurou wants to groan. Talk about bad timing. It had seemed serious.

“Oh, it’s you again, captain.” Kyoujurou looks up to see the waitress smiling at him - she’s the one who usually serves his team when they stop by here for team dinners. He returns her smile politely. “It’s surprising to see you here with someone other than your team.”

“I had plans with a friend,” Kyoujurou gestures at you, not noticing the slight frown that tugs at your mouth. The waitress’ mouth forms a slight ‘o’ of realisation at the word ‘friend’, fidgeting with the serving tray in her hands before she speaks again.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your time with your friend here,” she says, suddenly, and her nervous tone gives Kyoujurou pause. Was Tengen right somehow? Did she really have a crush on him? “But you’re a sweet person and I think you’re really cute, so… if it’s alright… may I have your number to get to know you better?”

Kyoujurou blinks up at her, caught off guard by the sudden question - yet he finds his eyes instinctively straying to you. Your expression is neutral, both hands wrapped around his sundae as you begin digging into it, seemingly paying no attention at all to his business with the waitress.

Pressing his lips together, Kyoujurou turns back to the waitress, giving her a smile. “Thank you for your affection, I’m deeply honoured. However,” he pauses, making sure that his voice is carefully gentle before he continues, “I’m afraid that I already have someone else I am interested in. My deepest apologies.”

“Oh.” Her voice comes out tiny. Her eyes dart towards you, just for a moment, but once again you don’t seem to notice, attention still completely riveted on his ice cream. “No, no, it was my fault. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“Not at all!” Kyoujurou is quick to reassure her. “I think you’re a lovely woman, surely soon you will meet a partner worthy of you who returns your feelings.”

The waitress squeaks out a ‘thank you’ before she escapes into the kitchen, serving tray clutched to her chest. With that over, Kyoujurou turns back to you with an apology on his lips, only to be surprised to see that you’re staring at the kitchen door the waitress has just disappeared through.

“That happens often,” you comment lightly, taking another bite of his sundae. “You must be used to rejecting them by now. Did you come up with that excuse on your own?”

I’m afraid I already have someone else I am interested in.

Kyoujurou’s mouth opens, lips parting slightly and an answer hanging from the tip of his tongue, but before the words can escape him he closes his mouth firmly. He looks at you, watching as you swirl a fry in his ice cream before popping it into your mouth, before you look up at him expectantly. It is not in his nature to lie, so…

“You’ve finished all my ice cream,” he says, tone lighthearted. “I wanted dessert, you know.”

You glance at him, eyes narrowing slightly, but you don’t press the issue, looking down at his ice cream again. “I’ll buy you another one if you want.” You shrug. “Food always tastes better when stolen from someone else.”

Kyoujurou has to shake off a smile before he rises to his feet, hiking his bag over his shoulder. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your dorm.” Although the stroll is done so in comfortable silence, the topic of the waitress does not resurface, and Kyoujurou can’t help but feel just a hint disappointed. When you bid him goodbye at the door, your expression is just as unreadable as ever, and Kyoujurou does not know what to make of it.

He never manages to find out what it was that you wanted to talk about, either.

#rengoku #rengoku fanfic #rengoku kyojuro #rengoku kyojuro x reader #kyojuro #kyoujurou #demon slayer #demon slayer fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kimetsu rengoku #kny fanfic #kny #kny kyojuro

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cayenne-twilight · 3 years

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Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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storm-darkened or starry bright

Summary: Spencer contracts HIV. It all falls apart after that.

Tags: angst, illness, hurt!spencer, hurt/comfort, worried derek, depression, mutual pining, getting together, angst w a happy ending

TW: vomit, implied/referenced sex and addiction, disordered thinking, depression as a result of medical diagnosis

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 6.5k

Masterlist // Read on AO3 // Bad Things Happen Bingo

(I've tagged my usual moreid taglist in this fic, but I won't be offended at all if this is too heavy for you!)

Title from "Where All My Books Go" - W.B. Yeats.

Originally inspired by J_Ballinger's Swift, Fierce & Obscene which is just a brilliant piece of art.

you said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud — richard siken, litany in which certain things are crossed out

It starts with the flu.

He calls into work sick and he makes himself comfortable in bed, preparing to ride it out. It is the middle of January after all, and their last case saw them in Ann Arbor, shivering their way through each crime scene and a police station with abysmal heating.

His lymph nodes are swollen, and he’s running a moderate fever — 102 the last time he checked — and the cough he’s had for a couple of days is definitely getting nastier, but he uses the time to catch up on the documentaries he’s had stored on his DVR for the past couple of months. He tries to see it as a positive: he never gets time to rest like this. Warm soup, chamomile tea, and some Nyquil should be the end of it.

He makes the most of it. He gets better. He goes back to work, and life goes on.

“It’s not like you to get sick, Reid.”

Emily doesn’t mean anything by it, it’s about as innocuous as a comment can possibly be, but something about it makes his heart stop for a second. Because the thing is, she’s right. The last time he was actually sick was the anthrax poisoning three years ago, which can hardly be blamed on his body itself. He hasn’t been sick with a virus since he was a child — certainly not anything more than a mild winter cold.

His world turns upside down in the middle of a Tuesday, a couple of them gathered around Derek’s desk laughing about nothing in particular, the easy camaraderie of a close-knit team without a time-sensitive case on their minds.

Three and a half weeks ago: a night heady with alcohol in a gay bar in downtown DC, a charged encounter with a man just Spencer’s type, a whispered invitation back to his place, not making it past the bathroom…

He pales, suddenly feeling violently ill at the prospect of what’s happened, how badly he’s fucked up this time.

“Spencer, are you okay?” Emily asks, suddenly noticing his appearance. “You look really pale… maybe you’re not ready to be back at work yet.”

Forcing himself out of his stupor, he manages to open his mouth without vomiting. “I don’t feel so good,” he says, and even to him his voice sounds weak and distant. Blood roars in his ears, and all he can think is what that blood could very well be tainted with.

Far away voices discuss something he doesn’t pay attention to before Derek’s placing his hand on his shoulder, drawing him back into the discussion. “I’m gonna drive you home, okay?” Emily isn’t standing at the desk anymore, but he doesn’t think to look around for her, just locks eyes with Derek: noticing his brows knit deeply in concern, worry clouding his dark, striking eyes.

He lets himself be led down to the garage. Later, he won’t remember any of the winding car journey home, Derek’s worried sideways glances, his attempts at making conversation, tucking him into bed, his hesitancy to leave and go back to work. He’ll just remember the weight of his realisation, the sinking acknowledgement of what this means.

What it makes him.

⭐️

The next day, he wakes up ravenously hungry. He doesn’t remember anything after the dreaded realisation, but he remembers that he came to it only minutes after eating lunch: meaning he’s gone over eighteen hours without food. Somehow, he manages to pick himself out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He finishes it all and doesn’t taste a single bite.

He texts the group chat Penelope had made for the whole team last year, ignoring the dozens of anxious messages from his team already filling his phone. Won’t be in.

Almost on auto-pilot, he gets dressed, picks up his phone, wallet, and keys, and walks to his nearest metro station. He counts four stops, gets out of the carriage and walks up the stairs onto the street, weaving through exactly three streets until he finds himself staring at the sign for his Urgent Care clinic.

Words — not ashes, as some small part of him anticipates — manage to spill from his lips as he tells the doctor everything from the unprotected sex he vaguely recalls having on the night of Saturday the 12th of March to his brief flu-like symptoms to his sickly realisation yesterday. Vaguely, he thinks there’s some sort of sick humour in being able to recall exactly what day he had sex, but not the details of the sex itself. Alcohol and dilaudid are the only things that have ever been able to interfere with his memory.

He obediently opens his mouth for a saliva swab, lets the nurse prick his finger and collect a drop of his blood. He wonders if she knows what they’re testing him for. He wonders if she thinks he’s as dirty as he feels, if she’ll violently scrub her hands after smiling politely at him, if she’ll roll her eyes when she talks to the other nurses, lamenting his stupidity.

The sounds of the waiting room melt into the background as he waits for the test to be conducted, and judging by the tone of the nurse who gets his attention when it’s time to return to the doctor’s office, it’s not her first attempt.

He mutters a distracted apology as he gets up from his seat, but she just smiles sympathetically. It shouldn’t get his back up in the way it does.

“I’m afraid you have tested positive for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Dr Reid,” she tells him, her voice gentle but straight-forward. He’s at least glad she doesn’t try and soften the blow. It’s not a blow that deserves to be softened. “I know this is a shock, but—”

“It’s not a shock.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s not a shock,” he repeats insistently; impatiently. “I knew it was coming. It’s my own fault.”

“Playing blame games isn’t going to help anybody here, Dr Reid,” she says firmly, meeting his eye. “Whether you were expecting it or not, this would knock anyone off-kilter, and I’d be remiss not to acknowledge that.”

She waits for his reluctant nod before continuing. “The good news is that we’ve caught it early enough to contain the infection. Your CD4 levels are very good, and you do not meet AIDS criteria. I’ve referred you to Dr Frederiks at George Washington University Hospital. He’s an expert in Infectious Disease and specialises in HIV/AIDS treatment. He can see you tomorrow at ten o’clock.”

He arrives back at his apartment almost $300 out of pocket, having gained nothing but a positive HIV diagnosis. The FBI has brilliant healthcare insurance but Spencer ticked the ‘no’ box on the insurance form. He can’t risk anybody knowing about this.

He texts Hotch and tells him he has a doctor’s appointment in the morning and will let him know whether he’ll make it in for the afternoon. Then he lays on the sofa, and cries.

⭐️

“HIV is a chronic illness,” the doctor explains at four minutes past ten the next morning, “a latent infection. Not a death sentence. Medications have come leaps and bounds in the last ten years, and the regimes aren’t anywhere near as rigorous as they used to be. With your CD4 levels this good, your life really won’t be much different than it was a few weeks ago.”

Spencer’s never had much interest in medicine — after all, there’s a reason he’s not that kind of doctor — but he knows this much. He doesn’t tell the doctor that he’s wasting his time explaining the basics of the disease, just stares blankly at the point in between his eyes, staring at the small crease in his skin, the way it moves as he speaks.

“It’s likely that you’ll die of something else, Dr Reid, decades in the future. When managed correctly, HIV is rarely deadly.”

This seems irrelevant: it doesn’t matter to Spencer what he dies of. Whether his immune system gives in or he’s shot in the line of duty or drops dead in the street from an aneurysm he doesn’t see coming, he’ll be dead.

He still doesn’t say anything.

“For the first six months of infection, the risk of transmission to sexual partners is high,” he continues, unfazed by Spencer’s lack of response. “Are you in a relationship?”

“No.” It’s the first word he’s spoken since he entered this office. His voice breaks. He can’t have the person he wants: this feels like the nail in the coffin of a relationship dead on arrival.

A look of sympathy crosses Dr Frederik’s face. “In any casual encounters you may engage in, you’ll need to be extra careful. Do you have the contact details of the person you contracted this from?”

His voice is steadier this time. “No.”

“Do you have any suspicion that you were deliberately infected by them?”

“No,” he answers, because he doesn’t, but it occurs to him that he’ll never actually know. He doesn’t remember if they used a condom; if he even wanted to use one. (All he remembers is his muscles and the way he pretended he was Derek, the amused look on the other man’s face when he whispered his name like a prayer.)

“That’s fine,” the doctor smiles encouragingly. It feels patronising. “We’re going to start with a triple combination of medications: tenofovir and emtricitabine combined with dolutegravir. HIV is an adaptable virus and easily becomes resistant, so it’s best to attack it hard and fast as early as possible to give you your best chances at an undetectable viral load in the next year. Which, I might add, Dr Reid, is a completely reasonable goal. At that stage, you will not be all that infectious. You’ll have bloods drawn before you leave to estimate your baseline kidney and liver function as well as overall health. In three months, you’ll have another test, and in six months, we’ll assess how well the drugs are working for you.”

Spencer nods, his eyes not leaving the crease between Dr Frederik’s eyebrows.

“Make those appointments with my secretary on your way out, and contact me if you have any concerns.” He pushes a brown paper envelope across the desk. “Inside you’ll find a copy of your positive test result, your prescriptions, and a number of leaflets on the condition as a whole.”

He squashes the urge to push the envelope back across the desk and nods again.

“Pick up the medication before the end of today and start them either tonight or in the morning,” he advises, before standing up from behind the desk and walking towards the door.

Spencer follows obediently, nodding once more and forcing a grimace onto his face, before walking down the hallway towards the secretary, another stranger he has to share his secret with. Swallowing down the urge to either scream or vomit, he fiddles with the envelope in his hands and bites the bullet.

⭐️

He tells Hotch that he won’t be in that day, and he goes home and forces himself to get it together. He showers first, the hot water washing the grime of the last few days down the drain, but he can’t do anything about the lingering layer of shame clinging to his skin. For the first time since the realisation, he forces himself to look in the mirror. A thin, pallid man with bags under his eyes and the look of someone harbouring a secret looks back at him.

His hair has grown out a little in the last few months, actual curls visible around his face (memories flash across his mind of breathy gasps; a hand buried in his hair, pulling ever-so-gently but they’re gone before they’re even remotely tangible), and he lost a little bit of weight he couldn’t afford to lose during his symptomatic period.

But, as frustrating as it is, it’s not what he sees. Not really. He sees Spencer Reid, possessor of five degrees, soon to become six, expert analyst in the FBI, the man who listens to jazz when he studies and watches documentaries for fun and solves crossword puzzles on the metro.

Something inside him shifts as he’s reminded of his humanity in that moment. It’s the most okay he’s felt in the last forty-eight hours.

He’ll take it.

He goes back to work the next day with little fanfare, getting warm smiles and ‘glad you’re feeling better’s from the team before they’re plunged headfirst into a new case, as it so often goes. They fly to Vermont, and part of him is glad for the distraction: no more talking about his illness, no more self-pity — he’s forced to try and bridge the gap between Dr Spencer Reid, Before and Dr Spencer Reid, HIV Positive as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

He does what he’s good at: offers relevant, detailed facts, profiles the victims and the unsub, cites studies that help them get to the bottom of the case, and for a moment he allows himself to forget about the virus coursing through his blood and the feeling of shame he can’t quite shake no matter how clean he scrubs his skin.

They get to the hotel late that evening and Spencer takes his second dose of medication, individually popping each tablet from it’s sheet into his hand. The pharmacist he spoke to yesterday told him that from his next medication order they can put all three tablets into a blister packet for him, but for now he’s stuck punching through three different plastic packets every night. Derek asks him to join them at the bar for a drink, but Spencer turns him down. He’s barely been able to look him in the eye.

If, in some rare and far flung universe, Derek did want to date Spencer, he wouldn’t want to date HIV positive, ex-addict, reckless and unsafe Spencer.

He wouldn’t want to date a man so heartbroken and lovesick that he got black-out drunk and slept with someone — most likely without a condom — just because he bared a passing resemblance to Derek. Contracting the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in the process.

No.

Spencer spends the evening staring into the mirror instead, desperately trying to find the man he was four days ago under the burden of broken suffering he seems to have picked up along with the diagnosis, the positive test, the sympathetic doctors.

When he hears the others come up past midnight and pile into their hotel rooms, laughing and chattering among themselves, Spencer still hasn’t looked away.

The use of the case as a distraction only works until 11am the next day. He’d had trouble falling asleep, and he’s powering through the day fuelled by black coffee and raw determination alone, but those motivators — as effective as they can be — can’t stop his legs from shaking as he stares at the geo-profile, searching for what they’re missing.

It sucks, but he’s glad for the warning the shaking gives him. He finds a chair and sits down, which is likely the only thing that stops him from collapsing when black dots swim in his vision and he’s suddenly vomiting down his front.

“Reid!” Hotch cries, running from the other end of the police station to where he’s sitting, panic clear on his face. They’re the only two from their unit currently in the station, but Hotch quickly locates an officer and turns to him. “Call an ambulance.”

“No,” Spencer manages to protest, although it only makes him want to be sick again, “‘m fine, promise.”

“What’s going on? I thought the flu had passed? Healthy people don’t spontaneously vomit and almost pass out, Reid.”

Somehow, his addled brain manages to concoct a decent enough lie. “Keep thinking I’m better,” he mumbles, leaning forward to put his head between his legs as Hotch places a hand on his back, “and then I’m not.”

“You’re sure this is just the flu?” Hotch asks, concerned but at least appearing to believe him.

“Certain,” Spencer lies.

Hotch nods once before shaking his head at the officer on standby with a phone to call an ambulance. “Well, you can’t work the case like this,” he sighs. “We need to get you back to the hotel, okay? You can rest there. God, Reid, what did the doctor say?”

“Bad case of the flu. Gave me some strong Tamiflu and told me I’d be fine in a couple days.” He gasps the words out in between intense waves of nausea, clasping his hands together in an iron grip.

He absolutely can’t let Hotch catch on. In the nine years he’s worked at the FBI, he’s managed to conceal his sexuality below layers upon layers of closeting, and he’s not about to be forced out now. It started as a purely protectionist strategy — law enforcement in the early 2000s didn’t exactly have a stellar reputation when it came to tolerance — but then he just felt forced too deep, felt the web of lies spun too tightly around him to even begin to unpick them.

Terror seizes his heart at the idea of his team knowing who he really is: not because he expects homophobia or backlash, but because he’s not sure he’s ready to live that openly yet. He’s never been good with change, and this is no exception.

It doesn’t help that the whole team is all too aware of his past addiction. He dreads the thought of them thinking he’s using again and, worse, so irresponsibly that he managed to contract HIV.

Hotch gets a rookie officer to drive him back to the hotel, and she keeps sending him nervous glances, most likely worried he’ll stink up her immaculately kept squad car with his spontaneous vomiting. Both he and the car make the journey unscathed, although he knows he probably looks as green as he feels as he drags himself up the stairs — could there possibly be a worse time for an out of order elevator? — and somehow manages to make it to the bed before he collapses.

Unfortunately, his restful slumber doesn’t last long. He’s woken up not half an hour later with the intense need to be sick again, and he races to the toilet, where he spends the next two hours: intermittently slumped over it, being sick into it, and lying on the cold tiles next to it.

It feels like a punishment. If Spencer was a religious man he’d be certain God was smiting him for his sins, but instead he’s left instead pondering karma or fate or some other theory he doesn’t really buy into either. Logically, he knows it’s just a combination of guilt and regret — he made a mistake, he’s suffering the consequences; there’s no fate or religion or karma involved — but his delirious, out of sorts mind struggles to hold on to that.

Reason doesn’t make the nausea any less crippling, after all.

Eventually, he must manage to pass out on the bathroom floor, because he’s being shaken awake by a pair of gentle hands, and when he finally opens his eyes, it’s dark outside.

“Spence?”

Shit. Derek.

His eyes fly open and he fights to sit up, to make himself more presentable. The smell of vomit lingers in the air and he remembers that he didn’t even put the toilet seat down, let alone flush it. (At least he thought to change out of his vomit-covered shirt. Thank God for small mercies.) He blushes, and thinks he must look a pretty picture of red and green as he finally meets Derek’s eyes.

“God, Spence, how bad is this flu?” he asks worriedly, smoothing his hair with the palm of his hand. Despite himself, Spencer finds himself pressing back into the touch, relishing any contact he can get.

Then it hits him: he’s dirty. He can’t contaminate Derek like this.

“You should leave,” he asserts hurriedly as he pulls away, hating that desperation is so obvious in his voice. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve cleaned everything up, and I used gloves. I’ve been in contact with you the last couple of days, so if you were going to get me sick you would’ve already. I just want to be here for you.”

Spencer squeezes his eyes closed so tightly they hurt. He wants nothing more than to fold himself into Derek’s arms, let himself be comforted by the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with. But he can’t. There are so many reasons that he can’t.

“No,” he says, not opening his eyes, resenting the tear that slips out and spills down his cheek. “You can’t. I’m… I’m not safe to be around.”

He doesn’t really mean to say it, but it escapes anyway, and he opens his eyes just in time to see the confusion cross Derek’s face. “Not safe to…? Spencer, what—”

“I just… I need to be alone.”

“No, you don’t,” Derek says softly, bringing a hand to his hair again, and he knows that HIV isn’t transmitted through sweat or vomit but he’s dirty, and Derek is so so good, he can’t be responsible for tainting him. Derek doesn’t relent, though, not even when Spencer pulls away from his touch and shrinks in on himself, leaning against the toilet. “You need to allow yourself to be comforted. You need to let me help, Spencer.”

Suddenly, he feels incredibly tired: the energy seeping out of his body, and he’s boneless against the toilet, absent even of the effort to hold himself upright.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed.” He puts his arms around Spencer’s rolled up body and lifts him, holding him close to his chest as he carries him from the bathroom to the bed.

Spencer doesn’t just let him, he curls into his embrace, clinging to the material of his t-shirt like it’s his only grip on reality.

(Later, he’ll blame the fever, but deep down he knows that just once, he wanted to play pretend, and just once, he didn’t have the energy to stop himself.)

⭐️

The side effects take weeks to finally leave, his body having a hard time adjusting to not only a deadly virus in his bloodstream, but some of the strongest drugs on the market inhibiting his natural enzyme production. Eventually, though, he’s back at work properly, selling a story about a simultaneous gastro-intestinal virus making the flu exponentially worse.

He’s not really sure everyone believes him, but nobody questions it out loud, so he avoids everyone’s eyes and takes it as a win.

Nobody gets close enough to try, anyway. He pushes everyone away, holds them at arm's length no matter how much they kick and scream and claw their way closer to him. It surprises him how persistent Derek is, and for a moment he feels a sad flutter of hope in his stomach and he’s forced to stamp it down: Derek sees him as a brother, a friend, a colleague, not a potential romantic partner.

And it would be irrelevant, even if he did. Derek wouldn’t want him as any of those things if he knew what he was hiding. Ever since his lapse in judgement on the case in Vermont, he’s refused to spend any time alone with Derek, and he hates the hurt he sees in his eyes, hates that he can’t scream at him that this is for his own good. But he can’t know. Because Spencer is still ruled by his relentless selfish desires, and he can’t let Derek go, no matter how hard he tries to.

Kept at arm’s length at least means he’s still touching his shoulders.

He muddles through the next few months on his own, returning to his quiet apartment every night and eating a sad, lonely dinner on his sad, lonely sofa before punching his way through a blister pack, taking his tablets, and going to sleep. He turns down drinks invitations, declines phone calls, ignores text messages. He pretends he isn’t home when there are knocks at his door.

He takes showers that are too hot and cries on the metro, scrubs his fingernails and his face, and when he got a shallow knife wound on a case last month, wouldn’t let a single member of the team near him. Whispering his status, shame-faced, to the attending EMT.

This is it, he thinks one night, as he opens the microwave and takes out the mac-and-cheese ready meal he’d bought on the way home that night. He doesn’t even like mac-and-cheese. It was just the only thing left in the store at 8.30pm. This is my life now. Standing in my kitchen at 9.15pm, not being able to remember the last time I was actually happy.

(He does remember, really. It was Sunday the 13th of March, 9.37am: Derek had ruffled his hair and joked with him as they waited alone in the conference room to find out what was so urgent they were being called into work on the weekend for. Spencer could still feel the aftermath of his Saturday night tryst, and pretended for a brief few minutes that that encounter was with Derek, and those jokes were actually flirting. But then the case took over, then the flu symptoms, and then. Well.)

Before he can carry the mac-and-cheese into the living room, though, there’s a knock at the door. Everyone had mostly given up on turning up unannounced, so it catches him off-guard, and something in him, some vain flicker of hope, or maybe a masochistic desire to hurt even more, propels him forward until he’s opening it and coming face to face with Derek Morgan.

“Spencer,” he says urgently, and panic immediately grips Spencer as he wonders what could be so wrong that he’d need to show up out of the blue, but Derek must see it on his face. “Nothing’s happened, don’t worry, I just… I need to speak to you.”

A knot of something that Spencer can’t quite place tightens in his stomach as he stares at the myriad of emotions playing across Derek’s face, but he steps aside to let him in anyway. He closes the door behind them and feels a flash of embarrassment at the state of his apartment. It’s completely clean — his already rigorous attitude towards germ and cleanliness have only intensified in the last few months as paranoia plagued his mind relentlessly — but it’s barren of any joy, and it couldn’t be more obvious.

The furniture is drab and Spencer’s packed away all the photos and trinkets that used to litter the entire place because they just made him too sad to look at. The only life that remains is his books, and the sheet he’d hung to cover them up in a fit of rage a couple of weeks ago still hangs there limply. He hadn’t wanted to see his books: didn’t want the temptation of touching them and tainting them. What if he got a papercut on one of the pages and his virus-ridden blood spilled across the words he treasures so dearly?

He watches as Derek surveys the place with a sad expression on his face, before recollecting himself and turning back to Spencer.

“I know you’ve been pulling away from us, Spence,” he says, almost breathless as he takes a seat on the sofa. Spencer doesn’t know what to do with his body, so he settles on remaining where he is: stock still facing the couch, his hands buried deep in his trouser pockets. “We’ve watched you become a shell of who you used to be, and we’re all worried about you—”

“I don’t—”

“No, just let me speak. Everyone is worried, and I am too, but… I’m also… I’m hurt, Spencer. You’re pushing me away, turning me down every time I try to get close to you, and it’s painful because you’re my friend. You’re my best friend, and you mean the world to me.”

I wouldn’t if you knew my secret, he thinks miserably, but he doesn’t say anything.

“More than anything, though, it hurts… because I’m in love with you.”

Spencer stares. He’s hallucinating, he has to be.

“And I know — well, I don’t know because we’ve never talked about it — but I know you’re probably straight and even if you were interested in guys, too, who’s to say you’d be in love with me back? But I had to tell you because our relationship is heading south anyway, plummeting straight for the ground, and I figured it couldn’t hurt, I just… say something? Please?”

He doesn’t mean to say it.

“I’m HIV positive.”

It’s Derek’s turn to stare. Spencer can’t meet his eyes, and suddenly feeling like he needs to Get Out, he rushes to the kitchen and picks up his rapidly cooling mac-and-cheese. He gets a fork out and faces the countertop, away from Derek, as he starts to shovel unsatisfying bites into his not-hungry stomach.

It can’t even be a full minute later that he hears footsteps behind him. “You have AIDS?”

He sets the mac-and-cheese back on the counter. “No,” he answers, not turning around. “I tested positive for HIV; I don’t meet AIDS criteria. My CD4 levels are apparently very good, and the medication I’m taking is proving effective in controlling and managing the virus. I don’t have side effects anymore, and I don’t feel any different than I did before I contracted it.”

There’s a beat of silence. “And this is why you’ve been pulling away from us?”

Spencer hesitates before nodding shamefully, his eyes burning a hole in his dinner. “I didn’t know how to tell anyone, and I—” He’s cut off by a heaving sob. It catches him by surprise, but suddenly he’s choking on emotion: everything he’s been through, everything he’s been dealing with alone for so long a burden he no longer knows how to carry.

“Oh, baby,” Derek breathes, rushing forward and turning Spencer until his face is pressed into his neck and their arms are wrapped around one another. The nickname only furthers his emotion, falling apart completely in such a way that makes him unsure he’ll ever be put back together again. “I’m so sorry.”

He lets Spencer cry it out until his sobs recede and his tears slow, and he feels confident enough to pull away and meet Derek’s eye properly again. It feels like a reconnection; a reconciliation of sorts, and his breath catches at the emotion on his face. He’d expected a meddle of sympathy and disgust, but all he finds is compassion and love, tinged by a sadness Spencer supposes probably comes from watching the man you’ve just professed to love fall apart like that.

Oh wait. Derek just told him—

“You love me?” His voice comes out quieter and shyer than he’d hoped, and not nearly as incredulous as he’d intended, but Derek softens anyway.

“Yes,” he says emphatically. “So much. And if you think you telling me this is going to change how I feel even a bit, then you’re dead wrong, Spencer.”

It’s suddenly too much to think that everything he’d feared happening for the last few months was wrong, and he’s gasping for breath again, sinking to the ground to bury his face in his hands.

“Spence?” Derek asks worriedly, following him to the floor. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No… please, you’ve done nothing wrong.” He takes a deep breath, trying to recenter himself, ground himself in the reality that’s unfolding before him, no matter how different it might look than that of his anticipation. “You know, the man. Um, the man I… contracted this from. I slept with him because he looked like you.”

He looks up and meets Derek’s eyes again, searching for anything in them to confirm that he was thinking all the thoughts Spencer feared and coming up empty. “I was so heartsick that I got blind-drunk and slept with a complete stranger because it was the closest to you I ever thought I’d get and then I was just so scared of what everyone would say when I found out. I know logically that HIV doesn’t make someone dangerous or unclean, but I just couldn’t shake this feeling of shame, you know? I was constantly panicked that I’d pass it to one of you. Besides, I’m not even out to the team, and I know the implications of a disease like this: gay or an IV drugs user — I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that I was both. I’m clean, and I’ve stayed clean, I just…”

“Hey, I get it,” Derek says gently, reaching out a hand and cupping Spencer’s cheek gently. “I think if I was in the same boat I probably would’ve reacted in exactly the same way. You can’t be blamed for bowing to a social stigma this heavy, Spence. I’m just sorry I didn’t realise what was going on sooner. And even sorrier, for that matter, that I didn’t tell you I was in love with you before this even had a chance to happen.”

Spencer smiles a little at that. “Hey, I didn’t tell you either. I don’t blame you at all. Neither of us were out and confessing something like that is no small feat.”

“I suppose so.”

Spencer shifts a little in his position on the floor, the raging storm of emotion that he’s been drowning under for the past four and a half months quieting for the very first time. He breathes deeply for a few seconds before working up the courage to ask the question he really wants the answer to. “I know you said that this doesn’t change the way you feel—”

“And it doesn’t.”

“Yeah,” Spencer nods, because suddenly he gets that. He isn’t sure what took so long. “But does it make you not want to be in a relationship with me?”

“Spencer, no.” Derek’s voice is urgent as he makes intense eye contact with him, raising a gentle finger to his chin. “It doesn’t change a single. thing. I don’t know much about HIV, I’ll admit, but I do know that these days you can get to a point where it doesn’t transmit to partners. And we can be really safe about it. I’ll do all the research to make you comfortable, but Spencer, even if it did mean that we could never have sex, I’d still want you. I want you so badly, pretty boy.”

He can hardly believe his ears. “Really?”

“Really.” He swipes his thumb across his cheek, catching a falling tear. “I’m hopelessly, desperately in love with you, Spencer. I have been for years. You can ask, Penelope: she’s been putting up with my pining like a saint, but I’m not sure she could’ve taken it much longer.”

“I’ve been in love with you for years, too.” Another tear falls as the prospect of what’s about to happen really sinks in.

“Can I?” Derek murmurs, as he inches closer ever so slowly.

“Please,” Spencer whispers, barely finishing the word before their lips are colliding and a flurry of butterflies break out in his stomach as his chest glows with the warmth of a kiss he’s long been aching for. Derek’s hands find his waist, his jaw, his cheek, his hair, exploring his body ever so softly as he kisses him with the same inquisitive gentleness, managing to take him apart with just his lips and his hands.

“God,” he whispers as he finally pulls away, pressing his forehead to Spencer’s as he struggles to hide his wide grin. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve dreamed of that. I’m gonna be like a teenage girl tonight, running my fingers across my lips as I remember every minute of it.”

Spencer giggles at that. “Well you can rest easy in the knowledge that I’ll be doing the same.” He pulls away slightly and looks down for a second before looking back up into Derek’s earnest gaze. “I’ve never been kissed like that before.”

“I’ll kiss you like that every day for as long as you’ll have me.” He doesn’t hesitate to lean back in, connecting their lips again as they melt into one another’s touches, and it makes Spencer laugh later that the most intimate and passionate encounter of his life so far happened on the kitchen floor.

They pull apart as soon as it heats up a little bit, and pain flashes across both of their expressions at the thought of why.

“There’s this thing called PrEP,” Spencer says, still a little ashamed of his situation, that Derek has to be protected against him before they can take this any further. “It’s medication that you take before and after sex with a HIV positive person that blocks the virus from entering your bloodstream if you were to somehow contract it. And we can wear condoms. And once I reach an undetectable viral load, it means the virus is untransmittable, and you won’t contract it even if we’re unprotected.”

Derek blinks. “Wow, that’s… that’s better than I thought.”

“Really? You’re still okay with all this?”

He softens. “Pretty boy, I am so okay with all this, and I’m sorry that you spent so long thinking otherwise. We have time to figure all this out, but what matters is that right now, I have you next to me, and we love each other. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” He smiles, and leans forward to kiss Derek chastely. “I do.”

“Now, how about we bin that disgusting mac-and-cheese and order some Chinese?” he suggests, matching Spencer’s smile. “We could eat it in bed and watch one of those documentaries you’re always talking about.”

Spencer laughs fondly. “You want our first date to be eating takeaway and watching a science documentary in bed?”

“Well it sounds perfect to me.”

“Yeah, it sounds pretty perfect to me, too,” Spencer whispers, the happiness in his chest feeling warm and inviting, begging him to bask in the moment for as long as he can.

They’ll work out the specifics later — they’ll get Derek started on PrEP and attend Spencer’s appointments to measure his viral load, they’ll have important and serious conversations about the risks to both of them, they’ll work out what their relationship means for work, how they’ll begin to repair the damage the last few months have done to Spencer’s mental health — but right now, none of that matters.

All that does is: the buffet of Chinese food Derek lays out on a blanket on Spencer’s bed, the documentary about bees playing on the TV, and the thrilled little glances thrown each other’s way, the stolen kisses and casual touches, the love palpable in the air around them. And later, when the food is eaten, and the documentary is playing the credits: Spencer’s tired head resting on Derek’s loving chest, and the syncing of their heartbeats as they fall asleep to the sound of each other.

This shouldn't have to be said but please do not use fanfiction as sex education and PLEASE practice safe sex. As far as I know, all the information included in this fic is correct, but I have no personal experience with HIV/AIDS, and this is very much written from an outsider's perspective - albeit a thoroughly researched one.

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @jellejareau @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @im-autistic-not-stupid (taglist form)

#cm #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds writing #derek morgan #spencer reid #moreid #moreid fic #moreid angst #hurt spencer reid #derek morgan/spencer reid #derek morgan x spencer reid #spencer reid/derek morgan #spencer reid x derek morgan #my writing

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tobiosmilktea · 4 years

Text

the love club — miya atsumu

ten: eye for an eye

masterlist | prev. | next

a/n: i haven’t written anything in ages so my writing is trash rn, but hopefully atsumu and y/n being cute will make up for not updating two days ago 👉🏻👈🏻

you could’ve sworn you had told atsumu to come exactly at 6:30 pm, sharp. any later, you would’ve left the cafe the moment your shift ended without a single text to inform him that your patience was waning. you figured that was most likely going to happen considering a little birdy told you that inarizaki’s volleyball team was going through their hell week as nationals was just around the corner.

at least, that’s what you thought was going to happen.

if anything, miya atsumu himself arrived thirty minutes before the time given to him. it was enough to cease your stirring suspicions of him being late and a good enough excuse not to see his smug face, but the unfortunate tides have come across and drenched you in ill-fate—all gross and a bit powdery too at this point.

“there’s a handsome boy waiting outside for you, (y/n).” matsui-sensei, the owner and head baker of pink elephant cafe, not to mention your boss announced as he barged into the kitchen, all loud and boisterous.

despite being nearing his thirties, your boss still acted childish from time to time as there was an notion of implicate suspicions in his tone with that smirk he wore on his lips, his imagination running wild as a boy never really asked for one of his best bakers (not to mention the prettiest) attention before.

you swiftly hid your phone in the back pocket of your jeans as you let out a sigh, “tell him i’m not here.”

“it’s a bit too late for that,” says matsui, adjusting the red bandanna tied around his forehead to pull back his growing black curls and to catch his sweat. “he told me that your meeting with him was important so i said him that i’m letting you off your shift early.”

“why the hell would you do that?” your voice raised a few octaves, but hopefully not enough to travel through the kitchen doors and into the bakery.

matsui held his hands up in defensive and he throw you a playful smile, “listen, i think i’m doing you a favor, kid, considering that i’m pretty sure you haven’t even had a boyfriend yet.”

your eyebrows furrow in annoyance as you threw the rag you were using to clean the tables at your boss, yet he caught it before it could slap him straight on the face. “what makes you think this guy’s gonna ask me out, we’re literally just working on a project together.”

“trust me, (y/n), my intuition’s ringing.”

“unbelievable,” you scoff and you roll your eyes again.

“seriously though,” he continues as you make your way towards one of the blast ovens. the sweet aroma of blueberry muffins swiftly greeted your senses as you pulled it out with your mitted-hand, “you literally run a love advice hotline and never been in a relationship. don’t you think that’s a bit weird?”

you let the question simmer a bit as you didn’t bother to let the tray of muffins cool the full five minutes and you immediately attempted to pull them out of their metal molds. “not as weird as a grown ass man asking a couple of teenagers love advice.” you shot back, recalling how just over a year ago matsui had found out your other job.

the story was quite the funny one, actually, but long story short—you had forgotten to turn off the love club notifications during work and being the nosy boss he was, he ended up seeing his instagram handle right on your phone screen. there was certainly no way of excusing yourself from it as you ended up telling him everything. in the end, he didn’t mind as he was now engaged.

“hey!” his exclaimed, distracting you from carefully pulling out the muffins as you hissed out in pain. the tips of your fingers burned from the scorching heat of the freshly baked tray, appearing crimson and sore to the touch. matsui was too caught up in making a snarky comeback to even notice your quiet yelp of pain. “we don’t allow slander in this establishment, kid, now go before i fire you.”

you snort playfully at his words and you untied your flour-coated apron, hanging it up on one of the hooks near the doors before leaving the kitchen and into the bakery.

a deep sigh left your lips as you gently apologized for almost bumping into one of your coworkers who was making their way to get a customers order. the cafe wasn’t too busy, but was lively enough to certainly keep the employees on their toes. you almost felt bad for leaving your shift so early.

your eyes scanned the array of tables and chairs with slight fatigue before they landed on a familiar boy’s obnoxious blonde.

his broad back was towards you as he was slightly hunched over, probably from texting. you made your way over to him as you spoke over his shoulder, “you’re here early.” your tone was flat and uninterested as you watched his eyes widened the moment he met your gaze.

“hi,” was all he could say as you sat across from him.

you let out a huff as there was a stupid look on his face to which filled you with the urge to just deck him right on the nose to wipe that expression off his face, and yet, the feeling was suddenly replaced with a feeling too foreign for you to identify as he smiled a toothy grin at you.

oh god, help me now.

in the end, you and atsumu had actually gotten a lot of work done in two hours. considering that you were just a conclusion away from finishing, you were genuinely surprised you only had three urges to fight this man the entire time.

you supposed it was the way atsumu almost seemed like he was in a rush, a mere kick in his step as he started typing away at his document in speed. it almost left your mouth gaping and your eyebrows furrowing in confusion how well this man multi-tasked from doing his work while maintaining a conversation with you. granted, they were quite the strange topics from who would die in a zombie apocalypse first (to which you said that you’d feed atsumu to the zombies in a heart beat) then jumping straight into both of your plans in the future after graduation.

as you two took in each other’s entertaining quips of stories and random tidbits that for once, you found yourself enjoying atsumu’s company rather than hating each waking moment of it.

but, you were obviously known for not being the most talkative in terms of your lack of wanting to overshare information about yourself that would most likely turn into some kind of self-imposed altercation. you simply sat there, adding small grunts of agreements, surprised gestures, and the occasional witty retort to match atsumu’s playful behavior.

some time along those two hours, matsui came by and dropped off a bowl of berries by your table that atsumu liked to steal. he would think that his quick hands would go unnoticed as he swiftly snatched at your snacks, but unfortunately for him, it’s as if he hadn’t known that you did in fact notice.

there was only two berries left in the bowl and knowing atsumu’s greedy ass, you gently placed your hand to rest on the brim of the bowl, waiting a few beats to past for atsumu to reach his hand out again only for you reach out at the same time.

“dude!” the setter exclaimed as you grabbed the last ones, “not fair, (y/n).”

you could only hold yourself back from a melting smirk as you only popped one of them in your mouth, “stealing the majority of the food is rude, miya.”

“as if getting them before i could is any better,” he retaliated.

a breathy chuckle had escaped your lips as you held out to last berry for him to take. it was the one time you were actually going to be nice to this guy and yet he hesitated to even take it the moment his gaze fell upon your extended hand.

“are you gonna take it or not?” you say with a bit more authority.

however, you were immediately taken aback and atsumu grabbed your wrist and pulled it closer. the berry in the palm of your hand had fallen back into the bowl below as the boy before you looked at your red fingers. “did you burn yourself?” he asked gently, slight worry washing over his eyes as his gaze flickered back towards you.

you snatched your hand back from him as you shook your head, “it’s nothing.” you answer, taking your attention back towards the project in attempt to ignore the fact that your heart was suddenly racing much faster than before. you literally refused to meet atsumu’s eyes as you could feel the heat rushing towards your cheeks. having him see your slightly burned fingers was already embarrassing enough, seeing your tinted red cheeks wouldn’t have helped either.

your gaze that was locked onto your assignment swiftly flickered back towards him as you heard atsumu shuffle through his backpack to pull out a couple bandages. “i know it’s not much to help burns, but these bandages should at least protect them for the time being.”

three strips were slipped towards you as his a saccharine-sweet smile melted upon his visage. taking his offer, you took and placed one bandage at a time, slightly struggling with each finger until atsumu took the pleasure of helping you on the last one.

you felt your breath hitch in your throat as you noticed how his hands were great in size compared to yours. and despite being a volleyball player and assuming his hands would be rough and a bit calloused, they were much softer than you could’ve imagined.

perhaps you hated the way your urge to punch the living daylights out of atsumu suddenly morphed into a heart beat punching the living daylights out of your ribcage.

“thanks for the last berry, (y/n).” he muttered as his hands left yours and popped the last piece of fruit in his mouth.

oh god, please help me now.

fun facts! —

matsui is a family friend so he had known y/n since she was a kid. he ended up hiring her the moment she turned 15 (they even have a handshake cause they’re homies)

akaashi, kenma, and tanaka have never actually been to pink elephant cafe and they’ve been trying to visit for the longest time

taglist: (closed)

@kitsunetea @bftsukki @gyubit17 @ushijimasbb @alyssasteaparty @angsty-microwave @pleasemelafook-outta-ere @katsuhoee @dinonerdsimp @kenchiko @sakusakymi @deimmortales99 @nerumiz @evphology @of-heroes-and-dreams @noeminemi @chaelysian @lunebiscuit @hanbinplanet @it-me-720 @differentballooncollection @iwaizluv @90s-belladonna @terushimasbitch @apollochjld @shephard17895 @tremendousglitterthing @kara-grayson04 @clowninfortodoroki @gra-hamcrackers @bloomkings @highlyanxiousintroverted @verymuchbabey @miyaosamoo @achly @randomidksomeone @newborn-weeb @mx-minxx @callums-keith @lumiriai @unstableye @lovedanii @kritiiiii @ushisama @kitakure @gaychemicalwater @akakuzumo @noiramor @tsumu-core @stardustanni @ikemenweebo (continued in the commented)

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #atsumu miya #atsumu x reader #hq atsumu #atsumu smau #atsumu headcanons #atsumu scenarios #atsumu imagines #miya atsumu #atsumu fluff

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dropsofletters · 3 years

Text

how to lose someone in seven steps? | masterlist

welcome to ‘how to lose someone in seven steps?’, a ‘pick your route’ series with wayv where you get to choose whose heart you want to break—or maybe, as per usual in love, both hearts end up entangled in a mess of sweet words and precious memories, able to haunt you when you close your eyes.

PROLOGUE — [here]

“You can only get your heart broken if you give someone the opportunity to hurt you.” She says, all pairs of eyes on the table staring at her with interest.

“Then, break one of our exes’ hearts. If it’s so easy, pick someone and break their entire world.”

“Easy.” She spits out, shoulders squared. “There’s seven steps to losing someone—”

— summary: love-induced heartbreak is one of the most overrated things to ever be talked about, and she doesn’t get why most of her friends take up on such conversations with sighs following every statement. relationships aren’t something to linger on—but when one of her friends dares her to make one of their infamous exes, whom they had a hard time getting over with, fall in love with her, she takes up on the challenge. earning them? easy. losing them? even easier. — posted on: december 30th, 2020.

STEP ONE — [XIAOJUN]

“Love is a game for him to play. One day, you’re the circle of his world. The other, there are four other girls in his circle.”

— genre: fencer!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; strangers to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: fencing his way through life, dejun knows too much about the sport but not enough about love. his sweet tongue conquers the romanticism of this century and puts it to shame—in love with everyone and everything. though, maybe that’s one thing to take to her advantage when trying to break his heart. making him fall for her shouldn’t be that difficult. — type: angst ; fluff ; romance ; humor ; drama — posted on: january 1st, 2021.

STEP TWO — [TEN]

“Sometimes, when I slept with him, I thought he was getting off on himself. The only opinion he cares about is his—something about his vision and his creativity. An entire vain asshole.”

— genre: music video director!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; enemies to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: when she gets the opportunity to record her first music video, she doesn’t expect the director to be this enigmatic and vain. ten throws his head back, squinting his eyes at her mere presence, inspecting her every move, and she feels like threatening him. it shouldn’t be that hard to fulfill her promise of breaking his heart. — type: fluff ; romance ; humor ; drama ; angst — posted: january 6th, 2021.

STEP THREE — [YANGYANG]

“Never date a guy in his early twenties. They play themselves off as too overconfident, but you talk to a dude on the street and suddenly, you’re the bad guy. No matter how good of a girlfriend you are, they’re insecure.”

— genre: rich kid!au ; magnate!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; strangers to friends to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: yangyang lives his life going from party to party, but when one grand event suddenly threatens to make him lose all his money, she ponders if she should break his heart in pieces or not. instead, she teaches him how to live a normal life. — type: fluff ; angst ; romance ; humor ; drama. — available on: january 2021.

STEP FOUR — [KUN]

“Qian Kun just loves too much.”

“Why would that be a reason to break up with someone?”

“You’re everything to him. He tells you how much he loves you at all times, thinks of the future with you—ugh, it’s tiring. Never date a guy who has his life too put together.”

— genre: head chef!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; strangers to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: qian kun has just earned a new spot as the head chef of a prestigious restaurant, but everything in his romantic life seems to fall apart. with a lover of dating apps willing to break his heart, he tries to change into another version of the man he is—but what he doesn’t realize is how enchanting he truly is. — type: fluff ; angst ; romance ; humor ; drama. — available on: january 2021.

STEP FIVE — [WINWIN]

“Listen, when a guy just doesn’t speak, it’s over. It’s mysterious and cute at first, but the more you realize you’re talking alone…and the more he denies your calls, it starts to make you wonder why you even started dating him on the first place.”

— genre: officer worker!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; strangers to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: dong sicheng has been wanting to go up on the work ladder for the past three years, but he is unable to. when he suddenly loses his precious job to a terrible boss, he makes it his goal to build his life from the ground up—and maybe, romance is included in there. — type: fluff ; angst ; romance ; humor ; drama. — available on: january 2021.

STEP SIX — [HENDERY]

“Ah, Kun Hang? Excellent guy. He’s funny…and sweet…and flirty. Too bad he has never gotten over his ex. Or, really, his crush. He has never dated her to start with.”

— genre: motel worker!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; strangers to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: that motel is still up its feet because of kun hang’s hard work, though, what no one ever realizes is just how in love he is with his boss—though, from the sidelines, she is able to take some of his attention away, trying to make him get over his lifetime crush. — type: angst ; fluff ; romance ; humor ; drama. — available on: january 2021.

STEP SEVEN — [LUCAS]

“When you’re alone, he’s the nicest guy you’ve ever met. But, one day with his friends and he’s back to square one. Asshole agenda.”

— genre: exotic dancer!au ; singer!au ; bet!au ; strangers to lovers!au ; love experiment!au — summary: lucas knows exactly how to make a woman fall in love with him—just by dancing and flirting, he does it in every bachelorette party he goes to. it’s the biggest challenge to break the heart of someone who absentmindedly breaks everyone else’s. — type: angst ; fluff ; romance ; humor ; drama. — available on: january 2021.

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jenomark · 3 years

Text

Part 5: YangYang, The Rich, Little Asshole

➔Pairing: YangYang x Reader (Female) | Hendery x Reader (Female) ➔Other Members/ Characters: Kun ➔Genre: Smut (+ angst, + fluff, + plot) ➔Warnings: vaginal penetration, fingering, angst ➔Word count: 5,436

➔Summary: You don’t know what you do. You don’t even know who you are. Some would call you a whore. Some would refer to you as a sex worker. All of your clients would say you’re damn good at your job.

MASTERLIST

Kun leaned against his car and folded his arms against his chest. The wind was picking up, so you pulled the sleeves of your sweatshirt over your hands and hunched over. No matter what, you wouldn’t wait in his car, like he asked. All Kun wanted was to grill you about who was on the other end of the phone call.

“You can go home.” you said. “ I don’t need you to wait with me.”

“I can’t leave you here alone,” he said. “But, it’s cold, so we should wait inside your place.”

“No.” you said, knowing that if you waited inside, Kun would try and worm his way back into your good graces, and you would let him.

Kun sighed. “I don’t...know how to fix this.”

You turned away from him. Any direction that wasn’t Kun’s direction was good enough. You could still feel the clutches of alcohol around your mind, squeezing until it was pulp. You started moving your feet around to keep warm from the chilly night air, but there was an iciness to you that wouldn’t melt. For the most part, ignoring Kun felt good. You liked seeing him waiting on you, maybe a little jealousy creasing the lines on his face.

To pass the time, you took out your phone and looked at your messages and emails. A little voice in your brain told you to delete them all. No one would know or care. You could start over tomorrow and regain control of yourself. You could come clean to Lucas, break things off with Kun, give Hendery the apology you know he deserved, and tell men like Ten and Xiaojun that they deserved far better than the likes of you.

You looked at the plethora of messages from another possible future client you were ignoring. He had been pushing to meet you for weeks. Every message title was the same kind of vibrant greeting, followed by the usual “I don’t usually do this…” You closed your phone and wished you were also the type of person that didn’t do this. What you did, you also didn’t know how to fix.

You looked at Kun. He wasn’t looking at you. His eyes were on the windows to your place, his face pondering questions you knew you would never answer.

“I’m moving,” you said. “I’m moving in with Lucas. In a few weeks, you won’t know me anymore.”

Without fully registering what you had said, Kun touched his hand to his heart. “I think I’ll always know you.”

You thought about taking off your shoe and throwing it at him, but violence was never the answer. “You never intended for us to be together, did you?”

Kun shifted from one foot, to the other. “It’s complicated.”

You shook your head. “I really thought you would, you know? Leave her. Not leave your kids. I knew you weren’t that type of man, and I’d never want you to be. But, Kun, imagining a life with you was too easy. It was too fun, too distracting, too much of a fairy tale.”

“My feelings were real.” he said. “I’ve meant everything I’ve said up until this point.”

“Were real?”

“Are real.” he corrected himself. “But you won’t let me in. If I knew you were like this, I would have broken it off a long time ago.”

Again, you shook your head. “You have no idea what you want.”

Kun opened his mouth to speak. You didn’t hear what he said, just watched the way his lips told lie after lie.

Of course he believes he knows what he wants, you thought. He has the right job, the big house, the pretty wife. He’s a father, a friend, and a good son. He’s handsome and good at sex. He knows all the right things to say.

You stayed silent until a car pulled up. The car was black, not unlike the one that Ten sent your way, and all the ones before and after it. The only difference was the boy hanging out of the window, his arms raised above his head, and his hair flying in the wind.

“Good evening.” he said, his slight German accent making your body perk up. “Your ride is here.”

YangYang. 20. Self-professed rich, little asshole. Daddy’s money, but not enough of daddy’s love, YangYang liked to dip his fingers into many honey pots. In the beginning, you weren’t sure you could keep up with him sexually, but as it turned out, you could. You and YangYang were purely sex and company, nothing more and nothing less. It was the most straightforward sexual partnership you had.

Kun looked at the sleek, black car and scowled. He was so sheltered away from your real life, that it was his first taste of the person you were with other men. Judging by his face, he was angry with you, but more angry at himself for being angry in the first place. The wheel of lies would never end, for him or for you.

“Isn’t he a child?” Kun asked, loudly enough for YangYang to hear him over the car's engine.

“Me?” YangYang said, looking mock-offended. “A child? Mind your manners, old man.”

The car came to a smooth stop and YangYang got out. He was wearing pajamas and a robe. He knew how ridiculous he looked, but he didn’t care. He was what he was. You looked down at the slippers on his feet and smiled. The smile stopped as soon as Kun spoke again, and YangYang noticed your reaction.

“Old man?” Kun asked. “I’m not o-”

“-Is everything okay?” YangYang asked you, not sparing a second look at Kun.

You nodded. The best thing about YangYang was that he never asked too many questions. If you said you were alright, you were alright. He motioned to the car door hanging open and said, “Your carriage awaits.”

As soon as you made a start to leave, Kun came from around his car. He sunk down to his knees on the asphalt in front of you. You looked down at him, everything in you wanting so badly to take him into your arms, to forgive him for the night, take him up to your apartment and fall asleep against his body. It was until you looked at how uninterested YangYang was in Kun that you were faced with reality.

“Don’t walk out of my life like this,” Kun said. “I’m here begging you, on my knees, on this street in front of everyone. Give me another chance. We can make it more than just sex, I promise.”

“You have a baby on the way.” you said.

YangYang’s eyes widened. “That’s fucked up, bro.”

“Goodbye, Kun.” you said.

You got in the car and stared straight ahead, not daring to catch Kun’s eyes . YangYang slid in next to you. He didn’t put his hand on your knee. He didn’t kiss you. He didn’t ask you what was going on in your life, or if you were okay. It was something you really liked about YangYang: how little he cared about what went on in other people’s lives. He was the right person to call.

The only thing YangYang asked about Kun was if he was also a rich asshole and you replied, that no, Kun was just an asshole.

“To my place?” YangYang asked.

“Yes, to your place.”

YangYang lived by himself in a penthouse apartment with two floors and a view that normally would take your breath away had your heart not been shattered into splintered pieces. A fun, colorful slide ran from the upstairs to the downstairs. There was graffiti art on the walls, splotches of neon colors on formally stark, white walls as a result of YangYang’s boredom. His style of decor was haphazard and typical of a twenty year old boy, in that none of it made any sense. He kept his fridges stocked with energy drinks, and his pantry stocked with more snacks than you had in all of your places combined. It was a much different vibe from all of the other rich men you entertained. Stepping inside of his penthouse made you feel like a child again. There was magic in every corner, but sadly, you felt none of it.

“You know I don’t pry,” YangYang began. “But you look really sad, like a sad dog.”

“Sorry.”

“Can I help with anything?”

You inhaled. You held your breath. When you exhaled, YangYang had moved on from the conversation. You set your phone on his coffee table next to a set of legos. YangYang walked upstairs to where his bedroom was. Through the glass partition, you could still see him. He removed his robe and ruffled his own hair. You turned to look down as a long-haired cat brushed against your leg.

“Hey little man,” you said. “Have you missed me?”

You and YangYang didn’t meet up that frequently. He was always horny, but he had a large amount of people he went to, so that every need was met. You didn’t know what other things he was into, but his times with you were relatively vanilla.

The cat meowed at the same time you heard YangYang barreling down his slide. You met him at the end, a playful smile on your lips.

“I really appreciate you coming to get me,” you began. “I know we weren’t scheduled this month.”

“No problem,” he said. “I could use the company. Things can get a little lonely way up in the sky.”

You never asked why YangYang didn’t have a steady girlfriend. He was cute in a really sweet, younger brother way. You never saw him as a brother figure because that would be pretty gross, but there was something about YangYang that made you very fond and protective of him.

“Anyway, “ he said. “I can tell you want to get some sleep. I’ll leave you be. You know where my guest room is”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Early. Tons of breakfast. Me and you. Doesn’t that sound perfect?”

“Yeah, it does.” you said, meaning it.

Even though you knew his place like the back of your hand, YangYang walked you to the guest bedroom. You and him had fucked in there only once before, but it was always offered to you as a place to get away for awhile. The only reason you never had sex in there much was because the room itself was so plain and formal. You figured the lack of life made YangYang uncomfortable to be in for long periods of time. Beyond the double doors and the slide, and all of these grandiose things he grew up around, he wasn’t a little, rich asshole. He wasn’t a playboy. He was just Liu YangYang, a lonely boy living in a lonely life.

You didn’t want to shed any more tears for Kun, or spare another thought about him. Before you went to sleep, you cried by yourself as a way to let go. You tucked your knees to your chest and you let all of the feelings pour out of you, your tears soaking into freshly cleaned sheets. You tossed and turned until the early morning, your night demons coming to haunt you. When you woke, you didn’t feel rejuvenated like you wanted, and Kun was still infiltrating the spaces in your mind you kept for yourself.

You sat up with a start, too disoriented to understand where you were, at first. Your head was pounding. It might have been normal to sulk in bed for a little while, but you got up and went to the on-suite bathroom to wash up. You pulled your sweatshirt and shirt off until you were in your bra, splashed water on your face, and gave yourself a good look.

“I think you look pretty.”

You jumped. YangYang was standing in the doorway. He had a fresh pile of clothes in his hands, as if he knew what you were up and doing.

“I didn’t mean to be a creep.” he said. “There are cameras everywhere, and I thought I might come and see if you needed these.”

You took the clothes from him and looked at yourself in the mirror after he walked out. He was flattering you. Your make-up and hair were a mess. Your eyes were puffy. You looked like you had been ridden hard and put away wet.

“I hate this.” you said

You looked at the clothes YangYang brought: a pair of jeans that looked like they might fit you, one of his t-shirts and a hoodie. Quickly, you put the clothes on, put up your hair using an elastic, and wiped away left behind mascara that was clinging to your lower lashes. You brushed your teeth with your fingers and some toothpaste, and went downstairs. You didn’t use the slide.

Downstairs, YangYang was leaning against his kitchen counter in a pink apron. The dining room table was full of food that he didn’t cook, pastries of every color and shape, a plate of rolled eggs stacked high, and many more things to satisfy his sweet tooth. You knew he didn’t make any of the food, but seeing him act like he was the chef tickled you.

“A feast fit for a queen.” he said.

You sat at the table. You weren’t feeling hungry, and you certainly didn’t feel like a queen. You looked at the food. It was such a wasteful array of things you and him would barely touch, and it made you sad. Your mind was starting to wander as you looked over everything, your eyes beginning to glaze over and replay memories behind them.

“Ah, that’s never good,” he said. “I know that look. Can I try getting your mind off of him? I could go back and fight him. He looked weak.”

You looked his way. “I wish it were that easy.”

YangYang was the type of boy who would wear absolutely nothing underneath his apron. He would lead you into the kitchen, put you on top of his counter and take your hand to brush it against the imprint of his cock. Marathon sex would ensue, and some time later, when your limbs were tangled in his, you would let him take you again. But the person before you tore off his apron and was perfectly dressed underneath. He looked tired, like he was dealing with his own personal issues. YangYang came and sat beside you, all the sympathy in the world, and none of the pity in his eyes.

“We can do whatever you want.” YangYang said. “I could take you for a day out on the town. We could go to an arcade and play claw machines until I’m out of pocket change. I’ll win you a stuffed bear and link my arm with yours, grease from french fries on our fingertips. We could stuff our faces here and pass out on my couch, you with the fuzzy blanket you like, and me with the remote control on my belly. We could pretend to be strangers that just met on the train. I’d sit next to you and tell you about my life. We could be anybody but us for today.”

“Honestly, all of that sounds good.” you said. “Being anyone else but me. ”

YangYang smiled, leaned in and whispered, “ You and me both, but, I quite like you how you are.”

“You might be the only one.”

“I doubt it.”

YangYang covered his hand over yours. You felt grateful for all the people in your life who tried to make things easier for you. Those people were never forgotten by you. Amongst all of the bad choices you made on your part, there was always someone who was ready to see the best in you. You could see it in YangYang’s eyes, the way he didn’t see some poor girl in love with a married man. He didn’t see the person who had sex for money, or the one cheating and keeping secrets from her boyfriend. He saw you as what you were, and the beauty of what you could be.

“Do I have to choose right now?” you asked.

YangYang pursed his lips. “No. We could just sit here until our asses go numb.”

You laughed. “Okay.”

“We could talk.” YangYang offered. “I know you and I aren’t talkative, but the option is there. I kind of need a friend right now.”

Making friends in the industry was one of the reasons why you still kept the job, even though you were mostly unhappy. In your loneliness, and in your ugliness, there were still people who wanted to be around you. They wanted your company. They needed your company. They smiled when you came around, and it was genuine, and infectious. On a deeper level, you suspected you were masking all of your real issues by seeing men, by being their fantasy, but you weren’t willing to dive into it too much.

So, as a friend to YangYang, you listened to what he had to say. You placed your head on your hands and watched him speak, his youth disappearing with every word. Not once were you lost in your own problems. Not once did you think of Kun, or Lucas, or Hendery.

“I don’t mean to unload all of my stuff on you,” YangYang said, leaning back in his chair. You noted how much younger he looked when he was done speaking, how much weight was lifted from his shoulders. “It feels good getting it out. That much is true.”

“Good.” you said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give more advice.”

YangYang scrunched his nose. “I don’t think I need it. Just needed someone to listen to me rant.”

You lifted your head from your hands and looked out at the view from his penthouse windows. You wanted to tell YangYang that you needed him, too, but you didn’t. You felt scared, like your own vulnerability would show itself once YangYang showed his. You shifted in your chair and didn’t look at him again until he called your name.

“You’re too good for him.” he said. “You’re too good for all of them.”

“Mmm, if only that were the truth.”

You felt the itch as soon as he started speaking. You would rather scratch it with sex to shut YangYang up, to keep him from going further. That’s how your life always worked. You used your body to forget, to shut up the world for one second. You fucked to forgive yourself. It took all you had not to reach out and start something with YangYang that you weren’t feeling, just because you could.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” YangYang asked.

Expecting the worst, you fought hard to keep the surprise from your face. YangYang saw and laughed, his smile beaming. You found yourself smiling, too, wondering if his line of questioning was normal, because you were already grown up. You thought about the slide and the way he lived his life, and wondered if he still thought he hadn’t.

“Entertain me.” YangYang said. “An honest answer. Don’t even think about it. If you could be anything right now, right here, what would it be? Money doesn’t matter. Time doesn’t matter. It’s just you and doing something you love.”

“I don’t know.” you said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“But I genuinely don’t know.” you said.

It was true. Your mind drew a blank. For as long as you could remember, passions were really hard to come by. You weren’t interested in much when you were young. You didn’t have hobbies. You didn’t yearn to go places, or to learn new things. Suddenly, you felt the void in front of you, and it felt cold and empty.

“What about you?” you asked. “What do you want to be?”

YangYang got up from his chair and walked over to the windows. He gestured out at everything, at the city that curled up at his feet like his cat. You got up and joined him, your eyes penetrating the streets below. He stood behind you and touched your arms. You could feel his breath on your neck. He was hesitant in moving your hair, but he brushed it aside and laid the sweetest kiss on your skin. It was a tender moment that almost made you cry.

“I just want to be kind, I think.” he said softly in your ear. “I want to make a difference. I want to be happy and fulfilled. I think that’s all. I think that’s all there is.”

YangYang kissed your neck again. You leaned back into his body and watched a bird fly by, soaring through the sky, completely unafraid. You focused on your own breathing, on the silence that felt too thick with the past.

“Do you ever just want to quit the life you have and run away?” you asked.

“All the time.”

“Would you ever do it?”

“Maybe,” YangYang said. “I’m not sure if anyone would miss me.”

You turned around to face him. “ I would miss you.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.” he said. “Someone would miss me, so I would never do it. Keep myself here forever, perhaps until I’m too old. If you want to run away, I’m not sure it’s always a bad thing. Sometimes you just have to go and see what is out there for yourself. Sometimes you can’t worry about whether someone will miss you or not.”

“You are full of the philosophical today, YangYang.” you said.

“I always am.” he said. “We just never stop fucking long enough to listen.”

You smiled. “I mean, we could still fuck, if you want.”

He thought about it. Watching him think about it meant the world to you. But there was something about the way it felt with you both standing there that was anything but sexy. The time for fucking had passed, and you could feel the future hurtling towards you.

YangYang shrugged. “Sometimes you need a good fuck, and sometimes you just need a good hug. Both are good.”

With that, he held out his arms. You took a step forward and let YangYang hug you. You felt stiff until he started rubbing your back to comfort you. Gradually, you could feel your body and soul softening. You wrapped your arms around him for a long time, thankful that Liu YangYang was anything but a rich, little asshole.

“Where have you been?”

When you came home, Lucas had come out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist, and his eyes narrowing with suspicion. Your brain created a scenario where you laid it all out in front of him, every lie you’d ever told, and every secret you’d ever kept. Catching him while he was vulnerable and naked could be the easy way out you were looking for. You almost did it, but the way he looked at you began to make you feel angry. It was like you were insignificant, and he was tired and bored of even looking in your direction.

“I was out with a friend.”

“All night?” he asked. “Must have been a good friend.”

You didn’t say anything, because anything at that moment could have been the truth. Instead, you walked further inside and went over to hug him. You were still riding the high of being around someone as free as YangYang. A part of you wanted to keep the sentiments going, to feel comfort in the life you were living. But Lucas moved away from you, denying your affections.

“Why were you in my clothes?” he asked. “What were you looking for?”

You had two seconds to come up with a lie that would sound convincing. When you didn’t, Lucas left the room. You were still standing in the same place when he came back fully dressed. You tried to brace yourself for the end of an era, for the argument that would burn you out for good. You were not prepared for the cold shoulder, or for Lucas taking his keys and walking out of the door.

You: I know you never wanted to hear from me again, but Erase Message You: I’m sorry I hurt everyone. I never meant to hurt you. Erase Message You: Can you come to our place? Send Message

You sat on the edge of the hotel bed. You swore you could feel your soul being sucked out from your lungs and out through the grate in the wall where the heat should have come out. It was freezing in the room, and dark because of a busted lamp. It wasn’t ideal for someone who already felt as threadbare as the carpet, but it was the one place - the last place- he knew to find you.

After trying to reach Lucas through message, you had given up. You left the apartment after him and puttered downtown on your own. You had spent a lot of time thinking, watching, waiting. You were trying to recall a feeling other than the numbness you felt. YangYang’s warmth and vibrancy was gone. The hopefulness was slipping away every second you spent sitting on the bed, knees knocked together, and shoes grinding a piece of trash into the carpet.

You could feel yourself at the end of your rope. You had many choices, and all of them had you quitting your life as a sex worker and searching for a little slice of happiness. You wanted more for yourself, and from yourself. Spinning around in circles, your web of lies keeping you restrained, wasn’t your ideal life. All of those thoughts and more were rummaging around in your brain, when there was a soft knock on the door.

You weren’t sure he would come. If you were him, you didn’t think you would have made the choice. You got up and answered the door, swinging it open to see him standing there holding a wad of money in his fist, just like the last time you saw him. When he saw your face starting to screw up, Hendery’s eyes got comically wide.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just a joke. A poorly timed joke. “

It wasn’t just the tears. You could feel your legs collapsing underneath you. You felt everything fall when you saw him. Luckily, right on time, Hendery caught you before your knees could buckle. He picked you up and carried you to the bed, his face full of worry.

“What happened?” he asked. He rubbed your head and sat with you in his arms, on the bed. “Did someone hurt you? What is it? Tell me.”

All of the words wanted to come out, but your mouth was like bumper-to-bumper traffic. You stuttered and felt yourself beginning to whine. You felt ugly that you were reacting in the way you were, but Hendery’s kind eyes began to soothe you.

“It was a stupid joke.” he said. “I’m sorry. I take it back. Please don’t cry.”

“It’s not you.” you managed to say.

You untangled yourself from his body and sat on the bed beside him. Hendery was inches away from kneeling down on the floor in front of you to look at your face. He kept looking into each of your eyes, his hands holding yours, moving to rub against your leg, and lastly, going to wipe the tears from your cheeks.

“Lucas?” he asked.

You shook your head no. Realizing that you were lying again, you tried a different approach. You moved yourself back on the bed so that you could face him. Taking the first step of honesty felt painful.

“You’re the first person in my life I was ever fully honest with,” you said. “But I still lie to you, too. Doesn’t that make me a bad person?”

“No,” he said. “I lie all the time. I lied when I said I never wanted to see you again.”

You took Hendery’s hands and held them. “I’m sorry. I should have stopped what we were doing when I knew you were falling in love with me.”

“I wouldn’t want that.”

“I know,” you said. “But it’s what should have happened. I thought I didn’t know why I did it, but I think I do now. It’s not an excuse. I’m not excusing anything I’ve done, but I want you to understand me. You made me feel something, Hendery. You made it easy to distract myself from my shitty life.”

Hendery leaned in to kiss you. Once you felt him on your lips, you were hungry for more. The long conversation you wanted to have with him was forgotten. You kissed him back and fed yourself. You got up on your knees on the bed with him and held your body against his.

“ I don’t care.” he said. “I just want you. You make me feel it all.”

You could taste your own salty tears in his kiss. Your mind was so barren of any kind of rational thought, so letting Hendery take off your clothes was easy. You did the same for him, touching his body like it held all of life's answers. You clung to his sweaty skin. You stretched yourself across the hotel bed, your body eager to be filled with something, anything.

Neither of you could stop. Hendery remembered everything you liked. He parted your legs and slipped his fingers inside of you. His eyes never left yours, even as you got on top of him, your hair matted to your face and a wild look in your eyes.

“Like old times. “ he said.

You placed your hand over his mouth. He licked your fingers and you smiled. You took him inside of your body, feeling very full. You could still see the love staring back at you, could feel it in the way he trembled as you fucked. You missed him. Each touch brought life back to a memory, like crayons coloring in a page.

Looking up at the ceiling made you feel like you were flying through space. You would have welcomed feeling lost, but Hendery pulled you back down to earth again. He sat up, shifting himself so you were riding him in a sitting position. He touched his nose to yours and held your back as you started moving.

You let yourself go, leaning backwards, feeling Hendery’s strong grip holding you up. His lips were on your collarbone, his tongue leaving trails all on your skin. It wasn’t why you invited him, but you always knew how to make him stay.

You laid on Henderys chest. Your body was exhausted, your brain even more so. Hendery looked content, like he had been waiting to see you again to feel that ecstasy. You were scared of letting him down again, but you wouldn’t think like that. Besides, after he came, he kept repeating that he knew you could never be together. You were grateful for his effort, but hearing him say it made you a little sad.

“I think I’m going to quit.” you said. “I’m not sure I can keep this up much longer.”

Hendery looked down, his chin doubled. You touched your fingers to his face and laughed. Seeing you smile made him smile.

“When?” he asked.

You could hear the hope in his voice. You wished it could rub off on you. You laid back down on his chest, your ear hot against his skin. You didn’t have an answer for him, and even if you did, you weren’t sure it was his to have.

Hendery got up to go to the bathroom, so you checked your phone. There were no messages from Lucas, none from Ten, none from Xiaojun, and definitely none from Kun. You looked through some of the old messages from possible clients and felt a pull towards them. Their happy, hopeful faces called out to you, begging you not to leave them.

You heard Hendery talking to himself in the bathroom and rolled over. You flicked through more clients, coming up on the one from before. His name was WinWin, and he was gorgeous. Too persistent, maybe, but he looked like a sweet man. Before things had gotten too crazy, you were thinking about entertaining the idea of adding on a new client to make things interesting. You clicked on his profile. You opened his messages and thought of something clever to write back.

If you were going to quit your job, you might as well have one last hurrah.

219 notes · View notes

hashtagdex · 3 years

Note

ok ok angst 18 and/or fluff 11 for nurseydex?

thank you so much for these! have Both prompts!

“Leave! Me! Alone!” and “I think I’m in love with you”

Usually, Nursey prides him on being a chill guy, but right now he feels like he's going to lose his mind.

He skips the tenth song in the past minute, Tango's knee bumping into his under the table for the third time. It's not like it matters, though. He can hear Tango, Whiskey and Chowder's conversation about last night’s Falcs game against the Devils clear as day even through the music.

His head is throbbing from squinting down at his notes to try and decipher them, his hand is starting to cramp up as he finishes another page, and he can’t get any damn peace.

With a sigh, he puts his pen down, takes his glasses off, and squeezes the bridge of his nose. Studying in the Haus kitchen really wasn’t his brightest idea, but people would’ve come up to him at the library to talk to him and he wouldn’t get shit done upstairs either.

All he wants is to make it up to his room, crawl under his blanket, and not come out again for the rest of the week. But he can't do that, because he has more than twice as many notes left to copy as he's already gone through.

"Woah, Nursey," Tango starts as he wrestles open a protein bar, and the noise of the struggling wrapper grates even more on Nursey's nerves, "you okay? You look really unchill right now."

Tango's knee bumps against his again. Nursey's head snaps up to look at him, scowling as he forces out, "No, Tony, I'm not fucking okay. I have about a million more pages to do, all of my music fucking sucks, and I can still hear you guys through it! And then you just keep fucking knocking into me!"

Chowder reaches out to touch his forearm. "Nursey—"

"Please just leave me alone!"

The moment the words are out of his mouth, Tango’s expression crumbles and Nursey’s heart sinks. Chowder draws his arm back with a sigh. He knows he has no right to snap at Tango, but now the words are out there and his frustration is still running sky fucking high.

Chowder sends him a hard look as he herds the Tadpoles out of the kitchen. He’ll apologize to Tango later, once he’s calmed down, but right now he's stressed and annoyed and there’s still a never ending pile of work left for him.

He swallows the guilt that rises up, slips his glasses back on, and returns to the next page of notes.

He gets about half a page in before he feels strong hands touch and then squeeze his shoulders in a way that's grounding instead of grating.

Dex. It has to be. No one else really knows how to help him when he's overwhelmed like this.

Nursey pulls out one of his earbuds and turns to face Dex. "I really have to get this done, man."

Dex takes his hands off Nursey’s shoulders—Nursey kind of, embarrassingly, misses the pressure—and fixes him with an unimpressed look. “How long have you been studying?”

Nursey’s eyes flick over to the clock on the wall and, wow, alright. “Uh, five hours, give or take?”

When he started, the sun was still up and the kitchen was deserted. Sometime around hour two or three, Chowder, Whiskey, and Tango showed and asked if it’s fine for them to join him. He grunted out a sure, deep in the notes he took in class earlier. Now it’s dark out.

Dex shifts his weight. “And how much of it are you actually absorbing?”

“Not much,” Nursey admits, crossing his legs under the table.

“Okay,” Dex says with a nod, “time for a break then, c’mon.”

“No, Dex,” Nursey protests, “I need to get this done.”

“Nursey, you’re stressed out,” Dex reasons, and yeah, no shit. “If you keep going now, it won’t do you any good. If anything, it’ll make you even more miserable.”

Nursey huffs. “When did you start making sense?”

Dex just sends him a small, soft smile that Nursey only ever sees when they’re alone. “I know your next exam isn’t until next week. You have time, I swear. You can finish tomorrow. Or later, at least. Self care, y’know?”

Nursey tries to say no, he really does, but in the end, he’s weak when it comes to Dex. Yeah, he’s surprised too. “Fine,” he finally relents. Dex’s smile grows and Nursey has to look away.

With a defeated sigh, he collects his stray pieces of paper, puts his pens back into his case, and lets Dex pull him out of the chair, up the stairs, and all the way into his room.

Inside, Nursey drops his stuff on his desk, then pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“Do you want me to go? I can get you something for your headache or maybe a snack. I bet you haven’t eaten the whole time,” Dex asks, lingering by the door.

To his surprise, Dex has become one of the most calming presences in Nursey’s life. Dex and calming should be an oxymoron in and of itself, but here he is, craving Dex’s company. “Actually, could you stay?”

Dex’s smile returns. “Sure,” he agrees and steps back into the room as Nursey turns his attention back to his phone.

Nursey starts typing a text to Tango and out of his periphery, he notices Dex pulling something down from Nursey's bunk and settling down into his old bed.

"C’mere.”

Once he’s sent the I'm sorry for earlier, it wasn't chill of me to lash out at you like that, I’m just mad stressed right now to Tango, Nursey looks up. He finds Dex sitting against the board with a pillow behind his back, his legs spread apart, and Nursey’s comforter at the foot of the bed. "What?" Nursey asks as Dex pats the spot between his legs.

“I’m gonna help you relax, c’mon,” Dex says and pats the mattress again.

Nursey quirks up an eyebrow, but he drops his phone and glasses on his desk and makes his way over to the bed anyway. “Don’t massage my face, you’ll just clog my pores,” he warns.

Dex laughs and Nursey feels more tension drain from his shoulders. “I won’t, I promise.”

Once Nursey’s settled in, both of their legs under his comforter, Dex pulls him against his chest. “Is this okay?”

Nursey nods and leans more of his weight against Dex, pillowing his head near Dex's shoulder.

"Good," Dex says and Nursey swears he can hear the smile in his voice.

Dex takes Nursey's right hand into both of his and starts massaging it, applying just the right amount of pressure to ease the pain. Nursey allows himself to sigh and Dex begins to talk.

He launches into a story about his first time on his uncle's lobster boat, five years old and just barely taller than the traps. His voice is softer than it usually is, quiet and soothing close to Nursey's ear, as he tells Nursey about the gentle rocking of the waves. Listening to his steady heartbeat, it keeps getting harder and harder for Nursey to keep his eyes open.

Nursey lets him get halfway through the story, until Dex switches to his other hand, before he interrupts him.

"Dex?"

Dex pauses in the middle of his sentence and hums, but his hands don’t stop moving.

It gives Nursey the courage to go on. “Why are you always doing this? Helping me when I’m overwhelmed? How do you always know what to do?”

“I guess,” Dex starts quietly, it sounds like he’s hesitating, arranging his words carefully, “I guess I’ve been paying attention.”

The thing is, Nursey’s been paying attention too. He’s been paying attention to Dex frowning when he’s working at a particularly vexing project, to Dex’s hands kneading his stress into pie dough, to Dex looking so proud of the team after games and practices, to Dex’s loud laughter when Nursey or Chowder crack a joke, to Dex’s blush spreading across his whole face when Nursey winks at him.

Nursey thought he was the only one paying attention, though.

“Why?” he presses.

Dex’s hands still.

When Dex stays quiet, Nursey prods gently, “Dex.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Dex whispers then.

“You think—”

“No, fuck that,” Dex interrupts, voice louder and more powerful, “I know I’m in love with you.”

Dex doesn’t move to leave and Nursey is grateful for it. His heart is beating in his throat, the words of I’m in love with you too on the tip of his tongue, but they’ll have to talk about this. Like, have an actual adult conversation about their feelings and what they want it to mean for the future.

Nursey also knows he’s way too tired to have it the way they really need to, so he just tangles their fingers together and makes sure Dex feels his smile as he presses a kiss to the back of his hand. After he pulls back, he squeezes it, and Dex squeezes right back.

“Tomorrow,” Nursey promises.

“Okay,” Dex agrees easily, running his thumb along Nursey’s.

“Do you have any more dumb stories?”

Dex digs out a story about a prank he pulled on his older brother when he was ten for Nursey as Nursey drifts off to sleep.

#nurseydex #dexnursey #william poindexter #derek nurse #omgcheckplease #nursey is Stressed and in dire need of a nap #if you wonder how dex knew to show up? frog to frog communication #did i make the falcs play the devils bc bruins played them tonight? yes #i also edited a good chunk of this during the game and my god i forgot how stressful bruins hockey can be #this visual has haunted me for a Long time #i hope you like it!! :)#very sorry it took 2 and a half months #bi-ginny-weasley #answered #my writing

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farfromsugafanfic · 3 years

Text

Waiting For Superman

Genre: Superhero AU, Comic Book AU?, Journalist Namjoon, Journalist OC, best friends to lovers, Action, Angst if you squint, Fluff

Pairing: Namjoon/Reader

Warnings: cursing, violence, injury, hospitalization, bombings, hostage situations, kidnapping, uses chloroform to make someone unconscious, alcohol, physics lol

Synopsis: After your father, one of the top antimatter scientists is killed in his laboratory by villain Outlier, you and your best friend, Namjoon survive the only known antimatter bomb, you both go on to be two of the top journalists in Metropolis. Only, there’s something off about you that most people can’t put their finger on. Namjoon is the only one who notices, not even you know your biggest secret. Hoping to protect you from Outlier, Namjoon also guards a secret of his own.

Note: This is the beginning of a new AU series. This is also in the same universe as my Jin imagine, Heartbreak Weather. This story will continue in the background of future installments.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

"Damn," you said, looking through the article proposals for the week. "I have five proposals to do a story on the two weathermen that got together. Is nothing else interesting happening in Metropolis?" Reaching into your desk, you pulled out your lunch consisting only of a slightly too brown banana. You frowned. "I hate to say it, but it's really too bad that Outlier has been so quiet lately."

Namjoon chuckled. "You'd wish for a little peril in Metropolis if it made a good story." His lips curled upward and he adjusted his slightly too large glasses.

You smiled at your head writer's sarcasm. "Just a little peril. Not too much." Turning around to place the accepted and rejected proposals in their respective boxes, you returned to find a bright yellow banana sitting on your desk. It made you pause, but you shrugged as you peeled it open. "Besides, Antimatter Man always stops whatever his antics are."

"It's not always Antimatter Man."

You hummed in response, already marking up an article in red pen. "Most of the time though."

The conversation lulled, but it didn't feel awkward. You'd worked with Namjoon for nearly three years now, but known him much longer. You were his soundboard and he was your common sense.

"Maybe we do a piece on his recent quietness?"

You looked up. Namjoon already met your eyes. He sat with one leg on top of the other, forming a triangle and his arms crossed over his chest. You'd noticed the way his clothes began to fit tighter, stretching over new muscles. It surprised you. Namjoon never seemed like the athletic type. You were more likely to find him studying physics at the city library for his newest piece on Antimatter Man than in the gym building a physique rivaling a marble statue.

"That seems like a good idea." The pen pressed to your lips you didn't notice the way the ink blotted against your lips. "You wanna take it on?"

"Sure." He pushes one leg off the other and stands up. "I'll try to have it to you by morning."

You nod, trusting him fully to have his piece ready for the morning edition. He moved towards the door and you felt as he paused. Even though you weren't looking at him, you could tell the way he stood, with his hand gripping the door frame, his body half in, half out.

"Don't stay too late, Y/N. He might be quiet now, but you know that won't be forever."

You did know. Maybe more than anybody.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Outlier first started terrorizing the Greater Metropolis area when you were twelve. It started off typical. A few particularly successful bank robberies netted him more than enough money for a lifetime. If it were you, you would've taken the money and moved far away, lived out the rest of your days peacefully. But, Outlier didn't want just the money.

When you were fifteen, however, it all changed.

It was nearly 9 pm. Your father had not returned home from work. It wasn't all around unusual. He often pulled long hours at the lab. But you felt an itch at the back of your spine. Like a spider crawling up each vertebrae like a ladder.

You called Namjoon. He was the only person you knew with a car, and the only one you knew wouldn't ask too many questions. Twenty minutes later, his headlights showed through the curtains of your bedroom.

"Hey," he said. His voice greeted you, full of exhaustion and the buoy that had bounced back and forth in the water between you.

Namjoon was your longest friend. You met in Kindergarten when you'd come across Namjoon in the back corner of the playground. Pushed against the pavement, two second graders tore off his glasses and put them on, mimicking his front teeth that stuck out before he got braces in high school.

You'd chased them off, managing to pick up his glasses off the ground. They were still broken, but you helped Namjoon tape them to get through the rest of the day. Since that day, you'd become almost inseparable. That was until you got a boyfriend.

You, of course, accused Namjoon of being jealous when he didn't immediately take to the idea of you and Vincent. Though, despite the accusation, you knew it was far from the truth. It wasn't hard to see that Vincent was bad for you. He was the reason your grades began to drop, why you knew the familiar burn of whiskey down your throat, and why were spending that night--Valentine's Day--alone.

"You haven't heard anything from him?" Namjoon backed out of your driveway before you even managed to get the seatbelt hooked.

You shook your head. "He normally calls if he's running late."

It takes another twenty minutes to reach your dad's work. Located just outside the city, you could see Longevity Labs ten minutes before you reach it. Up on a hill, it was agonizing watching the building cycle in and out of view with every turn and switchback.

When you get there, you look up to the fourth floor where your father's lab was. The lights were still on and you felt the coil in your chest unravel a little. Though not completely.

The elevators in Longevity Labs had been broken for years now and you didn't pay them any mind as you walked to the staircase and climbed the four floors. Namjoon stayed close behind, though you didn't speak. It wasn't the first time the two of you had come to the labs together when you'd become worried. After losing your mom when you were young, a burr of worry attached itself to your heart and poked you when your father wasn't home by eight.

The metal of the doorknob felt warm. There were plenty of reasons for that, you rationalized. Your father was one of the top scientists in Metropolis, he worked with all sorts of dangerous things that could need a warm environment, or cause one.

You pushed the door open and met your father's eyes. They were wide open and empty. A silent scream falling from his wide open mouth. Your vision blurred and the thing you remember next is feeling Namjoon's hand on your shoulder as his voice elevated. It was only then you noticed that you weren't alone.

"What are you doing here?" Namjoon asked, his voice like the bark of a guard dog. It surprised you. For a boy of barely sixteen at the time, it felt like he suddenly was a man standing beside you. You were still just a tiny girl.

The man wore a mask. Of course he wore a mask. It was white with two diamond shapes for the eyes, only revealing a small bit of his pupil. The man didn't speak when he opened his hand, a metallic orb drifting upwards. He didn't throw it, but the orb moved quickly, like it was falling.

It was only later you learned that it was rigged to move upward like that. Real antimatter would act just like regular matter, nearly indecipherable. This--while true antimatter--was meant to hold your attention long enough.

The explosion pushed you towards the ceiling. You woke up to a firefighter reaching for your hand. It was only when you took it and tried to place your feet on the ground that you noticed that you and Namjoon ended up pushed through the wall and into the vent system near the ceiling. He wasn't fully awake, yet his arms still reached for you after you were peeled away from his body.

The two of you were the only known survivors of an antimatter bomb. Well, it was more like a grenade. Your father's lab, body, and work was largely destroyed in the explosion, but for some reason, you and Namjoon survived. It's wide believed that there was something wrong with the bomb. That it didn't attack your living cells.

You and Namjoon did not come out unscathed. Somehow, you got off fairly easy with a broken collarbone, a concussion, and a few deep cuts around your body. Namjoon, on the other hand, never fully awoke for a week. He'd broken three ribs, one of his lungs collapsed, his head injury much worse than yours, permanent damage to his spine. When he woke a week later, you wanted to envelope him in a hug and never let go.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Namjoon found you curled up in the newspaper archives at midnight. He was the only one who knew your Valentine's Day ritual. He moved the papers from your lap and took the glass of wine from your hand before it spilled. Just like every year, the paper was open to your dad's obituary and the news coverage of the explosion.

The edges of the paper were brown and crisped as if they were sixty years old instead of ten. His brow furrowed as he touched them. Between his fingers, the brown edges lightened as he brought them towards the light.

Ever since that night, your mission was to expose Outlier. You knew he wasn't some superhuman. Your dad worked with antimatter to harness its capabilities for good. For medical applications and using its destruction for renewable energy. Outlier wanted to use antimatter in the way everyone feared. To destroy.

As he moved the paper with your father's smiling face, he saw another, a jolt running down his spine. The headline took up almost half the page, "New Hero Emerges In Fight Against Outlier."

Outlier's antics became more calculated. Everyone knew he had the capability to use antimatter, but his subsequent movements involved raids of laboratories outside the city and taking a graduate student hostage. No one else died.

It was during the hostage situation that Antimatter first saved the day. It was around a year after your attack and Antimatter Man successfully infiltrated the laboratory and got the hostage to safety before the entire lab exploded. It was only in his next act of heroism that the city realized he was more than just someone who risked his life to save someone. He had powers.

Next time, Antimatter Man disabled a device strapped around a victim's neck with just a touch. It was determined to be a miniature explosive that would've destroyed the man had it gone off. The hero could manipulate antimatter. Destroy it--and was later determined--create it.

When Antimatter Man caused an explosion in an alleyway, he was lucky that only one bystander died. Like all the previous times he disabled one of Outlier's antimatter devices, he placed his hand on top of it. Instead of feeling the molecules burst like boba, he felt an energy build until it exploded.

Outlier purposely placed a more standard bomb that would explode in the presence of antimatter. It was a test. One Antimatter Man hadn't anticipated. In fact, it was rumored the hero had no idea the full scale of his abilities until that moment. The only reason he came out unscathed is because he was able to clock himself in antimatter to prevent the explosion from destroying him.

Namjoon knew that Outlier knew who Antimatter Man was. While the general public may not know that Antimatter Man was a victim of Outlier, or that he used chunky glasses and the Metropolis Daily to control the public's view of Kim Namjoon and Antimatter Man. Outlier was the only one who knew, not even you.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

The authorities always told you that Outlier may come back. Your father was the most prominent scientist working with antimatter technology and there were likely things Outlier had not figured out yet. He may come for your father's notes. Yet, he never did.

You weren't too worried about it anymore. It wasn't as if Outlier had a personal vendetta against you or your father. You hadn't seen his face. You'd practically passed out when you saw him, and probably would've had he not dropped the grenade when you locked eyes.

Still, you always watched your back when you walked from the Metropolis Daily office to your apartment. It was only a few blocks, but normally traversed after dark. Sometimes Namjoon came with you, though most of the time you persuaded him to just go back to his own place. Especially this night, you did not want Namjoon to know you didn't plan on going home.

Normally, when you hid your plans from Namjoon, it was because you were heading somewhere dangerous for research. Like the time you drove out into the forest on your own in search of Outlier's supposed hide out, or the time you decided to follow a man suspected to be Antimatter Man. Even as an editor, you still wrote, tending to keep the most hard hitting stories for yourself. Besides, few of your journalists were willing to possibly get close to Outlier. You'd survived once, you felt you could again.

However, this night, you were headed to the club. There was no reason or ulterior motive. You simply wanted to let loose. You knew Namjoon wouldn't like it. He wasn't smothering, he let you make your own decisions and do what you want, but his disapproving and worried looks always cut you deep.

You knew it all came from a place of concern. He always told you how thankful he was that he was with you that night. But, you always fit a pit of guilt in your stomach. Namjoon nearly died because of you. There was no way you were going to let that happen again.

You'd changed into something sexier before leaving the office, leaving your office clothes in your desk drawer. You always kept an extra set there any way in case you needed to pull an all nighter at the office. It was rare you got to go out and enjoy yourself on a Friday night and you already felt the contentment rising in you as you approached the club and heard the rhythmic thud of bass.

This particular club wasn't one with a line of people which was why you chose it. There was no wait. You could get in and out easily and without fuss. When you didn't get to do things like this often, you wanted to truly get to do them.

It wasn't long until you lost yourself. In the crowd. In the music. In your thoughts. Or rather, lack thereof. This is why people liked clubbing and loud music. It drowned out your worries. Everything became a constant hum in the back of your skull, where, for once, you could ignore it.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Namjoon had suspicions. It started when no fruit stayed ripe around you. The way that the microwave always sparked when you tried to make popcorn. And no matter what you did, it always ended up just a little too burnt. Nothing you did was ever quite right, but never quite wrong.

He always found his way to you whether he wanted to or not. It was as if the particles in his body were attracted to yours. Recognized them like their reflection. You got into a car accident two years ago and Namjoon had left work early that day, having felt an aching in his lower stomach. Fearing appendicitis, his supervisor sent him home.

He'd walked a block when he came upon it. You were sitting on the sidewalk, your hands pulling at the roots of your hair and your feet pointed towards each other. Something caused you to look up then. Namjoon wondered if you had the same uncanny sense he did, if you could put together when the other was in peril. When you saw him, your arms came around him and your shaking body burrowed into his for warmth.

When he was eighteen and you were seventeen, the two of you briefly shared an apartment. Namjoon had started taking classes at the university and you were in your senior year. While your dad had left everything to you--you were all he had--you sold the house a year after your dad died, unable to live there alone.

You'd come home one night after a basketball game. Namjoon always encouraged you to go, wanting you to feel like a normal high schooler. Though, while he was well intentioned, the efforts were ultimately fraught. You'd left at halftime because you think the concession stand hot dog made you sick.

Yet, when you came home. You found Joon spread out on the couch, bottles of alcohol spread around him like the crime scene markers around your dad's body. He'll never forget the light touches on his shoulder, then forehead, then bicep. The way it reminded him of feeling just a little too warm on a winter's night, pleasantly so.

His feet brought him to the entrance of the club and his heart sped up. You never came to places like this, but Namjoon knew you had the secret desire to. You'd always loved to dance even though you weren't particularly skilled at it. He walked inside, loitering at the edges of the dancefloor.

Namjoon had to keep himself from sneering at the sweaty bodies and couples dry humping each other. He never really understood the appeal of clubs. His eyes flit across the crowd, spotting your hair first. Even though you'd worked all day, you looked beautiful still. Your hair a little frizzier than usual and he recognized the tiredness in the way your moved your body to the bet. It wasn't lazy exactly, but it didn't have the same gusto as some of the others around you.

He wondered if his feeling had been off. Maybe he was just too on edge lately because Outlier had gone so silent. There was a parasite in the back of his mind that fed him anxieties. Was he planning something big? Had he finally figured out to build the bomb he wanted to? Was he committing lower level crimes Namjoon wasn't privy to? Did he know about you?

Watching you dance, he shook his head. You weren't in any danger. It was just in his head this time. Turning with his hands in his pockets, he took two steps towards the door of the club when he looked back and caught a glimpse of your smile. It was rare these days and not something he wanted to ruin with his worries.

With a small smile of his own, Namjoon left.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

You ended the night at around two a.m. You'd had two drinks, not enough to make you stumble out on the sidewalk, but enough to make you feel like you were. Taking off your heels, you gripped them in your fingers as you walked back towards your place. The walk should take fifteen minutes, but in your current state, you found yourself sauntering along as if the streets of Metropolis were perfectly safe in the wee hours of the morning.

If it were not for the alcohol in your system, maybe you would've sensed the presence behind you. Maybe you would've seen the dark shadow lingering behind you for the last two blocks. It wasn't until a hand clamped over your mouth, the other clamped around your jaw to prevent you from biting down on your abductor's fingers.

It was then you tasted it on your tongue. The rough, bleached taste of fabric. Something mildly sweet. Like laughing gas at the dentist.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Namjoon prided himself on his intuition. When you called him the night your father died, he almost ignored it. Nearly blinded by his teenage jealousy, it was a small pain in his stomach that made him answer his phone and rush to you that night.

He had the same pain now. Just below his ribs this time, he rubbed his fingers along the cotton of his button down as he glanced at your dark, empty office. You hadn't come in for work this morning. No one heard from you last night or this morning. And, despite this being unlike you, no one else seemed concerned.

You'd gained a reputation for your independence and ability to take care of yourself. You hardly ever asked for help--and while your own mind tended to think that an admirable trait--it only made Namjoon's mind race more. However, this made everyone else go about their day.

A half hour later Namjoon stood in his boss' office. "I'm not feeling well. Would it be all right if I took the rest of the day off?"

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

When you came to, you immediately noticed the lack of rough rope around your wrists or ankles. When you opened your eyes, however, you noticed the white cuffs floating half an inch from your skin. One cuff circled each wrist and another two around each ankle. You knew enough about how Outlier operated to know about these.

First seen in his second major hostage situation following your father's death, these cuffs did not touch the skin. But, if the hostage moves or tries to escape and their skin brushes the edge of the cuff, the invisible antimatter will attack the matter rich skin, flesh, and bone.

The first hostage to have worn these cuffs lost a hand before she understood how they worked. Now, Outlier gained easy compliance with even just the threat of his antimatter cuffs.

"Ah, so you've heard of them?"

Outlier sat across the room. HIs diamond slit mask shrouded in the shadows of the dimly lit room. It made your heartbeat easier knowing he still wore the mask. It meant he didn't plan on killing you. At least, not yet.

"You know--" Outlier paused, a soft lilt in his voice that annoyed you. Normally, the sort of singsong quality he had would make you flutter your lashes at him across the bar. Outlier's voice though, sounded like a children's song slowed down and played backward. "The technology for those cuffs I developed from some of your dad's research."

He stood up, moving closer. "The ability to suspend antimatter around a given object using the only gas in our world that antimatter cannot destroy. Quite brilliant, really."

As a teenager, you really did not know much about your father's research beyond its main goal: make the world better using the one thing that could destroy it. Your father had seen success in his lifetime. The use of antimatter in some medical technology aided the treatment of cancer and detecting major illnesses. It had saved lives.

You'd looked over a bit of your father's surviving research, of course. The things you had mainly consisted of experiment notes, a few crude sketches, and one report about a failed experiment. Nothing of value, really. It's why you always brushed off Namjoon's worries that Outlier would come back for it. What did you have that he would want?

"I imagine you know why you're here." Outlier was now only a few feet away and he leaned leisurely against the wall as if he were an old friend visiting your new apartment.

"No, I--"

"But, my assistant has something they want from you first."

Your head turned to the darkness in front of you from where Outlier had originally come. You made out the figure of another man. Smaller in stature, he shuffled slowly into the dim light. He didn't wear a mask, his hair falling into his eyes.

"My report," he said, his voice hesitant, almost scared. If you didn't know any better you'd believe he was the one being held hostage by Outlier. "Do you have it?"

"Your report?" Your brow furrowed as you thought about the one report you had. It detailed only the attempt to create an anti-oxygen particle. "I-I don't think so."

The air in the room became stuffy. Outlier seemed not to believe you, his arms crossed. You had no idea who Outlier's assistant was, but you were certain that whatever experiment he was a part of, your father would never have done something to make this man resent him. You almost wished you had the report.

"My assistant, you see," Outlier began in his singsong voice. "Suffers from a particular ailment brought on by one of your father's experiments. It tends to leave people, breathless. Isn't that right, Yoongi?"

The other man--Yoongi--glared at his supervillain boss. Something turned in your stomach. Yoongi didn't appear to be overly loyal to Outlier. Maybe he would be your key to getting out of this.

"Well, that was merely a favor. His report was never recovered and I thought there was a chance you may have it. But, now onto the real reason I've brought you here."Outlier crouched down, coming face to face with you. "Now, for an experiment of my own."

From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a short rod. Holding it above your bindings, the cuff fell limp and motionless against your wrist. You nearly flinched, worried it would begin cutting through the skin. But, it didn't.

Despite his mask, Outlier's form seemed to perk up at that. As if he had the first evidence that his hypothesis was true. With his thick, black gloves, that you were assumed were made of antimatterium--an element created by your father to make the handling of antimatter safer--Outlier slipped the ring off your wrist.

Reaching pack into his pocket, he pulled out a new ring and placed it around your wrist. It looked identical to the last, white, vaguely metallic with a visible field of matter--or possibly antimatter--surrounding it. Stretching it over your hand, he slipped it around your wrist.

"It should only take a few minutes."

Outlier stood back up.

"What's the point of this?" you asked, becoming more frustrated that nothing was happening. You knew you should be thankful you are still alive. It would be easy enough to kill you and rummage through your apartment for whatever he wants. Yet, for some reason, he refrained.

"I imagine you can figure that out on your own." Outlier watched the ring around your wrist carefully. "My biggest foe can only have a mind that rivals my own."

Biggest foe? Your mind turned over the possible meanings of his words until it clicked. "You think I'm Antimatter Man?"

Outlier didn't flinch. "Of course."

You laughed. You couldn't help yourself. While you'd never come to face to face with Antimatter Man himself, it was obvious that the superhero was easily many inches taller than you and his shoulders were easily the entire length of one of your arms.

"Me? Of all people?"

"It would make some sense, wouldn't it? Very few people survive the blast from an antimatter bomb. And those that do often acquire certain--capabilities."

You shook your head. "But, I'm not the only one who survived, Nam--"

You were interrupted by the sound of Outlier's surprise as well as the sound of banging from outside the room. Yoongi--who hadn't been paying attention--suddenly popped his head up and glanced towards the door to your left. With so many things happening at once, you chose to only focus on where Outlier's eyes went.

The ring around your wrist had begun to crumble like cheese. Bits falling off as they became too heavy or lost their support. Squinting your eyes you wondered how this was possible. You didn't get a chance to hop on your train of thought before the door burst open.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Antimatter Man burst into the room. He never wore a specific costume like superheroes were often penchant to do. Normally, he just wore an all black ensemble and a mask, obscuring most of his face. A hat usually then kept his hair hidden, beyond the tiny wisps of light brown you saw peeking out from underneath.

"Let her go," he said, his voice matter of fact and deep and familiar.

Outlier--to his credit--did seem genuinely surprised. Though, he bounced back quickly, ordering Yoongi to shut the door. The other man did so slowly and pathetically, letting it scrape against the splintered hardwood floor.

"Hmm, well, it would seem your presence here would confirm that my original hypothesis was wrong." A pause and he points down at you. "But I may have a new one."

For some reason, it took you this long to put together that you were destroyed the ring imprisoning your left wrist. Why hadn't the first one crumbled into nothingness like this?

"That ring is made of matter. Like most things in our universe. However, it is designed to crumble when it detects antimatter energy. She produces antimatter energy. Probably in small amounts which is why she and the world haven't destroyed each other yet." He looks back at Antimatter Man who's dark eyes are flitting between you and the villain. "Much like you, my nemesis. You destroy all antimatter you come into contact with through the latent production of pure matter. You really should correct the press on the name, you know?"

Your mind swirled. You created latent antimatter? Did this explain why everything in your life with a timespan seemed to die or wilt quicker than usual? Why people found you just slightly off?

"She has the potential to be my greatest weapon. If I can harness the antimatter inside of her. Determine whatever is producing it, I would no longer need to spend weeks producing such tiny amounts." You were certain that if his mask was off, his face would be lit up like a child's. His hand reached for yours and he pulled you up off the ground. The cuffs shifted with you since both you and the antimatter cuffs were under his control. Would they even work on you though?

Outlier held your back against his chest. It surprised you how much he felt like a normal man. Of course, that's all he was in the grand scheme of it all. Outlier was nothing more than a man desperate for something.

"No!" Antimatter Man sounded almost desperate. "Don't hurt her! She's been through enough. She didn't ask for it. She didn't even know about it. Please just let her go. I'll--" You can also hear the thoughts turning in his mind. "You can have me instead."

Your eyes went wide. Antimatter Man seldom placed himself directly into Outlier's hands. He was known for foiling the villain's plans remotely, sometimes even not showing up to the scene. And, even when they did come face to face, it was usually brief. What made this so different? What made you different?

Also, why did he talk like he knew you? Sure, your story had been in the papers a long time ago? You occasionally met a stranger who would recognize your name, but it was becoming less and less common with every passing year. How did Antimatter Man know you?

Outlier's grip on you tightened. One of his hands reached down for your wrist and held it up. Taking hold of the cuff, he brought it within millimeters of your skin.

"Now, let's be civilized about this. If you were truly worried about this girl because of her past, you wouldn't have let me take her in the first place."

Antimatter Man gulped. His body was stiff and his hands opened and closed. It reminded you of how Namjoon kept a stress ball in his desk drawer for whenever he had a stressful day. He'd squeeze and release it a few times in time with his breaths, getting out of his head.

"Yoongi," Antimatter Man said, his breath tickling the shell of your ear. "Open the back door for me would you?"

Yoongi didn't move. His gaze was hard, but not in a way that felt piercing or like he was looking through you. He was thinking.

"Yoongi," the villain said again.

Yoongi didn't move.

Antimatter Man took the opportunity and lunged. It was a risk. The cuffs still encircled one wrist and both your ankles. As you fell backward, it felt as if the world moved in slow motion, you watched your wrist fling back, hitting the ring of the cuff and bounce back, completely unharmed.

You land on Outlier's chest, but his grip on you loosened. You got up but immediately felt your legs give out. Someone caught you and you looked up to see Yoongi looking down at you. He didn't speak, or really show any expression beyond motioning to the back of the room where there was a door concealed within the wall. Likely, this was the back door Outlier wanted him to open earlier.

Even though Yoongi was working with Outlier, you felt like you were free. Something told you he was helping you. The man obviously did not swear much loyalty to the villain. You reached and pulled the cuffs off, causing Yoongi's eyes to widen and you felt his arms waver as you tossed them in Outlier's direction, hoping one would at least chink his antimatter protective armor.

Someone winced. And you recognized it. It was the same pain you heard that night when the bomb went off and you felt Namjoon's body wrap around yours. When he woke up in the hospital and you couldn't help but hug him, forgetting he had multiple broken ribs. Even in his pain, he didn't stop you.

"Oh my God."

You wrestled out of Yoongi's grasp. Outlier--seemingly not really wanting to fight--ran as soon as Antimatter Man fell to the ground. The cuff had sliced through his clothes and a gash opened on his leg. You crouched next to him and reached for the gash, applying as much pressure as possible

"It's not as bad as it looks. It'll heal by tomorrow."

You looked up at him and met his eyes. It was him. It had to be. You reached up for the edge of the mask. He didn't stop you, his dark eyes watching your hand as you reached up and revealed his identity.

Namjoon.

51 notes · View notes

ilguna · 3 years

Text

Redamancy - Chapter Four (f.o)

summary: it’s time to forgive and repair.

warnings; swearing, MURDER, GORE.

wc; 8.8k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

Even though the Hunger Games doesn’t start until ten, you’re in the betting room at nine. You’re not the first and only mentor to come down bright and early, there’s plenty of others who are already making their way around the room. Shaking hands, exchanging compliments and holding friendly conversation.

You’re not exactly the same way, as you stand off to the side, gnawing on your thumb’s nail. You’ve watched Annie and Marsh’s odds bob up and down plenty of times already, as the gamemakers try to decide where they belong last minute. So far, Annie and Marsh are back to back in numbers, with Marsh being on top.

“You’re stressed.”

Gloss is staring up at the betting board when you look over at him. He’s got his arms crossed, serious and straight-faced. In the past, he would be some type of excited because of their undeniably fantastic tributes. This year is different, as you’ve already discovered many times. His male tribute scored lower than usual, and the girl is higher by one single point.

It’s normal for the careers to score from anywhere between eight and ten, but that doesn’t mean they want an eight. They want nines and tens, because it shows proficiency and dangerousness. Plus, it’s normally District Four who’s scoring eights and whatnot. A good example of that is when Finnick scored the number when he was fourteen.

Today’s seriousness doesn’t reflect the attitude that was being presented last night. Last night was much livelier, a laughing group of mentors on the streets of the Capitol. Of course, as Finnick requested, you all stayed inside and in private rooms for most of the time, but eventually he decided that he wanted to experience the festival the way you guys normally do.

Which is practically chaos, as Gloss and Enobaria feed into each other’s bad thoughts and drag you around the city doing whatever they want. Trying on regular Capitol wear, buying replica crowns that Snow places on the brows of victors. They try different drinks and foods, all a hundred different flavors, some sweet, others sour, sometimes spicy.

The Capitol is a playground to them, and it’s fun to watch them break rules and create their own. Playing games on the sidewalk to see who will chug the next cherry vodka, who will lose a shirt or a sock or a piece of expensive jewelry down a storm drain. The night of the interviews is the only night where you all get to be your true selves.

Even Finnick felt comfortable enough to join in on your antics. It’s always a night to remember, you’re sure that he’ll be using it to tell stories in the future. The year where you cornered Finnick to helping you, and how he saw that you weren’t always who you pretended to be. It’s easy to be professional when you don’t like someone, but it’s harder to contain yourself when you’re surrounded by people who understand what you’re going through.

Of course, it’s only one night. If your tributes die, you get sent home, so you never have the chance to congratulate and celebrate with your friends after they bring home another tribute. You can always say your peace the next year, but by then they’re over it, and they’re ready for another victor.

“So are you.” you playfully punch his bicep, “Look at you, you never cross your arms.”

He gives you a smile, “Whatever, it’s not that much of a giveaway.”

“You’re right, it was definitely your face. You never scowl.” You look at the board again to see that all the numbers seem to be locked, “Careful, you’ll end up with wrinkles. After that, people will really begin to realize that you’re older than Cashmere.”

The board is a little confusing at first to get used to, but after years of looking at it, you’ve grown accustomed to it. At the top reads ‘MORNING LINE ODDS’, and below is a row readied for how many days, hours, minutes and seconds the tributes have been inside of the arena. Which is none at the moment, so instead they have a countdown going on. Fifty-four minutes. Less than an hour.

Below it are more rows and information about the tributes. The left states their district, and then it splits into two. The Capitol doesn’t care about names anymore, just the important parts. Their heights, weights, ages, betting odds and faces are displayed for everyone to see.

For Gloss and Cashmeres tributes, they’re both doing fairly good on odds. The girl has a predicted 5-1 chance of winning, and the boy has a 7-1. In the past, the roles have been reversed, the boys always show a brute strength during their private training so it’s hard not to score like that. Enobaria and Wades tributes are better, even with the repeating numbers. The girl has a 5-1 too, but the boy holds a 3-1 because of his score.

The gamemakers are used to your tributes’ scores teetering on the edge of very good and mediocre, which normally earns them a 9-1 or lower. However, since your tributes have shown promise through personality and matching high numbers, you’re staring at a 7-1 for Marsh and a 8-1 for Annie. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the past scores.

You think that the lowest you’ve seen for District Four is a 20-1. That was a particularly horrible year, and since then you’ve learned to stop the problem before it gets too bad to be fixed. Maybe it’s attitude, maybe it’s not caring for training, you’re there with dead eyes and mean words to put them back in their place. They like to self-sabotage, not a good thing to do when you’re going into the Hunger Games.

On one hand, you’re thankful for the morning line odds, because it gets the betters a sense of direction of which tributes they should sponsor and keep an eye on. But sometimes it seems futile when the sponsors will do whatever they want, or go for the more obvious and favorable tributes--cough cough, Districts One and Two. You can never go wrong betting on the districts that practically get a winner every year.

“Haha.” Gloss says in regards to your age comment, “Where’s Finnick?”

You shrug, “Couldn’t find him at all this morning.”

It’s true, you searched the entire apartment three times before leaving. The living room, the kitchen, the balcony, your bedroom, his bedroom, even in the hallway and stairwell. There wasn’t a single trace of Finnick anywhere, it didn’t even look like he spent the night in his room, but you definitely remember him going in there last night.

Whatever, you’re not all that upset. It’s the first day, and even if there’s a lot that happens on the first day, sponsorships aren’t one of them. The first day relies on the tributes to get used to their surroundings and figure things out for themselves. The second day is when mentors and sponsors begin to collaborate.

Doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be down here anyway. It’s nice to make friends while you can. You’ll just have to talk to Finnick later about him helping you down here. The whole reason why you’ve called on him for help this year is because of the betting room. An extra pair of eyes, ears and hands helps out, it goes a long ass way. Two people mingling is better than one. You can pull more sponsors together.

You glance at Gloss, “Where’s Cashmere and the others?”

“Wade’s here,” Gloss turns, thumb jabbing in the direction. He’s got the spot perfectly right, you’re able to see that Wade is surrounded by Capitol people, all laughing and joking around, “Cashmere and Enobaria will be down here later. They’re sleeping in, I think.”

“Well, after last night…” you trail off with a small smile, and Gloss snorts.

It’s quiet between you two as you watch the time tick down. Thirty minutes left, the tributes are close or in the catacombs at this point. Judging by the small glimpse the gamemakers gave this year, you think that the arena’s going to be sunny. They’re probably dressed in regular clothing, stuff that won’t make the tributes too hot but won’t allow them to get cold easily.

Honestly, at this point, you’re tired of the build up.

“At least your tributes’ odds are doing well this year.”

“Tell me about it. But it came at a price, since yours fucked up during training.” you run a hand through your hair, getting annoyed when it falls back in your face.

“There’s always room for redemption.”

Redemption, what a pointless thing to bank on, “Right.”

You’d tell him it’s good to have hope, but when has hope ever helped you? It’s always a letdown. And out of all tributes that are about to enter the arena, the careers aren’t the ones that need hope. It’s everyone else.

More silence, you mindlessly watch the time tick down. Thirty minutes, twenty, fifteen, ten. Everyone starts getting antsy around five, you and Gloss stand behind the rows of chairs that begin to fill with citizens. Wade comes around and joins the two of you, talking about what he discovered during conversation.

He was going after their opinions on the tributes. And while they have sung good praise of their tributes, as usual, they also couldn’t stop bringing up Marsh in particular. There were constant comments on how they had wished that he would’ve gotten more time on stage. It was new to them, and they liked the new approach.

You figure that other mentors will start telling their tributes to follow in Marsh’s footsteps, and after that the comedy skit will be ruined and you’ll have to find something else that’ll catch attention. At this point, everything possible has been found and exploited until it got old.

Twenty seconds until it hits a minute, which is when they’ll raise the tributes. The games don’t officially start until that minute is over. The clock will flip, and then it’ll start from the bottom up. You clench your teeth, spinning your ring around your finger over and over. Annie and Marsh are in the tubes, submerged in darkness, you can feel it yourself, the stomach lurching and the dread and regret. It’s too late now, they have to fall through on what they’ve built so far.

They’ve got this. They’ve got this. They’ve got this.

The clock hits a minute and five seconds, you can begin to see the tops of tributes heads. You lean forward slightly, eyes searching for Annie and Marsh, and find them easily. They’re close together, maybe two tributes between them, which is good news. They can see each other and decide what they want to do. You hope they discussed some sort of plan at some point regarding how they want to start their games off.

The cornucopia this year is silver and placed in the middle of a field of flowers. The grass is tall too, but thin enough to see where the gamemakers have placed the goodies outside of the cornucopia this year. As the camera pans around the tributes, you’re able to catch glimpses of the arena.

A field of flowers, hills that seem to stretch forever and offer little to no protection. In the distance is… a village? Others must see it too, because whispers break out, predictions on which tributes will immediately run for it. It’s an obvious place to go, Annie and Marsh won’t head there first. They’ll go for a better place.

However, it’s not inevitable, it’ll probably be the first place where the careers will go to get as many people out as possible. For a quick and scary moment, you think that this will be a fast Hunger Games. Whatever happens, just let one of your tributes last until the end.

One last shot before the sixty seconds is over, and it feels like you’ve been stabbed in the heart.

The dam that they showed--the preview--they must’ve edited it or something with how they made it look so small and not at all threatening. You thought it was holding back a small river, especially with the stream of water that was coming from it. But this--this is not for a river. This is for a fucking lake.

“Oh my fucking god.” you lace your fingers, placing your hands on the back of your head.

“Wow.” Gloss utters, “Yeah that isn’t at all what they showed us.”

From what you can tell, the tributes are supposed to be far away from the dam, a couple miles at least. But it’s still big enough to see through the trees, and tall enough to block some of the sky. Actually, it reminds you of the cliffs in your games. The cliffs were a two day walk from the cornucopia, and yet you could see them over the tops of the trees.

No one in their right mind would head towards the dam, especially with the chance that it would break. It’s just not common sense, and Annie and Marsh have shown promise when it comes to thinking logically. Which means that they would have to head the other way… towards the village.

They’re fucked. Everyone in that arena is set up for failure. You give it a couple of days, maybe a week and a half at most. No one in their right mind is going to want to stay next to the dam, but on the other hand they won’t want to get killed. And you can hide near the dam at the beginning of the games, but eventually if you want to head towards the village and clear hills, people will see you coming from a mile away.

You clench your fists, gritting your teeth more as your nails dig into the skin on your palms.

Out of all the arena’s that you’ve seen, this is by far the worst. It’s a trap, there’s no choice but to fall victim to it.

“Well, there goes literally everything.” Wade lets out a laugh.

“The others should be down here.” Gloss says.

He’s referring to Enobaria, Cashmere and Finnick, and he’s completely right. They won’t know what’s happening or the situation until later. By then, it’ll be too late. The bloodbath always costs around seven to ten lives, and if they all scatter towards the village, you think at the end of the day, half the competition will be gone.

The countdown has reached five, you watch as Annie and Marsh prepare to run into the cornucopia. It isn’t a bad choice, they’re good fighters. As long as they don’t go too far in, maybe grab the supplies that are only a few feet away from the mouth, they’ll be golden. You hope they realize this.

The gong sounds.

It’s only been a couple of seconds, and a handful of tributes are already heading towards the village. Others dare to run towards the dam, but they’re all apprehensive and continue to steal longing looks at the cornucopia and beyond that. They’re not the focus of the cameras, though.

The bloodbath is horrible as usual. Annie and Marsh are next to each other, stealing things out of the grass, shoving them into an empty backpack. Sheets of plastic, bread, firestarters, rope, water jugs. You watch with furrowed eyebrows, trying to keep track of the careers and the deaths.

On the side of the screen is a list, one at a time names and districts appear. The girl from Six, the boy from Eight, the girl from Eleven, the boy from Twelve. Two minutes in and four are already dead. Annie and Marsh head towards the cornucopia quickly, a plan already in mind.

Marsh slips inside of the cornucopia, making your heartbeat in your ears, body filling with adrenaline. Stupid move, going inside traps you there. Not even in your games did you go inside all the way. He’s gone for ten seconds, twenty. Annie doesn’t appear to be worried at first, but it changes when a career sets their eyes on her.

The boy from One.

“Oh, here we go.” you cross one arm over your chest, the other covering your mouth.

Annie ditches the backpack, throwing it against the cornucopia to keep it clear of her path. Out of nowhere, she pulls out a knife, spinning it between her fingers to make sure that the boy knows she has it. Her body curls in forward, chin dropping downwards.

She would look threatening, as if she has a chance at winning this fight if it weren’t for the short blade that the boy has. He comes towards her, a smile hinting at the corners of his lips. He swings, she dodges easily and advances forward. Annie isn’t a runner, especially not when she has a plan.

This is life or death, Annie. This isn’t practice anymore. This is for real.

He swings again, she moves out of the way and comes closer, a little out of range. The boy is becoming frustrated, and his swings begin to cut close. Annie side steps, you can see the blade cut through her shirt, when the boy holds his blade up, you can see a glint of blood. Annie doesn’t even look phased.

Where the hell is Marsh? You look at the corner of the screen, reading over the new list of deaths. The boy from Eleven, the girl from Twelve, the girl from Ten. Seven dead, the bloodbath is practically over, Annie and Marsh need to get out of there now.

He swings again, cutting Annie’s upper left arm. She barely acknowledges it, when the gamemakers change camera angles, you can finally see her face. All those times you’ve watched her fight the other kids at the boarding school, she’d be able to sweep most of the kids with her eyes closed. On the days you and Anchor permitted actual harm, she became more serious about fighting.

Annie shifted in those moments. Her eyes dead, locking on the target in front of her. She always has a plan, always ready to move and bait the person in. She’ll tense in sticky situations, but always find her way out of it. She became unlikable when fighting others because of this. Always said that it was an unfair fight.

And she’s about to bring the boy from One down.

The boy swings one more time, Annie moves out of the way in time for him to miss. Not a second later, she’s launching towards him, the knife perfectly aimed for his stomach. He’s quick to try and slash at her, so she has to drop the knife in the grass and grab his wrist instead, falling on top of him.

Annie slams her knee into the boy's left wrist, and uses both of her hands to force the sword in the other hand, down towards his throat. His face turns an angry shade of red, eyebrows forced so close that there’s a deep crease between them. Annie’s face is determined, the kind and polite girl that you saw yesterday evening is nowhere to be seen.

It’s a struggle between them, Annie’s got a tight grip around his wrist, knuckles turning white. She grits her teeth, lip curling, lets up for a moment on the arm, only to go crashing back down. The boys’ locked arm breaks, and the sword slides through his throat. Red, thick blood comes out of his throat, painting his tan skin and the silver blade.

Annie lets out a sound, pulls out the sword, and slams it into his forehead. On the side of the screen, the boy from One appears. You let out a breath, watching as Annie gathers her things. It’s right on time for Marsh to come fighting out, the girl from One trying to stop him. His face is twisted like he’s in pain, but it’s just how he focuses too.

If they knock out District One, Gloss and Cashmere go home. It’s over, and all you have to worry about is the District Two tributes. For the first time in a very long time, District One won’t survive past the first day.

It doesn’t work out like that, Marsh sends a harsh kick to her leg and she crumples. He and Annie regroup, and the two of them take off running towards the dam, the backpack bouncing on Annie’s back, Marsh tightly holding onto his favorite weapon. Annie now has the short blade to use.

“Okay.” you breathe, because it could be worse.

The village is going to be a slaughter, so you don’t blame them for running towards the dam. They just need to find another place to stay soon, and hope that the careers don’t come towards them for revenge.

“Congrats.” Gloss has got a smile on his face, clapping a hand on your shoulder.

“Thanks, I guess. One more tribute and you get sent home.” you raise your eyebrows at him.

He rolls his eyes, “They’ll have to try really hard to get that to happen.”

“Anything is possible!” you cheer.

The bloodbath lasted about twenty minutes, even if it didn’t feel like it. The main career group has three left; two girls and one boy. Annie and Marsh are still very much alive, taking camp by the dam. The total bloodbath deaths is eight. Districts Eleven and Twelve are gone; Parry, Seeder and Haymitch are going home.

They’re nowhere to be seen, which you can’t really blame them for. Haymitch is the only victor in his district, and Parry won ten years ago so he replaced Chaff when it comes to mentoring. After a long streak of losing, you’re sure that you’d find yourself holed up in the apartment too. Why bother showing up in the betting room if you know your tributes won’t make it past the first day?

Although, District Eleven typically has their tributes last a while longer. But you guess it’s different this year since both of their tributes ran into the cornucopia on the assumption that they’d make it out alive. At this point, no tributes make it out alive unless they’re very good at fighting or they can slip between fingers.

You take a look at the betting board to see that the dead tributes are greyed out since they’re impossible to bet on. Everyone else who’s still alive have had their odds increase slightly. Now that the gamemakers have seen survival and fighting skills come alive, they can determine how the rest of the games are going to go much better.

The girl from One has increased to a 4-1, the other two careers stay the same. Annie has gone from an 8-1 to a 6-1, Marsh stays the same. Killing the career boy has done her good. Your two tributes will have sponsors around the corner in no time. You think that Finnick will be excited to hear this.

On screen, the careers gather what they need and air out of the cornucopia, heading towards the village, as predicted. For a second, there’s a disagreement, as the girl from One wants to head after Annie and Marsh to take care of them before they become a serious problem, but the other two vote against her, so she’s stuck going towards the village.

Annie and Marsh aren’t the only two who went towards the dam, there’s about three to four others who are there too. Still, the majority went straight for the village, which could very well be because it’ll give them cover from any of the elements, but you can’t imagine that there’s any sort of water source. The gamemakers like to keep the sources to a minimum and in one spot to make sure that the tributes come across each other on refills.

With the bloodbath being over, you can breathe. You, Gloss and Wade take a seat on a couch nearby, with you and Gloss being pressed against the arms, and Wade being sat in the middle. You’d say that it’s crowded, Gloss and Wade aren’t the smallest guys to exist, but there’s still enough breathing room between all of you.

You tap your fingers against the arm of the chair, watching as the cameras all split into groups. Annie and Marsh being one, still running into the woods to put as much distance between them and the cornucopia as possible. The second team of tributes being District Seven, as they’re working together this year, heading towards the left, away from the stream of water that Annie and Marsh are unintentionally going to come across.

The other two tributes by the dam are the girl from Eight and the boy from Five, scattered in their own special way, but not shown individually on screen. They’re not as important, it looks like the gamemakers are focusing on alliances at the moment. Next up are the careers, taking their time with making their way down and over the grassy hills. They’re digging through their backpacks and laughing about something.

There’s no alliance in the village at all. After a few more seconds of glimpses of the alliance tributes, it’s switched to individual. From what you’re able to see, the village is pretty big. At least six tributes are scattered inside of houses or making their way as deep inside as possible. As far as the forest goes, two people are wandering around. There’s only one tribute that you can’t decide where they are because of the way she’s cleverly placed herself.

The bloodbath canons begin to go off now, there’s a series of different reactions. Eight deaths in the bloodbath isn’t even that uncommon, the most you’ve probably seen before is twelve. Hell, in your games you think that there were nine total. Typically, the tributes have enough common sense to save themselves right off the bat.

“What do you think the dam’s about?” Gloss suddenly asks.

Your eyes slowly land on him to see that he’s waiting on you and Wade. Wade shrugs his shoulders, not knowing what to say. They don’t know? How can they not know? You thought that the dam was pretty straight forward. Maybe they weren’t standing in front of the tv close enough to see the cracks.

A part of you wants to tell them what your predictions are, but you bite your tongue and shrug too. In the past, mentors have been able to send secret messages to tributes. It happened in your games, it’s happened in others, and you’ve even sent a couple when it was direly needed. So telling them could backfire in your face.

Even if you’re friends with them, sometimes you can’t trust to give others certain information. It’s so risky, knowing that the other mentor can easily pass off the information. Especially during the initial week inside of the Capitol. The tributes are at your fingertips.

It’s why you resort to being mysterious most of the time. While your mentor friends have nothing to hide because they put their plans out in the open from the start—because you all know that it’s no secret that the careers are powerhouses. You rely on the element of surprise to get you through literally everything.

The mentors can’t tell their tributes what your opinion is if you don’t give one. They can’t tell them that you’re sure your tributes are absolutely deadly and pose one of the biggest threats in the arena this year. They have to rely on past experiences to make predictions, but even then, sometimes districts manage to pull surprises out of nowhere.

The clock hits the first hour mark, by then the careers have made it to the village. Already beginning to weave their way in and out of houses. They’re not exactly quiet, so if a tribute hears them coming, they’ll easily be able to hide before the career gets to them.

Well, that’s what you think. However, every time a tribute is shown individually, you see that there’s nothing to hide behind. There’s no doors, and if there are, they’re broken or falling apart from years with no use. It’s like a terrifying game of hide and seek, but there’s hardly hiding. It’s a game of skill and luck now.

Luck that you won’t get found or your house won’t get chosen. That the career will come just close enough but turn their back at the last second when they decide that a place is clear. But it’s skill, testing the careers senses. Seeing if they properly know how to clear an area completely of tributes.

Just like how luck wasn’t on the side of these tributes when their names got chosen, it’s not on their side when it comes to hiding in plain sight, either. One by one, they’re all found.

The first one is the girl from Five, pressed tightly against the wall, holding her breath with tears slowly coming to her eyes. You can practically hear her chanting in her head, “Please don’t find me, please don’t fine me—“

The girl from One rounds the corner, without a single hesitation, she shoves the sword through the other girls’ stomach before the girl can defend herself. The sword pins the girl to the wall, blood spilling out of her stomach. Five has her mouth open in shock, eyes locked on the weapon, fingers fumbling to touch it.

One looks pleased, a smile creeping onto her face. For a moment, you can see Cashmere in her. The blonde hair, the green eyes, they all look the same in District One. All the same form of deadly, and they pull sponsors without even having to try because of their good looks. But everything comes at a price, and Cashmere was no exception.

Five doesn’t have a chance to plead, One pulls out her knife and finishes the job. A canon goes off, another teenager greyed out on the betting board. Nine dead. A sick feeling in your stomach tells you that this is going to be another bloodbath.

The boys work together, taking out the bigger houses since the girl wanted to go it alone. They’ll clear one, making sure to make it known, but stick inside of the house for a second to wait to see if they can hear movement. When they’re absolutely sure there’s none, they move on.

This plan doesn’t work initially, they get passed at least three houses before they hear a noise. Had the boy just waited a couple of seconds more, they wouldn’t have been able to hear his footsteps as he creeped down the loud stairs, giving away his position.

With the Ten boy dead, the District Ten mentors are going home. Which you’re sure is a bummer for them, knowing that they’ve been doing pretty good lately when it comes to victors. They’ve had two in the past ten years, which is a good improvement from the gap that they had before.

In the next house that the boys come across is a girl, the gamemakers give no indication on district. And you’re not sure that it matters because she’s dead within the first minute they search the house. The hiding spot wasn’t that bad, but when there’s two searching, more spots are bound to be discovered.

District Three girl gets greyed out on the board. There’s three people still hiding inside of the village, the boys from Nine, Three and Six. All in different places, and the only one that seems to be the furthest is Six, and you can take a pretty big guess as to why.

His district is power. They’re the main producer for it for everyone, and it wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the gigantic dam that they have. It’s hydroelectricity, the water passes through the dam, turns some gears and it fuels the Capitol and a portion of the other districts. It makes sense that he would be the one that would try and get away as far as possible.

It means that he knows something that the rest of them don’t. However, you have that much figured out. The dam is the danger here, but he must know the mechanics behind it. Why it’s going to fall apart, what event can set it off, how far it’s going to reach when it does. He’s so far away from the dam at this point, miles away from the cornucopia, and he still keeps moving.

It just means that the blast radius of the dam is going to wipe out a large berth of things. Trees, potentially the cornucopia, definitely the houses in the village. And that’s to name a few. There’s no telling what can be uprooted with the force of the water. You’re just curious how anyone will survive it.

Another tribute gets found, it’s the boy from Nine. The careers have regrouped now, all in different forms of bloody. You grit your teeth and try not to gag, remembering the smell of blood, and the feeling of the thickness on your skin. It’s not a pretty feeling, and you can’t shake it, not even all these years later.

The careers agree to stop looking for tributes and start for water instead. Which is a good sign for the two tributes left in the village--potentially three. But as for everyone else in the trees, it’s not as good. You’re sure that Annie and Marsh are far away enough from the stream of water that’s coming out of the dam at the moment, but there’s no way to tell.

Actually, it probably doesn’t even matter that they’re far away from the stream of water, considering that no one knows that it actually exists, except for the mentors. Unless someone went and opened their mouth and gave it away, which you wouldn’t be surprised about. You’re all a bunch of cheats and liars, at this point. There’s no use denying it.

The careers don’t even start to head towards the dam anyway, so that eliminates most of the worry. With the interest in them gone, it’s back to the remaining tributes inside of the arena. It’s been nearly three hours and already half of the competition is gone. When you said that it wouldn’t last more than a week and a half, you weren’t thinking that it would be because of this. You thought it would be the dam.

Everyone loves a good plot twist though, right? Right?

You get up from the couch to stretch your legs, figuring that the worst of the first day is over. It’s one in the afternoon, Annie and Marsh can clearly take care of themselves when it comes to fighting off other tributes. Their main worry at the moment is probably finding water and setting up camp somewhere.

If they were to just head right, towards the stream, they should come upon that shack uphill. It’s risky, staying that close to the dam but they don’t really have much of a choice unless they want to stay the night out in the open. At least with a shack they have shelter and they’re hidden. If someone comes upon it, they’ll have the upper hand.

“Alright, I think I might go back to the Four apartment to eat lunch. Don’t know if I’ll be down here later.” you say, looking at Wade and Gloss.

“And narrowly miss your two best friends?” Gloss asks.

“I have days to see them, I’m not really that worried. Plus, last night was enough to fuel me for the next decade. You’re lucky if I don’t start pretending I don’t know your four altogether.”

“Haha.” Gloss rolls his eyes, but gets to his feet.

He gives you a one-armed hug, you pat his back slightly. Wade isn’t much for physical contact in the first place, so he holds out his hand as a supplement. You slap it, looking at Gloss, “Sorry about your tribute.”

“He was a moron anyway.”

“I’ll see you later then--” you go to turn towards the door but find that you’re face to face with a Capitol woman, dressed in bright blue with accents of black. You have to take a step back so that you’re not breathing the same air as her, giving her a polite smile, “Hello.”

“Are you Annie’s mentor?” she asks.

Three hours in, and Annie’s already going to get a sponsor. It’s probably healing cream for the cuts she endured when fighting the One boy. You have to admit, if she’s completely healed, she’ll be able to move quicker and won’t have to worry about using medical stuff. The blades on the knives and swords are so sharp, especially when they haven’t been used before. Pick your toughest material and it could move through it like cloth.

Your eyes find Annie and Marsh on screen to see that they’re taking a break, going through the stuff in their backpack. Now would be a good time to do it before they get ahead of themselves. You give the Capitol woman a bigger smile, “Yes, are you interested in sponsoring?”

The whole process only takes a few minutes. You and her discuss what exactly she’s looking for, and what the ranges of the healing cream will have. It’s so extremely dirt cheap because it’s the beginning of the games, only three hours in. The longer the games go on, the more prices will be amped up. What could buy you an entire feast on the first day will only get you a loaf of bread later on, maybe not even that.

The woman lets you know that the main reason for deciding to go through with this is because of Annie’s manners on stage. That she can’t believe that Annie is only eighteen and acts like she’s been on this earth for much longer. You have to agree, Annie has her moments where she’s wiser than the rest of you. But it’s mainly because she’s been forced to grow up quicker, thanks to the boarding school.

When it comes to the note, you type in, “Right with you.”

It’s not the best when it comes to hinting at where to go, but you send it and watch it get approved. The first sponsor gift of the Seventieth Hunger Games, and it’s going to your tributes. One last time, you thank the woman and assure her that Annie is very grateful for her compassion.

Now you can’t leave just yet, and have to wait as it slowly comes down to them. You stand by Gloss and Wade, listening to the chiming of the gift. When it comes into earshot of Annie and Marsh, they immediately perk up, searching the trees.

“Found it!” Annie calls, pointing it out while getting to her feet. The cuts don’t even seem to phase her all that much, so it’s partially a waste of money but at least they’ll be able to use it later on if the need arises.

Annie catches the silver gift in her hands, rejoining Marsh as she pops it open. You didn’t really give them any instructions on how to apply it, they’ll have common sense not to use the whole tube, you think. They read over the words to themselves in their head first, before Annie is smiling fondly.

“That’s very sweet.” Annie says, “(Y/n)’s encouraging us as always.”

No, that’s not it. You’re not worried about the misinterpretation, especially not after the knowing look they give each other. Annie folds the paper and places it in her breast pocket, not even reading it out loud for everyone to know. It’s their own choice, and it’s probably a good one at any rate.

Annie has Marsh apply the cream while she tries not to look like she’s in too much pain. You know that it’s not easy having people dig their fingers in your wounds. Fuck, you might have initially blacked out after that bear mutt attack, but you were still half awake. Every single time they went a little too deep or were a little too harsh, you were jolted awake. You’re fairly surprised that you still remember it. It was almost like a fever dream.

Annie and Marsh take a couple more minutes relaxing, but the audio cuts on their part to give the District Seven tributes a chance at the spotlight. It doesn’t mean that you’re not able to see your tributes, though. You’re able to watch them motion and flesh out a plan. It’s good to see that they get along so well, makes for a strong alliance.

Annie motions about heading towards the wall, Marsh’s face begins to harden up. Annie changes to pointing, jabs her thumb in the direction of the cornucopia. Marsh says something, you think you make out the word ‘water’. Annie then holds her arm out to the right, taps the pocket on her chest, and then it seems like they have a plan. They pack up, and head towards the right.

And with that, you go to leave because it’s finally your window. But Cashmere and Enobaria come through the door, bearing a basket and big smiles, “Good afternoon! How’s our tributes doing?”

“Is that food?” you ask, Cashmere hands over the basket, and when you look inside, there’s cold cut sandwiches and flavored bubble water. It really looks like you won’t be leaving here anytime soon.

You all pick your regular back table, that’s perfectly out of earshot of other mentors and Capitol citizens, but you’re still able to see the line odds and the screen with the tributes. They lay out the food, you nibble on your sandwich while Cashmere and Enobaria ask questions and Gloss and Wade give up information.

“Bloodbath knocked out eight tributes.” Wade says, playing with the bubbly water cap, “Which includes Eleven and Twelve.”

“Figures, they’re not very good fighters anyway.” Enobaria says, “Didn’t Eleven have the seventeen year-old girl?”

“She only scored a six so it’s not like she was anything special.” Cashmere has her eyes on Gloss, slowly squinting at him, “What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything.” Gloss makes a face and shrugs. There goes whatever cover he was trying to grasp at.

Cashmere stares at him for a second longer before turning around and looking at the line odds. It doesn’t take long to find, the boy is the first tribute on the left row. She doesn’t even have to look for it. The name is greyed out, of course, Cashmere turns back to Gloss.

“When did Colt die?” she asks.

“The bloodbath.” Gloss says, leaning his head against his hand now, “He went after Annie--(Y/n)’s tribute. He didn’t even stand a chance.”

Cashmere raises her eyebrows, and then looks at you, “Seriously? What happened?”

Conversation launches, you, Gloss and Wade do your best to tell them all the details. Starting from the bloodbath, who’s where in the arena, to the village. They’re not all that surprised to hear that their career pack got an additional four kills, the careers go hunting after the bloodbath to try and get as many as possible. But it’s a shock to know that half the tributes are gone.

After bloodbaths, careers get one--maybe two--kills. And it normally doesn’t happen immediately after the bloodbath, either. It’s sometime during the night because it’s easiest to spot the fires. Hardly ever is there a second slaughter immediately after the first. Because of this, you don’t think that they’re going to have a feast at the cornucopia this year. There won’t be enough tributes to make it worth it.

Annie and Marsh come across water, fill the jugs and put iodine to clean the water. They wander up a little further and find the shack. Just like that, they can call it a day since they’ve already got enough food to last them two days. All they have to do now is set up a plan to keep the food coming.

The careers come across basically a small clear pond. The last time you drank from a pond, you came down with Typhoid fever, really fun times. The Capitol was a bitch for making that dirty water clear to drink from, but the normally ideal water a fucking trick. You are so lucky that the Capitol had the medicine to make sure that the effects weren’t long-term. Otherwise, who knows what you’d be living with right now?

The betting room starts to clear out in the evening because it’s supper time for all of them. You stick around with the pack for a little while longer, remarking that you’re all surprised that Finnick didn’t show up at all, even with all the time he had. Once you’re sure that your tributes can survive the night, you’re bidding goodbyes.

It feels good to walk back to the apartment and to stretch your legs after going between sitting and standing. Sitting at the table already is Elysia, she looks happy to see you, “Welcome back.”

“Feels good to be back up here.” you laugh, tying your hair up, “Have you seen Finnick at all? He didn’t come by at all.”

Elysia shakes her head, “I went to get him for dinner and the rooms empty.”

“Huh,” you let out, sitting at the table.

It's odd, being here with only Elysia again. Makes your stomach churn slightly, actually. No tributes, no Finnick, only you in the betting room… Why do you have a feeling that this isn’t a coincidence?

You said that you’d give Finnick today. The first day isn’t the busiest, it’s the days that follow, when the heat starts to get turned up and the stakes rise. Then the tributes start getting hurt, requiring more to sustain whatever lifestyle they’ve built for themselves. It’s going to be impossible to go to the cornucopia to refill on goods when the entire thing is in a field. What are you going to do? Hide in the grass?

You and Elysia eat dinner, quietly chatting about what you think’s going to happen. In the end, it’s late and you should call it a night. But when you reach your room, hand on the doorknob, something tells you that you shouldn’t go to bed just yet. It’s a gut reaction, you look over towards Finnick’s room. It’s an invasion of privacy.

But there have been plenty of times before where Finnick has come into your space without permission, right? You sigh, kick off your shoes by your door, and then go into Finnick’s room. It’s dark and quiet and smells like perfumed fabric softener. You don’t bother with turning on the lights, Elysia already said that he wasn’t in here.

You make yourself at home, tossing a pillow onto the hammock and using it to support your head and not get your hair stuck in the rope. You stare and watch and wait for a while, playing today over in your head. You don’t think that there’s a single thing you would have done differently. Annie and Marsh were smart to run towards the dam, and Annie knocked out a whole career while she was at it.

However, they also proved that they were a couple to keep an eye on. The girl from One is smart enough to see it like that, to want to go ahead and go after them. On one hand, it’s a good thing that the boys didn’t listen to her. Your tributes are still alive, in a house for the night. But on the other hand, four other tributes died because of it.

But then again, it was only a matter of time. You saw all of their deaths coming, and so did every other mentor in that room. None of you could have known that on the other side of the dam would be a village. What use is it to warn your tributes if they’re just going to be fucked either way?

Oh hey, there’s going to be a cracked dam inside of the arena this year. If you can, I’d probably steer clear of it. The most it seems to provide is a steady stream of water, so at least you have that! Also, I wouldn’t worry much because the dam looked pretty damn small when I got to see it.

What use would that have done? It would have been a fucking culture shock, to think that you’d be ahead of the games for once. Like, “Okay, don’t head toward the dam, use it as a last resort. Worse comes to worse and you can maybe outrun the water.” until you’re face to face with a concrete wall that’s literally a mile taller than you, and the only place to go is a field out in the open and a village that provides the only shelter.

If there was any time to facepalm, it would be now. Hell, even your warning at agility training is going to do fucking nothing. You originally thought that it would come in hand to hop from rock to hill or tree root or something, but that’s going to be hard to do in the grassy field. Yes, let’s hop from grass blade to grass blade.

So fucking stupid, all of this.

You sit there fuming for a little while longer, shaking your head, rolling your eyes and gritting your teeth. You wonder if any of the other mentors have seens something like this before. Wait, that’s stupid. Of course there’s been an arena before this that has been the biggest April fool’s prank of all. Haymitch Abernathy had to live in a hell disguised as a paradise. Yes, you think that might be the worst arena you’ve ever seen. And he had forty-seven other tributes to worry about on top of the killer squirrels.

You snort, but it’s really not all that funny.

The room door opens, you squint just before the lights are flickered on. Finnick stands in the doorway, wearing a white button down shirt and nice black slacks. A part of you wonders where he’s been all night to need to dress as nicely as this. His… job… for the lack of a better word, doesn’t start until after dinner, usually.

And supposedly, he’s been gone all day!

Finnick doesn’t seem to see you at first. You grin to yourself like a child, “Boo.”

He jumps, a startled sound escaping him, it sounds like a yelp. He turns with wide eyes, staring at you. You laugh to yourself, “What the fuck? How long have you been here for?” he presses his hand against his chest, “Gonna give me fucking war flashbacks.”

“Been here since dinner, which was…” you trail off, looking at the time, “About four hours ago, apparently.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do? Like watch the arena?” Finnick slips off his shoes and socks, beginning to unbutton his shirt.

“I did that all day, I actually waited here to tell you that it’s your turn.”

His eyes land on you, “To what?”

“Watch the tributes, sit in the betting room until I relieve you.”

His face twists, “Nice choice of words.”

You roll your eyes, “You owe me this much. I’ll give you a quick rundown about what happened--”

“I already know.”

You throw the pillow at him, “Perfect! You can put your shirt back on and go downstairs!”

He looks at you, “(Y/n), I’m tired.”

“I’ve been up since eight this morning.” you give him a smile, “It’s now nearly midnight. I think you can sit in the betting room for a couple of hours.”

“A couple is two.” Finnick says, “You’re asking me to sit in there for ten.”

“Which is almost half of what I did today! It’s only fair!”

He stares at you. He doesn’t look tired on the outside. In fact, it looks like he just woke up a couple of hours ago. If he were tired, he’d be more sluggish, and you’d know because you’ve been around him for years now. And the last week has shown you what it’s like to actually interact with him when he’s had tough days and nights.

Today is neither of them for him.

“Okay.” Finnick agrees.

“Okay?” you raise your eyebrows, “Sweet. I’ll be up at seven and down there at eight to switch places, then.”

Finnick starts buttoning his shirt back, you give him a cheeky smile, getting off the hammock and heading towards the door. You’re about to leave, but then you stop and turn towards him.

“If I get down there tomorrow morning and you’re nowhere to be seen, you’re not going to like what happens.” there’s no smile, the words are dead cold. Finnick stares at you, fingers frozen in place, “I can promise you that. Goodnight.”

REDAMANCY IS PART 2 OF A TRILOGY //MASTERLIST//

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vinylhazza · 3 years

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“i want to go home” and “let me go” with ethan 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 make it angsty i missed ur angst

you don’t want to fight with him. you weren’t the fighting type, but christ he can be insufferable sometimes. it hurt you to fight with him - no matter how much he deserved to have his ass handed to him on more than one occasion.

ethan is stubborn. often times brooding during your time together. you’ve known that since the first day you met him and watched with confused delite when he refused for you to pay for your own coffee only minutes after having small talk. he wasn’t the easiest to understand right off the bat that’s for sure. he’d talked of things far beyond your comprehension and spoke eloquently. he’d inserted his card into the chip reader with his brows turned down in a pout, dark hair a perfect mess atop his head, shoes shined, suit pressed. the corners of his mouth drooped to match his adorable pout, merely shaking his head briskly when you’d tried to pay him back. you’d known it to be a kind gesture, and he confirmed those thoughts by later slipping the small white receipt piece in your jacket pocket with seven messy digits drawn right next to a sloppy smiley face.

you still have that receipt in the top drawer of your nightstand. that spark...you remembered that first spark. thinking of him from that day on was habit, and often times more than you could handle. he’d captured a part of you before you’d even realized it. he had that effect on people.

you waited weeks until you’d texted him, too much of a chicken-shit to think he actually meant it as anything more than a kind gesture for listening to him drone on about marketing for at least a half an hour. to your surprise, he had texted back in minutes. from them on he’d made every attempt at scoring a date with you, and when he finally did - you had the best night of your life.

boy did the man have a personality. take that as you will.

if he so much as felt you were having an attitude, he’d refuse your kisses until you agreed to talk to him like a “big girl.” you knew from the moment he whipped his head to the side and shut his eyes, your body going still where you leaned across the table watching him pay bills or work on deadline work. not only did it make you want to fall into the floor and hope the foundation swallowed you up, but it forced you to talk - something you could never get him to do.

ethan only buys you the best of the best despite your objections. you figured that’s what love means to him in a way, giving your all even if it wasn't emotionally. you'd never had the guts to tell him you like to be held more than anything. he makes sure to never leave you unsatisfied in bed - especially if he noticed your legs weren’t shaking hard enough to his liking. tells you any story you want to hear if it means you’ll sleep peacefully. let’s you read your favorite books to him: his head in your lap, arms crossed over his chest in thought, pondering eyes on the ceiling. he’d stop you for explanations along the way. it was an adorable habit that you will love until the end of time. the fact that he wanted to hear your thoughts. you found yourself jotting down scribbles in the margins just to remember the moments exactly as they were: pure.

he tries to act hard, like the world is his slave and bends at his will, you know - oh you know just how soft his heart truly was. even if he was an arrogant ass 87% of the time. but he’s learning. how to be a boyfriend, how to be a man that doesn’t have to hide from vulnerability and emotion. he’s learning despite his discomfort.

ethan never wanted help when making the bed, no matter how many times you insisted and he always wanted to help you put your sunscreen on during summer and run your baths when you’ve had a long day. his work computer was shut off at seven sharp every night and shower always started at six in the morning. keys must be placed on their rightful hook and shoes on the mat. notepad must be placed on his side of the bed in case a thought wakes him in the night and he can’t go to sleep until he writes it down. all of which were non negotiable. he was stubborn, yes...but you loved him.

above all else there was love. so much love it consumed him deep in the pits of his body, mind and soul. even if he couldn’t, or much rather wouldn’t explain just how much you’d bewitched him...there was love.

he had a funny way of showing this love through obstacles and hoops you’d taken forever to jump through early on in your odd relationship. first it was friendship, a strange friendship at that. mostly consisting of calling each other randomly to ask what the person was thinking at that moment, which led to conversations of witches, wizards, and ghouls - children's tales and memories from the past that sprung free of the net. regardless if he meant for it to happen or not, that friendship blossomed into a whirlpool of admittances he would have damned himself for in the past:

“I wanted to see you”

“I hope you're okay”

“let me know when you get home safe”

“can you read that part again? I like the sound of your voice”

“I know you got that job, they’d be insane not to hire you”

“come over, I miss you”

“do you miss me too?”

“I thought of you today”

friendship turned into fire kindling in the pits of him

he wasn’t easy to trust others and you’d earned that trust fair and square. first through kindness, honesty, and a lot of self control. he wasn’t like every guy you’d been with in the past and you didn’t treat him like such. you’d been the only one to take your time and learn the inner workings of his mind and understand, not just engage or maintain his happiness. you’d expanded your craft in making him happy. giggling in bed at 3am, lovestruck, insanely, truly, madly, deeply happy. but demons don’t go away forever, and good behavior must be learned - especially with a life that has treated you unfairly.

you understood how troubled ethans mind could be at times and you tried to be patient. patient enough that when he looked over at you, he trusted that you’d listen to him even if he was being irritating and crude. the darkness swirling in his eyes didn't scare you off, not like the others. you chose to stay time and time again. not that you were a push over by any means but one must understand how hard it became sometimes, to be patient in times where he blocked out every voice, every noise, every reasonable answer and refused to listen. refused your help and your advice, gave you silence as a reward for thirty minutes of trying to make him smile. it was frustrating to be ignored.

there was a lesson you'd known to be true: no matter how many stars you wish on, how many pennies you drop into the well, nothing is ever as perfect as it seems.

you had told him more times than you could count on one hand: you weren’t his enemy. when it felt like the world was out to get him, like the sky was black and blue and he couldn’t see any light in the foreseeable future, you were there with a kind hand to lead him back. back to himself, reality, sanity. with the good came the bad and the constant back and forth it was taking it’s toll. if something didn’t change soon, he’d find that his light has left him in the clouds.

that’s how you found yourself sitting with your fingers fiddling in your lap, in the passenger seat of a car that you’d have to sell your soul to be able to afford, the hot air blowing through the vents and over your now trembling fingers, dress now more tight and uncomfortable than it seemed to be half an hour ago. you tried focusing on anything than the eery silence, save for the quiet music rolling through the speakers. it was easier than you’d thought to drown out the voices - you weren’t in the mindset to listen to someone else's problems. the many rings you wore now the main focal point for the agonizing hour drive back to your shared apartment.

it was a collection of pointless noise. pointless for the simple reason that the only sound you really wanted at the time was ethans voice. the low vibration that shot sparks straight to your stomach, the vibrato that sounded like home. anything to let you know he was okay, that he was working through his emotions instead of shutting them off.

“you okay?”

the last thing that had been said in over 30 minutes. you knew he was frustrated with himself by the white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, the way he drove at least ten over the speed limit, and the torturous strain of his taught jaw muscles, eyes shooting daggers at the road. he hadn’t given you an answer.

if you’d known Alec would be there, you never would have gone. you never thought in a million years you’d be seeing him again unless forced by the universe to punish you. punish you both. how often did you see your boyfriends ex bestfriend who happened to co-exist as the ex of your very own bestfriend? a person you’d both chosen to cut ties with for a multitude of reasons. for the better. a lying manipulating cheater that had no place in your life or anyone that you loved. the connection between the two had been a shock at first, but you were quick to warn ethan about the deceitful nature of his “friend.” you wondered how you’d never met ethan before considering that link but were thankful he decided to shoot his shot in the café not a block from your old apartment.

alec was...sneaky. not only had he betrayed you and your bestfriend, shown his true colors, but he’d also betrayed ethan - his closest companion for over a decade. it wasn’t long before he dropped the both of them like they were a virus he was glad to be rid of. it broke your heart to see them both grieve the man they thought they knew. from that day forward, you made it your mission to try and lessen that pain for the two of them in whatever way you could. you became the anchor to a ship gone rogue.

you’d been just as shocked as ethan to see him at the event. an event he wouldn’t have even been at, had it not been for ethan and his good word.

alec was part of the holding company, Rissito’s Publishing Co golden boy. a new top boss only thanks to ethans referral and promise that he’d “kill it.” HR ate it up. if only ethan had known beforehand the betrayal that would unleash after his hiring - he’d have stuck his foot in his mouth long before he told HR to give him a chance.

Alec was someone who gained respect without earning it first. someone who took advantage of a good friends kindness and used it for his own benefit, while leaving that same friend in the dust. he was a dispicable tyrant that had nothing better to do than ruin people to get ahead. no matter what cost.

he was someone who rarely showed his face at events that gave him no ego boost or feeling of supremacy.

you didn’t think your stomach would twist up at the the mere sight of his icy blonde air, unbelievable posture, and wicked grin. but it did. the few times you’d met him for your friend and for ethan...you’d felt the wind of something bad. “something wicked this way comes” right?

you’d been so stunned that you’d stopped in your tracks and let go of ethan’s hand altogether. the air stuck somewhere deep down in your chest, threatening to burst if you didn’t get as far away as you could. of course he would be here, he was invited to speak on behalf of the company. you quickly scolded yourself, reminded that this night wasn’t about you or alec no matter what past or resentment you held - it was about being there in support of ethan and his accomplishments.

alec had strolled up on stage draped with navy velvet curtains, right to a glass podium clear enough that you had to squint to see it just to “give his thanks and welcome” to the crowd of overdressed office workers. you wondered for a brief moment how strange he sounded when he spoke formally. like a robot coached to please. he’d used the same voice when he gaslighted your friend into thinking she was insane and needed help. really he was the lost boy. he spoke down to the group of people he now had authority over. people you knew he didn’t give two fucks about. he looked the same as you remembered - but if possible more sinister. he was the devil in the flesh and someone you knew could set ethan off in seconds. to your horror, your suspicions were true.

this was ethan’s night. at least to you and everyone that cared about him. a night he worked hard towards and quite frankly busted his ass to achieve. he deserved the silver platters, champagne, laughs with his co-workers, a pat on the back from his boss standing somewhere near the exit that you’d missed somehow on your way in. you knew it would be ruined if he let his anger get the best of him. you couldn’t stop his fuse igniting, and just when you thought you’d made it to the clear, that he’d been paying too much attention in trying to find snacks to satisfy his growling stomach - ethan froze beside you. statue still and glaring at alec. you were shocked alec didn’t drop dead from the look.

“i want to go home,” ethan had seethed immediately upon seeing Alec rise to the podium, grabbing your wrist tight with his fingers. too tight would describe his hold. much too tight. he all but ignored your grimace and look of confusion.

“we just got here ethan, you haven’t even received the award,” you had tried to reason with him. he was acting brash. impulsive and irrational. he’d be called to the stage any moment, an award he obviously no longer cared about. when ethan was set on a mission, he was rarely persuaded.

“i don’t give a fuck,” he growled lowly, turning to look at you with laser hot eyes, “i don’t want to be anywhere near that prick and honestly i don’t know why you would either, y/n.”

it stung to hear him spit your name through his clenched teeth, but you tried your best to ignore it.

you heard him. you did. but you also knew he’d regret walking out the door more than he thought at the time. for years all he’s wanted was the recognition that he’d get in just a few minutes - the praise you knew he yearned for. but he was hell bent on getting the hell away from he who must not be named.

“tonight isn’t about him. it’s about your amazing accomplishments. something you’ve earned and worked hard for. don’t let him take this away from you!” of course your words fell on deaf ears. he wasn’t in any position to negotiate.

“stop. talking,” he barked, nails digging into your delicate skin, marching through the crowd of concerned on-lookers.

“ethan stop...you’re hurting me. please stop and talk to me, we can go to the bathroom or something,” you begged, trying not to blush with all eyes set on the two of you. taking a quick glance around to the raised eyebrows and turned up lips you shook your head in embarrassment. you were mortified to be a part of such a scene.

you were embarassed to be causing such a scene at a prestigious event for one of the biggest publishing companies in the country. it caused your stomach to turn at the thought of ever having to face the crowd of people again. your office visits would be few and far between after this.

“baby please,” you whimpered pathetically, trying yet again to be a voice of reason. you figured a pet name would get through to him. hopefully to calm the storm crashing in his head, “stop and look at me.”

“all he’s ever done is fucking ruin things, y/n. don’t you agree? he caused you and i both havoc for MONTHS and you want to stand and listen to this fucking shit?” he barked, turning to look at you with daggers for eyes, “i’ll be damned if i stare at his cocky smirk all night long.” you worried his jaw might break from the strength of his clenching, but chose to keep your knit picking you yourself he’d grumbled one last “fucking dickhead.” before you’d flinched at the aching of your wrist.

being dragged through a crowd of people wasn’t exactly the easiest task when you could barely keep up with his strides on a daily basis, let alone when he was sprinting around tables set for a feast, elegantly dressed men and women, staff that bustled about, and security that eyed you both like a hawk - thankful for your hasty exit.

“let me go!” you cried with one final feeble attempt to reach him through his blind rage from just the sight of the man that had hurt you both deeply. you wretched your hand like a girl gone mad, ignoring the gasps of people much too prudish to ever sympathize with your situation - all they knew what judgment and riches.

guilt crashing through his wall of xxx only allowing him a horrified glance back at your pained expression, yanking his hand back and away from you without a word. he held his arm to his chest as if it pained him to touch you in any way but his usual soft caress.

you watched warily when he turned toward the open set of double doors, this time without grabbing you. you had half a mind not to follow him. but you weighed your options heavily: stay for no reason and get judged and ridiculed by a crowd of people that thought less of you than dirt and even worse, have to talk to alec? or run after ethan and hope for the best on the ride home? hanging your head, you gathered the bottom of your burgundy dress in your hands shyly as to not trip and humiliate yourself further, walking briskly towards the parking lot. you knew he’d be more than ashamed with himself for acting the way he had, disgusted with his failure to perceiver through a problem.

he’s lost control. ethan hated losing control.

isnt that exactly what alec would want? he would want to see ethan crumble before his eyes and the many eyes of people he’s meant to be composed and professional around. create a name for himself: not a good one.

he would want to see him act out and lose his sanity with resentment and hatred in front of the well respected business men and women he worked with daily. alec was far too narcissistic to admit to his wrongdoings, but had a way of making his victims seem crazy. it was the toxicity you’d dealt with for the entirety of your miserable relationship. you felt ill at the fact that ethan had to experience it. had to deal with it for the sake of his job.

he did hate him, more than he’d admit. but really what lied beneath the surface is something he’s only admitted to you once before when he’d had one too many shots. more than anything, alec caused him a great deal of pain. ethan was hurt by his late friend. he was hurt by the reckless behavior and betrayal. he was hurt that alec tried to take his job out from under him instead of being satisfied with what he had. he was hurt that he treated you no greater than a peasant. he was hurt that he’d thrown away years of friendship just to get ahead. more than anything, ethan was hurt. but of course he was too stubborn to say that to you, to anyone, maybe even too scared to admit it to himself.

pulling into the parking garage was in no way an experience you wanted to relive again. the silence pained you. the silence pained him too, and you know it whether or not he’d say so. your tears, silently falling right next to the man you’d normally run to, went unnoticed. the yellow-orange of the lights bounced off the hood of the car to illuminate your devestated expression. you couldn’t believe how the night had played out and how easy it had been for alec to get the best of you both. he had won. again. the thought made your stomach churn.

he was out of line tonight. he’s not only made an ass of himself in front of the head management of his company, but he’d had total disregard for his actions towards you - physical and verbal. tonight...he was someone you didn’t want to be around.

your wrist was red from where he’d grabbed you at the party, reminding you that ethan did need a serious wake up call. you’d done as much as you could to soothe him and you won’t be subject to his wrath.

when he finally turned into a parking spot and turned the car off, he finally did speak. but it was in no way what you wanted to hear.

“they’ll hold the award. i would have been on the stage speaking for a couple seconds before they moved on.”

despite your efforts, you scoffed at how abtuse he really was to the situation.

“i asked if you were okay. but you acted very not okay and i don’t know how to help you or even if i want to,” you told him earnestly, eyes glued to your lap.

“what does that even mean?” ethan snapped, running a hand through his hair.

you watched as a grey expedition passed in the side mirror before you chose to respond as calmly as you could.

“it was so easy for you to lose control.”

“i don’t stay in situations that hinder me or the people i care about.”

“oh so now you care about me?”

“that’s not fair, y/n,” he sighed, shaking his head and looking out his respective window.

“and this is?” you hold up your reddened wrist, just far enough that he couldn’t ignore the gesture and turned to look at you briefly.

“it wasn’t personal, i just get so...”

“angry. you were angry and i understand why you would be. al...he showed up out of nowhere and you don’t do well with surprises. but he is a part of that company now and maybe we both should have prepared ourselves before we stepped foot out of the apartment tonight. i didn’t deserve that and neither did anyone else at the event tonight.”

he opened his mouth to speak, another excuse your sure but you carried on while blinking back hot tears.

“you were impulsive and gave no mind to the way you treated me and how it must have looked to your boss who watched us leave not even 30 minutes after we arrived. how do you think you’ll feel in the morning when this is all you’ve wanted and you let him ruin it? you always said you were done letting people get the best of you.”

“he has a way of pissing me off and he’s just- he doesn’t care okay?! he sat up there and told lies, y/n. he doesn’t give a fuck about the job or the people or even all of the good we do and dreams we help make a reality. i...i should have been the one up there talking...” ah...so jealousy it was.

“ethan,” you laugh, not with humor but disbelief, “you know he’s as fake as they come. he doesn’t care like you do. you will have your time to shine and you would have tonight if you hadn’t ran away like a coward.”

“i don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he grumbled, opening the latch on the door in an attempt to get out and leave a conversation where he had to talk about how he felt.

“you can run all you want but one day these feelings will catch up with you and you’ll crash. you’ve opened up quite a bit with me over the past few months and i’ve noticed that change and i’ve been proud. more than anything i’m proud...but this has to stop,” you grab him by his bicep, forcing him to look at the tears that fell onto your cheek, ignoring the stiff silence without the aid of the radio and air conditioning, “you have to start believing in yourself like i do. who gives a fuck if he’s a man with five seconds of fame he didn’t even earn? you bust your ass every single day and you know it.”

his eyes shoot across your kind face, landing on your eyes that scream he’s sorry, he messed up, he wants to talk but doesn’t know what to say.

“no one can make you feel inferior without your permission remember?” you nod, trying your best to give him a smile. you suppose it looked more like a grimace.

“right,” he huffs, sucking in a breath like he’d been suffocating the entire ride home, and maybe he had. he’s pressing the palms of his hands flat against his eyes in an attempt to cover up whatever emotion threatened to expose him, “fuck him dude.”

“fuck him is right,” you chuckled dryly, flopping back against the leather back of the seat.

in the silence you waited. you must have been sitting together in the orange glow of the lights for thirty more minutes, the time passing slow. you watched him pull himself together, breathing even in an attempt to build up the nerve to talk once again.

finally he’d looked at you with those eyes you fell in love with. the hazel brightness that was a gate to who he truly was. a soft man with a traumatic story that wasn’t his fault. he fought hard for everything he had and he’d built a good life for himself. he was a different, better, man than he’d been the day he paid for your coffee without question. he was unsure of himself and self-conscious to the point he didn’t know what his purpose was. he’d bounced around from girl to girl, drank away his sadness...but you. you. you must have been his saint. his angel placed in his path for a reason. he couldn’t have felt shittier when he looked over at your wet cheeks and hair falling out of it’s elegant up-do.

you’d flinched at the feeling of his fingers trailing over the splotchy fingerprints on your wrist. this time, you welcomed the touch, staring at his hand tracing the damaged he’d caused. you tried not to bunch your dress up in your other hand.

“i hurt you.”

you nod slightly, not having the energy to respond with anything else.

“i embarassed you.”

another nod.

“i won’t do it again,” he whispered, fully ashamed of himself, “and i’ll...i’m gonna talk to Jeff on Monday. apologize for running off. i’ve never been that person and i acted before i could think straight. you were right. i earned this night and i shouldn’t have let him get to me so quickly. seeing him shouldn’t break me down. it was cowardice and i made an ass of us both and i’m sorry. i’ll try my best to make it right.”

smiling gently, you find yourself leaning over the console to kiss him on the apple of his cheek. his warmth shot sparks through your chest and stomach, something youre sure you’ll never get used to.

“we’ll figure this out together. that’s what we do. side by side. we figure shit out when it seems hopeless and when we look like idiots. it’s called being a team you dummy. thank you for apologizing. but...you know what i’d love?”

the light tone of your voice had him smiling in no time, his head rolling on his neck to look at you, head resting back against the seat.

“if i chilled the fuck out?” he teased with a grin.

“yes...but not what i was gonna say,” you continue smiling, raising his hand to kiss over his knuckles, “i was going to say...i’d love for us to go upstairs so i can get out of this ridiculously tight dress.”

inching towards you he nods, eyes latched on your lips. you feel his breath fan over your skin, goosebumps rising on your arms and legs. he’s moving slowly, enough that if your lips didn’t meet soon you’d get impatient.

“i’m sure we can make that happen,” he mumbles, so low you almost don’t hear him.

you know from this point on, you can trust him on his word. you can’t think to hesitate when he tilts your chin up to connect your lips in a gentle kiss. the fire kindling in your stomach burns brighter when he nips at your bottom lip, asking for permission. you part your lips eagerly, deepening the kiss.

the growth you’ve seen just from this conversation had you hoping for a future where he trusts you completely and didn’t shy away when his own mind punished him into make rash decisions. he’d owned up to his mistake and meant everything he’d said. it would be the last time alec got the best of him. it would be the last time he’d run away from a battle he knew he had the strength to conquer, especially with you at his side.

you’d deal with the consequences of his actions tomorrow, but for now the two of you lived in your own world - far away from alec, the banquet, and any other outside force that threatened to tear you apart. he’d placed his trust in you, and you’d do anything in your power to protect it.

#asks #e!concepts #ethan!concepts #cozyethan #i hope you like it!#it’s long af soooo

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berrynarrybanana · 4 years

Text

take it out on me - honeybee extra

A/N: I don’t know if anyone has seen the video of those girls throwing water at Harry’s car but first of all fuck them and second that’s so not chill. I got a little upset but then I started thinking about going home with H and having him take it out on you. And then I started writing this piece which was supposed to be for BFHarry’s fic challenge and then it turned into husband and soon to be dad H with Beatrice and Harry! I am forewarning you that this is filthy and I hope you enjoy.

Word Count: 3k+

Warnings: Cursing, Crying, Evil “fans”, pregnancy sex, mild choking king, dominant aspects, and cockwarming

Sometime in the fall of 2022

Friday, 6:00 PM, London

Being home in London felt good.

As a little girl, I always dreamed of living in the land of the Queen. I perfected my English accent by the time I was ten, whipping it out at parties and sometimes school plays. When I was 15, a freshman in high school, I auditioned for our school play that would take place in Kent, England. Our sister school would accept us in their homes for six months of the year while we rehearsed and learned together. I was crushed when I didn’t get the part and I was utterly terrified that I would never get the chance to see London or Brighton. But after meeting Harry, it was one of the first serious conversations we had. The third night of our relationship, we were cuddled up in his Malibu home, talking about forever. He mentioned going home to see his Mum after his first solo world tour and though I was upset that he would be so far, I was happy for him.

“I’m gonna tell her about you, you know?” He kissed over my wet cheeks as I sniffled. “Gonna tell my Mum about the girl I met in L.A and how she’s gonna be my wife someday.”

Three days.

That’s how long we had known each other when he said that.

And he wasn’t wrong about it.

I stepped out of my London car with my purse and to go coffee mug in hand. The car was far too expensive for my taste, but Harry insisted on having me drive the safest car on the market. Wanda, my very first Audi SUV, was big enough to fit myself, Harry, and the car seat he had installed for our future son. I dropped a free hand to my stomach, softly caressing my baby bump with a smile on my face. Ellis was kicking up a storm as he normally did around this time. I was done with work and the sun was setting which meant that a talk with Daddy would only be moments away.

“It’s alright little love,” I winced at a particularly hard kick. “Daddy's home, just give me a moment to get inside.”

I let out a heavy sigh, walking up the few steps to our newest home.

It still wasn’t quite ready yet, walls unpainted and furniture askew, but it was home.

I was still working in Milan with Vogue for at least three more weeks and Harry was on his European leg of the tour. I was in town for my doctor’s appointment scheduled for Saturday, and Harry was free of any shows or interview obligations for the weekend. In three weeks, I would officially be home in London and on maternity leave. I would be working from home, skyping with Anna and talking with the board about the new London office, but it would be nice to enjoy some time with Ellis and Harry without any work obligations getting in the way.

“Darling,” I called out, shutting the door behind me with a smile. “Are you home?”

“Just in the kitchen, honeybee!” Harry called out.

I dropped my purse on the table by the front door, dropping my keys inside so they wouldn’t get lost before tomorrow. Next, I slipped off my shoes and then peeled myself out of my jacket. It was by no means freezing in London, but the fall chill was starting to set in. I made my way towards our kitchen, my hands pressed into my bump as my nose picked out the scent of oregano and tomato. Harry’s back was towards me, his hands working on something on the countertop. He looked delectable, as always, his back covered by a black t-shirt and a pair of highwaisted trousers settled on his tiny little hips. With a happy hum, I moved around the kitchen island.

“Hiya squid.” I pressed my lips over his shoulder, pressing my hands to his hips.

“There’s my girl.” He peered over his shoulder, dropping the knife he had been using before reaching for a tea towel. “Gimme a kiss.”

He turned around as I puckered my lips out, kissing him a few times before his hands took over resting on my bump. For a split second, we had a moment to ourselves. But it was over the moment Ellis started kicking around again, angry that he wasn’t greeted by his Daddy before me.

“Ellis, little man, you’ve gotta stop that.” I frowned, glancing down at my belly. “Mummy and Daddy are trying to say hello.”

“Is someone being a little bugger today?” Harry hummed, crouching down until he was at eye level with my belly. “That’s not very nice, Ellie, is it?”

Our son calmed down seconds after hearing Harry’s voice.

“I think he needs you to fall asleep.” I whispered, brushing my fingers through Harry’s hair as he looked up at me. “He’s been kicking around all day so I know he’s tired.”

“S’alright little one.” Harry kissed over my belly a few times before standing up. “Why don’t you get changed into something more comfortable and then settle in on the couch. Dinner is nearly done and I’ll be right there.”

“Alright.” I smiled, humming happily when Harry pressed his lips to mine again. “I love you.”

“Love you too, honey.”

Saturday, 10:00 AM; London

Harry and I’s pregnancy wasn’t news to anyone.

Working for Vogue and being Harry Styles’ wife meant that a lot of eyes were on me constantly. Anna suggested biting the bullet and doing a spread for the magazine would be our best option. A few months ago, we agreed. There was a maternity shoot done in our L.A home with me barefoot and pregnant and Harry doting on me as he always did. We did a quick interview on paper, a quick photo shoot, and a small video tour of our home before Anna called it quits. The world went crazy when it all came out, the official announcement on my Instagram promoting the video. Since then, it had been quiet. There wasn’t a lot of fuss over me and Harry was still getting his usual amount of fans at the airport and other places when he traveled, but other than that we were fine.

Until today.

“Mr. Styles,” The receptionist at our OBGYN’s office in London looked nervous. “There’s quite a large crowd of people outside of our building.”

“Bloody hell.” He grumbled under his breath, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’ll have it taken care of. I’m very sorry about that, love.”

“S’alright.” She said quickly. “We’ve locked the doors so no one is permitted in and our other patience won’t be her until after lunch. It should be fine.”

“Thank you.” She nodded before retreating from our exam room. “I need to let Jeff know. We need someone to have the car pulled around when we leave.”

“You can go talk to them while we wait, Harry.” I said softly, reaching for his hand. “Or after, even, I don’t mind.”

“M’not really in the mood today.” He mumbled, reaching for his phone. “I want you in the car, untouched and safe more than anything.”

I didn’t argue with him, nodding along as Ellis moved around in my belly.

Harry spent most of the wait typing on his phone, no doubt talking with Jeff. I sat there anxiously, twiddling with my fingers while I waited for our doctor to come in. Another ultrasound would be happening today and we would be going over the final steps of my pregnancy and birth plan. When Dr. Hillcrest stepped inside, my heart rate increased. Harry put his phone away, reaching for my hand as she greeted us.

“So, how have you been feeling Mummy?” She asked, sitting down on her stool with her clipboard in hand. “Any braxton hicks?”

“Once or twice.” I nodded. “First time I thought I was in labor, scared the hell out of me.”

“It is quite scary when you’re not used to it.” She chuckled. “As we’re nearing the end of your third trimester, there are some things we need to go over. We’re doing tests for Glaucoma, Anemia, Hep B, and a few other things. We’ll be going over the final steps of your birth plan today as well. Have you toured any of the hospital’s in Milan?”

“Yes, I did a few last week.” I nodded. “I’ve decided on Mangiagalli.”

“Perfect.” She said. “I’ll get in contact with the head of the Maternity Ward today and I’ll make sure they have all of the information.”

“We’re really hoping he’s not born in Milan.” Harry chuckled softly. “It would be a bit odd to have him there while Beatrice is trying to close out the office.”

“Odd is a very nice way to say it.” I laughed. “But I’m glad we’re prepared.”

“Babies wait for no one.” Dr. Hillcrest let out a soft chuckle. “I hope you don’t deliver there either, I would love to be there with you when you deliver.”

It took another hour or two before we were finished in the office.

I was told that in about four weeks, I would need to stop flying.

That gave me plenty of time to get things finished up in Milan before making it home to London. Harry had plenty of questions for Dr. Hillcrest and I was thankful that he remembered all the ones I wanted to ask as well. When we were done with the testing and the ultrasound, Harry helped me slip back into my comfortable clothes before lacing his fingers with mine. The nervous smile he gave me meant there was still a crowd outside that we had to deal with. I squeezed his finger, reassuring him that no matter what happened, we would be fine.

“The car is up front.” He said softly. “We’re getting you in first and then me. No stopping, no talking, just get in the car.”

“Alright.” I said softly. “We’ll be fine.”

“I know.” He kissed me quickly before leading me outside.

The cheering increased, loud screams and Harry’s name being chanted nearly shocked me. I hadn’t seen a crowd this big outside of a building before. I glanced over at Harry, my heart rate picking up a little as he talked to a man dressed in all black. Harry glanced back at me, pulling me closer to his side before ushering me to the car. He opened the passenger side door for me, shielding my body from the crowd as my hands started to shake. He reached for my seat belt, his eyes full of worry and anxiety.

“I’m sorry, honey.” He cooed, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek. “S’gonna be alright. Just give me a minute, yeah?”

“I love you.” I said, reluctant to let his hand go.

“I know, honey.” His lips pressed into mine. “You’ve gotta let go so I can get in, okay?”

I nodded weakly, loosening my grip up.

Harry shut the door and I tried to avoid looking out the window, but there was a crowd of girls moving in closer and closer. I was afraid that they would get to the door before I did, but I couldn’t lock Harry out. I gasped when the drivers side door opened, snapping my head around to see Harry. He locked the doors before flipping the car in drive. Seconds after we started moving, I heard thudding against the side of the car door. My anxiety was washed away by anger, water splashing against the side of the car as they continued to throw their bottles at us.

“Fucking hell.” I snapped, my fingers balling up into fists. “That’s just ridiculous.”

Harry didn’t say a word, peeling out of the lot and onto the streets of London.

He was careful not to speed the entire way home, but I could tell that he wanted to.

At some point, his hand landed on my thigh, squeezing firmly as his jaw clenched. I watched the profile of his face, worried more about how he was taking it than myself. These were his fans that had pissed him off. They had come to close for comfort and they had crossed a line when they started throwing things at us. When we made it home, he slammed the car into the park before getting out. Gently, he helped me out of the car, his hand landing right on my bump as my feet hit the ground. The small action sparked something in me, a pool of wetness beginning to form between my thighs. When we made it in the house, Harry started to move away from me.

“Wait,” I said, holding his hand tightly. “Where are you going?”

“Gonna go blow off some steam.” He said. “I’m fucking livid.”

“I know.” I nodded. “Take it out on me.”

“What?” He said, his wild eyes growing wider as he let out a bitter laugh. “I’m not gonna do that, Beatrice.”

“I want you to take it out on me, Harry.” I stepped forward, reaching for his other hand. “Fuck me.”

“Beatrice, no.” He said. “What happens if I’m too rough? What happens if I lose-”

“As if I would let you do anything to harm me seriously, Harry.” I scoffed. “You’ll be fine and I promise to tell you if it’s too much. But please, fuck me.”

His chest was heaving as he looked down at me, his lips shiny from licking and biting over them nervously in the car. He let out a soft curse before lunging forward, his hands grabbing my face firmly. I whimpered in relief when he pressed his lips into mine, his tongue showing no mercy as it explored my mouth. It had been weeks since we made love and months since we’d had a proper fuck. Things were more tender for us in the bedroom, Harry’s fear of harming me or Ellis ever present at the front of his mind. When my bum collided with the couch, I knew I was going to get what I wanted from him. Harry pulled his lips from mine, tugging my shirt over my head quickly.

My leggings were next to go, my hands pressed into his shoulders as I clumsily stepped out of them. I didn’t bother with a bra or panties, knowing that our only stop would be the doctor's office today. When Harry’s head disappeared past my bump, I whined. Seconds later, I felt his teeth scraping over my thigh before lightly biting down. I welcomed the sting, a rush of warmth flooding over me as my pussy began to throb before him. Harry pulled back when I started to move my hips closer to his face, wanting to feel his tongue caressing my clit.

“Not now.” He growled out, standing up. “Upstairs, on the bed.”

“What?” I squeaked out, sure that I would get my proper fucking right here. “What’s wrong with the floor?”

“Now, Beatrice.” He gripped my chin with his thumb and forefinger, his voice stern. “On all fours.”

When I turned around reluctantly, pouting at the missed opportunity for floor sex, I felt a sharp smack on my ass. I cried out, glancing back at Harry as I pressed my hand over my bum. Harry smirked at me, crossing his arms as I waddled away with narrowed eyes. I had asked for it and I was definitely going to get what I wanted. I climbed up the stairs slowly, waddling towards our bedroom. When I made it to our bed, I did as I was told. My hands and knees pressed into the plush mattress, our duvet soft on the skin of my knees. Maybe this was better than the floor.

After a few moments, Harry was pushing into the room behind me. He wasted no time stripping himself down before kneeling on the bed behind me. I opened my mouth, prepared to make a smart comment about him being eager, but I was cut off before I could even speak. The head of his cock pushed into me first and then the rest followed. I gasped, dropping my head forward as his hips collided with mine. I clenched my eyes shut, welcoming the feeling of Harry’s length.

“Always squeeze me so good.” Harry moaned out behind me and I could imagine he’d dropped his head back in bliss. “Hold tight for me, yeah? Tell me if it’s too much, Beatrice. Promise me you will.”

“I promise,” I gasped out as he pulled away, his cock leaving my walls vacant and begging for more. It didn’t last long before was fucking into me again, harder this time as his fingers dug into the flesh of my hips. “Oh!”

Harry’s soft grunts and the force of his thrusts had me sitting on cloud nine. I was enjoying the pounding I was getting, his hips slapping against mine as he gave me everything he had. I was a babbling mess below him, begging for more, harder, faster, please! Harry met my every need, angling his hips perfectly so that he was hitting every spot within me that I needed to be satisfied. It didn’t take long for me to cum around him, my walls fluttering without warning as my arms started to grow weak. Harry was quick to mold his chest to my back, pulling me up until my head was dropped back on his shoulder. He had no problem fucking me just as hard as I came around his cock.

“V’got you honey,” He nipped at my ear. “I’ve got you. Gonna make you cum again for me, okay? Can you do one more for me?”

I nodded, but that wasn’t enough.

“Say it.” He grunted, sliding the hand that was holding my belly up to my throat. “Use your words.”

“Please, Harry.” I whimpered as his fingers rested over my throat. “Make me cum again.”

“Good girl.” His teeth raked over the skin of my shoulder before he bit down on me, a loud moan tearing from my throat. “There’s my girl, so fucking good for me all the time.”

“Yes, yes.” I cried out as he delivered a few thrusts that were harder than the others. “M’gonna cum, M’gonna-”

“Do it.” He said. “Cum on my cock honey. Give me a good one.”

A flash of white took over my senses as I tightened around his cock.

I wasn’t sure if I had moaned, my mouth dropped open as I reached out for Harry’s hand on my hips. My body jerked against his as he stilled inside of me, grunting loudly in my ear as his hips flexed forward. He pushed his cum inside of me, almost as if he was trying to put another baby in me. When I finally came back to my senses, Harry was slipping out of my walls and I was crying.

“No, no.” I sniffled, reaching back for his hips. “Stay.”

“Honey, I’m...I can’t.”

A soft sob ripped out of my throat and seconds later, Harry was guiding my body to the bed.

“What’s wrong, honey?” His hands were flying all over my body, pressing into my skin to make sure I was fine. He settled his palm on my belly, his eyes wide with fear. “What hurts?”

“I just wanted you to stay in me.” I sniffled, reaching up to wipe under my eyes. “I’m so empty now.”

“Oh, honey.” He collapsed on the bed next to me, kissing over my face. “It’s alright, it’s gonna be alright.”

I curled myself into his chest, digging my fingers into his sides as he covered our naked bodies with the throw at the end of our bed. He pressed gentle kisses over my forehead, brushing his hand up and down my back in soothing circles to try and calm me down. Rationally, I knew it was pregnancy hormones, but I still felt empty without his cock in me.

“Turn around fo’ me.” He whispered, patting my thigh. I did as he said, turning on my side as another sob pulled from my throat. “It’s alright, honey. Lift your leg up and put it on the pillow.”

He guided one under my leg, brushing his hand softly over my thigh as he moved his front closer to my back. Seconds later, I felt the head of his cock at my entrance.

“Hold on, sweet girl.” He whispered. “You ready?”

I nodded my head, reaching back to hold onto his hip as he slipped inside of me, harder than he had been earlier when we started our little escapade.

“So fucking tight, honey.” He whimpered into my ear. “S’that what you wanted?”

“Yes.” I gasped out wetly, nodding my head. “S’full.”

“Love you so much, Beatrice.” He whispered as I started to drift off. “Close your eyes for me honey, go to sleep.

“Love you, too.”

#honeybee #smut #harry styles smut #harry styles fic #harry styles writing #harry styles original fic #harry styles x ofc #harry styles one shot #harry styles blurb #my writing

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svu-ncis-criminalminds · 4 years

Text

Undercover Part 1

Hey all, I’m really really excited about this piece and I hope some of you are too! There will be some adult themes and some possible triggers. So warnings for mentions of canon typical violence including domestic violence, possible verbally abusive family trigger, and scenes with adult sexual content. That all being said please let me know if you enjoy it and a part two will be out soon.

---

Your phone began to ring in your pocket and you fished it out in case it was Liv with orders or Rollins with the update from the lab. Unfortunately it was neither. Just that guy you saw last Friday calling for the umpteenth time this week.

“Do ya need to take that?” Your partner looked at you with concerned eyes, why did he always have to look so concerned?

“No,” you assured, tucking the phone away again, “Nothing important,” Sonny tried to find your gaze but you avoided it, quickening your pace as you walked towards the witnesses apartment complex. Why did Sonny always have to worry? You got to the door and rang the bell next to their last name.

“Come on, whats up?” He asked and you merely glanced at him over your shoulder with a firm ‘drop it’ look. He grabbed your elbow anyway, grip gentle, “You can talk to me,” You felt bad now for shutting him out over such a stupid little thing, your partner was used to you telling him damn near everything. Well besides the minor detail that you were in love with him.

“Just some stupid failed Tinder date, level ten clinger.” You made a face and shrugged, “I told you it was nothing important.” Sonny’s face went neutral for a split second before smiling and opening his mouth to say something. Fortunately the conversation was cut short by the door opening. You turned and reentered professional mode, happy to leave that conversation about your ever failing date life behind.

Sonny had been your partner for a few years now, and you’d had feelings for him nearly the entire time. For a while you didn’t date, unable to try and find a connection when you knew there was one you wanted more. However, you had no possible chance with Sonny. Almost daily he reminds you that you're his best /friend/. And that would always sting a little.

But about a year ago you made a vow to yourself to try and stop loving Sonny, at least in that way. You began dating again, nothing serious ever came from anything. You kept comparing them to Sonny. They didn’t make you laugh like him, or feel safe like him.

And now? Now your sister was getting married at the end of the month, and you had a plus one that your parents expected you to fill. That was your fault for mentioning a possible future with a boyfriend who would end up being a douchebag. And now you were dateless and hopeless and wanting nothing more than to crawl under a rock.

---

“You wanna come round to my place for beers tonight? Or do you have a hot date?” Your partner asked, voice teasing. You know he wouldn’t do it if he knew it upset you, but you were a coward and couldn’t tell him it did. Or why it did.

“No hot dates for me, I’m swearing off men,” You joked back, leaning back in your chair to crack your back. You checked your watch and hummed slightly. “Time to go?”

“Time to go,” He agreed, “Does that mean you’ll come over?”

“Begrudgingly so,” You let out a drama sign and Sonny pouted at you from across your desks.

“You love me!” He proclaimed and you felt the heat rise up your neck at the words.

“I tolerate you.” You grumbled, not making eye contact as you packed your paperwork away. Sonny chuckled and did the same with his own work.

“Did you drive today?”

“I never drive.”

“Just checking,” He refuted.

You walked to Sonny’s car together, a modest smaller car, but still in good condition, Sonny was an expert at taking care of his things and making them last. You’ve seen the man keep a pen until it was empty. The drive was alright, traffic wasn’t bad and you talked about the ballgame Sonny had watched the night before. He had very strong opinions on everything, and you just enjoyed listening to him talk about something besides work.

Sonny kept a clean apartment in the sense that nothing was dirty. The kitchen was clean, the floors always swept. But the man still had clutter. Knick knacks he picked up in his college days and law books littered book shelves. You loved Sonny’s apartment. It was an extension of the man who stood in front of you opening beers with a butter knife.

“One day your gonna cut yourself.” You smirked, leaning against the counter as he struggled.

“It’s my party trick, open a bottle with a knife”

“You're not impressing me,” You grinned, and Sonny pointed the business end of the butter knife at you.

“Watch it, I’m armed.” You snatched the knife from him and hip-bumped him away from the beers popping one open then the next before handing the knife and one beer to Sonny. Some men you’ve dated would have grumbled at your display, but Sonny grinned like you’d just won a nobel prize.

“Incredible!” You shook your head before turning to go plop yourself down on Sonny’s couch, followed closely by the man. You watched some old cheesy movie that Sonny insisted was good (it wasn’t) but you enjoyed yourself, laughing and making jokes together. The credits rolled and a slightly tipsy Carisi tossed his arm around your shoulder to shake you slightly.

“Enjoyed it?”

“Oh yes. Especially the car chase, as cops we know that's exactly how that works.”

“Shut it,” Sonny laughed, “It’s a classic!” The room was quiet for a second too long, his arm still around your shoulder. Your lips felt loose from alcohol and you opened them before quickly clamping them shut again. “You okay?” the body beside you asked.

“I’m fine,”

“I mean.. In general.” He cleared his throat, “You’ve seemed down lately.” You smiled tightly and shrugged.

“I guess I’m just stressed out.”

“And if there was something else-”

“I’d tell you,” You promised the promise you always gave each other. But you were lying to him and that hurt you more than you could admit to even yourself, “I mean..” /what were you doing, abort mission, shut up!/ “I’ve just got this stupid family thing coming up.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“My sister is getting married.” You pulled a face. Your perfect little sister was marrying her douchebag high school sweetheart. Something about her being the youngest and getting married before you hadn’t been sitting right with your mother so she’d been even more intolerable lately. “And my mom is being.. Well, you’ve met her.” Some would call it being a strong type A personality, you called it lots of years of therapy.

“I’m sorry,” Sonny squeezed you into him, hand firm on your shoulder. You wanted to turn into him, embrace him and maybe even cry it out.

“Not your fault, at least it’s in the Bahamas. Maybe I’ll get a tan.” He laughed.

“Always a bright side.”

“I have a plus one.” What were you doing? Why did you just say that to him? Next time you were going to cut yourself off after 2 beers because obviously you couldn’t be trusted. You sat up slightly, playing with the hem of your shirt. “When I was seeing.. Adam, I told my mother I was bringing a boyfriend.” Sonny was always so patient with you, letting you get the words out as you collected your thoughts. “I haven’t told them what happened yet. And now I’m showing up alone, and they’re all gonna ask.” Your last relationship ended poorly. And that was being generous.

“That’s not their business if you don’t want it to be. Tell them he couldn’t make it. Tell them nothing, tell them whatever you want.” Sonny assured you.

“Do you want to be my plus one?” the words fell from your lips before you could stop them and the backpedaling started immediately. “I mean, as friends of course, moral support, you don't have to. Work is busy. It’s a weekend thing, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Give me the dates, I’ll ask Liv tomorrow.” Was the response, and that shut you up.

“Really?”

“Of course! I’d love to, I’ll have to get a new bathing suit.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Sonny you don't-”

“Y/N. I know, I want to. I’d never send you into the lion den alone. I’d happily be your boyfriend for the weekend.” Boyfriend? For the weekend. Your brain felt like white static for a second.

“Boyfriend?”

“Well, that’s who you told them you were bringing? I’ll be the best damn boyfriend any of them have ever seen.” He promised and you gave a tentative smile.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“If you say that to me again I’m proposing during the ceremony.” He threatened and you laughed. Sonny squeezed your shoulder again before withdrawing his arm and standing up to clean up the coffee table. “Guest room is all yours.”

---

Liv had told Sonny he could have the weekend off for the wedding as long as the days counted towards his mandatory 7 yearly vacation days and not as a personal day. He was more than happy to oblige. You were leaving right from work on Thursday and meeting your brother and his wife at the airport, they were living in Jersey and you were all flying out of JFK. And even though your brother was less than a three hour drive, you hadn’t seen him since the holidays the year prior. You sat at your desk, nervously shuffling papers around.

You were about to pretend to date the man you loved, for an entire weekend. Just to avoid telling your family you’d been cheated on and ruthlessly dumped in your previous relationship. Now it was setting in how this was fake and you’d eventually have to lie and tell them the best man you’d ever known had ‘dumped’ you. Because this fantasy was just for the weekend.

You looked up as Sonny came out of the bathroom now wearing casual clothing for the flight. Your heart nearly stopped seeing him in jeans and a light sweatshirt. ‘Planes are always cold’ he had informed you the night before ‘don’t forget a sweater’. He always was looking out for you. You yourself had changed before starting paperwork, into a pair of leggings and an oversized sweater, planning on sleeping for most of the journey.

“Are we ready?” He asked, grinning as he approached your desk, “I’ve never been to the Bahamas before.”

“Keep rubbing it in Carisi,” Fin grumbled, “You two get to live it up at the beach while we all double our load.” You stood up and went to Fin’s desk patting his head.

“I promise we owe you one.” He smiled and nodded.

“Just make sure you have fun for all of us, alright?”

“Alright. See you all Monday morning.” Your flight there was Thursday night, Rehearsal dinner was Friday, Wedding on Saturday, and then Sunday. Glorious sunday was freetime with a flight home after dinner. That was the time you were looking forward to the most.

Sonny insisted on carrying both suitcases downstairs and into the cab, and again when you got to the airport.

“We’re meeting my brother at the gate.” You informed him, “give me my bag.”

“A gentleman never lets his lady carry her bag.” He smirked.

The elderly lady ahead of you on the escalator turned her head and smiled. You felt yourself flush. Being Sonny’s girlfriend was the hardest undercover work you’d ever been tasked. You were far past ‘in over your head’ and it was way too late to turn back.

“Y/N!” A familiar voice called across the crowded room full of chairs that were full of families with screaming children heading on vacation.

“Cody,” You breathed, “That’s my brother.”

“I think I could take him,” Sonny joked and you laughed.

“I think you could too.”

You got to your brother and his shiny trophy wife and the man threw his arms around you in a hug you’d think you’d give to someone you actually spent time with. She hugged you next and you awkwardly accepted it patting her back.

“So good to see you!” She squealed, “I’m so excited for the wedding! It’s going to be lovely don’t you think.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Your brother asked, eyes trained on Sonny who was still holding tightly to both of your bags.

“Right. Cody and Anna this is Sonny, Sonny this is my brother and his wife.” Cody was the oldest of the siblings and to your parents he was the most perfect. Straight As, football star all American golden boy and all that bullshit. Now he was a doctor and had some pretty wife and a nice car and a big house. Still the perfect son. It was a large ego to live beside and your parents often had trouble seeing past him. Unless it was to point out something you could be doing to be more like him.

“The boyfriend,” Cody extended a hand signature condescending smile in place.

“Yup!” Sonny grinned back genuinely and took the hand shaking it, “Pleasure to meet you,” He then turned to Anna and extended his hand to her as well, “and you too.” She didn’t take the hand but she managed a polite nod and a smile. You watched Sonny drop his hand to his side, grin not faltering as he nudged you slightly.

“Ready?” You nodded stiffly and collapsed into a chair to wait, Sonny settling in at your side and your brother and his witch of a wife perching on your other side.

“Sonny what do you do for work?” Your brother asked across you and Sonny threw an arm around your shoulder as he turned to talk.

“I’m a detective with Y/N, it’s how we met.” Your brother was better at hiding his judgment but his wife pulled a face.

“Two detective salaries, it’ll be hard to continue living in New York, especially if you want a family.”

“Oh god,” You grumbled, briefly pinching the bridge of your nose. Sonny moved his hand to rub small and comforting circles into your neck with a good natured laugh.

“We’re a bit away from all of that I think,” You sat there impressed as Sonny continued to answer questions and dodge backhanded remarks with such a positive air. If this interrogation had been directed at you, you’d have snapped already and been accused of being in a bad mood like always. You weren’t always in a bad mood, they just always managed to put you there. But Sonny was an expert.

“So how long have you been dating?” Anna asked.

“About six months.” Sonny replied and you began to try and do the mental math.

“I thought you told mom you felt like things were getting serious about six months ago.” Cody started, turning to look at you. /Shit./

“Well that’s when I officially asked her to be my girlfriend, We’d been seeing each other for a couple months before that.” Sonny easily saved, using his free hand to brush some hair from your face. “I couldn’t believe my luck, I didn’t want to ask too soon and break the spell.” You flushed. Suddenly you needed to get out of there.

“Flight 307 to Treasure Cay Airport boarding in ten minutes.” The flight attendant announced. You stood suddenly.

“I have to use the bathroom.” Before the She Devil could offer to join you you were off. Ten minutes, you had ten minutes to get yourself under control. You got to the bathroom and almost fell into a stall, closing it and locking it before taking deep gulping breaths. You shouldn’t have done this. Why did he have to be so good at this? A fake boyfriend for the weekend shouldn’t be making you feel more loved then any of your previous relationships combined. You shouldn’t love Sonny and you shouldn’t be tricking yourself into thinking he loves you too. After several more deep breaths you left the stall and washed your face in the sink. “I can do this,” You told yourself, “I can do this.” You straightened your back and did your best to look casual as you returned to your group waiting to board.

You thanked god your brother had opted for more expensive seats and that that meant they were not sitting with you. Sonny ‘let you take the window’ as he put it, but you both know he wanted the isle for his long legs. You were fine with it, as long as he was fine with you crawling over him to pee. He said he was.

“Your brother is..”

“A piece of work? Wait no, that’s his wife. My brother is just an asshole.” Sonny chuckled.

“I wasn’t going to use that word but since you said it… he is a bit ass-y.”

“I’m sorry. It’s going to get worse. They scared off all my boyfriends I had when I was still living at home.” Not that he was really your boyfriend.

“I’ll be fine, I’m good at being questioned, my ma is italian all she does is ask me things.”

After that you put on the sleep mask you’d bought for the occasion and tried to get some sleep. You’d get to the hotel late and would probably only have time to eat and then go to sleep since you had to be up early, so might as well nap now. Next thing you knew someone was making an announcement and someone else was fiddling with something in your lap. You woke up more at that, hand going out and head jerking up off the thing it had been resting on.

“I’m sorry.” Sonny. You lifted a hand and lifted the sleep mask looking around groggily. Sonny was currently trying to do your seatbelt with one hand, the other hand belonged to the arm wrapped around you. And the surface you’d been resting your head on had in fact been his shoulder.

“ ‘M sorry,” You murmured sitting up more.

“I didn’t want to wake you up until I had to, you were out cold.”

“I’m okay, thank you,” You yawned. He didn’t have to buckle you, or let you sleep, or let you rest on him, your brother was nowhere to be found. And yet he did it anyway? You sat up fully and stretched before dropping your hand to fiddle with your own buckle, getting it done. When you looked up Sonny was watching you, his own face tired, but there was something else in his eyes.

“What?” You asked.

“Can’t I look at you?” He asked grinning and you rolled your eyes.

“Nope. Never actually.” Sonny laughed at that, and the plane shuddered slightly as you began what felt like a descent into hell.

---

@impossibleblizzardstudentposts

#law and order #law and order svu #Law and Order: Special Victims Unit #law and order special victims unit #law and order svu imagine #law and order svu x reader #sonny carisi #sonny carisi imagine #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi imagine #Dominick Carisi #carisi #carisi x reader

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twiceblackvelvet · 4 years

Text

Username: xNotYourJoyx

A/N; hi. i have no clue where this idea came from. i don’t know why my brain always tells me to start more red velvet series’ randomly. but here is the latest spawn from it. this will have more parts to it because i’m interested in expanding on the dynamics of this trio plus i signed up for things that have since blown up my emails for this because i’m dedicated like that. anyway! enjoy. or don’t. idk anymore.

It was only a suggestion. A quick mention, really. “There’s this site, Seungwan,” is how it started. Except for that brief conversation spiraled rapidly into a whirlwind of curiosity and excitement. Perhaps, discussing the lack of sex life and the frustration that comes with that whilst you’re supposed to be busy working on the latest financial development wasn’t the smartest move, and yet, the conversation ended in a better resolution than she imagined when Joohyun had managed to pry the information out of her about why she’s been so on edge lately.

On edge being both literal and metaphorical. Getting to the high is easy, however, toppling over into the rush of being able to feel the full experience of pleasure has been evading her for the last few weeks now. Nothing seems to do the trick and though you may think it’d be fun to simply keep trying, it’s starting to become an issue with the more extreme methods she attempts. So, it desperately needs to be fixed, just not in front of all of her colleagues who are idly typing away the dull workday.

The rest of the day drags along. Nothing particularly interesting happens which Seungwan is grateful for, she could do without the extra stress. Though, she’s sure the new sponsorship to promote a dead-end product that everyone had warned their boss about will cause a headache in the future, she ignores the nagging feeling in the back of her mind. Joohyun was kind enough to buy dinner for the both of them which her stomach is currently grateful for as she’s certain her fridge at home is empty. But, watching her friend and colleague suckle on the ice cream bar she purchased for herself should not have resulted in her needing to press her legs together on instinct.

Joohyun didn’t notice, or if she did, she didn’t say anything and continued to lap her tongue across the cold strawberry flavored ice cream. Probably for the best. Nothing good ever comes from getting too involved with people you have to work alongside every day, even if that person does look like Aphrodite herself. The awkward looks between you both, everyone else knowing that the two of you have slept together but are now deciding on which color scheme to use for an advertisement, it just isn’t something that Seungwan wants to deal with. So, she and Joohyun will have to remain platonic. Unfortunately.

It’s late by the time she gets home. The hallway lights leading up to the apartment door flicker every few seconds and the apartment across the hall has the television turned up loud enough that Seungwan is sure they’re trying to let those in hell hear the latest episode of whichever show they’re currently watching. The keys in her hand rattle as she unlocks the stiff door that barely wants to open anymore. The loudness doesn’t disappear once she closes it behind her but it’s home and somewhere she can erase the feeling of being stuck, in more ways than one.

The latest routine of ordering in unhealthy food that is slowly destroying her insides, a cold shower to wash away some of the exhaustion, and then listening to the same songs for about an hour feels almost robotic but it’s what she’s grown used to now. Once the darkness begins to creep in across the apartment, cold air making the hairs on her arm stand to attention and the neighbors suddenly growing quiet, it’s the small bed in the corner of the room that calls out and the only thing echoing inside her head.

Well, it would be, had she not suddenly recalled Joohyun’s description of a site where many people frolic and entertain those who perhaps need a little extra help with their more sinful needs. She moves on auto-pilot toward the jacket hanging on the coat rack and reaches into the left side pocket for the small piece of paper where only the web address is scrawled upon it in Joohyun’s perfect handwriting. The laptop she bought years before and barely runs anymore rests on the dining table she never sits at, closed, and with a line of dust taking up home upon it. Grabbing it, she plops herself down onto the bed after removing her dressing gown and the towel around her hair which has long since dried and throwing it into a corner of the room to be cleaned up tomorrow.

Her fingers trace the keyboard idly, never pressing in a single key, simply going back and forth over the letters whilst her brain tries to decipher if this is something she wants to try out.

“Fuck it.” She thinks. Soon enough, the site is loading, slowly, and asking for her to confirm she is of legal age to enter it.

The screen finally loads and brings up a bunch of profiles under the “popular” banner. To say that the sight of all the various people before her is overwhelming would be an understatement. A sidebar reveals that she can choose a category as well as filter out specific things that are not of her interest. Some of the categories are the standard you would expect, for example, she immediately filters to only see profiles of women. However, others are a little more out there and specific toward what Seungwan assumes are people’s fetishes. A lot of them are things that she would never consider a person could find interesting sexually, and yet, the option is right before her. She ignores the curious voice inside of her head telling her to click on some of them.

A screen full of women now presents itself in front of her. All of them are beautiful and there’s a whole variety to choose from. The profile pictures range from selfies where they’re simply smiling to some of them being without clothing whatsoever. She scrolls for quite some time simply admiring all of the choices before her until one, in particular, captures her attention.

Wide dark eyes with hair of the same shade of brown, plump lips that are sporting a small smirk that’s both enticing and teasing. Part of the girl’s neck is on display for Seungwan to imagine herself kissing and biting softly. Without hesitation, she hovers over the username and clicks onto the profile.

“xNotYourJoyx” she repeats mentally a few times.

The next page reveals a sign-up box that doesn’t allow Seungwan to venture any further. She’s quick to type in her email address, a username not as clever as she would like and the same password she uses for everything else. The next step is to add her bank details in order to be able to subscribe to various pages. She hesitates at this portion realizing that it’s probably very easy for people to fall too far down this rabbit hole. Thus she promises herself not to subscribe to anything until she’s 100% sure.

After completing her profile, she’s brought back to the girl she assumes is named Joy or at least uses that name here. Her subscription rate is the first thing to appear. Her price is low Seungwan thinks, around $10 when she was expecting something far higher based on the type of content Joohyun had told her the people on the site create. The next part is an Amazon wishlist with various items in it ranging from hair extensions, expensive perfume, and medical equipment? She must be a nurse, Seungwan thinks.

Further down the page reveals a VIP service which is more expensive than the standard subscription but allows for you to request specific pictures or videos. There are rules that come along with it which Seungwan reads multiple times over.

Don’t ask me to say or tell you anything personal about me, we are not friends. You don’t know me like that.

No, you can’t have my Instagram or any other social media so don’t ask.

Don’t be a dick.

My amazon wishlist is not for me. I am not a doctor. But I’m down to dress as one for you if you’re into that.

“Well, that clears that up I guess.” She thinks.

For the next ten minutes, Seungwan simply scrolls through the free content on offer from Joy. A few shots of her without clothes but covering her body up with her hands or a sheet, all of which look professionally done which is surprising. She’s captivated and drawn in by this girl a lot quicker than she thought she would be, she can see why Joohyun would recommend such a thing to her now. The possibilities are endless and there are no strings attached. It’s an ideal situation for both parties.

Despite making the promise to herself, she’s quick to subscribe to Joy’s feed but ignores the large “upgrade to VIP” logo that’s glistening in gold below the payment button. It would seem strange or suspicious surely to her if someone new to her profile was suddenly paying for the premium option Seungwan tries to logic with herself.

A few seconds pass as the page reloads itself before finally Joy’s profile is unlocked for Seungwan’s eyes to devour. The same type of photos as previously, however, without anything covering herself up. The same natural reaction to jam her thighs together that she felt earlier with Joohyun ends up happening again except this time she positions her hand under the waistband of her bed shorts.

The further she explores everything Joy has posted the more the need to be touched becomes overwhelming Before she knows it her fingers are gently caressing her soft skin slowly yet with desperation. Many of the images have comments from other people praising the effortless beauty that Joy manages to convey with ease. Seungwan thinks that Joy must be someone with great confidence to display herself so openly like this. She wishes she too were able to picture herself in the way that Joy likely does.

Her body aches for some release but once more she’s not able to reach the peak as the page of images suddenly comes to an end. Once more, the gold button for premium appears and tells Seungwan she’s reached the limit of what she can see. A blurring effect does a good job of hiding what follows next, however, what it doesn’t do is stop her from being enticed further when she spots that Joy has also uploaded videos of herself, they are simply hidden from those on the basic subscription as her.

Almost sub-consciously she finds herself going against every warning sign inside of her mind telling her that paying to watch Joy rather than just look at her is a bad decision, one she will definitely come to regret or become too attached to doing, and yet, it’s too late once she’s confirmed the upgrade and clicked onto the first video that appears.

White background, likely a wall in her home, Seungwan thinks, until finally the girl steps into the frame with yet another smirk on her lips.

“Hello, welcome to premium. Thank you for subscribing. I hope you enjoy all of the videos and pictures that only a select few of you will ever get to see. If you’re feeling even more generous please be sure to check out my wishlist. Now, let’s have fun together.”

Her voice is silky smooth, Seungwan thinks. She replays the simple video a few times just to hear her make this decision sound like she’s part of an exclusive club where only she is invited, though, she’s aware that isn’t true at all. Joy likely has a ton of people paying to see the most intimate parts of her. The comments on this simple welcoming video are at 59 which means at least that many people have also fallen into the trap, though if Joy is the prize, Seungwan wonders if be tricked into paying extra like this is worth it in the end.

She decides to read through some of them just to get a sense of how people communicate with her here.

ksgeees says: can’t wait for you to send me my video Joy😏

canudoit2609 says: so hot🔥

r4bb1tfr13nd says: damn i should have subbed earlier🥵🥵🥵

speedzoom0408 says: YOU CAN HAVE ALL MY MONEY

HYUNSKY says: most beautiful girl ever

Strangely, the latter comment is the only one Joy has bothered to give a reply to.

xNotYourJoyx says: @HYUNSKY wow, thank you😳

The compliment is definitely correct and deserving of a reply, yet, Seungwan wishes she were the one to tell Joy such things and have her respond solely to her. Jealousy is a green-eyed monster and though she probably shouldn’t be feeling it toward a complete stranger, she does. The sound of the keys as she types out her own comment with her free hand that hasn’t been teasing herself is the only thing she can hear now. Not even the wind outside is able to pierce her eardrums and break her from this spell that Joy has put her under.

Wannie2102 says: you are so perfect, Joy.

It’s simple and Seungwan hates it, but she simply must tell this girl something, anything, in hopes that she sees it and feels happy to be complimented.

Silence now, nothing but the screen before her for light inside the cold bedroom. The list of videos, 71 in total, tempting Seungwan, taunting almost. Her left hand numb now from just resting against her own body whilst her right-hand clicks onto the next one in the list after the welcoming video.

The same white background, however, Joy is positioned in the video as soon as it starts this time. Laying down on a black crushed velvet sofa in only her underwear. Her right hand gently caressing her breasts as she grunts out a few low moans. Her left hand in a similar position to where Seungwan is resting her own. The tired and slow circles in which she moves her hand causes her eyes to roll into the back of her head as Seungwan changes her own pace to match that of Joy’s on the screen.

Her bed creaks with every movement of Joy’s that she mimics, the headboard bashing against the wall behind her whenever Joy quickens her pace and then sounds like a light drumming whenever she slows. The neighbor next door has definitely been awakened by the rhythmic sound of Seungwan rocking her body against her fingers.

“You’re enjoying this, huh?” The words surprise Seungwan out of her reverie as it’s as if Joy is present and asking her specifically and knowing that she too is pleasuring herself as she is doing. Without even thinking she manages to gasp out a yes in reply that only she can hear, yet gains a response from Joy almost like she can magically hear her. “I wish I could watch you touch yourself to me.” she pauses to lowly moan. “For me.”

The pressure rises between her thighs once more except this time her body allows her to release every bit of tension she’s had to keep trying to get rid of for weeks. Her entire body collapses against itself as she indulges herself in what she’s convinced is the longest orgasm to ever exist. Her legs shaking wildly as her arm tenses up and flex to make sure she feels every bit of her undoing. The sound of Joy finishing up her own continues to play in the background for further motivation but the deed has already been done.

She rests momentarily, staring up at the ceiling as gentle pants fill the room both from herself and the laptop. Nothing else in the world matters at this very moment. However, once more Joy manages to surprise Seungwan with her telepathic way of just knowing somehow when to speak to her viewer.

“Thank you for that, I hope you come back soon for more.” and then the video ends.

A dark screen replacing the beautiful image of Joy just as spent as Seungwan feels. But, now she’s left to think about everything that has just transpired between herself, the screen and a girl she doesn’t even know. Guilt wells up in her chest and she slams the screen shut almost shattering the glass. “Why did you do this?” is the only thing that repeats inside of her mind. No longer focused on the pulsating feeling against her hand as she pulls it out of her shorts too fast and whips herself with the waistband which will no doubt sting in the morning.

Her legs shakily drag her body to the bathroom almost tripping over various clothes that have sat there waiting to be cleaned for way too long now. She turns on the shower for the second time tonight and steps into it, almost falling immediately. The cold water shocks her body into feeling something other than the after-effects of pleasuring herself. Scrubbing every inch of her body intensely and repeating inside of her mind that she’ll cancel the subscription tomorrow and never do anything like this ever again. She can’t. Joy is a stranger and she shouldn’t be doing these things.

By the time she’s finished almost burning her skin with the washcloth to make sure she’s rid herself of her sins and changing her fair skin to a reddish shade, the clock on the bedside table shows that there are only three hours before she’s due to wake up for work. The bed seems tainted now, so she grabs the blanket and sleeps on the sofa that is far less comfortable.

Joohyun is definitely going to ask her about whether or not she used the site, definitely going to notice the dark circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep and will definitely draw up her own conclusion anyway no matter what her answer is. She tries her best not to think about any of this but there’s just a constant loop of the images of Joy, the sound of her voice, and the way she encouraged Seungwan to feel again.

She dreams of dark hair and brown eyes that night and moans that could be the most heavenly sound in the world or a new addiction that Seungwan isn’t ready for but may not have a choice but to indulge in it.

pt. ii

#red velvet #bae joohyun #son seungwan #park sooyoung #red velvet scenarios #girl group scenarios #irene #wendy #joy

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